Mindhunters 4 - Deadly Intent (32 page)

Revulsion filled her. She’d heard of pedophiles who had families for the sole purpose of molesting their own children. To hear this monster express regret, as if his dearest dream had never come to pass, had her stomach threatening to revolt. “I only wish Raiker had met you earlier. Maybe you would have ended up like your friend.”

His gaze went hot as he raked her form, and there was a lurch in her belly when she recognized the expression in his eyes. “Many years have passed, and never have I forgotten you. In my dreams I would think of finding you again. Making many girl babies with you. Blue-eyed, with curly dark hair and soft white skin. So very soft.”

Blindly, she turned to the door. Whatever she’d hoped to accomplish here, she’d reached her limit. She raised her hand to summon the guard outside when his voice sounded again.

“How is your dear stepfather? Does Ian’s knee give him trouble when it rains?” His laugh raked over her nerves. The contempt in it shot her spine with steel. Macy turned to face him.

“He’s fine. Free to feel the ocean air on his face whenever he likes. He’ll be happy to learn of your life here. I’ll be sure to describe how you look in manacles.”

His face was a mask of hatred. “Of course he is fine. He has always been fine, dear Macy. A cowardly cheat who could not keep a bargain, but fine, just the same. Tell me, have you ever once seen his knee?”

Echoes of the screaming from the room next to her cage swarmed her memory. She’d heard those screams in her nightmares for years. Seen for herself what the torture had cost her stepfather. “Your life is not long enough,” she whispered hotly. “Your sentence is not nearly enough.”

He cocked a brow. “You were young. And so very innocent.” The last words were delivered slowly, as if he were savoring them. “You could not understand then, but I think you can now. Colombia was a dangerous place at that time, especially for foreigners. It was not unusual for wealthy families to pay insurance against the kidnappings that occurred so frequently.”

“I’m well aware that you and your friends became rich off the ransom.” She stared at him stonily, the most loathsome man she’d ever met. Given the numbers she’d helped put behind bars, it was a dubious distinction.

“We got but a pittance.” His fist came down on the table to punctuate his words, causing Macy to start. “Half for the men who employed me, which we would all share, half for your saintly stepfather. That was our deal. But Ian arranged for our share to be stolen away from us, and you, my English rose, are the reason. You told him . . .” He shook his head sadly. “Things I warned you not to say. He ended up keeping most of the money himself and within hours of your release both of you were out of the country with the entire five million dollars.” He spread his hands, anger in his expression. “I ask you, does that seem fair, after all our hard work?”

It was as if his words summoned a tiny movie reel, which fast-forwarded through still frames of those moments. The row of filthy cages, fashioned with boards and chicken wire. The hideous shrieks from the next room, following the sickening thud of the sledgehammer they’d used on Ian. The way the sun had seared her eyes when they’d released her to huddle, clasped to her bruised and bloody stepfather for the duration of the car ride to the drop-off point.

Those memories would always be a part of her. And coming here had done nothing to erase them. Her gaze lifted to Castillo. But she’d be damned if she’d allow the man to inflict more damage.

“You’re a liar. A human trafficker and child rapist. What makes you think I would believe anything you had to say?” She turned back to the door and banged her palm against it. “Done here.”

“See for yourself. Even after the best surgeons in the world—and surely he will say he saw only the best—there would be scars. Look for them, Macy. Examine his ‘injured’ leg, and you will see who the liar is.”

The door was unlocked, and she slipped out of it before it had even opened all the way. But she wasn’t running. Not this time.

Not ever again.

Chapter 12

“Tell me again why we’re waiting out here.” Agent Travis was slapping his folded gloves against his thigh in a rhythm born of anxiety.

“You don’t have to stay,” Kell explained for what felt like the dozenth time. “I want to see what Jonesy comes up with on those fingerprints.” The employee garage was well lit, spotless, and at least as warm as the agent’s SUV. He’d shed his coat shortly after passing the fingerprint cards over to Jonesy an hour earlier. “As a matter of fact, maybe you should go in and report to Whitman on the results of our day.”

