Guilty Crime Read online

  Guilty Crime

  Hangman #2

  WL Knightly

  BrixBaxter Publishing

  Contents

  Find WL Knightly

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

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  About the Author

  Copyright

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  WL’s Facebook Author Page

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  Description

  With new victims in his sights, the Hangman will stop at nothing to get his revenge, even if it means dragging Detective Jake Thomas down with him.

  After making it personal, Jake is even more hellbent on solving the case, even if it means delaying his early retirement.

  But when his only informant skips town and Jake finds most of the truth has been buried, not only with missing case files but in his own mind, can he and Detective Jo Calloway unlock the clues they need to bring the Hangman to justice before Chief O’Connor becomes the next victim?

  Chapter 1

  Jake

  Two nights after the death of Judge Mathews, Jake jolted awake from a nightmare. He’d been given pain pills after the Hangman cracked him across the face with a two-by-four, but the medicine made his dreams feel intensely vivid. They felt so real, his unconscious mind rejected them and dragged Jake kicking and screaming back to actual reality.

  His sleep patterns had never been good, and the pills were making things worse. Tossing the sheet onto the floor with the other covers, he moved to the edge of his bed and sat up. After a moment of scratching his stubbly chin, he got up and went to the kitchen for a drink of water.

  Finding his way in the dark, Jake took a glass from the cupboard and then turned on the cold tap to fill it up. After a few sips, he walked over to stare out at the woods behind his house. As he lost himself in the view of the night sky, he heard footsteps behind him.

  On alert, he put the glass down and then turned to reach for the gun he kept near the window. Only it wasn’t there.

  Jake tried to think of where the gun could be. Had he moved it? He couldn’t remember, and now the footsteps were closer. He glanced to the living room, where the shine from the outdoor light cast a dim glow throughout the room.

  A shadow moved through the light, and Jake froze, contemplating his next move. He grabbed a knife from the block on the counter and crept toward the other room. If someone was in his house, they would have a fight on their hands.

  Suddenly a deep, rough voice sounded through the darkness. “You should have listened to me,” said the Hangman. Jake couldn’t believe he had come to his home.

  Before Jake could tell where the voice had come from, something struck him in the head. The knife tumbled from his hand and went across the floor, out of reach as he went down after it.

  The next thing he knew, he was being dragged by his hair to his living room. “You should have listened to me, Detective. I tried to keep you out of it, but you kept on. You wanted to be involved, so I’ll make you involved.”

  “I’m doing my job,” said Jake. His own voice was strained from the pain of being struck again. “I can’t take too many more blows to the head, asshole. So, why don’t you just get around to the reason you’re here? Are you going to kill me too?” The serial killer might have that in mind, but Jake wasn’t going out that fucking easily.

  Suddenly, he was being jerked upright and ended up next to a chair, one that didn’t seem to match any other in his house, one he’d never seen before. Then a noose was put around his neck, the scratchy rope licking his bare flesh. Before he could fight to take it off, it tightened, and the strong hands of the Hangman gripped it to hoist him up. Jake struggled, the life choking out of him as he fought to climb into the chair, which was exactly what the Hangman wanted.

  Jake stood and swayed on his feet, looking down only a moment before realizing that was a horrible idea. He looked up at the wall in front of him as the Hangman stepped into his line of sight.

  “You were one of the good ones, Jake. I really wish you’d have listened to me and retired. You were so eager to show your replacement the ropes, but now you’ve got a rope of your own. Now you get to play my game like all the others. Let’s hope you do better than they did, Jake.”

  “I’m not playing.” Jake was going to be defiant to the end and not give the Hangman the satisfaction of getting off on his torture.

  “Sure you are,” he said, with a chuckle.

  “You’re not in control.” Jake had to get the best of the madman.

  “Of course, I am. I have been since you saw what I did to Elliot Gaines and you decided to come after me. You see, your actions are a direct response to my behavior. So like it or not, I do control you, Jake.” He walked around to the other side, and Jake could see the gameboard had been painted on the wall in blood. Only whose blood had he used?

  “I’m not playing your game!” He wasn’t about to give into him.

  “Do it, or you’ll only make it worse on her.” The Hangman gestured to a dark corner behind him.

  Jake heard the sound of a mouse. The tiny little squeal was barely audible over his heavy breathing. What’s that noise? He glanced around, and from the shadows, the Hangman turned and dragged Jo by her pretty, blonde head. “You’ll play along, or I’ll make her suffer.”

  “Don’t hurt her!” Jake struggled against his rope, but it was too tight. “I’ll play!”

