BLUE STEELE BOX SET - BOOKS 4-7
BLUE STEELE BOX SET 2
Remington Kane
Contents
Blue Steele Box Set 2
Join My Inner Circle
Acknowledgments
BLUE STEELE 4
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
BLUE STEELE 5
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
BLUE STEELE 6
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
BLUE STEELE 7
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
MORE BLUE
Afterword
Join My Inner Circle
Bibliography
Make Contact
Coming Soon
Blue Steele Box Set 2
BLUE STEELE – THAT WHICH DOESN’T KILL ME
BLUE STEELE – ON THE HUNT
BLUE STEELE – PAST SINS
BLUE STEELE – DADDY’S GIRL
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Acknowledgments
I write for you.
—Remington Kane
BLUE STEELE 4
BLUE STEELE – THAT WHICH DOESN’T KILL ME - Book 4 of the Blue Steele Series
Prologue
TEXAS STATE FAIR, DALLAS TEXAS 1993
When I was nine, I remember staring with an open mouth as I gazed up at Big Tex, the symbol of the Texas State Fair.
The statue was over five stories high and looked amazing, and then it talked. Big Tex wore a 75-gallon cowboy hat and size 70 boots. I looked over at my sister Jenny and saw that she was frightened by it, but also fascinated.
“He ain’t real, Jenny.”
“I know, but something that big is scary.”
Big Tex was gigantic, but nearly twenty years later, the fifty-two-foot high statue would be consumed within minutes due to a fire started by a tiny electrical short.
We could have stared up at Big Tex all day, but after a while, our mama and daddy hurried us along, and we headed for the rides.
We spent hours roaming the fairgrounds and having fun, but the fun was interrupted as Jenny and I stood in line to buy cotton candy.
When we were nearly to the counter, a boy of about twelve pushed in front of us. I remember looking over at my daddy, who was sitting with Mama on a nearby bench. I wondered if he was going to teach the boy a lesson in manners, but no, he just sat there and stared back at me.
I reached up and tapped the boy on the shoulder.
“Hey, no cutting in line.”
The boy glanced back over his shoulder and gave me a dismissive look.
“What are you gonna do about it?”
I didn’t know what to do, and so I just stood there.
“That boy asked you a question, Blue.”
I looked at my father again.
“Daddy?”
“He asked you what you were gonna do about someone treating you with disrespect.”
“But Daddy… he… he’s bigger than me.”
“So, anyone bigger than you can just treat you anyway they want, girl? Is that what you’re telling me?”
I thought about that, thought about it and grew angry.
“No, sir!”
“Then answer the boy’s question.”
And I did, I took Jenny’s hand and the two of us stepped in front of him, reclaiming our place in line. The boy stared down at me with angry eyes as I glared back up at him defiantly. I was ready to fight if I had to, but he was shoved aside by the teenage boy in line behind us.
“Beat it, kid, and stop being a jerk.”
The boy stared up at the teenager, who was muscular. He swallowed hard once and then slinked away.
The teenager spoke to me.
“Hey, little girl.”
I turned around and looked up at him.
“Yeah?”
He laughed. “You got guts.”
“Thanks.”
When I looked back at my daddy, he was smiling.
Chapter 1
Ramón and I were staying at my family’s farm when we got the awful, and yet, long-awaited news.
My sister Jenny and her husband Chad were also there along with my mama. Jenny and Chad had recently returned from their honeymoon. The two of them were as happy as I’ve ever seen a couple. Jenny was well along in her pregnancy and we were all looking forward to the baby’s birth.
I was standing at the sink washing the lunch dishes when Jenny told me the baby’s sex.
“A boy? That’s fantastic, and have you thought of a name yet?”
“No Blue, but we’ve got time.”
I smiled over at Chad. He was a good-looking man with blond hair and an easygoing manner.
“Maybe Chad Jr.?”
“No, I’ve never liked it for myself, so I won’t be passing it on.”
Ramón was seated at the table beside Mama. He held up his computer tablet as he spoke to Chad.
“I’ve been reading your book and it’s excellent, I’ve only a few chapters left and I still don’t know who the killer is.”
