Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck Series Book 3)

The attempt and not the deed confounds us.

—William Shakespeare

“Think he’s just not home?” Donny asks as I pound on the door again.

My eyes rake over the empty driveway, but there’s a sealed garage. His vehicle could be in there.

“The neighbor said he rarely goes anywhere and never has visitors. She said he left this morning, but came back and has been inside ever since.”

Before I can knock again, the door swings open, and I look down, seeing something I really wasn’t expecting.

Jacob Denver is in a wheelchair.

“Sorry,” he tells us, looking at us with confused eyes. “It sometimes takes me a minute to transfer to my chair. How can I help you guys?”

The blinds are all drawn, but surely someone should have mentioned him in a wheelchair. I hate surprises, and I rarely have to deal with them.

Donny’s eyebrows are at his hairline, just as surprised by this turn of events as I am.

“Um…care if we ask you some questions?” I finally manage to get out.

It’s a whole new line of questioning now.

“Sure. Want to come in? The place is a mess, but it’s not as easy to clean as it used to be.”

Shit.

Shit.

Shit.

“Thanks,” I say, moving by him as he backs his chair out of the way.

My profiling mind gets to work as Donny types something into his phone. I glance toward the kitchen that is off to the right. All the countertops are lower than standard, making it more handicap accessible. I didn’t notice the ramp by the porch as suspicious, but now I realize I should have. His floors are all level and seamless, not even threshold plates over the connections to rooms.

The cabinets on top in the kitchen have no doors, but all that’s there are decorative things. Nothing someone would need to work in a kitchen.

My eyes scan the living room, finding the chair off the side that is at an angle, a remote dangling, as though he had to get help lifting out of it to slide into his wheelchair.

“It’s cheating,” he says, drawing my attention to him as he gestures to the recliner I was just eyeing. “But it makes life easier.”

He’s tone and somewhat fit, but I can’t see his legs too well in the sweatpants. Hate it is as I do, I discreetly kneel, pretending to adjust my shoe, and my eyes scan the bottoms of his shoes to see perfectly clean soles. They never touch the ground.

Well, fuck. He’s really handicapped.

I rise up, and he wheels into the living room.

“What the fuck?” I hiss to Donny.

“Hell if I know. I just texted Alan to find out.”

We break apart when Jake turns to look at us, eyeing us like we’re idiots. We are idiots, apparently. Someone better tell me why we didn’t know this before coming.

“Mind if I asked what happened?” I ask, wondering if this is in any way related to the mystery that is Delaney Grove.

He shrugs. “Motorcycle accident a few years ago. Paralyzed me from the waist down. It’s taken some adjusting, but I’ve managed to move on with my life.”

Definitely not our unsub. And his father has had court cases going on during several of the kill times, alibiing out that way. They were our only hopes, and it seemed so easy. Apparently too easy.

There’s no way a man in a wheelchair managed to overpower these guys, and do all the things that have been done.

“So why is the FBI knocking on my door and asking questions about my old wreck?” he asks, seeming genuinely confused.

“Any chance you watch the news?” Donny asks him, pocketing his phone.

“Not really,” Jacob tells us, shrugging. “It’s pretty fucking depressing, and I’ve had more of that than I care to reflect on.”

He crosses his hands in his lap. Not once has either of his legs twitched.

It’s a habit, when one is faking something like paralysis, to get twitchy, giving one’s self away. He hasn’t scratched his legs or anything.

I know Donny is watching for the same signs I am.

He’s too calm, too disinterested in us.

“So, you came by to ask me if I watch the news?” Jacob asks, looking between us.

He seems to enjoy the off-balance stance we have.

“No,” Donny mumbles.

“Actually, I was wondering if you could shed some light on the Evans family.”

A coldness crosses his gaze, and he looks away.

“You’re welcome to leave at any time.”

I look at Donny, and he looks at me. We stare, both of us confused.

