Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) (21 page)

The captain waited with Donner while Caffe showed me into the janitor’s closet. It was five feet by five. A mop bucket sat on the floor. Miscellaneous cleaning supplies filled a shelf at the back. None of Donner’s belongings were on the floor. His service weapon was nowhere in sight. We went back to Donner and the captain. I felt Donner’s jacket and pants pockets. The captain flashed me a questioning look.

“Service weapon is gone.” I checked the final pocket inside his sport coat. “No keys, badge, wallet, anything.”

Jones led the EMTs back to us. They loaded Donner onto a gurney and started administering a hand ventilator. One of the attending technicians came over to us.

“How does he look?” I asked.

“We are just trying to get some extra oxygen into him right now. His breathing is a little shallow.”

“The blood on his face?” I asked.

“Not his. It looks like it was expelled on him.”

“Is he going to be all right?” Hank asked.

“Well, we are going to take him over to Brandon Regional Hospital. You should be able to speak with a physician there later.”

I rubbed my head. “Thanks.”

The EMTs wheeled Donner out the exit at the end of the hallway, and the door slammed shut.

Captain Bostok paced back and forth in the hall.

“Did tech get anything on his phone?” I asked.

“No signal.” Bostok shook his head. “We’re done, guys. I’m going to make the call to the feds in the morning.”

“You can’t,” I said.

“It’s done, Kane.”

I had no intentions of turning the case over. “You know how much backlash you’ll get from the other officers if you give up a case where one of our own was attacked.”

He fired back, “That’s why I’m turning it over to the FBI. I won’t risk my men.”

I protested more, but the captain held his stance. The feds were going to come in either way.

We argued back and forth for another ten minutes. The captain closed the conversation with the threat of time off if needed.

I left the mall angry. I stewed in the car as Hank and I made our way back to the station.

He was the first to break the silence. “You have to see the captain’s dilemma. He does have a point.”

I nodded. “He has a point all right—covering his ass. The coverage from the media is going to get out of hand. If Cross is not brought in soon, it will threaten our jobs and positions within the department. Bostok is trying to cover his ass to keep his job.”

Hank decided he was going to try to be the voice of reason. “What we found at his ex-wife’s house isn’t normally what we deal with. This guy is on another level. This is the kind of case that the feds have the ability and resources to investigate.”

I’d had enough of Hank’s talking and didn’t respond. Cross was a psychopath and not one who I was looking to deal with any longer, but I wanted to be the one to remove him from society.

The day had been one of my longest and worst on the job. I just wanted to get back to the station, drop off Hank, get in my car, and go home. A beer on the couch and then bed—I was interested in nothing else until morning, when I’d resume my argument with the captain about keeping the case in house.

We parked the Charger in the station’s lot and walked in. Still steaming, I walked fast and hard to my office to grab my car keys and lock it up. On my way out of the station, my cell phone rang. I didn’t recognize the number, but it was local. I let out a deep breath to relax and clicked Talk.

“Carl Kane.”

“Hello Carl, this is Candice, a couple doors down from you.”

I wondered how she’d gotten my phone number. “Hey, Candice. What’s up?”

“Well, I found Butch here roaming around the hallway. He walked right in my door when I opened it. Looks like he got out somehow—just wanted to give you a heads-up.”

That explained how she’d called. My number was on Butch’s tag. “All right. I’m heading home now. I should be there in around ten minutes if that’s okay.”

“Sure, that would be fine.”

“Thanks for grabbing him. I’m on my way.”

“No problem.” She hung up.

I wasn’t sure how Butch could have gotten out into the hall. The front door and patio were the only ways in or out. He didn’t go five stories off the patio and walk back up. He didn’t get past me out the front door that morning.
Did he?

I got into my Mustang and drove the short distance back to my condo. I parked in the underground structure and took the elevator up to the fifth floor.

Candice lived in unit 500A. I stopped at her door and knocked. It opened. She stood, holding my cat in her arms. Butch purred and licked at her hand. I’d never seen him that loving before. I was tempted to leave him with her. She passed him over, and I carried him back to my door. He squirmed, trying to get away.

