Stolen Lives: A Detective Mystery Series SuperBoxset (55 page)

Hart shrugged. “You said it yourself that these guys wanted to be caught. Maybe he just got tired of waiting for us to catch up.”

Cooper shook her head. “But this was too fast, too soon. We didn’t have anything on him. Nothing. And he knew that.” The evidence on the wall taunted her, its secrets still a mystery. “There has to be a connection. There’s something here that we’re not seeing.”

Hart picked the picture of the grave site off the floor and pinned it back to the wall. He clapped Cooper’s shoulder and walked to the door. “I’ll let you know when we hear back from the morgue.”

Alone, Cooper backed to the opposite wall across from the whiteboard. The pieces blended together to form a larger picture.
What were you trying to tell me?
But no matter how long she stared at that wall, she just couldn’t answer her own question.

With her eyes burning and her mind swimming in fatigue, Cooper sat down and folded her arms on the desk, resting her head on top. She felt the weight of the case fall with her, and in that small sliver of space between her and the desk the helplessness that she’d staved off for so long finally took hold of her consciousness. She was alone. Beth was the last link to her past, her family, her childhood, and her soul. Over the years the cases she’d worked had slowly taken small pieces of her along the way. It was a burden of the job.

But despite the pain she knew the cost of her sacrifices were worth the capture of all the murderers, rapists, thieves, and thugs she put behind bars. And she’d happily trade all of those arrests to find this one man. In her twenty years on the force she never wanted to kill, but this man had pushed her over the edge.

Cooper had fired her weapon a dozen times. And out of those dozen times she’d only killed one person.
Douglas Mavin.
Thirty-two years old, minor drug offenses, on parole, and a father of four with three different women. A witness in the death of a gas station attendant identified Mavin as the shooter. Once they tracked him down to an old house in the projects, he took off running.

The chase covered eleven blocks before Mavin finally ran out of breath and made his last stand behind a Dumpster. He kept screaming that he didn’t kill the gas station attendant. But the fact his weapon matched the murder weapon, he ran, and he knew of the crime told Cooper all she needed to know about his innocence.

The shouting match continued for nearly an hour, and it wasn’t long before Mavin was surrounded, with a helicopter overhead watching his movements. Cooper closed her eyes and still felt the heat from the pavement on that summer day and the loud chatter over the radio along with the hum of the helicopter blades.

Once Mavin realized that it was death or jail, he made his choice. The moment he stepped around the cover of the Dumpster, gun still in hand, Cooper caught her first glimpse of the desperation of a man who had reached the end of his wits. But three quick squeezes of her trigger, and that struggle ended.

The autopsy report revealed that it was the second bullet that went straight through the heart that killed him. And it was later confirmed that he was the shooter at the gas station, but confidential medical records also revealed that Mavin had a multiple personality disorder, which he was being treated for under his parole agreement with a psychologist appointed to him by the state.

After the investigation into Mavin’s shooting and death, Cooper was eventually exonerated and reinstated to active duty. But even though she was cleared, Mavin’s eyes haunted her for years after that. In that moment, with the gun in his hand, cowering behind the filth of the Dumpster, Mavin truly believed he was innocent. Maybe it was another personality that had taken hold, or maybe he was tired of trying, but the decision to step out with the gun pointed at law enforcement ended his life, and the struggles that went with it.

Weeks later a mother of two of Mavin’s children stopped by the precinct to see Cooper personally. “He wasn’t right in the head,” she said. “Everything he tried to do always ended up being backward. One day he was the sweetest man I’d ever known, and the next I’d have to keep the boys locked up in the closet so he wouldn’t go after them.” She teared up.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” It was all Cooper could muster, but the answer didn’t sit well with her as the lines on the woman’s face shifted to anger.

“He wouldn’t have shot you. It wasn’t in him to do that.” She slammed her fist on the table and jumped out of the chair. “And now what am I supposed to do? I’ve got kids to feed!” She gathered up her things and headed for the door, where she stopped and turned, looking Cooper dead in the eye. “A heartless bitch like you could never be a mother.” Cooper never saw her again, but those words never left, and the interaction shook the foundation of her resolve. And with her sister still missing, she felt the same feeling retake control once more.

