ONE

 

 

Stephen’s cheek twitched.

Only feet away. Inches. He could reach out right now and throttle the bastard. Or even better, get the penknife in his pocket, and plunge it into the beast’s neck; finish it all in one swift stroke.

But then he’d be the one going to prison.

And there was only one person in this elevator who deserved that.

He shuffled to one side, bumping into a guard escorting the prisoner, the object of his hate, to the courtroom. Why he had been brought up on the same elevator as him, only God knew, the twist of fate that had afforded this opportunity understandable to only the great unknown, but there he stood, just having met with the Assistant District Attorney, who had given him the unbelievable, unspeakable news that the world was about to learn.

His sister’s killer was going free.

Wayne Cooper. The man who had raped his sister for hours, stabbed her thirty-seven times, then raped her dead body for hours more. He sucked in a lungful of air quickly, noisily, at the memory.

So painful.

Cooper turned toward the sound, and when their eyes met, he smiled.

“Hello, Steve. Did you hear the good news?”

Stephen’s heart slammed against his ribcage. He could hear the blood rushing through his veins as the roar of rage filled his ears. He reached in his pocket and gripped the penknife.

Just one swift stroke, and it would all be over.

But instead he nodded.

Cooper smiled. “Good. I’m glad my friends are here.” He looked up at the display as it counted down the floors. “We should go celebrate after I’m released.”

Stephen saw red. Spots appeared in front of his eyes, and he realized he had been holding his breath. He felt slightly lightheaded, the pounding continuing.

He gasped in a lungful of air, clarity returning.

And he pulled the penknife from his pocket. Slowly. Reaching over with his free hand, he extended the blade. It was short, not even three inches, but properly placed, it would do some damage, and if he had enough time, enough luck, it would kill the animal in front of him. He turned his shoulder inward, to position himself so the guard to Cooper’s left couldn’t see his hands.

He stepped forward, the knife rising from his side, his eyes focused on the back of the man’s neck, just at the base of the skull. One direct hit, and it’ll all be over.

The elevator chimed and the door opened, spilling its passengers into the hall. Stephen stood frozen, knife at chest level, his opportunity lost.

And he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

“Coming, Stephen?”

The taunting voice snapped him back to reality, and he stepped out just as the doors were about to close. He dropped the knife into a nearby trash bin, and walked in the opposite direction, toward the public entrance of the courtroom.

“See you soon, Stephen!” he heard the bastard’s voice call from around the corner. It echoed through the corridor, as if a haunted memory. He looked up and froze.

There was the man whose fault this all was. The man who had lost the evidence that would have assured this bastard’s conviction.

There was Detective Justin Shakespeare, NYPD.

 

Detective Shakespeare looked up from the bench he sat on when Vincent “Vinny” Fantino, head of the crime lab, tapped him on the shoulder.

“Look,” he whispered.

Shakespeare leaned forward to see where Vinny was looking and frowned. It was Stephen Russell, brother to the first victim of Wayne Cooper, a notorious serial rapist and murderer they had taken off the streets five years ago.

And today, thanks to you, he goes free.

“I should talk to him.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? If I were him, I’d be hating us right about now.”

“Us?”

Vinny looked at Shakespeare. “Yeah, ‘us’. You may have lost the gun”—Shakespeare’s chest tightened at the memory—“but it’s my evidence they’re tossing today.” Vinny shook his head, his cheeks flushing. “Fucking justice system. They know damned well the evidence is good, but just because I make a paperwork error, they toss it. Goddamned lawyers. Punish me, but keep the evidence in.”

Shakespeare grunted as he pushed on his knees to get himself up, his bones feeling far older than they should, tired of carrying his bulk around. I gotta lose weight.

“You okay?”

Shakespeare shrugged. “Just looking forward to that sweet sweet relief a massive heart attack will bring.”

Vinny frowned, looking at Shakespeare, as if trying to figure out whether or not he was joking.

He wasn’t.

But he was.

Ever since his doctor had indicated he might have a problem and scheduled him for testing, every twinge, every discomfort, had him thinking ‘this is it!’. The sad thing was these were the same twinges and pains he had always felt, probably his entire life, and most likely the fitness freaks like Vinny even had them and didn’t think twice. But when your doctor says the left side of your heart may be larger than it should be due to high blood pressure caused by weight and stress, every little thing in the chest area becomes a pending heart attack.

It sucked.

Now he was afraid to even get on the treadmill. His doctor had said not to worry about it—yeah right!—and continue on as before. Try to lose some weight though, and reduce your stress. Shakespeare shook his head at the memory. Doc, diets cause me stress. His doctor had smiled, that all knowing smile doctors seem to have when they don’t want to give you an answer, because they don’t have one.

He looked at Stephen Russell and stepped toward him, but Russell glared at him, then turned on his heel, marching out of sight.