Chad grinned. “Well then, I’ve done my job.” Chad was a mystery writer, and was actually a cousin of famed writer, Lindsay Reynolds. With three novels of his own in print, it looked as though he was going to follow in her footsteps. His next book was going to be a collaboration with his vastly more well-known relation.
Mama smiled at Chad. “So how do you like farm life so far?”
“It’s great, but then, I don’t do much of the actual work around here.”
“Oh hell, that’s why I rent out the land, so someone else can do the work. This is just an itty-bitty place anyway, at least by Texas standards, but it pays for itself.”
“My offer still stands,” Chad said.
Mama scoffed at that with a wave of her hand.
Chad and Jenny were living with her and wanted to pay rent, but my mama wouldn’t hear of it. In the end, it was agreed that Chad and Jenny would pay for the groceries. I was just glad that they were living there; otherwise, my mama would have been left all alone.
After lunch, Ramón and I went for a ride on a pair of horses that belonged to Ch
ad and Jenny.
Ramón had never been on a horse until three days earlier. He was a fast learner and looked at ease in the saddle.
“How are you doing over there?”
Ramón smiled at me.
“I see why you love this so much. I should get my own when I return home; after all, I have enough land for one.”
“You might want to give that more thought, owning a horse is a huge expense. You would have to build a stable, fence in the land, and the food and veterinary costs aren’t cheap.”
“Still, I’d be willing to do it, but only if I had a partner to ride with.”
I smiled. “You would buy me a horse?”
“I would buy you the world, Blue.”
“The offer is sweet, but no, a horse would be too much.”
“The offer stands, and so does my other offer.”
I grew quiet then.
Ramón had asked me to move in with him recently and I turned him down. I loved him, but we had only been together for a few months. We were still so new together that I was unwilling to make that leap. I had never lived with a man before, and with the crazy hours I sometimes had to keep, I thought that it would put a strain on us. He, on the other hand, thought that I was pulling away from him. Maybe I was just a bit, but it was only because I feared ruining a good thing.
“I thought you were going to let that go?”
“You’re right,” he said, then pointed back toward the house. “It looks like there’s company arriving.”
I squinted at the pickup truck coming up the driveway. When I recognized it, I grinned.
“That’s Deke Thomas, he was one of my daddy’s best friends. He’s also a Texas Ranger.”
“Oh right, I met him at your sister’s wedding.”
We quickened our pace and I was glad to see that Ramón was able to handle the horse easily; he really was a fast learner.
I gave Deke a hug and then realized that he had a strained look on his face.
My mama knew, she knew the moment she laid eyes on him, and as she asked the question, those eyes were crying.
“They finally found him, didn’t they?”
Deke nodded solemnly.
“Yes, Maggie, the mystery of Blue’s disappearance has finally been solved, and damn if he wasn’t right about his ‘Herd Thinner.’”
My daddy, a Texas Ranger, was convinced that one man had been killing across the country for over five decades without being detected. The means the man used to kill, as well as the victims he chose were so varied that the experts attributed the murders to multiple persons.
By chance, Daddy had detected a recurring pattern to the dates of several murders, and soon realized that the pattern went back decades. Despite numerous attempts to have federal authorities investigate his theory further, no one ever gave it any credence. Daddy worked the case alone on his own time.
Until today, no one had known what became of my father, and his theory of a “Herd Thinner” had continued to be dismissed by experts in the FBI.
I stared into Deke’s eyes.
“The man who killed my daddy, where is he?”
“He’s dead, Blue, this all came to light because someone stumbled upon his body. The man was very old and died of natural causes.”
“Where’s my daddy’s body?”
“Here in Texas, near the Oklahoma border, a town called Botcher is where they… found him. There were over a hundred souvenirs found on the scene as well, many of which have already been identified as belonging to victims. Some of them date back to the 1950’s.”
Souvenirs, or sometimes trophies, are the names given by law-enforcement to any object taken off a victim by a serial killer. The fact that there were over a hundred of them made my head spin.
