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  “We’re going in with two teams, Tom, Crime Scene and Special Response. Meet you there?”

  Tom hesitated.

  “Tell him you’ll meet him,” Joan said to the wall.

  Tom sighed. “See you in ten, Roy.”

  He hit the hang up button and stared at the woman he loved.

  “Go on,” she said. “Go arrest the bad guy.”

  “Joan… I’m…”

  “This is who you are, Tom. I know that. I fell in love with that. Now go be you.”

  Tom considered trying to kiss her goodbye, realized he wouldn’t take it well if she rejected him, and instead began to dress, trying to seem like he wasn’t in a hurry even though he was.

  Sixteen minutes and some bad traffic later he pulled up in front of the residence of Hector Valentine. The SRT—Chicago’s version of SWAT—was already there in force, as were Roy and the techies. Tom was apparently the last to arrive.

  He walked up to Roy, who was talking with a Special Response Sergeant with the nametag Breach, which was so appropriate for a cop who broke into homes that Tom wondered if it was a nickname. Breach wore standard gung-ho tactical gear; a vest, helmet with faceplate, combat boots, a utility belt with so many dangling things it would make Batman envious. Tom listened in as Breach laid out the entry plan.

  “Got four guys in the alley out back, one on each window, and four doing the entry. We also have snipers on the roofs there, and there.”

  “Valentine inside?” Tom asked.

  “Thermal reading on the upper floor. Hasn’t moved in five minutes. Suspect appears to be asleep. We’re going in three.”

  “Good luck, Sergeant.”

  Breach nodded, adjusted his helmet camera, then commandoed over to the rest of his team.

  “Dispatch read me his rap sheet on the ride over,” Tom said to Roy.

  “Yeah, typical scumbag. Raped a sixteen year old girl. Served seven out of ten.”

  “He works as a fry cook at a burger joint.”

  “Your point?”

  “Guy dropped out of high school, Roy. Does this sound like a cyberstalker with hacking skills?”

  “A print is a print, Tom. And we got three of them, all different digits, on the curtain, and the butcher knife.”

  “I dunno. Something feels off.”

  “Your optimism is the reason I love you so much.”

  They watched the techie’s video monitor from behind Roy’s car as Sgt. Breach breached the front door. It was a clean entry, and within seconds they were upstairs and bearing down on a terrified, unarmed Valentine. Less than a minute later, they were dragging the cuffed perp out into the street.

  “Think he’ll talk?” Roy asked.

  It didn’t really matter. The chain of evidence had the man, cold. Tom guessed the CRT would find even more evidence in the house, something that would likely lead to Tanya. Angry as Joan might have been, Tom felt a surge of pride. This was why he stayed a cop. To take really bad people off the streets. It was important work, and he was good at it. Maybe it interfered with his personal life sometimes but—

  “Ah, hell,” Roy said.

  “What?”

  “Check out his hands, Tom.”

  Tom’s eyes trailed down the perp’s back, to his cuffed wrists and hands.

  “Ah, hell,” Tom repeated. “Those prints, were they lefty? Index, thumb, and middle finger?”

  “Yeah. Shit.”

  Shit and then some. Hector Valentine only had two fingers on his left hand, and they weren’t the ones Tom just mentioned. Tom knew a little something about fingerprint evidence, and he was pretty sure the owner of the fingerprints needed to be in possession of said fingers in order to convict. Unless they found Valentine’s severed digits in a box in his house, this wasn’t their perp.

  Tom followed Roy over to the man. Up close, he did look like a picture of that Ukrainian actor Tanya had mentioned, Maddoks with the impossible to pronounce last name.

  “When did you lose your fingers, Hector?”

  Tom noted the stumps had healed, and healed well. This was an old injury.

  “Back in June. What are you arresting me for? I didn’t do nothing. I’ve been clean. I couldn’t do anything, even if I wanted to.”

  Valentine stared at his feet. He seemed more defeated than indignant—not what Tom would expect from someone dragged out of his bed by the cops in the middle of the night. If he really was clean, he should be angry, not glum.

