“And he would have used a suppressor...” I muttered.

  “A suppressor?” Nadine frowned at me. “Most of the world calls it a silencer, not a suppressor.”

  “Except they don’t silence gunshots, they only suppress the sound, making them less noisy,” I countered.

  “Whatever, yes, a professional would have used a suppressor and this guy didn’t. He may just be a whack job with good gun skills.”

  “A whack job that targeted a family of four for no reason,” I said.

  “Angie was a popular girl and very, very pretty. We’re running our saved videos through AI programs to get pictures of every face that comes into view to see if there was a boy sneaking around, whether she knew it or not.”

  “Most pretty girls are popular,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, but Angie was the co-captain of the dance squad, as well as a cheerleader, a singer, and a straight-A student. I could see her with very serious and dedicated stalkers, even though she was only 15.”

  “I’d expect at least some kind of sexual assault or act of necrophilia. She would have been targeted last, but we were told the boys were killed last,” I said.

  “That’s what they think; there was a puddle of blood in the hallway just outside the boys’ door, pretty sure it’s the killer’s. None of the other victims stood long enough to bleed somewhere other than where they died. We have her exact time of death because it was recorded on the 911 call she placed,” Nadine told me.

  “They were fraternal twins, was the boy pretty?” I asked.

  “Maybe in an androgynous prepubescent boy sort of way,” Nadine said.

  “Is androgyny still fashionable?” I asked.

  “I think it still depends largely on the crowd you run around with,” she replied. Nadine was four years older than me. But we had some similar tastes in music and movies. I had learned she’d tried to go through a Goth phase but her dad had screamed at her until she decided it wasn’t worth it. I, on the other hand, had gone through an Industrialite phase, which had required a lot less lace and more flannel on our shirts, along with shorter heels and more steel plates in our boots. But androgyny had been fashionable in both.

  “So, less inclined to have a violent, psychopathic stalker than his sister,” I said.

  “Maybe. I usually saw the kids twice a year at the client parties we hold, but that didn’t happen this year because Zeke banned me from attending them. I just can’t imagine Connie or Brandon being the targets either.” Nadine shrugged. “They weren’t the types to have enemies or be involved with criminals. I think they only continued to pay us because they were too nice to say ‘hey, we don’t need your services anymore.’ Yes, Connie was targeted once before, but the guy is still in prison and so is his wife. They didn’t have kids and none of their families seemed all that supportive once they learned he was a pedophile. We have risk assessments every six months on our clients and the Mercado family was on the lowest risk list. They’ve never even had a burglary.”

  “Well, that kind of rules out a stalker.” I sighed and stubbed out my cigarette. “Most stalkers graduate to murder only after pulling off a few burglaries and other covert crimes against their victims.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to wrap my head around since I got the call. Someone who was a very good shot parked his car five houses away from theirs, calmly walked to their house, shot seven people in a minute, and just as calmly walked out; leaving a baby alive and screaming in a back bedroom. That’s what the witnesses all said, he calmly walked to the house and just as calmly walked away. He didn’t even put on his mask right away after stepping out of his car. But he had on a baseball cap and no one got a good look at him, because the sun was setting and he was walking south, putting the sun on his profile and in the windows of most of the houses looking out on him. But they were sure he was walking back to his car after killing seven people. That’s cold, Ace.”

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “He didn’t use a silencer, and he didn’t immediately put on the mask. While he used dusk to his advantage, he didn’t wait until full dark. Some of that speaks of skills, but other parts scream amateur.”

  “Don’t say that,” Nadine said, putting out her own cigarette in the ashtray.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The way you said it made it sound like it was just starting.”

  “It is.” I nodded grimly. “He’s fantasized about it and practiced it to some degree, but this was his first real run. Since the notice went out that there was a third SCT Unit in the works, I think the killers have started intentionally moving here.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to come to you,” she said.

  “Sure it does, it’s harder to hunt them in your own back yard than in a place you have no connection to and no relatives that need protecting.”

