Cruel

Book 4: Morris Brick Thriller

by Jacob Stone

Genres: Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

""Jacob Stone is equal parts Thomas Harris, Michael Connelly, Jo Nesbo, and Stephen King. CRUEL will leave you shaking . . . with fear, excitement, and the uncontrollable compulsion to keep on reading." --Lee Goldberg, #1 New York Times bestselling author of True Fiction "17." L.A. detective Morris Brick knows the number all too well. It was the gruesome signature the Nightmare Man left next to his victims' bodies. Brick's father was the first to investigate the killings. Five women were butchered before the perpetrator vanished. Seventeen years later he resurfaced--to kill again in the same depraved ways. Now another seventeen years have passed. Brick knows in his gut that it's time for the Nightmare Man to reawaken. But even Brick can't imagine the madman's true agenda. Or just how terrifying the sleepless nights are going to get in the City of Angels . . . "Rarely is an author so skilled at portraying such unremitting evil and the poignant, human side of his characters in a single tale." --Jeffery Deaver"

Release date: September 18, 2018

Publisher: Lyrical Underground

Print pages: 288

Sample

Prologue

Downtown Los Angeles alley, 2:18 a.m.

The rat grew frantic in its efforts to escape the trap, its front claws a blur as they scratched against the wire mesh. This one was older than the juveniles already collected, and showed the scars of a lifetime spent skulking through Los Angeles alleyways and sewers. Half of one ear had been torn off, its grayish-black fur matted, and a dozen wounds scabbed over. While the rat was larger than the others, it was still emaciated enough to be able to squeeze through a hole the size of a quarter. Rats like this one were crucial for what was coming.

The newspaper stories from 2001 didn’t mention rats, and neither did the ones from 1984. That had to be because the reporters hadn’t been told about them, or really about any of the specifics. In 1984, the newspaper and TV reporters described the murders only as depraved and sickening. A police officer must’ve given them that description, and someone with a touch of poetry in his soul named the killer the Nightmare Man. That name stuck—both in 1984 and in 2001—but it didn’t fully do the killer justice. While horrific, monstrous things were done to the victims, they were things that could only have come from the nightmares of a lunatic.

Just as some species of cicadas awaken only every seventeen years, the same was true of the Nightmare Man. October second would mark the seventeen-year anniversary of the start of the last killing spree, and new victims had already been chosen. They were both the least and most fortunate people alive. They would be dying the worst deaths imaginable, but they would have a kind of immortality, their fates forever entwined with the Nightmare Man. Because of that, they would never be forgotten.

The cage was picked up, and the rat inside backed up and got on its hind legs, its small black eyes shining with malevolence as it bared its teeth. It was an ugly thing and would do nicely for what was needed.

A homeless woman lay curled in a fetal position as she slept beside a dumpster. She stirred as the cage holding the rat was carried past her. Her red-rimmed eyes cracked open, her round, craggy face turning toward the soft padding of footsteps. In a raspy croak that sounded as if her throat had been scraped raw with sandpaper, she asked for money. Even from several feet away, the sour smell of cheap gin on her breath assaulted the senses. A decision now had to be made: whether to kill the old woman or ignore her. A moment of reflection revealed a third option—simply hand the homeless woman a twenty-dollar bill, and that was what was done. The woman mumbled something unintelligible as she accepted the money. She turned away as she hid the bill within her layers of clothing, and then she presumably fell back to sleep.

That was how it needed to be. It wasn’t time yet for the Nightmare Man to awaken from his slumber. October second was still a full ten days away. That was when the killings would start again. Besides, snuffing out the life of this old woman wasn’t necessary. Her alcohol-addled mind wouldn’t later connect this late-night intrusion of her makeshift home with the Nightmare Man’s return.

But the Nightmare Man was coming.

And Los Angeles would soon be weeping tears of blood.

Chapter 1

The toy poodle–pit bull mix was lying on her stomach, her paws covering a short, stubby snout. Lori Fletcher’s heart melted when she saw her.

