Colton Copycat Killer Read online

  Just like that, the whole rack toppled over on its side.

  This time Sam did swear roundly. Disgusted, he was about to leave the rack exactly where it had fallen and just walk out of the unit.

  But his overly developed sense of order relentlessly drummed into him as a child had him reconsidering his position.

  After a minute he sighed and squatted down beside the rack, looking for the best way to get it upright again while losing a minimum of the hangers that were on the rack. Hangers with clothing.

  He struggled with the unwieldy silver rod. That was when he noticed there were uneven cracks in the old wooden floor.

  Staring, he could have sworn he saw something catch the light and flash.

  It could have very well been his overactive imagination, which, since he’d had little to no sleep of late, had gone into hyperdrive.

  Still, he knew he’d have no peace until he checked out the source of the flash, even though, in all likelihood, it was probably a piece of glass that had gotten stuck under the floorboard.

  Availing himself of the small, flat penlight he carried, Sam turned it on and shone it slowly along the crack. Just as he was about to stop, something flashed briefly.

  He did it again, this time even more slowly. He had the same results.

  A third pass allowed him to pinpoint exactly where the flash was coming from.

  A quick, impatient search of the unit turned up nothing he could use in order to pry back the wooden board. Sam fell back on the tried and true. He hurried back to his car and got a crowbar out of the trunk.

  A nerve-racking five minutes later, he had broken apart the wooden board and found himself staring down at a key.

  Hopefully the key, not even wanting to entertain the thought that it wasn’t.

  He had no idea if Celia had hidden the key under the floorboard or if it had just accidentally fallen there—or even if it was the right key. None of that really mattered right now. All that mattered was Vine believed it was the key he was looking for.

  Without that, Sam knew he didn’t have a prayer of getting Zoe back alive.

  Vine had given him three hours to come up with the key. He had no way of getting in contact with the man if he found it earlier. The number Vine had used came in as blocked and he had no way to trace it back to its source, which was undoubtedly a burner phone.

  He had no choice but to wait for a call back.

  Waiting for Vine to call him frayed every single one of Sam’s nerves. He spent part of the time trying to be productive by setting up a sting to catch Vine once the man called back with his instructions for the exchange.

  When his phone finally did ring, Sam almost jumped out of his skin. Taking a breath, he opened his phone and answered the call.

  Vine didn’t waste any time. “You have the key?”

  “Yes,” Sam bit off.

  Vine’s response was patronizing. “Good man. Knew all you needed was the right motivation.”

  It took everything Sam had not to tell Vine what he thought of him, or what he would have given anything to do to him. Instead, he dutifully played the game. Zoe’s life depended on it.

  “Where do you want to make the exchange?”

  “You know that old abandoned toy warehouse five miles beyond the airport?”

  “Yeah, I know it,” Sam acknowledged.

  “Bring the key there at midnight.”

  “What about Zoe?” Sam demanded.

  Vine’s tone was by turns first mocking, then innocent. “What about her?”

  Lord, he wanted to pummel the man to the ground. “Let me talk to her.”

  “Now, don’t get pushy,” Vine chided as if he were disciplining an eight-year-old. “You’ll have plenty of time to talk to her once I have the key.”

  “Now you listen to me,” Sam told him angrily. “I’m not bringing anything anywhere until I get to talk to her.”

  “You Coltons always were a brash, pushy lot.” The laugh was nasty and so chilling, it scraped against the bone.

  But a moment later, Sam heard, “Sam?”

  Zoe!

  Adrenaline shot through him and he held his phone with both hands, afraid he’d drop it. “Zoe. Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

  “Not yet.” It was Vine’s voice answering his question. He had gotten on the phone again.

  “Put her back on!” Sam demanded.

  “Don’t get greedy, Colton,” Vine warned in the same singsong voice he’d used earlier. “You’ve got your proof. She’s still alive. You want to keep her that way? Bring the key at midnight. See you then.”

  The line went dead.

  * * *

  The next seven hours dragged by at an incredibly slow pace. Sam had to struggle to keep his impatience from making him implode. He had to hold it together for Zoe’s sake, he told himself over and over again.

  Although he wanted to be able to capture Vine, his main concern was making sure he got Zoe back alive. He didn’t want to risk her life in case the sting went wrong, so while he had a handful of officers strategically planted out of sight around the perimeter of the warehouse, his primary focus at all times was to get Zoe back alive and unharmed.

  After her safety was no longer a factor, then he could turn his attention to capturing Vine.

  Midnight came—and went.

  As did twelve fifteen.

  Finally, at twelve thirty, Vine stepped out of the shadows of a far corner of the warehouse, seemingly materializing out of nowhere. He had one arm tightly around Zoe’s throat while he held a gun to her temple with the other.

  The criminal had a flair for drama.

  “We’re here,” Vine announced. “Fashionably late, but here and mostly in one piece.”

  What the hell was that supposed to mean? “If you hurt her—” Sam began again.

