Chapter 5
“Nasty or not, you’re not going anywhere like that.” Darnell had only managed to add socks to his outfit that consisted of underwear and police belt. “Get dressed.”
Darnell nodded.
“Yes, boss.”
Vaughn hated when Darnell called him that. His partner was nearly double his age, which meant double the experience.
Double the baggage, too.
Vaughn watched Darnell retreat to his bedroom as the man’s previous words echoed inside his head: We got a case . . . a nasty one.
It was too soon for another nasty one.
Their previous case involving the Princeton Pervert had taken a lot out of both of them.
A rather benign moniker, given what Armand Reese had eventually confessed to. But the media loved their alliterations nearly as much as they loved sensationalism.
The Princeton Pervert, PP, Armand Reese—call him what you want, the man was an absolute sadist. Abducted six girls, aged nine to eleven, and kept them shackled in the back of his van for upwards of a week.
Raped them repeatedly.
Manually strangled them before tossing their tiny bodies into an abandoned gravel pit.
They’d tracked Armand Reese for nearly six months without making any progress. If it hadn’t been for one of Darnell’s hunches, he might still be out there terrorizing young girls.
Darnell’s hunches . . . the thought made Vaughn shake his head. Darnell was old-school, still believed in those sorts of things. Vaughn did not.
Yet he couldn’t deny their effectiveness.
In retrospect, Vaughn came up with tangible evidence that would have indicated where Armand was keeping the bodies—fine gravel dust at the scenes from where the victims were abducted, the sighting of a pickup truck that was lower on the rear axles, indicative of wear from carrying heavy loads.
But in the moment, he’d missed those clues.
Hunch or no hunch, Darnell was right: it was too soon for another nasty one.
Vaughn poured himself a cup of coffee, then set about tidying the place up. Mostly just tossed out spent beer cans.
The shower came on.
Vaughn considered using a cloth he found in the sink to clean the counters, but decided against it. He was Darnell’s partner, not his fucking maid.
He tried not to count the cans. Told himself that these could have been accumulating for weeks, even though he knew they hadn’t.
Vaughn’s cleanup efforts led him to the front hall. Two cans on the table by the entrance.
He scooped these and then stopped.
There were four framed photos sitting on the table.
The first, Darnell in police uniform, smiling.
Holding a diploma. Second: Darnell in a suit, arms wrapped around a pretty Black woman in a white dress—their wedding.
The third, Darnell and three buddies at a football game. Vaughn didn’t recognize the friends.
The final frame had been placed face down. Even before Vaughn righted it, he knew what it would show: Darnell, his wife, and a smiling kid with unruly hair missing a front tooth.
“Thanks for cleaning up. Maid’s on vacation.”
Startled, Vaughn put the photo back the way it was. He crushed one of the cans as he turned.
“Darnell . . .”
“What?”
In a clean suit, somehow shaved even though Vaughn didn’t know how that was possible given the short time frame, Detective Darnell Sacker was a different man. And with most of the beer cans in the garbage, the detective projected a different air entirely.
That of a bachelor—a bachelor detective who likes to drink. Name one who didn’t? If he worked hard enough, Vaughn could convince himself that his senior partner was normal.
Almost normal, anyway.
“You keep staring at me like that and I’m going to get back into my skivvies.”
Vaughn tossed the cans into the garbage. It was overflowing and the lid refused to close.
“Let’s get out of here. It stinks. And don’t forget to lock up—door was open this morning.”
Darnell shrugged. “Don’t have anything left to steal.”
They got into Vaughn’s unmarked car and he started the engine. “Well? What’ve we got?”
“Let me ask you something: one person killed is a homicide. Two, a double homicide. Three, a triple.” Vaughn pulled out of the driveway. “What do you call ten homicides?”
“Ten?” Vaughn’s eyes bulged.
“Ten.”
“I don’t . . . I don’t know.”
“Tenuple? Double quintuple?”
“No idea.”
But he did. Vaughn knew what it was called because Darnell had already said it.
A nasty one. A fucking nasty one.
It was too soon for another nasty one.