“Her name is Sally,” Brian said. Rail-thin and gangly, the teenager wore a stained T-shirt, torn jeans, and what Lori hoped was only mud-encrusted tennis sneakers. He was a volunteer at the animal shelter and was showing her the dogs available for adoption. Just a kid, she thought, barely seventeen, if that. A few times she caught him sneaking peeks at her. She found him adorable, almost as much as the poodle–pit bull mix in the cage. He carried a loose-leaf binder that provided information about each dog, and he cleared his throat so his voice wouldn’t crack as he read the sparse notes that had been provided about Sally, telling Lori the dog displayed a gentle temperament, would be good with children, and appeared to be only six months old. “Do you want me to open the cage so you can say hello to her?”

Lori wasn’t there to adopt a soft, cuddly sweetheart like this mix, but against her better judgment she nodded. Brian unlatched the cage and opened the metal door, and the dog stood up and began slowly wagging her tail. Ever so cautiously the pooch edged toward the opening so she could stick her stubby nose out of the cage. The next thing Lori knew, she had the dog squirming in her arms as she hugged the poodle–pit bull mix to her chest, and the dog likewise struggled to lick her face. Lori broke out laughing. It had been an unusually stressful few weeks, and she needed something like this more than she could’ve imagined. She was smitten.

“Love at first sight,” Brian said, a note of jealousy in his voice. He showed a smart-alecky grin. “Or maybe it’s love at first lick.”

The dog was far more toy poodle than pit bull. While she had a pit bull’s square-shaped snout and blocky body, she was a small thing weighing less than twenty pounds with a poodle’s soft downy fur. But she wasn’t what Lori had in mind. The reason she needed a dog was to protect her from him. Except she didn’t know who he was.

A fear she couldn’t quite understand had been worming its way into her consciousness for weeks, and then four days ago she awoke with a profound thought screaming in her brain: he is going to do terrible things to you. She tried to dismiss this as simply a manifestation of her growing anxiety, except the certainty that he existed seemed so real that it left her shaken. It made no sense. She knew that, and for several days she tried to convince herself she’d only had a bad dream, and that was the only reason for the unease gnawing at her. Logically, that was what it had to be, except she couldn’t remember anything about the dream, and the fear that a killer was waiting for her in the shadows became overwhelming. Maybe she was suffering from a nervous breakdown. Maybe the explanation was as simple as that, but when she woke up this morning sobbing in terror that he was soon going to do depraved and horrible things to her, she believed it as much as she ever believed anything. She decided she had two choices: check herself in for psychiatric evaluation or get a dog to protect her. As much as Sally tugged at her heartstrings, the little fluff ball wouldn’t be able to protect her from a gust of wind. So she steeled herself and handed the dog back to Brian.

“I should look at other dogs before making a decision,” she said.

The teenager’s eyes widened with surprise, as he must’ve been sure Lori had found her match, but he placed the dog back in the cage, and as the door latched shut, the poodle–pit bull mix let out a heartbroken whine. This struck Lori like a dagger. She almost relented, but that ever-pervasive thought echoed in her head. He’s out there, and he’ll be coming for you soon.

Brian continued the tour. Most of the dogs up for adoption were pit bulls. There was one Chihuahua and a beagle and pug mix, but just about every other dog seemed to be pit bulls or pit bull mixes. Lori knew they had a reputation for ferocity, but that was probably only if they had been badly mistreated or trained that way, and the ones she saw all looked like loveable sweethearts, just like Sally. None of them would be able to protect her from her boogeyman…if he in fact existed.

When Brian brought her to a cage holding a large, angry-looking beast, Lori knew she’d found her protector. The animal had a thick, squat body, a large head, and a coal-black coat mottled with reddish-brown streaks. The dog gave her a sinister, dead-eyed stare. As she moved closer to the cage, a threatening noise between a snarl and a growl rumbled out of the beast’s throat. If it was meant to scare Lori off, it didn’t work. In fact, it had the opposite effect. The ferocity made her feel safe. She asked Brian if she could meet the dog.

“Really?” he asked, his voice rising an octave.

“He looks to me like he could use a good home.”

Brian consulted the loose-leaf binder, flipping through the pages until he found the one matching the cage number. His eyes scrunched up as he looked from the page to the dog and back to the page. “It says here his name’s Lucy,” he said.