He tossed the phone in a pond after making the call, sure the cops would try to get a location on it, and Bob didn’t want Kane to know where he was just yet. Finding out where the lieutenant lived had been easy. Bob kept it simple. He just followed Kane after he left work Thursday night. Bob even found out what bar he liked to go to—all very valuable information. He decided to pop in and learn more about the good lieutenant.

He let himself into Kane’s condo. A troubled youth had taught him the finer points of lock picking. As he opened the door, a big cat rushed past him and disappeared down the hall.

He closed the door at his back and walked inside. Bob took in his surroundings.

He let out a catcall whistle. “Nice pad, Lieutenant Kane.”

Bob walked across the dining room to the kitchen. He dug through the lieutenant’s kitchen drawers. Aside from silverware, foam beer holders, and junk, he found nothing of any significance. He walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. He took out a beer.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

He cracked the can’s top, took a drink, and set it on the counter. He walked to the living room. A rack of DVDs stood in the corner. Bob thumbed through them, inspecting the titles. He smiled—they had similar tastes in movies. He walked through the rest of the condo and rummaged the drawers and cabinets. In the back of the master bedroom closet, he found a standing safe. He pulled at the handle. The four-inch-thick metal door swung open.

He laughed. “Nice security.”

Firearms, ammo, and related items filled the safe. He already had the detective’s gun from the mall stuffed in his waistline, so he didn’t need another. He preferred a more personal approach, anyway. On the top shelf sat a file of paperwork. He dug through it. They were divorce papers, dated almost two years prior. He looked at the names—Carl and Samantha Kane. He dug through the rest of the file and found paperwork from Carl Kane and Samantha Merray.

Must be her maiden name
.

An address caught his eye under her name. Bob noticed the time on Kane’s alarm clock next to his bed. The lieutenant could return at any moment. He started toward the door. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a dry-erase board on the refrigerator. A list of groceries was written there. He grabbed the beer he’d set down on the counter earlier and took another swig. A smile crossed his face when he thought of a message to write. He wiped the grocery list off and took the marker from the bottom of the board.

I put my key in the door to unlock the deadbolt, and the door pushed open. Someone had broken into my condo. I always locked my door. I set Butch down on his feet in the hallway and pulled my gun from my shoulder holster. With the barrel of my gun, I pushed the door the rest of the way open. Things were out of place and drawers opened. Butch ran past me and jumped onto the couch—stupid cat.
The one time I set him in the hall to run the other way, he runs inside.
He didn’t seem concerned that someone might be in the condo. I went through the entire place, clearing the rooms one by one. The place was empty. I contemplated not calling it in or waiting until morning to report it. I noticed the beer on the counter and walked over. The beer was sweating. Whoever had been in my condo had just left. Then I saw the note.

The dry-erase board, which I seldom used to write my grocery list, had a message written across it. It read, “My next will be the best yet. At least for you.” It was signed with a sketch of the brand Cross had been placing on women.

I didn’t care to try to interpret the message. All it told me was that Cross had been there and was planning to hurt more women. I called the station and reported the break-in to Sergeant Mueller, working patrol. When I hung up, I dialed the captain to let him know what had happened. Then I sat and waited. I expected the place to be filled with feds within minutes. Instead, a half hour later, I had a condo full of cops from my precinct.

The captain walked into my condo and approached. “Cross?”

I nodded. “Where’s the feds?”

He ignored my jab. “Show me the note.”

I took him to the dry-erase board in the kitchen. Pax dusted it for prints. He looked up as we stood in front of him. “Pulled a few prints from it. I’m going to take the beer can back to the lab too.” Pax set the dry-erase board, now sealed in a large see-through bag, on the breakfast bar so the captain could read it.

“What do you make of the message?” the captain asked.

I shrugged. “Another taunt of some kind from Cross.”

Bostok let out a deep breath. “Anything missing?”

