Filed to story: The Mindf*ck Series Read Online Free
“The what?” I ask, amused.
“It’s the name I’m going to let the media give you.”
“You’re going to let the media give me a name?”
“Yes. Yes I am. Don’t get seen, and then ditch the car in the usual place. I’ll have that guy pick it up, and I’ll come pick you up-same thing as always. No mistakes. Have you got any kill supplies with you?”
“A knife in my boot. It’ll do. I’ll stick to rocks and sidewalks so as not to leave any tracks. As much as I’d like to cut his dick off, I’ll refrain.”
“If he’s innocent, you can’t kill him.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell my overly concerned friend. “They always confess their sins to me.”
Chapter 9
The cautious seldom err.
-Confucius
LOGAN Frustrated, I try to keep my head here and not on Lana, who hasn’t answered my calls since she walked out of the hospital five hours ago. Duke isn’t answering his phone either.
Which will have serious fucking consequences.
My eyes settle on the swat team commander who is inside the interrogation room. The glass between us is a one-way glass, not that he doesn’t know that.
His hands are shaking. He keeps standing and sitting, acting as though he’s jittery and ready to get out.
“His twenty-year-old daughter hasn’t shown up for her college classes in four days,” Donny says, watching him with me. “The roommate says she had to go home because of a family loss. We’re tracking phone calls to see if Plemmons contacted her that way, maybe lied with the ruse of someone passing? The mother seemed genuinely oblivious, had no idea what we were asking so many questions about.”
“Brunette?” I ask him, still studying Lee Norris as he paces the room, then sits down, then stands again.
He’s definitely agitated.
He’s our leak.
“Yes,” Donny answers. “Plemmons taking her shows a level of organization that doesn’t fit with his background, or what little we know of it. He felt like he was fooling us all this time, but when we found him out, he took it as a personal challenge to one-up us.”
I nod, agreeing.
“I’ll go in. See if you can get ahold of Detective Duke. What did the patrols say?”
He tightens his lips, and I study him.
“What?” I prompt.
“The guys said Lana kicked them off her property. I didn’t want to tell you with so much else going on. She drove off and basically told everyone to fuck themselves. You included.”
I slam my fist against the wall, the sheetrock crumbling around it.
“I’ve never seen you lose your cool like you’re losing it now, Logan. Maybe you should take-“
“Don’t finish that sentence,” I bite out, rubbing my bloody knuckles on my pants, ignoring the burn. “Everyone is emotionally invested in this. Not just me. Send Leonard in with us. Norris will want to attack me within the first few minutes.”
“You sure you got the head for this?”
“He’ll spill immediately. He’ll blame us for getting his daughter killed. But he may also be the lead to catching this sick son of a bitch. My head is working just fucking fine. Find Lana. Call me if you do.”
I turn and walk out of the room, and head straight into the interrogation room, where Norris jumps up from his seat, glaring at me the second I step inside.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing locking me in here?! Do you have any idea what kind of sub-committee reports I could-“
“Erica Norris is your daughter, and she’s been missing from her college classes for four days due to a death in your family. There’s been no death in your family,” I say, shutting him up.
He turns a scary shade of white, and his entire body goes lax as he falls into the chair, losing the ability to stand.
“You just got her killed,” he says in a rasp whisper. Then his eyes turn lethal as he slams his fist against the table, fury rushing in to renew his energy. “You son of a bitch! You got her killed!”
He lunges, but Leonard shows up just in time, grabbing him by the collar, as I continue to lean against the wall, keeping my expression blank.
“You leaked the raid to him,” I go on. “What phone did you use? Did he give you one?”
“You bastard!” he spits out, choking back a sob as Leonard restrains him. “You knew he had her and still brought me in?! You cold murderer!”
I push off from the wall, moving to the table separating us, and prop my hands on it, leaning over until his eyes connect with mine.
“We had him. You tipped him off. What did you think he’d do with her once she was no longer of any use to him?”
He sobs, breaking in front of me. “He swore he wouldn’t hurt her if I alerted him to any threat. He swore I’d get her back. As long as I kept my mouth shut…he swore. Now you’ve pulled me in here and there’s no chance of that!”
“You’re the reason he’s out there. You’re the reason we don’t have him in custody right now,” I remind him, an icy edge to my tone as I shut off all emotions for what he’s going through as a father.
“He wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you and your fucking team! You set a killer loose in our state, and now he has my daughter!”
“He’d be in Boston,” Leonard says calmly, “killing someone else’s wife, daughter, sister… We didn’t make the killer, Commander. We’re trying to stop him. You took our best chance away. We finally had him.”
Norris loses it, sobbing so hard he becomes incoherent. His head drops to his arms, and he cries into the crook of his elbow.
It’s possible his daughter is still alive, but unlikely. I have to detach myself from the guilt that tries to wiggle its way in. Casualties are never easy to accept. But in this line of work, they’re always there. If you don’t desensitize yourself from it, you don’t make it two months in this field.
What he doesn’t know, is that the best chance of his daughter surviving would have been for us to raid that warehouse. He’d have run. He’d have tried to get away. Bringing her along would have been too risky then.
She’d most likely still be breathing, and we’d more than likely have him in custody.
I don’t tell him that. It’s better for him to blame us than bear the responsibility of his own daughter’s death. I can at least offer him that much mercy.
Weakly, he tosses a phone out of his pocket, and Leonard picks it up. “He sent that,” Norris whispers hoarsely. “Said he’d let me hear her voice twice a day.”
“Did he?” Leonard asks.
Norris wipes his eyes, nodding grimly. “Five seconds at a time. Just long enough for her to beg me to save her.”
He breaks again, and Leonard walks out with the phone. By now, Erica Norris is either dead or wishing she was. She may have been wishing it for the past four days.
Sometimes, the homeless turn a blind eye to anything going on around them. It’s their survival mechanism kicking in, not their inhumanity. It’s street-survival. They’ve suffered for so long, that suffering more would be too much. But with enough incentive, they’ll spill every word you need.
Right now, the ones living in that warehouse are telling what they know in exchange for cash-unethical, but not illegal. But the info isn’t much.
Plemmons claimed a backroom and kept the girl chained there. He locked it with a padlock when he was gone. Took her with him at other times.
Blood was found in that room. He’s already had his way with her, possibly even sliced her a few times to get what he needed, but not enough to kill her. A couple of suture kits were found in there, meaning he most likely repaired the damage he did with crude methods, just to keep her from bleeding too much.
For four days, she’s endured him. For four days, she’s likely prayed for death.
For four days, her father kept his mouth shut and played a dangerous game he had no right playing.
He should have come to us immediately, and Plemmons would already be in custody. His daughter would be in her own bed instead of wherever she is right now.
I walk out as he continues to sob, leaving him to cry in peace.
“See if you can get more out of him when the first wave of emotion is over,” I tell Donny as he meets me in the hallway. “Anything on Lana?”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. I asked Hadley to see if she could get a beat on her, since Alan is covered up in searching footage for this guy.”
I head straight toward Hadley’s cubicle and find her pounding away on the keyboard. But it’s not Lana she’s looking for. She’s searching the same footage Alan is.
“What the hell? Donny said you’re trying to get a beat on Lana.”
“Lana isn’t my priority right now, Logan. An innocent girl is in the hands of a serial killer, and I’m trying to help save her life.”