Husk (17 page)

Frank quivered with disgust.

Without warning, Kane’s expression changed from triumph to
fear.
Frank didn’t think it was possible after all the mayhem he’d witnessed, but he could see it in the maniac’s freakish eyes; pure, unbridled fear.

Frank watched the man curl his bloody hands into claws, staring at them in shock.

Kane shrieked at the sight.

Frank recoiled from the sound and almost lost his footing on the steps. Steadying himself, he readied his weapon, watching Kane slap at his bare chest and stomach, flailing himself, almost like he was trying to brush away the bullet holes. He cried louder with each breath, stomping his feet, ranting like a child in the thrall of a tantrum.

Frank motioned for the two officers on the stairs to get ready to move, certain they could take the man unaware while he wallowed in his deranged self-assault. He edged back out of Kane’s sight, stood up, and—

The orange light bulb over the landing suddenly popped and went out.

Frank’s half-drawn breath snared in his throat as darkness leapt in to take the light’s place, stopped at the cellar doorway by the glow of the few candles in Kane’s earth-walled lair.

He hesitated, poised on the verge of a tension-induced heart attack. Kane had fallen silent just a second before the light flashed out, and the thought of confronting him while nearly blind, armed or not, no longer seemed wise.

There came a noise: the subtle rattling of a chain.

It sounded at Frank’s back, from somewhere in the cellar of patchwork cadavers: an inconspicuous jingle under the clamor of men still trying to force their way through Hell’s gate at the top of the stairs.

“
Fraaaaank,” a voice growled in his ear.

He swung around and fired three rounds into the wrinkled, slack-eyed face of a dead man chained at the far side of the room, at least twenty feet away. No one loomed behind him in the cellar. Everyone was dead. Dead and unmoving.

He twisted back to confront the doorway and met Kane’s grinning face. It flashed into the candlelight, his black eyes once again gleaming with a red reflection. Frank tried to aim his weapon, but Kane caught his hand, locking it in an unbreakable grip. He smashed it into the doorjamb, holding it there, with the handgun’s muzzle pointed uselessly away.

Then the knife flashed into view, clutched in the killer’s fist. It arced toward him with merciless speed, too fast to dodge, but skipped off the brim of his helmet when he tried to maneuver out of its way. The blade grazed his eyeball, splitting its surface, then stabbed into his face. It streaked down his cheekbone, cutting a hot trail from his ruptured eyeball to his jaw.

Frank shrieked.

Kane released him, letting him fall backward into the cellar. The killer smiled at him, his teeth gleaming in the murk.

Then Kane jolted and convulsed when gunfire exploded through him from behind, opening more holes in his chest.

The guys on the staircase,
Frank thought.

He hit the floor, teetering on the dark edge of unconsciousness.

And blacked out when Kane collapsed beside him.

CHAPTER 22

Frank saw that his account of the raid on Kane’s farm had brought the young detective to the edge of her seat.

“
The guys upstairs needed to use an explosive charge to get through the basement door,” he said. “The damned thing looked normal enough, but it had a solid steel core, with magnetic locking plates on the top and bottom.”

“
What made it shut?” Melissa asked.

“
Too many people trying to get around it at the same time,” he said, grimacing at the memory. “Once it closed, it locked. By the time the medics got to us again, Kane had slaughtered fifteen good men. It was a madhouse.”

Detective Humble shook her head in amazement. “And even after they shot him
again,
he still didn’t die.”

 
Frank nodded. “The headshot required the partial removal of his frontal lobe and reconstructive skull plates, but somehow he managed to survive in a coma. When I got word that he’d finally died last week … Well, I think you can imagine why I made those inquires to be sure he was dead.”

Melissa readjusted herself on the couch. “I never knew how intense the arrest had been for everyone involved. For you.”

Frank heard pity in her voice, and for a moment, he couldn’t respond. Recalling those details of the past had made him shaky, replete with emotions he couldn’t suppress. He looked at his clasped hands and said, “I put the whole story into my book, hoping I could rid myself of it for good—the arrest, the partner theory, everything. A lot of people said I was capitalizing on the misery of others, but I never did it for the money. I want you to understand that. I wrote the book because I was looking for closure. I suppose I was foolish to believe it would help.”

“
What you did was a perfectly healthy way of dealing with it,” she told him.

He gave her an appreciative smile for her empathy, which she returned with a smile of her own. For an instant, he imagined himself leaning forward and kissing her. The thought blindsided him like an unseen assailant, hitting him hard, leaving him dazed.

Breaking eye contact, he redirected his gaze at the floor.
How can you be thinking of such a thing right now?
But he already knew the answer.

Not many visitors stopped by anymore, attractive women least of all. He’d grown accustomed to living alone in his small condo, the outside world closed behind the blinds, discarded. He only ventured into his old life long enough to collect his pension or disability checks from the mailbox. He didn’t even shop for himself anymore.

He glanced to the detective while she jotted down notes on a small pad. Being in the presence of such a smart and engaging woman, he found himself wishing he
were
insane, that Kale Kane’s accomplice existed only in his head. Then he could get help and maybe return to a normal way of life.

Melissa looked at him and said, “You told me you thought Kane preferred a certain type of victim.”

“
That’s right,” he said, but paused at the frail sound of his voice. He cleared his throat. “Like I said, for all the trouble Kane went through to get at several of his targets, it seemed logical to say those individuals had something of a specific interest to him, something no one else could provide.”

Frank stopped himself again, deciding how much to reveal. Wracked by the understanding of what his life had become, he could’ve talked with Melissa all night. But he realized he needed to proceed with caution, reminding himself that he couldn’t let his rediscovered wanting for companionship cloud his judgment. Giving the detective too much information at this point would only cause her to regard him with skepticism, maybe even suspicion.

