Detective Lindsay Boxer put serial killer Evan Burke behind bars. Now a new killer has recreated Burke's most infamous crimes-and disappeared without a trace. Detective Lindsay Boxer put serial killer Evan Burke in jail. Reporter Cindy Thomas put Burke on the bestseller list, in her true-crime book about the case. An obsessed fan is studying every detail-and committing fresh horrors that carry Burke's signature. Now Lindsay's tracking an elusive suspect, one who's penning a deadly playbook featuring Cindy's name in blood-red ink.
PROLOGUE
MONDAY
ONE
AT DAWN THAT morning, a man dressed entirely in black nosed his gray Ford sedan up to the curb on Taylor Street. To the east, the morning sun struggled to rise through the clouds over San Francisco Bay. It was still dark but the man, who was now in “Blackout” mode, knew this street as well as he knew his own mind.
He cut his headlights, released the trunk latch, lowered the seat back a few inches and adjusted his video glasses in the rearview mirror. With his unobstructed view of Victorian row houses and the wooden staircase across the street, Blackout waited for Catherine. She was always on time, one of the many things he liked about her.
At twenty-five, Catherine Fleet was a beautiful mother of a baby girl named Josephina, and an integral part of the masterwork he was creating. He wished he could talk with her about it, but there wouldn’t be time. She was leaving her house on Leavenworth now. She would turn down Macondray Lane, the quarter mile of footpath that ran downhill and at a right angle to Taylor.
The lane parted a smattering of trees and hugged the walls of the large homes until it merged with the wooden staircase that ended only yards from the rear of Blackout’s stripped-down cop car.
Catherine would pause there, Josie strapped into her front-facing carrier, and together they would take in the magnificent view of dawn breaking over San Francisco Bay. Moments later, she would head south to Ina Coolbrith Park for their morning walk.
As he rounded off that thought, Blackout saw a flicker of movement in his rearview mirror. Catherine was halfway down the staircase, as regular as a metronome. Her unbuttoned dark coat revealed a garnet-red, snowflake-patterned sweater over dark pants. Her long, dark hair spilled over her shoulders and floated around the redheaded baby’s ears.
Perfect. She was perfect.
Blackout secured his video glasses, worked his gloves over his large hands, and got out of his car. In only a dozen strides he’d reached the foot of the staircase. Catherine looked down briefly, gripping the banister, giving the good-looking young man a brief smile.
Blackout smiled back, took the first two steps upward, snagging the toe of his shoe on the third. As he’d calculated, he tripped and fell facedown spectacularly, sprawling with his arms spread like a large broken bird.
She called out, “Oh, my gosh. Are you all right?”
“I, uh, don’t know,” he said. “I think I slammed my knee on the edge of the riser . . .”
Blackout was awkwardly working himself up into a crouch when Catherine reached him.
“Can you stand up?”
The concern in her voice sent a wave of pleasure through him as he looked up into her blue eyes, the irises rimmed with gold halos. The baby was awake, beating her fists against the air.
“I’m good,” said Blackout. “Embarrassed, is all. I try to impress with finesse.”
Catherine laughed, saying, “Forget it ever happened,” never seeing the small vial Blackout had secreted in his clenched hand. Called “Down Dog,” it was an inelegant name, but it got the job done. He aimed the sprayer at Catherine Fleet’s golden blue eyes and thumbed the lever.
Her reaction was instant, sharp, pained. She cried, “What did you do?” She sat down hard, tearing up from the pepper spray and palming her eyes. The baby girl was gulping air, exhaling wails that could be heard through brick walls.
Blackout had to move fast, before someone else came down the stairs on their way to the park. He scrambled up and got behind Catherine, cradled her lovely neck between his forearm and biceps. She could barely draw breath, gasping, “Don’t. Hurt. My baby.”
“Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.”
Catherine tried to push off the step, to get away from him, but Blackout held her in place and spoke gently to her as he squeezed.
“Don’t fight me, Catherine. It’ll be all over soon. Shhh, shhhh. I’ve got you.”
In fifteen seconds, Catherine was unconscious. In forty seconds, a woman who’d been at the peak of life was dead. But the baby was wailing.
Blackout assessed their combined weight at a hundred and twenty pounds. He checked in all directions. They were alone. He gathered up mother and child and carried them twenty yards to his car’s unlatched trunk.
He stowed them without trouble and was reaching inside to kill the baby, when a man’s voice called out.
“Pardon me. Do you need some help there?”
“The phone had jumped from the jogger’s hand, skidded a few yards downhill. Blackout walked over and crushed it with his heel, then uncapped the stun cane.”
TWO
BLACKOUT TURNED TO see a jogger in shorts and a tennis shirt materialize in the gloom, coming slowly toward him. He had seen him before, a man in his seventies, stiff, arthritic, now winded from climbing the hill out of the park.
