NOT EDITED
Bonnie lifted her head as a door opened and closed upstairs. The footsteps overhead were heavier than usual. She heard him grumble something to himself before the door to the basement opened. He was carrying something. Someone. He was about halfway down the stairs when the light from the windows lit the child’s face well enough for Bonnie to identify him.
“No. No. Whatever the hell you think Rick has done, it can’t be enough to justify this. It can’t.”
Still wearing the mask that kept her from identifying much more than his eyes, he rolled them. “Your future father-in-law murdered my son. I think it’s about time someone did the same to him.”
“He’s a little boy! He’s four years old!”
“You’re right. Rick’s eldest boy is much closer in age to mine,” he said as he set Logan’s unconscious body on the basement floor. “But I know this one is… a bit more of the favorite, wouldn’t you say?”
Bonnie couldn’t bring herself to respond as the man tugged Logan’s arms behind his back and attempted to handcuff them around the support pillar across from Bonnie. His arms were far too short for the handcuffs to work. He sighed, dragging Logan by his wrists over to the wall instead, where he cuffed the boy to a PVC pipe.
If he were older, they could use that to their advantage once he was conscious. “You chose Logan because you think he’s the favorite, or because you’re scared you wouldn’t be able to mange Pete’s strength?”
He snorted. “I could handle him just fine, Bonnie, I assure you.” He tugged at Logan’s handcuffs and the pipe, just to make sure they were strong enough. Unfortunately for Bonnie and Logan, they held up just fine to the strength of the man. Even if Logan happened to be the strongest four-year-old in the world, they were shit out of luck.
“Why did Rick kill your son?” Bonnie asked.
“I don’t think that matters.”
“Rick’s a cop, so I think it matters a lot.”
“Luckily for us, it doesn’t matter what you think.”
“I-I could help.”
He stilled on his way up the stairs. He took two steps back down, squatting to look at Bonnie through the bannister. “Help with what?”
“Putting Rick in prison for what he did.”
He chuckled. “I don’t want Rick in prison, Bonnie. I want Rick to suffer.” He nodded toward Logan. “His suffering is right there.”
“If that’s really what it was all about, why kill Miss Jameson?” Bonnie asked.
“She had nothing to do with Rick. I already told you she was punished for your crimes, Bonnie. I told you to be quiet when I left, and you weren’t. I needed you to know I meant it. Carol was simply unlucky enough to be a neighbor who was home at the same time you were running your mouth, is all. If she hadn’t been home, she’d be alive. If you had followed the rules, she would be alive. She doesn’t teach Rick anything, but she sure taught you something, no?”
When Bonnie didn’t respond, he continued up the stairs, closing the door behind him.
***
“What’re you thinking?”
Bo lifted his head just long enough to meet Bridget’s eyes. “That you’re right and I should call Dallas.”
“I can do it, if you’d prefer.”
Bo shook his head. “I think you’re right about… all of it. That Baker didn’t talk to him. I just need to get that through my head.”
Bridget nodded, shoving her hands into her pockets as her eyes scanned Logan’s bedroom. “Have you tested the blood on the wall?”
“It came back male, but it doesn’t match the blood from Carol’s house or the blood from the school basement.”
“Do you think it’s his?”
“I’m not quite sure what I think, if you want me to be wholly honest. But a quick DNA swab from Rick or Heidi will tell us for sure.” Bo photographed a hair from the windowsill before picking it up with a pair of tweezers and placing it in an evidence bag. “What’d you find out from the kids?”
“Not much. Heidi texted Jennifer to let her know Rick was asleep and that they wouldn’t be home unless the kids needed something. And that time, Logan and Nickie were both already asleep. Jennifer says she went to bed around eleven, and Pete says he laid down around midnight but probably didn’t fall asleep until around one or two. Nickie and Logan currently share a room, but she came into Jen’s room around three. Logan was still in bed at that point.”
“Why’d she go into Jen’s room?” Bo asked.
“She couldn’t remember for sure, but she thought she maybe had a nightmare.”
“Or she heard something outside that startled her awake, made her mind think she had a nightmare.”
Bridget let out a breath. “Do you… think that’s likely? That he was outside and she heard him?”
“I don’t know, but I think it’s probably a good thing she got up and went to her sister’s room.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “We, umm, we talked to Rick and Heidi. Rick said he woke up to a phone call this morning. Did he tell you about that?”
“I knew he had received a message. In what form that came in, I didn’t know. He just told me we needed to go now, and I did. But it was a phone call?” Bo asked.
She nodded. “Yeah. Apparently, there’s a newspaper article about this case.”
Bo’s hands stilled for a moment. “Baker?”
“Yep.”
“What’d she say?”
“That there are two of them. That one of them is the father of the kid Rick killed. That this is some sort of revenge case against him.”
“Is that why he called Rick?” Bo asked.
