I Can Kill: An FBI Thriller (The O'Reilly Files Book 1) Read online

  “Don’t talk to me about Cheyenne, okay? Let’s move on. Now, I’ve matched a good amount of the victims in the album he left us,” he said. He mentioned the differences in the murders. “I’ve marked them, but we’ll have to scan the others into the database and see if we can find any matches for the others. I've already started contacting the local police departments. They’re sending over some of their cold case files.”

  Shaun leaned over and grabbed the album. “I’ll take a look at this. Monroe wants to speak with you.”

  Aidan watched as he walked away, and then headed to the special agent-in-charge's office. When he arrived, he knocked and opened the door when he heard her tell him to enter.

  Monroe flipped a folder shut and opened her file cabinet. After thumbing through her confidential files, she slipped the folder in its slot and turned back to Aidan, muttering something underneath her breath, then rolled her chair to the side.

  “Have a seat, Agent O’Reilly. Would you like coffee?”

  “Please,” he said, as she grabbed two Styrofoam cups and began pouring the coffee.

  As she did so, Aidan told her about the phone call and texts from the night before, and that they were in the process of tracing it.

  She nodded as she set a cup in front of him and began to sip from hers.

  “Is there anything else I need to know?”

  Aidan wondered if she was going to insist he go home and take a few days. He knew she wanted him to, but he hoped that wasn’t the case. He wanted nothing more than to keep his promise to Cheyenne’s killer: be there when he was caught.

  The promise to kill him was still up for debate.

  Aidan cleared his throat. “No, ma’am.”

  Monroe turned her red lips to a frown and stared at him.

  She looked at him disapprovingly while she asked why he was at work today. Aidan explained to her the same thing he did to Shaun earlier this morning.

  Unlike him, she was hesitant about letting him stay.

  “I understand you want to find Cheyenne,” she said. Her words were soft but full of authority. “I think you should take a little time. It’s personal now.”

  “It’s always been—” Aidan stopped himself short. Admitting it had always been personal was a sure way to be sent home. Instead, Aidan drew in a breath, rubbed his hair. “Let me stay. I can’t sit around and do nothing. The best I can do is keep busy. If you don’t want me to investigate Cheyenne, fine. I trust Shaun enough to do that. But he killed Jordan Blake’s dog. I can look into that.”

  She reached for her phone, dialed an extension.

  “Can you come here for a second, Agent Henderson?”

  They waited in silence until there was a knock on the door and Shaun stepped into the office.

  Monroe sighed and looked around her desk and began to straighten files and papers. The expression she gave showed she was considering what it was she planned to say next.

  “Okay, Agent O’Reilly, I’m not benching you. “As much as I hate to admit it, you do know this guy better than anyone.” She paused before continuing. “However, I’m making a change in this investigation.” She nodded toward Shaun. “I want Agent Henderson in charge from here on out. Understood?”

  Aidan opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again. He turned to Shaun and saw he was staring at Monroe and then glanced at him. It was hard to tell what he was thinking.

  “This is my investigation,” Aidan demanded, returning his gaze to Monroe.

  “It’s still your investigation,” Monroe replied calmly. “Except Agent Henderson is in charge. You’re too invested in it now. He’s not. I’m not so sure you can remain objective, O’Reilly. He can. I’m not going to risk you endangering yourself or anyone else.”

  Aidan gaped at Monroe, then narrowed his eyes at Shaun. “You knew about this.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Monroe said before Shaun could reply. Another sigh. “If you want to remain on this investigation, this is the best you’ll get. I already spoke to Zane and Hansford this morning on how to proceed. They both suggested you sit back, but I convinced them you should stay on. After all, you’ve come this far. However, if you don’t like the terms, you can go on home—Henderson will still be in charge.”

  Monroe’s eyes were firm, but at the same time sympathetic.

  Aidan wanted to protest but thought better of it.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed.

  “Is that okay with you, Agent Henderson?”

