Chapter 18 Dominic
Dominic
The van door slides open with a bang, and I climb inside, Dunn coffee in hand and the receipt for Hannah’s new car battery in my pocket. After I dropped her off here earlier, I headed to the nearest auto parts store to grab her one so she wouldn’t have to.
I’ve spent enough time with Hannah to know she isn’t the type of woman to ask for help.
She’s independent, sometimes to her own detriment.
It’s one of the things I admire about her—how strong she is—and that makes it even more rewarding to be the guy who lightens the load, even if she doesn’t think she needs it.
A grin tugs at my lips as I think back to the drive over to CMA headquarters, with Hannah in the passenger seat telling me all about Gary, the goat her mom used to have.
Apparently, Gary thought he was part of the family—following them inside the house, lounging on the couch, and even trying to steal a sip from her mom’s coffee mug every morning.
The way her eyes lit up as she told the story—it was like I was seeing a piece of her she rarely lets out. Something freer, something lighter. I wanted to keep her talking, keep her smiling, just to keep that gorgeous spark there as she let go of all the responsibility weighing down her shoulders.
Funnily enough, she’s the exact opposite of my sister, Dakota. Whereas Hannah would rather carry everything on her shoulders than even think about inconveniencing someone else, my sister wouldn’t think twice about it. Her needs come first, always.
Trust me, I should know—I’m the brother who has gotten roped into helping her move apartments more times than I can count.
“Hey,” I greet Shane as I slide the van door closed behind me. I then sit in the chair next to his.
Normally, he’d be riding my ass for my late arrival, but I can tell from just one look at him he’s got his listening face on instead. Concern rattles my chest, bringing my focus from floating fantasies about a carefree version of Hannah back down to earth in a plunging dive.
In our line of work, if Shane is too busy to give me shit, there’s usually a reason.
I set my coffee down and pull my headphones on, adjusting them against my ears. I flip the switch in front of me to connect to the call, and instantly Hannah’s voice is in my ear.
“I love that. Tell me about this ride.”
“It’s rough,” the caller says, his breathing picking up. “Up and down on my cock while your tits bounce in my face.”
I scoff. The male half of our species really is something.
“Oh, I love the way that feels,” Hannah responds, but I visualize her sitting there, at her desk, running that silly file with pink hearts all over it across her fingernails. “Uh . . . what else do you want to do?”
“Motorboat the shit out of your big tits, Ruby,” the caller grunts like a fucking caveman, and I roll my eyes.
Technically, Hannah doesn’t have big tits.
She has a slim but curvy hourglass shape.
The kind of body that’s soft but fit at the same time.
She’s the kind of woman men find themselves taking a second and third and fourth look at when she walks past them.
Though, professionally speaking, you probably shouldn’t be so aware of that . . .
I cringe at the thought.
“Oooh,” Hannah pretends to moan into the phone. “Ruby’s wet propeller is spinning faster and faster as you drive us through these rocky waters. I don’t know how much longer I can go.”
“Oh baby, hold on!” the caller exclaims. “Don’t let that wet pussy come yet.”
“But it’s sooo juicy. Like a juice box. A Capri-Sun. If you keep sticking your straw in my hole, I’m going to squirt my juice everywhere!”
“Ah, fuck,” the caller’s voice squeaks out, his breaths turning into pants now that Ruby has told him she’s a squirter. “You can squirt?”
The line goes silent for a minute, and I can imagine Hannah trying to figure out what the fuck he’s even talking about. I grit my teeth to fight the urge to burst into laughter.
“Sure, I can squirt,” she eventually says, clearing her throat and adding a little pretend moan into the mix. “I can squirt like a . . . like a fire hose. Someone call 911 because my juice box is about to erupt like a geyser.”
Shane and I share a glance and a chuckle before something makes him pull his phone out of his pocket.
He shows me the screen. Incoming Call: Booth.
I take off my headphones, pushing out of my chair and opening the door to the van to climb out yet again.
I dial Booth on my phone and put it to my ear, waiting through three rings before he picks it up.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Booth. Just calling you back for Shane. He’s in the middle of listening to a tap.”
“Gotcha. I just wanted to let you guys know we got the in-depth tox back on Heather Turnwat, and it’s not just any run-of-the-mill fent. It’s the good shit. Carfentanil.”
Carfentanil is one of the most potent, most expensive, and most valuable fentanyls on the illicit market.
It’s ten thousand times stronger than morphine and around a hundred times stronger than fentanyl.
