Snakes & Ladders (42 page)

Striker moved the mouse, and the monitor turned from black to blue. Across the screen was the Windows password request. A hundred different possibilities ran through Striker’s head, but he opted to leave the computer untouched. One wrong attempt might be enough to lock them out or start a pre-programmed formatting application.

The Forensic guys could handle this one.

‘We need Ich here,’ Striker said. ‘To unlock the computer and back everything up.’ He pulled out his iPhone and tried to make the call, but from this deep in the bunker, surrounded by walls of concrete, he couldn’t get a signal. He headed back for the ladder, put his foot on the first rung, and stopped.

To his left was a picture on the wall. A lithograph of some kind. It was a famous work. Striker couldn’t recall the artist, but he knew the title.

Relativity
.

It was a picture of people walking up and down different flights of stairs that defied all laws of gravity. Twisted, abnormal, unnerving.

Fitting for this place.

The print was huge, blown up, easily four feet by four feet. In a room that offered nothing else – no family photos, no posters, no knick-knacks of any kind – it seemed odd and out of place. But it was not just the picture that stole Striker’s attention, it was the frame. The frame hung slightly out of kilter, the left side higher than the right.

Striker stepped towards it, pulled out his flashlight, shone it all around the wall. On the concrete, there were faint scuff marks, ones that matched the gold-black paint of the frame.

He reached out and took hold of the painting. With one heave, he lifted it from the wall and put it down on the ground. Behind it was a strange door, half the size of a regular one. Maybe two feet wide and three feet high.

After staring at it for a half-minute, Striker realized what it was.

An old dumbwaiter.

The perfect hiding spot or escape route.

He gestured urgently for Felicia to join him. She saw what he had found and drew her pistol. She aimed it at the door and waited for Striker to open it. When he did, then aimed his flashlight inside at the gaping darkness, all they found was an empty space.

Felicia deflated and holstered her SIG; Striker leaned down and shone his flashlight up into the hole. There was a passageway there, leading up. It was large enough for a man to stand in.

Striker angled the beam towards the upper floors and saw that the dumbwaiter went all the way to the top. Right to Dr Ostermann’s locked study.

Interesting.

‘Why have a built-in dumbwaiter all the way down here?’ Felicia said, half to herself.

‘They probably used this room as an old food or wine cellar way back when,’ Striker replied. ‘God knows it’s cool enough down here.’

He studied the dumbwaiter.

On the left side, on the inside of the post, was a pulley system. Striker grabbed the rope and slowly lowered the dumbwaiter down to his level. On the tray was a video camera, a model he had never seen before, one with an LED screen. Instead of a disc or tape, the camera had a built-in hard drive. The camera also had a built-in motion sensor. So when Striker moved the camera, it began recording again.

He found the settings and turned off the motion sensor.

Felicia came up beside him. ‘What’s on it?’ she asked.

‘We’re about to find out.’

Striker hit Play and the video began. On the screen were Dr Ostermann and Lexa, but dressed like Striker had never seen them. Dr Ostermann was naked, except for the leather collar and chain that hung around his neck; Lexa was tightly wrapped in a red leather corset, her breasts pushed up and outwards, almost falling out of the cups. Below, she wore a pair of red silk panties and stockings to match.

She tied Dr Ostermann down, face first, on the table, shackling his hands and feet to each post. Then, when he was all splayed out, she began caressing his body with a long strap of black leather.

Ostermann groaned in delight with every teasing lash. But within minutes, the lashings grew more strenuous. Fierce, even. The tail-end of the strap left huge raw red marks on the doctor’s back and neck and buttocks and legs.

‘Red,’ he cried out. ‘Red, Lexa.
RED!
’

But she acted as if she never heard their safety word and continued lashing the man. The expression on her face was one that Striker had not seen on her before – smug, controlled,
dark
.

The feed went on for another four minutes. Until Ostermann stopped moaning and groaning, and just lay there whimpering on the table like a tenderized piece of meat.

