Knight, The Read online

  The Pawn

  “There is nothing not to like.”

  —The Suspense Zone

  “An exceptional psychological thriller.”

  —Bookshelf Review

  “Riveting.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “An exhilarating thriller.”

  —Mysterious Reviews

  “Brilliant.”

  —Ann Tatlock, Christy award–winning author

  “Seriously intense.”

  —Pop Culture Tuesday

  The Rook

  “It’s a wild ride with a shocking conclusion.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Readers will be on the edge of their seats.”

  —Romantic Times, top pick

  “Steven James has mastered the thriller . . . Best story of the year. Perfectly executed.”

  —The Suspense Zone

  “Suspense thriller writing at its highest level.”

  —TitleTrakk.com

  “Steven James hooked me with his debut, The Pawn. Now in his explosive sequel he has absolutely blown me away.”

  —The Christian Manifesto

  THE KNIGHT

  THE BOWERS FILES # 3

  STEVEN JAMES

  © 2009 by Steven James

  Published by Revell

  a division of Baker Publishing Group

  P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287

  www.revellbooks.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  James, Steven, 1969–

  The knight / Steven James.

  p. cm. — (The Bowers files ; 3)

  ISBN 978-0-8007-3270-7 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-8007-1898-5 (cloth)

  1. Criminologists—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3610.A4545K57 2009

  813' .6—dc22 2009014944

  All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to real people, either factual or historical, is purely coincidental.

  For Jen and Kristin

  Thanks for being patient

  Don’t you know how the tiger trainer goes about it? He doesn’t dare give the tiger any living thing to eat for fear it will learn the taste of fury by killing it. He doesn’t dare give it any whole thing to eat for fear it will learn the taste of fury by tearing it apart.

  He gauges the state of the tiger’s appetite and thoroughly understands its fierce disposition. Tigers are a different breed from men . . . the men who get killed are the ones who go against them.

  —Chinese philosopher Chuang Tzu, 351 BC

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  1

  Thursday, May 15

  Bearcroft Mine

  The Rocky Mountains, 40 miles west of Denver

  5:19 p.m.

  The sad, ripe odor of death seeped from the entrance to the abandoned mine.

  Some FBI agents get used to this smell, to this moment, and after awhile it just becomes another part of the daily routine.

  That’s never happened with me.

  My flashlight cut a narrow seam through the darkness but gave me enough light to see that the woman was still clothed, no sign of sexual assault. Ten sturdy candles surrounded her, their flames wisping and licking at the dusty air, giving the tunnel a ghostly, otherworldly feel.

  She was about ten meters away and lay as if asleep, hands on her chest. And in her hands was the reason I’d been called in.

  A slowly decomposing human heart.

  No sign of the second victim.

  And the candles flickered around her in the dark.

  Part of my duties at the FBI’s Denver field office include working with the Denver Police Department on a joint task force that investigates the most violent criminal offenders in the Denver metroplex, helping to evaluate evidence and suggest investigative strategies. Since this crime appeared to be linked to another double homicide the day before in Littleton, Lieutenant Kurt Mason had asked for my help.

  But some local law enforcement officers tend to be territorial, and from the moment I’d stepped off the task force helicopter I’d seen how excited the four men from the crime scene unit were that I was here. It probably didn’t help matters that Kurt wanted me to survey the scene with him before they processed the tunnel.


  The mine was barely high enough for me to stand in, and narrow enough for me to touch both sides at once. Every five to ten meters, thick beams buttressed the walls and ceiling, supporting against cave-ins.

  A rusted track that had been used by miners to roll ore carts through the mine ran along the ground and disappeared into the darkness somewhere beyond the woman’s body.

  As I took a few steps into the tunnel, I checked to see if my Nikes left an imprint but saw that the ground was too hard. So, it was unlikely we would have shoe impressions from the killer either.

  With each step, the temperature dropped, dipping into the low forties. The time of death was still unknown, but the cool air would have slowed decomposition and helped preserve the body. The woman might have been dead for two or three days already.

  One of the candles winked out.

  Why did you bring her here? Why today? Why this mine?

