Jack of Diamonds Read online

  “Not yet, but I will. You’re the connection.”

  “No, Frank, I’m not. I tried to tell you over the phone, there’s another connection. One that applies to all the missing women, without exception. Wedding anniversaries. Every woman that we’ve identified went missing during the week prior to her wedding anniversary.”

  “Which is not inconsistent with my own theory,” Thomas said. He uncrossed his arms and pointed at a wedding picture on the shelf. “Good news, though—Sara’s anniversary is in two days. They were planning on going upstate for a weekend getaway, but I convinced them to stay. If you’re right about this, we won’t have to wait long.”

  “Are you nuts? We should protect this woman. Park some cruisers out front. Let the killer know that this woman is off-limits. Instead, you’re encouraging the killer to make a move!”

  “Don’t tell me how to run my investigation,” Thomas said, his eyes flashing.

  “If anything happens to her, it’s on you.” Jack headed to the door, unable to look at his face any longer.

  “Your theory is wrong, by the way.”

  Jack turned. “What are you talking about?”

  “A caller identified the woman in the last sketch. She’s another local, Alyssa Snyder, 14 Cedar Lane.” He held up his tablet, showing a report. “I heard you on the phone. I checked out your theory. Alyssa Snyder’s wedding anniversary is in December. Over eight months away. So, unless our psychopath is really planning ahead . . . well, looks like your theory isn’t holding up.”

  “I’m not helping put a bigger target on these women’s heads.” Jack walked out the door. There was no point in arguing further with Thomas. The person he needed to speak to was in the living room.

  Sara and her husband looked up as he entered. When he saw the desperate pleas in their eyes, he knew what he had to say.

  “Special Agent Thomas thinks you’re safest here,” Jack began. “He believes that the killer will come after you. I think he’s correct about that, but wrong that you should pretend you don’t know. I think you should demand that he place two marked police cars out in front. Make a statement that the police are watching over you.”

  Sara’s husband turned to look at Thomas, who stood in the doorway shaking his head.

  “That’s his opinion,” Thomas said. “But believe me, you’re safest my way. One officer will remain here. We’ll be monitoring carefully and when they make their move, we move in.” He nodded confidently.

  Sara looked at Jack. “You’re the man who caught the Giant Killer, aren’t you?”

  Jack nodded.

  Sara turned to her husband. Jack could see she was scared and unsure, eyes darting across the room at any little movement.

  Her husband took her hand in his. “I think we should listen to the professionals, honey,” Mr. McCorkle said. “He may have captured the Giant Killer, but he’s just a bounty hunter.” He nodded toward Thomas. “I’m inclined to go with the advice of the FBI.”

  Jack pulled a card out of his pocket with his number on it and laid it on the table. He walked out the front door without saying another word. What could he say? Sara was going to follow Thomas’s advice.

  And Sara was going to die.

  34

  Lady whined in the back seat as Jack drove the Charger hard, barreling down the back roads of Darrington. From the very beginning of this investigation, Thomas had taken too many risks. The man wanted to catch the killer—Jack understood that. But that was only part of the job. The other part was protecting the innocent. And Thomas was going to get innocent people killed.

  Jack’s phone buzzed with a text message. It was from the ME’s assistant, Mei. Test results had come back on the pocket square found with Delores Gill. It was a mass-produced pocket square sold in many big box retail stores during the 1990s. The cologne on the square was an inexpensive men’s cologne called Proper Modern Gentleman sold online and in men’s barbershops.

  In other words, these things could have come from anywhere. Jack tossed the phone down on the seat and lowered the window, letting the wind buffet his face. What had he expected? That the pocket square would have the killer’s initials embroidered on it?

  Lady whimpered. Jack opened the glove compartment and took out a dog treat. He started to pass the treat back to her, then suddenly yanked his hand away.

  “Wait a second!”

  Lady, clearly frustrated, barked loudly in protest and sat, anticipating his next command in hopes he’d relinquish the treat.

  “Oh, don’t be a baby.” Jack broke the treat in half and gave her some. “You’ll get a lot more once you do me this favor, girl.”

  Jack turned the Charger around and headed back toward town. As his speed increased, his senses sharpened and his heart pumped hard. A determined smile spread across his face. The hunt was on.

  35

  After stopping by his barbershop and picking up a jade-green bottle of Proper Modern Gentleman cologne, Jack headed straight for the mountain. As the Charger wound its way up the curving roads, Lady sniffed the air excitedly.

  “That’s right, girl. You’re going to get the chance to show off now. And I really, really need you to be a superstar on this one.”

  Jack parked in front of the rental house. Technically he was still the renter, although police tape hung across the door. He reached into the glove compartment and took out his secret weapon: one of Mrs. Stevens’s super-deluxe peanut butter treats.

  Lady was already drooling in anticipation. Jack pressed the button that unleashed Lady’s harness and opened the back door. She bounded out of the car, landing with her feet set wide apart. Recognizing the house that held death, she let loose three enormous roars, daring anyone within earshot to challenge her.

  Jack walked up onto the porch and Lady followed hesitantly, growling her displeasure the whole way. “Don’t worry, we’re not going inside.” Jack held up his secret weapon and chuckled as Lady started dancing and prancing on the porch. She barked.