Lori could see that the dog was male, and one that hadn’t been neutered. “That’s an odd name for him.”

“Very odd,” Brian agreed. He read more of the notes associated with the animal. “The veterinarian who examined him thinks he’s part Rottweiler and part Doberman. A hundred and twenty pounds. He’s had all his shots.” The teenager smirked. “If you adopt him, you should change his name to Lucky.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s only got three days left to be adopted before being put down. Are you sure you want me to take him out of his cage?”

The teenager seemed nervous to put his fingers anywhere near Lucy. Lori smiled sweetly at him and told him she’d do it. She had grown up with two Rhodesian ridgebacks, and large dogs didn’t intimidate her. She also knew the secret to a dog’s heart. Lucy made more snarling, growling noises and bared his fangs as she unlatched the cage and opened it. But the dog stayed where he was and didn’t move until Lori reached into her pocket and took out a bacon-flavored treat. The dog moved quickly then, snatching the treat away, somehow leaving her fingers intact. When Lori offered another treat, this one held in the palm of her hand, the dog was more careful about taking it. He even consented to let her scratch him behind the ear and thump him on the side.

As Lori stood beside the animal, she felt safe for the first time in days. She smiled at him. I’ll save your life and you’ll save mine. The dog cocked his head and gave her a quizzical look in return.

“I found my dog,” she told Brian. “Can I take him home with me?”

Chapter 2

Morris Brick had not been to Luzana’s before, and for good reason. The restaurant on North Cahuenga Boulevard had a reputation for putting a serious dent in its customers’ wallets, but even if that wasn’t the case, there was little chance he would’ve been able to get a table there. Luzana’s had become Los Angeles’s most exclusive hotspot. A place for Hollywood royalty, sports celebrities, and the ultra-rich to be seen and noticed. Morris might’ve become a minor celebrity after years of catching depraved serial killers, but that still wouldn’t have bought him a table reservation at Luzana’s, and so it only mildly surprised him when the maître d’hôtel gave him the snootiest look he had ever seen. He was genuinely surprised, however, after the man peered over his stand to see that the pig-like grunt just heard had come from Parker, Morris’s all-white bull terrier, that he made a shooing gesture with both hands. That was just plain rude!

Morris arched an eyebrow and, keeping his voice amiable, asked, “Am I supposed to guess that means you have no tables available? At twenty past two on a Tuesday?”

If it were possible, the maître d’ would’ve climbed onto a stepladder so he could look even further down his nose at Morris. “Apparently,” he mumbled under his breath.

Morris stood his ground and lazily rubbed his jaw. If he were the vindictive type, he could’ve called in a favor at the mayor’s office and had the place shut down for a kitchen violation—imagined or real, it didn’t matter. After all, six months ago he and his team at Morris Brick Investigations, commonly known as MBI, very likely saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of fellow Angelenos, and at a heavy cost. Charlie Bogle had almost died after being shot in the chest and hadn’t been the same since, even quitting MBI two months ago, and Morris himself had taken shrapnel to the leg from a booby trap, and it was only since last month that he was able to put away his cane. But as tempted as he was to drag the maître d’ out from behind the stand and teach him some manners, he maintained a calm demeanor and told him he was meeting a friend. “Philip Stonehedge. He’s already here,” he said.

The maître d’ opened his eyes wide with incredulity. Stonehedge was high up on Hollywood’s A-list, and not only that, he was dating the gorgeous Brie Evans, who sat near the top of the list. But since there was a remote chance Morris might be telling the truth, he asked for Morris’s name and made a phone call, keeping his voice low so Morris couldn’t eavesdrop. Shortly afterward, a waiter came bustling out of the main dining room and whispered something to the maître d’, whose attitude quickly changed.

It was almost as if a magic wand had been waved—in less time than it took to snap one’s fingers, his contempt transformed to full-blown obsequiousness. He bowed and asked Morris to follow him, and as he led them through the crowded dining room filled with Hollywood royalty and other studio muckety-mucks and onward to the equally bustling outdoor patio, Morris resisted the urge to plant a kick onto the man’s well-padded derriere.

