This Fallen Prey Read online

  "Possibly, but Mr. Brady's father believes society is better served by saving the expense of a trial while removing him as a danger to the public. He wants to keep Mr. Brady in what we would consider luxurious isolation, on an island, with caretakers and guards. Mr. Brady has refused. Which is why he is temporarily yours."

  "So he'll come to see the appeal of a permanent Caribbean vacation," I say.

  "Yes, and while we can argue that he deserves worse punishment, that isn't our concern."

  "Your concern is how much you make from this arrangement," Dalton says.

  "No, how much you make. For your town, Sheriff."

  Phil proceeds to remind us how expensive it is to run Rockton, how the five-grand fee from residents hardly covers the expenses incurred during their two-to-five-year stays. How even the hundred grand they get from white-collar criminals barely keeps the town running.

  Some white-collar criminals pay a lot more than a hundred grand, though, as do worse offenders. Rockton just never sees that money. The council keeps it. But with Oliver Brady . . .

  "One million dollars," Phil says. "To be used at your discretion, Eric. And twenty percent of that is yours to keep personally as payment for the extra work."

  Dalton glowers at the radio. "Fuck. You."

  "Detective?" Phil says. "I trust you will speak to your . . . boss on this. Explain to him the benefits of a nest egg, should he ever decide to leave Rockton."

  Explain it to my lover--that's what he means. Convince Dalton he should have money set aside in case he ever wants to leave Rockton with me. This is a threat, too. A reminder that they can kick him out.

  I clear my throat. "I believe Sheriff Dalton sees that two hundred thousand as a bribe for endangering his town. While we could use extra money for Rockton, I think I can speak for both of us when I say we don't want it at the expense of endangering residents."

  "People don't come here for feather pillows and fancy clothes," Dalton says. "They come for security. That cash isn't going to buy us a doctor, is it? Or radios that actually work?"

  "We could certainly invest in better radios," Phil says. "Though I'm not sure that would be a wise use of the money."

  The problem with the radio reception is interference. The same thing that keeps us safe and isolated also keeps us isolated from one another when we're in the forest.

  Phil continues, "I'm sure if you asked the residents, there are things they'd like to use the money for."

  "Yeah," Dalton says. "Booze. And more booze. Oh, and a hot tub. That was their request last year. A fucking hot tub."

  "We could actually do that, Sheriff," Phil says. "It wouldn't be a jacuzzi-style with jets, but a deep communal tub with fire-heated water and--"

  Dalton cuts him off with expletives. Many expletives.

  "There are always things we could use," I say. "And if we went to the residents and asked, they might take this offer. That's because they trust us to protect them from someone like Oliver Brady. But we are not equipped for this, Phil. We have one jail cell. It's intended as a temporary punishment. It's not even big enough for a bed. We can't confine Brady to it for six days, let alone six months. If you wanted to send him here, you should have warned us and provided supplies to construct a proper containment facility."

  "And maybe asked us if we wanted this deal," Dalton says. "But you didn't because you know what we'd say. Which doesn't excuse not giving us any warning. You dropped off a serial killer and a bag of fucking coffee."

  "Tell us what you need to construct a proper containment facility, and we will provide it," Phil says. "Until then, your holding cell will be adequate. Remember, the goal here is to convince Mr. Brady to accept his father's offer. Show him the alternative. Let him experience discomfort."

  "You want us to waterboard him, too?" Dalton asks.

  "If you like. I know you're being facetious, Sheriff, but the residents of Rockton are not subject to any governmental constraints or human rights obligations. Which you have used to your advantage before."

  "Yeah, by making people sleep in a cell without a bed. By sentencing them to chopping duty without a trial. Not actual torture, and if you think that's what I'm here for--"

  "You're not," I say. "The council knows that. What the council may not understand, Phil, is exactly what they're asking. Even with a proper facility, we won't be equipped for this. We don't have prison guards. You saw what happened this winter."

  "But Nicole is fine now. She's staying by choice. That alone is a tribute to you both and everyone else in Rockton. You can handle this."

