Slenderman Read online

  “Way to go, partner. I didn’t catch the brothers angle.”

  Jo smiled. “See, I can teach an old dog new tricks.”

  “Screw you, Rayburn. I’m not old. I’m in my prime.” He smoothed a hand over his bright blue tie with two frogs dancing the tango. “How about we go back to your place and see if Legends of Stone will give us the IP addresses Serioulias logged in from.”

  “That sounds like a plan. If we can find someone willing to work with us on a Sunday.” She clicked the unlock button and slid behind the steering wheel.

  Chapter 12

  “No, we’ve not received any more information,” Jo stated turning onto the street that would take her to the dress shop.

  “Us either. We did the right thing, Jo.” Redden sounded tired and depressed. It wasn’t a stretch he would be exhausted since his and Ian’s flight had been delayed to Friday. By the time to two arrived it was early Saturday morning, and none of them had the brainpower to discuss the case.

  “I know. Telling all the potential victims was the right thing to do even if Brazil was a copycat. That murder hit home how vulnerable we left everyone.” She understood entirely.

  They’d done everything to find Slenderman and kept coming up empty. Even Rhys’s idea of account sharing led to a dead end. One IP address bounced around all over the world. Yet when William Scott logged in as Serioulias, his IP address was the same one tied to his bank information. William knew the other person on the Serioulias character but declared he never shared his account with anyone. It left them at an impasse.

  “Exactly. We’re digging into William’s history. Now that the cat’s out of the bag it’s freed us up to talk to William’s neighbors about any visitors and his friends.”

  “Anything shake loose yet?”

  “No.” His clipped reply whipped through the phone line.

  It was frustrating. January had come and gone and now it was the last week of February with nothing to show. She didn’t have time to focus on the case because every spare minute was spent on the details of her wedding. Which again was frustrating as she kept fighting with Maddy about the colors. They’d settled on plain white orchids set off by dark greenery. Jo didn’t understand Italian Ruscus from regular Ruscus. She trusted her cousin with the details since she was the professional with the flower shop.

  Flipping on her turn signal, she sighed. “Are you and your wife coming to the wedding?”

  “Yes, we RSVP’d a week after we received the invitation.”

  “Great, if nothing has shaken loose by then we can touch base.”

  “We are not talking about this case at your wedding, Rayburn,” Redden growled. “That needs to be a day you focus wholly on Rhys and the beginning of your lives. If I’d dragged a case into the middle of my wedding . . . well, let’s just say Mrs. Redden would have left the reception and gone to see a divorce attorney.”

  “Crap.”

  “Just let it go. Count your blessings, one being the potential targets haven’t talked about any of it in the Legends chat yet.”

  She snorted. “That’s because you and Ian put the fear of God in them telling them the killer was targeting gamers and if they let on they knew anything, they wouldn’t know it for long.”

  “Too true. The subtle threat got the job done.”

  “It did.”

  “You need to quit worrying. Ian, Sullivan, and I will keep poking until something shakes loose. You’ve got Ian and me for at least another week since we’re meeting with Birmingham’s police chief and the mayor on Monday. Then we have to drive to Tennessee to give an update, then to Georgia to update their brass.”

  “Fine. But I’ll keep digging at least until my wedding in April.” She’d be damned if she’d let this guy get away twice. Bad enough he got away with killing Mark all those years ago. She couldn’t leave the man out there stabbing other innocent people. “I’ve got to go.”

  She felt torn. On the one hand, she wished she’d given into temptation and eloped with Rhys so she would be free to focus wholly on this case. On the other hand, she knew this was a growth process because she needed to learn how to better balance her work and her personal life. A headache formed behind her eyes.

  “You all still have the case. I’ll touch base with you after your dress shopping,” Redden replied and hung up.