Parker had been behaving himself, but he suddenly grunted excitedly and lurched forward as he strained against his leash. The bull terrier must’ve spotted Stonehedge, who was grinning at them from his table, the thick, jagged scar running down his cheek giving his grin a sardonic quality. The actor had gotten the scar from being slashed with a gun barrel. This happened after he had arranged with the mayor’s office to tag along with Morris on the Skull Cracker Killer investigation, although it wasn’t SCK who did the slashing but a vicious criminal by the name of Alex Malfi who didn’t appreciate the actor trying to interfere with a Beverly Hills jewelry store robbery. Malfi further showed his displeasure toward Stonehedge by shooting him in the thigh, and the actor would’ve died if it hadn’t been for Morris’s later heroics.

Stonehedge left the table to playfully tussle with Parker, then shook Morris’s hand and reached over to bring him in for a hug. The maître d’ stood deferentially off to the side until Stonehedge slipped him a fifty. Morris and Parker joined Stonehedge at the table, which already had several platters of food waiting for them. When the bull terrier grunted impatiently, the actor fed him a piece of meat from one of the platters.

“Wood-grilled lamb tenderloin wrapped in jamón ibérico,” the actor said, beaming. “Absolutely delicious.”

Morris knew enough Spanish to guess that jamón ibérico was a kind of expensive imported ham. Given the way Parker wolfed it down and grunted for more, the dog must’ve concurred with Stonehedge’s assessment.

“Don’t give him too much,” Morris said. “He needs to lose a few pounds.”

Stonehedge laughed at that. “Don’t we all?”

That was true for Morris. He needed to drop ten pounds from his waistline, but for someone who enjoyed gourmet food as much as Stonehedge, his friend somehow stayed as lean as a marathon runner. Before he could object, Stonehedge fed Parker another piece of lamb. Morris snared a piece for himself and had to agree it was exceptional. A waitress came over to take his drink order. Stonehedge had a bottle of champagne already at the table. When Morris tried ordering a beer, his friend stopped him.

“You’re not seeing me off with a beer,” he insisted. Then to the waitress, “My buddy will have a le daiquiri.”

Before Morris could say anything, the waitress was rushing away from the table. “Le daiquiri as opposed to a daiquiri?” he asked.

“It’s the le that makes it so special,” the actor said with a straight face. “When you taste it, you’ll be glad I changed your order. If not, you can always have her bring you a beer. Besides, this is the last chance I’ll have in four months to be so obnoxious with you.”

“At least you admit it.”

Stonehedge lifted his champagne glass, his eyes narrowing as he gazed at the slightly rose-colored bubbly. “I’m nothing if not painfully self-aware of my indulgences and faults.” He took a sip of his drink and turned again to Morris, his lips showing a pensive smile. “I’m glad you were able to make it. And I’m glad you were able to bring the little guy along.”

“He never would’ve forgiven me if he knew I’d cost him a mooching opportunity at Luzana’s.”

As if on command, Parker let out a grunt. Stonehedge fed the dog what looked like a blackened piece of meat from another platter. “Truffle-encrusted Wagyu beef,” he said. “It’s even better than the lamb.”

Morris whistled Parker over and ordered the bull terrier to lie down. The dog did as he was commanded, but not without letting out a few unhappy grumbles.

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get him to eat his dog food after this,” Morris complained.

“Eh, if you put it in front of him, he’ll eat it.”

That was mostly true. Parker rarely ever walked away from his dish when there was still food in it. He was also a champion moocher, and Morris himself had proven over the years to be a soft touch, but he was trying to change his ways since Parker’s last visit to the veterinarian. That was three weeks ago, and the veterinarian confirmed what Natalie had been telling him: that Parker needed to lose weight or it could cause health problems later on.

Morris asked, “When are you leaving?”

Stonehedge took another sip of his champagne. “Flying out of LAX eight this evening, and with losing eight hours I won’t be arriving in Dublin until two tomorrow. Then a two-hour drive to Galway.” His expression grew wistful. “My last decent food until then.”

“This time you’re making a romantic comedy?”