“I guess that solves that,” said Vinny.

Shakespeare grunted, debating whether or not to sit down again.

The courtroom doors opened, ending the debate.

“Let’s go watch our careers tank.”

Shakespeare nodded, following Vinny into the courtroom. The decision by the judge hadn’t been made public yet, but everyone ‘in the know’ knew what was about to happen. The evidence, the key piece, a strip of tape with DNA on it, found at the scene of the last victim, had been mislabeled. The wrong apartment number. 401A instead of 410A. And these were the exact type of screw-ups defense attorneys spent days and dollars on finding.

And they had found it.

In a Hail Mary effort they had claimed the DNA evidence against their client had been faked, and requested it be provided for their own testing, using the most recent techniques. The court had agreed, and when the evidence was delivered, they had found the error. And that was all it took. They immediately went to the press, then the court, claiming there was no way to know for certain if the evidence was actually from the crime scene, since it had been five years, and all along it had the wrong address.

It was bullshit, everyone knew it, but since it was the only piece of evidence, what with the gun stolen from Shakespeare’s car, the entire case would fall apart without it.

And the killer of seven women would be set free.

Free to do it all over again.

Shakespeare sat on the bench behind the prosecution’s table, the Assistant District Attorney who had been handling the case since the beginning already there. Vinny slid in beside Shakespeare, followed by Lieutenant Gene Phillips and the DA himself. ADA Susan Turnbull looked over her shoulder and glared at Vinny, then Shakespeare.

Both looked at their shoes.

Lt. Phillips leaned forward slightly, looking at Vinny and Shakespeare. “How are you two holding up?”

Both shrugged.

“Uh huh. Well, as soon as we’re out of here, we’ll reopen the case.”

Shakespeare leaned forward.

“Who’s lead?”

Lt. Phillips looked at him, a slight frown on his face, and Shakespeare knew he was about to lose the case. He didn’t blame him. It had been his fuckup that nearly cost them it in the first place. He was a diabetic. Only none of his co-workers knew it. He had been stuck at the crime scene all day, and when he left with the gun to bring it in for testing, he had felt his blood sugar drop. He knew from past experience if he went hypoglycemic he could slip into a coma and die, so he pulled over to get something to eat. In his confusion caused by the low blood sugar, he had left his car unlocked, and the gun sitting on the passenger seat.

And it had been stolen.

He and Vinny had a rip-roaring fight over it, in public, but Shakespeare had been too ashamed to admit what had really happened. That he had been sick, that he was a diabetic, and that it was because of his weight. The two had barely spoken for five years except to exchange insults, and had only recently patched things up.

And his career had taken a nosedive.

He had basically said ‘fuck it’, and began to coast through life, letting his new partner, Detective Hayden Eldridge, handle things. It wasn’t until Eldridge’s last case that Shakespeare began to reclaim his life, some hope restored by finding a woman who actually loved him, rolls, folds and all.

And he thought he had done quite well since.

He needed this.

He needed this to fully reclaim his life.

“LT, I need this.”

Phillips’ frown creased his face deeper.

Shakespeare leaned in. “You know me. I’m back. I’m my old self again. I need to make this right. It was my fuckup that got us where we are today.”

“And mine,” interjected Vinny.

“Let me make this right.”

Phillips looked at Vinny, then the DA who said nothing. Turnbull had spun around in her chair, delivering her opinion through narrowed, angry eyes. Phillips looked at Shakespeare.

“Fine, it’s yours.”

Shakespeare smiled, exchanging a fist bump with Vinny. He held his fist up to the lieutenant and raised his eyebrows. “Come on, LT, you know you want to.”

Phillips shook his head, a smile breaking out, giving him the love. Turnbull let out a burst of disgust through her lips and turned to face the front of the court.

“All rise!” ordered the clerk as the judge entered. Shakespeare pushed himself up with a grunt, and by the time he was standing dropped back onto the bench with the announcement of, “You may be seated.”

He felt a pounding in his chest that wasn’t normal, then the tightness set in. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes, then exhaled slowly. He repeated this a few times.

“You okay?”

He nodded to Vinny’s question without opening his eyes. “Just”—deep breath and exhale—“relaxing.”

“Well, you might want to keep those eyes closed.”

Shakespeare’s latest exhale stopped and he opened his eyes. “Huh?”

Vinny jerked his head slightly to indicate the rows behind them. “Looks like our fan club is present.”

Shakespeare looked over his shoulder and saw the bench behind them occupied by “The Seven” as he had taken to calling them. One representative for each of the victims. One stalwart who had never missed a day in court, whether it was arraignment, trial, motions. It didn’t matter. The Seven were always there.

And they didn’t like him.

