CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ambrose sat down on the side of the bed, running his hands through his hair and then to his shoulders as he tried to loosen the kinks in his neck. He was still shaken by what he’d seen when he’d walked into the apartment where Brandy had overdosed. It hadn’t even been the overdose—he’d seen several of those in his lifetime—as much as the sight of that little girl crying over her mother’s corpse. How long had she been on her own? And how many times would she revisit those traumatizing days in her nightmares?

He had learned to compartmentalize over the years, a necessary skill when it came to the work he did. If he took the entire world on his shoulders, he’d be rendered useless. And that wouldn’t benefit anyone, least of all him.

He stood, walked to the minifridge in his room, and grabbed a bottle of water. Then he removed the case files from his briefcase, laying the photographs of the victims and the crime scenes across the bed.

He gazed over the jumble of files and photos and reports, all of it too close together to even see clearly. With a frustrated breath, he reached for his briefcase again and took out the roll of tape he’d tossed inside, in case he needed to see the papers he’d stolen more clearly.

Ambrose moved the desk aside, and then, one by one, he taped each piece of evidence to the wall, including the online articles he’d printed out before he’d even arrived in San Francisco. He’d heard walls like this called conspiracy boards or crazy walls or murder maps . Investigators gave them all sorts of names, and some even used strings to connect one thing to another. But whatever you called them, they worked. And sometimes you spotted something you would never have spotted because everything you had was directly in front of you at the same time.

It wouldn’t necessarily happen immediately after he stood back and studied it, the way he was doing now. But the point was to imprint it on his mind and allow his brain to make connections, if it could find any. And sometimes, something would just niggle at him for reasons he couldn’t articulate. And he’d come to count on the fact that 99.9 percent of the time, there was something there, whether he could explain how his brain had made the connection or not. The mind was a pretty miraculous thing.

He stepped forward, reading the report on the light-blue pill that had been at the most recent murder scene. He’d taken it to a lab where someone he trusted worked and had it analyzed. The ingredients were the same as the pale purple pill, only in different doses. And just like the purple pills, this one, too, had a unique LSD coating.

The drug found at the crime scenes had morphed from Doc’s original formula to something different. The first question—the one he’d discussed with Finch but still hadn’t been answered—was how the person who made it had known the exact formula to begin with. Doc’s medication was strictly controlled, and only a very modest number of overages were made in case one was dropped or otherwise tainted. And if that didn’t occur, they were immediately destroyed. The second question was, Why was it changing?

His gaze moved from one victim to another, that frozen scream chilling his blood again and making him want to look away. These people, though ... all their lives they’d been screaming, in one manner or another, and everyone had looked away. He would not.

He’d made a list of the items found at each scene, and he went over them now. A belt. A baseball mitt. Several bottles of strawberry-daiquiri wine coolers that had been found at the first scene. Alcoholic beverages amid a drug-fueled party weren’t unexpected. But did people still drink wine coolers? He wouldn’t necessarily know, since he’d given up alcohol many years ago. When he’d first seen the empty bottles in an evidence photo, he’d assumed it was because they were cheap and widely available at any corner store in the city. He remembered girls drinking that five-dollar pink wine in his youth—not because it was good, but because it was cheap and tasted like fruit punch.

The names of those victims weren’t known, and so he couldn’t ask those who had partied with them if that was a standard cocktail choice. But ... no, something felt off about those to him.

“What is it?” he said aloud, remembering how Lennon had asked him if he minded bouncing ideas off each other. He’d liked it, actually. Or maybe he’d just liked her. He missed it now, though. He missed her, and he wasn’t sure how he could miss someone he’d known for such a short time. But the fact was he did. Another one of those connections his brain, or perhaps some unnamed part of him, had made. And he couldn’t explain it, but neither did he discount it. She affected him in a way few people had.

He sighed. He’d have to learn to live with that—as he’d learned to live with so many things—because not only did she likely hate his guts, but she would handcuff him and toss him in jail if given the chance.

Strangely, the thought made him smile. Not the picture of him behind bars, but rather, Lennon looking fiery and hell bent.

Okay, but no. Because she was probably hurt, too, and he didn’t like that. It was the only regret he had—deceiving Lennon, causing her to trust in him, when he wasn’t worthy of her trust.

“Get your head in the fucking game,” he murmured to himself.

Focus.

He looked back at his board, going over the other items found. The baseball mitt was slightly odd, but it’d been found with the victims in the park, so it was possible that it wasn’t even part of the crime but instead something dropped by a kid at some point.

His gaze moved to the right, where the photos of items from the second-to-last scene were taped. There were the children’s toys, and the sex toys, but there had also been cigarettes on the nightstand. At first, those had seemed innocuous enough, even expected amid a scene like that. But the brand caught his attention now. Parliament Light 100s. He’d never even heard of that brand. He pulled out his phone and looked them up. They were still available for sale, but they were ranked among the least popular brands. And stranger still, they were more expensive than the standard Marlboros or Camels. He tapped his phone lightly against his palm for a moment.

The wine coolers and the cigarette brand, though found at two different scenes, both felt odd to him. They seemed specific, but not necessarily to the victims. What young homeless person chose a cigarette brand that was harder to find and more expensive? Probably not many. And even if they stole them, where would they have stolen them from? Most wouldn’t have the means to venture far.

He didn’t have the case files for the fourth scene, but he had walked through it and remembered what was there. A rope had been on the floor near the male victim, as had a pair of spark plugs. Again, in the vacant industrial building, where old junker cars had been abandoned in the lot next door, items like that weren’t necessarily out of place. But he had a deep feeling they hadn’t just been used as weapons when the drugs kicked in. He was becoming more and more sure the items were not random at all.

A message was being sent. The setup was familiar. The results were far from it.

But why? And how? If the props were specific to the victims, how did the killer know such personal information? Was the killer some type of therapist? Someone who’d collected secrets from their pasts and then cruelly used those secrets against them? Or had the victims themselves helped the killer set up each scenario toward a different end? A twisted version of something good?

Who would want to do something so horrific to other human beings?

He sat down on the bed, perusing the board. But nothing else clicked. He wouldn’t stop trying, though. He felt responsible for these people now—the ones who had lived and died screaming for help.