  Whose heart is that in her hands?

  The voice of one of the crime scene unit members cut through the dim silence. “Yeah, Special Agent Bowers is inside. He’s taking his time.”

  “I should hope so.” It was Lieutenant Mason, and I was glad he was here. He’d been on the phone since I arrived, and now I paused and waited for him to join me.

  A beam of light swept past me as he turned on his flashlight, and a moment later he was standing by my side.

  “Thanks for coming in on this, Pat.” He spoke in a hushed voice, a small way to honor the dead. “I know you’re leaving to teach at the Academy next week. I’m hoping—”

  “I’ll consult from Quantico if I need to.”

  He gave me a small nod.

  Forty-one, with stylish, wire-rimmed glasses and swift intelligent eyes, Kurt looked more like an investment banker than a seasoned detective, but he was one of the best homicide investigators I’d ever met.

  It’d been a hard year for him, though, and it showed on his face. Five months ago while he and his wife Cheryl were on a date, their fifteen-month-old daughter Hannah drowned in the bathtub while the babysitter was in the living room texting one of her friends. Kurt and I had only known each other for a few months when his daughter died, but I’d recently lost my wife, and in a way the sense of shared tragedy had deepened our friendship.

  Silently, we donned latex gloves. Began to walk toward the woman’s body.

  “Her name is Heather Fain.” His voice sounded lonely and hollow in the tunnel. “I just got the word. Disappeared from her apartment in Aurora on Monday. No one’s seen her boyfriend since then either—a guy named Chris Arlington. He was a person of interest in the case . . . until . . .” He let his voice trail off. He was staring at the heart.

  I looked at Heather’s body, still five meters away, and let her name roll through my mind.

  Heather.

  Heather Fain.

  This wasn’t just a corpse, these were tragic remains of a young woman who’d had a boyfriend and dreams and a life in Aurora, Colorado. A young woman with passions and hopes and heartaches.

  Until this week.

  Grief stabbed at me.

  Kurt’s comment led me to think he might have reason to believe this was Chris Arlington’s heart. “Do we know the identity of the second victim?” I asked. “Whether or not it’s Chris?”

  “Not yet.” An edginess took over his voice. “And I know what you’re thinking, Pat: don’t assume, examine. Don’t worry. I will.”

  “I know.”

  “We have to start somewhere.”

  I focused the beam of light on the heart. “Yes, we do.”

  Together, we approached the body.

  2

  The candles gave off a scent of vanilla that intermingled with the smell of moldering flesh and the sharp sulfurous odor coming from deeper in the mine. I wondered if the candles were the killer’s way of trying to mask the smell of the body as it began to decay, wondered where he might have purchased them, how long they’d been burning.

  Details.

  Timing.

  “I should tell you,” Kurt said, “Captain Terrell’s not thrilled this is going through the task force. He wants it local law enforcement all the way.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up.” Even from three meters away I could see the heart’s intricate, fleshy veins. “We’ll deal with that later.”

  We arrived at Heather’s body.

  Caucasian. Mid-twenties, medium build, dusty brown hair. Fresh lipstick. I pictured her alive, moving, breathing, laughing. Based on the bone structure of her face, she would have had a lovely, shy smile.

  Her skin was mottled and blotchy and there’d been minor insect activity, but the cool temperature had kept it to a minimum.

  I studied the heart for a moment—reddish black and clutched in her hands. It looked so dark and terrible lying on her chest.

  Then I let my gaze shift to the candles. Over the years I’ve found that having a clear understanding of a crime’s timing and location is the most important place to start an investigation. I looked at my watch and then blew out the five candles encircling her legs. “Jot down 5:28 p.m.”

  Kurt wrote the numbers on his notepad. “Wax flow?”

  “Yes.” Later, we would have Forensics burn this brand of candle at this altitude and this temperature and compare the melting rate and amount of wax flow to determine how long these candles had been burning. It would tell us when the killer was last here. I didn’t need to tell Kurt any of this; we were on the same wavelength.

  I studied the position of the body in relationship to the way the tunnel curved to the left as it followed the vein of minerals winding through the mountain. It appeared that Heather’s body hadn’t been placed haphazardly in the mine. The killer had centered her between two support beams.