  “What? The deal’s off?” Vine mocked. “Don’t make me laugh. You’ll take her any way you can get her and we both know that. But don’t worry, she’s alive and breathing, although maybe just a little worse for wear for what you and her sister put me through,” he tagged on maliciously. “The key?” he demanded sharply, dropping all pretense of friendliness.

  Sam took it out of his pocket and held it up. “Come and get it.”

  “You expect me to walk up to you?” Vine demanded. “How stupid do you think I am?” And then he nodded toward something that was on the floor near where Sam was standing. “See that little yellow toy truck over in the corner? Put the key in the back of truck, point it toward us and turn the switch on. When I get the truck, you get her.”

  Sam had crossed over to the yellow toy truck, but he made no effort to carry out the rest of Vine’s instructions.

  “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

  “Oh, Sam, you wound me. Have I ever lied to you?” Vine asked mockingly. “Tell you what, I’ll let her go when the truck’s almost here. How’s that? Best offer, Sam. Sixty seconds and it’s off the table—and she’s off her feet,” he said nastily, then added, “Permanently.”

  Sam knew he had no other recourse open to him. His weapon was holstered at his spine. He could definitely access it, but by the time he could aim it, Vine would have pulled the trigger of the gun he was holding against Zoe’s temple.

  There was only one way to play this.

  “We’ll do it your way,” Sam said through gritted teeth.

  “Knew you’d see reason,” Vine gloated. “Okay, put the key into the truck.” Watching him, Vine waited until his instructions were complied with. “Atta boy, Colton. Now, turn the switch on and aim the truck this way.” As he spoke, he raised his elbow, as if poised to pull the gun’s trigger if, for some reason, there was so much as a hair’s breadth deviation from the truck’s path.

  Sam did as he
was told, depositing the key onto the little truck’s flatbed, then releasing the switch. The truck made its way across the warehouse floor.

  “The truck’s almost there,” Sam pointed out a minute later. “Let her go, Vine!”

  “Or what, you’ll shoot?” Vine mocked. “Don’t get your shorts all in a twist, Colton,” he laughed. “I’m a man of my word.” Vine withdrew his chokehold from around her neck. “Go ahead, sweetheart, he’s waiting for you.”

  As Vine released her, he also pushed Zoe forward, hard, causing her to stumble and fall down from the force of the shove.

  Sam ran to her as Vine scooped up the key and ran in the opposite direction, going behind a framework of bare metal shelves.

  “I’m fine, go get him,” Zoe cried, waving Sam on after the other man.

  “Move in, move in,” Sam ordered over the shortwave radio he’d had tucked into his back pocket and was now in his hand.

  Within seconds, officers descended on the warehouse from all points of outer entry.

  Sam ran behind the shelves, toward the area Vine had ducked into.

  There was no one there.

  A quick search in several directions turned up nothing. Vine had done the impossible. He had vanished from a warehouse surrounded by police officers.

  “Where is he?” Zoe cried incredulously, coming up behind him.

  “Damned if I know,” he bit off in disgust. And then it hit him. “There’s got to be some kind of a trap door or an underground tunnel around here, leading away from the warehouse.” There was no other explanation. Vine wasn’t Houdini.

  “Here, Detective,” one of the police officers called to Sam.

  When Sam turned in that direction, he saw the officer standing before what appeared to be a utility closet. When he drew closer to the closet, Sam saw there was a trapdoor in the floor.

  To make his point, the officer indicated the opened trapdoor. “He made his getaway from here,” the man told him.

  “Find out where that goes,” Sam ordered, even though he knew it was probably an exercise in futility.

  It was beginning to be clear that Vine was not as dumb as everyone thought. The psychopath had obviously mapped out his getaway long before he placed the ransom call to get his hands on the key that Celia had withheld from him.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” Zoe told him as the officers went to follow his orders.

  “It’s not your fault,” he told her. Hooking one arm around her, Sam hugged her to him. “We’ll get him,” he promised her. “Don’t worry about anything, we’ll get him.” He kissed the top of her head, grateful beyond words she was beside him and all right. “Besides, he hasn’t won yet.”

  It certainly looked that way to Zoe. “But he’s got the key.”

  “Yeah, but I still have an ace in the hole,” Sam told her. Looking at the officer closest to him, Sam said, “Plan B, McKinley.”

  “Yes, sir,” the officer said, then turned to the rest of the officers who had rushed into the warehouse in an attempt to capture Vine. “You heard the detective. Plan B.”

  Zoe looked at Sam, clearly puzzled. “Plan B?” she asked. “There’s a plan B?”

  He smiled at her, relief still coursing through his veins. He knew it was going to feel like that for at least a few hours—which was fine with him.

  “There’s always a plan B,” he assured Zoe. “But right now, there’s someplace I have to go first. I’d drop you off at home,” he told her honestly, “but the last time I did that, it didn’t turn out too well.”

  “I wouldn’t have stayed at your house even if you did drop me off,” she told him. “After what just happened with Johnny, I intend to stick to you like glue for the next day or two. Or longer,” she added for good measure.

