thirty raised planters in row after row after row, plants and weeds competing for space within each one. Reed’s heart tightened like a clenched fist. There were murdered women in those planters. He knew there were. The dogs would confirm it.
“At least we can give some families a little peace,” his sergeant said, looking around as if in a daze, his thoughts obviously having followed the same path, his certainty about what they’d find as strong as Reed’s.
Yes, at least they could give some families a little peace. But that’s about all they could do, and the thought caused an icy frisson of violence to tremble through Reed. They’d arrived too late. Far too late. Years too late. No one had come running when those women surely begged for mercy. For help.
His own grandmother had died in this very house. Where had her little boy been while she was being tortured in the room of horrors below? Being tortured as well in a different house of horrors not too far from there? No. No. He couldn’t think about that. Not now.
He turned away, heading back inside where Ransom was coming down the stairs. Ransom had stuck his head in the basement room earlier. He knew what they were dealing with, but Reed updated him on the pictures they’d found in the floor, and the garden out back, including the one of Cora Hartsman.
“This just gets crazier and crazier.” He paused and Reed looked more closely at him. He’d been at a lot of disturbing crime scenes with Ransom over the past few years, but this was the first time he looked truly haunted.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, ah, we found a laptop in Draper’s office.” He paused, his eyes drifting off for a moment as though he was picturing something. “He took video of some of it,” he said. “The women.”
“Oh Christ,” Reed breathed.
“That’s not the worst of it though.” Ransom lowered his voice. “That little kid, his grandson, he made him participate.” Ransom scrubbed a hand down his face. “The way he begged, Reed . . . for himself, for them . . .” Ransom turned away, gathering himself. “I’ve been doing this job a long time and I don’t think I’ve seen anything worse than that.”
Reed didn’t know what to say. There were no words for that type of horror. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “We’ll have evidence,” he said. At least there was that.
Ransom nodded, and they both stood straighter, shrugging off their emotions as best as possible. It was not the time for that. “We need to talk about this, Reed. We need to try to figure out this guy’s next move. And where Charles Hartsman fits into all this.”
“I know. I think we should let the techs and the dogs take over here. Has Jennifer called you back yet?” She’d dropped everything to focus on the task of tracking down Draper’s grandson, Axel, and he hoped to God she was having some luck.
“Not yet.”
“Did you find anything upstairs?”
“Nothing noteworthy. It looks unused, which makes sense since the old man couldn’t do stairs. He must have had someone in to clean though, because there wasn’t a lick of dust.”
“Anything in the room where he slept?” Reed asked, nodding toward the bedroom on the first floor.
“Nada except a shitload of medication. Dude wasn’t well.”
“Yeah, in more ways than one,” Reed muttered. If he had known earlier, he might have been tempted to raise his hands in a round of applause over the man’s dead body.
But Charles Hartsman had done that. So, Reed would be celebrating his biological father’s atrocities. And he could not let that come to pass. Reed felt a bout of crazed laughter rising in his throat. If he didn’t lock it down, he’d be no good to anyone.
“We did find a few issues of Tribulation in his office though,” Ransom said. “Unfortunately, they’re the ones we already have. I bagged them up as evidence.”
“He told me he didn’t have any copies,” Reed said, then shook his head, massaging his head quickly. “No, Charles Hartsman told me he didn’t have any issues, though he must have been the one to read through them since he gave us the tip. Why would he do that?”
“Because he’s as crazy as kill room dude?”
Reed made a small sound of agreement.
“It looks like someone may have been sleeping on the couch in the office too. The criminalists will go over that. Maybe we can get proof it was Hartsman.”