👉Read Chapter 7👈
Now, Chapter 8
Caleb's eyes shot up at Grayson's. His look was tortured as he peered into steady, sure lavender eyes. Caleb closed his eyes and sighed heavily as his shoulders sagged.
Grayson gently pushed, his tone calm and supportive
"I looked at your jacket. You're a good cop, Caleb." Caleb's posture straightened a bit. "You could easily make detective."
"I like walking the beat," he responded with a touch of defiance. "I'm no desk jockey."
Grayson gently increased the rhythm of his hypnotic tapping in an effort to match the changed tone of the conversation.
Grayson's voice was louder, more assertive. "You like the authority of the uniform, the power of the gun. I get it. But you know how to sort out clues and figure stuff out, Caleb. You know how to assess behavior, body language. You've been on the force, what, 12 years?"
"Thirteen years." Caleb corrected proudly.
Good, Grayson thought.
Tap, Tap, Tap.
"Thirteen years. Good number. Some call it a lucky number. When you know something's not right, you know it in your gut. Not like these green rookies. You're past that. Your cop's instinct has gotten better and in thirteen years, you're in your prime as a cop and as a man."
Tap, Tap, Tap.
Grayson continued his stroking. "I bet you you can even look at a suspect, look him up and down, in his eyes, how he holds himself and know when a guy is guilty. Can't you, Caleb?"
There was a spark in Caleb's eyes. "Those lawyers in the DA's office, they don't have a clue. They let a lot of guilty assholes get off because they couldn't just look at the evidence properly."
"I've seen your notes. Pretty thorough. Even accurate, like 60-70% of the time you were right. You gave the DA plenty of evidence and they were just too stupid to make the case."
Tap, Tap, Tap.
Caleb nodded in agreement as Grayson continued.
"So you could tell even when your own brother, the kid who you saw protect your mother, fight his way through the war at home, come back from something as bad as a stroke. You knew when he was doing something wrong. You could tell he had something to be guilty about."
Caleb crinkled his nose. "I could smell it. He would lie about work. I thought he was mixing up the directions or the dates because his brain was bad. But that wasn't it. He was good at the harder stuff like fixing stuff around the house, but just forgetful about simple things like misplacing stuff and words."
Tap, Tap, Tap
Grayson asked again, "When did you know, Caleb?"
"I was worried about him, when he left. He didn't have a place and I felt bad. I looked around trying to find out where he was. I made some calls and found out he was staying at some girl's place. Then he had moved out to some run down hole on the other side. I just wanted to see that he was alright. I promised Mama, you know."
"Then what happened?" Grayson asked.
Grayson increased the the cadence of his tapping double time.
Tap-tap, Tap-tap, Tap-tap
"He picked up some girl. Some brunette chick. They stopped underneath the bridge and the car started rocking. I thought, good you know. Getting some tail can make a man feel right."
Caleb was starting to drift and Grayson was not about to let him get away.
"Caleb, tell me."
"I was getting the rest of his things together. I opened one of the drawers in his night stand and saw pictures. First, I was proud that he was sewing his oats. But I started recognizing a couple of the women from some cases. Some of the pictures had notes on the back with dates. There was a picture of that Josie Willis girl. There was one of that Marquez woman with her husband. The one that got me was the one of that little girl, Sara Marquez. She's just a little girl, you know. How the hell...with a little girl. Then...
Caleb's eyes drifted to the picture in front of him of Carla and Zach, smiling and happy. Grayson watched his eyes.
Tap-tap, Tap-tap, Tap-tap.
"When you saw the picture of Carla, what did you do?"
His eyes fixed on the picture as he spoke. "I went to his job and asked him about the pictures. He flew off at me telling me I had no right. Came up with some cockamamie story about scoping out chicks. I knew he was lying to me. I asked him about Carla. He told me that was his girl. He'd followed her from work and home but she was always with some guy. He wanted her alone so that he'd have a chance to talk to her and other people wouldn't poison her against him."
Grayson's ears prickled.
"He said he used the pictures of these women to work up his courage. And the little girl would be like the little girl they'd have one day."
Tap-tap, Tap-tap, Tap-tap
"But you knew there was more, didn't you, Caleb? You're a good cop. Your instincts are sharp."
"I never ignored my instincts. Can get you killed on the job."
