Black Death (A Sam Rader Thriller Book 4) Read online

  Sam pulled the laptop a little closer to herself and began scrolling through the new website. There were dozens upon dozens of message boards, each containing hundreds, if not thousands, of posts.

  “Back to square one,” she muttered. “You want the laptop? I’m happy to use me cell.”

  They each took turns on using the laptop. As the minutes turned into an hour and eventually the hours into a day, their search continued, carefully navigating through hundreds of messages.

  Back at the compound, Mumma was running through her own selection of message boards, using several search programs along the way. Each time she found something even remotely linked, she forwarded the link straight through to whomever wasn’t on the laptop. The cell was much easier to navigate the individual messages and the amount of information they were evaluating soon turned into a mountain.

  By two the next morning, Sam was beat, her eyes struggling to stay open. Tim had the head wobbles himself and each tried to prop the other up as best they could. But in the end, it didn’t matter, with sleep refusing to release either one of them.

  “We need sleep,” Tim said, finally closing the computer and pushing it away.

  “Agreed,” Sam replied and before either one could say anything else, each disappeared into their own rooms.

  The hotel room soon fell into silence, with only an occasional hum filling the air from a passing vehicle. And while Tim fell asleep almost instantly, his snoring taking hold soon after, it was Sam that lay awake for a longtime.

  Her mind was still racing and despite the heavy eyelids, sleep refused to accept her. The thoughts raced around like crazed chickens, fluttering this way and that, turning ordinary thoughts into endless conundrums she felt unable to solve.

  At the forefront of her mind was Lightman, still posing a relative danger to her. But behind him, standing with just as much brain space, was Black Death, a mysterious woman with a purpose.

  What Sam struggled with the most was that this woman had her own reasons for doing what she did. She could only imagine the driving force behind her, pushing the woman to do things few could ever compare to.

  Instead of closing her eyes and trying to sleep, Sam instead grabbed her cell, thumbed a text and pressed send. It was barely a few seconds later when her reply came back, not via text, but by phone. She pressed answer and held the phone close.

  “I’m sorry for calling so late John.”

  “Actually, kiddo, it’s dinner time here.”

  “What?” Sam said, fatigue keeping her from following.

  “I’m in Australia. Just helping prepare things for Jim.” His voices sounded heavy and Sam wished she hadn’t pressed the button. “Everything OK?”

  “I’m just torn. This woman, she’s…,” she began, but wasn’t sure how to share her thoughts.

  “She’s killed seven people, Sam. People that may have had issues themselves. Yes, they did bad things, but just doing bad things doesn’t give anyone the right to just end them. That’s why we only end those who murder the way they do. Once we know one hundred percent that they’ve murdered for sport, we end them.”

  “But what if the people she’s killing are really evil? I mean one raped his wife with a baseball bat, killed their unborn baby. John, that’s-“

  “That’s evil, yes. But what about Trent Houghton? He had a mental health issue that he started to get help for. He knew his actions were wrong and he tried to fix them. Were the others trying to as well? We’ll never know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Look, I know things can get messed up. But imagine if someone had ended Tim for what he did? He was also messed up, but he was a kid. A dangerous kid, yes, but a kid nonetheless. What if I had ended him that day?”

  Sam suddenly realized that John would have been in a position to make that type of decision when faced with Tim. He was right. He could have ended him and yet he didn’t.

  “You and Tim are a good team and you balance each other. Sometimes, you need to let go of the conscious decisions and trust the unconscious ones. This woman has a taste for what she’s doing and I doubt the truth will stop her from committing her acts.”

  Sam listened to his voice in the dark, closed her eyes and tried to imagine confronting the woman.

  “Thank you, John. I understand.”

  “Get to it, kiddo. I’m counting on you.” He hung up, leaving Sam once more alone in the darkness of her mind. There was work to be done and she knew she was the one to get it done. Before another one lost their life.

  It was just after eight when Sam heard the sound of the shower through the walls. While her eyelids were still heavy and the grogginess of sleep remained, she also knew that there was work to be done and time was of the essence.

  She jumped out of bed, slipped on her shoes and grabbed her cell. After knocking on the bathroom door and telling Tim she would be back soon, Sam headed out of the room for something she had missed the previous week.

  Running had always been one of her escapes. With earphones in, an open path before her and the sun shining overhead, it had always been one of her favorite ways to start the day. Running was something that allowed her to relax her mind, while letting the rest of her body work.

  There was quite a bit of traffic on the road, but she remembered passing a cemetery the previous day and as she turned in that direction, could already see the tops of the trees at her destination.

  Cemeteries had always fascinated Sam, even from a young age. She could spend hours in them, walking the narrow paths, while reading inscription after inscription, imagining the lives the people buried before her had led. It was the older graves that provided the most fascination, their stories a little harder to imagine.

  This particular cemetery was just over a mile from the hotel and once Sam had entered the gate, slowed to a jog as she removed the earphones and listened to the sounds of the place. There was plenty of birdsong to hear, plus the endless hum of the traffic. But there were also other sounds, sounds only found in graveyards.