That he knew. He had lost the gun, he had nearly lost the case, and now, he was about to actually lose it. At least now he had Vinny to keep him company in The Seven’s doghouse. He gave Rebecca Sorenson, the sister of the third victim, a nod and turned back to face the front of the court before she could sneer at him, but instead found himself staring at the defendant’s “side” of the court.

It was packed.

It appeared Wayne Cooper had quite the following. And he did. His mother had sworn he was innocent since the beginning, claiming he had been at home with her every night one of the murders was committed. Her statement was dismissed as that of a mother who would lie to protect her son. The prosecution had blown the alibi to pieces with footage of the house, a humble, unkempt home, where Cooper lived in the basement, his mother upstairs.

A basement which had its own entrance.

The prosecution had successfully convinced the jury that Cooper could have left the house at any time without his mother knowing, and besides, what mother wouldn’t lie to protect her son.

But what Shakespeare had found troubling, in fact most people attached with the case had found troubling, was the enjoyment Cooper seemed to get from the limelight. His mother had set up a Facebook page for him, Twitter accounts, a website—essentially every type of social media she could think of, to garner support. They had fundraised over the Internet, successfully paying for most of his legal fees, but what was truly sickening to those who knew how guilty he was, was the fact that he had tens of thousands of fans on his Facebook page, almost forty thousand followers on Twitter.

It was disgusting.

Shakespeare, by no means tech savvy, had let his girlfriend’s son, Tommy, set up Facebook and Twitter on his phone so he could ‘experience the twenty-first century’. He had taken the opportunity only this morning to check out what this monster had been posting through his mother’s fingers.

“Be seeing you all soon!” was the last thing Shakespeare had read on the Twitter feed.

Shakespeare’s eyes shifted and he shuddered as he caught Cooper staring at him, a strange look on his face—eyes glazed over, the muscles on his face slack, his head tilted slightly to the side, the left half of his mouth opened a tad more than it should be.

They said it happened during birth. Forceps had damaged his facial muscles, and according to the defense, had led to a life of bullying and heartache. A life of living at home, going out only for school where he was constantly taunted, and church where he was constantly stared at. He rarely left home, except for his morning job of delivering newspapers, which is how the prosecution had tried to show he had met his first victim.

Claire Russell.

She was one of the newspaper’s longtime subscribers, and described as a saint by those who knew her, including her brother, Stephen Russell who sat amongst The Seven, her husband dead just months before her murder. But the defense had blown the newspaper link out of the water, able to show his delivery area ended one block away, and there had been little if any chance he would have ever met her what with him being a near shut-in.

Leaving another widow with no link to her killer.

Shakespeare’s chest tightened even more, leaving him thinking of his own impending doom. If he were to marry Louise, would he leave her a widow in just a few years?

You’re not dead yet. Let it go!

He took in another deep breath as he stared at Cooper, the killer’s attention now on the proceedings that were droning on. Seven victims. Six widows. It had earned Cooper the nickname of “The Widow Rapist”. Splashed across the headlines of every major rag the city had to offer, vile banners like “Widow Rapist Strikes Again!”, “Widows, Lock Your Doors!”, “Widows, Remarry Now!”

Only Sandra Gray, the last victim, had been married, her husband Carl, a mailman, had come home early in the hopes of surprising his wife. Instead, he walked in on the crime in progress.

And it had caught Cooper off guard.

In his rush from the house he had left his gun before getting a chance to put his customary bullet in the back of her head, something he did to each victim at the end of their ordeal, despite them already being dead. They ran the serial number directly from the crime scene, and traced it to an Eileen Cooper. Detectives Walker and Curtis were immediately sent to the address, and Shakespeare, the lead detective, took charge of the gun, realizing it could be the key to solving the case and linking them all together. All they needed was to fire the weapon in their lab, and match the ballistics to the bullets from the other six crime scenes.

Walker and Curtis interviewed Eileen Cooper as the crime scene continued to be processed. Of course the gun couldn’t be produced, to which she pled ignorance, claiming she never owned a gun. Further interrogation revealed she had a son, Wayne, who lived in her basement. They ran his name and found he was on the sex offender registry, where Cooper had a conviction for propositioning a fifteen year old girl when he was twenty-one. He had spent three years behind bars, and that night was nowhere to be found.

They knew they had their man.

But the gun had been stolen, the only link between all seven crimes.

With the gun stolen, the arrest warrant was denied as the gun evidence was tainted, ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’. So Vinny and his crew had returned to the scene and scoured it again from top to bottom, eventually finding the DNA on a piece of tape holding a broken door jamb in place. And with Cooper in the sex offender’s database, with his DNA on file, they had a match, and the charges were laid.

But for only one murder.

The gun had been used to shoot the first six victims in the head after he had raped and stabbed them repeatedly, his fetish sickening by any standards. But without it to perform ballistics on, they couldn’t prove the link. He hadn’t left any other evidence at any of his previous murders.

