Dale put away the magnifying glass and dropped the crime scene photos, grabbing the folder titled, “Grant, Douglas—Crime Scene Analysis Report.” He read through the information one more time and threw the folder down, papers scattering onto the floor. He spun around in his seat and faced the bulletin board beside his desk.
Brought in for the Grant case, photographs of suspects, evidence, crime scenes and theories had been stapled across the board. With the addition of one new murder, the papers had grown and overlapped each other.
Four perfect murders. So far. That was the hope that Dale clung too—that they were only temporarily perfect and that at some point they’d find something that would actually start cracking one or more of the cases and make them less than perfect.
Paperwork was a part of the investigation that most cops hated. But everyone knew that many investigations had been cracked by one tiny, overlooked detail.
“Where would you find a bomb expert, Jimmy?”
“Military, or a police bomb squad.”
Dale stared at the board, though by now he had almost memorized it. “What do you think?”
His partner dropped his paperwork and sighed. “I have nothing.”
“Hey, Tommy!” Dale yelled. “Who’d you talk to in New Orleans?”
The man rummaged through his desk before answering. “Detective Hopkins.”
“You got a number?”
The cop scurried over and handed Dale a crumpled piece of paper with scribbled handwriting.
Dale made the call, hoping the New Orleans detective kept the same pathetic hours he did. He made his request and was transferred to the homicide department.
“Detective Hopkins.” A hoarse voice, all business, came on the phone.
“This is Detective Dale Dayton of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.”
“Ah, I was just going to call you.”
“Do you have something for me?”
“That’s the thing. After your officer’s call, we went down to the docks and dusted the entire booth, inside and out. The phone booth had been wiped down and cleaned by a professional. We couldn’t pull one print from the site.”
Dale wasn’t surprised.
The New Orleans detective continued. “We kept a camera on for two days—no connection to anyone you named.”
Dale shook his head. “Thank you, Detective.”
He leaned back in the chair and stared at the papers on the desk. Was there anything among this collection that would indicate a path to follow?
Another file was thrown on his desk, this time by an LVMPD intern. “Detective, we got an ID on the prostitute from Pitt’s office. Carey Reynolds, nineteen years old, from Bay City, Texas. Guess her picture on the news caught a tip. We’re doing a background, but so far nothing in her past suggests she was the intended target.”
Dale nodded. “I didn’t think she was.”
Calvin sat in silence, reviewing every feed. There was nothing he could see that might affect him, but somewhere Baxter was staking out the house and preparing his next move.
Baxter would set up a sniper site beyond the range of Calvin’s monitors.
Calvin had left his fortress once when he’d spotted the assassin. He and Rachel weren’t leaving again. A Kevlar vest was no protection against a head shot. What the killer didn’t know, though, was that Calvin could outwait him. He and Rachel could live without fear, if not in comfort, for a couple of months with their supplies. The killer couldn’t risk exposure and arrest that long.
At some point, even two months from now, Calvin would have to emerge or have no life at all. Once Calvin did, he would put himself and Rachel in double jeopardy. The police were still searching for him as the primary suspect in Grant’s and perhaps Pitt’s murder. And if the cops didn’t get Calvin first, he’d always know that the killer would pick up the hunt again until the bastard finally succeeded in killing him..
Did Calvin really want to live looking over his shoulder?
He was in the most challenging, problematic and deadliest position of his life and he had no plan yet. Somehow, he was going to have to figure out a way to end this impasse safely. Capture the killer without leaving the workshop and risking their lives, or be arrested by the cops. It seemed impossible, but he had the confidence of experience. Except for the prideful mistake that had permanently damaged his knee, he knew that it was at times like this, when the stakes and challenges were the greatest, that he was capable of fully focusing.
Before, it had been only about him. Now he had to protect the only woman he had ever loved since his mother and that increased the complexity of the situation enormously. He could never again leave Rachel alone as he had when pursuing the killer. Right now, it was a siege and a stalemate and the clock was ticking.
He left the computer room and went to the most secure part of the safe house, where they kept the cots and air mattresses. Rachel was sleeping. He watched her dream and breathe, deep and slow. A little tremor and cry left her at one point. Calvin thought it was more than a bad dream. He had to focus and finish a plan.
Two hours later, Calvin sat up. He needed to do some final prep, but otherwise he was ready to act and not alone. The irony of whom he’d chosen as a partner made him chuckle. It was his only choice.
He dialed. It took over two minutes for his call to be transferred. He waited patiently, knowing that this call was probably causing all sorts of chaos.
“Detective Dayton.”
“I’m Calvin Watters. I’m sure you have your technical people trying to trace this call. Don’t waste your time or theirs. My phone is untraceable.”
He heard fingers snapping in the background. Dayton would continue trying a trace, because Calvin knew he had no reason to believe him.
“If you are who you say you are, then you know how hard we’re looking for you. Why should I believe you?”
He told Dayton, in exact detail, the Pitt crime scene and gave details about what he earned as a leg breaker. It was much more than he needed to say to prove his identity and enough to show the extent to which he would cooperate.
When he finished, Dayton replied. “I believe you are Calvin Watters. So why are you calling me? I doubt you are ready to turn yourself in.”
“Should I?” Calvin asked with a smile.
“If you’re innocent, yes.”
“Do you think I am?”
“Mr. Watters, you have no reason to believe me, but I’m the only person in this department who thinks you are.”
That wasn’t the response he expected. His intelligence and years of bill collecting had made him almost a human lie detector. Dayton’s tone and words sounded like the sincere truth. “How can I know that’s really what you think?”
“To be honest, there’s no way I can prove that. Only you can decide whether you can trust me or not. From the beginning, you’ve always been at the bottom of my list of suspects for Grant’s murder, even while you’re at the top of everyone else’s.”
“Dayton, for now, I’m going to take you at your word, as you’re going to have to take me on mine. I had nothing to do with Grant’s murder or any of the others—especially not your dead fellow officer. There’s a lot I’ve done that I’m not proud of, but I’m no killer. And I’m without doubt not stupid enough to blow up my own car and commit suicide. Everyone who knows me knows that I’m the only one who drives my wreck of a car. That means the bomb was meant for me and whoever wants me dead is the same person who killed that cop.”
“Maybe so. If you’re innocent, come in and prove it. You’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“I’m an African-American former football star who can be shown to have gone bad. Even if I had rock-solid proof of innocence, which I don’t, things wouldn’t go my way in court. This isn’t OJ all over again.”