Page 1 of Love Me Darkly
“Good morning, everyone,” said Supervisory Special Agent Mateo Garcia as he swept into the conference room. “Let’s get right to it.”
The members of his team watched him expectantly, a scattering of files and binders spread out on the table where they sat. The scents of coffee and pastries flavored the air, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before. He glanced at the flat screen monitors portraying photos from the gruesome crime scene in Little Rock, Arkansas, then turned his back on them. He didn’t need to view the images to know what he would find … the same thing he’d found in previous crime scenes across the United States. The same scene he’d discovered in his own home a year ago.
But he couldn’t let the inevitable misery caused by those memories get to him. He was on the job, and everything he had left in the world hinged on him remaining focused and solving this case. It took great strength of will to peel himself out of bed every morning to piss, shower, and shave. But then, he would slip the wallet holding his FBI credentials into his back pocket and holster his sidearm, and a restless energy would fill him to the brim.
His every waking hour revolved around this case, aside from drawing breath. He had toyed with the idea of putting that sidearm into his mouth and pulling the trigger several times, but each instance had seen him switching the safety back on and tossing the pistol aside. Aside from the other obligations keeping him on the plane of the living, there was also one fundamental fact. Mateo would not—could not—rest until this case had been solved.
“Unidentified white female victim found dead this morning in Little Rock,” he began. “Estimated to be in her early twenties. She carried no identification on her person and had been stripped of her clothing. Like our previous victims, her head was shaved, and a pentagram had been carved into her pelvic region using a sharp object. Cause of death: exsanguination through several deep cuts near major arteries.”
He rattled off the statistics with a mechanical detachment born of a fifteen-year law enforcement career. While the details were gruesome, he couldn’t let himself be affected by them—not if he intended to remain capable of doing this job. The photographs were graphic. The head-shaving had been so careless and brutal that the killer had taken chunks of the victim’s scalp with it. The pentagram had been carved deep, penetrating six layers of skin, muscle, and subcutaneous tissue, as deep as a c-section incision required. The ‘cuts’ along her limbs had were gouges severe enough to tear open major arteries, draining her of the majority of her blood.
“Sexual assault?” asked Special Agent Jones, the newest junior agent of his unit. A promising recruit fresh from Quantico, he was proving to be a valuable member of the team, with a keen sense for crisis management, de-escalation, and hostage negotiation. Slender as a reed, with dark brown hair and wide brown eyes, the kid was a bit green, but working on this case would harden him in no time. It had certainly done that for Mateo.
“We won’t know until an autopsy has been performed. The Little Rock Police Department is preserving the crime scene until we get there. But, if the pattern holds up, she was likely raped.”
“Any chance we’ll find evidence pointing to the identity of The Satanist?”
Mateo narrowed his eyes at Special Agent Williams. A seasoned agent specializing in logistical planning and communications, she had been on his team longer than anyone here. She knew better than to refer to their perpetrators by the sensationalized names the media gave them. The FBI had a term for suspects yet to be identified: UNSUB—Unknown Subject. Why people felt the need to give these sadistic killers nicknames was beyond him.
Bad enough he endured the overblown headlines, speculation, and outright disinformation spread every time this criminal struck. He would not deal with this bullshit in the conference room.
“In this office, and my presence, you will refer to him as the UNSUB. As far as forensics, we won’t know until we get there.”
Realizing her error, Williams lowered her eyes. Her dark brown skin hid any blushing, but she looked embarrassed enough that Mateo knew she wouldn’t make the mistake again. Clearing her throat, she nodded to indicate she understood.
“Any reason to believe that this victim is different than the others? Or that the UNSUB profile might change?” Jones asked.
Mateo—along with everyone present—turned to glance at the photos lining the bulletin board. Seven in all, each almost identical to the other, with the exception of one. The only one who mattered to him beyond the typical empathy of seeing others lose their family members.
His vision blurred as he stared at the third to last photo, though the image had been seared onto his memories long ago. This particular picture of Mariana had been taken to celebrate her commencement from grad school—no small feat while caring for a home and daughter, often without the assistance of her overworked husband. She was as beautiful in the photo as she had been the day Mateo first laid eyes on her. Mariana’s smiling face was at odds with the unfocused gazes and sullen expressions of the other victims, her hazel eyes twinkling with purity and light. There was another photo similar to this one of them together—Mateo holding her from behind as they smiled into the camera. He hated that photo now; hated the way it reminded him of his past self. A version of him who had died the moment Mariana took her last breath.
