Kill Game: An Unforgettable Serial Killer Thriller Read online

  Kill Game

  Adam Nicholls

  Jennifer May

  Copyright © 2018 by Adam Nicholls

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  [email protected]

  For Charlotte.

  Always.

  Kill Game

  Chapter One

  That was something he’d have to store in the old memory bank for later. Despite all their hype, silencers really weren’t all that silent.

  He’d shot guns before—plenty of times. Of course he had. It was one of his top five favorite sensations. There was just something about the way the kickback traveled down his arm and settled at the base of his spine. He felt it glowing there like a shot of hard liquor for hours after he’d pulled the trigger.

  Earlier that night, when he’d let himself into the café across from the police station and used the silencer, he’d been disappointed at how much noise it actually made. He’d waited for the last coffee-stained and weary barista to leave for the night before he popped the lock. Most of the buildings in downtown Portland were still on the older side. He liked to think they were constructed before nasty men like himself roamed the streets—a more virginal time where the idea of taking out a security camera so you could drop a body without detection was unthinkable. But who was he kidding? Men like him were a primordial fungus. Good people needed to demonize his kind as much as he needed to prey on theirs.

  He’d succeeded in shooting one of the surveillance cameras but not both. As soon as the shot rang in his ears, the coffee shop alarm was triggered, and the world around him began to holler. He looked back, panicked, at the alarm monitor by the back door. It blinked at him with what seemed like a thousand frantic, incriminating red eyes. The police would be here in a second. He was right across from the head office for god’s sake.

  Still, one was gone. It would take those apes at least twenty-four hours to replace it and get it back up to speed. All he needed to do now was concentrate on the second. And get the girl out of the trunk. He couldn’t forget about that.

  He sighed and flexed his fingers around the steering wheel. His knuckles whitened as he grasped, and he saw a fresh bead of blood well up like oil from the bite mark in the webbing between his thumb and pointer finger. She’d really tried to take a chunk out of him.

  Of course, her braces hadn’t made the wound any cleaner. It had struck him as odd at the time that a young girl with braces should be hitching in the first place. He’d been driving into town on the long stretch of freeway that barreled arrow-straight through the farmland that led to Vancouver and Portland. His headlights had picked her up long before he could register her gender or her age. She’d been nothing more than a pale silhouette, waving her thumb at whatever light shone her way. In all honesty, he couldn’t believe his luck. It was like packing up to spend a week hunting in the woods only to find an elk lounging in your backyard.

  “You going to Portland, sir?” she’d asked, squinting at him through the passenger window. He’d seen the glint of her braces then, the tangled wires like a metal corset in her young, soft mouth. He’d liked it. He’d liked her. He’d liked how badly her hair was dyed and how the tips were splayed open and frayed against her shoulder. He’d liked the clusters of acne that bloomed like wildflowers all over her chubby face. She’d had a tiny moustache, too. His favorite.

  “Isn’t it a bit late to be trying to catch a ride?”

  He’d practiced sincerity like some people practiced a musical instrument. As soon as you managed to perfect the right turn of phrase, the right squint of the eyes, you could convince almost anyone of anything. You could convince a girl, no more than ten, with tears in her eyes and bruises on her arms that you would take her to her friend’s place in Portland. You could listen to her drone on about how much of an asshole her dad was and how often he hit her for an entire car ride, and she still wouldn’t have a clue. She’d even let you buy her a milkshake from a twenty-four-hour fast-food joint, as long as you projected that wholesome, older-brother, good-guy energy. She wouldn’t even struggle for the first part. She’d be too shocked. Sure, when the game actually starts, she might bite down on the webbed flesh of your hand, but those were little hurts. Those were the hurts you healed from. Her hurts? She wasn’t coming back from those.

  The blood that’d beaded up on his hand slipped down onto his wrist as he was thinking. He’d grabbed a napkin from the takeout place, and now he used it to wipe away the red drizzle that made its way down his arm like a major highway on a road map. He’d been wasting time again. The street was dead, sure. It was almost two in the morning, and as busy as downtown Portland was, the rain was making sure that pedestrian traffic was nonexistent. For now, the coast was clear.

  He lifted his rear out of the bucket seat that encased it. He felt for the bulge of the laser pointer he’d put in his lap pocket and pulled it out. It was heavy in his palm. He’d considered picking up a dollar-store version, but he needed something more substantial. He pressed the button to test its power even though he’d done so a thousand times. Once, he’d even attempted to blind one of his brothers just to prove the whole “don’t shine it in your eyes” theory wasn’t a joke. If only he’d been able to hang on a few more seconds before his brother threw him off. He’d swear in court he’d seen smoke starting to rise from his cornea.

  Taking one last look at the street around him, he opened the door and stepped out into the rain. This needed to be done in less than three minutes. He pulled his balaclava over his face and moved around the car and to the trunk. Being such a tall man, it only took him a few steps. His heart threatened to begin thumping, but he bore down and silenced it out of sheer will. He was smooth, unhurried, and as casual as a man checking into a hotel room as he unlocked and opened the trunk of the car.

