Gift Wrap Killer

Chapter 1

Snow swirled in little tornado bursts on the cobblestone walk as I stared out the frosted pane of glass in the front door. The wind whipped pine branches in wild irregular beats as it gasped and yawned its breath in battering pants against the sturdy walls of the cabin.

Behind me, the occasional pop of dry wood burning in the fireplace reminded me of muted gunfire.

I sighed.

Johnny Orion's hands rested lightly on my shoulders for half a heartbeat before he began a slow, gentle massage, kneading the tension away from my tightened joints and taut muscles. We won't get snowed in. These little squalls blow through here all the time, sweetheart.

I felt my mouth twist into the trademark skeptical moue that I knew Johnny hated. He said it was body language that screamed my lack of trust in anyone and anything. In this instance, it was precisely the message I intended to send.

You told me we were coming up here to clean this rustic nightmare so you could sell it. And what do I find when we get here? A spotless residence, stocked with food and firewood…and a convenient weather forecast that'll keep me here all weekend—without our children, I might add.

Johnny chuckled. Would you have come with me if I hadn't resorted to trickery and half-truths? C'mon, sweetheart. We needed a break. I've been so busy dealing with the new major crimes unit, and you've been adrift since you decided to sideline all work. We never did have a proper honeymoon after all.

The rasp of disgust burst from my throat on hot, indignant breath. You promised a moonlit stroll on a beach, Johnny. Not a blizzard with hurricane-force gusts battering our cabin.

My dad loved this place, he said softly.

It was enough to ratchet up the guilt a few degrees, not that he's trying to make me feel it. If anything, this trip is more about making the Helen he misses so much make a reappearance. After that mess in Boston eighteen months or so ago, my colossal screw-up, I haven't quite been myself…not even the paranoid version Johnny first knew.

I turned in his arms and rested my head against his chest, ear to the steady heartbeat that pounded firmly against his pectoral muscle. Should've been my first clue, I sighed. I'm old and rusty, missing the usual signs that are too big—in neon mind you—to be ignored. You'd never sell something that was precious to your parents.

He chuckled. "I said Dad loved this place. Mom couldn't stand our weekend trips up here. Hated mosquitoes in the summer and said that the windows leaked too much in the winter. Too drafty for her."

I frowned and peeked up at him from my fleshy pillow. It isn't drafty in here. In fact, it's a tad on the hot side. I was tempted to open the window and let in a little fresh air.

Johnny's deep chuckle vibrated straight through me—not in a bad way either. A smile stole its way across my face, an honest one as he liked to call them, one that reached my eyes.

I love your smile, he said softly. You have no idea how happy it makes me when I see it and know that it's only for me.

Are you jealous of our sons? I asked.

He nodded soberly. Insanely jealous. They have all of you, your attention, your love, your smiles, that fierce devotion—

Johnny, I interrupted, pressing a finger to his lips. You have all of those things too. Everything was bound to change when they were born, though. You knew that. You wanted me to have our babies, remember?

I know, he mumbled as he drew my finger into his mouth. I just miss my wild woman sometimes.

So you resorted to trickery to get me away from our family?

He nodded slightly. I'm a bastard, aren't I? If you really want to go home, I've navigated through worse storms.

No, I don't want to go home, and not just because I worry that you exaggerate your prowess as an expert driver in treacherous mountain weather. I guess I've failed a little bit in making an effort to be your wild woman, haven't I?

You don't fail. Just sometimes I want…more.

I nodded. You've been working long hours. And when you are home, I'm completely occupied with the boys. I understand. Of course, the depression couldn't be mentioned. That was the real wall between us, and even his attempts to spark my interest in some of the work with his new major crimes unit elicited not even a flash of anything remotely typical of my normal responses.

I miss having you with me every day, he murmured. I miss working by your side and hearing your thoughts when you don't even realize you're saying things aloud. I miss that keen insight you have, Helen. This is about more than missing physical intimacy. You get that, right? I miss all of you.

