Free Targeted (Callahan & McLane Book 4) by Kendra Elliot Page B

headless stuffed body sat in a chair on the small front porch. Mason looked away from the decorations. The Halloween cheer was at odds with what he knew was indoors. Ava had learned more details as he drove them to the home, and he knew the scene inside would be difficult to stomach. He neatly printed his name in the scene log under Ava’s, thankful the police officer had no reason to question the appearance of an OSP detective, and slipped on booties.
    They stepped inside. Mason nodded at a few familiar faces in the foyer, unsurprised at the level of anger he felt in the home. None of the officers he recognized said a word; they simply nodded back. A few people he didn’t know cast annoyed glances Ava’s way. Sexism was rife in many police departments and some cops didn’t want to see a female FBI agent when one of their own had been taken down. Mason returned the glares tenfold; Ava ignored them. She’d told him in the past she didn’t care what people thought. She did her job and knew she did it well.
    They turned a corner and found themselves in the living room at the front of the house. Ava froze and Mason nearly bumped into her back. He looked across the room and caught his breath. The trooper had been nailed to the wall with thick spikes through his wrists. A white contorted ghost mask covered the officer’s face.
    Mason wasn’t a religious man, but he said a silent prayer for the man’s soul and family. And then asked for the rapid capture of the person who’d committed such a sin. He saw Ava’s shoulders rise and fall with her deep breaths. Her chin lifted and she moved into the room, crossing to where Zander stood with Nora Hawes.
    Nora’s eyes narrowed as she spotted Mason. “What are you doing here?” she asked as a greeting.
    “I’m not here,” he replied, shoving his hands in his pants pockets.
    She held his gaze a moment longer and then gave a short nod. “As you wish. But if someone directly asks me . . .”
    “I understand,” he said. If asked, he knew she’d say he’d showed up and refused to leave. He could live with that and whatever consequences it brought.
    This was about Denny. Screw anyone who tried to shut him out of this investigation.
    “What do we know about him?” Ava asked.
    “Louis Samuelson was a trooper with OSP for fifteen years.” Nora looked at her notepad. “Forty-one, lives alone, divorced, no kids. He was spotted around one thirty this morning when a jogger ran by and saw him through the window.”
    “Wait,” said Ava. “Who runs at one in the morning?”
    “Our witness,” said Zander. “He works a rotating schedule at Home Depot and runs when he can. He’s outside with one of the patrol officers. We’re going to talk to him more in depth in a few minutes. Needless to say, it scared the crap out of him when he decided to take a closer look through the window.”
    Mason glanced at the covered front room window. It was quite large and didn’t have curtains or blinds. He hadn’t noticed any large bushes or trees blocking the window from the street. The house sat up on a slight rise, but anyone on the sidewalk would have a clear view to the inside of the house. He wondered how long it’d taken the cops to hang something over the window.
    Looking carefully, Ava stepped closer to the body, and Mason saw that most of its weight was supported on large metal spikes that’d been hammered into the wall under the victim’s armpits. The same spikes had been put through the wrists, but Mason felt they were for shock value, not necessity.
    He recognized the mask from a series of popular horror movies. The white mask’s mouth was elongated and the eyes were a distorted jelly bean shape. “What movie is the mask from?”
    “The Scream franchise,” Zander said. “I just looked it up. It’s never the same killer wearing the mask. It could be anyone in the films.”
    “Never saw them,” said Nora. “Not my thing.”
    “Could we have more than one killer?”