  The smell hit him first. Even in the sharp clarity of a West Coast storm, the smell of the girl’s emptied bowels and fear sweat poured out of the open trunk. He kept his face as still as his heart. He was above it all. He always was. Taking a final look at the empty street around him, he leaned over the folded body of the teenager and took her into his arms. Her head fell down at an impossible angle as he raised her up, her stringy hair steaming over his arm. Even in the half-light, he could make out the plump pinkness of her scalp where her natural color was creeping in. Such purity. Such youth. He hesitated for a second, feeling a tightness in his loins that would need to be quelled, too. Not so pure anymore.

  This wasn’t the time to reflect. There was a bigger trophy on the horizon. One that would make this one look like a participation ribbon.

  His eye glued on the working security camera above the door, he swung the heavy teen over his left shoulder. He heard a whoosh of air come from his lungs as her weight compressed his shoulder. Jesus. Too many YouTube videos and taco chips for this one.

  He stepped onto the sidewalk and to the far right. With the other camera out of order, he’d have at least until he was directly to the side of the other one before it registered him. He walked quickly, the smell coming off the girl’s stained jean shorts making his eyes sting. According to his calculations he had about two more minutes to drop the bod
y and leave.

  What was her name again? Had he even asked?

  He pushed the laser pointer outward from his palm and into his fingers. Before he was even within range of the camera, he had it pointed directly toward the lens. He was sturdy, his aim constant as the laser blinded the camera. When they got around to looking at the footage, all they’d get was a minute-long whiteout they’d struggle to explain for at least an hour or two.

  His jaw working, his teeth grinding, he kept his gaze on the camera. His arm unnaturally stable, he kneeled down at the topmost step of the police bureau. He carefully bent his shoulder toward the wet ground, his aim at the camera never wavering. The girl fell off with a wet thump, her limbs ragdolling around her at morbid angles. His shoulder and spine sang as the weight was removed. Still burning the lens, he stood up and looked down at her body where it lay, its fleshy, dead silence louder than any starting gun. He smiled, an excitement that felt like Christmastime bubbling up into his throat.

  “Game on.”

  Chapter Two

  The wall in front of her was a blur—a mess of peeling beige paint and motivational posters that rose up and down in front of her eyes like choppy ocean waves. She could feel the sweat that had gathered around her hairline begin to drip down her forehead. It would be in her eyes soon. It would sting, blurring her vision even more than it was now, and disrupt her unblinking view of the wall in front of her. She wouldn’t wipe it away. She never did. She’d continue her relentless pace on the treadmill, letting the sweat turn into irritated tears that would flow emotionlessly down her face and into her already soaking shirt.

  It was all about being comfortable in discomfort.

  She drove her body like a furious jockey, whipping herself faster and faster toward her self-imposed finish line. Even though the music coming from her wireless headphones blocked out any other noise, she could still feel the rhythm of her footfalls against the belt. It was an impossible pace, one that echoed in the hollows of her small bones.

  From somewhere under the angry bassline of her music, Isabella heard herself, whispering up from the marrow of the bones she was punishing.

  You should be sleeping. It’s 3:00 a.m., and you’re the only one at Fitness Universe. You know who’s up at 3:00 a.m., ripping their tendons on a treadmill at that time? Crazy people. When was the last time you blinked?

  Bella scowled, the straight line of her lips loosening only to register disgust.

  “Shut up.” Without intending to, she’d addressed the voice in her head out loud. She shot a glance at the mirror on the wall beside her. There was only one other person in the gym, and he looked up, his face slack. She’d startled him, distracted him from his busywork disinfecting mats. How loud had she been?

  See? Shouting to yourself, no less. Well done.

  Bella’s pace was starting to slacken. She’d been in perfect rhythm only moments earlier, racing toward her best time. Now, the belt beneath her seemed to drag her backward. Her arms, pumping away at her side, were suddenly out of sync with her breathing, and she found herself gasping for air. She could still fix this. She just needed to focus, get her body back in line, and she’d still make that 10K two minutes under her best time.

  She grit her teeth, her already sharp jawline becoming even more rigid than it already was. Who needed to blink anyway?

  There was a sudden click, and her music was replaced by her ringtone, blaring into her ears at top volume. She hadn’t realized she’d turned it up quite that loud. Bella’s heart seized in her chest. Her focus collapsed, and she felt her feet slip out from under her, dragged backward by the speed of the treadmill. She swore to herself, conscious this time of her volume. With a small leap, she placed her feet on either side of the belt and reached for her phone where it was nestled in the console.

  Kyle. After two years of working with him, she’d still never got around to entering his name in her phone, but she recognized his caller ID in a single glance. God knows he called her often enough during the day. But at 3:00 a.m.?

  Gasping for breath, she answered the phone and used her earphones with the built-in mic.

