Into a Dangerous Mind (4 page)

Not sure how much to tell his boss, Zach leaned back in his chair, looked directly into Dix’s eyes, and adopted the formal manner of a subordinate giving a report to his superior.
 
“I took all available profile information, and upon further review of the interview tapes, I narrowed the suspects down to one man—Brian August.
 
Once I narrowed the suspects, I analyzed the inconsistencies in his story that could link him to all four women.
 
He has several aliases, but no criminal record…yet.”

link him?” Dix asked softly.

Tension hummed in the room until finally Dix sighed.
 
“Zach, we’ve worked together for a while now, and you’re right—you’re the best profiler I’ve ever met.
 
But,” he held up a finger for emphasis.
 
“I need you to quit beating around the bush and tell me what evidence led you to pick August out of everyone interviewed.
 
I may not be a profiler, but I know you didn’t have enough indicators to build a full profile.”

Zach frowned and looked across the table measuring how much to tell his friend.

.

“During the interview when asked if he knew the victims, August looked to the left which showed he made up his answer.
 
As you know, if he had looked to the right he would have been remembering information, and thus telling the truth.
 
And once I started looking into his stories…”

“Stop right there.” Dix held up a hand to interrupt Zach’s speech.
 
“I don’t need a lesson in Profiler 101.
 
You played one of your hunches, didn’t you?”

“Hunches are a part of every good profiler’s repertoire.”

“Don’t give me that crap, Zach.
 
I can tell when you’re bullshitting me.”
 
Dix stood to pace around the small kitchen.
 
“I’ve set up a full op here with the expectation we would be netting the killer.
 
I know you’ve played hunches before, but they’ve always been backed up with actual hard facts.”
 
He turned back to Zach.
 
“I need you to be straight with me, it’s my ass on the line if I green-lighted an op that went bad without sufficient evidence.”

Zach drained his coffee cup and set the cup aside.
 
“Are you sure you want me to be straight with you, or do you just want me to give you enough facts so you feel comfortable?”

Dix took off the baseball cap and ran his hands through his hair.
 
“Yeah, give it to me straight.”
 
He crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

Taking a deep breath, Zach let it out slowly before speaking.
 
“All right, we had absolutely no leads.
 
We have a few of the police tapes where the guy identifying himself as The Reaper called and tried to take credit for some of our mysteriously dead women, but analysis shows five distinct voices, so he may have hired people to call for him.
 
All of those were untraceable.
 
Since the coroner couldn’t find any cause of death, he ruled all of them natural causes.
 
When the Reaper called the press, he couldn’t even get them interested, so none of them kept any information on the callers either.
 
Another dead end.

“So I went back to the interviews.
 
Several of the people had small inconsistencies with their stories, as people tend to have in these situations, so no help there.
 
When I went to see the coroner, he was examining the last victim.
 
I sensed psychic residue consistent with that left from a psychic attack, which would explain why the coroner found no physical evidence on the victims.”

Zach held up his hand anticipating Dix’s outburst.
 
“You wanted it straight, so hear me out.
 
I rewatched the interview tapes and could tell from August’s answers he had enough psychic ability to sidestep the verbal traps the interviewers laid for him.
 
August showed the only psychic potential, so I started checking into his background.”

Ignoring Dix’s raised eyebrow, he reached for the file which lay between them, and opened it to the third page.
 
“He has several aliases, and has moved around the country quite a bit.
 
Twenty-six similarly unexplained cases are still open in states where he’s been.
 
Both of his parents, Judi and Wayne Byrne, are deceased—unsolved murders.
 
Interestingly enough, they were both well-known psychics who worked with the
Chicago
police on several missing persons cases.”

Flipping a few more pages, Zack found the picture of August and slid the file across the table to Dix.
 
“I put a team on him, and dug into his recent activities.
 
The local authorities received a note from The Reaper a few days ago stating that he had made a date for last night with his next victim.
 
We looked into it, but he had made dates with four different women with reservations in four different locales.
 
I had undercover agents inserted at each site.
 
And since all four women live in this subdivision, that’s why I rented this house.
 
I could be within easy access of any of the potential victim’s homes.”

“What happened with Cassidy James last night?”
 
Dix shook his head, and still looked skeptical, but at least he was listening.

“Agent Gerald called me when the Reaper arrived at the Top of the Rock Resort with Miss James.
 
He was supposed to call me as soon as they left.
 
I left the other teams in place in case this was just a diversion.
 
We were worried one of the other women was the actual target.
 
But Miss James got away and kicked the crap out of the Reaper in the process.”

He leaned forward to drive home his point.
 
“Last night when Cassidy James collapsed in her front yard, she was being psychically attacked.
 