  Shaun replied it was, and then she dismissed them.

  Without another word, Aidan left the office, knowing Shaun was following close behind.

  “Aidan,” he began. “I didn’t know she—”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it right now,” Aidan snapped. He turned to face him, hands on his hips. “So, boss, what do you want to do next?”

  Shaun told him the call and texts did come from a burner, but the nine-one-one was traced to a guy named Gary Short. They also learned Gary worked at WJFX News. He was in charge of the sound check.

  As they left the office to interview him, Aidan tried pushing his anger out of mind. He reminded himself it didn’t matter that he was no longer running the investigation as long as he found Cheyenne.

  But he didn’t appreciate the feeling that he had been stabbed in the back by a man he had come to think of as a friend.

  68

  AT WJFX, THEY questioned Gary Short about the phone call and he informed them he lost his phone sometime yesterday afternoon. He didn’t remember where he left it and had figured someone walked off with it.

  “Where were you last night at nine o'clock?” Shaun asked him.

  “I went to the movies with friends,” Gary replied. He jammed his hands into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled movie ticket for Thor: Ragnarok.

  “You always keep your stubs?” Shaun asked.

  Gary shrugged. “A lot of people do. I don't really think about it.”

  “You're a field technician, right?” Aidan asked.

  He nodded.

  “So, you know technology pretty well, huh? Do you know how to send and delete a text remotely?”

  Gary released an awkward chuckle. “Yeah, Jordan mentioned those texts he received from the killer. I didn't send 'em if that’s where you’re heading.”

  “But you do know how to do it?” Shaun pressed.

  “Yeah, guess you could say I do,” Gary answered matter-of-factly. “But I didn't. And I wouldn't hurt an animal.”

  “Okay,” Shaun told him, passing the stub back. “Thanks for your time.”

  After they finished questioning him, they proceeded to leave the station but were stopped by Thomas Blake calling out to them.

  They waited as he jogged in their direction.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Thomas began. “How are you coming along with finding the SOB who murdered my nephew’s dog?”

  “We’re working on it,” Aidan promised. “We’ve got some leads that might prove useful.”

  Thomas looked around and then lowered his voice.

  “Is it true The Carnations Killer has your girlfriend?”

  Aidan considered bypassing the question, but instead he nodded.

  “I just hope for her sake you aren't as incompetent now as you've been the last...how long are they saying he's been killing now...fifteen years.”

  Aidan tried to think of something professional to say other than “screw you.” He came up empty.

  “We know a lot more about the offender than we used to,” Shaun replied hotly. “He’s making mistakes. We're confident we'll find something that'll lead us to him.”

  Thomas raised his eyebrow. “What kinds of mistakes?”

  “Well, he took his girlfriend for one,” Shaun answered pointedly, crossing his arms. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Mr. Blake, we have work to do.”

  They left Thomas standing in the hallway glaring after them.

  “Thanks,” Aidan said to Shaun.

  “The
Blake family gets on my nerves.”

  “I hear that,” Aidan muttered as Shaun’s phone began ringing.

  He answered, said a few words, and then ended the conversation with a thank you.

  “The casting of the print was sized ten and a half. We believe it's from a pair of running shoes. Nike's or something like that. The blood by the dog house was canine.”

  “Do we have any suspects left?” Aidan asked. “It’s not Jordan. Unless he killed his own dog and is an extremely good actor, he’s not our killer. Thomas still doesn’t have an alibi, and the offender used his house. And no paper trail from the rent money is curious.”

  Shaun shook his head. “I don’t know. To kill his own nephew’s dog? That’s just plain heartless.”

  “Because he’s been showing true heart all these years,” Aidan said dryly.

  Shaun didn’t reply to the comment. “Maybe it’s someone we haven’t interviewed yet. Maybe—”

  “Killers—especially when it’s planned—become invested in the investigations. They are either the most helpful witnesses, watching from nearby, or both. The Carnations Killer is proud of what he’s done. He’s proud that he managed to elude us for so long. Why else would he hand over the album of all eighty-six of his kills?”