  “KC has always had a disproportionately large number of serial killers. It’s one of the reasons the SCTU is here, that and it’s quicker to fly anywhere in the country from KC than from DC or LA,” Nadine said.

  “It also houses the country’s largest private individual security firm,” I pointed out. Somehow, Daniels’ Security could and did appeal to the everyday common man, not just the rich and famous. Regular people were the types of clients Nadine Daniels preferred to take on. Her company had the best tech and some of the world’s best-trained mercenaries on the payroll. All services were sliding scale so that the everyday common man could afford them, and the rich and famous paid more than them for those same services.

  “Yeah, I’m trying to forget that at the moment.” It was Nadine’s turn to sigh and the sound made me look at her. It sounded like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

  “Where’s Zeke and the rest of your commandos?” I asked.

  “Double-checking security systems all over town, except Zeke, he’s in the lobby.”

  “Why is he in the lobby?” I asked, looking at her.

  “Because I was sure he’d hover if he came down with me.”

  “Pretty sure that’s what husbands are supposed to do,” I told her.

  “I know, but I wanted a cigarette and to talk to you without him hovering for a moment.”

  “Why me?” I asked.

  “Because you confirmed what he said in the car, this guy is just getting started.”

  “He thinks it’s a serial?” I asked, mildly surprised.

  “Yes,” she said. “And now Daniels’ Security is involved.”

  “Nadine, I don’t care if you investigate for the purposes of your business, but if you find anything, you need to bring it to the SCTU,” I told her sternly. “You have enough psychopaths trying to kill you without drawing the attention of a family annihilator. I don’t think we could procure you a safe house in the FGN if you did, which means you’d have to take Zeke and your six dogs and your three bobcats and move in with Ivan, your mother, and his five kids for a while.”

  “Vladik has a house here too,” she reminded me.

  “Yes, but Ivan’s more likely to let you stay with him than Vladik,” I pointed out.

  “This is sadly true.” Nadine nodded. “I have no intention of trying to play hero here. I just need to make sure my clients are safe and it really was a fluke that one of them was hit.”

  Two

  “Marshals, I have Zeke LaRouche and a Detective Mann up here, both of whom say you’re expecting them.” A voice crackled over the intercom in our conference room. Gabriel got up and told the Marshal to bring them down.

  “Why didn’t you bring Zeke down with you when you came in?” Gabriel asked Nadine. “Has he really just been standing in the lobby waiting for you to leave or get your permission to come down?”

  “No,” Zeke said, coming in to the room. “She needed some girl time with her favorite US Marshal, so I waited upstairs until I guessed she was done. I actually expected her to come down, beg a cigarette from one of you and head back outside.”

  “We have a smoking lounge,” I told him. Zeke was a tall, very handsome man of African, French, and American descent with the prettiest blue eyes I’d ever seen on a human. He’d worked hard to lose the Tahitian accent and only once in a while did it slip out. He’d been an Army Ranger. His mother was Tahitian; his father American. I’d been given way more details than I ever needed or wanted to hear about that particular holiday romance from his mother. Before Anthony and Nadine had recruited him to work for Daniels’ Security, he had been a freelance mercenary after being given a medical discharge from the Rangers. He was a total badass, and I admired his fighting skills, as well as his skills as a well-camouflaged psychopath. I hadn’t even guessed it before his DNA results had come back. Then he and I had a conversation about it, because suddenly all the things I’d never understood about Zeke fell into place. If I had been a sexual being, I would have said I had the hots for him, but I wasn’t and so he was just another good-looking psychopath that I could work with.

  “Detective Ransom Mann, Raytown Police Department,” the detective introduced himself. I had forgotten he was coming down with Zeke.

  “Your first name is Ransom?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he answered. I didn’t say anything more about it, but I had a thought that if he hadn’t joined the police force, his name would have attracted a lot of police attention.