  Huffing, Jo stepped from the car and headed into the dress shop only to freeze as soon as she opened the shop door. Dresses her mother had already chosen hung on an empty rack to the right. Pink, green, blue, and yellow, some dark, some light were mixed with no order. It looked as if someone had puked a rainbow onto the rack. The rainbow effect became more prominent when Maddy added two more dresses, a lavender and a dark purple.

  “Mom, I don’t want all these bright colors.” She groaned. This would be yet another battle. More so since she wasn’t exactly sure what colors she did want.

  “But weddings are meant to be magical.” Maddy pulled Jo from her circling thoughts on how to compromise without having her wedding turn into a swirling circus of color.

  Jo looked to Terry for help. She should’ve known they would clash over bridesmaid dresses again. Simple and elegant was one thing that Maddy knew, but Jo hated all the colors. Dragging a hand over her face, she prepared for an uphill fight. “I’m not having light pink in my wed—”

  “It’s blush, dear.”

  “I don’t care if it’s Moulin Rouge. I am not a pink person.” Jo motioned to her body. “I’m a black and gray person.”

  Maddy’s jaw dropped, and Terry, Sullivan, and Arabelle hurried to the other side of the room. Sullivan pointed to a cute princess dress to distract Arabelle while Terry listened avidly.

  “Josephine Lavette Rayburn, you are not using your gun as the colors of your wedding.”

  Jo perked up. Wait. That was possible? But wasn’t black for funerals? “Oh, I didn’t think of that—”

  “No!” Maddy squawked.

  It was Terry who finally intervened with her calm presence. “Maddy, think of the colors more like pewter, silver, and black like a raven’s wing.”

  Those sounded pretty when Terry said it. Black like her gun and pewter like Jo’s bullets. Oh yeah, she really wanted those colors now.

  “Crap. We’re going to use guns for the wedding colors.” Maddy sighed.

  Before Jo could press her advantage, her cell belted out ‘Wrecking Ball’ by Miley Cyrus which made Terry roll her eyes and Sullivan snort. Pissed, Jo yanked the cell from her purse. “Where the heck are you?”

  “Jo.” Karma’s serious tone jolted Jo.

  “What?”

  “We’re at Evan’s parents’ house. You and Sullivan need to get over here now.”

  Jo motioned to Sullivan who jogged over. “Why?”

  “Someone trashed their place.”

  Her heart raced. How was that possible? She’d checked their place two nights ago. “What? The security company is—”

  “You need to get here now.” Karma hung up, not giving Jo time to ask any more questions.

  Shoving her cell back into her purse, she turned to face her mother.

  “No, this day was picked with everyone’s schedules cleared to choose the bridesmaid dresses. Your wedding is in three months Jo, we need to get this done so the seamstress has time to alter the dresses.” Maddy wagged a finger at her.

  “Someone broke into Evan’s parent’s house. If they weren’t taking a trip through wine country for their anniversary, they could’ve been there.”

  Maddy gasped then her shoulders slumped in resignation. “Go. Terry and Arabelle will help me.”

  She felt torn because she did not want dancing frogs on her wedding dress. She already had it on a smaller cake for the kids at the reception, and that would be more than enough.
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  Terry pushed her toward the door. “Trust me. I’ll keep them in line. Mostly because with my red hair I look great in silver and black.”

  She hugged Terry. “Thanks. Abigail, Jenna, and Juliette should be here any minute to help, and I’ll tell Karma she’ll need to come next week.” Turning to Sullivan, Jo motioned for the door. “I’ll meet you at their house.”

  “Got it.” Sullivan jogged outside with Jo hurrying after him.

  ~ ~ ~

  Jo picked her way through Evan’s parents’ home. The ranch-style house was well away from the road with several trees and bushes obscuring the view to the door no one noticed the door stood open. With the electricity cut, no alarm had sounded. However, someone from the security company should have notified her when the signal shut off.

  From the outside, the house looked undisturbed. Inside was an entirely different matter. The place had been ransacked. “I think this was personal.”