  Aidan shook his head slowly, trying to unravel the mystery.

  The offender used a taser to subdue his victims. He moved them to a location where he abused them with a tire iron. After a week, he would strangle them until they were dead, then dump them at a chosen location. As far as Aidan could tell, the victims had no relation to each other. The crime scenes were chosen at random. He still believed whoever he was held a job which allowed him to travel.

  Aidan continued to stare through the windshield at the WJFX News studio.

  “We know who he is. But—”

  “We just don’t know who,” Shaun finished his thought.

  Shaun pulled out of the parking lot so they could grab an early lunch at McDonald’s, then take it to the office and review the files once more.

  69

  “TWO MONTHS AGO, Maya Gibson was murdered the same way most of the other victims were: tased, beaten, strangled. Same MO with Jane Ridgeway. We had believed Sherry Finch was his first victim, but when he took Cheyenne, he told us every woman he’d murdered.”

  Aidan glance at Shaun, who stared at his computer screen.

  “Who was the first?”

  “Um…” He flipped through the database until he gave him an answer. “…Georgia Rivers.”

  “What do we know about her?” Aidan jammed a stale French fry into his mouth.

  Shaun said she was born in Manhattan in 1972 to John and Marcia Davis. Her parents divorced in 1978. Georgia’s mom remarried a man named Ben Rivers and they moved to Aiken, South Carolina in 1983. They adopted a five-year-old boy who had been in and out of foster care since he was three.

  “This is interesting...apparently, Georgia was telling her mother her new brother had issues. She’d seen him throw the family cat across the yard, threw rocks at the birds in the trees. They even had a dog, but he went missing. Georgia claimed her brother had killed him. But there was never any proof.”

  “What do we know about the brother?”

  Aidan waited until he searched for the information.

  “He’d been sent to the Trouble Teens of North Carolina, a small boot camp in Morganton. There’s no more mention of the brother anywhere beyond that.”

  “Are the parents still living?”

  “The mother is in a retirement center in Charleston. Her husband was killed in an accident five years ago, and Carol’s biological father died twenty years ago from lung cancer.”

  “Let’s go visit the mother and see if she can tell us anything about her son.”

  The Charlotte Retirement Center was an appealing place, its trees and flowers giving visitors and occupants a sense of security and peace. Even the warm breeze of the south seemed inviting. In the courtyard, Aidan noticed a young couple sitting with an elderly man in a wheelchair by the fountain. They had a little boy with them and it looked as though he was reading a book out loud.

  Shaun and Aidan stepped inside the doors of the retirement center. To the left was the reception window. To the right were four chairs and a table. Directly ahead were various halls leading to what Aidan guessed to be rooms for the elderly.

  They walked to the window and showed the clerk behind the glass their ID badges as they introduced themselves.

  “We’re looking for a woman named Marcia Rivers,” Shaun said.

  “Oh, sure,” the middle-aged woman behind the glass chirped. She kept her voice low. “Let me contact my supervisor first and let her know you’re here.”

  “No problem,” Aidan replied. “Thanks.”

  They waited, and a few minutes later, the receptionist informed them that her supervisor would be right with them.

  They thanked her and took a seat at the table nearby.

  Aidan used the time to reread the information about Georgia Davis. She was murdered in her bed during the summer of 2000. Georgia was found by her mother, beaten then stabbed numerous times. It appeared he was spending his early years trying to perfect his method of torture and death.

  Aidan presumed he decided using a knife on his victims proved to be too messy. Or maybe it was nothing more than a fit of rage. The crime scene photos revealed blood on the walls, sheets, and nightstand. The second victim in the album was strangled. Looking at the woman’s neck, he clearly saw the finger marks. But there were no useable prints found at the scene. The offender must have worn gloves.

