Detective Jack Stratton Box Set Read online

  Jack headed for the door, slipping past students coming in for the next class and weaving through crowds of kids on his way down the hall. One look at his snarl and smoldering eyes and everyone moved aside for him. Outside, he jumped into his Impala and gunned it out of the lot.

  But the Impala didn’t hug the curves like the Charger, and Jack kept having to slow down, which gave him too much time to think, and to regret opening with Leverone. Tomorrow he would talk to Morrison and have him look at Franklin.

  That guy’s a lunatic. I think he’s taking meth himself. He’s his own research subject—

  Jack yanked the wheel to the right and pulled over to the side of the road.

  Charlie Harding. He looked like a torture victim on the video…

  … or maybe some sicko’s research subject.

  38

  Box Full of Memories

  At six o’clock, Jack was once again pacing the living room, waiting for Replacement. He checked his phone. Nothing. He tossed it down on the counter next to Replacement’s note.

  She said she was running errands. She had no car, so she must have taken the bus downtown.

  Get a grip, Jack.

  As he headed for the window again, the phone rang. He reached the counter and hit Answer before the first ring stopped, without even looking at the screen.

  “Hey. Where are you?”

  Pause. Jack checked the number. He didn’t recognize it. Not Replacement, though.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m looking for Jack Stratton.” It was a girl’s voice.

  “That’s me.”

  “This is Missy Lorton. Can we talk?”

  You betcha. “Certainly. Where are you?”

  “My apartment.” She hesitated. “I—I kept some of Michelle’s things. I want to give them back. I’m not in trouble, am I?”

  “You’re off to a good start at getting out of any trouble by calling me. I can be there right away,” Jack said.

  “Okay. I’ll be here.” Click.

  Jack gathered up his jacket, keys, and gun as fast as his leg would allow, and two minutes later the Impala was racing back to the college. He didn’t try Replacement again; she knew how to reach him. Probably just out doing errands.

  Jack parked right outside Missy’s apartment. She immediately buzzed him in, and he hurried up to the third floor. When she opened the door, her face was splotchy, and her eyes were red.

  “Thank you for calling, Ms. Lorton.”

  “I don’t want to be in trouble.” She was hard to understand, holding back tears.

  “I do have some additional questions.”

  Missy nodded and moved into the apartment. “Sure.” She motioned Jack into a small living room.

  It looked as if Missy still didn’t have a new roommate; the furnishings were sparse. The coffee table, pushed against a long couch, was where Missy had tossed her purse, keys, and a blue student ID card with the chain snaking around the pocketbook and partly hanging off the table. A cardboard moving box was conspicuously placed on the seat of a chair near the couch.

  Missy stepped toward the box. “So, here’s Michelle’s stuff.” Replacement was right. “I didn’t mean to keep it.”

  Jack remained silent. He wanted her to talk.

  “I just… I thought she was throwing it out.”

  Jack eyed the blue ID card, and something clicked into place. He posed his next words carefully. “Ms. Lorton, how did Michelle seem to you when she told you she was transferring?”

  “Happy. She was really excited about it.” Missy turned her back to Jack and reached into the box.

  Jack drew his gun. “Freeze.” He growled the command. “Michelle never transferred and never intended to. She never talked to you about it.”

  Missy didn’t move.

  “Slowly raise your hands over your head and turn around,” Jack ordered.

  When Missy replied, her voice had transformed. Gone was the weepy roommate; in its place was a voice that was calm and collected. “You should hear this first.”

  “Show me your hands!”

  “You need to look at my phone.” Missy kept her back to Jack and her right hand in the box. She slowly raised her left hand and held the phone up where Jack could see it.

  Jack could make it out from where he stood. His worst fear—Replacement, strapped to a gurney—fell like an anvil in his chest and his heart pounded in long, hard beats that rang in his ears.

  Missy turned around. In her right hand was a Taser. In her left she held up the phone so Jack could watch Replacement thrashing and hear her scream, “Wait until you see what I do to you! I’m going to rip your face off!”