Stonehedge had taken what looked like a fancy slider from one of the platters and was munching on that. He waited until he swallowed his food before nodding. “You’ve got to try one of these, Morris. They’re amazing. But yeah, that’s right. Stumbling in the Rain. Not the best title for a rom-com, but the script’s good, and my co-star is the lovely Claire Rose. The film will be a nice change of pace from the thrillers I’ve been making of late.”

Morris took Stonehedge’s advice and tried one of the sliders, and it was every bit as good as his friend had claimed. The filling was a thick slab of bacon coated with a sweet bean garlic glaze. He didn’t have the heart to deprive Parker of bacon that delicious, and he scraped off the garlic glaze and fed the rest of the slider to his dog. Tomorrow would be another day to get back onto Parker’s diet—and his own, for that matter.

Stonehedge watched with an amused grin but held back any comment as their waitress had returned with le daiquiri. Morris took a sip and had to admit it was better than any beer he could’ve ordered.

“A shame Brie isn’t co-starring with you,” Morris said.

Stonehedge made a face at that idea. “They wanted her, but Brie’s tied up for the next two months. Probably better that we’re not acting together. Competition’s not the best thing for actors in a relationship. But we’ll be seeing each other. Next week she’s flying to Munich for a promotional event, and I’ll hop over for a visit and take advantage of the beginning of Oktoberfest. But enough about that. How about yourself? Any interesting cases?”

“Mostly run-of-the-mill insurance fraud work.” Morris had grabbed another piece of wood-grilled lamb and fed it to a grateful Parker. “The most interesting of which was a stolen coin collection I closed last week. The collection was appraised six months ago at one point two million and was supposedly stolen three months later in a home burglary. It turned out that the owner had sold off the collection to several private buyers and then staged the burglary. What he really bought for himself was a grand larceny charge.”

“You’re right. Sounds pretty run-of-the-mill.”

“You can say what you’re really thinking. Boring.”

“Well, yeah, compared to hunting serial killers.”

“After that psycho Jason Dorsage, I’m fine with boring.”

“You say that now, but just wait until you’re chasing after your next serial killer. Knowing my luck, it will be while I’m in Ireland, and I’ll miss all the fun. And—” The actor abruptly stopped talking and snapped his fingers to get Morris’s attention. “Hello? Are you still there? Morris, buddy, you faded on me, like you went away somewhere deep in your head.”

“What?” A hard grimace tightened Morris’s lips into a thin line. “Just a random thought. Nothing worth mentioning.”

Stonehedge had been right, and Morris was lying now. It was more than just a random thought that had distracted him. In fact, he was so distracted that he had fed Parker another piece of lamb without realizing he had done so, and the bull terrier didn’t mind this absentminded lapse.

He hadn’t thought about the Nightmare Man murders in years, but something caused a disturbing fact about those killings to resurface in his mind. Maybe it was because of what Stonehedge had been talking about, or maybe something else had triggered it, but whatever it was, it occurred to him that October second would be the seventeen-year anniversary of when the last killings started.

The Nightmare Man had never been caught. When the first set of killings happened thirty-four years ago, a witness had described the killer as a man in his late forties. Even if the Nightmare Man was still alive, he’d be close to eighty now, if not older.

Still, Morris couldn’t help feeling a sense of dread knowing what might be coming in only a week.

Chapter 3

Culver City, 1984

The killer known as the Nightmare Man entered the bedroom and saw that Mary Beth Williamson was sleeping on her stomach. He got a pair of socks from a dresser drawer and forced them into her mouth so she wouldn’t be able to scream. Before she could sputter awake and realize what was happening, he flipped her on her back and tied her wrists and ankles with nylon rope. He then used a razor-sharp hunting knife to cut off her cotton pajamas.

As she lay naked in the semidarkness of the room, her eyes met his, and he could see first fear and then defiance flooding her eyes. That would change soon enough. Once he started pulling off her fingernails there would only be a desperate pleading for him to stop. Later, she’d be lost completely in her pain. He sorted out the contents of his gym bag, picked up the needle-nose pliers, and went to work.