  “How did it happen?”

  “What, my fingers?”

  Tom and Roy nodded.

  “The darkness took them. To punish me.”

  “What does that mean, Hector?”

  “I was asleep, in my room. The darkness came up to me while I was sleeping. It sliced my fingers off and vanished.”

  “Do you do drugs, Hector?”

  He finally met Tom’s eyes. “It wasn’t drugs! Drugs don’t chop your fingers off in the middle of the night!”

  Roy, using his I have infinite patience voice, said, “Tell us exactly what happened.”

  “I want my lawyer.”

  Tom placed his hand on the perp’s shoulder. “Hector, we found your fingerprints at a murder scene. But if you can tell us about your missing fingers, then it could prove you didn’t commit the murder.”

  Tom watched Valentine’s face spark with hope. “It was the darkness! I swear!”

  “Okay, how did the darkness take your fingers?”

  “It was late. I was in bed, watching TV. And the closet door opened.”

  “Someone was in the closet?”

  “The darkness was in the closet. It came to me. I raised up my hands to keep it away, and the darkness cut them off.”

  The guy seemed sincere enough. “How?”

  “First they were there, then they were gone.”

  “Where did they go?”

  “I told you. The darkness took them. To punish me.”

  “How do you know it was to punish you?” Tom asked.

  “Because the darkness told me so.”

  “What did it say, exactly?”

  “It said, ‘You’re a bad man, and must be punished.”’

  This wasn’t getting anywhere productive, but Tom gave it one more try. “Hector, this darkness, can you describe it?”

  “Black. The blackest thing I’ve ever seen. No shape. I couldn’t see the edges. And it wasn’t thick. It was like it was flat. Like a shadow.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. The darkness had eyes.” The hope on Valentine’s face fractured, and fear shone through. “The darkness had brown eyes.”

  Five minutes later they were in Hector’s bedroom, wearing the standard booties and gloves. Hector Valentine was a pig as far as his sexual deviancy went, but he was also a pig when it came to cleanliness. His house was a sty, and smelled just as bad as the Dumpster Tom had climbed out of earlier. Old food wrappers, dirty clothes, and body odor cut through the aftershave Tom wore and made him wince.

  “Last forty-eight hours, I’m about ready to cut off my nose,” Roy said.

  “It’ll spite your face.”

  “I’ll deal with the spite.”

  “Look on the bright side. Guy obviously doesn’t have a maid. So maybe we can find some trace of the darkness, even though it has been five months.”

  “You believe that bullshit he was spouting?”

  Tom looked at his partner. “Do you?”

  “He sounded sincere. For a rapist.”

  They walked around a discarded pizza box and Tom noticed the closet. Standard cheap hollow-core door, aluminum knob. He opened it slowly, as if some supernatural darkness was going to spring out and start lopping off digits.

  “Is that a hole?” Roy asked, pointing.

  There was a black spot on the inside of the door, at eye-level. Tom squinted at it.

  “I don’t know what that is.”

  He touched it with his finger. It wasn’t a hole. It was solid. And though he could feel
the door behind it, he couldn’t see the door. It was as if his finger was touching something that was both solid, and a void. Some of the black rubbed off on his purple nitrile glove, which was one of the weirdest things Tom had ever experienced. Where the black was smudged on his finger, his finger seemed to disappear. Like it had been erased.

  “Don’t tell me someone invented vanishing cream for real,” Roy said.

  Tom peered closer. The black made his finger appear two dimensional. There was no depth to it. Blacker than black.

  “The darkness,” Tom said.

  “You mean some dude was hiding in the closet, wearing that black stuff all over his body?”

  Tom nodded. He noticed more of the black substance on the inside doorknob, and on the closet carpeting, Then he left the closet and surveyed the room. In the corner, on a desk, was a flatscreen monitor. Tom went to it, and noticed the webcam attached to the top. It was pointed at the closet.

  The left and right hemispheres of Tom’s brain ping-ponged some ideas around.

  Tanya said she saw someone who looked like that actor, Maddoks.

