Fear the Dark (2 page)

Coop came out of the driver’s door and made his way around to the front of the Jeep to greet her. His camel-hair overcoat and navy-blue suit jacket were unbuttoned, and, as the copter took off and the rotor wash blasted against his clothes, she saw the Glock 23, one of the standard
side-arms issued to federal agents, tucked inside his black leather shoulder holster.

Coop had been working for the feds for a little over a year now. When his job at the private forensics company in London had been ‘made redundant’ – polite and fancy British speak for
we’ve just laid your ass off
– the Bureau had swooped in and hired him. No big surprise there. Coop was considered one of the best fingerprint experts in the country.

What did take her by surprise was the thought that popped into her head: this was the first time she’d seen Coop in well over a year. He still looked the same – hard and fit – but his blond hair was now cut shorter around the ears and neck to conform to federal regulations. As she drew closer, it amazed her how little he seemed to have aged since she’d met him nearly fifteen years ago. Not only had Coop won the genetic lottery (he was often mistaken for the blond-haired Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback), but he had also been blessed with what she called the Dorian Gray gene – he was the kind of man who, like George Clooney, only got better looking with each passing year.

Coop took her suitcase as the helicopter climbed into the air. ‘Didn’t think you were going to make it,’ he yelled over the roar of its engine.

‘Didn’t think I was going to either. That storm hitting Ohio screwed up flights all over the country. I got out of Florida just in time.’ She pushed the aviator sunglasses back up her nose and brushed the hair away from her face as she followed him to the back of the Jeep. ‘Why’d you book me a copter?’

‘Quicker than driving to Denver to pick you up.’ He opened the hatchback and placed her suitcase inside, then her forensics kit beside it.

Coop shut the door. The bright afternoon sunlight highlighted the intensely deep colour of his heterochromatic eyes: one was green, the other blue.

‘You’re looking a little green around the gills,’ he said. ‘Bumpy ride?’

‘There were definitely a few moments when I was sure I was going to toss my airport breakfast burrito. Try not to hit any potholes along the way.’

He flashed his winning smile. ‘It’s great to see you.’

‘You too. It’s been way too long.’

Coop embraced her. She kissed his grainy cheek and hugged him back, surprised at how fiercely she still missed him. She pulled away before it went any further.

‘How far to Red Hill?’ Darby asked after he’d climbed behind the wheel.

‘About an hour.’ He slipped on a pair of Oakley sunglasses, put the car in gear and started making his way out of the station’s back lot. ‘We arrived yesterday, around noontime. Been to Colorado before?’

Darby shook her head. ‘First time.’

‘Air here’s real thin, and it’s even thinner in Red Hill. Town has the highest altitude in the state: 9,700 feet above sea level. It’ll take a few days for our lungs to adjust, so we’ve been told to drink plenty of water or we’ll suffer from altitude sickness.’

‘Noted. Speaking of Red Hill, I couldn’t find much on the internet, just that it was an old mining town.’

Coop pulled on to the road. ‘The place is like … You see
The Shining
? The movie, not the TV mini-series thing.’

‘I saw the movie when I was thirteen and didn’t sleep for a week. Why?’

‘You remember the scene that opened the movie? That aerial shot of Jack Nicholson’s shitty VW chugging its way across a road that snakes through an immense forest, tall pines stretching for miles in every direction? That’s what Red Hill reminds me of. Nothing there except woods and snow – lots of snow.’

‘And a psychopath who’s killed four families in a year.’

‘And that.’ Coop rolled his head to her, smiled. ‘You’re looking good. Nice and tan.’

‘Florida sun will do that, even to a pale Irish girl like me. And look at you, dressed in your big boy clothes.’ She chuckled. ‘Never thought I’d see the day.’

‘We’ve come a long way together, haven’t we?’

‘We certainly have, Special Agent Cooper.’

He took the exit for the highway. It was half past twelve, and the January sun was hard and bright in a cloudless sky. Everywhere she looked she saw flat lands covered in snow.

‘You think you’re going to stay there? In Sarasota?’

Darby shrugged.

‘Don’t care for all that sand and sunshine?’