  “Throw your gun on the couch,” Missy said. “Or I disconnect the call and she’s dead.”

  Jack’s finger eased back from the trigger.

  “Do it now, or she starts losing pieces,” Missy hissed.

  The Taser was a knockoff civilian model with a ten-second burst. Jack had been shot with a police tactical Taser in training before; he knew he could ride the wave of pain.

  Jack tossed his gun onto the couch. “Where is she?”

  Missy answered by pulling the trigger. The Taser’s barbs embedded in Jack’s chest and the electricity froze his muscles, but he didn’t drop. Missy had made the mistake of being too close to Jack when she fired. The prongs need to have distance between them to affect the most muscle groups; shot from close range, they remain closer together. Jack gritted his teeth and waited. His muscles twitched and burned, but it was nothing compared to the rage surging through him. Five more seconds, and then it would be his turn.

  But when a second Taser hit him from behind, his muscles seized and he pitched forward. As he lay writhing on the floor, a wet cloth was pressed over his face and a chemical smell filled his nose.

  He fought, but he knew it was a losing battle. His vision blurred, the blackness rushed up to envelop him, and he toppled into the abyss.

  39

  Under the Rocks

  Jack woke and opened his eyes a fraction to check out his situation. What he saw didn’t look good. Thick leather straps bound his arms and legs to a hospital stretcher. Just like Charlie Harding. His head wasn’t strapped down—yet. Small mercies.

  A large circular vault arched above his head—which told him exactly where he was, even before he saw the control booth.

  The psych center. The fMRI.

  Through the large viewing window in the middle of one wall, he saw Missy, talking animatedly to someone out of his view in the control booth.

  He tried to remember the layout of the lab. When he slowly, painfully turned his head to the right, he saw the edge of the heavy door. He remembered a corridor running along that wall and tried to envision where the exit was; it would be on the north side, he thought.

  Jack tested his restraints. These straps were leather; there would be no breaking them. His wrists were fastened, and thick straps held his thighs and ankles. Bile and anger choked his throat.

  Stay calm. Try to get them talking.

  The door to his right swung open, and he heard footsteps. Someone scraped a chair across the floor and sat down next to the stretcher.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  Jack buried his fury. His voice was low and steady. “Brendan.”

  “So calm. Did they teach you that in the Army? You’re a soldier, right? You served with Michelle and Alice’s brother in Iraq.” Brendan smiled.

  Jack’s rage seethed back to the surface. Bluff. “So you figured out that you’re under investigation? The police have been looking—”

  “Very good.” Brendan chuckled. “You’re clever. You should have been an actor, Jack. But you’ve got it all wrong. You see, you were the one under investigation. I’ve known all about you and Michelle and Alice for a while.”

  Jack pushed with every muscle against the straps, but it was useless.

  Brendan watched him flailing and thrashing for a minute and smiled. “Good. Good.” He lifted a syringe an
d held it to Jack’s arm. “I need you to help me today, Jack. Your anger issues are going to play a part in that.” Jack gritted his teeth as Brendan inserted the needle and pushed the plunger. “Ever done meth? This is the good stuff. I added a little extra kicker for you.”

  Jack felt the needle burning in his arm and then the drug racing through his system. The door opened, and Missy, scowling self-importantly, pulled in a gurney. Missy turned her head, and the scowl on her face twisted into a sneer. Replacement was strapped to the gurney. One whole side of Replacement’s face was red; blood trickled from her nose and the corner of her mouth onto the stretcher.

  “I’m going to kill you!” Jack yelled.

  “I don’t think so, Jack.” Brendan shook his head.

  “You loser!” Replacement raised her bloodied head and spat at Brendan. “If you hadn’t Tasered me, I would have kicked your teeth down your throat.” Her voice was very hoarse, and got louder and then softer, as if she couldn’t quite control it.

  “Screw you, you scrawny wench,” Missy hissed before turning to Brendan. “What happened to your arm?” She pointed at the bloodstain on his shirt.