  “Yeah, you always have been a good guy, haven’t you, Jake? That’s why I tried to warn you to get out now. That, and because I thought I’d have a better chance with this little girl coming after me than you.”

  “Why are you doing this? Why did you kill the others?”

  “You’re asking questions that you already know the answers to. I killed them all because they were corrupt. You hate the corruption too, don’t you, Jake?” He let go of Jo with a push that sent her face first into the floor.

  Jake growled. “Leave her out of this! She’s good. She’s a good person. You claim you only hurt bad people. She’s not bad!”

  Jo looked up at him with pleading eyes, and he felt the hate in his heart grow for the man as he smiled at Jake.

  The Hangman shook his head. “I’m sure that’s easy to believe. She’s pretty, bright eyed, and fresh faced, but we all have our dark sides. We all have a blemish. How well do you know her? Not well, I’d assume. She’s come to take your place, and yet you feel stuck with her. I can fix that, you know? I can fix you being stuck with her.”

  He turned like he was going to hurt Jo again, and Jake screamed out as much as he could with the tight rope around his neck pinching his throat. “Don’t touch her!”

  “You did this, you know? All you had to do was butt out and retire, but you didn’t. Now, look what happened. You can blame the corrupt justice system for this, Jake. Maybe I’ll string her up there beside you when I’m done killing you. I wonder if her pretty green eyes will stay in her skull, and if she’ll soil her panties. Maybe I sho
uld remove those first. No, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’ve already developed feelings for her. You already wonder what’s between those thighs of hers.” His voice had taken on a strange tone, and while it was still the Hangman’s, it sounded somewhat different than he remembered. Familiar.

  “Let her go. It’s me you want.” He hated seeing the terrified look in her eyes and the way her body trembled with fear.

  “Where’s the fun in that? Besides, you don’t want to die alone, do you? Just like that piece of shit Judge Mathews. He died all alone. You have to admit that you think he deserved it. That little dark part in your own soul agrees with me. All my victims were rotten people. Deep down, you know what I’m doing isn’t just murder. It’s justice.”

  I shook my head. “Justice would be to expose these people and make them stand trial for their crimes.”

  The Hangman laughed. “You know that won’t happen. No one holds crooked cops and judges accountable. So I was forced to step in. You’ve seen the ugly side of the legal system for far too long now, and you know there isn’t much difference between you and me.”

  “I’m nothing like you!”

  The Hangman laughed again and stepped closer. “Want to bet? Deep down, you know it’s true.” He gave a deep-throated chuckle. “But enough talk. Let’s play. Guess a letter of my name, and if you can guess who I am, I might let you and the girl live.”

  Jake looked up to the wall where ten dashes had been drawn in Jo’s blood. “M.”

  “Very good,” said the Hangman. “There is one M in my name.” He marked the letter in its blank spot with the blood already on his hands and then turned toward Jake expectantly.

  “R,” said Jake, earning a sound of disappointment from the other man.

  “And here I thought we were off to a good start. That’s strike one. Five more and you’re done.” The Hangman jerked Jo to her feet and dragged her close to the wall. He sliced her face and then dipped her fingers into her own wound to smear a little circle just below the gallows. Jo screamed in pain as he manhandled her.

  Jake vowed all over again to kill him. He looked at the name and couldn’t figure it out. The M was in the third blank from the end. “E,” he said.

  The Hangman smiled. “You’re a lucky man after all.” He dropped Jo at his feet, her lack of strength making her nothing but a ragdoll.

  Jake noticed the E was in the fourth spot. And then it became clear. “Jake Thomas?” he mumbled. He cleared his throat. “That’s not your name. It’s mine. Jake Thomas.”

  The Hangman shook his head. “No, it’s like I said. We’re the same, you and me.” He walked over and kicked the chair out from under Jake’s feet, but not before Jake reached out and jerked the mask from his face. As the rope snapped around his neck, the detective’s own face appeared from behind the hood.

  Jake jerked upright in his bed, his throat so dry and scratchy he could barely swallow, much less scream, which was what he felt like doing. He looked over to the bedside table, but there was nothing to help quench his thirst.

  He ran to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, and some into his mouth. Then he looked up into the mirror.

  The asshole had gotten into his head when he hit him with that board. Jake checked the bandage on his wound, and it looked fine, though the small split was itching like a motherfucker from the two stitches it had taken to close his flesh back up.

  What had happened in the old courthouse could have been so much worse, and it made sense that he had seen the Hangman in his dream since he was now more familiar with him. Even hearing his voice, which had ended up sounding like his own, made sense, but he hoped that it wasn’t some kind of premonition. Jake had been so worried about Jo getting hurt when the Hangman had charged in her direction.