“I don’t think so.” Dan folded his arms and leaned gingerly against the SUV they’d driven that day several feet away from where Kell had his hips propped on its bumper. “He’s going to want answers, and I want to be damn sure I can give them to him.”

“It shouldn’t be much longer.” But in truth Kell had no idea what the timeline on this sort of thing was. How hard could it be to match a set of prints? He hadn’t even asked that they be submitted to AFIS, the automated database that would compare them to millions of prints on file across the nation. He figured he’d leave that to the locals in Jefferson County if it came to that.

“Maybe you should ask him when he’ll be done.”

Kell gave a slight wince at the suggestion. His last friendly inquiry had elicited a ten-minute profanity-infused diatribe from the man. He didn’t mind the obscenities, but all the scientific jargon in the rant had made his head hurt. “Why don’t you ask this time?”

The two men looked at each other. Finally Travis crossed his booted feet. “I guess we can wait a little longer.”

“I guess we can.”

It was another fifteen minutes before Kell heard the sound of one of the automatic overhead doors opening. He straightened, turning toward the Suburban driving in. The SUVs were the most practical vehicles to drive in this locale. From their drives to and from Denver, it appeared Conifer always had about six inches more snow than the city.

But when he saw that it was Raiker behind the wheel, he ambled over. “Hey, boss. How was the trip?” His step faltered when he got a look at his employer’s visage.

“Is Macy back?”

“Uh . . . no.” He glanced around but recalled she’d been driven to the airport in one of Mulder’s cars. “I don’t think so. But I haven’t been in the house yet.”

Adam went around to open the back of the vehicle, reached in, and grabbed his bag. Kell sprang forward. “Let me get that for you.”

The look in Raiker’s eye stopped him in his tracks. “Have I suddenly become incapable of carrying my own suitcase?”

“Not that I know of.” Kell tried to recall the last time he’s seen Raiker this pissed. Certainly a few times since a punk managed to swipe his briefcase, back in his bureau days. The suppressed temper was rare enough to intrigue him but familiar enough to have him treading warily. Was it directed at Macy?

Falling into step beside the man, Kell figured he had to be wrong. He couldn’t figure a reason Adam would be furious with her. How much trouble could she have gotten into in the time she’d been gone?

“Care to explain what you’re doing hanging out in a garage?”

Kell gestured to the lab. For Travis’s benefit, he explained, “Got prints from that body you told me to check out today. When you called this afternoon.” He liked to think he had nerves of steel. It’d taken balls all those years ago to stand right next to the mark he was planning to rob. And after earning his detective’s shield, he’d racked up an impressive number of commendations from his undercover stint in vice.

So it was a measure of the man standing next to him that one assessing gaze had Kell wanting to shuffle his feet guiltily.

“The call from me.”

“With that tip you wanted me to check out?”

There wasn’t a flicker of expression on the man’s face. “The tip. About the body. Of course.”

“Uh, maybe you wouldn’t mind asking your, ah, Mr. Jones, how much longer he thinks the tests will take.”

When Adam shifted his attention to Travis, Kell felt a flicker of relief. “Who are you?”

“That’s Agent in Charge Dan Travis. Of the CBI. Adam Raiker.”

“Doesn’t seem all that difficult.” Raiker crossed to the RV door and pounded his fist twice on it. A response wasn’t long in coming. Moments later the door swung open. Adam ducked aside to avoid getting hit with it.

“Okay, that’s it. I told you once, Burke, that I’d let you know when I was done. Do I do this to you, huh?” Jonesy bounded down the two steps from the RV, visibly incensed. “Follow you around on the case, constantly push you for results? You want genius, it takes time.”

“And so, apparently, does mediocrity.” Nellie Trimball followed him out the door to fix them all with a jaundiced eye.