And there it was, the statement that said it all without using that word I couldn't face. Depression. I should be immune to that, right? I'm a clinical psychologist after all.

But in that moment, the depth of his love hit me all over again, just like it had when it finally sunk into my thick skull that this man would literally do anything to protect me because he loved me that much. Heat and moisture overwhelmed my eyes. He didn't have to say it. His support was there no matter what. The tears pooled and slid in a quick, slippery sluice that dripped onto his shirt.

Don't cry, he whispered.

They're happy tears, Johnny. I love you too.

We can stay?

I peeked around the thick boulder of flesh at the wall where a very 1980s entertainment center rested. Johnny had upgraded the television to a flat screen, but that was the only improvement he'd made. The shelves were lined with a large collection of VHS tapes and an ancient VCR.

Does that thing still work? I asked.

He glanced over his shoulder. Uh, yeah. But I can't vouch for the quality of the tapes. Most of them were my dad's favorite flicks. You know, stuff Mom couldn't stand so he ferreted them away in his little mountaintop sanctuary.

I grinned. "Are you saying that your dad had that kind of a video collection? I can't imagine curling up and watching that with a bowl of popcorn, Johnny."

He threw his head back and burst out laughing. No, it's not a dirty movie collection! Unless you count Dirty Harry as…well, that kind of dirty.

Oh! I bounced on the balls of my feet. I love Dirty Harry!

His grin turned wry, Now why doesn't that surprise me at all? Go on, he loosed me from his embrace and gave a gentle shove toward the video collection. Pick your poison and I'll get the munchies ready.

You don't mind? I asked.

Hot chocolate or soda?

I beamed. Hot chocolate if it's the kind you make on the stove. And I promise I'll pick something good.

He found me standing in front of the entertainment center fifteen minutes later with one video clenched in a death grip.

Johnny put the steaming mugs on the coffee table and dropped the giant bowl of popcorn next to them. Helen?

I turned toward him, momentarily snapped away from an ugly moment in history. Truth is, we are not much more than the sum of our parts. My parts are almost all shrouded in things I wish I could forget.

Jesus, you're white as a ghost! What's wrong?

Breath clogged my throat as I stared at him dumbly. Two steps brought him to me. Johnny pried the video from my fingers and read the title in half a second before his eyes met mine again.

The video was part of one of those A&E-type collections, sort of like the City Confidential series, only this one was a special on killers who'd been apprehended by the FBI.

Helen, what's wrong? Why does this old video seem to be freaking you out?

I tried to step away from the old memory—slowly, like fog drifting away from cooler land.

Honey, you're starting to scare me.

I looked at one of the faces on the worn cover of the video case. His long, shiny face, the bald head, the way his beard grew in oddly formed patches peppered with red and gray and baldness like his cranium…the forehead kept shaved smooth. I think that was the thing about the monster that haunted me the most—his cold eyes made even more piercing by the fact that he plucked all of the hair from his brow line and kept it smooth. Those frigid mossy eyes stared at me, like he was still alive, still looking at me like he could read my mind. The ring of dark color around the pale green shards seemed to throb as he silently appraised me.

Small but wiry, his self-assessment of size whispered through my brain. I could still hear his slightly monotone, nasal but deceptively soft, calm voice.

Johnny noticed where my attention was focused and tossed the video back onto the shelf over my shoulder. He gripped my hands and pulled me over to the sofa. Half a second later, he had me seated across his thighs and snuggled against his chest.

You knew one of them. Dammit, I'm sorry, baby.

Air sucked into my lungs. Did you…did your father like this kind of thing? Eyes drifted back to the video collection.

He did. Honey, you know he was a private investigator. He collected this stuff. I think in a lot of ways, Dad wished he could be out there hunting bastards like that down.

He must've been very proud of you, I whispered.

Johnny buried his lips in the crown of my head. I think so.

