Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

April 2007. Virginia Tech. Christ.

“I dunno. I somehow think I’ve seen this tree before,” she mumbled as she leaned against a staggeringly tall pine. “Or maybe it was one of his nine thousand brothers.”

He got the point.

“Can I be honest?” she asked. She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I’m afraid this is a waste of time. The guy’s smart. Would he really have left anything for us to find?”

“It’s possible. You’d be surprised at the mistakes criminals make.”

“But he’s got to be a genius, right?”

“Not necessarily. Brilliant monsters are a Hannibal Lecter fallacy; most organized serial killers are of just slightly above-average intelligence. Disorganized types can have low IQs, but they’re cunning. In fact, the less intelligent the perpetrator, the more persistent and brutal he can be. Like an animal going after a treat, he just doesn’t give up. Doesn’t relent. Doesn’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing.”

“Doesn’t have a conscience,” she whispered.

“Exactly. No moral compass. Combine that with a bloody streak, a hint of cleverness, determination, and a good survival instinct and you’ve got yourself a John Wayne Gacy, who was no rocket scientist, yet killed dozens before he was caught.”

“He’s savvy, though. Using the Internet the way he does…”

“Every sixth grader in America is savvy enough to utilize the Internet. You’ve got teenagers beating each other up and proudly sharing the video on YouTube. While it might be unbelievable, it’s not that difficult. Any asshole with a digital camera and a DSL connection can get his fifteen megabytes of fame.”

She fell silent. The reality of what they were facing was probably worse than what she’d been imagining. Because a brilliant criminal, while hard to catch, might trip himself up through his own arrogance and certainty of his intelligence. An average one often escaped notice, his sheer blandness allowing him to fly under the radar. For years.

“Okay. So maybe he left something.” She shook her head, eyeing the hundreds of trees in all directions. “But seventeen months?”

There, he agreed with her. It was a long shot. And they were all exhausted. They needed more men, and they needed dogs.

About to call it a day and suggest he, Stokes, and Mulrooney start on their interviews of Lisa’s family and friends, he paused when Stacey’s staticky radio came to life on her hip.

“Sheriff? You better get over here,” one of her deputies said.

Their eyes met and locked. “They found something?” he asked.

“What is it, Frank? Over.”

“Sorry ’bout that, Stacey. I forgot about the ‘over.’ Uh, over?”

Dean’s teeth clenched and his temples began to throb.

“It’s okay. Tell me what’s going on.”

“We got company. Damn it now, Warren, you put that away unless you want to get yourself shot.”

“Oh, hell.” Stacey’s slim body stiffened and she immediately began to move, her long legs pistoning as she blew past him. The radio at her mouth, she ran toward the next quadrant, where her three deputies had been working. Mulrooney and Stokes were south of them, too far to be of any use.

Dean took off after her, his feet tangling in mounds of overgrowth. Sharp branches and brush tore at his clothes, and he thrust them out of the way. Every instinct he had screamed at him to tell her to wait, and the sudden panic that she might be running into something dangerous made his feet fly over the ground. Still, he wasn’t as nimble as Stacey at maneuvering through this crap, so she beat him to the others by a few yards and a few deep breaths.

His numbed brain started working again as soon as he skidded to a stop beside her, seeing that she was fine and totally in control.

Tense. But in control.

Stacey had unsnapped her holster, and the tips of her fingers hovered over the grip of her weapon. She didn’t betray the effects of her hundred-yard dash by so much as a gasp, and neither her hands nor her chin trembled in the least. She was entirely focused, as she warily eyed the metal fence topped by that vicious razor wire.

On the other side of it sat a hulk of a man on an ATV.

With grizzled gray hair cut close to his skull, his dark green camouflage clothes, and combat boots, he could be nothing other than a vet. Something kick-ass and violent had shown this guy some action and had left his brains a little scrambled up about whether or not it was peacetime. The scowl-not to mention the shotgun lying across his lap-made that obvious.

His own hand went to his hip. But Stacey shot him a warning look, silently telling him to wait.

“Did he point that shotgun at you?” she asked one of her deputies, not turning her head, keeping her attention on the man glaring at them through the metal fence.

“No, Sheriff,” one of them said. “Just waved it around a little.”

She nodded but didn’t lower her hand. “ Warren, you want to fire up that four-wheeler and ride on back to your house right now. You hear me?”

Warren. The name sounded familiar. And suddenly Dean knew for sure who they were facing. This was Warren Lee, the man who owned the property on the other side of this fence. The violent one who Stacey seemed certain hadn’t been the man in the tape.

Dean wasn’t so sure. The shadowy figure who’d killed Lisa and the others had been covered from top to bottom, a black hood hiding his entire head, a shoulder-to-toes cape doing the rest of the job. But he’d been tall, and obviously strong, given the way he’d overpowered his victims. He’d also been disgustingly impressive with weapons.

The proximity and this man’s violent personality meant they could be looking at the man who’d killed those women. Tensing, Dean slowly removed his sidearm from its holster, keeping it low, down by his side. He didn’t want to inflame the situation, but damned if he’d be caught unawares if that mean-looking bastard started shooting.

Noting that none of the deputies had done the same, all following Stacey’s lead, on alert, but not unholstering, he gave her the benefit of the doubt that she knew what she was doing. This was their territory; the man was one of their townies, whom they all knew.

“What’s going on? What do you people think you’re doing on my property?”

“This isn’t your property,” Stacey said, maintaining her cool so easily he wondered if she had a little ice in her DNA. “We’re on federal land and we have every right to be here. Now, I mean it. Get on back to your house and put that shotgun away before you wave it at the wrong person and end up with a bullet in you.” Despite the words, her tone was even, not exactly threatening but not one bit weak, either.

Damn, the woman was cool under pressure.

“This is my fence…”

“And we’re not touching it,” she snapped.

“I got a right to protect my property and make sure you don’t come on it.”

“We’re officers of the law performing a legal search, who have the right to respond if we find ourselves threatened. Do you understand what I’m saying, Mr. Lee?” Her hand wrapped around the butt of her nine-millimeter. She’d reached the end of her patience with the man. “I don’t care if you’re on your own property; if you point that gun at one of my men, or any other officer in these woods, they will be perfectly within their rights to take you down.”

The man’s eyes narrowed and he remained still for a moment, engaging in a staring contest with the female sheriff whose entire posture said she would not back off. Then, as if someone had whispered some sense into his ear, he pushed the shotgun, muzzle down, into a scabbard on his ATV. “Saw activity, had the right to arm myself to come out and see what was going on.”