Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

Trask imprisoned women for pleasure. And he relished the power he had over life and death, to be able to do exactly what he wanted without remorse, without repercussion.

Dillon remembered the tragic case of Angie Vance earlier in the year. Her killer had suffocated her, laid on top of her body while she was dying, becoming sexually aroused while in physical contact with her dying body. Afterward she became garbage to him, disposed of in bags on the beach. A necessary cleanup after the act of murder.

Trask had the same basic fantasy-murder while in the process of a rape-but he wasn’t the emergent killer who had raped and suffocated Angie. Trask was older. Orderly. Mature. Angie’s killer had been aloof, with few friends. Trask had charisma, an ability to bring people, suspecting or not, into his fold. He had help in his killings, people loyal to him in the same way Jack’s team was loyal to him.

Maybe Trask had been in the military? Maybe the men he surrounded himself with were indebted to him for reasons other than a common bond of hurting women. There was some connection between Trask and those who helped him. Military seemed the most logical, because these efforts relied heavily on strategic planning. But other groups had the same kind of bonding and ability to plan. Cops, for one. Any group of people who had been through a traumatic event. Had Trask saved these men at one time? From death or prison? Were they criminals? Had they gone to school together? Worked together?

Maybe finding out who Trask surrounded himself with would lead them to Trask himself. Starting with Roger Morton.

Kate had nearly lost it when she saw the woman Denise Arno on-screen. Kate knew her, but Dillon had been unable to get her to talk further. At least not with Patrick and Connor hovering in the room, putting her on edge. He had to return to her room, communicate with Quinn Peterson, find out what the FBI was doing. He had confidence in the system, unlike Kate Donovan. He’d worked in the system long enough to know that people like Quinn Peterson were wholly dedicated and committed to saving lives.

But Lucy wasn’t Quinn’s sister. And while Dillon had no doubt that Kate Donovan would do anything and everything to stop Lucy’s murder, he also knew that her number one goal was to stop Trask.

After learning from Peterson about the failed sting operation five years ago, Dillon had glimpsed Kate’s motivation. Yet something about Peterson’s explanation didn’t jibe with the woman he’d just met. She seemed too responsible, too smart to play vigilante, putting herself and two other agents in a dangerous situation without authorization.

Yet she had been continually breaking the law for five years by hacking into computer systems around the globe. For the purpose of finding a killer, Dillon reminded himself.

He suspected that there was a lot more behind what had happened five years ago, and that only Kate Donovan knew the whole story.

“I thought you’d go with them.” Kate stood on the metal stairs outside her room.

“I told you I was staying.”

“Pardon me for not believing you.”

Had Kate been lied to so often she trusted no one?

“Remember the Dr. Seuss story of Horton the Elephant?”

A hint of a smile curved her lips. “And you’re Horton?”

He smiled back. “I always liked his philosophy.”

He followed Kate back into her room. Barracks, he should say. His eyes immediately found the screen where Lucy was…wasn’t where she should be. In its place was an older, poorer-quality video.

“What happened?” Dillon swallowed, suppressing the panic that rose with the bile in his throat. Was Lucy dead?

“She’s still alive.” Kate wasn’t looking at him. “I told you he’s not going to jump the countdown.”

“What happened?” he repeated.

“If you want to look at the recording, go ahead.” Kate faced him, sadness etched in her vivid blue eyes. “It was more of the same.”

Dillon looked up at the ceiling, his throat tight. What good would it do to watch his sister be hurt…be raped? The most important thing was finding her alive. Taking care of her, nursing her. He shook his head.

“I want to talk to Quinn.”

“He hasn’t gotten back to me since I sent the coordinates. That was over an hour ago.”

“May I?” Dillon motioned to the keyboard attached to the lone computer that had instant messaging.

She nodded, looking at a host of other monitors that flashed code and programs Dillon didn’t understand.

Peterson, it’s Dillon Kincaid. I’m with your friend. What’s happening?

Wait, I’ll get Peterson.

Dillon didn’t know to whom he was talking, so he didn’t type anything further. “You knew that woman?”

She nodded curtly.

“Who was she?”

“Denise Arno.”

“And?”

Kate said nothing.

“Kate,” Dillon said, his voice sterner than he intended. She faced him. “I need to know everything. I believe you want to help, but my goal is not Trask. It’s saving my sister. If you can’t get behind that, then maybe you don’t have your priorities straight.”

“Don’t talk to me about my priorities. Who are you to judge me?”

“I’m not judging you. But I need to know everything about Trask if we’re going to stop him. This is my job. I get into the heads of killers. I begin to think like them. Breathe like them. I’m beginning to get a handle on Trask.”

He continued, starting slow and speeding up as he went. “He’s forty, plus or minus. He’s from a wealthy family, used to privilege and getting whatever he wants. His parents were strict, probably excessively strict, and he resents authority because of that. I wouldn’t be surprised if his father was a high-ranking public official, attorney, or in some position of authority that he enjoyed abusing. Trask wasn’t born in a vacuum.”

“So he was an abused child,” Kate said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.

Dillon took a deep breath. He was used to that kind of comment from law enforcement. “He may or may not have been abused in the traditional sense. I feel no physical abuse, or if he was physically abused it was when he was very young. He likely had a volatile temper even as a young child, unable to own up to his mistakes. He feels no remorse for his actions, and I sense from reading the files Peterson gave me that he never has felt remorse.”

“Oh please,” Kate said, hand on her hip. “So he’s insane? He’s incapable of feeling remorse so he doesn’t know that what he’s doing is wrong? Lock him in a padded cell, give him some drugs, and declare him cured?”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Dillon said, his rare temper rising. “I never said he was insane.”

“But-”

He put his hand up. “I’m giving you a rough profile of the man I think Trask is. Understanding his past, getting a sense of his character and personality, will help us find him and, more important, stop him. But I need more. I need to know about Roger Morton, and I need to know about Denise.”

“Why?” she asked, honestly curious.

“The more we know about the people he surrounds himself with, the more we know about Trask himself.” He took a step toward her. “Between the two of us, we can stop him…after we save Lucy.”

He glanced at the countdown. 33:02:40.

“We don’t have time to play games.” Dillon sat at the desk chair, watched as Kate paced like a tigress, lean and rippling with suppressed energy.

“Denise Arno came to my partner, Paige Henshaw, a week before the ambush. Said she was running from Trask, that she knew about April-”

“April Klinger?” Dillon asked, remembering his conversation with Peterson.

“She’s the reason we started our investigation into Trask Enterprises in the first place. Her family contacted us when a private investigator they hired to find April discovered that she was starring in online pornography movies. She’d been seventeen when she ran away, but was twenty at that point. The PI turned over a DVD he’d made of what appeared to be a snuff film, with April as the dead woman. It was so real-”