The man I ejected from her mind left the same psychic residue as the victim from the coroner’s office.
 
Dix, he’s gotten cocky and changed his MO—he’s become more physical, but I know it’s Brian August.”

He tapped the Reaper’s picture with his index finger.
 
“Especially now that Miss James kicked the holy shit out of him, he’s probably pissed as hell and will start to become sloppy.
 
Which is how we’ll catch him.”

Zach continued to watch Dix, trying to gauge his boss’s mood without invading Dix’s privacy by using his psychic gifts to pry into his friend’s mind.
 
“You know I would never endanger a case, Dix.
 
As your friend as well as your profiler, I’m telling you, this is our guy.
 
I’ll stake my reputation on it.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.
 
Zach, you know I don’t believe in any of this psychic shit—although I’ll admit I still can’t explain Corrine dying in my arms from no apparent cause.
 
But I thought we agreed a long time ago to keep it out of your work.
 
It has no place here.
 
This kind of nonobjective hocus-pocus is going to put the case at risk!”

Zach stood and matched Dix’s angry tone.
 
“Damn it, Dix—you agreed, not me.”
 
Zach jabbed a finger toward Dix for emphasis.
 
“Having these gifts is part of who I am.
 
You use your reflexes and your hunches, so why can’t I?
 
I’ve used psychic skills on more cases than you really want to know about, and as you just pointed out, I haven’t been wrong yet.
 
If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll admit your objectivity on this case could affect your judgment…”
 
He trailed off, letting his words find their target.
 
He knew he’d hit a nerve from the stricken look on Dix’s face.
 
But damn it, Dix needed to let him do his job.

Dix studied Zach for a long tense moment and then sighed.
 
“Point taken.
 
For both our sakes, I hope you know what the hell you’re doing.”

He crossed to Zach’s refrigerator, pulled out two Bud Lights and passed one to Zach.
 
“I know it’s early, but this case is a bitch.
 
Here’s to supervisor’s prerogative.”
 
He twisted off the top and held up the bottle in a toast before taking a long pull.
 
“So what’s your plan?”

Zach took a drink and closed his eyes, letting his frustration flow away.
 
He wouldn’t get much more of a concession than that.
 
The FBI wasn’t very accepting of things that couldn’t be explained by what they considered cold hard facts.

“First, I need to interview Cassidy James.
 
Since she’s the one who got away, he’ll probably want her even more—especially after she sent him to the emergency room.
 
Some of the neighbors may have seen me pick her up off the lawn last night and carry her into her house, so I can play the concerned neighbor or even the new boyfriend if that will let me stay close enough to keep her safe.”

Dix nodded and gestured for him to continue.

“In the meantime, we find August.
 
Gerald lost him last night after he checked into the emergency room.
 
Mayo
Clinic
Hospital
reported they treated him for a broken nose and bruised ribs.
 
The nurse came back into his exam room to give him his checkout paperwork and he’d disappeared.
 
According to Gerald, he hasn’t returned home or gone to work.

“He knows he’s being tailed.
 
He’s got psychic powers, although not extremely strong ones judging from the psychic signature on the victims, which is what allowed Cassidy James to break away—she’s more powerful than him.”

“Wait.” Dix’s beer bottle was poised half way to his lips.
 
“Cassidy James has psychic powers, too?
 
Isn’t that just a little bit convenient?”

“I know you don’t believe in any of this, but I think Brian August is preying on women who have psychic potential, but haven’t realized their talents yet.
 
He’s attacking their minds knowing they can’t defend themselves from him on that plane.
 
He must be getting off on draining their energy, because he’s not sexually assaulting them.”

Warming to his topic, he punctuated his words by gesturing with the beer bottle.
 
“When he attacked Cassidy James he got more than he bargained for.
 
She’s more powerful than he expected and that’s what allowed her to break away.
 
And he didn’t even have the psychic strength to open her powers all the way.”

Dix frowned.
 
“So, he expected a firecracker and got C-four explosives?
 
Serves the bastard right.”

“But that also means she’s going to have to know I’m undercover.
 
I won’t be able to hide it from her.”

Dix looked like he would object, but then finally nodded.
 
“All right, but you brief her and keep a tight lid on her.”

“I’ll take care of it.”
 
Zach looked over at his friend.
 
“Dix, August is going to keep looking for women with psychic potential, but the murders are going to become more physical since he didn’t get resolution to his anger with Miss James.
 
I looked up some of the case files on his parents.
 
They were both extremely powerful psychics.
 
I’m guessing August is acting out from a lifetime of not living up to his parents’ great expectations when it comes to psychic abilities.
 
I’ll bet money he’s going to fixate on Miss James because she just hit his Achilles’ heel—his lack in the psychic gifts department.”