  At the time of her death, Georgia wasn’t married, but she was dating a man named Dave Brinkley. He’d been in trouble with the police a few times before with petty theft. Brinkley was arrested, tried, and found guilty of her murder. After a month in prison, he was shanked by another inmate and died in the hospital a few hours later.

  “Agents O’Reilly and Henderson?”

  Aidan glanced up to see a young woman heading their way. She looked to be in her early twenties, but by her confidence and authority, he guessed her to be in her early thirties. She kept her dark brown hair in a tight bun and the only makeup she wore was light pink lipstick. She had diamond studs in her ears, which sparkled as she swayed in their direction.

  Her name tag read Fiona.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Shaun said as he rose.

  They shook her hand and she asked what she could do for them. Aidan told her about their interest in speaking with Marcia Rivers.

  “I don’t know if you’ll be able to get anything out of her,” Fiona said, “but I’ll take you to her.”

  “How long has she lived here?” Aidan asked.

  “Since her husband died,” she said as they began walking. “She has had a lot happen to her in her lifetime and couldn't be left alone. She found her daughter in bed, murdered. When her husband was killed, she closed herself off to the world. She wouldn’t eat, she wouldn’t sleep. She even cut her wrists two days after she buried her husband.” They turned a corner. “A neighbor found her when she went to check on her. She called the ambulance. After she was released from the hospital, she was taken to a mental institution. She’d been saying, ‘if I don’t kill myself, he will.’”

  “Do you know who ‘he’ is?” Aidan asked.

  She stopped at their destination with a frown. “She kept muttering, ‘The Carnations Killer will come after me.'“

  “Does she know who The Carnations Killer is?” Shaun asked, still staring into Aidan's eyes.

  “If she does, she never mentioned his name. But I’ve kept a close watch on her for years.” Fiona sighed. “The mental health facilities wouldn’t keep her because when she stayed there, she seemed fine. So they released her to us. She wants to go back there.”

  “It’s the only place she ever felt safe,” Aidan surmised. “Mental health facilities keep a close watch on their patients to be sure they don’t hurt themselves. And they do hou
rly rounds to make sure everyone’s accounted for. Even if The Carnations Killer wanted to go after her, it wouldn’t be very easy to kill her with eyes everywhere.”

  Fiona nodded. “While we do periodically check on our patients here, it’s less secure. We have cameras at the exits and in our PT room, and we check to be sure they don’t need anything before lights out. But we like to give our patients a sense of freedom. When I first met Marcia and heard her story, I decided to watch her myself. It helps her feel a little safer.”

  “That was nice of you,” Shaun commended.

  “I saw something in her eyes when she mentioned The Carnations Killer. He scares her. It’s almost like something takes over her and she becomes fanatical. I care for all of the elderly we have. If one wants ‘round the clock care, well, I’m going to make sure she gets it.”

  Fiona opened the door and they piled into the small room.

  A stick of a woman sat in a wheelchair, gazing out the window. Her white hair glistened in the light. Aidan couldn't tell if she was alive or not.

  “Marcia?” Fiona said softly. “You have company. They’re FBI agents. Will you talk to them?”

  Marcia slowly turned her head. Aidan could see the sleepiness in her black eyes. Her face was wrinkled and pale, and he saw the terror that took permanent residence. Her lips quivered.

  “Mrs. Rivers?” Aidan said. He continued to stand a few feet away. He didn’t want to risk frightening her. “My name is Agent O’Reilly. How are you doing?”

  She didn’t respond, only stared at them unblinkingly.

  “We have a question for you,” Aidan continued. “It’s about your daughter.”

  “My daughter.” Her voice was low and harsh. “He killed her.”

  Inching closer, Aidan asked, “Who killed her, Mrs. Rivers?”

  She shook her head as though memories she’d long since forgotten began to force themselves to the surface. Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and her bottom lip began to quiver.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. Rivers,” Fiona assured her. She reached for the elderly woman’s hand. “You’re safe here. They want to help you. Can you tell them who killed your daughter?”