“Not at first glance, no.”

The captain took a seat at the breakfast bar. “What’s his deal with you?”

“Who knows, Cap.”

“He’s got something for you? You’ve never run across this guy before?”

“Never.” I shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

He nodded. “I thought about our conversation earlier.”

“Yeah, I wanted to apologize.”

“No, I understand a hundred percent. You want to catch this guy yourself. I’m going to make a call to the local Bureau and ask them for assistance. I’m not going to let them take over. You are still going to be the lead. This is going to remain our case. You’ll just have the feds at your disposal.”

“Are they going to go for that?”

“No state lines were crossed so they can’t just take the case from us if we don’t hand it over to them. Plus, when we find Cross, they can look good because they helped.”

“What about jurisdiction issues?”

“We’re owed enough favors to make it work.”

“Thanks, Cap.”

He stood. “Find Cross, Kane. We can’t afford to have another body or lobotomized woman.”

“I will.”

“I’ll see you at the station in the morning.” Bostok left.

Butch wailed from behind the bathroom door. I’d locked him in there when the guys from the station arrived and informed everyone in the house to not open the door. There would be hell to pay when he got out. He didn’t like being confined.

The officers looked at everything, touched everything, and dusted everything. I tried to take a mental inventory of everything in my condo. My recent lack of sleep was making it difficult. After I went from room to room three times with the night-shift detectives, nothing appeared to be missing. As much as the thought of Bob Cross wandering around my condo was disturbing, I just wanted everyone to get out so I could go to sleep. He wasn’t there, and if he came back while I was home, he would have problems. The last of the police left a little after one in the morning.

I let Butch out, and he repaid me with a violent thrashing of my leg, which I’d expected. Cross, the prick, had drunk my last beer. I headed straight to bed. Sleep came in short bursts. Every sound jarred me awake. Every creak sounded like a footstep. My service weapon spent the night stuffed under my pillow.

The door lock clicked and allowed him entry. He relocked the door behind his back. The house was dark except for a small amount of light coming from the laundry room. Bob searched the wall for a security system but didn’t see anything. He’d gotten the address straight from the divorce papers.

The address was double-checked online on his way over. A number of results all showed the same owner’s information, Samantha and Martin Bridgeman. Bob took the gun from his waistband with his left hand. He held it just as a precaution. In his right hand, he held a needle filled with Xylazine. His pocket contained another. He crept through the lower level of the house, room by room. They were all clear. He walked to the laundry room, where a door sat beyond the stainless-steel washer and dryer. He opened it and peeked through into a garage with two cars inside—they were home. Children’s bikes sat along the garage’s back wall. He went back into the house and found his way to the staircase up to the second level.

Bob wondered if the kids were home. He continued up the steps until he hit the landing of the second floor. A night-light lit the back area of the hall. Some construction paper, spelling out the word
Belle
, covered the door. Bob turned around. The master bedroom had to be the other way. He pushed open the doors on his way to the end of the hall. He passed two closets with folding doors, a bathroom, and what, through the crack of the door, looked like a boy’s bedroom. He stopped at the cracked-open door at the end of the hall. It had to be the master bedroom.

He listened for any noises coming from inside the room and heard what seemed like the faint sound of a man snoring—he wasn’t sure. He rested his thumb on the syringe’s plunger and pushed the door open. Bob lurked into the room. A streetlight out front provided a small amount of light through the drawn blinds. He saw the couple in bed, asleep. The woman lay closer to Bob. The carpet masked the sound of his footsteps. Bob crouched at the foot of the bed and remained quiet, his breathing echoing in his head. He tried to calm himself. He needed to deal with the larger threat first.

Bob crept to the man’s side of the bed, where he lay facing outward, snoring. Bob moved right in front of the man’s face and caught the smell of whiskey hanging on the guy’s breath. Bob switched his grip on the syringe and held it like a knife ready to strike. He raised his arm and stabbed the needle into the man’s neck, thumbing down the plunger as soon as it hit skin.