  Hector looked like Maddoks.

  Tanya was seen walking down Kendal’s street with a package.

  That package was found in a Dumpster. It had fingerprints belonging to Hector.

  Hector lost those fingers months ago. Someone in black make up took them.

  Tanya must have taken them, and left those prints on the knife and shower curtain.

  Tanya was trying to frame Hector.

  Did Tanya know Hector?

  Hector was a registered sex offender. Anyone could look up where sex offenders lived. There was a database online. If The Snipper—and Tom was working under the assumption that Tanya was The Snipper—could hack Tom’s computer, then she could hack Hector’s. The Snipper found webcam models online and watched them before killing them, and probably watched Hector as well. And, like the webcam models, there would be no way to connect Hector with The Snipper.

  Dead end.

  So why come to the police station and file a phony report? Why go through all the trouble of leaving false fingerprints? Why not stay out of the investigation completely?

  Tom was missing something. He knew some serial killers basked in the attention of the authorities and the media, but The Snipper didn’t seem like a glory hound. The Snipper had some kind of agenda.

  Tom thought about the furies. Greek goddesses of vengeance. Punishing the wicked.

  Hector was wicked. Why wasn’t he murdered, like the webcam girls? How did he escape with his life, only missing a few fingers?

  Tom remembered something Hector had said, on the street. He turned to Roy. “Got your radio?”

  “Yup.”

  “See if they’ve carted off Hector yet. I have one more question for him. And get some ALS and luminol up here.”

  Roy spoke with Breach, and Hector was still in the police van, parked in front. Roy asked them to stay put for a moment, and they waited for a CRT member to come up for a spray and light.

  “He said he was in bed?” Tom asked Roy. “When he lost his fingers?”

  “Yeah. This whole area here,” Roy told the techie.

  The crime scene guy began to spritz luminol on Valentine’s bed and the floor around it. Then he used an alternate light source to search for blood. If any was there, it would fluoresce.

  There was no telltale glow. Tom and Roy exchanged a glance.

  They went back downstairs. The night seemed to have gotten colder, nipping at Tom’s cheeks and neck. He turned up the collar on his wool pea coat and shoved his hands into his pockets, and they walked to the police van.

  Hector brightened at seeing Tom again. “You’re letting me go?”

  “You told us that you couldn’t do anything, even if you wanted to. What did you mean by that?”

  Hector went sheepish. “I mean I been staying out of trouble.”

  “Roy, what is this gentlemen’s rap sheet like?”

  “He’s been a rapist since he turned eighteen. Probably earlier, but his juvee records are sealed.”

  “So why did you stop, Hector? Because you feared going back to jail? Because you lost a few fingers?”

  Hector stayed silent and went back to his signature move; studying his shoes.

  “When you lost those fingers, did you go to the hospital? You know, to get stitched up?”

  More silence.

  “There would be a record if you did. Happen to have a doctor bill lying around, Hector?”

  “I want my lawyer,” he mumbled.

  “You’re free to call your lawyer, Hector. But I’m trying to help you here. You told me you lost your fingers while you were in bed, but there was no blood in your room. Did your maid service come by afterward, mop it all up? Or are you leaving something out?”

  Silence.

  Tom pressed. “Did you cut your own fingers off, Hector? Cut them off to cover up a murder?”

  Valentine moved so fast that Tom’s hand automatically went for his gun. Hector Valentine stood up, his face twisted in rage, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “You think I did this to myself, you stupid pig?!” he yelled, hands cuffed behind him, thrusting his pelvis out like he was in a Nicki Minaj video.

  Tom looked down, and saw that the place between a man’s legs that normally sported a bulge had no bulge at all.

  “Darkness came to my bed, knocked me out. I woke up I was missing three fingers, and my junk. You hear what I’m saying? Darkness took my dick and balls. Cut that shit off and sewed me up. All I got is a goddamn tube down there. Now why don’t you get on your knees and suck it, you asshole.”

  Tom elected to pass on the offer. He and Roy got into Tom’s car to get out of the cold. Tom noticed that he was subconsciously cradling his privates, as was Roy.

