Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

These guys are the best of the best. They went in to do things no one else could.”

Sydney laughed at the thought. “Not my dad. He enlisted for a couple years, but after, he was like a contract employee or something. He took photos. That’s it.”

He opened his beer, tapped the picture with his finger.

“Your dad and these other guys are special ops. Well, except maybe the guy in uniform,” he said, pointing to Gnoble’s picture. “The D-boys, they didn’t wear uniforms. You should find out what he did. Might be interesting. God knows my little brother would be all over it.” He dropped the photo on the table, drank his beer, talked a bit about his trip to

L.A., while Sydney pretended interest. Even so, her gaze kept straying to the photo, trying to determine if what Arturo said could be true. After several minutes, he glanced at his watch, took one final swig of beer, then said, “Hope you don’t mind, I gotta get up for work in the morning.”

“Yeah, me too,” she said. “And thanks for the lasagna and cheesecake.”

“Anytime.” Arturo and Topper left, and Sydney sat there, staring at the photo, wondering what else about her father she didn’t know.

Prescott hated black coffee, but he’d been up all night reading poll reports, trying to see where the senator needed to beef up his campaign, and the only thing that was bound to keep him awake at six in the morning was the thickest, darkest coffee that Starbucks sold. Of course, that’s what they made cream for, and he dumped a ton in, replaced the top on his cup, then stepped from the store into the chilly October morning, still dark. He turned the corner, walked about a half block, when someone pushed him into a darkened doorway. His coffee went flying. He landed against an iron grid covering the windows of a closed business. Before he could move, right himself, a hand came up, shoved his head against the cold metal of the grid. He could feel it cutting into his cheek, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.

“You goddamned son of a bitch,” came the harsh whisper in his ear. Richard Blackwell. Prescott recognized the voice.

“Let go of me.”

“The fuck I will. I should kill you right here, you bastard.” Blackwell pulled up on Prescott’s arm. Pain shot through him, lifted him to his toes.

“If you don’t let go of me, I’ll have you arrested. Here. Now.”

“For what?” Blackwell whipped him around, slammed him into the grating, his hand at Prescott’s throat. “I’ll break your windpipe so fast, you won’t get the first word out.”

“What do you want?”

“I want to know what the fuck you were thinking the other night. Or did you think I wouldn’t find out you tried to run over the senator’s favorite FBI agent with your car?” “It just happened.”

“Happened? How the fuck? You’re lucky you missed. You know what sort of evidence is left when a body hits a car? Evidence that can be traced back to your car.”

Blackwell loosened his hold slightly and Prescott sucked in air, tried to remain calm, but his heart thumped in his chest. “It was a mistake. I admit it.”

“A big mistake. Which means I’m outta here.”

“No!”

“And what? You’re gonna stop me?”

“I’ll double the offer.”

Blackwell narrowed his gaze, as though contemplating. Prescott had hired Blackwell because he came highly recommended, with a history of working black ops for the military, a clean record, and a checkered past. He was perfect for the job.

“Here’s the thing, dickhead,” Blackwell said. “The moment I find out someone else is horning in on my mark, that person becomes a liability to me. Even if it’s the person who hired me. You do not want to become a liability to me. Clear?” he said, tightening his hand around Prescott’s throat once more.

“Abundantly.”

“Good. Unfortunately for your stupidity, you’ve removed one course of action. Using a vehicle as a means of death. She’s bound to have said something about nearly being run over. That makes it suspicious if she’s killed by a car down the line. Which is why I’ve come up with this idea.” He stepped back, pulled out a folded newspaper from his overcoat pocket, then pointed to an article.

Prescott took a deep breath, tried to look calm as he eyed the newsprint, read something about identifying a Jane Doe. “A drawing of a dead girl?”

“Not just any dead girl. It fits close with the case the Bureau picked up from San Francisco PD, the girl who’s in the hospital. I’d say they’re working with a serial killer who missed his mark by one. But they’re not even connecting the cases publicly.”

“A serial killer?”

“Yeah. We could do something with it, but it’d be complicated.”

“Why can’t we just do a simple hit? No muss, no fuss?”

“Because, dumbfuck. The FBI isn’t likely to sit back and ignore a hit on one of their agents. Nor would they ignore a hit-and-run on one, either.”

“What about a suicide?”

“FBI, remember? They suspect everything. This is the best way.”

“We-I don’t want her to suffer.”

Blackwell eyed him, his gaze fixed with a look of disbelief. “And what? Being slammed with a car was gonna ease her pain?”

“She’s a friend of the senator’s, for God’s sake.”

Blackwell stepped closer, put his face right up to Prescott’s. “This is a no-brainer. One agent stands in the way of the objective. Remove the agent, obtain the objective.”

“As long as you don’t forget the idiot who left a suicide note, which several people have read. We remove them, too?”

“Whatever it takes. I’ve got a friend at Houston PD. We were partners in the service. He’s looking into the note to see if the situation is salvageable…”

Prescott pushed Blackwell away from him, trying to regain some control, make sure the man knew he wasn’t afraid and was the one really in charge. “Tell me why you think this Jane Doe case works in our favor?”

“My sources tell me that there’s absolutely no DNA found on that Hill City Jane Doe. They’ve got no way to tell if she’s the victim of the guy who did the girl in the hospital. And top it off, the investigating detective’s an idiot.”

“What’s your plan?”

“Your little agent’s been in contact with the girl in the hospital, and her sketch of the Jane Doe conveniently appeared in every Bay Area paper this morning. So why not set up your agent as the next victim?”

“You think you know enough about their cases to do that?”

Blackwell smiled. “Like I said, it’s a no-brainer.”***

Richard Blackwell watched as Prescott walked off, before heading in the opposite direction. He took out his cell phone, hit the speed dial.

“We’re on,” he said, to the man who answered. “With double the salary.”

“Nice job. You know what to do.”

Perhaps Sydney shouldn’t have finished the remaining two beers in the fridge last night. That thought magnified when, head pounding, she pulled on her gray sweats for her normal morning run. She’d made it as far as the bottom of the stairs, then turned around and went back inside. Running was definitely out. Not that she’d gotten dead drunk, more that she wasn’t used to drinking that much. Instead she spent the time allowing the hot shower to erase some of the night’s stresses. It did little but give her time to think, which, looking back, made the run seem so much easier in comparison, headache and all.

What she couldn’t figure out was how could her father be in some sort of special ops and never mention it? How could her mother never have mentioned it? And what the hell did her father do in the service if his job wasn’t simply to take the damned photos and drawings he’d always said was his responsibility? She thought of Gnoble, his political aspirations, and it occurred to her that if they were doing something glorious, he, of all people, would have announced it to the world. Instead, McKnight committed suicide when he was being investigated for a high-powered political appointment, after mentioning something about her father. Something worth blackmailing for.