  He couldn’t believe what felt like the past few hours of his life had all just been a terrible dream. Fucking pills. But thankfully, it meant that Jo was safe. At least he hoped. He looked at the time and decided he couldn’t call her at that hour. He’d see her soon enough at work, and when he did, he would prefer that she at least be in a good mood.

  Jake had gotten closer to Jo in their short time together, but the Hangman had been way off base in his dream. Jake didn’t have a thing for his trainee detective, although she was certainly gorgeous. Their relationship was friendly, not romantic.

  She’d probably laugh when he told her about the dream-Hangman’s accusation. Who says I’m telling her?

  Revealing that little detail would just muddy the waters between them. With the Hangman’s string of high-profile murders, Jakes life was complicated enough. It was probably better if he omitted that part of the dream.

  He went back to bed and fell across it. “I’m nothing like that asshole,” he said. “Not a damned thing.”

  He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. When he opened them, he stared at the ceiling and tried not to let his focus fade out. He wasn’t going to sleep the rest of the night. Not if he could help it.

  The last decent sleep he’d had was on Jo’s sofa, but that was a one-time thing. He couldn’t let that happen again. Jake was already considering that he had less than a week left on the force. He couldn’t leave her with the Hangman case unresolved. He had to at least stick around until the killer was caught, which meant that he’d have to put his retirement off for the foreseeable future.

  Chapter 2

  Jake

  Hours later, still unable to sleep and with no desire to, Jake decided to go into work early. When he arrived, he found Jo working behind his desk in the middle of a yawn.

  She looked up with surprise in her eyes. “Hey, you’re in early.”

  “You’re one to talk,” Jake said. “I know you’ve been trying to beat me into the office, but trust me, I’m all done competing, so you win.” He forced a smile, even though his brutal dream from earlier had him wanting to tell her how relieved he was to see her breathing.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “And I wanted to go over some of Judge Mathews’s cases and see if anything rang a bell. We’re still waiting for the forensics report, but I hope that they’ll finally have it ready today.”

  “I couldn’t sleep either.” He looked down, and the expression on his face must have been enough to make Jo worry.

  Her pretty green eyes narrowed, and she had this cute little wrinkle in her forehead. “Hey, are you sure you’re okay? Did you even get to sleep at all?” She had already heard about how he didn’t sleep well from everything he’d been exposed to.

  He raked his hand through his hair, trying hard not to scratch his stitches. “Yes, for about an hour.” He debated not telling her everything, but the look in her eye told him she wasn’t going to give up. “I had a terrible dream about the Hangman.”

  “Jesus,” she whispered. “I don’t even want to know how horrible that was, do I?”

  He stepped around the desk to the other chair and sat down. “Nah, it was pretty bad. You were there too, and well…” He took a deep breath, and she did the same. “I’m just glad it was all a dream.”

  “Hey,” said Jo, leaning closer to the desk. “You can talk to me about it, you know? What happened is bound to have affected the both of us a little. I know I could go the rest of my life not seeing another one of his victims and what he does to those men. It’s horrible.”

  “Yeah, that’s an understatement. But no, I don’t want to talk about it. I just want to find the asshole and stop him. He’s taken enough from me and you, so I don’t think we should waste another minute discussing how he’s affecting us. We should use the time to figure out what we’re going to do to catch the son of a bitch.”

  As much as retirement beckoned him, Jake refused to puss out or go soft now. He had a job, and he was going to do it until he put an end to the Hangman.

  He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath.

  “You look like there’s something else on your mind,” said Jo. She spun her chair around and walked to the sma
ll table where Jake had noticed the new coffeemaker. “Want a cup?”

  “You bought a coffeemaker for the office?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t want to go down to the breakroom every time, and besides, this is better. It makes coffee in under two minutes.” She pulled out a little cup from Jake’s top drawer and popped it into the machine. “I brought donuts too.”

  He raised his eyebrows at her. “Donuts, huh?”

  She held up a bag from Speed’s. “Yeah. Ruth Anne said these were the only ones you like. She called them Plain Janes.”

  “Thanks.” He was surprised she had found time to get pastries, considering how early it was. “You’ve already been by the diner?”

  “I just made a quick stop while I was driving around.” She shrugged, and he couldn’t help but wonder what had her up.

  “Is there anything you wanted to talk about?” Was she having nightmares too?

  “Nah.” She waved the question off and then pushed the button on the coffeemaker. “I just keep wondering if I should have reacted quicker. You know, taken the shot?”

  Jake shook his head. “You might not have hit him, and besides, you can’t keep worrying about what ifs. That shit’ll drive you nuts.”

  She frowned. “I just think I should have gotten up and gone after him.”