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  Don’t miss

  THE CRUELEST CUT

  by Rick Reed

  “Rick Reed, retired homicide detective and author of Blood

  Trail, the true-crime story of serial killer Joe Brown, brings

  his impressive writing skills to the world of fiction with The

  Cruelest Cut. This is as authentic and scary as crime

  thrillers get, written as only a cop who’s lived this drama in

  real life can write. . . . A very good and fast read.”

  —Nelson DeMille

  “A tornado of drama—you won’t stop spinning till you’ve been spit out the other end. Rick Reed knows the dark side as only a real-life cop can, and his writing crackles with authenticity.”

  —Shane Gericke

  “Put this one on your must-read list. The Cruelest Cut is a can’t-put-down adventure. All the components of a crackerjack thriller are here, and author Reed knows how to use them. Readers will definitely want to see more of Reed’s character Jack Murphy.”

  —John Lutz

  “A jaw-dropping thriller that dares you to turn the page.”

  —Gregg Olsen

  “A winner of a debut novel . . . Reed is a master of describing graphic violence. Some of the crime scenes here will chill you to the bone.”

  —Bookreporter.com

  ALSO BY RICK REED

  The Cruelest Cut

  Blood Trail

  THE COLDEST FEAR

  RICK REED

  PINNACLE BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Don’t miss THE CRUELEST CUT by Rick Reed

  ALSO BY RICK REED

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SIX

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

  CHAPTER NINETY

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  CHAPTER NINETY-THREE

  CHAPTER NINETY-FOUR

  CHAPTER NINETY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Copyright Page

  for Jennifer

  CHAPTER ONE

  Snow hung heavy in the branches of Scotch pine and cedar trees, and where it hadn’t turned to slush, the land was covered in a foot of snow. The storm had surprised everyone, and as the tall, dark-haired young man stepped off the bus in the town’s center he could hear generators humming in every direction.

  The town hadn’t changed much, and even with snow, all the old landmarks were still there. Bertha’s Diner was still on the corner, across the street from Rambo’s, a redneck tavern where violent brawls broke out over imagined remarks or innocent looks. Next to Rambo’s was the old five-and-dime where he used to look through the plate-glass windows at the toys and candy and wonder what it would be like to have a whole dollar to spend.

  The five-and-dime was now a Dollar General, but the displays in the window could have been from fifteen years ago, as if time had somehow shifted backwards. But it hadn’t. He had traveled a great distance to get here. And he was here with a purpose.

  The judge had sentenced him to the asylum until such time he was declared fit to stand trial, but that day had never come. He had spent fifteen years inside. Fifteen years of watching, listening, learning what to say and how to say it. Learning how to convince the doctors that he was cured.

  Before he had gone to the asylum he had hidden something in this town. Hidden it in the only place that, as an eight-year-old, he knew it would be safe. For fifteen years he had dreamed of this day, when he would finally reclaim what was rightfully his.

  He half expected that when he returned to Shawneetown, Illinois, everyone would cast curious looks at him. Would wonder what he was doing home. What he was doing “out.” But the town that had seemed so bustling to him as an eight-year-old only looked tired and depleted to him at age twenty-three.

  There were just a handful of people on the streets. Like the snow, they looked washed of color, drained of life. He crossed the street, stepping into the ruts left behind by cars, and walked into the narrow gangway between Rambo’s and the Dollar General store. The odor in the narrow alleyway reminded him of the burnt-grease smell on his father’s clothing when he would come home from a night of drinking and gambling in the back room at the tavern. He remembered his mother being unable to buy food or clothing for them because of his father’s affection for blackjack and poker.

  The alleyway emptied out into a field behind the buildings and led into the woods. The State Highway Department used the field behind Rambo’s to store crushed cinders and bricks for when the roads iced over. The huge pile of grit was gone, but even after fifteen years the cinders crunched under the smooth soles of his brand-new dress shoes. The asylum had given him shoes, sl
acks, a button-down shirt, and a recycled sport coat whose sleeves were several inches too short. They were his only possessions.

  At the edge of the field was a small cut-through that the kids had used to get into the woods. A few hundred yards through the woods to the south were railroad tracks. And less than a mile on the other side of the tracks was the tiny house where he had once lived with his mother, father, and sister.