He had always gone about his work with an indifferent regard for the families of the victims whose killers he hunted and brought to justice. All of a sudden, the victim had become someone he loved, and he hardly knew how to function, to move day to day without thinking past a single motive.
Luckily, being a supervisory agent gave him enough clout with the Criminal Investigative Division that he’d been allowed to stay on the case despite a clear conflict of interest. There was also his astonishing track record as one of the few agents in the bureau with a perfect case closure rate. The accolades and commendations he earned throughout his career acted as a shield against all the typical reasons an agent would be forced to recuse themselves from a case. He’d fought tooth and nail to continue pursuing this particular UNSUB, and now, it consumed his every waking moment. Mateo knew he was on paper-thin ice. As long as he watched his step and continued to lead with competence, he could remain on this case.
He was going to find the son of a bitch and strangle the life from him with his bare hands. There could be no other outcome.
“The victim appears similar to the others. Early to mid-twenties, white, female, and seemingly high-risk. We can’t be sure until she’s identified, but a study of her background will likely reveal a prostitute or drug addict. Finding concrete information about high-risk victims beyond the bare details of their identity and past is difficult, as I’m sure you know. So, only the handful of details we have link them together at this point. They are all from different states and seem to be connected only by their circumstances. Only once did the victimology change, but we all know why.”
Every eye in the room deviated from him, and the bitter sting of pity needled the surface of his skin. He couldn’t stand the way everyone tiptoed around him, constantly asking if he was sure he wanted to continue this case. As if his life could be propelled forward otherwise.
“As far as the UNSUB’s identity goes, it will only take one piece of evidence to strengthen the profile and give us a better idea of what we’re looking at. For now, I continue to operate under the belief that we’re looking for a white male, mid-to-late forties, who lacks family ties. This man has no wife, no children, no family. He wouldn’t want to care for anyone else because he is a virulent narcissist. An inspection of his childhood may turn up either physical or sexual abuse at the hands of his mother. Every woman he kills is a proxy for her, and he likely thinks his next kill will be ‘the one.’ The one to satisfy his rage against the woman he truly wants to murder … over and over again. This man hates women and demonstrates that hatred through brutal sexual assault and mutilation of their wombs. We also suspect he is a man of means, as the murder sites are spread out enough to indicate that he has the ability to travel and fairly quickly.”
“He’s meticulous,” said Special Agent Smith, a man of few words who never spoke unless he had to. “He’s covered his tracks like a pro so far, and his choice to deviate from his victim pattern tells us something, too. It tells us he isn’t motivated by some uncontrollable psychosis. He chooses his victims personally, purposefully. He’s in complete control.”
An experienced agent, Smith had been a police detective for seventeen years before applying to the FBI. He was one of the foremost minds in forensic analysis and tactical surveillance in the bureau. Pushing fifty-five, with blond hair shaved close to his head and piercing blue eyes, he was shorter in stature but broad through the chest and shoulders. His features looked like they had been carved from a chunk of granite, and he rarely smiled. Not that he had a reason to.
Like Mateo, Smith had become jaded over the years, each having more experience than the other people in the room combined. Hunting down the most heinous criminals in the country made it impossible to look on the bright side of life. The only comfort came from bringing the UNSUBs to justice.
“You say meticulous,” Jones quipped. “I say he’s a fucking ghost. Literally disappears without a trace.”
“Eventually, he will make a mistake,” Mateo countered. “And when he does, we will be there.”
Williams spoke up again, raising her hand as if they were in the first grade. “Are we going to continue to ignore the ritualistic manner of these murders? The pentagram, the coin?”
Of course, the coin. That fucking coin had been the bane of Mateo’s existence since the start of the case. It along with the pentagram and the exsanguination, made it seem as if these women had been ritual sacrifices of some kind. Roughly the size of silver dollars, the coins had been dusted for fingerprints. Their strange markings had been studied by several analysts who specialized in occult symbolism. No one could identify the markings, and each coin had been free of fingerprints or incriminating residue. A half dozen coin experts had inspected them only to report odd, inconsistent metal composition and the absence of any traditional minting marks that might help uncover its origin. The coins were a custom job, perhaps a ritualistic token. The revelations concerning the coins had stopped there.
“Actual occult murders are extremely rare,” Smith said, echoing Mateo’s thoughts. “Most of the time, the people who do this creepy shit do it to invoke fear, other times misdirection.”