  "They shouldn't have to."

  That isn't me or Dalton speaking. It's Val, who has been silently listening.

  "Eric and Casey shouldn't have to deal with this threat," she continues. "The people of Rockton shouldn't have to live under it. I don't know what this man has done . . ."

  She looks at me warily, as if not sure she wants me filling in that blank.

  "He's a thrill killer," I say. "He murders because he enjoys it. Tortures and kills. Five victims in Georgia. Two men. Two women. And one fourteen-year-old boy."

  Val closes her eyes.

  "Oliver Brady is a killer motivated by nothing more than sadism," I continue. "An unrelentingly opportunistic psychopath."

  "We can't do this, Phil," Val says. "Please. We cannot subject the residents of Rockton to that."

  "I'm sorry," Phil says, "but you're going to have to."

  3

  For the first three decades of my life, I didn't understand the concept of home. I had one growing up, and outwardly, it was perfect. My parents were very successful physicians, and my sister and I lived a life of privilege. We just weren't a close-knit family. That may be an understatement. Before I left for Rockton, I told my sister that it might be a few years before she heard from me again, she acted as if I'd interrupted an important meeting to say I'd be out shopping for the day.

  I don't know if my early life would have doomed me to an equally cold and comfortless adult one. Maybe I would have married and had children and formed a family there. But my future didn't proceed in a direction that allowed me to find that out.

  When I was nineteen, my boyfriend and I were waylaid in an alley by thugs who took exception to him selling drugs on their turf. I fought back enough to allow Blaine to grab a weapon so we could escape. Instead, he ran. I was beaten and left for dead, and he never even bothered calling 911.

  I spent months in the hospital recuperating, post-coma. Then I went to confront Blaine. Shot him. Killed him. I didn't intend to, but if you take a gun to a fight, you need to be prepared for that conclusion, and at nineteen, I was not.

  I spent the next twelve years waiting for the knock on the door. The one that would lead me down a path ending in a prison cell. I deserved that cell. I never pretended otherwise. But nor did I turn myself in.

  Instead, I punished myself with a lifetime of self-imposed isolation, during which I threw myself into my job as a homicide detective, hoping to make amends that way. Create a home, though? A family? No. I gave up any hope of that life when I pulled the trigger.

  Then I came to Rockton. I arrived in a place I did not want to be . . . and I woke up. Snapped awake after twelve years in what had been just another type of coma. I came here, and I found purpose and a home.

  Yet my life in Rockton is an illusion. I know that. Our amazing little town exists inside a snow globe, and all the council has to do is give it a shake and that illusion of control shatters.

  We do have options. We can refuse to accept Brady. And the council will send someone to escort Dalton to Dawson City. Ship him back "down south"--our term for any place that isn't here. Any place that Dalton doesn't belong.

  You're on your own now, Sheriff. It might be hard to go anywhere when you don't legally exist. Might be hard to get a job when you've never spent a day in school. Might be hard to do anything when you don't have more than the allowance we paid. Oh, and don't expect to take your girlfriend with you--Detect
ive Butler can't leave for another year. But go on. Enjoy your new life.

  I'm sure Dalton's adoptive parents would help him. I could give him money--it's not like I've ever touched my seven-figure inheritance. The problem is that Dalton cannot imagine life anywhere else. Rockton is his purpose. His home.

  We have a backup plan. If he's ever exiled, I will leave, also, whether the council allows it or not. So will Anders. Others, too, loyal to Dalton and to what this town represents. We'll build a new Rockton, a true refuge.

  Is that laughable idealism? Maybe, which is why we don't just go ahead and do it. For now, we work within the system. And under these particular circumstances, walking out is not an option.

  These particular circumstances.

  Oliver Brady.

  Twenty-seven years old. American. Harvard educated. His father runs a huge tech firm. I don't recognize the family name, but I'd presume "Brady" is as fake as "Butler" is for me. Also, his father is actually his stepfather.

