Twisted and Tied (Marshals 4)

Gently, quietly, I put a hand between Ian’s shoulder blades before sliding it up into his hair. He closed his eyes for a second, and when he opened them back up, he looked better, settled, grounded, and as he took a breath, I saw him relax a bit. He wasn’t calm, but he was better. Nice to know just my touch could do that.

We took the gigantic Chevy Suburbans that normally went out only for fugitive pickups or if the whole department was involved in a task force. The last time we all went on assignment as a group was before Halloween last year, when our Most Wanted included a child predator. Now, loaded up with Becker driving, we moved out, following the Feds to the gallery.

No one said a thing during the ride, only Ian’s hand on my thigh, where no one could see, keeping me calm. I wasn’t scared—Hartley wasn’t there waiting for me—but there was that anxiety over what had been left for me to see.

Once we reached the street and parked, we all piled out and waited for Adair and the rest of his team to join us.

“So how do you know it was him?” I asked when Adair motioned for us to follow him.

I remembered him because of his looks. I had never met anyone with black eyes that were so striking under heavy black brows, framed by long, thick lashes in his pale—like alabaster-white—face. He didn’t look sickly, but you could see the blue veins under the skin of his throat and hands.

“He—” Quick breath, and I took a step away from him because he’d already shown his stomach was iffy. “—signed it, and there’s an inscription on the wall.”

I stopped walking and looked at him because that hit me as all kinds of wrong, and I felt it physically, the tremor that shuddered through me, but also, and more importantly, instinctively. Because while Hartley did leave messages, he didn’t sign his work; it wasn’t his way. He wasn’t prideful in that respect, and that was part of the point of knowing who you were chasing. He made you have to get to know him, which I did.

“We would have kept this from you, Marshal, but even though you’re not involved with our ongoing pursuit of Craig Hartley, you are, in fact, tied to him until he’s back behind bars.”

“Right,” I concurred as Ian slipped a hand up my back, resting it on my shoulder for a moment before letting it slide off. He couldn’t very well hold my hand, but I could have really used the contact.

The Sanderson Gallery down by the Loop was only fifteen minutes from the office. CPD was keeping a crowd back. I saw the yellow tape up, and then inside of that, as we closed in, the spray of what I thought was probably blood on the front windows.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“Yeah, it’s blood.”

“Is there more inside?” I asked Adair, already knowing the man I knew was not responsible for whatever horror was behind the door. The last time I saw Hartley, I got the feeling murder was no longer in his repertoire. He did it to sort out something horrible in his head, to make a statement about who was weak and able to be seduced, and who was not.

There were women who came forward afterward, horrified it could have been them if they had, in fact, decided to cheat on their husbands. There was one woman who implied murder was what an adulteress deserved. I had roared at her at my desk, sent her scurrying from the bullpen because it was such shit that I couldn’t stand to look at her. But all of that, the women Hartley killed, the way he did it, the people he murdered during his last escape and the man he dispatched to save me… none of that was ever rage. He was methodical, steady, and… what, tidy? There was never a mess, never blood splatters and over-the-top shows of power. It wasn’t him, and as my stomach turned into a block of ice, a feeling of dread sank over me.

What the hell was going on?

“Jones?”

“Yeah, sorry. So is there more blood?”

“No, that’s all there is, period, and it only belongs to one of the men. There’s no more blood anywhere than that in the gallery.”

Which was more like Hartley, but still not likely.

I kept pace with everyone, and a part of me wished it was just me, Ian, and Becker, and maybe Eli. I didn’t like the new guys seeing how closely I was involved with a psychopath.

The cop at the door gave us booties to cover our shoes and gloves for our hands, and then one by one, we entered the gallery.

It was a beautiful space, with an open-beam ceiling, polished hardwood floors, and industrial lighting. The exposed brick wall along one side would have made it feel warm, but it contrasted with a lot of glass and chrome and modern furniture that made the room seem cold. Of course the three dead men hanging from the moveable walls added to the morgue vibe of the place.