Chapter Ten
It was much later that night when Cade, Elliot and Jerah got back to the Rivers Foundation. It was a tired bunch that exited the car. They were surprised when the door opened and their big brother Aaron joined them.
“What in the world brings you down here?” Cade asked as they shook hands.
“I received a call from the warden at the prison where Brock Daniels was sitting on death row.”
Cade froze. “You say that like something happened to the man?” It was more a question that a statement.
“Daniels is dead,” Aaron told his younger brother.
After a long moment of silence Cade asked, “How did that happen?”
“He faked a stroke and when they were taking him to the infirmary he suddenly came around and tried to escape. The guards had to take him down before he could get away. At the same time in the lunchroom, three other prisoners started a food fight. For a time, there was chaos at the prison then when they got everything back to normal and the prisoners back in their cells they found five dead. Daniels was one of them.”
“How did he die?” Cade asked.
“During the struggle to subdue him, he got a hold of a shive. He stabbed a guard but the guard managed to turn the shive on him. The shive went into his chest and he bled to death.”
“Are you sure he’s really dead?” Cade whispered.
Aaron frowned at him.
“I want to see his body,” Cade said.
“Why? What difference will that make?”
“I want to see for myself that he’s dead. I want to see his dead body so I know this nightmare is finally over. I need that and only that for closure.”
Aaron nodded. After everything the man had put his brother through, he didn’t blame him. “When Warden Kristler called me earlier today, he said they were shipping the body to the Goldsboro Medical Examiner. He said the name was Paul Walder.”
Cade looked over at Jerah. “Find out Walder’s phone number. I want to talk to the man, and get the number for the warden’s office.”
Jerah went inside leaving the brothers alone. Aaron stared at Elliot then at Cade. “I don’t know what you expect to find. Daniels couldn’t have gotten out of there alive.”
“I’m not saying he did. I just want to make sure he’s really dead.”
Jerah stepped out a few minutes later and handed Cade a slip of paper. On the paper were two phone numbers. Cade motioned for her to hang on a minute. When he dialed the first number, he asked for Paul Walder.
“Mr. Walker, this is Cade Rivers. I’m calling to inquire about the body of Brock Daniels.”
“I’m sorry Mr. Rivers, but I don’t have a body here with that name.”
“He would have come in from the prison earlier today,” Cade said.
After a pause, Paul told him, “I’m sorry but I don’t have his body. I didn’t get a transport from the prison today, nor was I notified I was getting one. Is there a problem here?”
“Not one you can do anything about but thanks.” Cade cut the call off. He glanced at Aaron and Elliot. “Goldsboro never got the body.” He looked at the paper again and dialed the second number. It was a direct line into Warden Kristler’s office. When he answered the call Cade told him, “This is Cade Rivers. You called my brother Aaron this morning about the death of an inmate Brock Daniels.”
“Of course Mr. Rivers, what can I do for you?” Mike Kristler asked.
“Can you tell me where you sent Brock Daniels after his death?”
“We sent him to the Goldsboro Medical Examiner’s office. I told your brother all of this, hours ago.”
“I know you did, but I just called Paul Walder and he doesn’t have Daniels body yet.”
“How can he not have the body yet? It’s only a two hour trip. His body left here shortly after noon.”
“I don’t know, but he said the body never showed up.” Cade hesitated for a moment then said, “I’m going to contact the police on this end. I suggest you start on your end and meet them somewhere in the middle.”
“I’ll get a team out right now. We’ll get back to you as soon as we know anything.”
“Thank you Warden.” Cade cut the call and looked at his brothers. “Kristler is getting a team out looking for the transport wagon now. We have to contact the police and head them toward the prison. Hopefully they’ll meet somewhere and find the bus.”
Elliot watched as Cade stepped away from the group. He glanced toward Aaron. “I wonder what the hell went wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” He looked around. “How is the case coming? Briar sort of filled me in while I was waiting for you to return.”
“We’re hunting a real bastard this time,” Elliot told him. “He’s been killing for over fifteen years. We have two witnesses but we’re getting a handle on the case.”