The other night he had watched Live and Let Die on video with his wife and sons. For his money, Sean Connery was the only true Bond, but the movie’s title song had stuck in his head, and as he used the hunting knife to carve away thick pieces of Mary Beth’s flesh, he found himself absently singing the line “When you got a job to do you got to do it well.” So true.

Later, when he was using a cigarette lighter to heat up the end of the thin metal rod that he used to brand his victims’ wounds, he caught the look in her eyes. She was no longer pleading for him to stop but instead was desperately trying to ask him a question. Why her?

It was a good question, because he could’ve picked thousands of other women in LA. So why her? Opportunity was one of the reasons. Her husband was an intern at Cedars-Sinai, and when the killer had gotten into their house three weeks ago using the spare key that they kept hidden in a fake rock, he found the husband’s work schedule and knew the husband wouldn’t be getting off work until eight in the morning. The killer had also used the opportunity to break the latch on one of the windows in the spare bedroom, so even if the wife started using the chain door locks while her husband was gone because of the Nightmare Man, the killer would be able to enter the house without making any noise. But the truth was, he’d have little trouble getting into any house or apartment, and it wouldn’t much matter if he found a husband or boyfriend in bed with his victim.

So why her? Mary Beth Williamson was twenty-eight. On the plump side, but pleasingly so, as the killer’s mother might’ve said. Medium-length brown hair, pleasant enough face, a curvy and attractive body even with the added thirty pounds she carried. The killer had spent time watching her. He knew she worked as a nurse and that she appeared to be a pleasant and friendly woman. The killer had to admit there was really no particular reason why he chose her. It was just bad luck on her part, plain and simple. But what would’ve been the point of telling her that?

Chapter 4

Los Angeles, the present

Lori couldn’t help smiling when she realized why her new dog—a male—had been named Lucy. It had to be short for Lucifer.

“That wasn’t a nice thing to do to you,” she told the dog. “How can anyone expect you not to live up to a name like that? But we’re changing things. Brian at the shelter had a most excellent idea, and so I’m changing your name from this point on to Lucky. How do you like them apples?”

The dog cocked his head and looked at her as if she were crazy. He was a scary-looking animal. Ugly, too, with his thick, blocky head and the whites of his eyes a yellowish-red color as if they were oozing blood and pus. None of that mattered to her. Quite the opposite, she was beginning to find a certain beauty in his scary ugliness, and after a somewhat standoffish first hour together, they’d been getting along just fine. The bacon-flavored treats she gave him helped, as did the two hot dogs she bought him at the Santa Monica pier. But what really sealed the deal was that the dog sensed she felt safe with him. Even more so, that she needed him. If the unknown boogeyman that she believed existed broke into her apartment while she slept, Lucky would protect her. She knew in her heart that was true, and because of that she already felt a deep affection toward the dog, even though he’d been in her life less than three hours. She stopped to hug him tightly around his thick neck. Lucky groaned as she did this, but otherwise tolerated it, and she broke out laughing when she saw what could only be described as a look of embarrassment contorting his face.

They’d been walking along a pathway on the cliff that overlooked Santa Monica State Beach. She had wanted to tire the dog out before she brought him to her apartment, and the mission seemed to have been accomplished. Lucky had been moving more sluggishly the last few minutes and began using a stalling tactic of sniffing each bush and tree they came across for what seemed like an excessive amount of time. She took him to a bench shaded by a palm tree, poured water into a paper cup, and held it for dog. After Lucky had his drink, he lay on the ground, his thick body heavy against her legs. Lori felt mostly content as she looked out onto the ocean, although one thought nagged at her: How was she going to sneak Lucky into her apartment? And how could she possibly keep his presence a secret? She sat worrying about that for several minutes until finally making a decision, resolve hardening her features.

She got off the bench and tugged on Lucky’s leash, coaxing him to his feet.

“Come on, big guy,” she said. “Time to take you home.”

* * * *

Nathan caught her before she was able to sneak Lucky into the elevator. He was the live-in superintendent for Lori’s building. A short, squat man in his fifties who always seemed to wear the same dirty undershirt badly yellowed with age and perspiration and even dirtier. . .