  “She bit me in the chem lab,” whined the former quarterback.

  “What was she doing up there?” Missy demanded.

  “She ran in there when I went to grab her. We have to clean it up after we’re done tonight. She trashed it.” Brendan glared at Replacement.

  “Are you out of your mind?” Missy looked furious. “Everything in there is combustible. You’ll blow this whole place up.”

  “Calm down. I got two batches.” Brendan held up two syringes. “I gave him one already.”

  Missy huffed. “Hold off on hers. It may be a long night.” She turned and exited, reappearing a moment later behind the glass in the control room.

  Brendan leaned down till his face was inches from Jack’s. “Well, now that everyone is here, let’s get this party started.”

  “Wait,” Jack said. “Everyone knows I’m watching you. Do you seriously think you can get away with this?”

  “Yeah, I do. Tonight, you and Alice are going to die.”

  “I’m a cop.” Jack spoke calmly over his racing heart and tried to rein in his cloudy thoughts. “They’ll come straight here. They know about Charlie Harding, Tiffany McAllister, and Michelle. The trail of bodies will lead them right to you. You can still stop this.”

  Brendan shrugged. “I know they’ll come, but it won’t matter.” He placed his hand on the side of the large machine, like he was the owner of a very big, steel dog. “As for you and Alice… I could cut you up and toss your bodies deep in the woods. But I think a fire at your apartment building would be better. They’ll find you and Alice in bed, with some empty rum bottles and some drugs. The police will want to cover that up, and that’s that.”

  Jack’s head was spinning. “But we have proof. We know what you did.”

  “Proof? You met Dr. Franklin? He’s my backup plan. With all the rumors about him using meth, a suicide note and his corpse will end any investigation. How do you think Bennie had Franklin’s business card tucked into his shoe? That’s why you came by today, right?”

  Dammit.

  “I know all about your research,” Jack said. “That’s what this is about, research? You’re looking for the God Spot.”

  Brendan looked down at Jack and studied his face. “Impressive. You’ve done your homework. Well, so have I, and I’m almost there. Do you know how long Dr. Hahn searched for it? How close he was?”

  “Dr. Hahn’s involved?” Jack asked.

  “No. Dr. Hahn’s fault is that he’s too kind. He knew what he’d have to do to prove it, but he wouldn’t go there. So instead he became the butt of everyone’s joke.”

  “Hahn’s right,” Jack said. “This is a line you shouldn’t cross.”

  Brendan shook his head. “Quite the opposite. It’s a line that must be crossed. Do you have any idea of the significance of finding the God Spot? Once I locate it, I’ll shut everyone up.”

  “The God Spot doesn’t exist.” Replacement picked her head up as she spat. “You should take Dr. Melding’s neuropsychology class, you moron.”

  The veins on Brendan’s forehead bulged. “Melding’s a fool. She always attacks Hahn, but she’s the imbecile. Did she say that? Did she say that in class?”

  “Yeah. She said Dr. Hahn is a loser who wasted twenty years of his pathetic life. Any undergrad could poke a million holes in his theories.”

  Brendan jumped off his seat and cut off her tirade with a brisk slap that made the gurney tremble.

  “I’m going to rip your heart out,” Jack growled.

  “She’s the fool, Alice,” Brendan said menacingly, then turned back to Jack. “As I was saying, Jack, Dr. Hahn couldn’t do what needed to be done. He relied on emotions like hope and love to try to locate the God Spot, and they didn’t work. But I found the key: pain.”

  Replacement laughed. “If you think pain is the way to find God, then all you had to do is take your class. It was so painfully boring, I prayed a piano would fall on my head. Or better yet, yours.”

  Brendan slapped her again. Replacement laughed, but Jack could see she was hurt.

  “That’ll cost you, Shrimpie. That’s what all the girls in class call you. Did you know that? Did you date one?”

  Brendan punched her in the face and her head lolled to the side, saliva dripping off her chin.