  He wanted us to see her as soon as we stepped into the mine. He’s framing her. Like a picture.

  “Just a few more minutes,” Kurt said, jarring me out of my thoughts. “Then I need to let the CSU guys in.”

  I leaned over her body.

  Her eyes were closed.

  No visible body art.

  No ripped clothing, no sign of a struggle. Black slacks, brown leather boots, a yellow and orange flower-patterned blouse stained dark with the blood that had seeped from the heart.

  I brushed away a strand of hair covering her left ear and saw that it was pierced in three places, but she wore no earrings. I checked the other ear. No jewelry. “Let’s find out if she was wearing earrings the day she was abducted. If she was, check ViCAP for other cases of killers who take earrings as trophies of their murders.”

  He wrote in his notepad.

  “Kurt, besides you, how many officers have been in here?”

  “Just two.” He pointed his light toward an intersecting tunnel leading to the east. “I checked the tunnels before they got here. It’s clear. No more bodies.”

  Water dripped out of sight somewhere deep in the mine. Wet echoes crawling toward me.

  “Do we know who owns this mine?”

  He shook his head. “Up here, mineral rights change hands a lot. Get inherited, resold. It’s hard to track down. Jameson’s working on it.”

  I gave Heather my full attention again.

  No contusions on her face, no blood in her hair, no ligature marks on her neck. How did he kill you, Heather? Press a pillow against your face? Drown you? Poison you?

  “Let’s get a tox screening.”

  “ME’s on his way up to get things rolling.”

  The candle beside her right shoulder blinked out.

  I moved my beam of light past the heart and directed it onto the slight folds and wrinkles in her clothing.

  Kurt bent beside me, pointing first at her shoulders, then at her ankles. “No clumping or bunching of her clothes,” he said. “He didn’t drag her in here; he carried her.”

  “Looks like it. Either way, he took time to smooth out her clothes, to brush her hair. He spent time with her. Posing her. Making sure everything was just right.”

/>   I felt a renewed sense of sadness at her death and the death of the person whose heart now lay on her chest. Moving the beam of light across her body, I thought of how many killers return to the dump sites of their victims to violate their remains, to relive the thrill of the murder, but there was no sign he’d defiled her remains. And I was thankful, if for nothing more than that.

  Why here? Why did you bring her here? When I’m in the middle of an investigation I have a tendency to talk to myself, and I didn’t realize I’d done more than just think my two questions until I heard a woman’s voice behind me: “He’s sending us a message.”

  Then footsteps, quick, firm, purposeful. Careful to avoid shining the beam in her eyes, I tilted my flashlight toward the woman approaching us. In the corner of the light, I could see her naturally beautiful, cowgirl face and strawberry blonde hair.

  “Detective Warren,” I said.

  “Agent Bowers.”

  At twenty-nine, Cheyenne was the youngest woman ever to be promoted to homicide detective for the Denver Police Department. She was smart, down-to-earth, dedicated, and I liked her. I’d worked six task force cases with her over the last year, and each time I’d become more impressed.

  Even though I was seven years older, there was definitely chemistry between us, and she’d taken the lead and asked me out twice, but the timing hadn’t been right. However, in light of the problems I was having in my current relationship, those two instances came to mind.

  Her eyes whisked past me and found the body illuminated by Kurt’s flashlight. “Ritualistic posing,” she said. “He took his time to get it just right.”

  “Yes.” I focused my light on Heather again.

  One of the CSU members called loudly for Kurt. I saw his jaw tense; he spent a moment in quiet deliberation, then handed Cheyenne his light, excused himself, and stepped away.

  I returned my attention to Heather, and as I leaned close to her face, I noticed something in her mouth. Gently, I pressed against her lower lip to peer inside.

  A black device the size of a folded-up strip of gum lay on her tongue.

  Cheyenne saw it too. Knelt closely beside me. Most of my attention remained on the crime scene, but some of it shifted to her, to the soft brush of her arm against mine.

  We both scrutinized the object. “What is that?” she asked.