Springfield, Illinois

Durango Masters’ Home

It felt like déjà vu. Only there was nothing funny about this.

Durango was hung over, his head aching from the bottle of tequila he’d downed last night. Yet, he was showered and dressed by eight that morning, headed out the door to work like he’d done every other weekday morning for all his adult life. But, today, Detective John Fedor was waiting for him.

The man’s face was pale, dark shadows under his beady eyes. And his suit was as cheap and wrinkled as ever.

“Durango Masters? You’re under arrest.”

Durango shook his head. “You can’t do this. This is fucking harassment!”

Fedor gestured for one of the uniformed cops with him to step up and put the cuffs on Durango’s wrists.

“You have nothing on me! You know I didn’t kill Kyle!”

“This isn’t about Kyle,” Fedor said, pulling a laminated card out of his wallet to make sure he read the Miranda Rights properly. “You’re under arrest for the rape and murder of Detective Donna Hyde.”

Durango’s knees went weak, his stomach turning over with the burning alcohol that was still churning inside.

“She’s not—”

“She is. And the crime scene guys found your fucking fingerprints all over everything in the kitchen.” Fedor moved closer to Durango, his sour breath washing over his face. “I would also assume that when the coroner sends off the swabs from her body, they’ll find your DNA there, too.”

Durango knew he was right. And he knew Fedor was correct in coming here to arrest him now. But he hadn’t done it. Someone was setting him up.

He was in an interrogation room now, had been for so long that he was no longer sure what time of day it was. Fedor had been in and out, but the interrogation itself was being conducted by his captain, a man named Weller. The atmosphere was not incredibly friendly. Durango wasn’t surprised. Whenever a cop was killed, it was like a member of the family had been taken out. They were after revenge, and they didn’t care who fell in the process.

“Why are your fingerprints at her house?”

Durango sighed. He’d answered these questions dozens of times already. “I get a single phone call, don’t I?”

Weller set a picture down on the table. It was Hyde lying on a bed, her body naked, bruises visible on her thighs. Durango flinched.

“Did you do that?”

Durango knew better than to answer too many questions. They could use his own words against him in court documents, in the press, in his trial. He’d learned that the hard way five years ago.

Weller set another picture on the table. This one showed a t-shirt used as a ligature around her neck. “You get off strangling women? Is it a sexual fetish for you, Mr. Masters?”

He sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I know my rights, asshole. I get a fucking phone call!”

Another picture was taken from a distance, showing not only the body on the bed, posed as all the Harrison Strangler’s victims had been, but the mirror over a dresser that had been covered by a dark blanket.

It was definitely the Harrison Strangler, the same man who’d killed Sarah, Kyle, and now Detective Hyde.

Fuck! Why had he allowed this to happen?

“You were with her last night?”

Durango looked up at Weller. “I’ve answered all your questions. I’ve told you that she and I were lovers. Now I want my phone call.”

Weller leaned toward Durango over the table, getting close enough that his spittle flew onto Durango’s face when he spoke.

“Lovers don’t do to a woman what you did to her last night, asshole. The coroner just sent up his preliminary report. There was tearing on the vaginal wall, bruising on her thighs and her wrists, all injuries consistent with rape.”

“It wasn’t rape. It was consensual.”

“But she’s not here to support that, now is she?”

Weller smiled a sick little smile, his mouth opening to say something else when the door suddenly opened. The desk sergeant gestured for Weller to step out of the room. A second later, a beat cop came in, grabbing Durango by the arm and tugging him out of his seat. He led him to a holding cell at the back of the building, gesturing to the pay phone on the wall.

“Make your phone call.”

Durango crossed to the phone, aware of the man watching him. His head was splitting, his thoughts stunted with the information he’d gotten from those photographs. These people were too blinded to see what was really going on. But Durango could see it. He was being targeted by the strangler. Somehow the strangler knew who he spent time with, who he cared about. And he knew exactly how to make his actions look pretty damning.

Was someone watching him? Was someone else out there on that street last night, someone who watched him go into Hyde’s house? Did that same person somehow know what had transpired between the two of them while he was inside? How was that even possible?

This was getting out of control. Durango had to find the killer and end this once and for all.

He snatched up the receiver on the old-fashioned phone and dialed Axel’s cell phone.

“I’m in jail,” he said quickly before Axel even had a chance to say more than hello. “I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but I’m sure it’s safe to say that I’ll be out for a couple of days. I need you to take charge of things at the firm.”

“Why? What happened?”

“One of the detectives on Kyle’s case was found murdered during the night, and they’ve managed to connect some of the evidence to me.”

“To you? How the hell—”

“It’s a long story. I’ll explain when I get out. In the meantime, I need you to keep things running down there.”

“What about you? What about Kyle’s case?”

“Let me worry about that. You just keep Mastiff up and running.”

Durango hung up without waiting for a response from Axel.

He was on his own with this. He didn’t want to bring anyone else in, bring them too close to this killer. He couldn’t afford to lose any other friends, he had so few of them as it was.