Twist (Book 1): The Abnorm Chronicles-Twist (6 page)

Chapter 13

Equitable Services had access to the secure communications of local police departments, and once the murder had been flagged—since he had put a request for immediate alert on the Denver Metr
o–
area chatter—Cooper gathered up the photos and files spread across his desk.

Even though he had predicted the murder, he
didn’t have a lot of time to prepare for the flight to Denver. All that time he’d wasted throwing pencils at the ceiling . . .

As Cooper had expected,
when he made his late-night phone call, Director Peters responded to the latest killing with an immediate travel authorization. Four Brilliants in four weeks, one every Thursday night. They all fit a pattern, and Cooper didn’t intend for the pattern to grow any larger.

He
had less than a week to solve the mystery if he was going to prevent a fifth killing. And that was damned good incentive.

He caught a charter flight
and headed out immediately, wheels-up time 2:45 a.m. He wouldn’t even have time to stop at home. A twinge of guilt knotted his gut. He wished he could see Natalie, swing Todd around and give him a good-bye kiss, but a jarring phone call in the middle of the night was the best he could do. While he gathered sundries from the go-closet in the Equitable Services offices, Cooper wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear. A groggy and alarmed Natalie picked up on the second ring. “Nick? It’s two in the morning.”

“
Yeah, honey. Sorry. Not coming home tonight. Something’s happened.”

She
was immediately awake. “Are you all right?”

“
I’m fine. It’s not about me. A really important case in Denver.” He dug through his desk, looking for pencils to pack into the briefcase next to his spare notepads, then realized they were all still stuck in the ceiling. “I’m gonna be gone for a couple of days. Maybe more than a week.”

If I don’t figure out the pattern and catch the killer before next Thursday
, I’ll have to add the new data and try again.

He winced, imagining the expression on her face.
“Nick, that’s too much! Todd’ll be so disappointed in the morning when you’re not here. Is it some sort of conference?” Though frustrated, Natalie was trying to be a good wife and mother. Cooper could hear all the warnings in her voice, and he knew that when he got back to DC he would have to make up for this trip.

He closed his eyes
, realizing that even Natalie didn’t think Equitable Services did important work. She was convinced he just had a desk job—and not even a glorified one at that—in a minor department that had little importance. “It’s not a conference, Nat. It’s a serial killer—somebody is murdering Brilliants.”

H
e heard her catch her breath, reassess. “I’ll take care of Todd in the morning. You just do your job—and do it fast, so you can be back home soon, okay?”

He nodded
, even though she couldn’t see him. “Love you.”

He could hear the smil
e on her face. “Love you, too.”

He hung up the phone and glanced over the
case file, everything he knew so far, but with few details of the new victim. It was still a fresh, active crime scene, and he wanted to get out there as soon as possible. The Denver PD hadn’t realized the dead girl was another Brilliant, since they tended to keep a low profile. But the DAR had all the records, and Cooper could give them the key that they didn’t have.

With all the data
assembled, he slid his datapad on top of the stack, closed his briefcase, and grabbed his jacket. As he slung it around his body, he knocked over the cup of cold coffee. No great loss, but the bitter black ooze spilled all over his desktop.

It was a good reminder to pay attention.
Slow down, Cooper.
At this point in his career, he’d had only a few field assignments. He felt butterflies in his stomach, even though he had practically begged his mentor Peters to let him go to Denver.

Inhaling
slowly, he counted to five, then exhaled. He grabbed a handful of brown paper towels to mop up the coffee spill. He had to get to the private airport and head off to Denver; he could sleep on the plane. He tucked the briefcase under his arm, scanned the desk one last time to make sure he hadn’t forgotten something, then hurried out of the office.

FRIDAY

Chapter 14

The next morning, Adam rested his hand against the cool glass of the window, absorbing hyperfocused details of a world that now seemed empty. He hadn’t moved for hours. Ingrid had helped him to his bed after the detectives left, but as soon as she had gone, he pulled himself back into his chair and rolled over to the window. Staring into the darkness of night, he had sat through dawn and into the new day.