And today that single, vital piece of evidence, the lone, solitary link between Cooper and the crime scene, was being tossed due to two transposed digits.

Shakespeare heard the gavel drop and cheers erupt from the other side of the courtroom, along with angry shouts from behind him.

Wayne Cooper stood, a smile on his face as he stared at Shakespeare, mouthing the first words Wayne Cooper would utter as a free man, the system having once again failed the innocent.

“Thank you, Detective.”

 

Sam Bishop sat in his car and waited.

It had been two hours since Cooper had been released, and he had yet to make an appearance. The front steps of the courthouse were filled with supporters, protesters and the press. Bishop knew Cooper could have gone out any number of exits, but he was counting on Cooper’s ego to take charge and have him exit where the press was.

But two hours?

Bishop shifted in his seat, his bladder demanding attention. He had assumed Cooper would sign some paperwork and leave, which was why when the verdict was announced, he had left the courtroom immediately to get his car.

When he left, his motivation was clear. He was going to follow Cooper home and kill him. Justice had to be served. But as the rage cooled, the fantasy encounter in his head, where he surprised Cooper and beat the living shit out of him before killing him by stabbing him seven times, one for each victim, turned. The fantasy began to change, and Cooper would gain the upper hand, and Bishop himself would be the one killed.

It had been enough to cool his jets.

Now the plan was just to find out where he would be staying, then report back to the others. Together they would decide what needed to be done. He sighed, closing his eyes. The group. The Seven. He had heard them called that. Initially at the trials there had been a large number of people for each victim attending the trial, but it had dragged on, and when the charges were tossed due to lack of evidence for the other six victims, most had left in outrage.

But not The Seven.

They had been more than seven initially, even after the dismissal of the other six cases. There had been about twenty of them, but over the months it had dwindled down to the seven of them, one person determined to keep the attention on Cooper for their respective loved one. And over the years, the five long years, they had become close.

Very close.

They were their own support group. No one could understand what they had been through better than each other. When one was feeling down, feeling lost, feeling scared, a message merely needed to be sent on Facebook and immediately the others would stop what they were doing and begin to chat online. Or if someone really needed that human touch, a text message, a phone call, was all that was needed and they could count on the other six arriving to help them out.

They had become friends. They had become family.

Several had even moved to New York to be closer. New York, being the type of city it was, attracted people from all over the country, and the world, so seven random victims had little chance of all being born and raised in New York.

He was fortunate in that he lived here. He had moved in with his twin sister after the death of her husband in a freak accident to help her get back on her feet. She had been devastated by his death.

A feeling he now knew too well.

His chest tightened.

Pam!

His eyes burned with tears as they escaped and ran down his cheeks. Desperately he tried to remember her face during happier times, but he couldn’t. All he could picture was her naked body, lying half on the bed, her legs draped over the side, her backside exposed, and the dozens of stab wounds to her back, some pre-mortem, some perimortem, but most post-mortem.

Her hair had been matted in blood, her face turned to the side, away from the door. When he had entered the room and found her body, he had rushed to the bed and flipped her over. Her face was covered in blood, her features almost unrecognizable from the beating she had taken before the rape had begun.

He had collapsed on the floor, holding her, trying to clean the blood and hair from her face, screaming for someone to help him for almost half an hour before the police had stormed into the house, a neighbor finally having called.

They had to pry him away from her, and in one last indignity, had handcuffed him and placed him inside a cruiser until the detectives arrived to sort things out.

And now, even after five years of staring at family photos, wedding photos, vacation photos, candid photos, he still couldn’t picture her when his eyes closed, without seeing the bloody corpse he had discovered.

And for that Wayne Cooper had to pay.

He had no idea if the death of Cooper would allow him to move on, to put the past behind him, but he did know one thing for certain. As long as Wayne Cooper was a free man, any hope Bishop had for recovery was lost.

He opened his eyes and looked at the steps of the courthouse and felt his heart leap into his throat. His hand darted for the keys, shaking so hard it took him three attempts to actually turn them enough to start the car.

Wayne Cooper was halfway down the steps, talking to reporters.

With a smile that left Bishop livid.

 

“Mr. Cooper, Aynslee Kai, WACX News. Now that you’re a free man, what do you plan to do?”

Cooper fixed his eyes on Aynslee, and she felt her skin crawl. This guy’s a creep!

“I was thinking of having dinner with my mother,” he said, then leaning in, added, “but if you’re free tonight, I’ll happily change my plans.” His tongue darted out suggestively. Several of the other reporters groaned in disgust, but Aynslee didn’t take the bait.

“Is that an offer for an exclusive, Mr. Cooper?” His eyes opened slightly wider, and he paled just a tint. Not so confident, are we? “Should I pick you up at your place tonight, Mr. Cooper. Say six o’clock?”