“Mr. Denver, you were friends with them, and we think a serial killer is out trying to avenge their deaths. Even though the reports indicate they died because of a car accident.”

He looks back at us. “Does a car accident usually castrate a man?” he asks incredulously. “Does it leave a girl and boy so broken they drive for towns and towns to seek medical attention?”

“So you do know something?” I ask, leaning closer.

“I know that if someone is out avenging their deaths, I’d like to shake their hand. Marcus was my boyfriend, though I never had the balls to admit it back then. And Victoria was like my little sister. I was seventeen, like Marcus, when they died.”

My lips tense. He’s holding something back.

“Can you give us anything to help us follow up on how they were really killed?” Donny asks.

“Now you want to know? Because back then, when I went to the FBI dude who had wrongly profiled Robert Evans as a serial killer and told him my friends—the two sweetest fucking humans ever—had been killed by the town, he told me it wasn’t his case. To let the cops do their jobs, and if it was more than a car accident, they’d handle it.”

The bitterness in his tone is real, and he definitely doesn’t seem to be hiding his anger over it. Which makes him less suspect. Still…my gut is telling me he’s somehow involved.

“Who was that?” Donny asks.

“His last name was Bag, and his first name was Douche. Sometimes he went by SSA Johnson.”

Donny chokes back a laugh, but I’m not laughing. Johnson was a terrible profiler, tarnished the reputation of the unit so badly that he was promoted. Gotta love fucking politics. As shitty as he was, he was invaluable because of the knowledge he had, so they “promoted” him to a bullshit position and gave him bullshit tasks to keep him under their thumbs.

He’s also the Godfather of the department, because he pretty much took profiling in the direction it has grown to be today, made it an actual thing with actual results, no matter how flawed those preliminary results turned out to be.

“You’re saying he ignored two dead kids?” Donny asks, no longer laughing as the words catch up to him.

“I’m saying he didn’t give a shit. And now I’m putting one foot in front of the other—metaphorically speaking, obviously—to stay out of the past. Now, unless you have something pressing to speak to me about, please leave. I have things to do.”

My phone rings as Donny tries to pry more out of him, just something to figure out what really happened.

I see it’s Alan calling, and I stand up, walking down the hall a little to answer.

“What the hell?” I hiss.

“Sorry. Sorry. Sooooo sorry. I don’t know how I missed it, but I got Donny’s text, and yes, Jacob Denver is definitely paralyzed from the waist down. Happened four years ago, to be exact. A drunk driver side-swiped him—hit and run. He was on a motorcycle. He’s been in a wheelchair ever since.”

Why does this still feel off?

“Thanks. Don’t miss anything this big again. We thought we had our unsub.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just a small mention in his records. It’s not like I can open hospital files, and I wouldn’t have seen it at all if I hadn’t been looking for it.”

“Right. Okay. See if you can dig up any other friends from the past he might have shared with the Evans family. Something is definitely off with him. He never asked who was killed.”

Something topples to the ground from the room I’m standing in front of, and I try to open the locked door, curious as to why it’s locked.

“Can I help you?” Jacob asks, wheeling over to where I’m jiggling the doorknob.

“Why is this locked?” I ask, putting my phone away.

“Um…because it’s my house, and I don’t like people walking into my office. What’s your deal?”

He seems genuinely private, but why lock a door when you live alone unless you’re hiding something?

“Do you care if we look around?” Donny asks him, trying to sound non-imposing.

He studies us critically before finally blowing out a breath and rolling his eyes.

“Fine. Fine. But then you leave and leave me alone. I don’t need you barging into my life and dredging up memories better left forgotten.”

He wheels back to the living room, picks up a set of keys, taking his time to do so, and he comes back, unlocking the door. He backs away, and I open it, looking around. I see the computer screen is blank, and my eyes land on the cracked window in front of where there’s a thing of tacks scattered around on the floor.

