Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) (23 page)

“For what?” She started to fade back into unconsciousness.

“I’m going to cut into your brain.” Bob got up and walked to the small desk. He grabbed a vial of the Xylazine and loaded up a syringe. “I’ve had enough small talk.” He walked back over to her and stuck the needle into the side of her neck. He pushed the tranquilizer in—silence.

“It’s time to brand you,” he said.

She didn’t respond.

Johnson got relieved from his door duty to make the trip with me over to my ex-wife’s house. I tried calling her phone a few more times on the way, but the calls still went straight to voicemail. I pulled up to the house and parked at the curb. Johnson pulled his marked cruiser in behind me and got out.

“This is us here.” I pointed to the house.

We walked up the driveway and went to the front door. I reached out to the bell and pressed it in hard. It dinged inside the house. I heard no one rummaging around inside, no footsteps, and no voices.

We waited another minute. No one came to the door.

“Johnson, you’re in uniform. Why don’t you check around back?”

“No problem.”

I stood at the front door and rang the bell again. I waited. Johnson came around the other side of the house.

He shook his head as he approached. “Everything looks normal.”

I knelt down and inspected the front door opening, searching for any kind of pry marks or anything of the sort. The door and sill looked normal. I twisted the knob—locked.

“You check the garage?” he asked.

“I tried earlier. You can’t see inside.”

“Let me have a look.”

Officer Johnson walked to the side of the garage, and I followed. We got to the window. Johnson started contorting himself, trying to see in. He cocked his head one way, crouched, and then stood on his tiptoes. His final method was to look through the tiny slits that the string that operated the blinds passed through.

“Are you seeing anything?” I asked.

“Not really.”

A thud came from inside the garage. Then another. Then more.

“You hear that?” I asked.

Johnson nodded his head, “Yeah. It’s coming from inside.”

I turned my head and stuck my ear against the garage window. The thuds grew louder, and then I caught something else. Someone shouted, “Help!”

“Call it in.” I motioned for Johnson to stand back and put my elbow through the window. I cleared away the glass and pulled myself through. The thuds came from the trunk of a black Acura—parked next to it was a yellow taxi. I pulled my weapon.

The shouting for help continued from the trunk of the car, followed by repeated thumping. Someone was kicking from inside.

I rapped on the top of the trunk lid. “Be quiet. We’ll get you out of there in a second.”

I motioned for Johnson to come in. He climbed through the window and drew his service weapon. I spoke just above a whisper. “We need to see if anyone is in the house.”

He nodded.

I went to the door leading inside and slowly twisted the knob. Johnson and I entered the house. It was quiet—no footsteps of anyone running, no cries for help. We moved room to room and cleared the lower level. No one was there. We moved upstairs—no children, no Samantha, and no Bob Cross. We headed back for the garage.

I gave the lid a rap with my knuckles. “Who’s in there?”

“Martin Bridgeman. I live here. Get me out.”

I opened the car and searched for a trunk-release button. The button was recessed at the left bottom of the dash. I thumbed it down—nothing. I went back to the trunk. “Where are the keys?”

“They are in here with me. I’m tied up. Find something to break in. There are tools up on the work benches.”

“You don’t have a spare set of keys?”

“I don’t know where they are. Just break in.”

I pulled a crowbar from the bench and jammed it down into the gap between the trunk and rear bumper. I pressed down with all my strength, but the trunk didn’t budge.

“Johnson, give me a hand with this.”

He came over, and we both put all our weight into it. The metal of the car’s trunk lid bent, popped free, and flew up. Inside was my ex-wife’s husband, hogtied in his boxer shorts. I looked at him lying there in his urine-soaked underwear. He was pathetic. He was out of shape and balding and had some stupid-looking mustache sitting on his lip.
This is what Samantha left me for? This is the guy she cheated on me with?
I made a scissors sign with my fingers toward Johnson, and he brought over a set of snips from one of the workbenches. I cut the wire that bound Marty. We got him to his feet.

Marty sat on the rear bumper of his car. “Carl, what the hell are you doing here?”

“Trying to find Samantha. Where is she?”