‘I don’t like to be tied down anywhere,’ Darby said, and then changed the subject. ‘I read over the case files you sent. Not much there. Same pattern every time. Guy binds the family with plastic zip ties to the dining-room or
kitchen chairs set up in one of the bedrooms. Covers their mouths with duct tape. Strangles the women and suffocates the men with a plastic garbage bag.’

‘He uses a glass-cutter on a downstairs window or on a sliding glass door to let himself in.’

‘What about evidence?’

‘Smooth glove prints. No DNA or fibre evidence.’

‘I’d like to read the evidence and lab reports.’

‘Copies are being made as we speak.’

‘Who handled the evidence?’

‘State lab in Denver. Our lab says they’re pretty good.’

‘And, what, you disagree?’

‘Not a question of agreeing or disagreeing. Lab is only as good as its equipment and its people, you know that. Since I haven’t seen these techs in action, who knows what they might’ve missed?

‘The evidence from the previous crime scenes – the duct tape, garbage bags and zip ties – was sent out FedEx to our lab yesterday. Toolmarks section asked to examine one of the windowpanes he cut through. That was sent out this morning.’

‘One thing jumped out at me,’ Darby said.

‘The thing with the beds.’

Darby nodded. ‘Each attack happened at night, and the vics were found dressed in their bedclothes. When the police arrived, all the beds were made.’

‘Could be we’re dealing with a new strain of pervert, some guy with severe OCD issues who feels compelled to make the bed, maybe even does a little light housekeeping before he leaves.’

Darby laughed. ‘Still, the whole making-the-bed-before-he-leaves thing? I don’t know what the hell to make of that.’

‘Neither does Hoder.’

Darby straightened up in her seat.

2

Darby turned to him and said, ‘Hoder as in Terry Hoder, the head of Investigative Support?’

‘Do I detect a note of excitement in your voice?’ Coop asked.

‘He’s very well respected.’

‘And a tabloid staple. What’s the name they gave him again? “Hoder the Hunter”?’

‘They just call him “The Monster Hunter” now.’

‘How incredibly original,’ Coop said drily. ‘If you’re nice to me, I’ll get you his autograph for your scrapbook.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me Hoder was going to be here?’

‘You’ve met him?’

‘A handful of times, years ago. I took some of his courses at Quantico as part of my doctorate.’

‘What did you think of him?’

‘For a fed, he didn’t strike me as a total asshole.’

‘He isn’t. A
total
asshole, I mean.’ Coop grinned. ‘Actually, he strikes me as a straight shooter, no BS.’

‘If Hoder’s working on this, why am I here?’

‘Because he specifically asked for you. He was impressed with the work you and I did in Boston, so he thought it would be a good idea to get the Wonder Twins back together.’

‘Worst superheroes ever.’

‘I know, right? Guy can transform into anything he wants, and each and every time he chooses to turn into water or an ice cube. Then again, what else can you expect from a guy who wears purple tights?’

Darby laughed.

Coop said, ‘In the back you’ll find an envelope holding your ID and some forms you’ll need to sign – your consulting fee, per diem, all that fun stuff. You also have to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It’s standard. FBI don’t want you spilling any of our top-secret detective methods should you give an interview or be inclined to write a book.’

‘Hoder’s got everyone in ISU at his disposal. Why hire me as an outside contractor?’

‘Because you’re smoking hot?’

‘Besides that.’

‘Well, it
might
have something to do with the fact that you cracked both of the two serial cases you worked on – one of which, I may add, eluded my new employer for three decades.’

‘Both those cases didn’t exactly put your new employer in the best light.’

‘Sure as hell didn’t. And yet the Bureau hired me, and now they want to hire you. Hoder is a superstitious guy; he’s hoping you can work your particular voodoo in Red Hill. Course, it didn’t hurt when I told him you’re the smartest chick I know.’

Darby shot him a look.

‘Sorry, I know how much you hate that word,’ he said. ‘I meant to say “broad”.’

‘Much better.’

Coop was joking the way he always did – his expression and tone dancing along the edge of a smirk, using sarcasm to cover up his true feelings.

The last time they’d worked together was well over two years ago: the Soul Collectors case. In the aftermath, words were exchanged. Promises made. She returned to Boston, and Coop flew back to London to break it off with his live-in girlfriend.

