Leslie Parrish: Fade To Black

“Fight for it?” Dean tensed, afraid he knew where Brandon was headed. The kid might be a computer genius, but he had joined the FBI because he wanted to catch bad guys. He actually sounded as though he thought their group would be investigating what he’d already admitted was a Pennsylvania murder case.

“You know nobody ever expected this team to really succeed, right?”

Dean simply stared. He’d had his suspicions that the new CAT had been set up for failure to punish Blackstone, but he’d never spoken about them.

“They’ll try to take this case as soon as word gets out,” Brandon added.

“You’re right, but what does it matter? It’s not ours; it’s the local PD’s. You should give them the file and let them do the investigating. If they want the bureau’s help finding this sick bastard, they can ask the NCAVC like everybody else.” He glanced at the screen again, noting the ferocity of the crime, doubting they were dealing with any kind of “normal” killer. “Or the BAU.”

The way things went at the Behavioral Analysis Unit, however, they might not get help. That department was overworked, overbooked, and able to assist in only a fraction of the cases local jurisdictions asked them to come in on.

Brandon ’s chin jutted out in visible determination. “You’re wrong, and I’m about to prove that. And then, together, we can make sure Wyatt has absolutely no doubt that it’s legitimately ours to investigate.”

Frowning, and not sure he wanted to know, Dean narrowed his eyes. A sudden fear that he understood made him say, “She’s not the only victim.”

When the other man shook his head, Dean felt his legs weaken. He slumped onto an empty chair, figuring he’d need to sit for whatever Brandon had to tell him.

“There are more, spread across four states.”

Damn.

“And every one of them has a Web connection.”

Double damn.

Now he understood Cole’s determination to keep the case, and why he feared they wouldn’t be able to. Getting Wyatt Blackstone completely on board was the only way their group would not be steamrolled out of the investigation. The videos were aired on the Internet; some would say that didn’t mean the Internet was actually involved. And that the NCAVC, which contained both ViCAP and the Behavioral Analysis Unit, was the better department to coordinate the investigation.

They might be right. Dean couldn’t deny that he wouldn’t mind if it played out that way. He hadn’t clocked in for this. He’d left his secure job in ViCAP to join an experimental team, hoping for a little normalcy, some stability so he could go back into court and fight his ex-wife for more time with his seven-year-old son.

It wasn’t that Dean didn’t feel a stirring, deep inside the determined law enforcement core of him, that demanded the privilege of taking this bastard down. This transfer, however, had been about getting away from that dark shit so his ex could no longer use his position working violent crimes against him. It wouldn’t work if his new job involved hunting down a serial killer who could teach Dahmer a thing or two about causing pain.

It’s what you do. What you do best.

“How many?” he asked, needing to know.

“Eight, going back almost a year and a half. I’m pretty sure I’ve found them all.”

Eight .

Eight victims. Eight people brutally murdered, their last painful moments captured on film. Had they all, Dean wondered, been tortured before their deaths and mutilated after them, as this victim appeared to have been?

A dull throb began to pound inside his skull, and his stomach churned. He closed his eyes, a series of faces appearing in his mind: his sister’s, his parents’, his son’s. Each of them replaced the face of that woman on the video until he felt almost physically ill.

And finally, he simply couldn’t stand it anymore.

“All right. Let’s go find Wyatt.”

An hour later, with the entire team crowded into their boss’s cramped office, Dean watched his colleagues experience the videotaped horror.

Wyatt had reacted immediately to the information Dean and Brandon had brought him. After watching the video clip and asking a few pertinent questions, he’d called everyone together to get the details on the case all at once.

They’d started with the tape. Which, after a third viewing, was embedding itself frame by frame into Dean’s mind.

“Anybody need to see this again?” Brandon asked as the screen of his oversize laptop faded to black.

“No way,” said Special Agent Jackie Stokes. “Come on, Cole. It’s fake, right?”

Stokes, a striking fortysomething African-American woman whose forensic skills were matched only by her talent with a keyboard, stood beside Dean, rigid with disbelief. Tension rolled off her lean, muscular form.

“It’s not. And I also hate to say it, but this is just one of the videos I’ve found.” Cole leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms, looking up at each person in the group, all clustered tightly around their boss’s desk.

“There’s more?” snapped Special Agent Kyle Mulrooney. “Tell me we’re not gonna have to pop some popcorn and watch a whole afternoon of this filth.”

Mulrooney, a barrel-chested agency man who’d been around since the Reagan years, shook his head in disgust. His usually smiling, round face held no hint of surprise-as if he’d long since lost his ability to be shocked by anything his fellow man could do.

Dean wasn’t quite sure whether he was going to like working with Mulrooney yet. The older man was a little too jovial to work well with someone who’d often been accused of having no sense of humor at all.

Well, his ex-wife had accused him of that. And where she was concerned, he really didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Who would?

“Sweet Jesus, just when you think the species can’t go any lower,” Mulrooney muttered, proving he and Dean were on the same page, at least today.

Wondering what their second IT specialist was thinking, Dean turned to gauge Lily Fletcher’s reaction. What he saw didn’t surprise him. Lily stared blankly at the screen, her blue eyes widened in horror and glassy with unshed tears. With more years on the job than Brandon, she was still untried, with no field experience. She was a computer geek, though a pretty one. And right now she looked ready to throw up.

Standing behind them all, arms crossed, face expressionless, stood Supervisory Special Agent Wyatt Blackstone. Their leader. The man who’d talked Dean into giving up a pretty good gig with a prestigious department for an experimental one here. One that was supposed to be a whole lot more normal and a whole lot less bloody.

Huh.

Even aside from the brutal case he might soon be working, the jury was still out on whether he’d made the right decision. The fact that all six of them were crowded into Wyatt’s office, since they didn’t even have a usable conference room, said a lot about how their team was regarded.

“We’ll need to see the rest.” Wyatt, as if sensing the tension in the room, added, “But let’s talk for a while first. I need to hear why you think this case is ours, Brandon, and why I shouldn’t pick up the phone and hand it over to NCAVC.”

Brandon ’s eyes gleamed with confidence. “It’s ours. Trust me.”

The enigmatic team leader’s expression revealed nothing. “Convince me.”

Hearing the note of censure in his tone, Brandon nodded, getting the point. That was all it ever took with Wyatt. The man never raised his voice, never issued threats, never looked uncomfortable in his black suits or strangled by his dark, conservative ties. Never a hair out of place or a sheen of sweat on his brow. In fact, he never appeared affected by anything the job threw at him, not even getting ostracized as a whistle-blower.