“Seems like it. He told Rick that the article causes problems for him because if his partner sees it, the partner will know who he actually is,” Bridget said.
“Which means that his partner doesn’t know he’s the original killer’s father.”
“Bingo.”
“Huh.”
“Well, that’s open-ended. What kinda gears did that start turning for you?” Bridget asked.
“I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of person would work with the father of a serial killer. The only thing I could really come up with is that he must have another child. But if the partner doesn’t know who he actually is, it could be anybody. Like, say… the father or brother of one of the murdered kids.”
“Jesus.”
“I know.”
“Do you really think they’d do something like this? At least the guy who fathered a crazy piece of shit also being a crazy piece of shit makes sense.”
“Trauma does things to a person. What it’s going to do to each individual is hard to say. But if we assume that this is what trauma turned one of them into, I can’t think of a better person to want the same type of revenge that our main man wants.”
“Do you know if Jamal sent you the original case file?” Bridget asked.
“I’m sure he did, but I haven’t had time to check my email. Phone’s in my camera case, outside pocket.”
Bridget walked across the room and grabbed Bo’s phone. “I’ll write down a list of all the family members of the victims, and I’ll get to work on finding out where the hell our ‘main man’ is living these days. I’ll have Jeff take me back to the station and then he’ll come back here to wait for you, okay?”
“Okay. Keep us posted.”
“Will do, B.”
***
When Bo finally came out of Logan’s bedroom, rather than Jeff, he found Dallas Silver in the Downs’s kitchen. Bo hated the little stutter of his heart, the tightness in his chest. The idea that Dallas secretly hated him had always been there — it was always there for any person in his life — and Kathy had played right into that insecurity with such precision that he still couldn’t quite convince himself she had been lying, no matter how much he tried to.
“Hey, Shorty.” Dallas pushed himself to his feet. “Was initially a little concerned when you called me and it was Decker on the other end. Had me all worried you went and got yourself stabbed or something.”
Bo offered a smile. “I’m sorry about that. She was supposed to be going through case files.”
Dallas chuckled. “Don’t worry, I’m told she did both.” His usual effortlessly charming expression shifted to something softer, which Bo had seen more times than he could count. “She didn’t want to go into too many details other than… confirming I didn’t talk to Baker?” he questioned. “Like, Kathy Baker?”
“Yes.”
“The same detective that totally fucked you by leaking important case details to the press?”
One corner of Bo’s mouth lifted. Yeah, Bridget was right. It was insane to assume there was any world in which Dallas would have turned on Bo to anyone, but especially to Kathy. “The one and only.”
“I think the only interaction I’ve ever had with the woman was her shoving me out of the way after a defense attorney basically decimated her on the stand.”
Bo chuckled softly. “That sounds about right.”
“Did she say something to you? Make you think I talked to her?”
Bo shook his head. “No. I mean, yes, but… but I know you didn’t. I just let her get into my head.”
“I don’t think you ‘let’ her do anything. Don’t shift the blame for whatever happened onto yourself. You’ve got enough shit on your shoulders without all that,” Dallas said. He gave Bo’s shoulder a tight squeeze. “Bridget, uh, said this is one of the deputy’s house?”
“Yeah. Rick Downs. Did she tell you this case is related to an older case in LA?”
“A little.”
Bo nodded. “Well, Rick worked the one in LA and ended up shooting and killing the kid responsible for the kidnappings and homicides. That kid’s father has decided that just about everyone involved, directly or otherwise, deserves to die. This is all just one big game now to screw with Rick before he kills him. With Baker’s very helpful interview, he’s decided to speed up the process, and he took one of Rick’s kids this morning.”
“Jesus. You… think he’s alive?” Dallas asked.
“Right now? Yes. I’m pretty sure he’d already be on the lake if he were dead. But how long we have before we aren’t looking for a living boy? I don’t know. The killer called Rick before we all rushed here. I don’t know all the details of that call yet, but I have a feeling it’ll give us a bit of a better timeline for… for how long we have,” Bo said.
Dallas nodded. “Bridget said you guys were hoping I could put my ‘weird killer spidey senses’ to use?”
Bo snorted. “Well, I didn’t call it that, but I do believe you have an uncanny ability to get into their minds.”
The movement of Dallas’s head was almost imperceptable, nothing but a slight tilt to the right and then the left, like he considered saying something but changed his mind before the thought had even fully formed. Instead, he cleared his throat. “Can I see the room?”
Bo nodded, setting his camera bag on the floor before heading back toward Logan’s bedroom. He stopped at the doorway and gestured inside. Dallas stepped into the room, hand reaching for the light switch but stopping a breath from it. “You can touch whatever you want. I have everything I need,” Bo said.
“Always reading my mind, Shorty.” Dallas flipped on the light. He walked toward the bloody message on the wall. “Has there been any word on this yet?”