  “Why would you say that?” Sullivan asked from behind her.

  She pointed into Evan’s old room where tufts of pillow spilled across the floor and slashes tore through his old mattress. “Whoever hit the house found what they were looking for in the main room. They left the parents’ bedroom alone, both bathrooms are untouched, and the office is spotless. However, everything that Evan left behind was destroyed.” She pointed to the slashed mattress, broken figurines, shelves ripped from the wall, and clothes strewn across the floor. She made her way to the den. “In here they were looking for something, and things that are broken are more in line with the search. If they had still been looking for something, they’d have continued the searching the other rooms. Instead, they went from here to Evan’s room and trashed it.”

  Books, papers, DVDs, pictures, and decorations littered the floor and shelves of the family room.

  “What could Evan or his parents have done—”

  Before he finished the sentence, her cell belted out the Munster’s theme song. Expecting Franklin, it surprised her to see Kyle’s name. “Kyle?”

  “How could you and Sullivan do this?” he screamed.

  Jolting at the anger, Jo frowned. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Evan quit the Cave yesterday—”

  “He what?” Her voice gave out on her barely pushing sound past her lips as she took in the chaos surrounding her in a new light. Worms felt as if they were invading in her stomach, making her sick at the thought of what Evan had done.

  Jo and her team had thought about using one of the gamers as bait when the leads petered out. But with how the killer could slip in and out of the country undetected and kill in multiple locations, they refused to chance someone being killed under their noses. This killer had patience since several of the victims had not been members of the Cave in years. Which showed their killer could and probably would wait until Jo and her team couldn’t guard the person anymore. Then strike the second they turned their backs. So Jo nixed the idea.

  “Quit the Cave and made a big deal about it on the forums. It’s insane. Serioulias has gone off the deep end with their replies.” Kyle’s tone changed from confrontational to worried. “You didn’t know?”

  “Hell no I didn’t know. I haven’t been in the chat because of the wedding stuff.” She turned to Sullivan her blood pounded in her veins. “Process everything, Sullivan. The killer was here. I’ve got to get home.”

  His eyes widened as she turned and raced for the door. Tossing her cell in the cup holder, she started the car, jumping when the passenger door was flung open, Karma leaped in and slammed the door behind her.

  “Go!” Karma yelled tugging on her seatbelt.

  Jo flipped on her lights and siren and floored it.

  “Jo, are you there?” Kyle’s voice drifted from her car speakers as her cell synced with her handsfree.

  “Yes, you said their replies when you referred to Serioulias. So you’re telling me the account is shared?” She slung her Mustang onto the ramp for the highway and pushed her foot to the floor quickly flying through the gears.

  “God yes. I would’ve thought Allen told you.”

  “No. I’ve not been able to track him down since we talked at Halloween.”

  “Recently?”

  “Been trying to get a hold of him for a month,” she replied while weaving through Trussville traffic headed for I-459.

  “Dammit. He must have gone on with his parents to South America. They received a grant for a dig.”

  “I don’t care. But I couldn’t get you either.” She refused to add that she hadn’t questioned Rian. Unwilling to cross that line again, she had exhausted other venues. The primary one being Aaron Scott.

  “I’m out of the country on a shoot.”

  Jo shook her head when Karma opened her mouth. “Allen knows who Serioulias shares his account with?”

  “Sure. I mean Allen has no idea who Aaron shares it with, but I do since I’ve been around the clan chat since the beginning.”

  Her heart raced, keeping time with the speeding tread of the tires on her car as she rushed to her home. “I need a name. Do you have one?”

  “I mean you could probably find out. Mark, the man who started the Cave, it was his girlfriend—”

  Lucy? Jo shivered. Oh, God. Not Lucy. The girl, now a college graduate, took Arabelle out and still called Jo on the day Mark died. Mostly for comfort, but also asking if she or Sullivan had found the killer yet.

  “–but Serioulias is protective of her.”

