The Grave Between Us by Tal Bauer

Chapter Twenty

“All right,forensics on the Kerrigan case…” The FBI lab technician wheeled away from his microscope, pushing along the floor until he came to the counter where Cole and Michael were waiting.

They had driven into Omaha at the crack of dawn. The Des Moines RA was too small to run its own FBI lab, and Noah’s team either relied on local police and sheriffs or sent evidence to Quantico for analysis. Michael was far too impatient for Quantico.

Cole had spent the night on a rollaway bed in Michael’s hotel room, tossing and turning, alternating between self-castigation and silent tears. He hadn’t had any sleep, and he felt like day-old shit. Looked like it, too.

“The glass you recovered from the road is definitely a match to a 2018 Nissan Maxima, which, as I understand, is the victim’s car. And the tire tread marks are a match to the wheel and axle width of the Maxima, so, again, a match to your vic’s car. Now, the car the sheriff towed out of the river, that was a 2015 Honda Accord. Looked like a college car. There was a lot of ISU junk and old fast-food receipts shoved into the cupholders.”

“Any of those receipts dated more recently than Friday?”

“No.” The tech riffled through a folder, then passed Cole a set of photos of the receipts, dried and pinned to a black backing and laid out in chronological order. “They were all older, and all from Ames and the ISU campus.”

“Damn,” Michael said. “Could have gotten lucky if he’d left a receipt for his drive-through for us. I want to get eyes on this son of a bitch so badly.”

“What about forensics from the grave site?” Cole asked.

“Treasure trove of information there. Fingerprints galore on the Polaroids, all matching the same individual: Ian Ingram. I tried to pull his info from IAFIS, but—”

“The record was sealed,” Michael interrupted. “We know.”

The tech eyeballed Michael, then turned back to the folder. “Well, whoever your suspect is, he’s pretty careless about his fingerprints. We pulled prints from the Polaroids, from the folds of the paper crane, and from the victim’s skin. Since it was so damp outside and the grave itself was fairly humid, we were able to pull a nice set of latents off Kerrigan’s throat, jaw, and cheeks. I think it’s pretty slam dunk that your Ian Ingram killed Mr. Kerrigan.”

“We already know that. We need to find Ingram. Did you find anything else? Shoe impressions, tire impressions? Anything on CCTV cameras going to or from the state park? Anything we can use to track him?”

“Nothing,” the tech said. “He’s careless with his fingerprints, but other than that, your guy is smart. He probably chose that park because there’s not a lot of surveillance on the drive in. No gas stations, no strip malls, no drive-throughs. It’s a whole lot of nothing. The closest camera we were able to pull footage from was ten miles away.”

“Let’s talk about forensics from the home invasion,” Michael said. His voice had changed, gone almost soft. The back of his hand shifted against Cole’s.

The tech swapped folders, flipping the second one open and laying out photo spreads from the scene processing unit.

Their house, their home, torn apart. Ian was everywhere, his touch on everything. He’d opened their fridge, torn through their kitchen. Ripped photos from the walls, spent time punching Noah’s face out of each one. Destroyed Katie’s bedroom. Their bedroom. Desecrated their bed.

“Fingerprints, again, all over the place. Same guy. Your suspect is busy. We think we know how he got in, too.”

“How?” Cole snapped. “The alarm was only going off at the end of the B&E. Why?” He hadn’t heard the alarm over the phone when he was talking to Ian. And if the alarm had gone off when Ian entered, he wouldn’t have had time to do what he’d done before the police got the call.

“Cole,” Michael said. There was a warning in his voice.

“It looks like he entered the code on the alarm panel. He guessed wrong the first time, and then the second time, got it right. One-two-zero-nine is the correct code. He tried zero-nine-one-two first.”

Michael turned to Cole, his eyebrows raised.

“Our birth months,” Cole said. “Mine, then Noah’s. He tried Noah’s first, then flipped them around.”

“Got lucky,” Michael murmured.

“Got smart. Damn it, we should have picked something else. Google would have given him our birthdays.”

“He deactivated the alarm on his way in, coming through the garage door, we think. The side door to the garage was busted open. He did his business in the house, reactivated the alarm, and broke the back sliding glass door as he left, which triggered the alarm and called the police.”

“And upstairs?” Cole’s voice shook.

“Fingerprints, again, everywhere. Fingerprints on the origami crane left on one of the pillows in the main bedroom. DNA profiles from three men were pulled from the bedsheets—”

“We know who two of the men are, and so do you.” Michael was losing his patience. “Did you confirm the identity of the third profile?”