“Not that I’m aware of, but Bridge still has my phone.”
“Shit, sorry. She made me swing by the station to grab it for you.” He pulled it from his suit pocket and held it back to Bo, eyes still on the wall. Bo crossed the room long enough to grab it, promptly tucking it into his pocket. Dallas dragged his fingers beneath the message. “I don’t think it’s the kid’s blood.”
“I had my doubts about it being his too.”
“What’d you get when you ran it?”
“It came up human and male. I won’t know if it’s his until I swab Rick or Heidi to compare it against.”
“Jamal gave me a basic rundown on things, in addition to what Bridget told me.”
“Mmhmm?”
“How many missing people do you still have? The ones that were involved in the LA case.”
“That I know of? Six. We’ve found Sherman’s body,” Bo said.
“He’s left blood at every scene. Do you think it could be one of theirs?”
“I didn’t run it against the missing persons database.”
“I know it sounds crazy, but I think you should.”
Bo shook his head, already pulling his cell phone from his pocket. “If I suggested it, you wouldn’t call me crazy.”
“Your conclusion would have evidence that led you to it. You know where mine came from.”
“I do, and I also know it’s usually right.”
Still facing the wall, Dallas tilted his head to the side for a moment before offering a shrug. “Maybe. I’m not sure it justifies trusting it.”
“It does for me.”
Dallas remained silent, head tilting again, his shoulders so tense Bo could see it through his suit jacket. It was something about the man that Bo had noticed frequently over the years — the pauses and delayed responses, the tense tilt of his head. When he was facing Bo, his eyes would usually close too, his brow furrowing. Bo had always wondered if it had something to do with that voice in his head, but he had never dared to ask. Now with Kathy in his head, he couldn’t help but wonder if it actually had something to do with Dallas being so incredibly uncomfortable in a room alone with him.
“It’s the one damn thing it’s good for.”
“Hmm?”
“The… the thing?” Dallas asked. “This kind of stuff is the only benefit of it. It’s a… a real fucking bastard outside of this.”
Bo brought up the DNA database on his phone. “What else does it talk about with you?”
Dallas chuckled, shaking his head. “You don’t wanna know, Shorty.”
“I could help you, you know. Whatever it is, I could probably help.”
Dallas looked back at him over his shoulder, one eyebrow raised. “You don’t think you’ve got enough going on?”
“I always have a case. The location of it doesn’t change how busy I am.”
“When you’re the absolute only lab geek and working out of the corner of an evidence room? It does, just a little.”
“Rude.”
Dallas snorted, turning back to the wall. “Your thingie tell you anything about the blood?”
“It’s loading. My connection’s in and out. Jeff says that’s pretty common out here when it’s windy or approaching a snowstorm.”
“You grew up around here, didn’t you?”
“Sort of. Illinois.”
“This the closest you been to going back home since you left for college?” Dallas asked.
Bo glanced up at him as he walked over to the window, fingers dragging along the wall. “More or less.”
“Ever miss being in the Midwest instead of LA?”
“I never really felt a connection to it. The Midwest, I mean. Nowhere really felt like home.”
“That’s not still the case, is it?”
Though Dallas wasn’t looking at him, Bo shook his head. “LA is home. You and Xavier and Bridget. You’re home.”
“Good,” Dallas said, his voice soft. He stood in front of the window, fingers pressed to the glass. “I think both of them were here. One came in through the window and grabbed the boy, passed him to the one still standing outside. The one in here wrote the message with blood, but I… I don’t know. Not the boy’s.”
Bo looked down at his phone as it dinged with a match. “Jupiter.”
Dallas turned to phase him. “Mm? Not the boy’s then.”
“One of the reporters,” Bo said. “Jesus Christ. Let’s get back to the station. I need to check all the blood left behind.”
“For?” Dallas asked as he followed Bo out of the bedroom.
“Well, for starters, I need to run the one from Carol Jameson’s house against missing persons. After that, I’m going to check all three blood samples for proteins. Like the ones we use to preserve blood for evidence storage. If he’s been collecting their blood before he kills them, he could be leaving their blood as little ‘clues’ for Rick. He thinks he’s so damn clever that… that it wouldn’t surprise me if all of it’s bullshit.”
“But he confirmed to Rick that he’s the father of the asshole in LA.”
“He confirmed that’s what he wants us to think, yes,” Bo said. “Until I confirm that blood is fresh? I’m taking that phone call with a grain of salt.” He grabbed his camera bag and lifted the strap over his head. “Did you drive here, then?”
“Yeah, Jamal said neither of you guys had a rental and were depending on the deputies. Figured I’d give us at least one vehicle between us.”
“You’re a genius, Silver.”
Dallas snorted. “Don’t know if I’d call it that.” He squeezed Bo’s shoulder. “Let’s go see which ‘facts’ are real and which are fucking bullshit.”
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