  The house was gone now. The bus had driven past the lot on the way into town. A row of cheap duplexes had been built over his old stomping grounds. He had stared at the wide expanses of snow behind the duplexes and remembered the night he had run out the back of his house, through the fields and into the woods, covered in blood and weaving between the big wild blackberry bushes, which tore at his bare arms and chest. It had been snowing that night, too.

  He made his way down the path behind Rambo’s, and emerged from the woods into a small clearing where an old cabin stood. Its wood was blackened with age, and the handmade shutters were lying on the ground, smashed into pieces by vandals, everything covered in pristine white snow, but it was still there. When he was a kid, the cabin was rumored to be haunted. The truth was that it was a historical landmark. A Civil War general had lived there.

  He didn’t care about the historical significance of the cabin. He only wanted the item he had hidden there that night when he had run from the back door of his home covered in blood, some his own, some his father’s. He had run in a daze, but with enough sense to know he had to hide it. The bone axe was what had finally set him free and he couldn’t let anyone get it. It belonged to him and he to it.

  He stopped just inside the sagging doorway of the cabin and closed his eyes to re-create that night. Three steps ahead he heard the floorboard creak. He knelt and found the loose floorboard and pulled at it with his fingers until it came free. Reaching into the small opening, roughly four inches by six inches, his hand closed on what he wanted. The bone axe was much bigger than the opening, but when his hand came back out it was closed around the short wooden handle of the weapon. The blade was handmade, forged from heavy iron, covered in years of rust. It was crafted to slaughter cattle, the blade sharpened and heavy enough to cut through bones.

  He hefted the weight in his hand. It had seemed much larger and heavier when he was eight years old.

  He’d have to find a place to stay, at least for the night. Somewhere out of town. He’d take the axe with him to give it a proper going-over. The bone axe still had a lot of work to do. Killing his father was only the beginning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Five years later, Evansville, Indiana

  Jack Murphy stood six foot, with a solid build, and a shock of dark hair he had taken to wearing spiked in the front. His gray eyes could turn dark when he was angry or threatened, or soft as a cloud when he was happy. They were soft gray now as he stood on the front porch of the river cabin he called home and gazed across the Ohio to the Kentucky side.

  It was late fall; the trees that lined both shores had already lost most of their color. The early sun cast dizzying lights across the swift-moving water. Less than two hundred yards from his door a small spit of sand protruded from the river that was a favorite party site for the younger boaters. He’d spent many a lazy summer day watching bronzed bikini-clad bodies applying suntan lotion.

  Unconsciously he rubbed at the thick white scar that ran from below his right ear, down his jaw and across his chest, ending above the left nipple. The scalding hot shower had started an itch that wouldn’t end.

  “You want freshened up?” Susan asked from the doorway.

  Jack turned and found her holding the coffee decanter and wearing nothing but one of his white dress shirts that she had left unbuttoned. Her long blond hair framed her face, and not for the first time, the sight of her made breathing a conscious effort. The steam that rose from the open decanter could not match the steam he felt rising from within.

  As the chief parole officer for the southern region of Indiana, Susan had seen and done things that would make strong men run in panic. Jack had never been able to understand why a woman so smart and beautiful had picked such a dangerous career.

  “You must have been reading my mind,” he said, and held out his mug for a refill.

  “If I was reading your mind we’d be back in the bedroom and you would be late for work, Mr. Detective,” she said with a giggle.

  “Well, you have the day off for a change and I have at least . . .” he looked at his watch and said, “ten more minutes before I have to leave.”

  “Behave!” she said, and put her arms around his neck, her face mere inches from his.

  Just as their lips touched the police radio that lay on the porch railing beside him crackled to life.

  “All available units. One William Four is in foot pursuit of an armed suspect at Southeast Fourth and Main Street.”

  “Hold that thought,” he said and headed for his car.

  Seven o’ clock in the morning, downtown traffic in Evansville was at its usual frantic pace when Jack Murphy drove his unmarked police car, a silver Crown Vic, up on the curb alongside the tall buildings, stopped at the mouth of the alleyway, rolled the windows down, and then turned off the ignition to listen. The other drivers apparently didn’t seem to think this was odd behavior and continued in their dronelike traffic patterns on their way to and from their jobs.