  “Mr. LaRouche and Ms. Daniels own the security company the homeowners used and have a contract with the SCTU, so you can speak freely in front of them.” Gabriel told Detective Mann.

  “They have experience with crime scenes?” Detective Mann asked.

  “Yes,” Gabriel said flatly.

  “Do you have digital pictures or printouts?” Fiona asked.

  “Digital.” Detective Mann handed her a USB flash drive. She attached it to the computer that lived in the conference room. The first picture was a distant shot of the one Xavier had shown us. Mr. Mercado lay face down, his feet in the house and the rest of his body lying on the concrete walk. Blood had pooled around his head. In my head, I noted that the concrete would have to be replaced there because it would be permanently stained brown. From this angle, I could see that after the killer shot Mercado, he would have had to step around his body to enter the house. The next picture showed only Mercado’s feet and looked into the house. I wondered if it was from a similar angle as the killer’s view. From it, I could see that given where Mr. Pittman’s body had fallen, he could have been shot from the door. The killer had to go in to kill Mrs. Pittman and Mrs. Mercado, though. Neither would have fallen where they did if he’d shot them from the door. I goggled at the blood stains on the floor and couch. There was more than just blood there, but I chose to focus on it and not the chunky bits mixed in that I knew would be skull and brain matter. Dead bodies were gross, especially when half their head was missing. The bullet had entered the side of Mrs. Pittman’s head, tearing off part of the top of her ear as it had passed and entered the skull. It was brutal. My phone went off, then everyone else’s phones went off. I looked at it, a text from Xavier. It was close-up pictures of all the exit wounds from the bodies, including the bullet that had gone through Lionel Pittman’s middle abdomen. I looked at the wound and texted Xavier back, asking if the bullet had hit his ribs. He responded it had and crime scene techs were looking for it in the furniture that had been behind Lionel in the room. I texted back, “Please tell me they were silver bullets.” He didn’t respond. When I looked up, my SCTU teammates, as well as Nadine, Zeke, and Detective Mann, were staring at me.

  “Why would they be silver?” Fiona asked.

  “If they are silver, our killer is deranged. If they are brass, our killer is very organized and this is a problem,” I told her.

  “Okay,” Detective Mann said. “Care to explain?”

  “As I’m sure you’ve seen multiple times during your homicide career, most bullets deform as they pass through hard bones like the human skull; it’s why suicide by gun is only successful about 60 percent of the time. The only time we see exit wounds like this is when we are using hardened metal bullets, colloquially known as cop killers—they are copper-jacketed, illegal, and have brass rounds in them. Or hollow points. Even large caliber handguns rarely cause the entire side of a head to explode outward. However, silver is much harder than lead and will make these kinds of exit wounds. As an added bonus, you only use silver bullets when you are killing werewolves or vampires. So if our killer is using silver bullets, we know to check mental hospitals and online forums for crazies obsessed with werewolves and vampires. Whereas brass ammunition is illegal for civilians to own because it pierces Kevlar, not to mention there aren’t any monsters that require brass ammunition. If our killer is using it, as I suspect, it’s because he wants to inflict this kind of damage to his victims. This means he isn’t crazy and he isn’t raving about werewolves and vampires in dark web chatrooms. He’s going to be harder to capture. He probably has no connection to the victims.”

  “Random act of violence?” Detective Mann looked at me questioningly.

  “The KC metro area has the highest stranger-murder rate in the country,” I told him. “We average 41 homicides by strangers per 100,000 people per year in the metropolitan conglomerate, which is Kansas City proper, and the 30 or so towns that make up the Kansas City metro area.”

  “Stranger murders are almost always the work of serial criminals,” Gabriel added coldly. “Whether it be the mob, contract killers, or serial killers, this is not a good sign.”

  “The reason Kansas City doesn’t have a gang problem is because it has a serial killer problem and has for the last two and a half decades,” Lucas added. “And the serial killer problem is on the rise here. I think Ms. Daniels was just unlucky that the first attack happened to one of her clients.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Nadine said. Zeke gave Lucas a look and something unspoken was exchanged between the two men. I would ask about it later.

