The bank had an ATM machine that faced the pawnshop.
The ATM machine had a camera.
And that camera succeeded where the shop’s camera failed, recording both the suspect’s departure from the store and the rear end of his vehicle when he pulled away from the curb.
But his excitement soon crumbled beneath dueling emotions of elation and anger when the bank manager printed out the four still shots and handed them over. After all his hard work, after facing the victims’ families and promising them he’d bring the killer to justice, he finally had a photographic glimpse of the mystery man who’d evaded capturer over the last seven months. But because the camera’s lens worked best at taking close-up shots, not one of those pictures revealed the man’s identity, or even the license number on his van.
The wheel-cover over the spare tire attached to the rear lift gate of Frank’s Blazer still showed the dent where he’d vented his frustration.
Nevertheless, two eyewitness descriptions of the van, a data link to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and a pot of coffee started him on the kidnapper’s trail. And that trail had led here, to this area, where Kale Kane’s creepy alliance first began sometime in the past.
Now, he searched the night again, knowing Kane’s remains had to be here, somewhere close to home.
And if he could locate them, he’d find the accomplice.
CHAPTER 28
The Damerow house.
Melissa edged toward the open door, firearm ready.
She came out from behind her car and navigated the path from the driveway to the house like a predatory cat on the hunt.
It’s your duty, she told herself, but guessed that any other officer would’ve labeled her insane for entering a situation with so many unknowns. After her bizarre phone incident earlier, she wondered if they’d be wrong.
With her back to the outside frame, she paused in the doorway.
Had the prowler remained in the house, or had he already snuck outside?
She glanced toward the vast front yard and frowned at how little she could see of it. Verdant trees lined the far borders of the property, decorative boulders clustered near the walk, and terraced flowerbeds broke up the land’s level surface, totaling dozens of places for someone to hide.
Cursing, she turned away from the night and pivoted in through the entry.
On a good note, the foyer’s design worked to her advantage. A half-wall partition separated the greeting area from the living room, permitting her a fair view of the home’s open forward rooms while providing some protection.
No lights shone in this part of the house, but a vaulted ceiling allowed for the front-facing windows to reach two stories high. The ambient light from outside illuminated a great deal of the room, reflecting off white leather furniture and glass tables like moonlight on freshly fallen snow. In that pallid gloom, Melissa spotted the much darker, two-foot wide discoloration of dried blood that covered one of the couch cushions and part of the floor. Her gaze traced a trail of crimson splashes that led out of the room, toward a hallway entrance on her side of the dining room archway.
She didn’t move to follow the gory trail right off, however. Instead, she remained statue-still, listening for the sound of someone treading across the carpet or releasing a breath from around a corner. She didn’t know how many people could be in the house, or even if the one person she’d seen had stayed in the basement, and she didn’t like the idea of putting her back to an adversary while investigating where the blood went.
Something clattered to the floor in another room. Something metal. Downstairs.
Melissa froze. The prowler was still in the basement.
She moved from her crouched position and hurried to the hallway, crossing the distance with her back against the wall. She peeked around the corner, finding a hallway short enough to see into the four open doors it contained. She spotted a bedroom, a bathroom, a den, and a staircase.
The basement. She knew that’s where she needed to go, but leaving two unchecked floors above her had the same appeal of playing Russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver.
The faint squeak of a hinge issued from below, there and gone, like a swooping bat.
The window, she thought.
With no time to debate, she dodged across the basement entry and flattened herself against the wall, checking the steps with a quick glance. Finding the steps clear, she began her descent with the stealthy grace of a shadow, gun poised for action.
The smell of minerals hung in the air, earthy scents from the concrete walls of the house’s foundation mixed with the odors of bleach and laundry detergent. From where she stood, she spotted a washer and dryer opposite the unlit landing, flanked by clothesbaskets and a double basin scrub sink. A stack of uncompleted wash lay on the floor, but darkness obscured the rest of the room.
She reached the bottom.
Steeling herself, Melissa flipped on a trio of switches she located at the landing and fluorescent light flooded the room.
“Police officer,” she shouted.
She stepped forward with her gun leading the way.
Checking left and right, she discovered the basement encircled the stairwell, making the room all the more advantageous for anyone lurking near the back.
She went left and crept along the lengthy foundation, passing a workbench, boxed belongings, empty picture frames, and an old coffee table due for refinishing. Soon, she found herself standing amongst the heap of defrosted food before the freezer. The machine itself was positioned with its back to a cinderblock foundation wall on the underside of the steps.
On the opposite wall, she spotted the narrow window through which she’d first spotted the hideous face.
It stood open.
She remembered the squeaking-hinge sound. Shit.
Moving faster, she checked the rest of the room to verify it was empty, only finding stacked items patiently awaiting a garage sale. She returned to the freezer area and peered out the open window, guessing it had become the prowler’s escape after he opened the front door to find her at her car.
Melissa glanced to the ceiling, thinking of the other unseen rooms she had yet to inspect. Then she looked at the box freezer.
Someone had fitted the cover with an additional metal fastener, having screwed it in place over the seam of the container’s lid and body. A medium-size padlock dangled from the latch.
In her mind she saw the corpse-like face gazing at her through the window, mouth slack, eyes glazed over.
She knew that tampering with the freezer could destroy valuable evidence. But the bloody handprint not six inches from the lock provoked her into picking up a pry-bar from the workbench and motivated her into breaking it free.
The metal cracked. The door flew open.
And she found her corpse.
Melissa stared at the grisly contents lying inside the box freezer, alternating her gaze between the two bodies in the main storage compartment and the familiar double K symbol drawn in blood on the cover’s inner paneling.
She resisted the desire to close her eyes.
The killer had stacked the Damerow woman on top of what must’ve been her husband, turning the freezer into a frost-lined casket built for two. The fluorescent lighting caused crystalline flakes on her bluish-gray skin to shimmer and take on a luminescent quality. The rigor mortis of her facial features matched the expression Melissa had seen in the window.