The Grave Between Us (A Noah & Cole Thriller, #2)

by Tal Bauer

Young, eager Cole Kennedy, working on his doctorate, newly out of Quantico. So motivated to crack the mind of the FBI’s most intriguing serial murderer. How many months had they spent together? Days and nights lost their meaning, and Cole’s eyes became the sun and the moon Ian’s world orbited around. Cole’s voice, replaying in his mind, his memories changing until Cole was whispering in Ian’s ears, saying the things Ian wanted to hear more than anything else. Things Cole would never say. At least, not willingly. What would Cole feel like under him? He’d wondered, so many, many times. The only drawback to his escape eight years ago was that it ended his days with Cole.

“A dress like this commands attention. I would personally rather see you wear something like this when you’re older. It takes a little bit of life experience to learn how to deal with that kind of attention.” Katie was still gnawing on her lip. Her gaze had turned questioning, and she peered at Cole for a long moment. “You were on that murder case with the teenagers killed after prom, right?” Katie, thanks to Google, knew about his work with the BAU. Or, at least, the cases that had been made public. That was only a fraction of what he’d done. The very tip of the iceberg.

Katie held his stare. He could see her mind spinning, see her putting pieces together. She’d embraced his world, or as much as she could at sixteen. Her psychology class was her favorite, she said, and she’d asked for psych books and true-crime novels for Christmas. Sometimes she’d blurt out questions about a serial killer or an unsolved murder in the middle of driving to school in the morning. Most days, he was torn between pride and terror for her. She was tiptoeing around the edges of shadows, trying to hold a candle against the darkness. There were things he knew that lived inside that darkness, things he never wanted her to find.

Cole got down on one knee and pressed a square box into Noah’s palm. Noah had gone bone white, Katie had screamed, and Cole’s world had sharpened to a pinpoint, nothing mattering but Noah’s face and the feel of his pounding pulse against Cole’s fingers. “I want forever,” he’d whispered. “Forever with you. Marry me, Noah?”

“Are you sure I’m what you want?” Noah whispered again. “Cole, I’m…” His face scrunched up, and he held his breath. “You’re perfect for me.” Cole kissed him. “You’re the man I love.” And again. “You’re the man I want to be with forever.” A third kiss. “Yes, I’m sure.”

A year ago, he didn’t know Noah Downing. Now, he couldn’t imagine a single moment without him in his life.

Noah had drawn a heart over his sink in dry-erase marker. Would they ever not be ridiculous about each other? Would this hummingbird heart he had for Noah ever slow down? God, he hoped not. He loved loving Noah.

“Would you have asked him to marry you, if he didn’t do it first?” “I don’t know. Not because I don’t love him. I do. But…” He exhaled. “I don’t want to be as bad a husband to Cole as I was to Lilly. What if I’m just a shitty husband, no matter who I’m married to? What if I’m no good at being married?” “And what if you were miserable because you’re gay and you were trying not to be? I think that would have an impact on how good or bad of a husband you were.” “Well—” “You love him?” “I do. So much it scares me.” “Then you’re going to be fine.”

couldn’t move his hand. Couldn’t move his elbow. Why couldn’t he move his arm? Damn it, he couldn’t even breathe. There wasn’t enough oxygen, even though he was staring at the big, open, perfectly blue sky, as bright and clear as Cole’s eyes. Cole. Where was Cole? He had to call Cole. Why couldn’t he move his hand? Why couldn’t he grab his phone? Who had shot him? Were they going to finish the job? Cole, I love you. I wanted the chance to be your husband. Good or bad, I wanted the chance. Why, why on earth did you pick me? How did you fall in love with me? I’ll never understand why you picked me up that night, why you picked me to love.