He took a step back, then was grabbed by the arm and hurried down the steps toward a waiting car by his lawyer. Aynslee lowered her mike and signaled for her crew not to follow the creep as he beat a hasty retreat into a waiting limo, probably financed by one of his fans. Steve Davis and Mike Parker, her camera and sound guys, lowered their equipment.

“Christ, Aynslee, you’d think after what you’ve been through you’d try not to bait guys like that,” scolded Steve.

“What? Creeps?”

“No, serial killers!” exclaimed Mike.

“Serial killer? I’ve met serial killers, and this guy’s no serial killer.” She stopped, her eyes narrowing. She looked at Mike then Steve. “Did I just say that?”

“Say what?”

She smiled at the sound of the voice and turned to look up the steps at the lumbering form of Detective Justin Shakespeare and his once nemesis Vinny Fantino.

“Justin!” she said, stepping up to give him a hug. He returned the hug, still a little awkwardly for her liking, and she let him go. She looked into his face and he seemed a little—she searched for the word—off. “Are you feeling okay?” she asked, lowering her voice.

Shakespeare appeared surprised. She didn’t know him that well, but he had saved her life twice, and over the past couple of months had tried her best to repay that by getting to know him. In fact, she had just last week asked him out for dinner, something she wanted to make a regular occurrence if he’d let her. It had been so cute. His reaction when she had asked him was almost school-boyish. The awkward ‘ahs’ and ‘ums’ quickly made her realize he thought she was asking him out on a date, and she had been forced to stifle a smile and save him by adding, “please invite your girlfriend, I’d love to meet her.” Before she said it, she wasn’t sure if he had a girlfriend, but it had immediately eased the tension, and the ‘date’ was on.

“Yeah, I’m okay. Just not happy about this case,” he said.

“That’s putting it mildly,” muttered Vinny.

Aynslee put her hand on Shakespeare’s arm. “Still on for tomorrow night?”

Shakespeare smiled, and nodded. “Absolutely, looking forward to it. We both are.”

“Great, I’ll see you there.”

Shakespeare shuffled down the steps, followed by Vinny who gave her a smile and nod, looking a little confused at the conversation. Aynslee watched Shakespeare climb into his beast of a Cadillac and roar off the moment Vinny’s foot cleared the pavement.

I’m glad those two have patched things up.

“Aynslee, the ADA!”

Aynslee turned at Steve’s announcement, her game-face back on as ADA Turnbull rushed down the steps then stopped to face the cameras. “I have a brief statement to make, and will be answering no questions.” She took a deep breath, and turned slowly, giving each camera equal face time. “Today was a travesty of justice. A guilty man walked free due to a technicality. Someone screwed up, and I will do everything in my power to make certain they pay for their mistake. But the person who truly needs to pay walked free today, and that needs to be corrected. The District Attorney’s office will reopen the investigation into all seven murders, and with God as my witness, we will bring Wayne Cooper to justice!”

With that she gave a nod to her entourage who immediately surrounded her and escorted her down the steps, keeping the screaming hordes of reporters away from her.

“Where to now?” asked Mike.

“I think there’s only one place to go.”

“Where?”

“The Cooper residence.”

 

“So what now, Shakes?”

Shakespeare stood in ‘the pit’ at homicide, case boards and large flat screens showing pictures of each of the victims and the crime scenes. He perched himself on the corner of a desk, preferring a chair, but figuring to retain some semblance of authority, he should at least keep some of his height.

“We start from the beginning. We know he did it, we have his DNA, but that’s been tossed.”

“Sorry guys,” offered Vinny.

“No apologies today, though I’ll offer up mine now for what happened to the gun.” He paused, wondering if he should come clean on what had really happened. Not the time. “The gun, which we have the serial number for, was found at the scene of the seventh victim, the same scene where the DNA was found. We know ballistics tells us that the same gun was used at the first six scenes, but because Cooper was surprised by Sandra Gray’s husband returning, he never had a chance to put his customary bullet in the back of his victim’s head. If he had, we would have been able to link all seven crimes, and with the DNA, all seven murders to Wayne Cooper.

“But that didn’t happen. Instead, we have no link between the final murder, and the previous six. We know the serial number from the gun traces back to Wayne Cooper’s mother, so we know he’s our man. But, the judge tossed all the gun evidence because we couldn’t produce the weapon. And now, with the DNA evidence tossed, we have absolutely nothing.” Shakespeare clapped his hands together. “So where does that leave us?”

“Up shit’s creek,” said John “Johnny” Walker.

“Agreed. But let’s try to keep the self-pity to a minimum, and move forward. If we were investigating a serial homicide, what would we try to do? What’s one-oh-one on something like this?”

Detective Amber Trace, Shakespeare’s new official partner, raised her pen. “Connect the victims?”

“Bingo!” said Shakespeare. “We need to find out what the connection between these victims was, or how Cooper was connected to these victims. He chose them for some reason. Even if they were random, he chose them from somewhere. If we can figure that out, then we may be able to find someone or something that shows he had a prior relationship with the victims.

