27

Lazarus had the signed warrant in his hand and was sitting outside the trailer park as the sun started to rise. He hadn’t called in Tactical. Members of the SWAT team had trigger fingers that flew a little too freely for his taste, and he needed Grimes alive.

Riley stood next to the open trunk of his Chrysler, securing his Kevlar vest with the LVPD logo displayed on the front and back. Lazarus fastened his own vest and meticulously inspected the magazine and chamber of his pistol. “Don’t shoot unless you have to,” Lazarus said. “And even then, try to wing him. I need him alive.”

“You think this guy’s a cannibal?” he said, checking his Remington. “I don’t wanna go in and see someone hanging off a meat hook.”

Lazarus closed the trunk. “You seen cows hanging off a’ meat hooks. What’s the difference? Meat is meat.”

“This is why people don’t like you.”

“People like me fine,” he said, holstering his weapon. “Cheer up. You’re gonna have a real story to tell your kids now.”

Lazarus stayed low, hugging the side of the entrance, while Riley approached from the opposite side. They both reached the front of the trailer park. Lazarus wiped the sweat from his face with the back of his arm.

They rushed into the park.

Lazarus positioned himself on one side of the door, with Riley taking the other. They paused for a moment before Lazarus swung in front of the door and shouted, “LVPD, search warrant!”

With one forceful kick, he burst through the door. Grimes, dressed only in his underwear, jolted awake. Lazarus aimed his gun at Grimes while Riley rushed past him to secure the trailer.

“Don’t move,” Lazarus said.

“I won’t,” he said, blinking away the sleep in his eyes.

The trailer was a hoarder’s paradise: dirty dishes and utensils, bills and discarded trash covering the floors.

“We got someone,” Riley said. He came out of the back of the trailer with a young teen, maybe fifteen, in boxers. The boy was trembling.

“It’s okay, Walk,” Grimes said. “Just remember what we talked about.”

“Keep your mouth shut,” Lazarus warned Grimes, causing the man to avert his eyes.

Lazarus lowered his weapon. Past the boy, behind him, he could see a room with a setup that included two monitors and a massive hard drive, something used for advanced online gaming or programming. Robert Grimes looked about twenty years too old for a rig like that.

Lazarus checked the boy over. He had bruises on his upper arms from being grabbed too hard, and Lazarus could see circular scars over his forearms where someone had put cigarettes out on him.

“Riley, you and Grimes go have a smoke. Me and Walk will hang out here.”

Riley led him out of the trailer. Grimes turned back and asked if he could get dressed, but Riley yanked him outside the trailer with one hand like a doll.

When the door closed, Lazarus sat down across from the boy in a breakfast nook. “I’m guessing Walk is short for Walker?” Lazarus said. There was a package of gum on the table, and Lazarus grabbed it and unwrapped a piece and put it into his mouth. Then he took another one and offered it to the boy. At first he shook his head, and then Lazarus said, “It helps calm you, take it.”

The boy hesitated and then took the stick of gum.

“You know what your dad does for a living?” he said.

The boy met Lazarus’s gaze, his eyes a mixture of fear and defiance. He had already learned that he needed to hide his fear when dealing with the police, but he hadn’t quite mastered it yet.

“Your daddy taught you not to talk to the police, but I ain’t regular police.”

The boy swallowed. “What are you gonna do to my dad?”

“Depends what you tell me.”

“I wanna see him.”

“Then talk and we’ll leave. Don’t talk, and I gotta search everything, including that computer. You know you can’t permanently delete files, don’t you? My tech guys at the station told me that. What are they gonna find on there, Walk?”

The boy stayed silent, his gaze to the floor.

“I know either you or your daddy are BloodyChef77. Look up at me when I talk to you, son ... I know it’s either you or your daddy, and I think it’s you. Am I right? Think carefully before you answer.”

After a moment of hesitation, the boy finally nodded.

Lazarus leaned back, scrutinizing the boy’s face. “Don’t know much ’bout teenagers, but I know they like to shock folks. This what that was? Or you actually interested in eating people?”

He shook his head. “No. I was just ... playing around.”

“By telling people you’ll cook and eat them?”

He shrugged and looked down to the floor. “Me and my friends would post stuff. It was funny.”

Lazarus motioned to the rig with his chin and said, “I’m taking all that gear. I wanna know everything you’ve been doing and with who. But if you’re being honest with me, I can let this go as curiosity. Lie to me, and then I can’t let it go.”

“I’m telling the truth. We were just messing with people. I would never do anything sick like that.”

Lazarus rose and picked up the computer’s hard drive. “If there’s video of you eating people on here, I’m gonna be royally pissed off.”

He went outside and handed the hard drive to Riley and told him to put it in the car. Robert Grimes was smoking and shivering though it wasn’t cold. He was weak. Lazarus could almost smell it on him.

“Sit down.”

He sat quietly on the dirt across from Lazarus and waited.

“You don’t seem shocked the police raided your trailer. Happened before?”

“No.”

“Then why you not scared ’bout the dope I’m gonna find in there?”

“I’m thinkin’ maybe we can work something out.”

“You got nothing I want.”

“I got cash.”

“Don’t want money. People that have it do nothin’ but spend their days trying to keep it. But answer honestly, and I’ll leave. Can you be honest?”

“Sure, if it keeps me outta lockup. I just got out and got my boy back.”

Lazarus noticed his cigarette was done. He pulled the package of cigarettes and lighter out of his pocket. He took out two cigarettes and gave one to Grimes and took the other one. He lit both. He inhaled the smoke and let it soak into his lungs before blowing it out through his nose.

“I used to go through three packs a day. Everything I ate tasted like ash, and I still didn’t stop. That’s like you, Rob. You can’t help but get trouble stuck to you. The world tastes like ash and you don’t care.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

He inhaled and blew it out. “Whose rig is that?”

“Me and Walk’s.”

“You and him or just him?”

“I don’t use it much. He likes to play games and make those apps and things.”

“He do anything else on that computer you know about?”

He shook his head. “What does this have to do with anything?”

He blew out a breath of smoke. “I’m looking for a man that maybe thinks other people are food.”

“What?” he said with a nervous chuckle.

“Somebody’s been posting about cannibalism from that rig right there. I think it’s your boy, but I gotta make sure it ain’t you.”

“How?”

Lazarus lowered the cigarette. “Me and you, we’re gonna get to know each other real well.”