“So I understand.” Aaron nodded. “I also hear Briar is back in Cade’s good graces now. How the hell did that happen?”
“That is a long story which I will gladly tell you about some night over a good stiff drink, but not tonight,” Elliot told him.
Cade came back and they went inside. Briar, Quinn and the others were already going over what they found out today. Twenty minutes later, Cade’s phone rang. “Rivers.”
“Mr. Rivers, this is Warden Kristler.”
“Did you find him?” Cade wanted to know.
“We found the transport vehicle. But Brock Daniels was gone. He murdered the driver and the intern and escaped.”
Cade’s fingers tightened on the phone in his hand. “You said he was dead. How the hell can a dead man murder two people?”
“We asked the doctor who proclaimed him dead, the same question,” Kristler told him. “He said Daniels threatened to have his family murdered if he didn’t help him escape. He said Daniels had already kidnapped his grandchild and threatened to send him pieces of the child until there was nothing left.”
“How long ago did your men die?” Cade asked. He caught his brothers’ attention and everyone was waiting for answers.
“The coroner says less than four hours ago.”
“Damn, he could be anywhere by now,” Cade commented.
“There is something else you need to know,” Kristler told him.
“What else could there be?” Cade asked.
“He wrote a message in the blood of one of my men. He wrote, ‘Tell Rivers I’m coming to get him. I’m coming to get them all’...”
Cade felt his blood grow cold. Slowly, the phone slid out of his hand and dropped to the floor. He turned his head to stare at his brothers and stumbled toward a chair. Sitting down ,he rubbed his forehead for a moment. Reaching over, he picked up his phone. “Thank you Warden. We’ll be ready for him on this end.”
“I’m sending the state police to your address,” Warden Kristler told him.
Cade snapped his phone closed and stood up. He looked at the others and said, “Aaron, get your wife here now. Someone call Mom and Dad and have them come here too. This place is better fortified than their house.”
“What’s going on Cade?” Aaron asked.
“Daniels managed to get out of prison today. He’s been free for about four hours now and he left a message in blood. He said he’s coming after all of us.”
“Are you sure bringing everyone here is such a good idea?” Aaron asked.
“This place has a security system. I think together we can survive this, but not if we’re worried about our loved ones,” Cade argued. He walked up to Aaron. “Daniels doesn’t care who he murdered to get to us. He’s a true killer and he’s had ten years to plan this thing through. Ten years to think of nothing but our deaths.” Cade looked at the others then back to Aaron, “Are you willing to give him access to Karen or Mom or Dad? He’ll kill them just to cause us pain, then he’ll come here and do the same to us.”
“How the hell did he get out?” Briar asked.
“He’s got someone on the outside helping him. He had someone take the grandchild of one of the prison doctors. He said that unless the doctor helped him he’d start sending pieces of the baby to the family.”
“Oh, my god…” India whispered in horror.
Cade turned his head and stared at her. “Yeah, the man is a real bastard and he has a hard on for my family. Since I put him away.” Cade looked at the floor for a moment then at the rest of his family. “If we’re together, he can’t do to one of us what he did to Marisa. I don’t want him to catch us unawares like that again.”
Aaron reached for his phone and called his father. When he explained the situation, Levi promised to get his wife and be with them in a few minutes. Briar went over to the gun cabinet and opened it. He began passing weapons out to the others.
Quinn went over to a roll top cabinet and pushed back the cover. A series of security screens showed the perimeter of the compound.
India and T.K. watched everyone get ready in stunned silence. This was something they hadn’t expected.
T.K. grabbed her hands and they backed out into the courtyard. T.K. reached for a cigarette and with shaking hands she said, “Wow, this is just great. There nothing like a psycho killer on the loose to get the old heart pumping, is there?”
“What are you saying? This is no one’s fault,” India told her friend.
“Maybe this is a sign we aren’t meant to survive this,” T.K. muttered.
India walked closer to her friend. “We are going to survive this and we’re going to put our monster down too. We’ve come too far now, not to.”
“What if this guy gets through Cade’s security tonight? What if he gets close enough to take even one of us out?” T.K. asked.