“Your suspect,” the tech said. He passed over the DNA report from CODIS. “Ian Ingram. We’re still processing trace from the bedsheets, but it looks like he stripped naked and rolled around in the bed, then masturbated—”

Cole turned away, pacing to the far wall. He was going to burn the sheets. Burn the mattress. Burn the bed frame. Jesus, Ian had been in the bed Cole and Noah made love in. That was their island, their place of sanctuary and safety. Theirs.

“He left over the back fence, most likely. We were able to pull a partial boot print from the wood slats. Looks like a Wolverine, size 13. Pretty common.”

“Is there anything you can tell us about where Ingram is going? Anything from all of this that gives us any insight into what he’s planning next?” Michael was fuming, his voice getting tighter and tighter.

“Look,” the tech said, “You bring me evidence, and I can tell you what happened. I can tell you where your suspect was and what he did, but I can’t read the future. He didn’t drop his to-do list or his address book, and I can’t shake a Magic 8 Ball and tell you what he’s doing next. Maybe some of your other cases, you get leads to future acts, but with these?” He set his hands on the two case files. “These are like forensic islands. He did the crime, and then he vanished. There’s no blood trail going from the house to the side yard. There’s no unique pollen he tracked in on his shoes. No special fiber from some only-made-here manufacturer that I can run against a database. He’s hiding in plain sight by using common items. Wolverine shoes, common. Cotton fibers, common. Origami paper, Polaroid film, even, common. You can buy both at Walmart or a dozen other stores. I can’t narrow down where he gets his gear from for you.” The tech shrugged. “You’ve got great forensics for a conviction. All this will be great at trial. But I can’t help you beyond that.”

Michael glared, shook his head, and turned away. “C’mon, Cole. We’ve got work to do.”

Cole followed him up to another conference room that Michael had clearly taken over before pushing his way into Des Moines. He’d been in Omaha since Noah and Jacob’s shooting. Photos of their crash, along with the photos Ian had taken of Noah, were blown up to poster size and taped to the windows. Along the opposite wall were the forensic reports and photographs from the processing of Noah’s SUV and the big rig Ian had stolen, as well as the driver he’d murdered.

“Sit down.” Michael pulled out a seat across the conference table. He slid a pad of paper in front of him, uncapped a pen from his jacket pocket. “Let’s talk this out. Get everything we know down on paper.” He scrawled a single word across the top of the sheet: Ingram.

Cole collapsed in a chair and slumped forward, away from the table, scrubbing his hands over his face, elbows on his knees. His spine bowed. Gravity pulled on him, trying to take him to the floor. He was so fucking exhausted. His eyes were gritty, his eyelids like sandpaper running over his corneas every time he blinked. It had been days since he’d had any decent sleep. Michael didn’t have that problem. He’d knocked back an Ambien and a glass of bourbon when they got to the hotel, and he’d been out like a light.

Cole had watched the moon’s light arc across the hotel room’s ceiling. Memories had plagued him, like a silent movie on a loop. Ian and him, facing each other in the interrogation room. Ian and him, sitting side by side. Ian and him in the truck at the edge of a dark woods, Ian’s eyes gleaming, dark fire that burned ice cold. Ian’s voice in his ear, Ian’s lips on the back of his neck. We’re together forever.

The sweet smell of bones and wet earth. The hot copper tang of spilled blood on cold pavement, the fetor of McHugh’s cut-out guts. The odor of the grave and decomposition on his skin and under his nails and in his hair.

The scent of Noah, of his soap and laundry detergent, how his button-downs smelled like him after a long day, the starch and his skin and his hair mixing together, creating a fragrance that was all Noah. Cole loved to put his face in the back of Noah’s neck, breathe his lover in as he wrapped his arms around Noah’s waist. Kiss him above the collar, behind his ear. Kiss him lower as he undid Noah’s shirt buttons and stripped him.

Noah and him, facing each other across a bar in Vegas. Across a hotel bed, Noah’s first time with a man. He’d been so nervous, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, but he’d bowled Cole over with the force of his desire—not just for sex, but for Cole. He’d watched the sunrise on Noah’s skin, and he’d decided there and then that that was the first of many sunrises he would see with Noah.

Noah and him, facing each other across the Des Moines conference room table. Noah scared out of his mind, Cole shocked down to his bones.

Noah leading him to his bed. Noah falling into his arms outside Katie’s hospital room. Noah crying in the Des Moines airport, saying I love you and I don’t want you to go. Noah and the look in his eyes when Cole came back for good, transfer papers and his own beating heart in the palms of his hands, offered to Noah. I want forever. Forever with you.

Why was Ian back? Why was he here now? What had brought him out of the darkness so fully, so suddenly? Why did he want to shred Cole’s life, destroy everything he loved and cherished?

There’s nothing as intimate between two people as a grave.