“We’re fine,” Blackout shouted back. “We’re all fine.”
The jogger’s expression showed confusion, then, as the baby’s cries filled the air, the old man put it all together. And he held up his phone.
He shot pictures, then turned and ran surprisingly fast back down the hill, with his phone clapped to his ear. He was calling 911. Had to be. He had pictures on his phone. Of him. Of his car. Maybe he’d gotten an angle on his plates and the contents of the trunk.
The baby was shrieking.
There was no time for rage. Blackout covered the baby’s mouth and nose with his large gloved hand until moments later the baby had stopped breathing. Then he dragged blankets over the two dead bodies. Slamming the trunk lid closed, he surveyed the field with a chopper gunner’s eyes, tipping the street toward him and dividing it into a grid.
The jogger was sixty feet away and gaining downhill speed. Farther down the block, near the Victorian row houses, an impatient woman yanked on the leash of a small, prancy dog before disappearing through a doorway.
And now, the sun was burning off the cloud cover and pinking up the sky. Blackout slid into the driver’s seat and backed his old Ford into a K-turn. Straightening out, he touched his foot to the gas. He trailed behind the old man for a moment before darting around him, braking suddenly, blocking him in. The old man faltered, dodged, then made for the space between two parked cars.
Blackout reached for the weapon lying on the passenger seat. A stun cane. He grasped it, exited his vehicle, and using the stick as a bat, he swung and connected with the back of the old man’s head. The jogger fell against a parked van then slumped to the street. He cried out weakly, but the sound didn’t carry.
The phone had jumped from the jogger’s hand, skidded a few yards downhill. Blackout walked over and crushed it with his heel, then uncapped the stun cane.
The jogger was weeping, helpless. He couldn’t stand.
Blackout looked down at him and carefully placed the business end of the stun cane against the jogger’s throat.
He spoke in a soothing voice, “What’s your name?”
The old man pushed futilely at the stick. His face was red. Tears spilled down his cheeks.
“Don’t,” he said. “I didn’t see anything.”
“I said, ‘What is your name’?”
He wheezed, “Jay. Cob.”
“Jacob. Got it. You took pictures, buddy. Big mistake. Hang on for the thrill of your life.”
Blackout pulled the stun cane’s trigger, sending a million volts into the old man’s body, enough to light up the entire block. He knew that the human body could only absorb one percent of a charge that strong, but that plus the current knocked the old man out and with luck, stopped his heart.
But no. The old man blinked his eyes. His mouth moved.
The sky was brightening and Blackout had no more time for this. Back in his car, he pulled the classic Ruger Mark IV, complete with suppressor, from his glove box. He walked back to the old man and aimed the gun point-blank at his forehead and fired it. Then put two more in his chest.
With his back to the many-windowed houses on Taylor’s west side, Blackout picked the SIM card out of the litter of Jacob’s broken phone. He tossed the stun cane back into his car and took the driver’s seat, returning the gun to the glove box. The engine was still running and now Blackout allowed elation, that precious, elusive feeling, to fill him up. He heard in his deep and heaving breaths, the soundtrack of his life.
He made a mental note to freeze frame on the bullet hole in Jacob’s forehead. Fade to black.
And then he headed the car downhill.
Blackout still had a lot of work to do, of the most important kind.
“He’d looked both ways and, not seeing his wife and daughter, had no doubt assumed that Catherine and Josie were still in the park. Poor bastard.”
THREE
AS HE DROVE at the residential speed limit of twenty miles an hour, Blackout’s immediate plan had been to get off Taylor as fast as he reasonably could. He had taken the first right at Green, then turned up onto Leavenworth, passing the house where Catherine and Josie Fleet had lived.
A man he recognized as Catherine’s husband, Brad Fleet, had been coming down the front steps. He’d looked both ways and, not seeing his wife and daughter, had no doubt assumed that Catherine and Josie were still in the park. Poor bastard.
As police cars, sirens screaming, could be heard on the street below, Blackout proceeded to the location for his most important scene.
Now, hours later, safe at home, he thought how long that drive had seemed with the woman and baby tucked away inside the trunk. And he’d had a few thoughts about the senior citizen who’d seen too much, lying dead on Taylor between two parked vehicles.
He’d charged up his video glasses in the car as he drove and later, filmed the perfect ceremony for his victims—without interference. He’d felt peaceful. Reverent.
That part, the end of their story, was one long four-minute shot that might be even more bittersweet with music. Something classical, he thought. Albinoni’s “Adagio in G Minor.” Better yet, Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess. Yes, that was more appropriate, a fitting homage to a killer he’d often thought of as a teacher, almost a friend. He was sure his mentor would like the results of the day’s work and pictured him now: a superior executioner confined to a cell at San Quentin. A man named Evan Burke.
Extracted from 23rd Midnight by James Patterson, out now.
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