  “I’ve seen some shit, but that’s messed up,” Roy finally said.

  “Rapist gets castrated. There’s a warped kind of justice there.”

  “Ain’t no justice in cutting up webcam models. Rapist is a rapist. Model ain’t hurting no one.”

  “Flaunting her body. Making men want her.”

  “Asking for it? You victim-blaming, Tom?”

  “I’m trying to figure out why The Snipper neutered Valentine and left him alive, but tortured two women to death. It seems disproportionate. Like it isn’t the same person.”

  Roy looked at Tom. “What if it isn’t?”

  “You mean…?”

  Roy nodded. “Two perps. What if The Snipper has an accomplice?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Kendal couldn’t sleep.

  She was exhausted, but when she closed her eyes she started to freak out. That led her to counting every blink, restarting each time she reached a hundred.

  Counting blinks made her think of her father. It was something Kendal once did to distract herself, when he came to her room at night. Lie perfectly still. Count to a hundred. Don’t scream, or it will get worse. It will all be over soon.

  She didn’t want to think of that. But she couldn’t stop blinking, and one thought led to the other.

  It was the lights. Kendal was afraid to turn them off, but couldn’t fall asleep with them on. She’d turned off all the cameras, unplugged her computer, put her Kindle and cell Linda had given her in the bedside drawer, but still didn’t feel safe in the dark.

  So she blinked. And counted. And tossed. And turned. And blinked. And counted.

  Sometime around two am she felt like clawing her own eyes out. She stared at her bedside lamp, needing it and hating it at the same time, finished her hundredth count to one hundred, then crept out of her bed and counted the steps to Linda’s room. Predictably, her sorority sister was awake, video chatting with clients.

  “Come on in, slut.”

  Kendal froze. She felt the cameras on her. Like X-rays, tearing away her robe and underwear. She wanted to start blinking again, but people were watching. They’d think she was a freak. She might get kicked out of t
he house. Kendal wouldn’t be able to afford college without the webcam income.

  Not giving in to her counting was like trying not to scratch a gigantic itch. Her brain and body wanted so badly to do it, even though Kendal knew it was neurotic and wrong. She could resist for short periods, but the neuroses always won. But Kendal didn’t want it to win in Linda’s room, with the cameras on.

  “Can you come here a sec?” Kendal asked. She was opening her eyes as far as she could, and probably looked insane, but she was able to control the blinking.

  “Sure.” Linda rolled out of bed and met her in the doorway. “Sup?”

  “I can’t sleep,” Kendal whispered. “Can I use your vape?”

  Linda’s face glowed with delight. “You never want to get high. You sure?”

  “Yeah. Something that will relax me.”

  “I just got some wicked indica juice that’s sticky as hell. Lemme get it.”

  Linda bounced over to her bedside drawer, waved at her appreciative fans, and told them she’d be back in a minute. Then she took Kendal by the hand and led her back to her bedroom. They sat on Kendal’s bed, and Linda held up an electronic cigarette. The base was black metal, attached to a clear plastic cartridge that had fluid inside.

  “This shit is crazy sticky.”

  “I’ll be careful not to spill it.”

  Linda smiled. “Dummy, sticky means it makes you stick to the spot. A few hits and you can’t move.”

  “Will it put me to sleep?”

  “This would knock out Snoop Dog.”

  Linda lifted the e-cig to her lips, pressed the round button on the side, and inhaled. She held it a moment, then blew out sweet smoke. The smell of marijuana washed over Kendal. Marijuana, mixed with something else. Strawberry or watermelon.

  “I get this from a boy in Biology. Has glaucoma or some other eye bullshit. Lucky bastard got a medical ID. Can you believe the luck?”

  Kendal wasn’t sure having glaucoma qualified as lucky, but she gratefully took the offered e-cig. She’d smoked before, and always found it to be harsh and unpleasant. But when she inhaled the vapor, Kendal was surprised that it didn’t hurt her lungs. She blew it out without the usual accompanying cough.

  “That’s smooth,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound stupid.