“Damn it. Not again,” he groans, wheeling by me to the mess of tacks. “You can go now. I need to clean this up.”

I nod to Donny, and we walk out, leaving him to his task. As soon as we’re outside and the door shuts behind us, I glance over, seeing the cracked window.

“Someone is in there with him,” I say quietly when we reach the street.

“Looks like the wind caught the curtain, and the curtain knocked over the tacks to me.”

“That window was closed, along with the blinds, when we came up. There’s a closet in there. Someone was there.”

“Why didn’t you open the closet?”

“Because whoever it is may be our unsub.”

I pretend as though we’re taking our time to get in the car as Jacob shuts the window and closes the blinds once again. We loiter on the street, while I call Lisa.

“How close are you to Jacob Denver’s address?”

“Elise and I are about five minutes out. Why?”

“Swing by and sit on the house. As soon as we see you in position, we’ll drive off. If he leaves, I want you to call me. If he stays, I want you to watch him. Someone is inside, and it may be our unsub. Use extreme caution.”

“Shit. Got it. You be careful too.”

I start to hang up, when she adds, “And by the way, thank you for the roses. They were beautiful.”

My brow creases in confusion.

“I never sent roses.”

“I mean from the hospital. I got them, and realized I never thanked you for them.”

“Lisa, I never sent roses. At all.”

She grows deadly silent. “So it was him? Plemmons?”

I don’t have time to ask questions about a dead man’s motives. “It may have been. Call the flower company and find out.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll see if Hadley can look into it,” she says, distant now.

As I hang up, Donny is smirking. “What?”

“Nothing,” he lies, smirking more.

I glare at him.

“Just wondering what Lisa would do to Lana if she got her hands on her. She’s a typical scorned ex—perfectly okay with the breakup until you finally get a new girlfriend that you seem to be pretty head-over-heels for. Lisa is a bitch. Keep her away from your new girlfriend or she may scratch Lana’s eyes out.”

“Lana’s already been subjected to her, in case you’ve forgotten. Lisa didn’t rattle her.” I sound dismissive, but I’m masking how uncomfortable this conversation is.

“We all know what a bitch Lisa can be, and right now, she’s feeling that jealousy most exes do when their ex finally moves on and exhibits signs of true happiness. She’s got a nasty mouth on her, and she may eventually seek Lana out in an effort to ruin things between you two. Just profiling. It’s what I do.”

Fuck.

“I’ll keep them apart. Lisa will eventually forget it.”

“When she finds someone who makes her happy,” he agrees with a mocking grin. “Should only take a few lifetimes.”

I flip him off as he chuckles, and I glance back toward the closed window. Lisa and Elise appear just down the street, parking at the curb.

Donny and I load into the SUV, and we drive away. It’s no time before Elise texts us, telling us Jacob is on the move, heading in our direction in a white van. She sends the plates too, just so we know we’re tailing the right one.

As soon as the white van passes us, I arch an eyebrow. It looks like any good kidnapper’s van.

The driver’s side and passenger side have windows, but the rest of the van looks like a work van. He does do some tech work, according to his file, so it could possibly be his work van.

Donny and I follow discreetly, while Elise and Lisa watch the house.

“See if you can get a look inside,” I say as Donny puts Lisa on speaker.

“Trying to get a warrant to go in, but the judge says we don’t have enough.”

“Just get a look around,” I say vaguely, hinting for her to break some rules. It’s a fucking serial killer we’re after. Sometimes rules need to be broken.

“Got it.”

“Just don’t be obvious,” Donny says to the phone.

“I’m not an idiot,” Lisa snips.

He hangs up, and I keep a safe tail distance on Jacob. We pull up to the curb as he pulls into a parking spot. It takes a few minutes before his side van door slides open, and I watch as he is lowered down with the wheelchair on the motorized platform.

“That explains the van. It’s handicap accessible,” Donny points out.

