Caspian:$1000 and you tell me I’m looking very fine next time you see me.
Soren:No deal. I’d hate to have to mess up Jonah’s pretty face when he tries to punch me.
Caspian:Funny, he says he’s been dying for an excuse to rearrange yours.
Soren:I knew he missed me. So can you do it or not?
Caspian:I can. I’m gonna need some info.
Soren:That I can do.
Once Caspian hacked Toby’s phone, Soren thumbed through it until he found the home contact of his secretary, then dialed her, but she had nothing useful to offer. He assured her nothing was amiss and hung up.
After letting Mantis out and refilling her water and food bowl, he dialed Cas again. “Did you find anything on the feeds or buried in his phone?”
“Why does everyone hate the word ‘hello’? You, Jonah, Madi, even Az. I swear.”
“In case you haven’t picked up on it, I’m a little pressed at the moment.”
“You’re never pressed. What’s up?”
Soren explained the situation in a nutshell and then listened as Cas tapped away on his keyboard before saying, “The security system was disabled this morning. I’m not sure how, exactly. Almost looks like a power surge. Maybe a small-scale EMP. I can send you all the footage from beforehand, but just skimming it, I don’t see anything unusual aside from the fact that this guy dresses ten times better than you do.”
“He likes me dressed down.”
“Clearly.”
Soren’s next call was to Madigan.
Madigan answered with a lazy, “What’s up?”
“Are you back in New York?” Soren heard faint strains of salsa music playing in the background.
“Sure am.”
“Is Az with you?”
“He’ll be back tomorrow.”
“How would you like to spend a weekend in Boston?”
“What’s going on?” Concern tinged Madigan’s tone.
“I need to go shake down the fucking Irish mob and I’d rather not do it alone.”
21
Tobias
Tobias’s senses seemed to come back online one by one. Sadly, his sense of smell hit first. Fresh paint, body odor, peppermint. It was the peppermint that most bothered him but he couldn’t quite say why. He tried to will his eyelids upward but they felt permanently glued in place. His head throbbed in time with his heartbeat. His shoulders ached. He was sitting up. The chair felt familiar yet wrong. When he tried to raise his hand to scratch his nose, he found he couldn’t. And that was when his memories came flooding back in like a wave.
Clyde Lee Allen.
His eyes did fly open then. The stench of sour sweat. Peppermint candy. A gun at the base of his skull two seconds before that nasally twang had filled his ears. Clyde had hit him. Abducted him. Tobias shook his head, hoping to clear his vision, but it only made the room tip maddeningly. His glasses were still on but slightly askew.
The snow globe had been a warning.
Allen was the worst of the worst when it came to serial killers, and given Tobias’s client list, he felt uniquely qualified to give him that title. Allen was a sociopath. He had all the markers of a serial killer. Macdonald triad, controlling abusive mother, absent father, frontal lobe damage from a bike accident. They’d created the perfect storm that turned maladaptive behaviors into deadly compulsions. Hadn’t just created a killer but a sadist. He liked to play with his prey, held his victims for months using them as his own personal science projects.
