Deadly Obsession Read online

  DEADLY OBSESSION

  Mike Anderson Mystery

  (Book Four)

  by

  JACK PARKER

  Copyright © 2019 by Jack Parker

  Cover and internal design © 2019 by Jack Parker

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Prologue

  "What are you thinking about?"

  "Nothing really, I'm just glad that you're…"

  "Here?"

  "Yes."

  While a collective sigh of relief was being had by all at the hospital where Mike had been in a coma, the Vigilante Killer himself had been able to listen in from his car due to the bugs he had placed in the hospital room right after Mike had been admitted there. Between the bugs in that hospital room and the few he placed around Agent Foster that they hadn't yet discovered, he had a pretty good handle on anything new going on in the case.

  The FBI had actually drastically underestimated him from that standpoint. They found a few of the obvious bugs and thought that was it. That's what the average criminal mastermind would have done under similar circumstances. But they never imagined a person would go even further than that. Why waste the money? Why waste the time?

  Money wasn't important to this Vigilante. He had his ways of earning cash, but it always came back to the job at hand. Time? He had plenty of time, and every moment was spent towards planning his next move. That was the difference between him and the average criminal, most of whom were in the business so that they could retire with a wad of cash on some island in the Caribbean. But to the Vigilante, this was his life. The authorities that had been chasing him all these years never understood that, and that's why he's always been one step ahead.

  "Ok, we got a list of friends and family of the victim. So let's split up the list and see if we can get them to talk." Foster's voice could be heard through the hidden listening device.

  "We already know that he's guilty though, thanks to the evidence in the Vigilante's video." one of the detectives with him mentioned.

  The Vigilante thought back to his last victim and smiled. It had been only a few days since he took the life of Raul Forgero, a criminal responsible for many burglaries in the suburbs around Houston. He was arrested multiple times, but the cases never made it to trial and soon he was back on the streets. He landed himself on the map of the Vigilante when he killed a husband and wife that happened to come home during his break-in.

  "What? I'm not talking about the Vigilante's victim, but the victim of the original crime. There's a high probability that one of them has been in contact with our killer."

  I give him credit, the Vigilante thought. He caught onto the idea that I talk to people close to the victim and get information about the case pretty fast. But he's wasting his time. They won't learn anything from these people.

  "Isn't Taylor on that?" came the reply from the unknown subordinate.

  "He was looking into that for the last victim. New victim, new assignments." Foster answered sternly.

  Foster was a great leader. Good at delegating responsibility. Good at demanding the most out of his men. But he didn't have what it took to catch someone like me, thought the Vigilante as he smiled. As confident as he looked when he was ordering people around, no amount of bravado would put him in the mindset to find that missing link that would sink me.

  "Foster, I just got a call from Memorial Hospital and Mike just woke up. Looks like he's going to be okay."

  "That's great. One less casualty I have to worry about." Foster was relieved, even though his words might not have made it obvious.

  The Vigilante Killer didn't know Mike as well as he wanted to. In the months he was here doing research before planning who his next victims would be, the only mention of Mike Anderson the police consultant was a couple of articles in the Chronicle detailing his involvement in a few cases. But when he found out that they were all written by one of his close friends, he just wrote it off as the usual sensationalism.

  Then finally when he hacked into the police department's conference room so that he could meet with the guys tasked with catching him face to face, Mike was there looking uncomfortable just sitting in that room. That's probably what made the Vigilante Killer underestimate him at first. But when he broke the connection, it only took him moments for them to figure out where he had been when he hacked into the meeting room.

  How did he do it, the Vigilante wondered. I've made plenty of moves against the FBI and most of them worked because they relied on the fact that by the time the trick was uncovered it wouldn't matter. The FBI had fallen for my misdirection ploy, because they didn't take the time to think. But this police consultant figured the trick out almost instantly, and as a result he came the closest anyone has ever been to catching me. They weren't supposed to discover that hideout until I wanted them to. And now… there are tons of loose ends with no way of tying them off. It's only a matter of time before their ace-up-the-sleeve consultant makes the connections that no one on the FBI had been able to make this whole time.

  Fortunately, despite his plans being foiled for a little while, he was able to kill victim #8 roughly on schedule. And now all of the preparations had been made to set the stage for his third and final victim of this city. If he could get through the next couple of weeks, he would be able to disappear once again for awhile until he found another city to work his magic.

  But that wasn't why he was here sitting in his car in some random neighborhood, listening to the day to day interactions of Agent Foster with his fellow detectives. He could have done that more effectively at his base. He was here because he had finally tracked down the man he had been looking for all of these years. It was a chase that had taken him from the city of New York where he had grown up, through numerous false leads and finally… to a trail that led him west to Denver and eventually to this very point.