Lexa slowly approached the table, the smile on her lips stretching across her entire face. She moved slowly from corner to corner, unfastening each handcuff and setting her husband free. When they were all off, Dr Ostermann did not move. He remained on the table, his breathing laboured and his whimpers audible.

Lexa leaned over him. Kissed him gently on his neck. Reached down and squeezed his balls.

Dr Ostermann let out a frantic cry, and Lexa smiled once more.

‘You
disgust
me,’ she said.

Then she dropped the leather lash across his back, stripped out of her dominatrix lingerie, and dressed once more in her green silk kimono. Without so much as a glance back, she left the room.

Dr Ostermann lay in the centre of the feed, quivering but still, with only the sounds of his whimpers and cries filling the room.

Then the video stopped.

Striker looked away from the video camera display, back at Felicia, and couldn’t hide the surprise from his expression. ‘The office upstairs . . . it isn’t a torture room at all – the Ostermanns are into S&M sex.’

‘What a couple of sick fucks,’ Felicia said.

Striker thought it over, pieced it together. ‘The marks we saw on Dr Ostermann’s back and neck make sense now. They weren’t shingles, or an injury from a fall – they were friggin’
whip
marks.’

Felicia nodded. ‘It would also explain his feeble movements.’

‘And why he was so embarrassed about the videos. Jesus, when I was threatening him about the murder films – he thought I was talking about his S&M videos. His home videos.’

Felicia thought it over. ‘Dr Ostermann, a masochist.’

‘And Lexa, a
sadist
,’ Striker finished.

The word seemed wrong as he spoke it, but he couldn’t help thinking that. Lexa was the one constant here. And the image of her coming downstairs in her kimono, her skin dappled with sweat, her eyes wide and doe-like, came back to him.

‘Lexa,’ he said. ‘Where the hell is she now?’

Felicia said nothing.

Striker placed the camera back on the dumbwaiter tray for Forensic Video to process. As he did this, thoughts of the Adder taping them returned. Striker turned from the dumbwaiter, took out his flashlight, and began going round the room, inspecting everything. There were no other cameras or microphones visible, or any other surveillance equipment, but that didn’t mean none were there.

A sweep of the room would be necessary.

He shone the light under the bed and saw nothing of importance. He then shone it under the dresser and the computer cabinet. There, he stopped. On the concrete below the cabinet there were faint but visible brownish marks.

Scuff
marks, just like with the painting.

‘This cabinet’s been moved,’ he said.

He wrapped his fingers around the base of the cabinet and slowly swung it out from the wall. When he looked behind it, he saw a small hollow in the wall. About as long and high and deep as a small microwave. In it sat two rows of DVD and Blu-ray cases. Marked on all of them was the word
Back-up
, followed by different dates. Striker read through them.

One of them had been made just this morning.

He took it out and dropped it into the Blu-ray player across the room. When he turned on the TV and hit Play, the video started. What Striker saw made his blood turn cold; the video was of him and Felicia. Inside Sarah Rose’s apartment. Right before the fire had started.

Felicia stepped forward. ‘Jesus Christ, is that us?’

Striker said nothing. He just looked from the TV to the row of DVD and Blu-ray discs in the nook behind the cabinet. All of them would have to be watched. Reviewed for any shred of evidence.

It would take
hours
.

He watched the feed continue until the moment when he and Felicia had managed to break out of the front door through the burning blaze. Then the video stopped—

And started once more.

The camera angle spun about, as if the camera was being picked up. And then, for one fleeting moment, the feed caught the image of a young man with wild, jet-black hair and eyes such a light green they looked transparent.

Felicia turned to look at Striker. Her face was ashen.

‘The Adder isn’t Dr Ostermann,’ she said softly. ‘It’s—’

‘Gabriel,’ Striker said, and he could hardly believe his own word.

Gabriel Ostermann.

The boy.

The son.

And he was gone.

The Adder walked slowly down Sasamat Trail, one of the barkmulch pathways that snaked all through the Pacific Spirit Regional Park. When he reached the end of it, he stopped on a bluff overlooking the strait. Far below, the turbulent waters were black and deep and cold.