  “Stop.” Missy’s voice crackled over the speaker as she glared out the control room window.

  “Stop!” Jack’s body lifted off the stretcher as he strained against the straps.

  Replacement lifted her head and looked at Missy in the control room. One eye had already started to swell shut. “Your boss hits like a girl.”

  “He’s not my boss,” Missy snapped, and then smiled suggestively at Brendan.

  “Ewww.” Replacement’s reaction wasn’t taunting but honest disgust. “Brendan, you’re banging Miss Piggy? That’s gross.”

  A stream of profanities poured through the speakers.

  “Shut up!” Brendan yelled. He grabbed a plastic bit from a metal cart and forced it between Replacement’s teeth, finally silencing her.

  40

  You Are Sick

  Brendan sat back down. “Dr. Hahn tried love, meditation, happiness, and then fear to find the God Spot. None worked. I thought of pain.” Brendan was enjoying spinning it out. He moved unhurriedly to the rolling cart. Jack tried pulling up the rail attached to his wrist, but it held firm. “Human subjects were necessary, but there are so many rules now about the methods you can use in experiments. I had to find subjects who wouldn’t be missed: drug addicts, prostitutes, and such.”

  “They’re not subjects, they’re human beings.” Jack had told himself over and over again not to react, let the guy talk, watch everything he did, conserve his energy, but he couldn’t help himself. “You’re like that sick Nazi doctor. Mengele.”

  “Mengele was a pioneer, too,” Brendan said, efficiently filling syringes as he talked. “People like that are invisible. No one cared enough about them to even look. They’re not people, they’re a means to an end.”

  Replacement moaned and struggled against her restraints. Brendan looked at her and smiled a little. “At least their lives were useful at the end. Unfortunately, their lifestyles had deteriorated their minds—which made them inferior test subjects. Even though I gathered a great deal of data, much of it was useless.”

  He paused to enjoy the process of tapping syringes—Jack counted six—for air bubbles. Then Brendan pushed the cart next to Replacement, right where she could see it.

  “I found that meth enhanced the brain scans. I learned how to make it in Dr. Franklin’s class. Some of his work is brilliant, really. Anyway, I had to tweak the meth a little so it will cause pain. That’s what I injected you with, Jack, a derivative of methamphetamine. It opens all the pain sensors in your system and makes them even more receptive to pain impulses. That
’s the warm glow you’re feeling right now. Soon you’ll feel as if you’re being roasted alive.”

  Jack’s whole body felt as though it was smoldering.

  Michelle…

  “Dr. Hahn saw my true potential. Now I’m his protégé, and that got me the keys to the kingdom.” Brendan patted his security badge. “All I needed was subjects.”

  “How many?” Jack recoiled at the thought.

  “Nearly a dozen. Because of the people we select, no one even came looking for them—until you. It’s sad, really. If one disoriented dolphin swims into New York harbor, it’s national news; everyone rushes to save it. Yet all these people disappeared, and all you hear is silence.”

  “But why Michelle? She didn’t fit your pattern!”

  “No. Michelle was… unfortunate. I had no intention of using her for my study, but she was too gifted with computers. She found a hidden file on our research.”

  Missy’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Her mistake was being too trusting. She confided in me about the file. This save the world complex must run in your family.” Missy’s words dripped with sarcasm.

  “We had to get rid of her and since we didn’t think she had any living relatives, we decided to include her in the experiment.” Brendan shrugged.

  Jack screamed and thrashed against his bonds.

  “There was a bonus, though. Her brain images were spectacular. C’est la vie.”

  Brendan nodded to Missy, who began adjusting her monitors.

  “I couldn’t believe it when you showed up claiming to be her foster brother,” Brendan said. “I still thought our story about Michelle transferring across the country would hold up.”

  “It would have if you had just put the car in the lake,” Missy chided.

  Brendan shot her a look and then turned back to Jack. “I was a little nervous when you came snooping around, but after you sent the email to Missy, we needed to act.”