Deke reached into a pocket and brought out a small blue velvet case that looked like it came from a jeweler. Mama realized what was in it, because her knees grew weak. If Ramón hadn’t steadied her, she might have collapsed to the ground.
“Let me see it,” she said, and Deke opened the case to reveal my daddy’s badge. The shiny silver metal was shaped like a circle with a five-pointed star in its middle.
Deke handed it to her and she kissed it.
“I always knew that death was the only thing that could have kept him from us. I thank God that I didn’t have to go to my grave without knowing what happened to him.”
Chad and Jenny led Mama inside and I gave Deke a hug.
“Thank you for coming here personally.”
“I had to Blue, but be prepared, this story is about to go national.”
“Will my father’s name be mentioned?”
Deke smiled. “You bet your ass it will. The FBI is going to be eating crow over this one for years to come. If they had given more weight to your daddy’s theory, then some of those victims would be alive today.”
“And so would my daddy,” I said, as I fell into Ramón’s arms amid tears.
Chapter 2
Deke sat at the kitchen table and drank a glass of whisky as Ramón and I joined him.
“They’ve been trying to keep this story low-profile, but any fool would know that’s not possible. The earliest victim is from 1950 and was a high school girl named Cindy James. Her locket appears to be the oldest of the souvenirs. It was positively identified by her younger sister. The murder took place so long ago that the sister is now living in a nursing home.”
“When were these souvenirs found?”
“Nearly a week ago, but the bodies were discovered later, because at first they thought the souvenirs were just a box of junk. That evidence was nearly tossed away, but a female deputy wondered why an old man would keep such things as that locket. When she dug into it, she found that several items belonged to murder victims.”
“How did you get my daddy’s badge? I know that it must be evidence too.”
“Hell, that thing has been printed, photographed, examined, and even x-rayed. The crime scene dudes have plenty of other things they can study, but I knew that badge would be important to your mama, and so I pulled some strings.”
“Who killed Daddy, Deke?”
“The house on the property was actually a double-wide trailer that was owned by a man named Clayton Harker. Harker’s own corpse was discovered by a county social worker after the man had been dead for weeks. It’s believed that Clayton Harker murdered your daddy.”
“Believed?”
“Well, nothing is for certain yet. The locals say that Harker didn’t always live there alone the last dozen years or so. There’s a nephew of his named Darrell Harker that’s wanted for questioning. At the time your father went missing, Darrell was just a boy of fourteen.”
“How did Daddy die?”
“We’re still waiting on the full autopsy report, but… they say there was a bullet hole in the back of his skull.”
“Shot from behind then, not surprising, as quick as my daddy was with a gun, no one would have been faster face to face.”
Deke looked over at the stairs.
“Is your mama gonna be all right?”
“Yeah, even after so many years, it’s, it’s just still a shock, but in another way, it’s a relief to finally know what happened to him.”
Deke squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them again, I saw that they were moist.
“I miss your daddy something awful, Blue.”
I leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.
“We all do, Deke.”
Deke was right about the story exploding. The following days saw the Herd Thinner case become a headline story. My father was hailed as a hero while the FBI was excoriated for not heeding his warnings and offering assistance.
The Herd Thinner had begun as a theory for my father and later became an obsession, an obsession that led to his death.
The souvenirs found in Clayton Harker’s trailer told quite a story once they had been photographed and categorized. The computer database
immediately came up with thirty-two likely matches concerning murders that took place over decades and all across the country.
Clayton Harker had spent over fifty years as a long-haul trucker, a profession my father had theorized as most likely for his Herd Thinner. Harker had left a slew of victims along his path and I found myself wondering who the others were who had been found on his property.
Perhaps the other bodies were of people who had stumbled onto what he really was and so were killed for their knowledge, as my daddy was.
And what of the nephew, who was actually a grandnephew? Was Darrell Harker unaware of what his granduncle was, or had he become an accomplice? Could it have been him and not the elderly Harker that murdered my father?
News reports stated that he too was a trucker and that his rig had been found abandoned near a bus depot in Nebraska. If he was on the run, then that seemed to indicate guilt of one kind or another.