"And thirteen years on the force. Some cops barely last half that time without catching a bullet."
"Not me. Not once. But what he said? I wasn't about to leave it at that. I read his notes on the backs of the pictures. That was when I knew..."
"You had this Magic City Serial with you the whole time. You're a good cop. By the book. But he was also your brother and you made a promise."
Tap-tap, Tap-tap, Tap-tap
"He did it. My own brother...he hurt all those women. He was right under my nose."
Tap-tap, Tap-tap, Tap-tap
"I promised my mother but I'm a good cop. I trust my instincts, follow the clues. He hurt those women and that little girl."
Caleb was breaking down.
"Mama," he cried. "Mama didn't deserve to die that way. I should have been with her. I should have protected her from Mina. Malcolm, I hope he's dead. That rotten freak, he might as well have killed her himself."
Caleb kept talking through tears.
Grayson stopped the tapping. Caleb was lost now, past that figurative fork in the path and became too engrossed in his own tragedy to be guided any further. Grayson nodded slightly to the cop standing guard who escorted a broken, sobbing Caleb to his cell.
Sitting back in his chair, Grayson exhaled. The exercise was as exhausting for him as it was for Caleb, whom he suspected would be asleep soon enough.
"What the hell just happened?" Carl exclaimed as he strode into the interrogation room after Caleb was removed.
Grayson leaned forward. "It's a form of waking guided hypnosis I came up with. Because of what I suspected about him, Caleb seemed like a good candidate. His mind was already prone because of trauma but the recent death of his mother makes him even more vulnerable and open for guidance."
"Remind me to invite you to the Christmas party," Carl quipped eliciting a weak smile from Grayson.
"Did you get anything you could use?"
"Cordell's ordered officers to check out reports in that area from the last 4-7 months. It's a pretty wide net but it's what we got. We're also checking Caleb's alibi during the early cases."
"Well, I can vouch for him during the Marquez case. He was with us."
"I know. But with this case, we have to make sure everything's covered. As it is, he's facing some stiff punishment being an accessory. Thirteen years on the force and it ends like this."
"I can tell you this, he needs help more than he needs jail. Traumatic childhood, violent death of a parent, blames himself. Acting out. Guilt can really mess with your head if runs unchecked. I'll make some recommendations."
"You won't take him or can't?"
"Both. Apart from being an ethical mess, it would just be an uphill battle with me. His feelings for me would cloud the treatment. Honestly, I'm the last person he should be sitting with for treatment. If anything our first session confirmed it."
Carl looked at him carefully for a moment.
"What?"
Carl shook his head. "I'm just remembering you that night, when we caught you driving stoned. Had all the earmarks of some rich kid trying to shoot the finger at everybody."
Grayson chuckled. "I was that and more, believe me."
"You've done well for yourself, Baxter. A true turned-his-life-around success story."
Grayson smiled and inclined his head. "Even a prodigal like me deserves a second chance."
* * *
"Come in," Cordell bellowed as he hung up with Chief Tarton. It had been his policy to keep the chief apprised of everything that was going on with the serial case.
"Lieutenant, sir," Sargent Pride strode in and handed Cordell two pieces of paper. "We have a couple of reports of an unidentified female found under a bridge."
"Alive?"
"Unknown, sir. But the second message sir. It looks like one of our cars has been smashed and abandoned."
"What?"
Cordell looked at the message that indicated a hit and run on a law enforcement car was reported.
"I double-checked and that car was borrowed by Agent Genny earlier."
Cordell looked up. "Where is she?" he asked gruffly.
"Again, unknown sir"
"Unknown, unknown. What the hell do you know, Pride?
"We have witnesses who stated that an unidentified male indicated that he was taking the unconscious female driver to the hospital for treatment."
Cordell couldn't fight that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Knowing what he was going to say, Pride spoke quickly. "We're checking the hospitals but we're still thin on following up."
"Damn, budget. Get Weatherly in here. Let me know what the other searches turn up the minute you get anything. Go!"
His harsh bark was more worried than angry. After what he had heard from Caleb during Grayson's questioning, he had a sinking feeling that Zach got his hands on Carla somehow. The last time he heard this kind of news about her, she escaped with nothing more than a graze. He hoped that Carla's luck hadn't run out this time.