“
Did you ever determine what the connection was?” Melissa asked, prodding him out of his thoughts.

“
No,” he half-lied. “Once again, there wasn’t enough information. None of the victims shared any characteristics: physical, emotional, habitual, or otherwise.”

The detective said nothing, but her mouth pinched with disappointment.

“
Did you ever determine what it was Kane was doing to them?” she asked. “I don’t recall hearing about the ritualistic stuff you described, other than the reconstructed corpses—the amalgamates.”

Frank didn’t respond right away, and when he did, he voiced the thought that had seized him the moment Melissa identified herself at the door. “This isn’t about an ordinary disappearance, is it, Detective? Judge Anderson is dead, isn’t he? He’s dead, and you’ve found something linking him to Kane. What was it? The double-K marking?”

She shook her head in protest. “Why would you think he’s dead?”

“
Because I’ve feared this would happen,” he answered. “I’ve dreaded it for years. Recently, I thought I’d convinced myself I was just being paranoid, but when you came to the door I just knew.” Frank’s guilt seethed in him like a great furnace ready to explode. After all this time, his writing had finally served to educate the public of the danger still loose in the world. Now the Killer had taken the life of a man who’d wanted his help, and the weight of responsibility pressed even harder on his shoulders.

He wondered how the detective was interpreting what he’d told her. He’d seen her glance about the room during the breaks in their conversation, no doubt pondering the possibility that
he
might be the object of her pursuit. She hadn’t yet asked for his whereabouts during the time Judge Anderson had gone missing, but he suspected it was on her mind.

Melissa opened her mouth, maybe to ask that exact question, when five electronic beeps cut her off. She reached to her waist, for a pager clipped to her belt. “I’m afraid I have to go,” she said after checking the message. “I’d like to talk more about this if it’s possible. May I stop by tomorrow sometime?”

Frank nodded and stood up. “All of my reports concerning Kane are on file downtown; the rest is simply an old man’s opinion. Still, I’d be happy to help you any way I can, Detective. Lord knows I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“
I’d appreciate it.”

He walked her to the door, unable to look her in the eyes after his last comment. She supplied him with one of her business cards, adding her home phone number to the back of it. He closed the door behind her.

After reengaging the locks, Frank slumped with his back to the entry and rubbed one hand over his face, feeling the scratch of thick stubble.

Although they’d only known one another for less than an hour, he couldn’t help but worry for Melissa. She’d already trod on dangerous ground without even knowing it, and her job would no doubt take her down the path of danger again before an end to the killings came within sight. He cursed himself for not having the courage to tell her the complete truth about Kane, even though he knew she wouldn’t believe him.

Like it or not, he was on his own.

He clenched his right hand into a fist and slammed it against the wall. Pushing away from the front door, he crossed the living room and went to the smaller of the condo’s two bedrooms. Full bookcases lined the walls, skirted by columns of other books stacked on the floor. Towers of boxes containing copies of past case files from around the country blocked the room’s only window. His computer desk sat in the far corner, flanked by a six-foot high filing cabinet and a cherry wood armoire.

Here the walls were lost under a collage of old documents: statement reports and crime scene photos from the original Kane disappearances; pictures from the Stillwater basement and cellar; lab analysis forms; blood work results; pictograph comparisons; maps of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas.

Stepping over the pair of forty-pound dumbbells he used to keep in shape, Frank opened the upper half of the wardrobe exposing his safe. He dialed the combination and withdrew one of four identical folders, each containing more evidence gathered on Kane and his partner.

After setting the file on his desk, he closed the safe and turned to the room’s closet.

He slid open the double folding doors.

On the closet’s single clothes rack hung several rugged coats, a black S.W.A.T. jumpsuit, a bulletproof vest, and four styles of shoulder holsters, all purchased through military surplus catalogues.

The back wall of the closet had been converted into a storage area for Frank’s collection of weaponry. A gun rack held two Mossberg shotguns—one pistol grip, one with a full stock—an HK 33A2 assault rifle, and an M-16A1. Below the gun rack sat two three-drawer dressers. The first contained fifteen different handguns of assorted caliber and design, along with ammunition for each, whereas the second housed a variety of communication and sensory devices: a directional microphone, night vision goggles, a hand-held GPS unit, several TriField meters, and five different rifle scopes.

Frank shrugged into one of the shoulder holsters and chose a 9mm Glock from the dresser. He also took the pistol grip Mossberg, concealing it in a leather travel bag. Both weapons were already loaded and ready for use.

In the master bedroom, he traded his shorts for a pair of jeans and slipped a tweed jacket over his tee shirt and firearm. He looked a bit overdressed for the evening’s temperature but wouldn’t appear suspicious.

There were a number of phone calls to make, information yet to search out; he also needed to go out to the garage and prep the equipment on his Blazer. After almost three years of preparation and research, he had actual work to do.

More importantly: he had purpose.

Frank grabbed his wallet and keys off the nightstand and started to return to his office when he stopped. His eyes fixed on the darkness outside the bedroom window.

His mouth went dry at the sight. Before he could stop it, his mind superimposed Kane’s leering face over the glass, coming out of the night in the same horrific way he’d lunged through the cellar doorway in the past.

Frank fled from the room, into the hallway. He doubled over, gasping.

He stood there for a moment, allowing the memory to pass and the reality of what he planned to do to sink in. Leaving the house required mental readiness these days, and in his single-minded focus on organizing for the task ahead, he’d forgot the raw fear of it. He’d seen a therapist about his condition several years back, but quit going after the first few sessions. A doctor would never understand his troubles without knowing the whole story—he wasn’t about to risk getting himself admitted to a psychiatric hospital—and the medication he’d been prescribed did nothing but give him headaches and make him horny.