Frowning, I watch as he sits with a basketball on his lap, and then we watch as he locks up his van and starts wheeling down the sidewalk.

When he reaches a basketball court full of kids, Donny hisses out a breath. Most of the kids are suffering some sort of disability. A few are amputees, some are in wheelchairs, and some seem to be struggling with other physical issues.

“We’re going to hell,” Donny groans as the kids cheer, and Jacob blows a whistle, tossing the ball at them.

They start playing basketball, and he plays with them, laughing right alongside them, making a difference in their day.

Elise calls me, and I answer. “Nothing is in this house. The office closet is empty too. I’m sealing it back up so he doesn’t know we were ever here.”

“So it’s empty, and this guy is a paraplegic coach helping disabled kids. He survived losing his mother at a young age, his best friend and boyfriend as a teenager, and he’s paralyzed now. Yet he’s the male version of Mother Theresa,” Donny states dryly. “And we’re accusing him of helping a murderer. I repeat: We’re going to hell.”

“Check his van,” I tell him, frustrated. My gut tells me something is up. There was someone in that house, and if he’s not there now, then he’s in the van.

Donny curses before getting out, drawing his weapon as he goes to the back of the van. He reaches out with one hand, testing the door, as I shift my gaze between him and Jacob.

He opens the unlocked door, and I frown. I could have sworn Jacob locked the van.

All that’s in the back of the van is a box marked MEDIA. The entire back is empty other than that.

Donny arches an eyebrow at me, and I wave him back, rolling my eyes. He shuts the doors and gets back in, and we drive away.

“Forget him. Even if he does know who the killer is, there’s no way he’s involved,” Donny says on a sigh.

I drive away, irked. My gut has always been the driving force, and rarely ever do I feel so strongly about something and end up wrong.

Jacob doesn’t even notice us as we pass him. He tosses the ball into the air, getting it to a one-armed little boy on the other end who scores.

By the time I make it back to the office, Hadley is ready to pounce, but I ignore her in favor of moving toward Leonard. “Hey, I need you to pull everything you can find on the Robert Evans case. Let’s see if we can start there, and find out what that damn town is hiding. Somehow, it’s all linked to that. It’s the first domino that set all the others in place.”

He nods, gesturing to his laptop.

“Already working on that. There are so many inconsistencies in that file that it’s ridiculous. Essentially the only thing that convicted him was the DNA at the crime scenes, and even that seems compromised, due to the poor chain of custody the evidence went through. I’m not sure how he got convicted, other than the fact the judge pretty much ignored all the laws set in place to keep things fair and honest.”

“And we know how the Godfather worked things,” I add. “See what you can dig up. Find out why the killings stopped, or even if they stopped. If the unsub successfully framed Evans, he may have just moved towns and changed his MO enough to frame someone else.”

“On it,” Leonard says, going back to work.

I almost run over Hadley when I turn back around.

“Why that look? What’d you find out on Jacob Denver?” she asks me.

She’s wringing her hands, anxious for info. I guess we’re all in knots.

“Nothing. My gut told me there was more to him, but I was apparently wrong.”

“That gut thing gets tricky,” she says, frowning. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Hey, Lisa said she was going to have you look in on someone sending her roses from me?”

“They weren’t from you,” she says immediately.

“I’m aware,” I tell her, confused by how odd she’s acting.

“I mean, there was never anything to state it was from you. Just a dozen roses sent with no card. I guess she just assumed it was you.”

Shaking my head, I look down at the file in front of me.

“Can I go? I’m exhausted and no new leads have come in. I also sent all the forensics I’ve been able to sift through. Some of the rest of it will need a few days to run through the lab.”

I nod, waving her off, and she practically sprints out.

Can’t say I blame her. I don’t enjoy spending so much time here either. Lana has been away on business most of the week, but I finally get at least a little time to myself with her tonight.

As for this case, Delaney Grove people are going to be the end of me.