MARCUS AND ANDREW REACHED THE BRIEFING ROOM AT THE KCPD METRO POLICE STATION A HALF-HOUR AFTER RECEIVING A TEXT FROM KALEB TELLING THEM ABOUT THE MURDERS AT THE HOSPITAL AND THAT THEY HAD RECEIVED A NEW VIDEO. It was six in the morning. The briefing room looked like a classroom pulled from a community college. Block walls painted white. Speckled linoleum. Bars of fluorescent lighting shining out from behind translucent tiles in the recessed ceiling. Rows of gray tables filled the space, with two whiteboards and a podium occupying the front of the room.
Marcus found new police stations strangely disturbing. His old station house at the 77th Precinct in Brooklyn with its crumbling red brick and worn wood gave a feeling that the same rooms had been used by cops a hundred years ago and that the men and women inside were upholding a proud legacy. The new constructions were cold and institutional. No sense of history or heritage.
Kaleb led them inside. An FBI agent and Captain Duran looked over some case files at the podium. Most of the other tables were empty. Only the front two rows were in use by detectives from the task force who were waiting for the briefing to begin. Each of the detectives had a cup of coffee resting in front of them. The smell wafted up from their cups and made Marcus crave one.
As if reading his mind, Kaleb said, “Coffee?”
“Please,” Marcus said, even though he suspected it would be cheap and weak.
“None for me,” Andrew said.
Kaleb moved to the back of the room and filled two styrofoam cups while Marcus and Andrew sat down two rows behind the other men and women. Kaleb didn’t ask if Marcus wanted cream and sugar. He just delivered back a steaming cup of black caffeine.
“Thanks,” Marcus said to Kaleb. “So I heard that the deal at the hospital and the car dealership was your idea?”
Kaleb nodded and replied, “Unfortunately.”
“It was a good idea. The fact that it didn’t work doesn’t diminish that.”
“Tell that to Captain Duran.”
“Your mother?”
“Again, unfortunately.”
“Has to be tough working for her.”
“You have no idea. The only reason I’m still on the case after the fiasco at the hospital is because I’ve already been working with the two of you. And the funny thing is that I get it from both sides. She’s harder on me than any of the other guys, but they act like I get special treatment. Last Christmas, someone hung pacifiers on a miniature Christmas tree and left it on my desk. The star read Mama’s Boy.”
Andrew said, “It could be worse.”
“How’s that?”
Marcus answered, “Your parents could be serial killers.”
From the front of the room, Captain Duran announced, “Let’s get started, people.”
The detectives immediately quieted down. Captain Duran was a woman who commanded immediate attention. Marcus analyzed her. Not for any particular reason, just out of habit. Maria Duran seemed to him a woman of contradictions. Her demeanor was stern and all business, but her hair and make-up looked as if they had been done by a team of beauticians. Her curly black hair cascaded over her shoulders, instead of being pulled back or put up into a more professional style. She wore a conservative gray pantsuit and light purple shirt, but the top two buttons were undone, revealing some cleavage. She put out a tough image and demanded respect, but she also wanted no one to forget that she was a woman. She invoked equal parts fear and animal desire, and she seemed to get off on both.
She said, “Normally, we wouldn’t show this type of video to everyone. But I feel that you all need to see what’s coming for this boy if you fail to find him. Plus, we need as many sets of eyes on this as possible. Let us know if you notice anything that could help.” She asked one of the detectives to turn out the lights, and a video filled one of the whiteboards from a projector mounted on the ceiling.
The video was similar to the others that the killer had sent the police previously. Except for the location of the killing and the mask that the madman wore. This time he wore the face of a young woman in great agony.
To Andrew, Marcus whispered, “The masks are different in every video.”
Kaleb overheard and said, “We’re checking on that. We think they’re custom made. Detective Lazaro is questioning custom mask designers with enough skill to have made them or taught someone else how.”
Marcus watched as his father’s brutal depravity was put on display, but he tried not to focus on what was happening in the video. Instead, he focused on the details. He examined the gurney. The plastic sheeting. The clothes his father wore. Every detail, every frame, every sound. All of it broken down to its basic components and scrutinized.
Before he realized what he was doing, he was on his feet saying, “Hold on.”
Captain Duran paused the video, squinted into the dark room, and said, “Who said that?”
Fagan’s voice echoed in Marcus’s ears, but it was too late to turn back now. He said, “I recognize the house.” He walked over and flipped on the lights. Then he approached the podium. Captain Duran eyed him with confusion and suspicion as he grabbed the stack of case files from her hands and sifted through them.
After finding the correct file, he said, “The first target was an old man named Lawrence Goodweather. He was killed in his home. His only daughter lives in California, and she put the house up for sale. But who wants to buy a house where someone was just murdered?”
Marcus flipped through photos of the crime scene and held one up to the image that was paused on the screen. “See the woodwork, the layout of the doors, this crack in the drywall, the water damage on the ceiling here? This video was shot inside Lawrence Goodweather’s house.”
Maria Duran and the lead FBI agent looked from the photo to the screen. Repeated the process several times. The FBI agent nodded, and Duran said, “I think you’re right.”
Many of the detectives were already on their feet, ready to mobilize on the house. Duran stopped them. “Okay, we’re going to do this right. SWAT’s on standby. They’ll recon the place first. This may be where he’s keeping the Dunham boy, or it may be his base of operations. Or it may just be another crime scene. Either way, SWAT’s in charge. We do this by the numbers. Get to it.”
Everyone hurried from the room, except for Marcus and Andrew.
Marcus was still staring at the photo with a dour look on his face. Andrew asked, “I thought we were only supposed to observe.”
“What can I say? I’m impulsive, and I have a problem with authority. My psych eval says so.”
“So what’s on your mind now? You have that ‘something ain’t right’ look on your face. I hate it when you get that look.”
“I just can’t shake the feeling that we’re playing his game, reacting exactly how he wants us to. We were obviously meant to find Claire. And someone else would have figured out that this was the Goodweather house if I hadn’t. I’m worried that this is part of his plan.”
“I don’t know if anyone else but you would have noticed those minor details.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Either way, he’s obviously studied me, and he knew that I’d see the video and figure it out.”
“Okay, then what do we do about it?”
“Nothing. We have to play his game. At least for now.”