Deadly Bonds Page 3

  Add his latest discussion with Theo’s science teacher Mr. Lockhart a few days ago to the mix and Holt was not a happy camper. Theo was a smart kid but apparently very distracted and still struggling to get his grades up. And, according to Lockhart, Sara was compounding the problem by coddling Theo. Perhaps it was time to try a different school. Elizabeth had wanted Theo to attend the Academy, where her friend could help look out for him, and Holt had honored that. But surely she wouldn’t have continued to send Theo there if it wasn’t the right environment for him.

  “Tough day?” Fellow SSAM agent Max Sawyer had to stand at his side and shout the words to be heard through Holt’s ear protection.

  Holt pulled the gear off and let it circle his neck. “Sometimes I do my best thinking down here.” Except today it wasn’t working.

  Max nodded. His specialty at SSAM was weaponry, and this basement level, which housed the employees’ gun safe as well as a target practice area and a gym, was his domain. He kept SSAM agents up to speed on their shooting skills, and sometimes his training extended to the public, particularly in weapon use and safety, but he was also ex-special forces. Though he wasn’t a profiler, a sharp brain lay within the good-ole-boy Texan. Perhaps it was time to invite a different perspective.

  “Hey, do you have a minute?” Holt asked.

  Max flipped his hand up to check his watch. “About an hour, as a matter of fact.”

  “Meet me upstairs in five.” Holt cleaned and put away his equipment, locking the gun away in the community safe. A short while later, Holt used his palm print and a key-code to gain entrance to the west wing, which housed their offices.

  “What’s this about?” Max followed Holt into the conference room.

  “I could use a fresh pair of eyes. Latest case involves three murders we believe are connected.”

  Max stood at the SSAM conference room table and studied the crime scene evidence Holt had set out that morning, hoping a global look at all the little pieces would help the puzzle slide together. Photos of each of the three murder scenes were laid out in an organized manner.

  A few minutes later, Max frowned. “I can see why you’re struggling. Victims of different ages, genders, occupations. It’s as if he threw some darts at a board and these were the unlucky winners.”

  Holt was relieved he wasn’t the only one to see the complications. A doctorate in psychology, special training with the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, and years of experience hunting big, bad killers with various police departments across the United States, and Holt still failed to see a pattern. “A CEO, a doctor and a politician.”

  “Sounds like a bad joke. A CEO, a doctor, and a politician walk into a bar...”

  “Coffee?” Becca Haney entered the room, a tray in her hands. She had the petite frame and graceful movements of a fairy princess, but her short, sassy, blond hair and the gun at her waist quickly relieved one of that impression.

  “Thank you.” Grateful for the break, Holt took the tray from Becca and set it on a side table. He’d been so immersed in the investigation he was seeing the photos in his sleep. Which meant he wasn’t getting enough sleep. He took a cup and dumped in the contents of two sugar packets. Without looking up, Max accepted the cup Becca handed him.

  She stood beside Max and scanned the evidence. “The drug?”

  “A blend of neurotoxins,” Holt said. “Our lab is analyzing it in case there’s something unique enough to lead somewhere. From the previous two crime scenes, the CPD’s lab determined the components are used for industrial purposes and can be purchased from any of several commercial chemical facilities.”

  “Scary thought. What about the delivery system?”

  “One needle and syringe was recovered from each of the scenes. Hypodermics available at any pharmacy or medical supply company.”

  “Damn.”

  “Exactly.”

  Becca slapped Max on the shoulder, which was at the level of her head. “Well, I’ll leave you experts to it then. I’m off to play bodyguard.” A SSAM security expert, Becca often guarded at-risk, sometimes high-profile people.

  “For?”

  “A wealthy business buddy of Damian’s who’s had a couple of death threats. I’ve got to go get dressed up for some fancy party.”

  Max smirked. “Must be hard being you.”

  “Somehow I suffer through.” Becca wriggled her fingers over her shoulder as she walked out.

  Holt’s gaze went back over the items on the table, landing on the pictures of the hypodermic needles. The real things were locked up in the CPD evidence locker after the crime lab had finished with them. The media was pressuring him for interviews, profiles and answers. Answers he didn’t have. “Becca may be on to something. Maybe I should get SSAM’s crime lab to hook up with CPD’s. Have them go over the older needles one more time.”

  Max straightened and took a gulp of coffee. “What for? We have a detailed report of the contents, and the chemical breakdown.”

  “That covers the inside, but not the outside.”

  “Prints on the needles, you think?”

  “No. They tested for those and found them clean. I’m wondering if there are traces of other chemicals. Something that would indicate where these cocktails were mixed. Maybe they were made in a lab that has other specific uses.”

  “I can check with my street contacts. See if any of the illegal drug labs are known to mix special requests.”

  “Do that.”

  Max took out his phone and sent a quick text, then tucked it away again. “I should hear something in the next twenty-four. What else have you got?”

  “Let’s review the victims.” Holt learned more about the killer by profiling the victims and the crime scenes than he did searching for the bad guy. After all, there was a reason a killer chose the people he did, even if the reason was convenience. “The first—”

  Max arched a brow. “That we know of.”