Cooper lifted her head from the table and glanced back at the pictures and evidence on the wall. The image of Beth holding the sign on the baseball stadium’s massive screen stared back at her:
Section 39. Row 18. Seat 49.

Eighteen forty-nine.
She cocked her head to the side as she recited the numbers. She jumped out of the chair and hurried over to the pictures snapped at Westminster Hall. Her search ended at one of the photos of Poe’s headstone.

Born: 1-19-1809

Died: 10-7-1849

Cooper grabbed the photos of the other crime scenes at Alfonso Rivera’s house and the address of the day care.

Alfonso Rivera: 7648 Temper Street. Apt. 2283

Day Care: 2283 Southside Avenue.

Cooper knocked down a section of the whiteboard and reached for a marker. She scribbled all the numbers down franticly. When she stepped back the combination of the first pair numbered twenty across, and the second numbered eleven across. She stared at them, unable to make sense of the randomness. She bit her lower lip in concentration and drew blood.

Cooper erased the combination of the stadium numbers and Poe’s dates and replaced it with the only number they had in common: 1849. But the number by itself meant nothing to her. The contents from the box of evidence collected from the blast site at the stadium rattled back and forth as she carried it to her desk, next finding the records of the graves kept at Westminster Hall.

The evidence analyzed from the blast didn’t reveal any of the same numbers she’d seen so far, and she shifted her focus to the binder full of grave records. She flipped ahead to Poe’s grave site, an entire page dedicated to its record, and scanned the information line by line. She stopped suddenly on the assigned plot number for the grave, which was thirty-nine.

Cooper added the number to the eighteen forty-nine already in place. After sifting through for another ten minutes, she found no other similarities between the two and turned her attention to Alfonso Rivera’s apartment and the day care, erasing all the numbers she’d written save for what they shared in common: 2283.

Not much evidence had been collected from Rivera’s apartment, and it wasn’t long before Cooper moved onto the much larger boxes retrieved from the day care. With the number of pieces logged, Cooper chose to start with Ronnie’s backpack. She dumped its contents on the floor and combed through every piece slowly. She examined pages, crayons, anything and everything inside. But when she reached the last page of the boy’s notebook she noticed a scribble she didn’t catch before at the very bottom, written in red crayon: 7648, which matched Rivera’s street address. She stepped back, examining the numbers on the board.

39 1849

2283 7648

The numbers burned into the frontal lobe of Cooper’s brain. She could smell the smoke from the searing as she racked her brain to understand what the killer was trying to tell her. She knew they meant something. The killer had orchestrated too much for the numbers to be a coincidence. But the longer she stared, the greater her confusion took hold.

Is it a time?
No, not even in military.
Maybe a code?
Cooper assigned every number a letter, but no matter how she rearranged them the words didn’t make any sense. She closed her eyes, doing her best to ignore the celebrations outside the walls of her office, and focused on the case. But the noise grew louder, and her patience thinned.
What is it? What are you trying to tell me?
The distractions outside continued to pester her thoughts, and the thin thread holding her together snapped. “Fuck!” She slammed her fist on the desk, a sharp pain snapping in her wrist.

Cooper massaged the left hand, muttering curses under her breath. She drifted her eyes back to the numbers on the wall. She rose, swallowing the rage, knowing her emotions only clouded her reason. She placed her finger to her lips, rubbing the chapped flesh slowly, and she focused on the killer, what she knew about him.

The victims shared no obvious common link, accept death by his hand. The murder weapons were never the same, so he enjoyed variety. Every killer had a code, so what was his? She squinted her eyes shut hard.
He’s always killed within the city.
That was it. Baltimore was his fishing ground. The city is special to him. It was his territory.
The numbers were a location.

Cooper pulled up a map application on her browser. She narrowed down the view of the Earth to Baltimore. She clicked on a random location, and the coordinates for that spot appeared in the top left corner of her monitor. She glanced back at the numbers on the board and entered them into the coordinate boxes. When she hit ‘enter’ the application spit back an error message. She frowned, looking back at the numbers.