Noah screamed, and the man dug his fingers in deeper. He smiled. “What is it about you, Noah Downing, that captured his attention? What did you do that brought Cole all the way out here?” Noah roared when the man twisted and hooked his fingers. He dragged Noah forward, lifting him from the ground by the crook of his hold inside Noah’s chest. Got his face right against Noah’s, until they were eyeball to eyeball. It was like staring into a black hole. Beyond the agony knifing through him, every nerve on fire, every muscle clenching—even as he gasped for breath that wasn’t coming, Noah felt the cold slide of something slither down his spine. Every hair on his body rose. He roared this time, more than a reaction to pain. This was different: horror put to sound. Conscious thought fled, and Noah had one image, one perfect moment left in his mind before terror blacked out all conscious thought: Cole and Katie, together, smiling at him, holding out their hands and beckoning him to join them. It was sunny, and they were outside, and Katie had white roses in her hand. Cole was whispering I love you, and Noah was whispering I love you, too, and he didn’t feel the man drop him back to the ground, didn’t see him lift Noah’s gun from the snow and push the barrel against Noah’s temple. “Cole—”

“Cole…” She sighed, long and slow. He felt her exhale like it was a bullet. “There was an incident on Iowa 141 today. We don’t know exactly what happened or how, but Noah and Jacob were shot while driving back from Sioux City.”

“They were shot? Are they—” “They’re both alive, but they’re in bad shape. They were airlifted to Methodist downtown. We don’t know how long they were out there on the highway before a trucker saw the wreck and stopped to call for help. One bullet went through Noah’s chest and shoulder, and it did some real damage. He has a collapsed lung, and if it weren’t for the trucker being a Gulf War vet and knowing some emergency first aid…”

I’ll take you home, I’ll keep you safe. You and Katie. I’ll keep you both safe. I swear it, I swear to God, I swear to fucking God.

“Local guys don’t catch that many serial killers, so they always think they have someone special when they do—but me?” He shook his head. “Honestly, you’re boring. You’re just like all the others.” Ingram’s eyes widened. His nostrils flared. Cole watched his pulse jump above the collar of his jumpsuit. “I mean, I’m sure you think you’re not, but look at it from my perspective. I study serial killers every day. Hundreds of them. After a while, you see the truth: What you guys do isn’t black magic and Satan. It’s all just statistics. When it comes down to it, no serial killer is unique. Statistically, you’re going to be like the others.”

“The FBI is overflowing with killers who left no trace for over a decade? Sounds like shitty police work to me. You just let murderers run wild? Are they too boring for you to pay attention to?” “No, we catch killers pretty quickly. We caught you.” “Not quickly.” “I’ve seen nothing that convinces me you have any victims beyond, possibly, the DNA profiles we found in your truck. The body in your truck bed, the blood pool on your jump seat. There’s a fingerprint under your passenger headrest, and I think you fucked a guy or two in the front seat of your truck. Did you kill them, or just fuck them? We’ll find out, don’t worry. Maybe, maybe you killed three men, all in that truck, which you’ve had for nine months. I’d say we caught you pretty quickly.” He screwed up his expression. “Kind of amateur to let that foot fall out of your tailgate, frankly. That doesn’t sound like the work of a long-term, seasoned killer.” Actually, it did. Decompensation, disintegration. Long-term serial killers eventually succumbed to their internal mental fraying, destabilizing bit by bit as each murder failed to live up to their fantasy. There was no perfect victim performing according to the script. The hunger inside every serial murderer's bones could never be sated and would eventually destabilize them. Eventually.

Ingram was right. Cole understood. Ingram was a predator. Every moment of his life, he hungered: to possess, to dominate, to extinguish. Every cell of Ingram’s body was locked in an endless scream, fueled by incandescent rage. An inferno that never guttered.

He dug his graves by hand with a smile. He hunted, and hunted, and hunted, day in and day out. He loved what he did. He loved to kill. Cole hunted, too. He hunted Ingram and the monsters like him. Cole’s hunger was wreathed in statistics and covered by a badge—and he didn’t stalk victims, he stalked behavioral patterns, plucked personality profiles out of the detritus left behind when a murderer moved on, discarded his victim and his scene, and slunk away. But there was still that craving inside him, a hunger that echoed Ingram’s. He wanted to catch the Ian Ingrams of the world.

Serial killers were driven by compulsion, their inner desires unleashed upon the world. They worked in cycles, repeating the same rituals time and again, creating a pattern that revealed their psychology. Method was the key to their motivation, signature the hint to their cravings. The victim, too, was part of the manual to the killer’s mental landscape. Each victim was significant.

