Page 22 of So Lethal (Faith Bold #22)

“This is new,” Michael said, a note of dejection in his voice.

Faith didn’t have a response. She just sighed and looked at Turk, who sat with his hands in between his legs. He whined at the body, and Faith said, “It wasn’t your fault, boy. We just didn’t quite get here fast enough.”

That thought brought a stab of guilt. They could have gotten here fast enough.

If Faith hadn’t had a complete meltdown over a ringing in her ears, they could have been here before their killer finished with Marcus, maybe even before he started.

The same would have been true if they hadn’t interrogated Rebecca Thorne, but she could forgive herself for that.

She had a history of violence, she knew the victims, and she had strong opinions over how hearing-impaired people should view their condition.

But she couldn’t excuse her tantrum. Dr. Keraya could spin that all she wanted, but that was absolutely Faith’s fault.

And Marcus Wolfe had suffered for it.

He had been strangled to death like the previous three victims, but the killer had thrown a little extra flair into this murder. Instead of just leaving the body where he’d killed it, he had set up a little shrine in Marcus’s toolshed.

Marcus was suspended from the ceiling of the shed by wire tied around his wrists and around the rafters. He was naked, and crude papier-mache angel wings were secured to his back with duct tape. Blood trickled from both of his ears where the killer had used a sharp object to puncture them.

Minutes. They had been minutes behind the killer. If she had just shown a little backbone…

The door to the shed opened, and Detective Ferris cleared his throat. “Miss Thorne’s on her way back home. I have Cooper giving her a ride.”

Faith nodded. “Thank you.”

“Sure. Don’t mention it.” He gestured at the body. “Sick stuff, huh?”

“Yes.”

"Not the worst I've seen, but sure ain't pretty. Any thoughts why he's escalating?"

Faith took a deep breath. “I think he’s trying to send a message.”

“What, like, you can’t catch me? I can do more, and you still won’t find me?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I think he’s been sending a message the entire time, but it’s not coming through the way he wants it to. You remember how I noticed at Monica Smith’s studio that the killer used care to lower her body to the ground?”

“Yeah. I remember that. That’s why we thought it might be a lover for a second.”

Ferris thought it might be a lover, not Faith or Michael, but Faith let that pass. “I think he wants to show us that he cares about his victims.”

Ferris scoffed. “Cares about them? By killing them? Sick freak.”

“I won’t argue with you about that,” Faith said, “but that kind of false benevolence is far from unheard of in serial killers. A lot of killers have a mercy fetish where they believe they’re helping their victims by killing them.

I worked a case in Washington State this past winter where the killer murdered people who were abusive to animals.

She did this because she had abused animals in the past and believed she was going to hell for it.

She killed her victims thinking she was saving them from judgment. ”

“Christ,” Ferris said. He put his hands on top of his head and stared at Marcus’s body. “Ahh. What a mess. You said you saw the killer, Faith?”

“I did.”

“Can you describe him?”

Faith sighed. “He was definitely male. Tall, I think six-five or so. Slender build but athletic, like a runner. I think he is a runner, actually. He fled on foot and did a good job doing it.”

“That’s it? Tall, skinny, and fast?”

Faith’s lips thinned slightly at Ferris’s tone. “He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a ski mask. It was dark already by the time we arrived, so I couldn’t see the color of his eyes.”

Ferris swore and kicked a rake that leaned against the wall of the shed. It bounced fell over, the handle pointing at Marcus’s body as though to say, look what you caused, Faith .

She turned away. “Go ahead and send CSI in. This was a more complicated crime than the earlier ones. It was also his first time with the new MO. He might have made a mistake.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that.”

She left the woodshed and headed to the house, Turk and Michael following. Michael trotted next to her and said, “So this killer is showing his care for them with the angel wings and the ruptured eardrums?”

“I think so,” she replied. “He doesn’t see this as killing his victims, but as liberating them. The pierced eardrums represents him ‘destroying’ their ailment, and the wings are obviously meant to symbolize their souls escaping to Heaven.”

“So he thinks their lives are shit, and this is how he’s helping them?” Michael scoffed. “I have to agree with Ferris. This is sick shit.”

“When is it ever not sick?” she asked drily. “What about the device he left behind? Have you looked at it yet?”

“CSI has it now. They’re not supposed to give us an official answer yet, but they told me it’s an amplifier that creates a powerful subsonic frequency. It’s not something ordinary people can hear.”

She frowned. “But I heard it. My ears started ringing when it went off. And Turk heard it too.”

“The way they explained it was that this isn’t about sound so much as it’s about pressure.

I didn’t hear a thing, and neither did Rebecca, but people with more sensitive hearing—like Turk, and you right now—would experience extreme discomfort, and people without hearing would feel the actual pressure waves.

They’re very high-intensity for sound waves but very low-intensity for pressure waves.

That’s why Cliff could feel the rumbling in his cheap apartment above Monica’s cheap studio while he was awake, but Barbara Porter sleeping soundly in her sturdy McMansion couldn’t feel a thing. ”

“But hearing-impaired people are more sensitive to pressure like that, so they would pick it up,” Faith inferred. “That suggests medical knowledge.”