  The sound of footfalls was getting closer, the slap-slap-slapping of shoe leather on asphalt. He listened to the quick succession of steps and began counting to himself, one, two, three ...

  Jack simultaneously cranked the ignition and stomped the accelerator. The car lurched across the mouth of the alley, blocking it entirely as he slammed on the brakes. The runner, unable to stop in time, struck the side of the car and splayed across the hood, smashing his face on the windshield. From inside the car the man looked like a squashed bug.

  Jack Murphy jumped from the Crown Vic, dragged the groaning man onto the ground, and handcuffed him. The Evansville Police Department motto is In Connection With the Community. This was as fine a connection as Jack had ever made.

  Two uniformed officers—one a rookie who Jack didn’t recognize and the other an older cop named Wilson—came running up the alley. Wilson, half a block behind the youngster, was winded and gasping for air. He looked down at the man lying at Jack’s feet.

  “That’s him. He just robbed the pharmacy with a knife,” he said.

  “He’s fast,” the younger cop said. He was at least as tall as Jack at around six foot, but was much more lean and baby faced. The younger cop added, “I would’ve caught him.”

  Jack and the older cop exchanged a look. They both knew that one day this youngster would be puking his guts up after a foot pursuit and would learn to take his time.

  “Well, he’s all yours,” Jack said. “Just trade my cuffs off and you can have him.”

  The younger cop’s name tag read OFFICER BLOOMBERG. Jack watched as Bloomberg expertly patted the suspect down, put his own handcuffs on him, and took Jack’s off.

  “Thanks, Detective Murphy,” Bloomberg said, handing the cuffs over.

  “I need to go to the hospital,” the man said from the ground.

  Detective Liddell Blanchard presented an imposing figure in any setting. At a little over six-foot-five and weighing in at “full-grown Yeti,” he was the biggest man on the Evansville Police Department. When Jack arrived in the small parking lot behind police headquarters, he spotted Liddell leaning impatiently against the metal railing at the back entrance to the detective’s office.

  Jack squinted into the sun and glanced at the big man. He and Liddell had been partners for almost six years. Liddell’s nickname on the police department was “Cajun” because of his Louisiana upbringing, and his addiction to Cajun cooking. Jack called him Bigfoot for obvious reasons.

  “You’re late, pod’na,” Liddell said. “Sergeant Mattingly’s gonna have your butt.”

  Jack strode up to the door
. “He’s already got mine and yours, too.” Sergeant Mattingly was a short man with a very wide build. He resembled an old Volkswagen van with a bad hairpiece, and had a temperament to match.

  Liddell nodded. “You’re still late though.”

  “I ran into someone on the way here,” Jack said.

  “Yeah, I heard. And I heard the guy’s threatening to sue you and the department. I think Internal Affairs was mentioned as well.”

  “Internal Affairs keeps a seat warm for me,” Jack said. “In fact, I think they might give me my own parking spot.”

  Jack started toward the door, and Liddell stopped him, saying, “We just got a run.”

  “Can I go to the men’s room?”

  “Sure. But if you go in there you’ll get yelled at,” Liddell reminded him.

  Jack muttered something, and they headed for the car.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The call reporting the murder had come from the Marriott on the highway near the airport. The caller had requested that police keep the response to a bare minimum, stating “this sort of thing just doesn’t happen at the Marriott.”

  The police dispatcher didn’t like the caller’s tone of voice, so she sent four uniform cars, detectives, crime scene, fire and rescue squads, and the coroner. By the time Jack and Liddell arrived, the front entrance of the hotel was blocked with police and emergency vehicles including the coroner’s black Suburban. Surprisingly, there were no television crews.

  Jack and Liddell nodded at the uniformed officer standing guard at the front entrance and walked past the check-in counter, where a harried-looking woman was talking to an older officer.

  They rode the elevator to the third floor. The room they wanted was near the end of the hallway, where five black Pelican hard-side cases lay open in the hallway near the door of the room. Arranged neatly inside the cases were cameras, fingerprinting equipment, and other tools.

  “Look at all the goodies,” Liddell said, eyeing all the cameras and technical equipment. “Marcie wants me to buy a new camera.”