  “—was found slumped in his chair in his office at Tech Innovations in early January. Joseph Kurtz was the CEO. Fifty-three years old. At first, everyone thought the death was natural—heart attack or something—but he had been relatively healthy.” The coroner had found a small bruise on Kurtz’s neck, which led to the tox screen that showed cause of death hadn’t been a simple heart attack. Irregular blood chemistry and the presence of neurotoxins showed Kurtz was poisoned. “When foul play was suspected, police interviewed his coworkers and associates. A cleaning lady admitted she’d found an empty syringe under the desk and thrown it away. Thankfully, they recovered it from the trash. His employees seemed to think Kurtz was competent, but not particularly likeable.”

  “I assume his family was investigated?”

  Often it was someone close to the victim who perpetrated such a violent crime. Sometimes the line between love and hate was a fine one.

  “Yes. Married, and though it wasn’t a happy marriage, they tolerated each other. His wife complained Kurtz worked too much, but I don’t think she’d kill him and then throw suspicion elsewhere by killing two more people. Besides, Kurtz was much taller, heavier and stronger than her, and he was injected in the neck.”

  “So we’re looking for a strong, relatively tall male.”

  “Yes, and probably someone Kurtz knew.”

  “Either that or the killer snuck up on him. To get that close in a private office without a fight...”

  “Interviews of everyone who’d come close to Kurtz in the weeks before his death didn’t lead to any strong suspects.”

  Max picked up a picture from the table. “And the second victim?”

  “Dr. Sheila Brown was found late on Valentine’s Day, outside a bar, sprawled on her stomach near her car in the parking lot. Thirty-four-year-old oncologist who worked at Mercy Hospital. Well-liked. Had an active social life, when she could squeeze
in the time. Also injected in the neck.”

  “But she put up a fight.”

  “The defensive wounds—broken fingernails, bruising across her torso, and a black fiber remnant in her teeth—clued the ME in, so there were extra tests done. Bingo, same neurotoxins found in her bloodstream.”

  “No sign of sexual assault?”

  “None.”

  Max set her picture on the table away from the others. It was a smiling portrait of a healthy woman, taken from the medical directory at Mercy. “She was an attractive lady.”

  Holt had thought the same thing. “These attacks aren’t sexual in nature. The killer’s after another kind of power, or has a different motive altogether—revenge, greed, covering up something else...” Holt had been through the list of possibilities countless times, but the picture was still hazy.

  Max lifted a photograph from among those of the third crime. “And then there’s the politician. Even though he was state-level, definitely a powerful position. How would killing Beechum give the killer power?”

  “It might not be a literal shift in power, just something the killer experiences. A kind of post-kill high.”

  “I get it.” As an experienced covert operative, Max would know what an adrenaline high felt like, and possibly what it felt like to kill a person, maybe even with his bare hands.

  “Forty-five-year-old Illinois State Senator Roy Beechum was physically fit and could have fought back. I think the killer learned from Dr. Brown’s resistance and ambushed him. But he had to have lain in wait for hours. Like the others, Beechum had been stabbed in the neck. The killer was hiding in the backseat of his car and waited for the opportunity to attack with minimal risk to himself. There were no prints in the car or on the door handles. We even checked the rearview and side-view mirrors, assuming he’d turned them to watch the elevator doors from where he’d crouched. Einstein reviewed the video, and the killer had adjusted the mirrors before breaking into the car, but still no prints. No hairs, either. In the video, you can see the killer from behind and he’s wearing a hood. Presumably, this also kept him from leaving hairs behind at the scene. This guy is careful, and may even have shaved his body to avoid leaving DNA. Still, we were able to determine he’s Caucasian, and estimate he’s about five-eleven and one hundred-eighty pounds.” Holt tapped a fingertip on the table. “What I can’t figure out is why Beechum? He was relatively new to the legislature.”

  “Hardly had time to make enemies.”

  “I’m sure he had plenty of time along the road to election, and probably in the positions he held before, since he worked his way up to the State Senate.” Holt’s gaze traveled over the table. “But how did all three of these people make the same enemy?” It was the question that had been bugging him since he’d been handed the case.

  As if hearing his thoughts, Max spoke the question. “What leads have you got?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, Holt. You’re thinking too hard. What’s your gut telling you?”

  “This guy wants to be noticed. He’s got an agenda he wants known, but on his schedule.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Holt met Max’s curious gaze. “Instinct. Maybe because the method of killing is so dramatic and different. And, despite being so careful not to leave personal evidence, the fact he leaves the needles at the scene...it smacks of someone who wants to be noticed. He wants someone to figure him out.”

  “A drama queen?”

  “Exactly.” An idea bloomed. Holt grinned. “Every drama queen craves a spotlight. Maybe I should oblige him.”

  * * *

  “Where are we going?” Theo asked, bending his head to avoid a tree branch.

  “I thought we’d take our chess game outside today.” Sara smiled as he looked back in surprise. “This is our last Friday meeting. Last day of summer school. I thought we could make it special. Are you excited to have a week off before the fall semester starts?” She laid out a plaid blanket beneath a tree on the far edge of the school’s property.

