Finders Killers: (A Wallace Mack Thriller) (Wallace Mack Serial Killer Thrillers Book 3) Read online

  Finders Killers

  A Thriller

  Dan Ames

  Contents

  Free Book

  FINDERS KILLERS

  PROLOGUE

  PRECOGNITION

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  ANALYSIS

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  COGNITION

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  CONTEMPLATION

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  BELIEF

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  EMOTION

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  BULLET RIVER

  About the Author

  Also by Dan Ames

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  Copyright © 2017 by Dan Ames

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  FINDERS KILLERS

  A WALLACE MACK THRILLER #3

  by

  Dan Ames

  “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

  -National Council for Public Education

  PROLOGUE

  The college’s campus bell rang with a solemnity befitting the occasion. Approximately two thousand graduating students would pour forth along the cobblestone road leading out of the hallowed gates into a future often imagined by themselves and their benefactors.

  Three students stood at the rear of the open square where thousands of chairs were arranged neatly, facing a stage and a podium where the speaker today, a high-ranking Senator from Vermont, would deliver his thoughts to the burgeoning minds of this generation.

  Of the three, two were young men and the other was a young woman. The tallest of the men, a handsome young man with black hair and flashing blue eyes was named Wallace Mack. He produced a small silver flask from beneath his graduating gown and held it up between the three.

  “To us,” he said.

  “To us,” Nora Stallings said.

  “To us,” Douglas Brooks said.

  They took turns passing the flask until it was empty.

  “Are we ready?” Nora said, gesturing with her chin toward the stage where the graduates would sit.

  “Not quite,” Doug said and produced a flask similar to Mack’s.

  They all drank again.

  The bar was a classic: small, beautiful woodwork, packed with smart, interesting people full of boozy confidence. The three of them sat together again. The ceremony had been anticlimactic, as they always are. The hours had flown by, family and friends had gone to bed. The three friends were back together again. The flasks were gone as well, and they now had snifters of brandy.

  “I still don’t know why you want to be a Fed,” Doug said. “You’ll probably be pushing paper around a government-issued desk your whole career.”

  He put an arm around Nora and looked at Mack.

  Mack tried not to feel the jealousy that sprung up inside him at the sight of Brooks’ possessiveness of Nora. After all, he had fallen in love with her first.

  “I think you were born to be an FBI agent,” Nora said.

  Mack saw Doug hide an irritated expression after Nora’s remark. He and Doug had always been competitive, but in a friendly way. As soon as his friend had started seeing Nora, though, it had subtly changed.

  It was true. Doug had gone into science immediately. He was the most academically distinguished of the three. He’d won more awards and scholarships than Nora and Mack combined. Mack had stuck with the humanities, majoring in psychology with a minor in comparative literature. He’d always been a reader.

  Nora had also stuck with the arts. She had double majored in philosophy and history.

  “I was just kidding around,” Doug said.

  “You never kid,” Mack said, his voice still light and easy, as if he were chatting up a waitress.

  Unlike Mack, Doug seemed to be uneasy.

  Nora finally let out a long sigh and stood up. “Look, I’ve got family waiting for me back at my apartment. Why don’t you two fight amongst yourselves as the final send-off of our college years.”

  Despite their protests, Nora hugged them both goodbye and the two men watched her get into a cab. They returned to the bar and sat together for another hour before leaving. They stood on the sidewalk and shook hands.

  “No hard feelings?” Doug said.

  Mack took his hand and shook it. “Nah, you’ll always be an asshole – that’s what I love about you.”

  “Never a truer word was spoken,” Doug said, meaning it. “My Mom will still be up – you want to come over and get something to eat? Remember her lasagna? To die for,” Doug said. “Besides, she likes you more than she likes me.”

  Despite Doug’s lighthearted attempt at comedy, Mack felt a cold space in his stomach. It always happened at the mention of family. He had none. His parents had been killed when he was twelve. No siblings.

  “Thanks, but no,” he said. “I’ve got to run tomorrow. Training starts in a week.”

  They parted and Mack went back to his tiny apartment that featured a bed, a bookshelf, a desk and a weight machine. He was half-asleep when the knock on the door came.

  Nora’s eyes twinkled at him when he opened the door.

  “Once more, for old time’s sake,” she said.

  PRECOGNITION

  Chapter One

  Twenty Years Later

  Doug Brooks had long associated his intellectual success with one key attribute: focus.

