Fear No Evil

Trask found it ironic that Monique’s death all those years ago had come around full circle. He’d enlisted the help of his friends to dispose of the body. He should have known Trevor Conrad was weak. He’d had to kill Trevor, too, but Trask couldn’t make Trevor disappear as easily as Monique.

And now “Trevor” had brought Lucy to him. Lucy, who looked so much like Monique that Trask felt sixteen again.

He couldn’t wait to relive the experience.

FOUR

DILLON PACED the small room the task force had set up to find Lucy. Special Agent Joseph Garcia was working with Patrick to pore through code on Lucy’s computer, as well as the feed that was coming in from an unknown server. The feed that showed Lucy in her bra and jeans, tied to the floor, terrified. Though he wanted to, Dillon couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Connor had left the room immediately after Lucy’s shirt was ripped off. Carina went after him. That was nearly an hour ago. Time was not on their side.

It was a countdown to murder.

They had less than forty-five hours to find Lucy. Though saving her life was their number one priority, Dillon wanted to find her now, to save her from what was about to happen-what his sixth sense, his experience, told him would inevitably happen.

Dillon turned when the door opened, expecting Connor and Carina to return. Instead a tall, lanky cop entered the room. Special Agent Quinn Peterson’s professional attire was rumpled and he carried a jacket over his shoulder and a thick file folder under one arm.

Nick Thomas made the introductions. Nick had worked with Peterson on the Butcher investigation in Montana. It helped that Nick trusted the FBI agent, but Lucy was not their sister. They didn’t have to face Rosa and Pat Kincaid and tell them that their daughter was about to be raped in public for the sick pleasure of everyone who ponied up the money to watch.

Peterson dumped his jacket and paperwork on the table and turned to Garcia. “Any developments?”

Garcia shook his head. “Just what I told you on the phone. He raised the ante.”

“Any headway on the feed?”

“He has better security than the Pentagon. But Kincaid here is a pro.”

Dillon spoke. “Agent Peterson, what do you know about the man who has my sister? You’ve obviously dealt with him in the past.”

At that moment, Carina walked in with Connor, who saw Peterson and made a beeline for him. “What the hell is going on? Where’s my sister? Why was she taken?”

Dillon tried to give his brother a look to steady his temper, but it failed. Connor was acting out what Dillon felt inside: a deep rage and sense of failure in protecting their youngest sister.

“Sit down, Mr. Kincaid,” Peterson said, unfazed.

“I’ll stand.” Connor crossed his arms.

Dillon sat, wanting answers. Peterson seated himself across from him. “You’re the forensic psychiatrist, right?” Peterson asked Dillon.

“Correct.”

“This is for you.” Quinn pushed over the file folder. “A copy of everything we have on Trask.”

“Trask?”

Peterson nodded. “That’s the name we know him by. He’s calling himself Trevor Conrad now. His name has changed a half dozen times that we know of, but his real identity remains a mystery. We have his prints from a case five years ago, but they haven’t matched anything on record. He’s not in the system.”

“He’s been doing exactly what for how long?”

Peterson took a deep breath, glanced at everyone in the room, then focused on Dillon. “I’m not going to lie to you. Trask has killed at least nine young women over the past ten years. Before he went underground five years ago, he was a semilegitimate businessman running an online porn website.”

“How’d you get his prints?”

“Off a murder weapon. We have no name, but we have matched them to a long-standing snuff-film distributor who ran a company called Achilles Film Distribution.”

“Arrogant,” Dillon said. “He knows he’s not in the system so he doesn’t even try to hide his identity.”

“Trask is the walking definition of arrogance,” Peterson said. “We know he still runs-through shell corporations, fake identities, and some real people-legal pornography websites. Live webcam sex acts, stripping, pornographic downloads, things like that.”

“And you haven’t been able to track him from that?”

“A task force worked for a solid year trying to unravel his network after one of his actresses disappeared and it appeared she’d been killed online. There was no proof, however, and the employees of his company claimed she’d just quit.

“The task force was dismantled, but two agents continued to investigate on their own time. Trask’s organization came apart when he abducted one of those agents during an unsanctioned sting. He made a federal agent part of his show. He and his crew raped and murdered her live on the Internet, knowing the FBI would see it. Then he disappeared. Our team was”-he gestured helplessly with his hands-“torn apart. And because Trask went into hiding for two years, every trail we had turned cold.

“He popped up three years ago with another live murder and has killed five more women since Agent Henshaw died. The bodies of three earlier kills-April Klinger, Denise Arno, and Erica Gomez-have never been found, but we have evidence that they are in fact dead.”

“And you can’t find him?” Connor leaned over and put his hands on the table. “That doesn’t say much about our federal law enforcement, does it?”

Peterson dipped his head in partial acknowledgment, but his clenched jaw told Dillon he was angry. “We lost two good agents five years ago. We’re not going to lose more.”

“But you’re willing to sacrifice my sister!” Connor pushed himself away from the table and ran a nervous hand through his hair.

“We’re not willing to sacrifice anyone,” Quinn responded.

“So what is the FBI doing?” Dillon kept his voice composed while his stomach churned. He was trying to keep things calm even when he felt anything but.

Peterson slapped a hand on the thick folder now in front of Dillon. “This is who we’re up against. A man without remorse, a man who gets his kicks from raping, torturing, and murdering women. But make no mistake about it, he’s in it for another reason, too: to make money. The legal porn industry is a multi-billion-dollar business; the illegal porn industry is worth even more. He thrives on the risk, on taunting us, on being smarter than anyone else. You read his file, Dr. Kincaid, and let me know what you think.”

Dillon kept his voice low, but his tone radiated his own anger and helplessness. “From what you’ve told us so far, we have less than forty-five hours to find my sister before she’s dead. This isn’t pornography or sex slaves. This is murder.”

Peterson curtly nodded.

“What do we need to do? Between all of us we can pull together a million dollars, maybe.” Dillon glanced at his siblings.

“He isn’t holding her for ransom,” Peterson said.

“But we need resources to find him, don’t we? You’re basically saying that you don’t have the time, money, or manpower to track him down before Lucy’s time is up.”

Peterson opened his mouth, then closed it, then said, “To be perfectly honest, by the time we found out about the women after our agent was murdered, the countdown was too tight. We tried and failed to isolate the feed. And by the time the girls were dead, he had closed shop. He sends out false leads that we follow, wasting time. But we can’t not follow up. We found one of the victims the day after, but by that time he’d cleared out completely and the rape and murder were already available for download. We have more time