  The SCTU phones all went off again and I checked my text. There was a picture of a bullet. It was damaged, but not as much as it should have been, and there was only word in the text. “Brass.” I checked the time; it was just after three in the morning.

  I wanted to go back to bed. I wanted to wake up to a new day that didn’t involve brass bullets and an entire family getting slaughtered in their own home. Family annihilators were normally mass murderers and a member of the immediate family. Fathers were more prone to it than any other family member, but here the father was a victim of the killer. We’d already checked Mr. Mercado’s parents; both were deceased, so it wasn’t Mr. Mercado’s father. Mrs. Mercado’s parents were alive, but lived in an assisted living facility. Neither could see well enough to drive anymore, and her father was in a wheelchair suffering from spinal degeneration that had stolen his ability to walk or stand very long. The kills definitely weren’t his.

  By five in the morning, Fiona was searching the victims database for similar murders. She had six in just a handful of minutes. They weren’t exactly like ours, but one was in Kansas City and brass ammunition had been used. It was just one person, not a family, and it had happened a month earlier. The case was still open and it was in the jurisdiction of Liberty police—a hop, skip, and jump from Raytown. Fiona gave out those details and Zeke suddenly stood up.

  “Read that address to me again,” he was digging out his cell phone. “Mitch, I need you to check an address and see if we provided security for the house at one time.” Zeke gave him the address and we all waited. “Okay, thanks.”

  “We did not provide security to that address; we provided it to the house next door,” Zeke said. “I just wanted to make sure. It sounded familiar. We provided security to a family that lived at 20002 Palmer, and the murder was at 20003 Palmer.”

  Personally, I’m not a huge fan of coincidences. They do happen, though; every case I’ve ever worked has had a coincidence or two in it, and Daniels’ Security probably handled security for a fourth of the metro area.

  “How many standard plain jane security clients do you have now?” I asked.

  “More than 600,000,” Zeke answered. “It is the bread and butter of the business. We install security systems in businesses and homes, and only occasionally is more security needed. Stalkers and abusive husbands are usually when we start sending out men to monitor the situation.”

  “Unless we are hired to provide security for an event, or we need to send people somewhere for someone rich and famous,” Nadine added quickly.

  “Beyond the Russian Mob, do you have enemies?” I asked, and suddenly realized what the look had been about.

  “She has someone trying to kill her through long distance means. He’s sent blowfish poison in powdered form and anthrax, and someone shot at her a few weeks ago while she was out to lunch with her mom. They missed, but Melina was sure it was the Mob coming after her,” Zeke told us.

  “You and Alex still haven’t tracked that person down?” I asked, sounding more incredulous than I’d intended. Zeke was very good at finding people that didn’t want to be found, as was Alex.

  Three

  By seven in the morning, I was back home with a second soda, sitting at the kitchen table with my mom. She’d finished her morning run with Badger and Melina and was enjoying another cup of super-hot coffee. My mom brewed her coffee and then microwaved it for a minute. The stuff would be at a rolling boil usually by the time she got it to the table, but she liked cream and sugar in it and said the only way to keep it hot was to microwave it after everything was in. Since arguing with my mom is pointless, I ignored the fact that every day she attempted to drink boiling hot coffee.

  Badger was currently destroying a toy in the living room. We could hear the squeakers as he pushed, pulled, and squeezed it trying to break a seam. I had come to understand he was a smart dog, and I appreciated that. We’d stopped buying the tennis balls designed for dogs some time ago because he would break the hollow rubber ball on the inside, which loosened the skin, and then he could peel that off and leave broken, chewed-up bits of rubber everywhere along with soggy, cold, wet pieces of the fuzzy skin, which was not pleasant to step on at any time of day. We now bought him baseballs. They survived a little longer and weren’t as nasty to pick up when they were dead.