  She missed the first part, but it didn’t matter as a new thought seared itself on her brain. “Kyle, did you know Mark?”

  “Yeah, I liked DaggersEdge—that was Mark’s handle, he was awesome.”

  “What was it like when he left the Cave?”

  “Oh, his girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend, DaggersDawn, she went ballistic when he talked about leaving. They stopped dating for a while before he decided to leave the clan.”

  She couldn’t take her eyes from the road as she raced off the exit and onto the streets that would lead her home. With two-lane roads, Jo needed to concentrate, so she gestured for Karma to take over questioning Kyle.

  “What was Mark’s character like on Legends of Stone?” Karma squeaked as Jo slid onto the shoulder of the right side of the road to avoid hitting the car in front of them.

  “Oh, he was a tank. He loved the armor and swords, that kind of stuff. He even had a collection of them he’d wear to different gaming and fantasy conventions.”

  “You said Serioulias had posted a lot of stuff on forums—” Jo cut in

  “And the IRC channel—”

  “Screenshot everything in case they try to delete it and send it to me. How long has Evan been working on this?” Jo turned left. The tires squealed as she slowed enough at the red light to make sure everyone stopped before gunning her car through it and onto the road leading to her home.

  “For at least the past month.”

  “You didn’t think to tell me?”

  “Jo, I’m with my parents in Finland. We left the first part of January. I only got a break this week. I haven’t been on the game at all, or I would have called you sooner. But based on the forum discussion he’s been planning it for a month.”

  “Sorry, get me everything you can, and I’ll call you later.” She pressed the button to hang up as she flew by Redden. The FBI agent flipped his lights on, did a U-ie and hugged her bumper the rest of the way to the opening gates of her driveway. She skidded to a halt at the front door. Grabbing her keys, she sprang from the car and ran up the shallow steps to the front door. “Karma, you clear the house. I’ll check the pool house.”

  “What the hell, Rayburn?” Redden screeched.

  Jo ignored him focusing on her fiancé as Rhys rounded the corner of the main hallway.
“Rhys, go with Karma and get your med bag.”

  She hoped they wouldn’t need it, but her gut was telling her they would. One thing Jo knew to listen to was her survival instinct. It’d saved her many a time and helped catch killers. Racing through the den and kitchen, she pulled her gun from its holster. Her legs pumped as slammed open the door to the backyard and jumped over the steps landing on the pavement.

  “Get the fuck off of him, you crazy bitch!” Lisa screamed, wrestling a woman that looked like Lucy out of the door of the pool house and past Rian.

  Jo put on a burst of speed to see a form darting away from the pool house toward the back of the property. She didn’t have a clear shot without possibly hitting Lisa. Stabbing her finger, she yelled at Redden. “Grab her, she’s Slenderman!”

  Redden swung in the fleeing woman’s direction. Jo ran to Rian and holstered her gun. Tears streamed down the kid’s face as she pushed by him to follow Lisa. “Where’s Evan?”

  “She only stabbed him once before Lisa jumped in.” Rian pointed toward the den. “We’re so sorry. We thought with the FBI, Interpol, you, and everybody else we were safe here. Especially with the new security system.”

  Her hands shook as she took in Evan’s fear-filled eyes and the shallow stab wound on his chest. “You’re going to be okay, E. Rhys is right behind me.” He nodded and whimpered. Taking a breath, she pointed to the kitchen. “Grab some towels, Ri.”

  She needed to get her anger under control. It was hard since it was fueled by terror and seeing blood leaking from Evan wasn’t helping.

  Rian’s white face filled with panic helped get her emotions under control. “It was Lucy. I know her, so I let her in, Jo. She takes Arabelle shopping and—” He sobbed. “I let her in. I didn’t know.”

  Rhys dropped down next to her. He gently lifted her hands and bent to examine the wound with Lisa’s help. The adrenaline crash would hit her soon, and she needed to gain control of her emotions before it happened.