It was originally developed to use on fucking elephants, so you can imagine, for a human, it only takes a minuscule amount to be lethal.
“Carfentanil?” I blink. “Just like in Gwen Bridges’s case.”
“Yep,” he confirms. “I’m no detective, but if I had to put money on it, I’d say the same person is behind both murders.”
Not many people have access to carfentanil.
And the people who do are usually in drug cartels that like to cut it with other shit to get their money’s worth.
It’s at complete odds with the nature of both Heather’s and Gwen’s deaths.
Whoever did this wanted them dead, and they wanted them dead quickly.
“You find anything else?”
“Nope,” Booth says, a little dejected. “No DNA under the nails, just some textile fibers, and absolutely no trace DNA anywhere else on the body from a third party, and no signs of SA. These moves are calculated, not violent or done by force.”
At this point, these cases mirror each other so much it feels like someone was just copying and pasting.
“Okay, thanks. Anything on the Bellevue case?”
The Bellevue case involves a fifty-five-year-old man found dead in his home. He had two gunshots to the head.
“Preliminary DNA on the victim is looking promising. You and Shane just have to find a suspect so we have something to compare it to.”
“Oh yeah.” I chuckle. “The easy part.”
“You know how it goes, Dom.” Booth laughs. “I just handle the bodies. You do the rest.”
Shaking my head, I kick a pebble across the sidewalk and watch it bounce off the red brick at the bottom of CMA’s building. “Thanks, Booth.”
“You bet. Talk later.”
The call ends, and I climb back into the van, shutting the door behind me. Shane is jotting something down on his pad and then slides it over to me on the desk.
I sit down and pick up the pad, scanning his notes about three CMA callers on our list—a list that’s now ballooned to twenty-one possible suspects.
Brian Haskell
Background came back clean.
Wilkins said he was very cooperative and alibied out.
Haskell, a CMA caller, had acted just strange enough to justify a trace and background check. Honestly, I’m not surprised he alibied out when Wilkins brought him to the station for questioning.
Felix Lewis
Clean background. Wilkins working on bringing him in for questioning.
P.S. He’s rich, bitch. Owns Platinum Nash.
My head jerks back a little in surprise at the insight. Platinum Nash is one of the most popular country music labels in the country, and this odd dude, who’s a fairly frequent caller to the Ruby line, is the damn CEO. It really shows that you never know what people do behind closed doors.
Waylon Hades
615-415-5555
Run a background.
Waylon. This guy’s calls into the Ruby have been the most disturbing yet. So much so that I can remember very specific vile things he’s said to Hannah. With a trace, DFU managed to get us his legal name and phone number so we can run a full background check on him.
I pull my laptop toward me and open it up, signing into the police database and typing in the information. My style is of the hunt-and-peck variety, and I blame it on the fact that I don’t do the whole computer thing all day every day.
I lean back in my chair as the background sweep runs, and the screen populates with Waylon’s information.
An address in Cookeville and a job at the Philips plant in Smyrna don’t tell me much—other than the fact that his long-ass commute every morning is a real kick in the balls.
He has no criminal record other than an ungodly number of traffic tickets, and his credit has been swirling the toilet for a while now. That’s not a total shock, though—I mean, he is spending money on Call Me Anytime on a fairly regular basis.
He’s held steady employment for the last twenty years and turns forty-five in a month.
It’s not exactly the normal criminal MO, but knowing these crimes haven’t been violent, it might be that he’s just started to dip his toes into the bloody waters.
Oftentimes, people with predatory behavior, or a drive to harm, spend a long time battling their urges before they give in.
It starts as a dabble and escalates from there.
Waylon could just be a bit of a sadist who likes rough sex, or he could very well be hitting his stride as a killer.
Either way, I can’t let this fucker fly under the radar. If he’s escalating, he’s going to hurt someone again. And if that someone ends up being Hannah . . . I shove the thought aside, refusing to let it take root.
I jot some notes into our ongoing Call Me Anytime file, my head swirling the entire time with the stark reality that Shane is currently listening to yet another caller—that Hannah is talking to—who could very well be the sick fuck who killed Gwen and Heather.
The thought of her sitting there, taking those calls, listening to men like Waylon describe their twisted fantasies, makes me restless. She’s tough, I know that much, but I can see how this job is wearing her down.
None of this shit sits well with me. If I’m being honest, it makes my blood pump a little harder through my veins.
Come hell or high water, I’m going to solve this fucking case, and soon.