Soon enough, Ingrid would be back to check on him, worried, trying too hard to help.
Or the police would insist on talking with him again, and he would have to hold back on any details so they didn’t learn about his ability. Even if he told them, they wouldn’t understand, or believe. And it didn’t matter anyway. It was too late. Chloe was already dead.

With swift efficiency, just another day at work, t
he Denver PD had barricaded her apartment, festooning it with yellow crime-scene tape. Photographers and evidence techs had scurried through her home for hours afterward, swarming like little ants, picking up tiny objects and carrying them one by one back to their case files. Someone took her cat away; he didn’t know where.

As
Adam watched through the window, his eyes dry and burning, he yearned for them to be gone, to stop intruding on the remnants of Chloe’s life. By dawn, his wish was granted and the apartment became dark, empty, transformed from warm home to sterile crime scene.

As he watched t
hroughout the night, his skin had vibrated as he pushed with his mind, reaching out with his ability. He felt the window glass humming under his touch. His eyes twitched, and he used his gift to walk through every inch of her dim apartment, making sure he filed the details in the long-term storage of his memory. He could not—would not—forget anything about her.

But as the
fresh morning brightened and people moved about, his eyes drifted away, distracted by other lives, other routine activities.

Selene
was already kicking out another one of the drunk losers she had brought home from a bar long after midnight. He had followed her in for rough sex, even past the mayhem of the crime scene. Were the flashing police lights and departing coroner’s wagon aphrodisiacs? Now Selene was kicking him out.

Adam
listened to their argument, winced as the loser laughed while Selene got more strident, then he called her a bitch (how original), insulted her skill in bed, and strolled out as she screamed after him.

Adam
tried to take refuge in his memories of Chloe. He refused to be drawn into Selene’s all-too-familiar domestic drama, not caring about any of the other lives in the apartment building. He fought the distraction, forced his will to focus on what he wanted.

Adam left his hand on the window and watched
Chloe’s empty apartment throughout the morning.

Chapter
15

In the Denver Police Department District 6 headquarters, Cooper fought back a yawn, then shook his head and got back to work. The three hours of sleep he’d caught on the plane would have to tide him over for now.

He sipped on a cup of thin, flavorless coffee
, worse even than the bitter brew that simmered on the Frankenmaker all day. Police stations were not known for the quality of their refreshments.

Police officers
wandered back and forth in the open precinct room behind him. As a visiting guest from Washington, DC, Cooper had been given one of the side offices, where he could stare at the crime board for the Broken-Bottle serial killer. Even though Equitable Services was a small task force without much influence, the DAR had a large footprint, and invoking the term “Federal Agent” worked magic. The detectives were glad to have the assistance on the case, and when Cooper had revealed that all four of the killer’s victims were Brilliants, Jones and Rodriguez immediately paid attention.

Now he sat and stared, trying to grasp the gestalt of all the murders.
Photos of all four crime scenes were neatly organized across the top of the board, with the corresponding coroner’s reports and victim photographs arranged below. A timeline ran along the bottom.

Detective Jones leaned against the
opposite wall, pointing at the board. “I’m telling you, man. Even if the vics are all Twists, it’s still random.”

“Brilliants,” Cooper corrected.

Jones rolled his eyes. “Aren’t we politically correct? I’ll have to be sure the killer doesn’t use any derogatory terms when we catch him.” He stepped closer to the board. “No prints, no security-cam footage on any of the four. No breaks. I normally don’t like Feds stepping in on my investigations, and I’ve never heard of Equitable Services—sounds like a customer-relations group—but we could use help here if you think you’ve got something.”

A
djacent to the crime board, a second magnetic board was populated with photos of persons of interest, each with a color-coded magnet linked to evidence on the victim board. One by one, neighbors and acquaintances had been crossed off. Cooper would have to dig deeper, but even with his ability, he couldn’t see any faint connections among the people gathered here.

He
glanced at the detective. “I hope I can help you crack this thing before we get a fifth victim.”

“
Right. It’s a small office. We don’t have the wall space to handle many more victims on the board,” Jones said. The joke fell flat.