“I’m trying to decide if you were only in it for the sex, or if there was a symbolic aspect to your victims. Fathers, strong men in the prime of their life, are usually symbols of stability and solidity. Did you ever see your father cry when you were young?” Ingram’s eyes went dark—inverting, it seemed. No longer gleaming, but turning into twin eclipses. His expression, his body, even his breathing went still. “So,” Cole said. “Daddy issues.” A muscle in Ingram’s jaw clenched and released. “Serial killers have a need, a very specific hunger they’re trying to satiate. That leads to a specific type of victim and a specific type of signature. Often ones that tie back to experiences in childhood, when you felt victimized yourself. Powerless. When rage began to build, with no outlet. It doesn’t matter how much you try to hide that going forward. It’s always there. It drives everything you do, whether you realize it or not.”

Interrogations were races for rapport. Everyone else who had tried with Ingram had failed, and even Cole only had the thinnest spider’s silk of a connection. Ingram hadn’t responded like other predators. He hadn’t given a single shit about the other agents’ attempts to provide him with empathy and understanding. No, that’s not what he was about. Even in prison, even in shackles, he still wanted to dominate. But the game of domination only worked when the victim provided some kind of challenge. Agents who rolled over and showed their bellies, who offered up the sun and the moon if only he’d talk, didn’t interest him.

“Everything I’ve done, every man I’ve taken, every man I’ve killed, I did it because I wanted to. I don’t feel bad about it, and the family’s grief isn’t going to move me to spill anything. I took him. I tortured him. I killed him. And I loved it. Tell them that.” Cole blinked. “So, what I’m hearing is, you’re absolutely full of shit?” Ingram reared back. “You were caught with Nelson Miller’s five-day-old corpse naked in the back of your truck, your DNA all over him, and enough blood inside the cab to convince a judge and jury that you killed another man, too. We’ve got you dead to rights on those charges, whether you plead guilty or not. Most men in your position would shut their mouths, try and fight for their freedom, but you’re not doing that. You’ve admitted you’re a murderer, and you say you have ‘many graves’ and that you like to take and torture and kill men. But you’re not willing to provide any more names or admit to any significant details. You’re talking in generics and generalities. Are you repeating lines you heard on TV? Is this some big jack-off fantasy for you? Do you think if you create a big enough buzz around your name, you’ll have a different jail experience?” Cole studied Ingram, took him in slowly. “You know what I see when I look at you? I see someone who’s saying everything they can to try and appear big and bad but still wiggle out of the federal death penalty. That big house, that big chair scare you, Ingram?” “You can’t manipulate me into talkin...

Serial killers knew, when they stepped outside the boundaries of humanity, that what they were doing was wrong. They simply didn’t care. It took a special kind of narcissism to do that, to separate that fully and live in the darkness. They secreted their behaviors in order to continue doing what they loved, because they knew, on some level, how horrific they were. But even the ugliest wanted to be known. Media attention was one way to achieve that. Succumbing to an interrogator’s press for information was another. That pull to be understood was like gravity. In the end, all narcissists wanted the same things: Praise. Acknowledgement. Veneration.

The final days of Nelson Miller’s life took four hours for Ingram to describe, in minute, exacting, Technicolor detail.

Resolve slid through his bones. He kissed Noah deeper, pushing their foreheads together. I swear, he won’t touch you again. Never again. No matter what.

Everything about the Miller murder shows that he’s a competent, controlled, methodical predator. He’s been doing this a long, long time.”

“Based on the evidence in the truck when he was arrested, possibly one to two months. But there could be other victims he managed to scrub completely—or, hell, he could have access to more than one vehicle. Whatever the interval was when he began, it’s obviously closed since then. Ingram gets satisfaction from his kills, but he doesn’t get that supersonic high that new predators get. He’s killing more and more, not to chase that high, but to sustain a level of existence. Killing isn’t a hobby for him. It’s how he lives.” “Lovely,” Michael said,

Possessive dominance, check. Cole mentally ticked off another bullet on the behavioral checklist he’d built for Ian. Ian didn’t just want to murder those men. He wanted to dominate them. Possess their life and their death, and then possess them for all time.