  He was sure he had the right man this time. If there was one thing he was it was careful. He didn't make mistakes, especially not one on this scale. When a human life hung in the balance, he had to be sure. Because with just one mistake, suddenly he's no worse than the people he kills. His mistakes weeks earlier almost led to his newfound rival, Mike Anderson, dying in an explosion that would have ultimately been the Vigilante's fault. It was nearly a tragic mistake, and one that he couldn't afford to make again.

  It was very early in the morning, and yet it looked like the man he was looking for had yet to come back to his house. He had no other way to track this man, so the only option was to wait in front of his house and confront him when he got home. And when he finally did, he would most likely be tired, giving the Vigilante the advantage. His hands shook violently at the thought that he might soon be face to face with one of the men that was responsible for everything bad that had happened to him in his life. He hadn't felt this emotion in a long time. Anger? Sure, he had certainly been there. But fear? Worry? That feeling of uncertainty that existed because he wasn't sure how things would end? Not in a long time.

  Not since "The Incident", as he
preferred to call it. He only called it that because he didn't want to remind himself anymore of the details behind it. Giving the event a generic name made it easier to gloss over. He thought about it all the time, but at least he didn't have to relive everything again. Until now, he thought. He reached under his shirt to pull out the charm necklace he usually wore around his neck but hidden from public view beneath his clothes. It was the only possession of his that he treasured because it reminded him of where he came from. After fiddling with one of the plastic charms, he finally calmed down a little.

  I'm too nervous, the Vigilante thought. This isn't like me. I've never been nervous before. Even over the past couple of years, killing several people and video taping it for the world to see, I was always able to remain cold and emotionless and get the job done. Every time I interacted with the authorities, I was able to seem confident and determined, choosing my words carefully to get the message I wanted across. How many times had I shot or stabbed a man without a blink of an eye? And yet, after tracking down the man I've been after for years… I can't control myself.

  He had been preparing for this moment for what seemed like an eternity. All of the work put in and time he spent, it all led to today. He didn't even know what to say. Years of thinking about what it would be like to confront this man, and he still wasn't able to find the words to use. And part of what scared him was that when the time finally came, he didn't know what he would even do. He didn't know how he would react. Would the stress of the situation drive him to tears? Or would his anger compel him to just kill him instantly?

  He had been here all night, and his guy didn't show up at his house. The sun was beginning to rise. People in neighboring houses began their morning routines before leaving for work. There was nothing he could do if the man didn't come home. He could have met him at his job, but that would mean risking being seen by coworkers. But he never came home with anyone. The house was the best place for a confrontation.

  I'm running out of time and I have other things I need to do, he thought. He's not home, but I could leave him a message. It was absolutely no effort to find his phone number. And it took only a few moments to mentally conjure up a game plan for the phone call. While he was thinking about the call he began dialing the number and soon the phone was ringing. It kept ringing and ringing until the voice mail message began playing:

  "Hi, this is Dan Taylor. I'm not here right now but if you would please leave a message, I can get back to you as soon as I'm available."

  CHAPTER ONE

  "Hi, this is Dan Taylor. I'm not here right now but if you would please leave a message, I can get back to you as soon as I'm available."

  I hung up my cell phone in disappointment. I tried his house phone on the off chance he had been there, but he wasn't. He wasn't picking up when I called his cell phone either, so that either meant he was busy or forgot to turn his phone back on. I wasn't in a hurry to get in touch with him. It was no problem for me to just wait until I saw him at the station to give him an update on what I knew.

  "Not picking up?" Kari wondered from the other side of the room.

  "Nah, but I guess he can wait until we get to the station to learn what we know." I responded, trying to hide my frustration. It sucks when things don't go perfectly to plan, but then I realize there is nothing I can do about it and move on. It's far easier to just accept reality than to try to change something you can't control.

  "Wait, what do you mean 'until we get to the station'?" she asked as her face showed an expression I couldn't decipher.

  "The police station."

  "Duh! I know what 'station' means!" she responded with mock anger. "What I mean is… we're still working this case?"

  "Why wouldn't we be? He's still out there and we only have a little over a week to nab him before he kills his final victim." I answered.

  "The FBI is all over this case though. It's only a matter of time before one of their leads pan out." she said.

  I didn't trust the FBI to get the job done. They had let this guy free for far too long. This guy had given them videos of all of his kills, multiple calls to different people in the department. They knew what his voice sounded like, and they knew everything about what he looked like with the sole exception of his face. He always hid his face when he made those videos. But I knew what his face looked like. I spotted him on that security video at the hospital going into my room posed as a nurse.