“We need to come at this from two fronts. One is to try and reestablish the case against Cooper for the last murder, and second, we need to link him to just one of the previous six murders. The ballistics does the rest for us. Just link him to one of those murders, and we link all six. Even if we can’t prove he did the Gray murder, he’ll be doing life for the other six.”

Shakespeare turned to Vinny. “Vinny, I want your team to be going over all the evidence again, using any new tricks, techniques, equipment, whatever, that you have now that you didn’t then. Look at everything fresh, see if there’s something you missed.”

“Got it.”

“Nonkoh, I want you to go over every unsolved rape and murder case going back from the time our boy was fifteen. See if there are any cases out there with anything similar. He may have done more than these seven, and we just missed it.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Kowalski and Jenner, I want you to go over your notes, read the case files, and try to retrace these women’s routines. Their lives. Go back as far as you can, see if you can find some link between them or Cooper. There has to be something we missed.”

“You got it, Shakes.”

“Walker and Curtis, you switch off with McKay and Clement from the nightshift. I want round the clock surveillance on this guy. I want to know where he goes, who he meets with. Everything.”

Walker stood. “We’ll take the first shift. Where do you think we can pick him up?”

“Call Officer Richards.” Shakespeare handed him a card with Richards’ cellphone number. “I already had him and his partner follow Cooper from the courthouse.”

Walker smiled as he took the card. “Seems you thought of everything, Shakes.”

Shakespeare ignored the compliment, instead flicking his wrist at Trace. “Trace and I will re-interview the families, and Cooper’s neighbors.” He pushed himself off the desk. “Let’s get to it!”

The room broke, everyone splitting off into their separate assignments. Trace walked over. “So, where to first?”

“I’m thinking neighbors. I have a feeling talking to the families today won’t be very productive.”

Trace nodded.

“Do you really think they’ll ever talk to you?”

Shakespeare shrugged. “They might not, that’s their prerogative. Personally, I don’t think many of them have much to offer. But if we could find something, some little thing that might link the cases, and could return that bit of hope to them, they just might change their tune.”

“Do you really think we’ll find anything new, after all these years?”

“We have to, otherwise this guy goes free.”

And I’ll never forgive myself.

 

“Where the hell’s he going?” asked Officer Brent Richards, a fifteen year veteran of the force, and Training Officer for the ‘rook’ in the passenger seat.

Officer Steve Scaramell leaned forward to see the limousine pull into a hotel entrance. “I thought he was staying at his mom’s place?”

A dozen press trucks pulled up around the hotel, their reporters rushing the steps of the Trump International Hotel and Tower as their suspect rushed inside, his head covered by a jacket, accompanied by his lawyer.

“Should we get in there for some crowd control?” asked Scaramell as he watched the doormen try to keep the press from entering the hotel.

“No, we’ve got our assignment. Nobody’s getting hurt, so let the hotel deal with it.”

One of the doormen finally locked down all but one of the doors and moments later another unit pulled up and the two officers took over, pushing the reporters back.

“Should we go inside, see what he’s doing?”

Richards shook his head. “No, if he’s coming back out, we’ll follow him. If he’s staying there, then we know where he is. If he’s sneaking out another entrance, we’ve got no way of catching him if we’re on foot. So let’s just wait—” He stopped. “Wait a minute, something’s happening.”

The reporters rushed the doors again as the only unlocked one opened. Cooper, still under the jacket, was hustled through the door by his lawyer and into the limousine again. As soon as the door closed, the limo pulled away in a hurry, sending several of the reporters scrambling to keep their legs intact.

“See, no worries,” said Richards as he put it in gear, pulling in behind the limo, several cars back. They drove in silence for several minutes, then Richards noticed something in his rearview mirror—a car being driven erratically, switching lanes back and forth, accelerating at every opportunity; if Richards didn’t know better, he’d say they had a tail.

“We’ve got company.”

Scaramell looked in his side view mirror. “Where?”

“Two back, our lane, dark sedan.”

Scaramell leaned forward. “Got it.”

“Can you get the plates?”

“I’ll try.” He pulled out his notepad and pen and jotted down a digit. Richards watched the car switch lanes again, and Scaramell wrote two more down. The limo ahead turned and Richards turned with it, Scaramell’s view temporarily lost. He stretched his neck, reviewing what he had written down so far.

“He’s back.”

Scaramell leaned forward again and smiled.

“He’s definitely not hiding.” He wrote down the rest of the plate number, the car only thirty feet behind them with no other cars in the way.

“Run the plate, see what you come up with,” said Richards.

Scaramell spun the computer toward him, hit a few keys, then entered the license plate number. A few moments later the information from the DMV popped up on the screen.

“Well?”

