“The geography was always a hangup for me. I’m not sure why, it just didn’t feel right. If a serial killer is territorial, he usually strikes like a smash-and-grab thief. It’s opportunistic. He sees, he wants, he takes. In and out. Done and done. The victim’s body is usually discovered sooner, and, more often than not, it’s found close to where she—or he—was last seen.”
“Crisis Point has documented many kidnap-murder cases,” Beth said, “and they bear out what you just said.”
John pointed to his monitor where the photos of the four girls were on the screen. “These four cases don’t follow that pattern. None of the bodies have been discovered. Percentage-wise, you’d think that at least one would have been.” He braced his hands on his knees and leaned forward. “Just for the hell of it, let’s assume it’s more than one perp.”
“Three copycats since the Jackson case?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly,” she said, “but I can tell by your expression that you’re thinking no.”
He dipped his head and looked at the floor for a moment before speaking directly to her. “Understand that this is strictly conjecture on my part, and it will be a hard sell.”
She leaned toward him, focused and interested.
“Think about those chat rooms the professor told us about. People who have a shared fascination in the occult, assembling on the internet to swap ideas, information, personal experiences.”
She nodded.
“Now think about such assemblies taking place on the dark web. What if there’s an underground, super secret, super sick club on the deep dark web. And our perps are members.”
Chapter 27
Members of a dark web chat room who have an obsession with blood moons,” Beth said in a hushed voice. She extended her arm for John to see. “That gave me goose bumps.”
“I had a gut reaction when I thought of it. That’s why I think it has validity.”
“And you think their assemblies are all conducted online?”
“I do. Whether creeps or clergymen, they’d be too cautious to have ceremonial gatherings, especially if they were in costumes and masks and performing rituals that involved tattooing, bloodletting, or sacrifices. It’s not like a book or knitting club.”
“We did a Crisis Point episode on a group that was selling human organs on the dark web. Max surmised they changed their handles more often than their socks in order to protect their anonymity, not only from law enforcement agencies, but from each other.”
“Right. And to join some that are into really dark shit, you have to have skin in the game.”
“What do you mean?”
“You have do something with a high risk factor. Something, which, if found out, would spell your ruin. Fear of exposure would keep you honest, keep you from ratting out anyone else. Without making that kind of commitment, you don’t get in.”
Beth frowned in thought. “So Crissy and the others were…?”
“I don’t know, but let’s say they were the initiation. They were the ticket in for the wannabe aiming to be allowed into the really exclusive group. He would post pictures to prove he did it. He’d post links to news stories about his dastardly deed. He’d have proved himself worthy of being accepted.”
Beth tented her hands and used them to cover her mouth. “I hate to say this, to even think it, but it sounds so ghastly and bizarre, it could be true.”
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “A secret society is merely a guess, and I could be dead wrong. There could be one clever psycho who took all four women and set up Patrick Dobbs and Billy Oliver as fall guys for two of those abductions.
“Or maybe there is a society, and it does meet like a book club. They get drunk on vino and chant amorous praises to Luna. They play rock-paper-scissors to see who does the honors on the next blood moon, and they don’t know beans about the dark web.” He frowned and shook his head in self-deprecation. “Saying it out loud sounds ridiculous.”
“You said Mitch didn’t dismiss it out of hand.”
“He told me he’d get some moles to nose around on the dark web and will let me know if they turn up anything. In the meantime, I’ll pass all this along to my counterparts in Galveston, Jackson, and Shreveport. But I’ll be surprised if they don’t suspect me of taking hallucinogens. And they’d be right to. At this point it’s all fabrication.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction,” Beth said. “Some of the cases we’ve documented on Crisis Point prove that. Seemingly normal people are capable of doing anything.” She pressed his shoulder as she stood.
“Call the other detectives, John. If they’re skeptical, challenge them to come up with a better theory.” She started for the bedroom. “While you’re doing that, I need to call New York.”
The burner phone Tom Barker used exclusively to communicate with the ogre vibrated on his desk. He snatched it up. “Tell me something good.”
“No sign of him.”
“Beth Collins?”
“Has also pulled a vanishing act.”
“Mitch Haskell?”
“Spotted the tail I put on him. Slipped it by crossing a lane of traffic, bumping across the median, and making a U-turn onto a busy highway.”
“Fire whoever was following him.”
“Hell, no. He’s one of my best men. Haskell was just luckier.”
“Luckier, hell. He was smarter. Call him. Threaten him with something.”