  It wouldn't be enough for Agent Foster. He would wonder how I knew it was him. I couldn't answer that question because I honestly didn't know. But for some reason when I had been in a coma that whole time, I saw that same face when I confronted him in the dream world. Without knowing what he looked like from before, how was it possible that I was able to spot him in a crowded hospital right after waking up? Somehow my subconscious mind had put a voice and a face together, but I didn't know where I remembered him from. Maybe he had been at the crime scene in Pearland and I didn't know it.

  Foster would shoot me down the second I told him what I knew. He wouldn't tell the rest of his agents to take the face I gave them and run with it because he didn't trust my crazy hunches. And why should he? I have no resume, and I've only been around for a year as a consultant. I certainly don't have the instincts that most cops and federal agents have. Yet all of those instincts had done nothing to bring them a step closer to catching the Vigilante Killer.

  The FBI just doesn't have the right motivation to nab this guy in time. They can follow leads, analyze evidence, and collect DNA and fingerprints, but they won't be able to connect all of the dots because they don't want it enough. It was just like the Vigilante told me: on some level they actually sympathize with the Vigilante's victims. Anything they are doing right now is just going through the motions. He'll continue to be a threat until he makes a mistake big enough for the FBI to follow.

  You are forgetting that all of those conversations you had with the Vigilante Killer weren't real. None of that really happened.

  "Mike, are you there?" Kari suddenly asked, snapping me back into reality.

  "I'm still here." I answered back with the only words I could think of at the time.

  "Good, cause for a moment there I thought you had relapsed or something." she explained.

  "Relapsed?" I asked, confused as to what she could be referring to.

  "Yeah, like you were very still and quiet and I thought maybe you relapsed back into a coma."

  "Relapsed… into a coma." I repeated for emphasis as I started to crack up. "That's not possible."

  "Hey, I'm not a doctor! For all I know its very common." she said with a giggle.

  Suddenly it was like that explosion never happened. We were back to our old selves. Kari of course knew that 'relapsing back into a coma' was ridiculous. But she saw the opportunity to crack a silly joke and went with it. She was never afraid to make a joke at her own expense. It was one of the many things I liked about her.

  "But anyway, I think you should let the FBI finish this and take a little time off." she repeated her earlier statement.

  "Why are you suddenly interested in me taking a vacation from work?" I wondered.

  "Can a girl be worried for her best friend?" she answered in somewhat of a joking tone, although the meaning of her words implied more than just a joke.

  "There's nothing to be worried about."

  "Nothing to worry about? You almost DIED!" she almost yelled out the last word for emphasis.

  "Yeah, but I'm not in any danger. It's not like the guy is gunning for me." I mentioned.

  "How do we know? I mean, we didn't expect a bomb in that hide out of his but we were wrong about that."

  In coma-world I remember thinking that he was gunning for me. That he didn't underestimate me like everyone usually did. Maybe he did the research on everyone that might be involved in the case and found out about me. And then when he did the whole 'hack the police computers while we were holding a meeting' trick, I thought for a while he had somehow led me to
one of his hideouts on purpose because I was the only one that figured out the trick. And that all resulted in Kari dying in the explosion from the bomb he had stashed in that house.

  But I eventually realized that none of it was real. Kari didn't really die. All of those thoughts came from me being stricken with grief and looking for motives that didn't exist. Once I woke up and thought about it I realized none of that could have been true. First of all, in the history of this case, he had never fatally harmed an 'innocent' person. But on top of that, he banked on the fact that a lot of FBI agents and cops at some level sympathized with what he did. So if he killed someone involved in the case in such a dramatic fashion, I'm sure most of the detectives on the case would put in extra effort to catch this guy. And as big as the Vigilante's ego was, he was still smart enough to play off the sympathy many people had for him. He wouldn't kill anyone unless it was absolutely necessary.

  It did still leave one unanswered question. Why put a bomb in the house in the first place? He had never worked with bombs at any point during his serial killing spree. If he wanted to make sure his stuff didn't get into the wrong hands, he could've hid it much better. There had to have been some motive we were overlooking that played a large part in why he did things that specific way. I guess we would just have to wait until we had more clues on his personality to draw a more accurate conclusion.

  "No one is going to die. The hide out thing was a freak accident." I assured her.

  "Well, now every time you walk into a strange building I'm going to wonder if you even come out alive."

  "Why is it suddenly now you are concerned for my safety? You've known me for a year and I've always done this for a living." I wondered.

  For a moment I thought it had something to do with the near death experience making her overreact. But that couldn't be it, because she had a near death experience that first day we met about a year ago at our high school reunion and she came out of it relatively fine. She wasn't the type of have an irrational fear of something for no reason.