  “Shouldn’t you be all snuggled up in your Superman jammies?” She might have been struggling for breath, but she wasn’t lacking in sarcasm. She dropped her head, trying to steady her breathing as the empty belt roaring between her legs sent up blasts of air. Her sweat dripped onto dusty black rubber.

  There was a pause and then Detective Kyle Gray’s voice came from within her earphones. She could hear a roar of ambient noises behind him, vaguely familiar voices shouting out commands mixed with the slosh of traffic on the wet streets.

  “Detective Cruz?”

  He only spoke to her in that formal tone when either he had an audience or he was shaken up by something. By the sound in his voice, it was both.

  “We need you to come down to the bureau right away.”

  There was a pause where Bella detected a shudder in his breathing. Something was up. She punched the red button in the center of the treadmill’s computer, and the belt came to a rapid halt.

  “You’re not at home, are you?” His voice softened, and she knew he’d moved away from whomever had been barking orders behind him. “It’s the middle of the night, Bella. What the hell? Are you at the gym again?”

  She jumped off the machine. Her legs felt weak beneath her, wobbly and unsteady like sea legs.

  “No, I just left the club. Getting my groove on. Free wing night, you know how I roll.” She pulled her towel out of a wall of empty cubbies.

  Kyle managed a weak scoff, but his voice betrayed his nerves again. There was definitely a tremor. It was more evident now.

  “Yeah, well, all hell has broken loose down at the bureau. You’ve been summoned, so stop whatever you’re doing and get down here.”

  Bella buried her face in her towel. Now she’d stopped moving, her body was sweating in earnest. She could feel it rippling between her shoulder blades toward her buttocks, sticking her shirt and shorts to her petite frame. Summoned. That meant drop everything. That meant non-negotiable. That meant right now, or she’d know the reason why.

  Bella groaned, her heartbeat still pounding in her temples.

  “Why can’t you take care of it? They don’t need me. You’ve got this covered, right?”

  “Not this one.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “It’s a homicide, Bella.”

  She looped the towel around her neck and pulled her backpack loose from where she’d stuffed it into the back of the cubbyhole. The guy cleaning the mats practically jumped out of the way as she stormed past him. “Yeah? And? Am I the city coroner now? Why do they need me down there?”

  “The body was dropped outside the bureau’s front door.”

  Bella stopped, her hand on the door handle. The steady downpour of rain outside had managed to spackle the glass of the gym’s front door despite the awning. Bella frowned, laughing a little. “Is this a joke? How is that possible?”

  “Believe me,” Kyle said, “it’s possible.”

  “Who drops a body right at our front door? That takes balls. Am I impressed or horrified?”

  There was another pause. She’d worked with Kyle long enough to be able to picture his face as clearly as if it were reflected in the glass in front of her. College-boy good looks sullied by the darkness of something that his clever, but frankly naïve, brain was struggling to get around. He’d toughened up a lot since he became her partner two years ago, but there was still some work to do. He was still soft around the edges.

  “Horrified. I mean, the condition of the body…”

  The sweat was cooling on her now. She felt a shiver in her core.

  “What state?” she asked, watching a gust of wind and a fan of raindrops smack against the door.

  Kyle paused again, and Bella was growing sick of it fast. This one was longer. She could still hear familiar work voices yelling in the background. Had she noticed the strain in their voices bef
ore?

  “What condition, Kyle?” she asked again, annoyed at both his pauses and the shaking in her own body. She’d pushed herself too hard.

  “You need to come in.”

  “There’s security cameras coming out the yin yang there. Don’t tell me you guys haven’t checked the film yet. You should be able to get an ID and book whoever this dipshit is before the sun comes up,” she continued before she could stop herself. “You don’t need me there. I haven’t slept a full eight hours all week. I have to get home, I’ve got a shift tomorrow and—”

  “We’ve got nothing, Bella. Not a thing. This guy… he broke the cameras before he dropped the girl.”

  The girl.

  For a moment it felt as if her legs had sunk into the floor beneath her.

  You’re just cold and tired, that’s all. You’ve got this. You’re on the other side now, remember? You’re out.

  “The girl?” she managed, her throat dry and raw from gasping through her run.

  “Just get down here, Detective.”

  The reporters huddled around the broad steps of the bureau. They were like moths, gathered around the light of their separate cameras as they clutched steaming cups of coffee. One of them gave her a hungry look as she passed, examining her from the top of her sweaty ponytail down to her runners. Bella tried to avoid eye contact but failed. The woman leapt out of the huddle and grabbed her elbow before she could pass through the police tape.

  “Detective Cruz,” she called.

  They didn’t call her “Shrewd Sandy” for nothing. Even dressed like a twelve-year-old boy, Bella had been recognized. She felt Sandy’s glossy talons pinching her where she’d dug in her nails.

  Sandy McDonald was the city’s most feared journalist—those she didn’t have dirt on, she controlled with her considerable all-American blonde beauty. There wasn’t a straight male detective on the force who hadn’t been manipulated into giving her an exclusive scoop. Somehow, they’d all walked away from the experience with the same dumb look on their faces.