“Cade and his brothers won’t let that happen,” India assured her.
T.K. flipped her cigarette to the ground. “You don’t know that. For all anyone knows, he’s sitting out there in the dark watching us right now. And you know as well as I do that if he gets inside the walls, he’ll murder us all. He can’t leave any of us alive.”
India nodded. “I know that, we all do. But I’ll be damned if I going to make it any easier for him. Fifteen years ago, I ran away and hid. I did what a child does when their scared but I’m not that little girl anymore. That was the wrong thing to do then and it’s the wrong thing to do now.”
“Fifteen years ago we were nothing more than children. What else could we do?” T.K. argued.
“We could have gone to the police. We could have told someone. We kept a killer’s secret all these years and god only knows how many women he’s murdered because of it.”
“I’m afraid,” T.K. whispered.
India pulled her friend into her arms and whispered back, “So am I.”
“Ladies,” Aaron called from the doorway.” I think you both need to come inside now.”
India and T.K. glanced his way. He was standing there with the light of the house behind him. He also had a gun in his hand. As they joined him, they watched as he locked the door behind them and pulled the curtain closed against the night.
India made her way into the living room and when she got there, she saw Claire and Levi with an unknown woman. She watched as Aaron joined them and wrapped his arm around the other woman.
“What do you think Daniels’ next move will be?” Claire asked her son.
“I wish I knew,” Cade replied. “I don’t think he knows about this place yet.”
“You’re wrong about that,” India told them. “He knows all about this place and what you do here.”
“What?” Cade turned to her.
India went over to her laptop and searched for an article she’d read. When she found it, she gave the laptop to Cade.
Cade began to read it. After a moment or so, he handed the laptop to his brother Quinn. “Can you put this up so everyone can see it?”
Quinn attached the laptop to the big screen TV in the room. Moments later, the article Cade had just read was visible to everyone. It was a reporter’s interview with Brock Daniels. The main picture was of the killer Cade and Elliot brought to justice but in the background taped to the walls of his cell were pictures of the Foundation and each of the family members. All five sons were circled in red.
There were other pictures circled in red as well. Each member of the Foundation was circled, Faith, Fallon, Jerah and Kanan. Even Levi’s picture was up on his wall. Claire’s photo had a red heart around it.
Everyone was stunned by what they saw.
Cade raised his weapon to the grinning face of the man that killed his Marisa and India could see his finger tighten on the trigger. She could see the bead of sweat running down the side of his face and the look of fear and panic on everyone’s face.
“You have to beat him at his own game in order to stop him,” she told the group quietly.
Cade swung his head in her direction. “What the hell do you know about this?”
His look of extreme hatred floored her but she replied calmly, “When I was in college I found this article. I didn’t know about you or the Foundation. I was researching serial killers and Brock Daniels’ name came up. I found this particular article about four years ago. I was curious so I looked further into Brock Daniels. The man is a sadist and he just plain likes to kill. The closest anyone ever came to finding him was you and Elliot ten years ago.”
“I know that,” Cade told her. “He kidnapped and murdered my fiancée Marisa ten years ago.”
“I know. He was using her as a lure to get you and Elliot in his crosshairs. He was going to kill all three of you that night. He told the reporter who wrote the article that much. Did you finish reading the article?” India asked.
He shook his head.
“The rest of the article says he used the months between Marisa’s murder and the time you finally caught him to work out a plan to murder the entire family. Then you found him and put him in jail before he could put his plan into action.”
“That’s where he belonged!” Cade exclaimed. “He’s lucky I was a cop. I could have ended his miserable life but instead, I brought him to the courts. I wanted him to know he had the death sentence waiting for him. I wanted him to know that every day was one day closer to the day the state would put him to death legally.”
“What did you mean a few minutes ago when you said we would have to beat him at his own game to stop him?” Levi asked India.