When days turned into weeks, Coop waiting for his girlfriend to return home from a business trip, Coop waiting for the right moment to drop the bomb, Darby realized that there was nothing to keep her in Boston any more. Her job at the Crime Lab was gone, her parents were dead, and Coop … she loved him but she didn’t want to own him. She decided to sell her condo and all its furnishings, and then, using a small portion of her considerable savings, purchased the best motorcycle ever made: a Triumph Bonneville T100 Special Edition, inspired by the one Steve McQueen drove in the movie
The Great Escape
. The Triumph was the only thing she owned now, her life condensed into whatever she could fit inside the bike’s small rear trunk and pair of hard-shell saddlebags. She lived her life out of motels and hotels.

Darby remembered the cloudless autumn day she drove out of the city. She could go anywhere and do anything. She was bound to nothing and to no one. She had the power to choose.

‘You know,’ Coop said, ‘I find it very, very sad that the
only way I can get to see you in person is for me to dangle a sexual sadist in front of you.’

‘A very
organized
sexual sadist. I come out only for the best. Coop, when we spoke yesterday, you didn’t mention anything about ViCAP.’ The FBI’s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program was the largest database of violent crimes in existence; it held and analysed information about homicides – especially unsolved sexual assaults.

‘That’s because we didn’t find anything about a killer who ties up families, murders them and makes the bed before leaving,’ Coop said. ‘Sure, we found some unsolved cases in the state where a family was tied up and/or killed, either shot or stabbed to death. Those, though, were all burglaries – or staged to look like burglaries. No sexual elements.’

‘I read the articles posted on Colorado news websites and didn’t see anything mentioned about the killer making the beds.’

‘The locals kept that detail to themselves to weed out the copycats.’

Good
, Darby thought. ‘What else did they keep out of the papers?’

‘Guy doesn’t leave the rope behind. Lab’s taking a look at the ligature marks and trying to see if they can ID the type of knot he uses. The locals are calling him the Red Hill Ripper.’

‘Your guy strangles his victims,’ Darby said. ‘He doesn’t mutilate them with a knife or a similar weapon.’

‘Reporter who broke the first story thought “Red Hill
Ripper” would play and sound better than the “Red Hill Strangler”.’

‘Ah … How’d Red Hill PD react to you guys being brought in?’ The police chief, Coop had told her, had called Investigative Support. But that didn’t mean the chief’s people would roll out the welcome wagon for the detectives assigned to the case.

‘They practically threw us a parade,’ Coop said. ‘These guys want us here, which isn’t surprising, given the incorporation.’

‘The what?’

‘Red Hill’s an un-incorporated town. Means it doesn’t have a self-ruling government.’

‘No mayor or city council.’

Coop nodded. ‘It also means that the town doesn’t have any money for schools and other services. Real-estate market didn’t recover from the crash, which is great news for the developers, who are itching to come in and buy a whole bunch of properties and level them to the ground to make way for strip malls. I’m not for gentrification, but this town needs something, because it’s practically in rigor mortis. No one’s moving in because there aren’t any jobs – they all went to China or India or whatever – and manufacturing’s dead. With no one moving in and without Red Hill having the money to attract doctors and teachers –’

‘The town’s in a terminal spiral,’ Darby finished.

‘Which is the reason why the state wants to incorporate Red Hill with the neighbouring town of Brewster.
Sheriff’s office is located there.’ Coop turned to her and added, ‘And it’s not going anywhere.’

‘So once the incorporation goes through, Red Hill PD will be no more.’

‘Exactly. It’s a skeleton crew as it is. The police chief called us because he’s hoping we can help his people catch the Ripper. You know how it goes with a serial case – whoever catches the bogey man wins the prize. Brewster sheriff’s office is staffed with better talent, but if Williams – that’s the detective spearheading the task force, Ray Williams – if he and his people net this douchebag first, chances are good they’ll have a place in the new regime.’

Darby had worked her fair share of high-pressure cases where the usual assortment of assholes – administrators, bureaucrats and politicians seeking re-election – demanded a case be closed in days instead of weeks, if not months. Oh, and bad news, kids: we haven’t budgeted any funds for overtime, so go on out there and catch the bad guy on your own time – and pronto. But she had never worked a case with the Sword of Damocles hanging over her head.