  What does that stepfather hope to accomplish with this scheme? I don't know. Maybe saving his wife from the pain of an incarcerated son. Or maybe saving his corporation from the scandal of a murderous one.

  "Murderous" doesn't begin to describe Oliver Brady. I told Val there were five victims, but in cases like this, five is just how many bodies they've found.

  During that interview with Phil, I made him give me details.

  The police believe Oliver Brady took his first victim at the age of twenty. I'm sure there were other victims, animals at least. There are patterns for this sort of thing, and Oliver Brady did not burst from a chrysalis at twenty, a fully formed psychopath.

  Five victims over seven years. No connection between them or to himself. Just people he could grab and take to his hiding spots, where he spent weeks torturing them.

  I'm not sure "torture" is the right word. That implies your tormenter wants something, and the only thing Brady wanted was whatever pleasure he derived from it. The detectives speculated that he never delivered what we might call a killing blow. He simply kept torturing his victims until they died.

  This is the man the council wants us to guard for half a year. A man who likes to play games. A man who likes to inflict pain. A man who likes to cause death. A man who will not cool his heels for six months in a secure cabin. The first chance Brady gets, he'll show us how much he doesn't want to be here.

  After we leave Val's, Dalton takes off to update Anders. I go in search of another person that needs to be told: the local brothel owner.

  Yes, Isabel Radcliffe is more than the local brothel owner. I just like to call her that, a not-so-subtle dig at my least favorite of her positions. She owns the Roc, one of two bars in town. The Roc doubles as a brothel, and she and I are still debating that. I say it sets up dangerous and insulting expectations of the majority of women who don't moonlight in her establishment. She says it allows women to explore and control their sexuality and provides safe access to sex in a town that's three-quarters male. I'd be more inclined to consider her argument if "brothel owner" were a volunteer position. I mentioned that once. She nearly laughed herself into a hernia.

  I find Isabel upstairs at the Roc, walking out of one of the three bedrooms that serve as the brothel--for safety, paid sex must take place on the premises. She's wearing a kerchief over her silver-streaked dark hair, and it may be the first time I've seen her in jeans. Her only "makeup" is a smudge of dirt on one cheek. We can't find room for makeup and hair dye on supply runs, which is a relief, actually, when that becomes the standard. With Isabel, it doesn't matter. She still looks like she should be lounging in a cocktail dress, smoking a cigarette in a holder, with hot young guys fetching her drinks.

  She's carrying an armload of wood, and I look into the room she's exiting and see a bed in pieces.

  "Whoa," I say. "I hope you charged extra for that."

  "I would skin a client alive if he did that." She hefts the wood. "Well, no, if he could do that, I'd want a demonstration. I'm repurposing the room, so I deconstructed the bed."

  "By yourself?"

  "Yes, Casey. By myself. With that thing . . . what do you call it? Knocks in nails and pulls them out again? Ah, yes, a hammer. Kenny was busy, and I didn't want to disturb him when he was getting ready to leave."

  "You mean he was going to charge you double for a last-minute job, and you decided to do it yourself."

  "Same thing. Make yourself useful and grab some wood."

  I do, and as I follow her down the stairs, I say, "You said you're repurposing the room?"

  "It will now be for private parties."

  "Kinky."

  She glances over her shoulder. "Not that kind. However, if you're interested in that kind, I can certainly arrange them. I'm sure we'd find no shortage of buyers. Though I also suspect our good sheriff would snatch all the invitations up."

  "Nah, he'd just glower at anyone who tried to buy one. That'd make them change their minds. Fast."

  "True."

  "And, just for the record, I'm not interested in private sex parties."

  She stacks the wood onto a pile. "As I said, it's not that kind of room. We very rarely have three clients requiring rooms simultaneously, which makes it an inefficient use of space. Instead, this one will host private parties. Drink and food provided, along with a dedicated server . . . who will offer nothing more than drink and food. You may feel perfectly comfortable holding your poker games up here."

  "With people banging in the next room for ambience?"

  "I'm installing soundproofing. Now, what was a plane doing landing on our strip?"