She walked over to the TV and pointed at Brock Daniels face. “From what I understand, he’s a special kind of killer. He uses a person’s fear to control the outcome of his brand of murder. He gets as much pleasure from the fear as he does the actual act of killing, maybe even more from the fear itself.” She looked around the room. “My Psych professor used his case as an example in class one day. He told use that men like Daniels began his career by acting on impulse rather than thinking things through. He craved the thrill of the hunt almost more than the end results. When his kill was over there was always something missing for him and that’s what drove him toward the next kill. He said he was trying to reclaim the thrill he got when he committed his first murder only for him that thrill was gone.”
“So you’re saying Daniels gets his rocks off over hunting rather than killing?” Aaron asked. “But that doesn’t make any sense. Why does he kill then?”
“We need to take his reason away from him,” Cade told them. “I see where she’s going with this.”
“Well, I’m glad you do because I’m more confused than I was a moment ago,” Quinn said.
“By now, he knows we know he’s escaped,” Cade explained. “He thinks we’re cowering in fear of him coming after us.”
“Aren’t we?” Claire asked.
“Yes we are but that’s what he’s counting on. He’d never know that by learning as much as we can about the type of killer he is the less fear we’ll have when he actually makes his move against us.” Cade turned to India. “What would your Psych professor expect us to do next?”
“You need to clear your mind of the fear and think out a rational plan of action. Turn the tables on him and make him fear you. Make him make a mistake that will allow you to get the upper hand.”
Cade took a few steps toward her and grabbing both sides of her head, he kissed her soundly. “Thank you sweetheart. You just saved the day.” He turned toward the group as a whole and outlined his plan. “She’s right. We need a plan of action. We know he’s coming here, so let’s batten down the hatches so to speak and get ready for him.”
Briar growled and moved closer to India. Wrapping his arm around her shoulder, he pulled her closer to him.
Levi grinned at the antics of Briar then turned to his other son and asked, “What do you want me to do?”
Cade told his father, “We need to find a safe room for the women.”
“Excuse me?” Jerah asked. She stood toe to toe with him. “I’m not going anywhere. If you’re taking a stand against this murderer than so am I.”
“Me too,” Fallon told her boss. They both looked at Faith and weren’t surprised when she checked her weapon and stood with them.
India broke away from Briar, went over to T.K. and wrapped her arm around the other woman’s shoulder. She could feel her shaking but she knew together they would be okay. “I hate guns but there must be something I can do to help.”
“Now may not be the best time for this announcement but Karen is pregnant. I don’t want her or Mom to be caught in the middle of this,” Aaron said.
“You’re right, now is not a good time. Congratulations by the way,” Cade told them. “But you’re right. I don’t want they caught in the middle either.”
“I know of a safe place,” Claire said. “We’ll use the pantry. There is only one way in or out of there and the door can be barricaded from the inside.”
“That sounds good to me.” Cade nodded. “Why don’t you and Karen go there until this is over?”
“Is there room in there for one more?” T.K. asked shakily.
“Of course,” Claire told her. She looked over at India.
Raising her hands, India passed on the offer.
Claire shrugged then took T.K. and Karen toward the kitchen.
Quinn called India over to the security screen and showed her how everything worked. Then he opened a drawer and passed out communication devices to everyone. “India and I will monitor the grounds while you guys set up in other rooms. If we see anything, we’ll let you know. Good luck.”
“What channel are we on?” Briar asked as he turned his device on.
“Channel five,” Quinn replied. When the devices were all on the same channel, a red dot appeared on the screen. The layout of the house told Quinn and India exactly where everyone was stationed. “Now comes the hard part,” Quinn whispered as he snapped off the lights and the whole house went dark. The screen lit up a small area with a green light.
“Will we see him coming?” India asked.
“Yeah, we have sensors along the fence line and in various places in the yard. If he passes them, we can track his progress right up to the house. The sensors invisibly paint a target on anything that passes in front of it. Then we can track the progress by way of a grid that turns on when the sensors go off. All the windows and doors have a sensor too. I’ve got everything on silent mode so no alarms will go off.”
“Why is waiting the hardest part of something like this?” India whispered.
“Waiting always is. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait long.”
They didn’t. About an hour later, something passed a sensor and a blue dot appeared on the screen.
Quinn picked up his communicator and told everyone, “Heads up. We’ve got something coming towards the house.”