  There were the whispers of the dead themselves, sometimes heard as the breeze floated through the branches of the trees which lined the avenues. There were the prayers whispered into the sky by mourners, spoken in a thousand different languages.

  It was the most surreal of places she could imagine and before she had run the length of a single road, had already slowed to read the headstones. There were husbands buried next to wives, sons and daughters beside their parents. Some rows had entire families buried beside each other, Sam slowing to read about each of them.

  She had experienced many lives through the reading of headstones, with some also offering a photograph of the person laying inside the coffin. Sam would often stop completely, kneel and lay a hand on the marker, as if somehow connecting with the soul itself.

  One area she always found the most difficult was the children’s section. Tiny little plots, often surrounded by flowers, fresh toys and the raw grief of the parents who’ve had to say goodbye. Reading some of the headstones had often left her weeping, something she didn’t find easy to deal with. It wasn’t that she didn’t respect the children’s graves, it was rather the opposite. They were the ones that touched her the hardest.

  Sam had almost circumnavigated around the outside of the cemetery, when she slowed for a second time to catch her breath. The graves on this side of the park were from the early to mid-20th century and she found a few of them to be around the time of Lightman’s second rampage. It was the time of Stephanie and the things she lived through and was one of the times closest to Sam’s heart.

  She had slowed to read about Henrietta Franks, a loving wife to George and mother to Henry and Robert. Gone with the blessing of angels had been inscribed onto her tombstone and Sam searched for her family on either side. George lay on Henrietta’s left, having died three years after his wife, while to her right, lay Robert, who died in 1982.

  Only Henry was missing and given that the plots on either side of the fami
ly had already been filled, wondered whether Henry was still alive and if he was, where he would choose to be buried. Could he be buried inside with the others? She wasn’t sure. But as she paused and read the inscription left on Robert’s headstone, Sam was sure that it was the missing Henry that had chosen the message.

  Here lies Robert G. Franks. Rest easy, my brother. Till we meet again and bait those hooks together.

  Sam stood and stared at the inscription, imagining the brothers out on some lake, casting their rods into the waters while talking about their week. They must have been keen fishermen, especially when putting a reference to it on their-

  “Wait,” Sam said to herself. Her eyes darted back to the line a second time. As her eyes read the inscription out loud, she tried to recapture a thought that had crossed her mind for the briefest moment before fleeing again. “Till we meet again and bait those hooks together.”

  “I got it,” Sam said as she bounced through the door. Tim was sitting on the couch cross-legged, the laptop balancing between his knees.

  “Got it?” The sweat was dripping from her brow and she swiped it away with an absent hand.

  “We’ll never find her the way we’re going. So, we bring her to us.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  “We bait her. We turn you into a woman beater. You will be beating the shit out of me and according to my posts, are as bad as Norman himself. I mean we pile on the bullshit and wait for her.”

  Tim mulled it over and the more he thought about it, the more he knew she was right. There were finer details to consider, sure, but given what they had to work with, it was probably the best plan they could come up with.

  “This could work,” he finally said, closing the laptop and dropping it onto the couch beside him.

  “We hire a house, play unhappy families and start leaving the messages.”

  “There’s just one problem with your plan,” Tim suddenly said. “There are already thousands of messages as it is. How will she not only find ours, but also select ours as the next one. For all we know, she might already have a list.”

  Sam felt her initial excitement begin to diminish as she listened to Tim. The room felt uncomfortably hot and she grabbed a towel to wipe her face.

  “But it’s an idea, right?”

  “Yes, it is. Just not one that guarantees we get her attention.”

  She tried to think of something else she could add to her initial idea, but nothing came forward. It frustrated her, as that idea had already taken days to come up with. Another one might take just as long and with Black Death murdering every couple of days or so, it meant more victims.

  Trying as best she could, nothing came to mind and Sam headed for the shower. She felt uncomfortably sticky and needed to freshen up if her mind was going to show her the way, just as it always did.

  The water felt amazing, and Sam stood frozen in the center of the cubicle as the shower worked its magic on her. Cold showers walked hand in hand with morning runs and it never failed to set her up for the day ahead.

  As she stood listening to the water falling around her, the idea she had concocted returned.

  “But it is a good idea,” she whispered to herself, unable to see how it could fail. Yes, there were plenty of other messages, but what if they made their own the worst imaginable? Conjure up some of the sickest and most depraved acts imaginable. Maybe even introduce a fake child into the mix, or two children. Surely she would notice.

  The thoughts continued to build, one on top of another, on top of another. What if this happens, what if that happens. If only the acts of violence were bad enough. Nancy had been attacked by a baseball bat, raped by it. She had lost their baby. What if they had something just as bad? Surely it would get people talking. Then they would spread the message and then they-

  And that’s when it came to her, just as the original idea had fallen into her mind. She froze, ran the idea back through her mind a couple of times, then nodded to herself. She turned off the shower, grabbed a towel and rushed through drying herself. She grabbed her clothes and was still pulling on her pants as she rushed back out into the main room.