  “You have to earn it. Ready?” Jack opened the bottle of cologne and held the cap down so Lady could sniff it. She sneezed, shook her head, and then shook her entire body. She backed up two steps and glared at Jack.

  “Find it! Find it!” he said in a high voice, trying to sound like Alice, excited.

  Lady stayed where she was and looked up at him, puzzled.

  “Go find it! Look for it? Get it? Please?”

  Alice had been training Lady to follow scents. The problem was, when Alice taught Lady tricks, she used command words that Jack would never think of.

  What command would she have chosen for this?

  A thin smile played across Jack’s face as he remembered. “Hunt!”

  Lady’s ears flattened against the back of her head and she sniffed the mountain air. Jack held the cap down once more. Lady sniffed it and began pacing back and forth on the porch before heading down the front steps. She slowly moved out in an ever-widening circle before running back up onto the porch. Then she scratched at the front door and whined.

  “No. Not inside. Outside. Hunt!”

  Lady barked and scratched the front door, pulling off a piece of police tape with her paw.

  “Okay. One second.” Jack punched in the code on the lock box and opened the front door.

  Lady rushed into the house and began sniffing around. She started in the living room and hurriedly went from room to room, pausing at the spot where they had found the bodies. Then she went into the kitchen and right up to the back door.

  Jack opened the door, and Lady leapt off the back steps and began sniffing her way along the path that led to the driveway. Jack prayed the trail didn’t end there. Given the number of women missing, Jack had a theory that there were more bodies buried on the property. Thomas’s team had searched the house and surrounding yard, but maybe they missed something.

  Lady’s head snapped up and with one quick bark she took off. Jack had forgotten how fast she could run, and he didn’t want to stop her or even
slow her down if she was onto something, so he just sprinted after her through a field of tall grass and ferns behind the house. Had Lady been smaller, Jack would have lost sight of her, but the giant dog was easy to track as she raced in a straight line toward the trees in the distance, bowling over all the grass in the process.

  “Lady!” Jack was forced to call out as she reached the trees. He was fifty yards behind her and the woods were dark. He couldn’t keep up with her in a field, let alone a forest.

  She took an interest in one particular tree, and paused to sniff around its base, allowing Jack to catch up to her, out of breath. The dog concentrated on one side of the tree, even rising up on her hind legs and sniffing the bark higher up, whimpering.

  Jack took a quarter from his pocket and placed it at the base of the tree to mark it. He got out his phone and took several pictures of the tree, then videoed the path of trampled grass leading back toward the house so he could find the spot later and search more thoroughly.

  As Lady started smelling the ground again, Jack whipped off the leash around his shoulders and clipped it onto Lady’s harness. The huge dog jerked him forward as she moved deeper into the woods.

  “Good girl! Hunt!” Jack encouraged.

  He came across a path where the ferns were matted down by a single, deep tire track. Jack considered what that could mean. Whatever had made the track, it had to have been heavy to make such a rut. And it wasn’t a motorcycle or a bicycle, or there would be two tracks. Every several yards, there were two outer depressions; one on either side of the tire track. Tire track only, then two more divots, tire track only, then two more divots.

  Jack realized what it was. These were the stop-and-go tracks of someone pushing a heavy wheelbarrow.

  The ferns eventually gave way to a worn path through the woods. Flat, old, and well-traveled. But the ground had been wet recently; tracks and shoe impressions were still visible. Jack stepped around these carefully so the police could take molds later, but not before snapping a few photos of them himself.

  The darkness grew deeper as the tree canopy thickened. After a while, Lady slowed down. Jack wondered if she had lost the trail, but when the dog turned her head to look back at him, he could see it in her face. She was scared.

  An old black wrought-iron fence appeared up ahead. It surrounded a dozen high mounds covered with grass and small, bent trees. The metal gate was open. Lady stepped through it, growling as she went.

  Jack realized the mounds were crypts—he’d just entered a cemetery. He drew his gun.

  Stupid zombie movies.

  Sitting among the first four crypts, at odd angles, were a number of tombstones. The names of the people buried there were illegible, worn down by time.

  Lady skirted toward the next section of crypts. Jack noticed the metal door on one of them was slightly ajar.

  Please, don’t have the trail lead there.

  Jack exhaled as Lady passed it. The cemetery came to an end, and a stone building appeared through the trees. A church. And from its dilapidated condition, it had clearly long since been abandoned and forgotten. It was covered in moss and vines, as if the forest itself was trying to reclaim the land, the church—all of it.

  Lady stopped before the front steps. Jack walked up next to her and put his hand on her back. The poor dog was panting and shaking violently. She whimpered and pressed against his leg.

  Jack patted her neck. “Shh . . . Good girl. You did your part. Thank you.” Jack gave her a treat and Lady gobbled it down. “Now it’s my turn. Stay here.”

  The cracked stained-glass windows in the front of the church prevented him from seeing inside. He debated sneaking around to the back but quickly dismissed the idea. He didn’t expect the killer to be here anyway, and if he was here, walking through all the dead leaves alongside the church would only alert him to Jack’s presence. He’d make less noise going straight in.

