Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98819 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
I shake off the sick feeling of psychic horror and try to focus on the facts of the case. There’s no time for me to collapse, not now.
“Are there any more details?” I ask. On the muted TV, the news broadcast has switched to images of Chief Jordan waving away microphones. The chyron announces an upcoming police press conference.
“I did make a few inquiries and learned a detail left out of the press reports,” Hamish says. “There was a note left on the latest scene. Much like the ones sent to you, Detective Ramos.”
I jolt. Of course. The letters. “What happened to the letters?” All I remember is gripping them while getting into the backseat of Ivan’s town car. “I need to get them to the precinct. They’re evidence.”
“We have them,” Rex says. “They’re in my lab. We took the opportunity to run some forensic testing.”
“You did what?” It’s bad enough that Hamish so easily uncovered sensitive details of the case, but tampering with evidence? He’s gone too far. I channel my shock into anger and round on him. “There are rules about the chain of custody for a reason. The letters are our best hope of finding the killer, and now they’re tainted—”
“Because evidence is never tainted in police custody.” Rex doesn’t bother to hide his sarcasm.
“I guess you would know.” I remember how easily Rex made evidence disappear in the Martin case, and my face and chest grow hot. “You have no right—”
“Do you want to know what we found?” Rex interrupts.
I pause with my mouth open. If he compromised the evidence, I might shoot him. Not anywhere fatal, but maybe in the leg or something. He’s lucky I’m not armed now.
But I do want to know what he found.
I nod, and he beckons. “Come see for yourself.”
We end up back in his HQ or, as Hamish calls it, his “lair.” Beyond the illuminated workspaces, the place is as dark and forbidding as ever. Rex leads me across a metal bridge to a large glass cube, a makeshift room filled with lab equipment. There are stainless steel counters and a hanging array of computer screens.
“This can’t be sterile,” I mutter.
“Alfie?” Rex asks, and the computer answers in a cheerful, artificial voice. “We maintain the strictest sanitation levels and disinfect all surfaces regularly. Would you like a decontamination report?”
“That won’t be necessary.” I roll my eyes.
“Here.” Rex guides me to a long plastic case that holds each letter. “We hoped for fingerprints, but there are only yours. The writer must have worn gloves. The paper is aged, but it’s common card stock, a brand that’s been sold in craft stores across the nation for over twenty years. We’re analyzing for mold spores, bacteria, anything that can give us a hint of the writer’s location.”
I lean over the case, studying each letter. I didn’t have to read the ravings of the madman to know it was the Bondage Killer. I feel it like a dark cloud hovering over my senses. A poison spreading through my psyche, making me want to rip at my skin to shed the suffocating feeling.
“Most interesting was the handwriting analysis,” Hamish says. He’s pecking on a computer, pulling up toxicology reports that would rival the best forensic lab. “The signature matches that of the Bondage Killer.” A picture of a similar letter, written on cream card stock, appears on the screen nearest to me. “This is a letter sent to the Elyria police station sixteen years ago, around the time the Bondage Killer was active in that area.” By ‘active,’ Hamish means murdering people. Families like mine.
“I remember,” I say. I’ve seen photocopies of the Bondage Killer’s letters in my mentor’s files. “He was confident. Baiting the police. It helped them catch him.”
“Indeed, Detective.”
“We’ll catch him again,” Rex says. There’s a bleak finality to his tone that makes me turn to him. Earlier, he tried to comfort me. Now he looks solemn, like a man who’s just learned he’s been conscripted to go to war.
The letters all have the same handwriting, a spidery scrawl that gets wilder and harder to read in the latest letters. The latest one reads I’m coming for you in barely legible script. I fight the urge to take a step back. My stomach twists like I’m going to vomit, but I force myself to swallow. “He’s unraveling.”
“He’s fixated on you,” Rex says. “Has he ever had any contact with you outside of. . .”
“The night he came for my family? No.” I step away from the letters and suck in air. Maybe I will be sick. “It’s a delusion.” I suddenly get a whiff of something foul and turn my head, coughing. “What’s that smell?”
“Smoke and rot,” Hamish says. “The paper is saturated in those scents.”
“You said the paper stock was old,” I say. “Could it be from BK’s original hideout in the warehouse?”