Scaramell frowned. “The car belongs to Sam Bishop—”

“Isn’t he the brother of one of the vics?” interrupted Richards.

Scaramell nodded, spinning the display toward Richards.

“It appears so.”

Richards glanced at the display, and the now familiar face of the very public Bishop.

What the hell are you thinking?

 

“He’s staying at his mother’s house, exactly as we expected.”

Carl Gray looked at Sam Bishop, then at Ken Crawford, father of Janet Dominguez, the sixth victim, then about the basement of his small home. Two couches, three chairs, filled with the members of The Seven, formed a semi-circle. A large plasma screen occupied the open wall, displaying a DVD with images of their loved ones, a constant reminder as to why they were here. This was their sanctuary, from the troubles outside, from the injustices of the world. Here they were safe. Here they were family.

A photo of his wife appeared on the screen, and just as quickly, disappeared, replaced with one of Ken Crawford’s daughter. But it was enough to cleave him hollow. He looked away, but the image was there. His wife. His beloved. Never to be held again, kissed again. The pain he felt was as raw today as it was the day of her death. He sometimes wondered if the others felt the pain he did. None of them were husbands. None of them had experienced the intimacy with their loved one that a husband and wife experience.

None of them could know how he felt.

None.

“That’s no surprise,” said Allan Fisk, the brother-in-law of Jessica Fisk, the second victim. “Everything we know about him is that he’s a mama’s boy who rarely left home.”

“I noticed a cop car following him then park on his street.”

“Well, if you noticed them, then Cooper certainly did,” said Rebecca Sorenson, sister of Maggie Campbell, the third victim. “These cops are so incompetent, it’s stunning.”

Gray nodded. “I don’t think we can rely on them for justice.”

Allan Fisk coughed in his coffee cup. “You don’t think we can rely on them? I think we can be certain we can’t rely on them. Especially that quack Shakespeare.”

Gray frowned. “You’re right, of course, Allan, slip of the tongue, I assure you.” He leaned forward. “Since we know for sure we can’t rely on the police, what do we do?”

“Justice must be done,” said Crawford.

“Agreed,” said Fisk.

Kara Long leaned forward. “Biblical justice,” said the daughter of the fifth victim, Theresa Long.

“He should have to suffer like my sister did,” said Sam Bishop, twin brother of Pam Brown, the fourth victim.

“Enough with the euphemisms,” said Stephen Russell. “My sister Clair was brutally raped and murdered, just like the rest of your loved ones. But she was first. She was the first in the ground, the first to die. And I want to be the one to do it. I want to be the one who kills him, because”—he paused, looking about the room from face to face—“because that is what we are talking about. He—must—die! We are talking about killing a man. Are we agreed on that?”

Everyone’s head bobbed.

“Good,” said Russell. “Then we need a plan on how to do it.”

“Agreed,” said Gray. “But I disagree that you should do it alone. I think it’s essential we all participate.”

“You all realize what you’re saying,” said Kara Long. “If we do this, we are murderers. Just like him.”

“Not like him!” yelled Bishop. He raised a hand, taking a deep breath. “I’m sorry. But I refuse to be compared to that animal. We are delivering justice. What he did cannot be compared to that.”

“Will God see it differently?” asked Long, pulling at her long black hair.

“I don’t give a shit about God,” replied Bishop. “If there is a God, why did he let a murderer like this walk the planet, then escape justice?”

“God always has a plan,” replied Long.

“And maybe we’re part of that plan,” offered Sam Bishop. “Either way, I don’t care. I want him dead. I’ll pull the trigger myself if need be.”

“Good,” said Crawford. “Then we’re all agreed. Wayne Cooper must die.”

 

“Did you hear that?”

Constance hit the mute button on her remote control, silencing the home movie she was watching, the last memories she had of her husband, a husband she had buried just last week after he had been hit by a garbage truck in what the police had described as a freak accident.

She shuddered at the memory, then realized she had asked her question to a ghost.

There it was again. A rattling noise, from the front entrance. Her heart pounded in her chest. I wish Jack were here. Tears filled her eyes as she realized she’d be alone for the rest of her life. She’d never love again. Not the way she loved Jack. She rubbed her belly, the small bump barely noticeable to anyone but her closest friends. But in a few more months, there’d be no hiding the fact that she would be giving birth to a fatherless child.

Again the noise, this time louder.

She jumped up and grabbed the phone, dialing 9-1-1 but not hitting Send. Armed with her phone and the remote control forgotten in the other hand, she approached the hallway at a tip-toe, trying not to make any noise, lest she give away the fact someone was home.

But they would have heard the television.

She rounded the corner and her eyes focused on the doorknob. The twisting doorknob. Something pushed through the doorframe and she gasped.

“Jack, I think someone’s at the door. Can you check?” she called out in the calmest voice she could muster.