39 1849

2283 7648

Cooper kept the first row of numbers the same, but on the second she reversed the order of the second two, so they read as:

39 18’ 49’’

79 48’ 22.83’’

Cooper clicked enter, and this time the application zoomed in on a small tract of wilderness west of the city. The curser blinked on the screen, and she smiled on her sprint to the door. But before she reached the handle, it swung open. Both Hemsworth and Hart stepped inside, their faces as pale as the white walls of the office, and Cooper felt her blood run cold. “What is it?”

“The man that was shot in the house,” Hart said, his voice shaking. “It was Zane Marks.”

Cooper took a step back, her knees nearly buckling. “That can’t—”

“Cooper.” Hemsworth slowly stepped forward, his figure looming over her, the shadows of light accentuating the despair on his face. “We sent a unit over to your sister’s family’s hotel once the situation with the day care was over. When our people arrived the agents on scene were dead. Your brother-in-law and your nieces are gone. We don’t know where they are.”

Cooper looked over to the coordinates on the whiteboard. “I do.”

Chapter 12

The landscape beyond the windows of the black SUVs slowly transformed from city buildings to trees and mountains the farther west they drove. Cooper sat in the rear passenger seat next to Hart. Hemsworth rode shotgun while one of his agents drove. Aside from the radio chatter the car was silent. Cooper fidgeted with the bulletproof vest they’d given her, uncomfortable with the bulky Kevlar.

“We’re approaching the location,” Hemsworth said, breaking the silence. “There aren’t any roads that lead up to the coordinates you gave us, so we’ll have to make the rest of the journey on foot.”

“You have air support standing by?” Hart asked.

“They’re close,” Hemsworth answered. “But we won’t call them in until it’s necessary. I don’t want us to give him any reason to harm the hostages.” He glanced at Cooper’s reflection in the rearview mirror.

“He already knows we’re coming.” Cooper remembered Beth’s scream over the phone. “This is what he wants.”

The caravan of vehicles pulled off the road, and the cavalry dismounted. Hemsworth rounded up the troops, running through the logistics one last time. “This guy is smart and most likely armed to the teeth. Detective Cooper will be assisting in any negotiations, and I don’t want anyone pulling the trigger unless it’s ordered by me. The first person that disobeys that will be working the tollbooth on I-95. Is that understood?” The agents answered with a resounding “yes, sir,” and Hemsworth led the unit into the woods.

The mix of officers and agents stretched wide in a single-file line on the five-mile hike toward the coordinates. Cooper remained in the middle of the pack with Hemsworth and Hart. Aside from the occasional snap of branches or the rustle of leaves, the forest was quiet, and it was radio silence the entire way.

The afternoon heat grew worse the farther they marched, and it wasn’t long before the heavy Kevlar had soaked Cooper with sweat. She picked at the fabric glued to her skin irritably but kept her eyes straight ahead, taking in every detail, making sure she wouldn’t miss a thing.

Hemsworth constantly checked their location, his face glancing from the GPS device in his hand to the thick trees ahead. Cooper caught Hart watching her, and each time he quickly looked forward, pretending he wasn’t. Suddenly, Hemsworth stopped and thrust his hand up. In unison, every agent fell to their knee, their rifles aimed at the horizon. “I have a visual one hundred yards northeast. Can I receive confirmation?”

Cooper’s heart skipped a beat as she shifted the scope of her rifle in that direction. She peered through the thick trees and it took her a minute, but soon she spotted the cabin in a small clearing. She had to make a conscious effort to stay put, waiting for Hemsworth to give the signal. Hushed whispers crackled through the radio, the surrounding units acknowledging the confirmation. Finally, Hemsworth dropped his hand, letting the agents press forward.

The pace increased, but only slightly, and more than once Cooper stopped herself from breaking out into a sprint. The crunch of twigs and rustle of leaves beat in time with every step forward. Her heart rate spiked, skipping a few beats. She struggled for air, her breaths shallow and fast. Her muscles stiffened, and she tightened her grip around the pistol as she kept low through the trees, the cabin growing larger on the horizon.