“I don’t know. Who the hell tied me up and locked me in my trunk? Why is there a taxi in my garage?”

“Tell me what happened. Do it quick,” I said.

He pointed to his boxer shorts. “I wet my damn underwear. Can I go change first?”

I stuck my finger in his face again. “Tell me where she is. Tell me what happened.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what happened. We went to sleep like normal. When I woke up, I was hogtied in a trunk.”

“Were your kids here?” I asked.

“No, this is their mother’s weekend.”

“You don’t know who did this to you?”

“No. The last thing I remember was going to sleep last night.” He looked around the garage. “Samantha isn’t here?”

“No.”

“Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on here and why there’s a damn taxi cab in my wife’s parking spot?”

“What does Samantha drive?”

“A black Lexus IS.”

“What’s the tag number?”

He gave it to me and I called it in as stolen. I pointed at the door leading into the house and gave Bridgeman a shove. “Inside.”

He stumbled forward. “Fine.”

We went back into the house. The smell of the place brought back bad memories. Samantha had often come home with that exact odor stuck on her. It wasn’t a bad smell, but at the moment, it made me want to hog-tie Bridgeman again and stuff him back into the trunk. My feelings for him needed to be pushed aside. The only thing that mattered was finding her.

I sent Johnson with Marty to his bedroom. I instructed him to give it a quick search while Bridgeman cleaned himself up. Johnson came back out a few minutes later, holding a syringe on a piece of paper.

“Cab, syringe—had to be the Psycho Surgeon, right?” he asked.

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. “It’s Bob Cross. Leave the Psycho Surgeon crap for the media.”

“Yeah, that’s what I meant, Bob Cross. Why would he leave evidence? He never did before.”

“Because he doesn’t care. We know who he is. And now he has my ex-wife. He left the cab here so he can move around without being spotted.” I rubbed my eyes.

I had to tell Bridgeman what was going on. A serial killer had taken Samantha because of me. Bridgeman shouted profanities and put on a show. He flailed his hands in the air and called me every name in the book. He stormed halfway across the kitchen at me but stopped dead in his tracks when I cocked a fist. I still owed him for sleeping with her when she had still been my wife. He retreated and took a seat at the kitchen table.

We needed to go through the house room by room and look for anything Cross could have left behind—any little scrap or clue that could tell us where he’d taken her. We needed to dig through the taxi and see if we could find anything there. I dialed the captain. He said he’d send Rick, Jones, and Hank out. Johnson and I were to sit tight until everyone arrived.

I sat down at the kitchen table. After a few minutes of waiting, my phone buzzed in my pocket. The caller ID said it was an unknown caller. I clicked Talk.

“This is Lieutenant Kane.”

“Hey, Carl.”

“Who the hell is… Cross? Where is Samantha?”

“I may have overestimated you. I gave you fair warning that I was going to take her.”

“If you touch one hair on…”

Cross interrupted with a laugh. “Please. Cliché threats, Lieutenant? You can do better than that. Tell me, what’s it like sitting in the house with your replacement? Does it stir bad feelings? Are you sitting with your rival now? Oh, you did find him in the trunk, didn’t you?”

“How do you know where I am?”

“Don’t bother scouring the neighborhood. I’m not watching you. Your report of her car being stolen came across my trusty police scanner.”

“What the hell do you want? Where is Samantha?”

“Why so much concern for an ex-wife? Do you still love her, Lieutenant?”

I didn’t respond. He wanted to play some kind of sick mind game with me, and I had no interest in giving him the satisfaction.

“You better answer, or I’ll start tinkering with her right now. Listen.”

I heard the sound of a drill in the background. “Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I still love her.”

Marty stared at me from the corner of the kitchen.

“Isn’t that nice? We have a lot in common. My wife left me too. It’s too late for Tina and me, but I’m sure you can still get Samantha back if you try. You’ve got to just keep drilling down to get to the root of the problem.”

His words disgusted me.

He chuckled into the phone, finishing with a snort. “Did you get the joke there?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t funny. Tell me what you want, Cross.”

“Well, I’m kind of getting a late start this morning. Samantha and I had a long night.”