  He shrugged. “I guess. This is really where you want to play chess today?”

  “I was kind of thinking that, yeah.” Their chess chats, as she’d come to think of them since she’d begun teaching Theo chess, had become a regular Friday occurrence over the past couple weeks. With the same attention to detail he’d used in creating his comic book, Theo had taken to the game in a flash. She was going to miss the way he chewed his lip as he studied new moves or drummed his finger against his knee when he was thinking particularly hard.

  “Where’s the board?”

  She slid her bag off her shoulder and sat cross-legged on the blanket. “I have a miniature version for travel.” She took out the chess pieces as he sat down opposite her in the shade of the elm. “Do you have something for me?”

  He fished in his own backpack for a tattered notebook and handed it over with a triumphant look. “I finished it last night.”

  “How about you set up our game while I read?”

  Sara was soon absorbed in Theo’s story, fascinated by the challenges he’d thrown at his heroes, and the way they’d united to overthrow the villain. But what most gripped her was the relationship between one of the heroes and the guy who supposedly ran the group. “Agent Z doesn’t seem to like his employer, Mister X, much, does he?”

  “Yeah, X is kind of a mystery to everyone.”

  Kind of like Theo’s dad was a mystery to Theo? Or was she reading too much into things? Still, she would love for Holt to read this. “Are you going to show this to your dad?”

  “Maybe.” Another shrug.

  “Well, I think you should. It’s excellent. How about our game?” The next fifteen minutes was spent mostly in silence as they moved and counter-moved. Theo had her in check but didn’t seem to want to take his final turn. He had to have seen the opening she’d accidentally left him. “I think you can capture my king.”

  Theo nodded but still didn’t do anything. “Maybe we should call it a draw and have a rematch in the fall?”

  “If that’s what you’d like. I bet you’ll have more of your story to show me then too. In fact, that’s what I’m hoping.” Sara reached into her bag and pulled out the leather journal and drawing pencils she’d spied in the bookstore last week.

  Theo’s eyes widened. He took the gift and flipped through the unlined, blank pages. His grin bloomed. “I think I already have an idea for a sequel.”

  “Maybe we’ll get to know a little more about Mister X?” She had hoped Holt and Theo could spend more time together this summer, especially after Theo’s difficulties in class. Unfortunately, Holt hadn’t seemed able to make the time. “Is your father coming to the Labor Day picnic?”

  Theo’s eyes shuttered. “I don’t think he knows about it.”

  “Did you tell him?”

  “It wouldn’t matter if I did. He’s usually busy.”

  “But the picnic’s on a Saturday. He has a day off now and then, right?”

  “Maybe. If something doesn’t come up.”

  Sara didn’t know if she could safely push Holt into coming to the picnic. They had reached a polite, unspoken truce. He ignored her but was acknowledging weekly updates from Theo’s teachers. Sara was trying to stay out of it.

  She gathered their things, then stood and brushed off the seat of her pants. “Your ride should be here any minute now to pick you up.”

  When she and Theo reached the school and entered the cool foyer, Sara was brought up short by the sound of raised voices.

  “He simply doesn’t have the grades,” Mrs. Robertson, the high-school-level English teacher, was telling a parent. John Rochard. The Rochards had a long history of attendance and success at the Academy.

  “Can I help with something?” Sara asked. Behind John, a tall boy—Neil Rochard
, a rising senior—and his younger brother, Jeremy, stood with identical slumped postures. Theo moved over to Jeremy, who was in his classes.

  John’s gaze raked over Sara. He immediately dismissed her and turned back to the teacher. “Neil deserves an A in your class. He’s done everything you asked.”

  Sara stepped beside Mrs. Robertson in a show of support. “I’m certain that if Neil deserved an A, that’s what he would have received.” She looked at Neil, whose gaze skittered away and then locked on the polished wood floor.

  “Neil is a good kid,” Mrs. Robertson explained, sympathy in her voice. “And yes, he did the work, but not on time. And not to the standards of an A student.”

  But John wasn’t listening. His attention was now fully on Sara, who’d dared to butt in and contradict him. “You may not be aware, but my family has done great things for this school.”

  “I’m aware.” Sara had heard from the board many times about the Rochard endowments. John’s father was a prominent politician. “But that doesn’t mean Neil gets a free ride.” In her peripheral vision, Neil shoved his hands in his pockets. “Nobody does, not even the grandson of a United States Senator.”

  “You haven’t heard the end of this.” His cheeks flushed with outrage, John looked as if he would say more. Instead, he pressed his lips together and spun on his heel, heading to the door. His two sons fell into step behind him as if marching to their doom.

  Chapter Three

  Holt rushed up the steps toward the large oak door of the Academy. He was late. Again. Which meant Theo would likely give him more of the silent treatment.

  Inside, he found Theo waiting for him, not looking at all upset. Unfortunately, that was because Sara was standing there with him. As she laughed at something Theo said, her blue eyes sparkled with all the colors of the sea. Her hair shifted against her shoulders, reflecting shades of yellow, gold and light brown. Every hair on her head, even her eyelashes, seemed to have been dipped in sunlight. His breath caught in his chest. He coughed to cover the moment of poetic insanity.