He turned on her with a suddenness that had the woman rearing back reflexively. “You’d know all about that, you self-important, elongated shrew.”

“Jonesy.”

Kell felt a stab of pity for the man when he heard the softly spoken word. If possible, his normally pale skin went even whiter.

“Adam.” His voice was weak as he swung around again. “You’re back.”

“What do you have for me?”

Visibly brightening, he said, “A lot, actually. I was just going to tell Burke I finished the test and we have a match.”

Excitement rocketed through Kell’s veins, but it was filtered with equal parts dismay. His hunch had paid off, but where did the news leave the case?

Raiker spared him a glance, before demanding, “Details.”

“A match?” Travis sounded relieved. “You ran the prints through AFIS then?”

“No, Burke said to run a comparison on your suspect. I ran it twice. Only six digits were intact, of course, but given the results, we can still be reasonably certain the body belongs to Nick Hubbard.”

“He wasn’t involved at all.” Driven to move, Kell had forgone a seat at the conference table to pace the room.

“We can’t know that,” cautioned Whitman. “There’s still the matter of his fingerprints in the girl’s room. And in the room next to hers. Remember the security specs you found taped to the back of the drawer in his filing cabinet. He may have had an accomplice who decided to get rid of him when his usefulness had ended.”

“The prints and the specs could have been planted. I’d say his usefulness ended about the time
his accomplice
severed his thumb. What did the kidnapper need to accomplish this goal? An employee’s thumbprint and his face.”

“There wasn’t much left of Hubbard’s face,” Travis put in from his seat next to Whitman. “But it didn’t look like anything human had been at it.”

“Ever seen one of those silicone masks?” Kell gestured to his head. “High-end ones sculpted by artists can cost thousands of dollars, but they’re as good as anything you’d see from a Hollywood’s special-effects team. The silicone moves with the facial expressions, and I’m telling you, they look real. You can even have hair attached, eyebrows.” He turned to his boss, sitting across the table from Whitman. “Remember that armored car heist in Las Vegas last year?” He didn’t wait for the man’s nod before going on. “The two perps had masks made to look like a couple off-duty cops from that command area who had busted them years earlier. The witnesses all ID’d the cops as the culprits, and neither had an airtight alibi.”

“I remember.” In an aside to Whitman, Adam said, “Kell very likely saved those policemen from life terms in a federal penitentiary.”

“If the perp needed Hubbard’s thumb, he’d also need his face. If he had his face, he doesn’t need Hubbard. And don’t forget that message left for us on Hubbard’s machine. Did Hubbard make it under duress or to deliberately throw us off?” Kell was on the move again. He always thought best when he was moving. “It’ll be days before we get anything useful from the autopsy. But if Hubbard was in on the abduction, why would someone need his thumb? Even if his accomplice wanted to off him and keep the ransom for himself, let him do the heavy lifting first, right? He completes the abduction, hands over the girl, and
bam
, he’s out of the picture.”

“Maybe Hubbard was getting cold feet.” It was the first time Agent Pelton—Dirk—had spoken. “He gets his hands on the specs somehow, but when it came time for the actual crime, he goes soft. Doesn’t want to follow through. The accomplice turns to plan B.”

“Too much preparation had to be done up front,” Kell corrected him. “Those masks are works of art. Unless Hubbard went in and voluntarily had a life cast made of his face—and why would he?—then the other guy had it done from pictures. That’s what the Las Vegas perps did. Shot rolls of film of the policemen from different angles using high-powered cameras with zoom. Handed the pics over to the sculptor and got the masks. But that process took nearly a month.”

“There was substantial time and money invested in this,” mused Raiker. He was staring at the ceiling the way he did when he was concentrating fiercely. “First the patch on the video surveillance. My best cyber operative estimated that would run over fifty grand, and something that complicated might take months of work. Then weeks to make the mask. Add in finding a spot to stash the girl . . . hard to believe one person is responsible for all that.”