  He grinned at her. “Might prove to be interesting.” And then he grew serious as he warned her, “As long as you make sure not to do something independent and foolhardy.” He could just see her charging Vine to make him pay for what he was doing to them.

  “The thought never even crossed my mind,” she told Sam solemnly.

  And if he believed that, Sam thought, grinning, then he’d be the naive one.

  Chapter 19

  “I was beginning to think you stood me up, boy,” Matthew Colton’s voice crackled with a touch of cynicism as he watched his son cross to him.

  They were meeting in the usual place, but this time it was per the specific instructions the senior Colton had set down if the “game” was to go forward.

  “Where’s Juliet?” he asked, looking past Sam toward the vicinity of the door the latter had used to enter the room. “Has she gotten tired of you already?” Matthew sneered.

  Sam refused to say anything more than was absolutely necessary.

  “You said you wanted to see me, so here I am.” He sat down opposite his father. “I’ve lived up to my end of it, you live up to yours.”

  “What, no preemptive chitchat?” Matthew asked mockingly. “No pretense at being the dutiful son at long last?”

  Sam felt as if he was operating on the hairy edge. He’d come perilously close to losing Zoe and he was in no mood to play along with whatever game the old man had in mind.

  “Cut the bull, old man. You were never interested in anything about us. We all know you’re doing this strictly to entertain yourself,” Sam said in disgust. “It’s your one last pathetic play for power.”

  The squinting eyes narrowed into tiny, angry slits. “Careful, boy. You hurt my feelings and you go home empty-handed.”

  “And what do I go home with if I don’t hurt your feelings?” Sam asked pointedly.

  He was beginning to doubt that even if he and his siblings did jump through every hoop Matthew held up, the old man would give them the information they wanted at the end of the game.

  “Why, your clue, of course. Clue number one,” Matthew emphasized dramatically.

  “All right, I’m listening,” Sam said, his eyes pinning his father’s.

  For a long moment, it seemed like the meeting had disintegrated into a staring contest.

  Just when Sam was about to declare the whole thing a colossal waste of his time, Matthew said a single word.

  “Texas.”

  Sam blinked, certain he’d heard wrong. “What?”

  “Texas,” Matthew repeated, this time a little more clearly.

  Sam waited, but nothing else followed. Not one extra word.

  “That’s it?” he questioned incredulously.

  Matthew looked at him smugly, very satisfied with the reaction his clue had received.

  “That’s it.”

  Sam blew out a breath. He felt frustrated to say the least, but since the old man had made such a point of all this, he assumed that what he was being told was that his mother was buried somewhere in Texas, a state whose land mass was only exceeded by one other state in the union: Alaska.

  It wasn’t much, but it was a start, Sam thought.

  Hopefully, his brothers and sister would be told words that would eventually pull the whole thing into context.

  Having given Matthew a sufficient amount of time to say anything additional by way of a clue, Sam rose from the table.

  “Okay, then. I’ll be seeing you, old man.”

  “One more thing,” Matthew called out after him when he was more than halfway to the door.

  Turning around, Sam looked at him. He knew his father was only doing this—adding postscripts when he was almost out of the room—to prove he could yank him around whenever he wanted to.

  “Yes?” Sam asked impatiently.

  “Since I’m feeling generous, I’ll throw you another bone,” Matthew told him, drawing his words out so slowly, they felt as if they were crawling along the floor. “Those letters you took from me? The ones I
lent you?” Matthew reminded him.

  He wasn’t going to get into a debate unless he knew what the subject was ahead of time.

  “Yes?” Sam asked warily.

  “Well, if I were you, boy, I’d only be looking at the ones from women.” He laughed to himself. “They are the deadlier of the species.”

  Sam cut across the floor quickly. There was more to what his father was saying, he would have sworn to it. “What else do you know, old man?”

  Matthew’s expression was defiant. He held all the cards and he knew it.

  “I know I’m tired now, so run along, boy. Go,” he emphasized, turning the single word into an order.

  Sam turned on his heel and walked to the door.

  It wasn’t much of a clue, he thought as he left the communal room. At least, not the first clue. The second, regarding the serial killer, might actually lead to something, he thought.

  It still mystified him that his father was actually willing to just “give away” the information, without trying to trade it for anything more substantial than the things he’d already asked for.

  Although, now that he thought of it, beyond what Matthew had already requested—the extended TV privileges, the pillow and some food delicacies—what else would a man in his condition require once freedom was permanently off the table?

  * * *

  “Well, what did he say?” Zoe asked eagerly, hurrying over to him the minute she saw Sam walk out of the communal room. She’d been sitting in the waiting area, counting the minutes until his return.

  Sam slipped his arm around her shoulders. Just feeling her next to him helped ground him. “He asked where you were.”

  “He didn’t,” she scoffed, convinced Sam was teasing her.

  “Yeah, he did, actually,” Sam told her as they made their way out of the area and toward the exit. “He called you ‘Juliet.’”

  “Did he say anything meaningful?” she pressed.

  She knew how much it meant to Sam and the others to be able to eventually reclaim their mother’s body and give the poor woman a proper burial the way she deserved.