Cooper
studied the photos, looked at the array from a different angle, hoping for an epiphany, but his eye wasn’t drawn to anything. Rubbing his eyes and scratching his jaw, he ran through it again, uploading details, letting facts, connections, hints, and ideas float around in his mind.

The bottom
photo caught his attention. Pulling out his personal datapad, he swiped through files. “What about this guy? The only witness to last night’s murder. Looks like he placed hundreds of 9-1-1 calls over the past year.”

“
Yeah, he’s a nut—a bored and nosy neighbor.” Jones didn’t even have to glance at the picture of Adam Lee. “Obviously paranoid, sees suspicious activity in people waiting at a bus stop. From that distance, though, no way he could have seen enough detail to be helpful.”

“Is he involved somehow?”

“No more than being a Peeping Tom, if you ask me. And the vic was a pretty girl—my guess is she left her curtains open one time too many. But Lee didn’t do it, if that’s what you’re wondering. He’s, uh . . . paraplegic or quadriplegic, whatever the term is. A vet, I think. Stuck in a wheelchair, can’t move, can’t even get out of his building.”

Cooper
stared at the picture, absorbing the details. He could imagine someone like that just watching out his window, seeing more than he bargained for. “Did he give a good account?”

“
Nah, too traumatized by what he saw. I think there’s something . . . off about him anyway. Something psychological. His VA therapist was there. I couldn’t say if she was his physical therapist or, you know, his
therapist
.”

“Did you talk to the other neighbors in the apartment building?”

“Nobody saw or heard anything. Our guess is that it was quick and quiet. No sign of a struggle. The girl didn’t see it coming.” His gaze ran across the other three victims. “None of them did.”

“
And you’ve got nothing to connect these people together? Other than that they’re Brilliants?”

“
Didn’t even know that until you showed up. Oh, we’ve got a couple things here and there, between one victim or another, but nothing really stands out. Each victim was in the military at some point, but different branches, different times. You know how many bases we have in the Denve
r–
Colorado Springs area? Half the population is connected to the military in some way. Not specific enough that we could draw any big conclusions.”

But Cooper’s attention was drawn to another detail
.
If Adam Lee was also a veteran . . .

“And Thursdays,” Jones added. “Maybe something about the killer’s schedule gives him t
he opportunity every Thursday. Could be anything.”

Cooper let the details continue to drift around like flotsam caught in a current. “Let’s start
with a map of the city. I need to see all the locations.”

“
Sure thing,” Jones said. “I’ll be right back.”

Before long,
Jones returned dragging a corkboard on wheels with a large Denver street map and clumps of different-colored stickpins in the margins. Together, he and Jones worked their way down the victim list and put red pins at each crime scene, then blue pins for witnesses and anyone who had provided statements, then white pins for all the persons of interest. The colored pins were confined within a twelve-block area.

Cooper stood back and stared at the colors, the streets, the topography, intensifying his focus and using high-order instincts to see if he could, literally, connect the dots.
He remained motionless, staring at the walls, and he
analyzed
. Analysis and response, that was what his department was about. Jones stepped back to give him a better view, curious to see his process.

Cooper sighed.
“I did some reading up on serial killers. Seems there are two types when it comes to the geographical spread. One type works far from their home, killing in a different part of town, even a different city entirely. The second type is one who escalates, and that one sticks to the area they already know. Like harvesting familiar ground.” He stared at the circle that enclosed the locations of the killings.

Jones
didn’t seem excited by the prospect. “I don’t have the resources to canvass that whole area. It’s a lot of territory.”

Cooper tapped the white pin inside the circle
, the one adjacent to the red pin of the previous night’s murder. “Meanwhile, I think I’ll try to talk to this Adam Lee. We still need to learn what he really saw. Maybe I can work with his therapist.”

“
Yeah, man. She’ll probably need to hold his hand.” Jones flipped through his notebook until he found the right information, which he slid over to Cooper. He memorized it at a glance, didn’t need to copy it down. “Good luck—it’ll save me the trouble. The guy seems to be high maintenance.”