Like the well.

Memories of the front window of the house smashing apart after he’d thrown the lamp through it returned to him. In bits and pieces. In intermittent waves. Like a TV signal fading in and out. His actions would have attracted much attention, no doubt.

Another one of the Doctor’s rules, broken.

As if sensing his thoughts, his cell phone rang and the Doctor’s name flashed across the screen. The Adder looked at it for a long moment, listening to the rings, not wanting to pick it up.

One. Two. Three . . .

He finally picked up. ‘I am here.’

‘Have you managed to calm yourself down?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you know what has happened since you left?’

‘No.’

‘Your father is dead, Gabriel. He committed suicide.’

The Adder said nothing.

‘Come to the lake house. We will meet you there. We need to . . .
re-plan
.’

The line went dead and the Adder stood there motionlessly.

Father dead. It was a strange notion. And it made him feel somehow hollow and light. He could not understand it.

He walked to the edge of the bluff and sat down on a rotting log. As he stared out over the black waters, he took out a DVD and cradled it in his hands. This was the one. The one that had started it all. And the thought of it made his heart beat faster, made his throat turn dry.

The voices would start soon; he knew their pattern well. And so he took out his headphones and plugged them into the speaker port on his iPod. Moments later, the only file loaded, and the blissful release of the white noise began.

The Adder needed it to clear his head. To calm his nerves. And to
think
.

Clear thought was essential right now. There was no place for error. No excuse for acting hastily. He simply could not afford to. The most crucial of all moments was almost here. For Homicide Detective Jacob Striker.

That thought made the Adder smile.

The Big Surprise was coming.

He could hardly wait.

It was early morning when Striker awoke from the stinging of his burned hand, and the day felt every bit a Friday. The room was dark and cold. He was in that realm, still somewhere between wake and sleep, and a sense of desperation filled him. He reached over in the darkness, felt for Felicia, and could not find her. Then he remembered she was sleeping on the couch.

That bothered him, and it woke him up fully.

He sat up in the bed, looking around the drab greyness of the room and trying to sort things out in his head. Yesterday had been a constant whirlwind, and discovering Gabriel Ostermann’s room and learning he was, in fact, the Adder had sent the investigation exploding in new directions.

So much had already been done, and so much was still required. Already, he had flagged the entire family – Gabriel, Lexa and even Dalia – on all the different systems: on PRIME, CPIC, and with even Customs and Interpol. He was taking no chances with this one.

The Adder could not escape again. He was a serial killer. And serial killers never stopped killing until one of two things happened – either they were caught, or they were killed.

Striker kicked the blankets off his legs and stood up. The first thing he did was grab his iPhone from the charger and read the screen. There were no new calls, and that was disappointing. He’d been hoping for something – for anything – from Larisa Logan.

But nothing had come in.

He dialled the number for Central Dispatch and was pleased to hear Sue Rhaemer’s voice: ‘CD.’

‘Shouldn’t you be off by now?’ Striker asked.

‘I already was,’ she groaned. ‘Got called in early. We’re short. The flu’s going round again.’

‘Anything on the file?’

‘Did I call you?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Then there’s your answer.’

Striker ignored her testiness and nodded as if she could see him. ‘Keep me informed, Sue.’

He hung up the phone, then left his bedroom and did the usual grind. He checked on Courtney, who was still fast asleep in her bed, then put on some coffee and swallowed some Tylenol for his injured hand, then he woke Felicia. By the time they had both showered and poured a cup, it was just after six a.m. and the morning was still dark.

‘You ready?’ he asked her.

She offered him an eager smile. ‘We’re gonna find him today. I can
feel
it.’

He hoped she was right.

A half-hour later – after picking up another coffee, this time a traditional Timmy’s brew – they were back at the Ostermann mansion. The sun was still asleep, the air was cold and the morning sky a deep purple smear. To Striker, it felt like they had never left the crime scene. Only now there was a patrol guard posted outside the front and back of the house. He badged the guard – some young kid he had never seen before – and went inside.