  He could focus better than anyone he knew.

  It had come naturally to him. The ability to ignore distraction, to be transported into whatever world was currently demanding his attention, was his trademark. It was even legendary. Fellow students commented on how absorbed he became in his studies. To the point where people would have to repeat a question to him three or four times before he heard it.

  That laser-like intensity had its drawbacks, however.

  For instance, tonight.

  It was raining, and raining hard. The rain water was coming down in big sheets that swamped his windshield wipers, overburdening them to the point where Doug considered turning them off.

  South Florida was no stranger to these kinds of downpours and Doug did the best he could. He sped the wipers
up, and gradually, the rain slowed enough to make visibility better.

  Crisis momentarily averted, Doug was able to focus.

  He was working on a particularly difficult project at work and he had come up against a wall. A mathematical wall. One that needed a theorem that most likely hadn’t been invented yet.

  After days of trying to break through the wall, he had decided it was now time to go around it. To figure out a way to solve the problem that didn’t require proving the theorem.

  Easier said than done.

  As his mind began making rapid calculations, he almost didn’t see the figure dressed in a yellow raincoat dart out in front of his car.

  Doug reacted a hair too slowly. He slammed on his brakes, but on the wet pavement he slid at least twenty feet, which was five too many.

  His car rammed into the figure, which disappeared below the nose of his car.

  “Shit!” Doug shouted.

  He put the car in park, threw his door open and raced to the front of the vehicle.

  There was no one there.

  He looked underneath the car, but all he could see was wet pavement.

  Doug turned, and the figure in yellow was in front of him, rushing in.

  A knife was in the figure’s hand and that’s all Doug saw. He had an instant to react.

  Again, he was a little too slow.

  He tried to use his left hand to knock his attacker’s arm so it would swing wide. He succeeded in only moving it a few inches off course. Instead of burying itself in the middle of his gut, the knife went into his side, through the small layer of fat he’d added in the last ten years of working too hard and exercising too little.

  The pain was excruciating, but Doug was still able to move.

  The knife must’ve been stuck in his side, because his attacker hadn’t been able to come back at him with another stabbing attempt. Doug did the only thing he could think to do.

  He drove a fist straight forward into the darkened space inside the yellow rain jacket’s hood.

  There was no face, just blackness.

  When his fist connected with cartilage, he heard a smack and a crunch, and the figure staggered backward, then fell onto its back.

  Doug looked down and saw the knife handle protruding from his side. He tried to pull it free but it was stuck.

  Suddenly, he felt weak.

  He looked up, expecting to see his assailant coming at him again, but the figure was gone.

  Like a ghost.

  Doug slumped back against the hood of his car and fished his cell phone from his left pocket.

  He called 9-1-1.

  And then he felt the first stages of shock begin to affect him. He began to feel cold and shaky.

  His mind was losing control and the edges of his vision were turning dark.

  Something he’d heard his attacker say kept playing in his mind. It was what he’d heard, or was it what he thought he’d heard?

  It had been a whisper.

  Yet it had been uttered with intensity and anger, just before the figure disappeared into the night.

  Lashing out at him.

  Two words that did far more internal damage than the knife.

  “We remember.”

  Chapter Two

  At first, Nora Brooks wasn’t going to worry. Yes, Doug followed his routine with the kind of precision known only to Swiss watchmakers. Every night, without fail, he was home at 6:15, give or take a minute or two at the most.

  On the very rare occasions he worked late, he always called.

  So the fact that it was now 6:45 and Doug wasn’t home, and that he hadn’t called, caused her concern. Even greater nervousness, not worry, was being caused by his failure to answer her text messages.

  At seven o’clock, Nora Brooks was officially worried about her husband.

  She didn’t, however, know what to do with her anxiety.

  Doug’s work was very confidential, and it’s not like she could call his secretary or even a coworker.

  It was too soon to call the police; they would tell her to wait until the twenty-four hour mark had passed.

  For some reason, her mind drifted to an old friend. But no, she couldn’t call him. They hadn’t spoken in a couple of years. Nora realized with a little bit of a blush that the idea to call him had come a little too quickly. Like she was waiting for an excuse to get in touch with him.

  No, she would have to wait.

  Luckily, she didn’t have to wait long.

  The call came through at 7:20 precisely.