I shivered.

Which one did you know?

I heard the frown in his voice. After all, that video had to be at least thirty years old, and my tenure chasing monsters only began a short decade into recent history.

They don't all end up executed, Johnny. Unless they had this misfortune of being convicted in Texas or Florida, most of them die on Death Row these days, you know.

He nodded, chin bumping the top of my head. So that was it. You met one of them before he died of natural causes.

I shuddered this time, the memory of my green I'm-going-to-save-the-world new-agent status coursing through me once again. I thought it had been buried forever in the pit of my now steely resolve, my experience and aptitude (or delusion) for never letting the monsters get in my head.

Johnny's hand smoothed up and down my back, like he was coaxing a wild animal out of its quivering fear. Want to talk about it?

I never knew he was part of some video series, I said softly. Though how that had escaped me was barely fathomable. The single person who still sought answers—a confession specifically—from Harley Shriver dogged me for months before and after I was sent to talk to him. Why hadn't he told me that Shriver had media glorification through some perverse documentary?

That was his thing, what Harley Shriver craved above all else. He was a sadistic predator, a man who delighted in the power he held over survivors. He doled out information slowly, and everyone in law enforcement knew he was a manipulative bastard who got off on the ongoing pain of the parents of his victims.

He specifically liked to torture the fathers.

I knew everything there was to know about Shriver, why the monster was made, how it happened, why sadism was the only thing that gave him any emotional gratification at all, and especially why the suffering of fathers was nourishment for his twisted fantasies.

Helen? Johnny prompted after I fell silent for too long.

I sucked a gasp of noisy breath into my lungs. His name was Harley, I said and stole a glance at my husband to see if the name would strike the terror into his heart that it still did to mine.

He met my gaze with curiosity mingled with concern, but not the horror that I still felt.

And?

And I can't believe you don't know who he is, I said.

When was he active? Johnny asked. And where was he active?

Exclusively in Washington D.C., I said. He was finally captured in 1981.

Is that significant, that he only killed in the nation's capital? Johnny asked.

I nodded slowly. Harley Shriver was one of the most cunning killers I ever encountered, but he knew the law.

Who caught him? Johnny asked. What did he do?

The bureau took the case away from local police in '75, I said. He'd already left body parts of six children in different places in the city, or rather sent them to their parents. The D.C. police weren't even close to figuring out what made the guy tick.

Johnny's muscles bunched in a brief spasm around me. I should've known it had to be something to do with crimes against children, he murmured. His lips grazed my temple. They always hit you the hardest.

Yeah, I muttered. Did I ever tell you that psychopaths are natural born profilers? The son of a bitch had me pegged the second I walked into the interrogation room at Fort Leavenworth.

Fort Leavenworth? Johnny echoed. But isn't that reserved for…

Military? I nodded. Shriver was still a soldier when he was caught. He claimed that he acquired the taste for torturing victims because of his service in Vietnam in the early 70s before Richard Nixon put an end to our presence over there. So Shriver set up camp in D.C., which was convenient because he knew that even if he was caught, they couldn't sentence him to death.

But the U.S. Government does have the death penalty, Johnny said. They used it fairly recently if you'll recall the outcome of the trial against the Oklahoma City bomber.

Timothy McVeigh. Another of society's failures.

I nodded. He was smart, Johnny. He didn't commit any of his crimes on federal property.

Surely the military could've—

Nobody wanted Shriver dead, not until we knew where the bodies were buried. To this day… my voice cracked.

He took the answers to his grave? Johnny's hand started soothing again.

Some of them, yes. Particularly for the fathers who he couldn't extract his moment of pleasure from. There were three at the end who never had closure. Two of them committed suicide you see, so he had no benefit in sharing that information with us.

Jesus, Johnny whispered. What about the rest of their families? I mean, I understand how a tragedy like that would screw with your head forever, but surely they had family who needed them.