Leslie Parrish - Fade To Black

“I think I’m gonna puke,” Mulrooney said.

Dean didn’t turn around; he merely pointed to a trash can and kept reading. All the way to the bottom, to the winner’s final bid. And his choice.

“Good God,” he whispered.

“Taggert?” Wyatt’s voice asked from the phone. “Do you see?”

“I see.”

“We’ve got to stop him.”

“I know.”

“You gotta be kidding me,” Stokes snapped, as she, too, read the final few lines.

Mulrooney was more blunt. “Fucking medieval.”

Good description. Barbaric, horrific. Though, considering the viral popularity of some online videos, like the ones of the overseas assassinations of Americans by terrorists, not necessarily something nobody had ever heard of.

Stacey, who was seated on the corner of her desk, out of eyesight of the screen, asked, “What is it?”

Dean didn’t answer. He merely turned the monitor so she could read the words for herself. She did so, then paled, closing her eyes and turning away.

“Lily’s trying to track the payment,” Wyatt said, meaning all three of them were in the office this early on a Saturday morning. Good to know the whole team was so anxious to catch this guy.

“You can see the winning bid was thirty-five thousand,” Wyatt added. “He can’t move that much money around the Internet without somebody noticing him. This is the closest to real time we’ve ever gotten, and she’s making the most of it, focusing first on trying to find accounts that lead to anywhere in Virginia.”

Another voice suddenly came through the phone. “There he is! I see the bastard.”

Recognizing Brandon ’s voice, Dean asked, “What’s he got?”

“Hold on,” Wyatt replied. A low rumble of conversation followed, until Blackstone came back on the line. “He’s in the Playground right now.”

“The Reaper?”

“Yes.”

“I see you,” came Brandon ’s voice from the background. “Why don’t you come out from under that cape, you little prick.”

Unreal. They were watching a cartoon version of the sadistic killer freely strolling through his cyber world and couldn’t lay a finger on him. “Can he trace him?”

Wyatt seemed distracted. “Why is it going in and out? Are you losing him?”

“Shit! Oh, no, you don’t!” Brandon shouted, frustration making his voice throb.

Wyatt snapped into the phone, “I’ve got to go. We’re doing what we can; I think we’re going to lose him again. One thing we know at this point: The Reaper is online, playing in the Playground, right this minute. If you’re going to conduct interviews this morning, you might keep that in mind.”

“Got it,” Dean said, ending the call. He tucked the phone away and related the information to the others.

“So let’s go knock on good old Mr. Lee’s door, tell him we’d just like to chat, and see if he’s online,” Mulrooney said. “I bet he’s got some high-powered security equipment out there, run by a state-of-the-art computer.”

The idea had merit, but he saw by the look on Stacey’s face that she genuinely believed they’d be wasting their time. And frankly, they didn’t have time to waste.

He trusted her. He hadn’t known her long, but he already had faith in her instincts, and if she thought they’d be barking up the wrong tree, he intended to take her at her word. “Let’s stick with the original plan,” Dean said.

He glanced at the computer screen again, unable to keep his eyes off the final words, the sick desires of the winner. And the Reaper’s agreement.

God, he hoped they found this guy before he grabbed his next victim.

He enters the Playground through the south gate.

The palette of odd colors is familiar, welcoming. The eerie, gray-streaked blue sky casts a perennial storm cloud over the preternaturally cheerful Playground. The grass is too green. The sun too yellow. The images too surreal, at odd angles, with unnatural curves and sharp edges.

It’s Dalí’s version of Sesame Street .

Only if you look closely can you see the writhing forms of anguished souls carved into the base of the tree holding the tire swing. At first glance, the yawning opening beneath the sliding board, which falls away into a pit of flame and torture, appears to be only a shadow. The metal rings hanging from a jungle gym seem simple gymnastic playthings-until you notice the screaming man hanging from them, begging for mercy as a fire is lit beneath his feet.

As always when he comes to the Playground, peace washes over him. Happiness fills him from his core to the tips of his fingers and the very ends of each strand of hair on his body.

Ahead of him, the morning crowd is thick and buoyant as the weekend begins and earthly workweek identities fall away. Possibilities abound; excitement ignites the air. Convention and morality and mundane laws simply do not exist in this world. Nothing is taboo, nothing sacred.

No one ever says no. No desire is too dark to fulfill.

Here is a woman being beaten by a long, spiked whip. There a man is led around on a leash like a dog. A crowd encircles a duo taking turns raping the brunette they have pinned to the ground.

And a tall, skeletally thin man draped in expensive clothes takes yet another child by the hand and leads him through an elaborate gate marked PRIVATE.

Then, at last, they notice his arrival. All fall silent. Watching him. Waiting for him. They part like the sea spreading for some biblical being.

As they should. This is his kingdom and he stalks it like an all-powerful, all-seeing deity. Death ravaging the earth with every step he takes.

His black cape ruffles in the breeze, casting a long shadow of dread across the landscape. His scythe, sharp and vicious, swings side to side as he cuts a path toward his destination, everyone backing out of his way, bowing to him, whispering words of love and praise and adoration.

He doesn’t love back. In this world. In any world.

But he is fond of them, as a god is fond of his worshipers. He bestows benevolence upon them, emerging from his dark fortress every so often so they may bow at his feet. He occasionally allows them the privilege of touching his robe, of getting close enough to death that they will experience endless nightmares.

The power invigorates him. He needs no sleep. No sustenance. Just this.

He reaches the marquee for the theater. Swiping his gloved hand across it, he erases the mundane titles promising sexual delights for those who enter.

He replaces it with words of his own:

COMING SOON …

BEHEADED .

And the crowd erupts.

In the car on the way to Lisa Zimmerman’s mother’s house, Dean forced himself to focus on the unpleasant task ahead. Notifying next of kin was never easy. With a murder case, it was a hundred times harder.

He wanted to focus only on the unsub, on what he might be doing this minute to another innocent victim, but he couldn’t allow himself to. Being distracted by that would make him less effective in his job, and he needed every brain cell in his head focused and in control. And every emotion he had shoved away to be dealt with later.

He needed Stacey to be the same way. Remembering what had happened before Wyatt’s call, when he’d realized just how much she blamed herself for what had happened to Lisa, he wanted to get that out of her head. Though he wasn’t the king of comforting women, and he knew she wasn’t the type who would be interested in being comforted, he couldn’t help saying, “It wasn’t your fault.”

Her hands clenched on the steering wheel.