  “Nora?” her husband’s voice sounded a little faint, and a little strange.

  “Doug! Where are you?” she asked. Suddenly, the worry was gone, and anger had taken its place. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Um, I had a little accident, a fender bender,” he said. “I’m in the hospital.”

  “The hospital?” Nora’s stomach tightened. Now the anger was gone, and she felt bad for the irritation she’d clearly conveyed. “Then it wasn’t a fender bender. Where are you hurt? What hospital?”

  She started going for her car keys and her purse, which she’d left in the living room for some reason.

  “Just a little issue with my ribs,” Doug said. “I’m at Florida Main, but really, I’m fine.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” Nora said.

  “Okay, the doctor is coming in,” Doug said.

  “Let me–”

  But Doug was gone. The call had disconnected.

  Oh well, it didn’t matter. She would be there in less than twenty minutes, fifteen maybe if she pushed it. And then she could talk to the doctor firsthand.

  A fender bender that puts you in the hospital? It must have been a real car accident, not a minor situation.

  Maybe she would pass the wreck on the way to the hospital and she could see for herself if Doug was shielding her from the severity of the situation.

  Nora flew out the door, jumped into her car and headed out for the hospital.

  Chapter Three

  Doug, sitting a block away, watched Nora leave.

  The pain was now a dull throb, thanks to the painkillers he’d been given at the hospital. He’d left before he could get a prescription, but that was okay. He had a whole bottle of them in his medicine cabinet from last summer when he’d tripped and fallen on the sidewalk, fracturing his wrist.

  The hospital had been a bad situation. He’d had to give his real name, and insurance, and everything else that’s required of an official trip to the ER.

  Not good.

  From here on out, he was going to do the opposite.

  They’d put some stitches into his wound, luckily it hadn’t been too serious. His effort to bat the attacker’s arm had probably saved his life, turning a punctured stomach into a deep incision into the flesh of his side. No organs. Nothing damaged except the extra couple of pounds he carried around his middle.

  Once they’d sewn him shut and smeared anti-infection stuff on him along with an elaborate bandage, they’d left him to wait for further doctor’s orders.

  He hadn’t waited.

  Instead, he’d bolted.

  Time was of the essence.

  We remember.

  The words still chilled him.

  And now, they galvanized him into action.

  He drove forward, after Nora had turned the corner at the end of the block.

  Doug ran the calculations in his mind. It would take her fifteen minutes at least to get to the hospital. Five to get to his room. Five to figure out he was gone. Five to leave. Another fifteen to get home.

  So, forty-five minutes in total.

  He checked his watch, made a note of the time.

  Doug raced inside the house and went straight to his home office. He used a key to unlock the bottom drawer of his file cabinet and retrieved the files he needed. Doug shoved them into his leather briefcase, along with his laptop and power cord.

  From another locked drawer in his desk, he dug out a thick enve
lope that contained a credit card with someone else’s name on it, forged identification cards and a thick wad of cash.

  He checked the time.

  He still had nearly a half hour.

  One more item in the office. He dug through the office closet and found a two-pack of pay-as-you-go cell phones. He grabbed the pack and left the office.

  In the master bedroom, he pulled out a small suitcase from the closet, and hurriedly threw in extra jeans, shirts, underwear and socks. From the bathroom he grabbed his basic toiletries and the pain pills, along with Tylenol.

  Back in the bedroom, he reached under the bed and slid out a cardboard box. He lifted the top, revealing a Colt 911 .45 semi-automatic pistol, with a spare clip and three boxes of ammunition.

  Doug shoved the gun into his briefcase, zipped up the suitcase and took both into the kitchen.

  He put his cell phone on the counter, found a notepad and pen.

  Nora,

  Urgent business. Sorry for the confusion. Don’t worry. Will see you in a bit.

  Love,

  Doug

  It sounded lame, callous and like the complete bullshit that it was. But it was the best he could do at the moment.

  Without a glance back, Doug left the house, got in the car and drove away.

  He knew exactly where he was going.

  Chapter Four

  Nora wasn’t fond of hospitals. Especially children’s hospitals as it reminded her of what she and Doug didn’t have.

  They’d tried for a few years, gone through some tests and ultimately decided they didn’t want to continue their efforts. The strain of repeated failures had gotten to a breaking point and they realized their marriage wouldn’t survive.