All activity at the front door stopped.

Had she scared them away?

She stepped forward, to look through the window, when there was a tremendous bang and the front door burst open. A man rushed in, slamming the door shut behind him with one fluid motion, not losing any time as he closed the distance between the two of them. In her panic, her thumb spasmed and she hit the Send button on her phone, then had the presence of mind to throw the remote control at the man. It bounced off of him, the mute button pressed as he stepped on it, I’ve Had the Time of my Life blared from the living room as the last home video her husband had made played, showing their last vacation.

She turned to run away, but it was too late. A gloved hand grabbed her face, covering her mouth from the front. She screamed against it, but it was muffled to the point she knew no one would hear it.

The gun pressed against her temple brought silence.

He bent over and picked up the remote control as he pushed her with the gun into the living room. “Heartbreaking,” he said through the ski mask he wore. “Heartbreaking that one should be alone so young.” He grabbed the phone from her hand, placed it to his ear, then hung up.

Her heart sank.

“Wh-what are you going to do to me?”

He smiled through the ski mask, revealing a set of remarkably white teeth. But the smile wasn’t sincere, it was more villainous, more of a sneer, more for himself than her.

“Where do you think your husband is now?”

She looked at him from the corner of her eye as he pushed her against the back of the couch. “He-he’s at a friend’s playing poker. He’ll be back any minute now.”

The man laughed, tossing his head back, the gun momentarily leaving the side of her head. For a split second her instinct was to run.

The gun pressed a little harder this time.

“Nice try, my dear, but you and I both know your husband is dead.”

Her eyes burned as he pushed her head toward the television, the happy couple’s last vacation memories displayed.

“How do you know that?”

He pushed her over the edge of the couch, the gun mercifully no longer against her head. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but a reflection on the television screen made her think the gun may have been tucked into his belt.

“It doesn’t matter.”

He pushed his groin into her backside. She could feel his erection, and she knew what was about to begin. Just try to survive. Keep your wits about you, look for an opportunity to escape, but just survive!

He ground his hips into her and moaned, dropping down on top of her, his mouth in her ear. His whisper was hoarse, damp. “I’ll ask you again, where do you think your husband is now?”

Her stomach was in knots, her eyes pouring tears she didn’t want him to see. “I-I don’t understand.”

He reached around and cupped her breasts, kneading them like an inexperienced teenaged boy might.

“Don’t you believe in God?”

Oh God! Why are you letting this happen to me?

“Yes.”

He reached under her sweater, discovering she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“Oooh, dirty girl I see.”

He wrenched her nipple and she yelped in pain.

“If you believe in God, then why don’t you know where your husband is now? Are you not sure if he led a good enough life to get into Heaven?”

She wasn’t sure what to think. But if this creature believed in God, perhaps there was hope, perhaps she could appeal to his better side and survive.

“He’s in Heaven.”

He suddenly let go of her breasts and stood up. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, so she stayed still.

He yanked her gym pants down to her ankles, then her panties, and she knew what was coming. His crotch pressed against her again, and she heard a belt-buckle open.

“Are you sure he’s in Heaven?” he whispered.

“Yes. Yes I’m sure.” She gasped as she felt him undo his pants, the sound of the zipper causing her heart to slam against her chest. “Please, don’t do this,” she begged.

He shoved against her momentarily, then stepped back. She heard his pants hit the floor, and the sound of him shuffling to step out of them.

“And if you were to die tonight, in a car accident for example, would you go to Heaven?”

She suddenly found herself reevaluating her life, then stopped. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

He pressed against her again, but this time it was bare skin on skin. She felt his erection slide along her smooth backside. Oh God, help me! He leaned over and grabbed her by the hair, jerking her up.

“Are you sure? Are you sure you’ve led a good enough life to get into Heaven?” He turned her hair in his hand, tightening the grip. “Are you sure?” he asked, his whisper barely audible.

“N-no!” she finally cried. And she wasn’t sure. She had led a good life, but who was she to know what it took to get into Heaven. If you took the bible literally, she was a sinner, probably every day in some fashion. She didn’t go to church, she didn’t pray. She wasn’t a bad person, she didn’t do really bad things, she just lived a twenty-first century lifestyle. A lifestyle many thought fraught with sin.

“I didn’t think so,” he said, the delight obvious in his voice. He let go of her hair and she felt his hands run down her back then one hand left and she felt him position himself.

She squeezed her eyes shut, preparing herself for the pain and humiliation about to come.

Just survive!

He pushed inside and she screamed.

Leaning forward, he moved her hair aside, flicking his tongue over her earlobe. “I’m going to cause you so much pain, that you’ll be begging me to kill you. And when I do, you’ll have suffered so much that you’ll have been redeemed for all your sins, and be worthy of joining your husband in Heaven.”

He tore into her again, and she felt herself begin to shut down.

Just survive.