  "You saw it?"

  "I see everything."

  Her network of paid informants makes sure of that. Isabel not only runs the Roc, but controls the town's alcohol, which makes her--after Dalton--the most powerful person in Rockton. She's also the longest resident after him. She's passed her five years but has made an arrangement with the council to stay on. I suspect that "arrangement" involves blackmailing them with information gathered by her network.

  In a small northern town, I'm not sure which is more valuable: booze or secrets. Sex comes next. Isabel owns all three, while holding no official position in local government. Kind of like the Monopoly player who buys only Park Place and Boardwalk and then sits back to enjoy the profits while others scrabble to control the remainder of the board.

  I hand Isabel the letter that came with Brady. As she reads it, her lips tighten almost imperceptibly. Then she folds it and runs a perfect fingernail along the crease.

  "This is one time when I really wish you were given to practical jokes," she says.

  "Sorry."

  She shakes the letter. "This is inappropriate."

  I choke on a laugh. "That's one way of putting it."

  "No, it is the best way of putting it. Springing this on Eric is inappropriate. It is also inappropriate to ask the town to accept it."

  "They're paying us. A million dollars for Rockton."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "Did you actually say money doesn't matter?"

  She fixes me with a look and heads back upstairs for more wood.

  "We don't need a million dollars," she says as I follow. "People didn't come here for luxury accommodations. They came for safety. This trades one for the other. Unacceptable."

  "That's what Eric said. So they promised him twenty percent."

  "Imbeciles. Did he tell them where to stick it?"

  "Of course. Doesn't change anything, though. We are stuck with Mr. Brady for six months."

  "And you want my advice on how to deal with it?"

  "If you have advice, I'll listen, but I'm here for your expertise on Brady himself. Use your shrink skills and tell me what we're dealing with."

  She picks up the headboard and motions for me to grab the other end. "I was a counseling psychologist. I had zero experience with homicidal maniacs. Fortunately, you have someone in town who is an expert."

  "I know. But he's going t
o be a pain in the ass about it."

  "And I'm not?"

  "You're a whole different kind of pain in the ass."

  "I'll take that as a compliment. He is your expert with Oliver Brady. You need me for another sort of advice: how and what to tell the general population. That is going to be the truly tricky part."

  4

  I pace behind the butcher shop.

  "The answer is no." Mathias's voice floats out the back door. "Whatever you are considering asking, the answer is no."

  "Good. Thank you," I say. Or Bien. Merci. Mathias's English is perfect, but he prefers French, and I use it to humor him. Or placate him. Or charm him. Depends on the day, really.

  "Wait," he calls after me. "That was too easy."

  "You're imagining things," I call back as I keep walking.

  A moment later, he's shed his butcher's apron and caught up. "This is a trick, isn't it? You wish my help. You know I will grumble. So you pace about, pretending you have not yet decided to ask me, and then you leave quickly when I refuse. My interest piqued, I will follow you of my own accord."

  "You got me. So, now, knowing you've been tricked, you should go back to your shop and not give me the satisfaction of victory."

  "I could learn to hate you, Casey."

  "Sure, you could. You could even find someone else to speak French to you. We're mostly Canadians here, so almost everyone knows rudimentary French. It's a little rusty, but I'm sure they--"

  "Death by a thousand cuts would be less painful. As will whatever fresh torture you've dreamed up for me. I presume we have a rash of phantom chest pains in the wake of Sharon's demise, and you want me to assure them they are not about to die. William would be better suited to the task. He will tell the truth."

  Mathias may be the town butcher, but he was a psychiatrist, which means he has a medical degree. He's just never practiced--the medical part, at least.

  "No phantom chest pains." I glance around. Even if we are speaking rapid-fire French, I want to be sure no one is nearby. "We had a delivery today."

  "I heard the plane."

  "They dropped off a new resident."

  "And he is ill?"

  "In a manner of speaking."

  I pass over the letter that accompanied Brady. As Mathias skims it, his eyes begin to glitter. By the time he finishes, he's practically beaming.