Ghost Skills

Ghost Skills Chapter 18

Three days after his last phone call with Ghost, Cortez got a call about a multiple homicide. Getting into his unmarked squad car, he peeled out of the department and drove for the apartment building. Once he pulled up, a uniformed officer waved him through the first line of caution tape at the entrance to the parking lot. Driving up to the second line of tape that cordoned of the entire building, he exited his vehicle and put on a detached, professional demeanor before walking up to the uniform and flashing his I.D. The uniformed officer studied the shield before letting him through.

“Detective, you should hurry. This one's bad.”

The officers met each other eyes for a moment before Cortez continued and passed by a chalk outline of a body in the parking lot before arriving at the front door. The coroner was studying three bodies in the lobby when Cortez walked up, hand outstretched.

The other man removed his gloves and grasped Cortez's hand, pumping earnestly. “Dr. Jacobson. What have we got?”

“Sixteen dead, all of them except the one outside were killed by a very sharp blade. Four look like they were killed in their sleep, the others show some, but not much, signs of struggle. Time of deaths say they all died withing minutes of each other, all in the same hour.”

“The one outside?”

“He fell off the roof. Ribs were cracked prior to his fall, probably from the boot print on his chest. Everything else cracked when he hit the ground.”

Cortez ran a hand through his hair and gestured around the lobby. “That all you got so far?”

Jacobson looked down at the bodies on the floor before replying. “For the moment, yes. I'll have exact causes of death within a few days, there's a lot of bodies here.”

Cortez squatted down and studied the three bodies on the dirty marble floor. Two with wounds to the necks, and the other with a gaping hole where his right eye should have been. He rose to leave when Jacobson grabbed his arm.

“Be careful Cortez. This is just a teaser, the rest of this place is pretty ugly.”

Cortez nodded and went down the stairs to the basement, taking each step slowly. When he reached the body in front of the breaker box, he stiffened. It was Sam Parrish, a repeat offender that was in and out of the station once every few weeks for small crimes, petty larceny, a few snatched purses, never anything worth him dying over.

Cortez swallowed hard. “My god, what have I done?”

I rolled out of bed, groaning with the motion. The aches and pains were hanging around longer these days, fruit of too much work. I had just spent the last three days cleaning and rearranging the warehouse I had just bought. Repairing a few holes in the roof, lining all the walls with a soundproof coating, and transporting all my weapons and Tac Suit from the small room of my home to the office in the back of the building. It had been almost week since my trip to the apartment building, and I was exhausted.