  “Clara Buchanan,” Sam half-shouted as she came back into the room.

  “What about her?” Tim asked. He was just preparing them a cup of tea and was in the middle of pouring the water from the jug when he paused.

  “She will be our messenger. We place a message, make the injuries and effects as severe as possible and then we get her to deliver them to Black Death. Tim, she already has rapport with her.”

  He lowered the jug a little as he let the words sink in. Sam watched, her mouth slightly open in anticipation of his approval. As he set the jug down and began to nod, Sam knew she had found the answer.

  “As long as she plays along, you might just be onto something.” He looked up at her, smiled and pointed to the car keys. “What are you waiting for? Let’s get this show on the road.”

  Sam shot him a thumbs up and half ran for the bathroom excitedly. Nothing would make her leave the room in the state she was in and knew that ten minutes in the bathroom would transform her.

  The plan played out in her mind over and over again as she prepared. She couldn’t be sure Clara would play along, especially considering how much she felt indebted to the serial killer. It was her one concern and couldn’t imagine what they would do if the woman refused to help.

  It only took her a few minutes to make herself look presentable. With her hair tied back and a new bounce in her step, Sam followed Tim back out to the car and towards what she hoped would be the beginning of the end of Black Death.

  “I’m sorry, she’s not home right now,” Mike Buchanan said as he answered the door.”

  “Sir, it’s important we speak with her. Do you have any idea where she might be?” He eyed them both before answering, as if already feeling the heat from the woman who clearly wore the pants in their relationship.

  “I don’t know why I feel this is going to come back and bite me in the ass, but she normally visits with her friend Trudy Wellington today.”

  “Would you happen to have her address?”

  Sam could see that he didn’t want to give it to them as he wrote it on a slip of paper. But once he finished, he handed it over as quickly as possible, for fear of someone seeing him commit the deed.

  “Thank you,” Tim said, shaking the man’s hand before returning to the car.

  Only once they were rolling back down the driveway did they speak.

  “Think he’ll warn her?” Tim looked at Sam as he steered the car back to the road.

  “Something tells me that man enjoys his time when the wifey is out,” Sam offered. “I doubt he’ll message her.”

  “Let’s not make it any worse for him, if we can. Couldn’t think of anything worse than living with that kind of relationship.”

  It took them almost a half hour to head back the way they came, Sam slowly calling out the street numbers as Tim slowed the closer they got.

  “There,” she finally called. “724.”

  “And looks like we made it right on time,” Tim said, pointing towards the house. Clara Buchanan was standing by the front door with an older woman. They were chatting, but appeared to be at the end of their conversation. A moment later Clara gave her friend a kiss on the cheek, a brief hug, then turned back to her car.

  “Should we confront her here?” Sam asked.

  “Let’s follow her for a bit. Maybe see if she heads somewhere a little more secluded. Something tells me she may not want to be as helpful as we hope without some sort of convincing.”

  They began to follow the BMW, remaining far enough behind to avoid being seen. Clara pulled up in front of another home a few miles from their starting point, but simply placed something in the home’s mail box. After jumping back into her car, she headed West, towards Peoria.

  But several miles into their trip, she pulled into a roadside diner, parked her car and headed inside. Tim pulled in
on the opposite side of the lot and they simply watched for a moment.

  “Think she’s here to meet someone?”

  “I’m not sure. Should we go in and check?”

  “May as well. No good sitting out here.”

  They hopped out of the car and tried to avoid the front windows of the diner as much as possible. No easy task considering the lack of traffic or foliage. Once they reached the door, they walked inside and began to look for Clara.

  She had grabbed a table near the back wall, sat alone and appeared to be scrolling through her cell. A waitress approached her and Clara looked to place her order while continuing to scroll.

  “Should we wait?” Sam asked.

  “Maybe just for a bit,” Tim said, pointing to a table on the opposite wall, almost directly behind their target.

  The diner was almost deserted, save for two men sitting at the counter and one other table with a couple. There was a cook whom they could see through a small window, plus the lone waitress. There would be nothing shielding them if Clara decided to turn and check out the rest of the room.

  “If nothing else, that smell is amazing,” Sam whispered to Tim, looking over to where the men at the counter appeared to be eating some sort of pie.

  “It’s cherry,” a voice suddenly said from behind them and they turned to see the waitress standing there, notepad at the ready.

  “I’m in,” Sam said, feeling her stomach rumble at the thought of tasting whatever hung in the air.

  “I’ll pass, thanks,” Tim said.

  “Aw, you sure? Keith doesn’t make it often. It’s a real treat.”

  “I bet it is, but no thanks.”

  “OK then. Suit yourself,” the woman said, sounding a little offended. She returned to the counter where a plate of the pie was already waiting. She picked it up and walked it over to where Clara was sitting.

  “She’s here for the pie?” Sam whispered. “Doesn’t look like there’s anyone coming to meet her.”