  Jack squared his shoulders and started up the steps. The worn front doors of the church were slightly ajar. Sweat ran down his back, and he tightened the grip on his Glock, grateful for the contoured handle. He searched the doorway for tripwires. It was a habit he’d developed in Iraq.

  The inside of the church was swallowed in shadow, but some light broke through the dingy glass. Jack could see the backs of most of the pews inside. He stepped forward and froze.

  The thick smell of death hung in the air, a combination of rotting flesh and dank mustiness. Some of the odor was more pungent, some was older decomposition. The effect was so strong that Jack could taste its rankness. It permeated his body, death surrounding him and filling his lungs.

  Dozens of bodies sat silently in the wooden pews, their backs to him. Dead faces posed to stare eternally at the altar. Only one corpse faced Jack and the macabre congregation. It was standing at the altar at the front, dressed in a black suit with the white collar of a clergyman. The face was nearly mummified.

  Jack’s breath returned in strained gasps. The silence was so intense that his ears hurt. He fought the shock that threatened to immobilize him as he surveyed the grisly scene. This church had once been a place of worship and love, where families gathered to celebrate marriages and dedicate their babies to the Lord. Now it was host to the evil display of a madman.

  Jack wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. Behind the altar to the right sat the remains of the church organ, piled high with bits of the collapsed ceiling above, its pipes twisted and torn from the wall like a gnarled brass hand reaching out. At the center, tattered and torn maroon velvet drapes were pulled back, revealing an empty baptismal chamber. To the left was an empty choir box, and behind it a partially open door.

  If a living threat was here, the only place they could be hiding would be behind that door, in the choir room.

  Jack tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. He started forward down the aisle. The bodies in the pews had clearly been carefully posed. Some sat cross-legged, while others had their hands folded in their laps. A few were clearly couples. One pair of corpses held hands, while another was posed with the man’s arm wrapped across the woman’s shoulders.

  Most of the women appeared to have died more recently. Some were bloated, their skin threatening to burst, their faces puffy and alien. The men, meanwhile, looked as though they had been dead for decades; husks of people, dried and old, decay having already run its course. Even the men’s clothes looked like they were from a different era.

  Jack thought back to the open crypt and shuddered.

  At the choir box, he crept quietly to the open door. The little room in the back was empty, but another door led outside. It, too, was ajar.

  Jack turned back to look at the macabre scene once more, and this time he noticed something new: the corpse of a tiny child. The child was propped up, with a ring pillow lashed to its hands.

  The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck rose.

  It’s a wedding.

  A gleam of red light in the upper corner at the back of the church caught his eye. Jack pivoted around, aiming at the source. At first, he thought it might be a gun’s laser sight. But no—it was a camera.

  It moved and pointed directly at him.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  36

  No. No. No! I glare down at the computer monitor in sheer horror.

  He’s found The Wedding.

  How? That doesn’t matter. The point is he found it.

  He’s aiming a gun at the camera. His other hand is in his pocket. He’s looking right at me.

  “Hello?”

  He’s calling to me now. I turn up my speaker. I shouldn’t have said anything, but I couldn’t let him go. With my voice modifier there’s no way he could tell who I am, but still, I shouldn’t have said anything. I shouldn’t say any more now.

  What can I do? He’ll ruin everything.

  “You know my name,” Jack shouts. “What’s yours?”

  I can’t tell him, of course. What should I say? I’m fifteen minutes away
. He’d be gone by the time I got to the church to stop him.

  “Can you hear me, or is this connection only one-way?”

  I got the voice modifier for the ceremony. I couldn’t play all the parts without it. But I have to use it now. Jack can’t find out who I am. Not now. Later, of course—I want full credit for my work. But not now. It’s too soon.

  Jack turns toward the front door. Is he leaving?

  “Wait!” I shout. The word is wrenched from my chest; he is sure to sense my panic now.

  Jack slowly turns back to face the camera. He appears calm, but he can’t be. It’s an act. I’m sure of it. He crosses his arms and stares up at the camera. It’s like he’s staring into my eyes.

  “Why don’t you come on down to the church?” Jack asks. “You and I can have a little talk about . . .” he glances around the pews, taking it all in, “the wedding.”

  He knows. He recognizes what it is. The Wedding. My art.

  Jack might actually understand. He might if I explained it. I could tell him all about it, explain all the whys. And then kill him.

  No. I want him to suffer first. I want him to hurt.

  “Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll come to you. But first, empty your gun.”

  Jack doesn’t hesitate. He drops the magazine from the weapon and catches it deftly in his other hand.

  “Throw it through the hole in the ceiling on the left side.”

  He winds back his arm and heaves the magazine out of view of the camera.

  “Throw your gun down, too.”

  Jack stares at the camera for a moment. He’s debating. I know he’s left a bullet in the chamber. They always do that. That was the ace up his sleeve. But he tosses the gun. He makes a good show of it, but I can tell that he doesn’t throw it hard, and I hear it land somewhere inside the church.

  “Walk closer to the camera,” I order him.

  Jack walks down the aisle slowly. He’s cocky. So sure of himself.