“Maybe. Could just be that our killer’s deaf too, so he knows what deaf people will pick up on.”

Faith tilted her head. “I hadn’t considered that our killer would be deaf too. That raises a lot more possibilities.”

“Is that a good thing?” Michael asked.

“Not by itself, but it’s another angle to consider.

” She stood and started pacing the kitchen.

“If our killer wasn’t born deaf but lost his hearing the way Marcus Wolfe and Sarah Martinez did, then he wouldn’t see hearing impairment as normal the way Rebecca Thorne does.

He would be more likely to view it as a tragedy like Sarah and Marcus did. ”

"And he would feel like it was better to die than suffer with this," Marcus added.

“Yes.”

“Well, that explains Marcus Wolfe and Sarah Martinez. They were both clearly broken up over their condition. It doesn’t explain Monica Smith and James Porter, though. They were born deaf and by all accounts happy as clams.”

“That wouldn’t necessarily matter to the killer. Just because he’s benevolent doesn’t mean he’s not self-centered. He views hearing loss as a tragedy, so it’s a tragedy for everyone whether that’s how they feel about it or not.”

“So he just sees deaf people and thinks, ‘Gee, they’d be better off dead. I should help them be dead.’”

“More or less.”

Michael sighed heavily. “That’s just not enough.” He glanced at Faith. “Sorry. That didn’t come out the way I meant it.”

“No, you’re right,” she replied. “It’s not enough. It tells us why deaf people, but it still doesn’t tell us why these deaf people. I can already say it’s no one from Sarah’s and Marcus’s support group because no one was tall enough to be the killer.”

“We can have Ferris look through Monica’s clients and Porter’s coworkers,” Michael suggested.

She bit her lip. “Yeah, we’ll do that, but that’s a crapshoot.

There aren’t a lot of six-foot-five males as a percentage, but there’s bound to be a bunch of them in a metro area this size.

We might get lucky, but we’d have to get lucky to find anyone that way, and I really don’t like relying on luck. ”

“Well, detective work isn’t getting us shit,” Michael replied sourly, “So I’ll take luck if that’s all we’re left with.”

He sighed and dropped his head into his hands briefly. When he lifted them, Faith saw his eyes were red-rimmed with exhaustion that she was sure was mental and emotional and not physical. “Sorry. I’m just pissed at this.”

“Me too.” She gave him a sad smile. “It never gets easier to be just a half-second too late to save a victim.” Her smile faded. Except it was my fault this time.

“No, it doesn’t,” Michael agreed. “So what do we do now?”

Before Faith could answer, she heard shouting outside.

She frowned and looked through the window.

When she saw the bright white lights of a news van shining on a platinum-blonde reporter who was arguing with a sergeant over whether her cameramen could take pictures of the outside of the house, she swore. “Crap. The news is here.”

The blonde turned toward the window. When she saw Faith, her eyes got big. Faith swore again and closed the curtain. “Shit. They saw me.”

“Seriously? Why are you staring?”

“I don’t know, I just wanted to know what was going on!”

Michael threw his hands in the air. “Shit, Faith. Tabitha’s gonna have a conniption.”

“Hey!” the sergeant shouted. “Hey, you can’t cross the yellow tape!”

A moment later, Faith heard rapping on the window. “Hello? Special Agent Bold! Bold, can you make a statement, please? Hey! Take your hands off of me!”

“Behind that tape!” the sergeant barked, “or I’ll arrest all of you for interfering with police business! You can print that too! Sergeant Cooper, badge number five-three-eight!”

The back door opened, and Ferris walked into the kitchen. “Wolves are here.” He tossed Michael his car keys. “I’m parked on the street behind the house. Give me your rental keys, and I’ll drive it tonight. We can switch back in the morning.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Ferris,” Michael replied. He fished the rental keys out of his pocket and handed them to the detective.

“Damned vultures,” Ferris growled. “Defense attorneys and reporters are the lowest scum of the Earth.”

Faith whispered a thank-you and hurriedly followed Michael out of the house. Turk trotted next to her.

As soon as they stepped outside, Faith saw a camera flash and heard a voice call, “Special Agent Bold! A statement, please! Who do you believe is perpetrating these crimes?”

Another voice asked, “Could this be the Messenger Killer following you across the country?”

Faith stiffened. She almost turned around, but Michael grabbed her shoulder firmly and pulled her along. She pressed her lips so tightly she could feel their circulation cut off.

Assholes. Goddamned assholes.

They reached the cruiser, and Michael quickly pulled away from the curb. He drove away from the neighborhood and then turned right instead of left, taking a circuitous route back to the hotel so the news van didn’t catch them.

Faith slowly calmed down as they drove away. Somehow, despite her celebrity status, she'd managed to avoid personal interactions with the media while investigating her cases. If that was going to change, then Tabitha might have a real point about keeping her out of the field.

Maybe that was for the best. Maybe she couldn’t handle the job anymore.