“Where has he been these past eight years?” Cole mumbled, sliding his hands down his cheeks. He stared at Michael’s pad of paper. “I don’t understand where he’s been hiding. And why he’s not hiding now.”

“We can ask him where he’s been when we catch him,” Michael said. “We’ve spent enough time looking backward. We’re going to look forward now. Find him before he hits his next target.”

His next target. Cole turned his head and stared at the wall, at the photos of Noah’s crashed and mangled SUV. At the poster of Noah’s agony, his own weapon pressed to his temple. “Noah. He’s coming after Noah.”

“We’ve got units watching Downing: the local police department and members of my team. He’s under constant surveillance.” Michael waited. He took a breath. “How do you think Ingram will strike?”

It was everything he never wanted to think of: Ian attacking Noah, Ian overpowering Noah, Ian subduing Noah. His arm around Noah’s throat, choking him out, getting Noah’s hands behind his back before he zip-tied them. Ian shoving Noah in the back seat of Noah’s car and driving away.

Ian and Noah, somewhere in a foggy woods, with a black-mirror lake nearby. Cranes overhead and an open grave carved into the earth. Noah screaming, Noah begging. Noah crying out for Cole, for God, for anyone, please, anyone to help him, as Ian tore into his body and ravaged the man Cole loved.

Cole heaved, turning his head just in time for the coffee he’d drunk on the drive to come up in a sour mash of bile and curdled milk at his feet. He spat and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Don’t ask me that,” he growled, not looking at Michael. “Don’t put that in my mind.”

“Noah Downing is Ingram’s next target,” Michael said. He was being more patient than Cole had ever heard him be. He didn’t even react to the stench of vomit as the fermented coffee and cream soaked into the carpet. “And if we’re going to catch Ingram, we’re going to do it when he strikes.”

Something in Michael’s voice made Cole hesitate. The truth hit him like a punch to the chest. “You’re using Noah as bait. You want Ian to come after him!”

Michael’s lips thinned. “I want to catch Ingram.”

“How far back from Noah are those officers?” Cole cried. “Are they really there to protect him, or are they just watching to get his abduction on film?”

“They’re close enough.” Michael’s voice was maddeningly calm.

“Is that what you’d say if it was your wife or your child that Ian was targeting?”

“I’d want to catch the son of a bitch and get my life back to normal. That won’t happen without a little risk—”

“A little risk? You’re talking about the man I love!” Cole roared. “I cannot live in a world where Ian has tortured Noah to death—”

Michael stood, lunged across the table, and yanked his wrist. He tugged, pulling Cole halfway across the polished wood. “That’s why we’re going to get him. That’s why we’re going to beat him at his own game. He wants Noah. He wants to get rid of Noah so that, in his fantasy world, it can be you and him forever. For once, Cole—for the first time ever—we know who he’s going after. We use that to catch him. We use that to beat him. And then we throw him in a cell and lose the key, and he never sees the light of day again. Ever.” He pushed Cole back into his seat. His eyes were cold, almost as cold as Ian’s. “Talk to me. How will Ingram strike?”

Cole closed his eyes. Rewound the nightmare, backing out of the woods and the fog and Noah screaming for Cole to save him. Rewound through the drive, all the way to the moment Ian abducted Noah. “Blitz attack,” he whispered. “Noah is too smart to fall for a ruse or a manipulation. He won’t stop for a stranded motorist. Not now, while Ian is out there.”

“Where is Noah when this happens?”

“By his car,” Cole whispered. “Ian likes to attack at the victim’s car. He’ll use the car to transport them, then ditch it. He’ll attack Noah when he’s at his car. In the parking lot or the driveway. Someplace quiet with no one around. Noah shouldn’t work late, or come in early—”

He ducked his head and choked back a sob, because what Noah shouldn’t do was exactly what Noah would do, and Michael wouldn’t warn him. No, he’d want Noah to open himself up, make himself a target, so Ian had every opportunity to attack.

The love of his life, bait for a serial killer. A killer they’d captured and lost. A killer who’d proven how resilient, how slippery he was. Dread filled Cole, an ocean of it. Inside he was screaming, screaming, screaming. Not Noah, anyone else but Noah. Not him.

“Where does he take Noah?” Michael asked.

The tears came in a hot flood, bursting out of him like his soul was hemorrhaging. He sobbed, tried to drag in oxygen. He tasted salt on his lips and buried his face in his hands.

He could smell the grave, the sticky-sweet bone and decomposition. Wet earth and fog.

His fingers sliding through cold, dark earth, uncovering Noah’s pale, still face, stained with tears.His lips trembling as they pressed against Noah’s, blue and locked in rigor. He could smell Ian, smell where he’d touched Noah—

“The woods,” Cole gasped. His tears made a lake in his hands. “The woods, next to a lake. He buries him in the woods.”