“What did you do to her?”

“I just got done branding the little cow. That’s it. Like I said, I’m getting a late start today. I figure I’ll probably go grab a bite to eat and run a couple errands before I come back and start on her. So you’ll have a little time to find us. It wouldn’t be any fun if you didn’t have a chance. I’ll make sure you get some clues to where we are.”

“I’ll find you.”

“Maybe. Here’s the reason for my call though, Carl. I want you to tell me which way I should do it. Transorbital or leucotomy? I figured I’d let you choose.”

“I’m not choosing.”

“Choose, or I do it now.”

His end of the line went quiet.

I said nothing.

“I’m going to count to three. One… Two… Thr—”

I interrupted him. “Don’t.”

“I’m waiting for an answer.”

I was silent, again.

He laughed into the phone. “All right, fine. I won’t make you pick. I’ll surprise you.”

“I’ll kill you if you do anything to her.”

“Maybe. I’m thinking that I’ll do the procedure while she’s alert and awake. What do you think? Think she’ll like that?”

“I’ll find you, you sick piece of shit.”

He yawned. “I’m just so weary from all this traveling.” The sound of a drill filled the phone. “See you later, Carl.” He hung up.

I slammed the phone down on the table.

His claim that I had time didn’t hold any weight with me. I didn’t want to think about her being held against her will or what he might be doing to her. I was going to find him in the shortest time possible.

I went to the cab first. It belonged to Cross, so any clues would most likely be found there. I wasn’t going to wait for forensics or anyone else. I looked for any trash on the floor. Maybe he had left something behind, indicating where he had been. I was digging around the floor of the cab when my eyes caught the taxi registration card on the dash. The name was Dan Ellison. The photo looked like Cross might look without the beard. I opened the glove box and searched for the vehicle’s registration, which I found in an envelope with the insurance. They were both in Dan Ellison’s name.
Who the hell is Dan Ellison? Why does that name sound familiar?

I called the plates in to dispatch. They came back legal and up to date—issued to Dan Ellison. We got his address from the vehicle’s registration. We confirmed it as current with the station. I hung up. Ellison and Cross were either connected or the same person. If Samantha was being held there, I didn’t want to give him a forewarning.

Hank, Jones, and Captain Bostok walked into the kitchen. I talked to them about the conversation I’d had with Cross and what I had found. I also told them about Dan Ellison.

“Take two squad cars from patrol as backup. You, Jones, and Hank lead. Use your head,” the captain said.

“Address is out of our jurisdiction,” I said.

“Where is it?”

“Apollo Beach.”

“I’ll call ahead to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. You’ll be fine—just go.”

“What about a warrant?”

The captain thought about it for a second. “If it’s Cross or you see any sign of him, we already have the warrant. If it’s not Cross, get this Ellison back to the station. His name is all over a vehicle involved. It’s enough to bring him in.”

The plan was loose, but it was all we had. I got Marty’s home and mobile phone numbers. I told him I’d update him with anything I found. Jones and Hank got in my car for the ride over to Ellison’s house. The address was twenty-five minutes south. Johnson followed us in his patrol car. Officer Henry met us en route. An HCSD car sat a few blocks from the address. He filed in behind us after we passed. We pulled into the subdivision and parked at the curb a block away from the house. We got out, and I went to the trunk of the car and put on a vest.

Hank flashed me a confused look.

“Someone has to go to the door,” I said.

The sheriff approached us. “Who’s heading this up?” he asked.

I cinched the Velcro straps tight on the vest with my left hand and reached out for a handshake with my right. “Lieutenant Carl Kane, TPD Homicide.”

He shook my hand. “Sheriff Scott Tanner.”

I introduced the rest of the team.

“What can I help with?” he asked.

“We have a person of interest at the address. Not sure if he’s home and not sure the level of what we are walking into. He might be innocent and unaware of why we are there, or we could be walking up on a serial killer with a hostage, the hostage being my ex-wife.”

His eyes grew. “Geez.”

“I’m going to go to the door and try to make contact.” I pointed to Hank and Jones. “The two detectives here will have my back. I want you backing us up, if you’re all right with that.”