“I’m going to marry you, Noah Downing,” he breathed. “I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you.” Noah smiled. “I can’t wait.”

“Cole,” Ian said as he reached for the door handle. “We belong to each other now. We’re united for the rest of our lives.”

“I’m going to keep you safe from him in every way, Noah. I swear.” “I don’t want to be safe if it means I’m alone.”

King was right, but he was also wrong. It wasn’t the time for pissing matches, but it also wasn’t the time to be an asshole, turn FBI agents against FBI agents. His people would bend over backward for King if he asked for the help. They could find this Ian Ingram and stop him. There wasn’t a better group of agents than his team, no matter what King thought.

He didn’t want to lose Cole, and there were so many ways he could. But he always feared he’d do something to drive Cole away, he’d be the one who screwed up and who made Cole second-guess forever and their love story. Forever, so certain only a short time ago, seemed precarious now. He could feel a looming shadow, something that made his heart race and his lungs seize, but he couldn’t see what was coming out of the darkness. Cole had left out pieces of the story he’d told, gaping holes Noah could feel but not see. Tears in his lover’s soul, places where Cole had been emptied.

And he had thought he’d done well to narrow the possibilities to 108 parks. One hundred and eight, and they were looking for a needle buried in all these forests.

How ridiculous his fears of marriage seemed now, set against Cole walking away. He’d take being an awful husband, he’d take Cole’s recriminations, if it meant they were together. But they weren’t, not anymore.

“Ian thinks he’s better than us, better than everyone. He’s not. He’s terrifying, yes. But terrifying isn’t better.” Noah checked the time. It was already after midnight. “I’m going to stay and start digging through these missing persons reports. You guys should head home. It’s late.” Sophie slapped the arms of her chair. “Nothing to go home to. Might as well stay and get some good work done. Not like I’m going to sleep anyway, with this in my mind.” “I already told Holly I was working late. She told me to tell you to kick ass and take names.”

Cole loved to put his face in the back of Noah’s neck, breathe his lover in as he wrapped his arms around Noah’s waist. Kiss him above the collar, behind his ear. Kiss him lower as he undid Noah’s shirt buttons and stripped him. Noah and him, facing each other across a bar in Vegas. Across a hotel bed, Noah’s first time with a man. He’d been so nervous, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, but he’d bowled Cole over with the force of his desire—not just for sex, but for Cole. He’d watched the sunrise on Noah’s skin, and he’d decided there and then that that was the first of many sunrises he would see with Noah. Noah and him, facing each other across the Des Moines conference room table. Noah scared out of his mind, Cole shocked down to his bones. Noah leading him to his bed. Noah falling into his arms outside Katie’s hospital room. Noah crying in the Des Moines airport, saying I love you and I don’t want you to go. Noah and the look in his eyes when Cole came back for good, transfer papers and his own beating heart in the palms of his hands, offered to Noah. I want forever. Forever with you.

“This whole time, Cole and I have been wondering why now? Why did this happen all of a sudden? What the hell triggered all this? It can’t have just come from nowhere.” “Why do you think Seven Oaks has something to do with it?” Sophie asked. “Because we were there that day. We took Katie so she could try snowboarding. We were there all afternoon.” “You think Ian saw you guys there?” “He must have. Let me see the missing persons report.” Noah held out his hand, and Sophie passed it over.

He stared at Dumont’s eyes—the color of cognac, the color of old leather—and his blond hair, cut long on top, tapered on the sides. The perfect length to run fingers through. The perfect length to grab hold of. The perfect length to brush over the tops of eyebrows, to tease his lover’s eyes behind a curtain of cornsilk and sunlight. The other features matched, too. An angular jaw, sharp in places. Clean shaven. Lips on the thinner side. It was like looking at a photo of Cole. “Jacob,” he murmured. “Get me the photo of Lane Boyer.”

Three blond men, all in their late twenties to early thirties, each with brown eyes and defined jaws, easy, friendly smiles, open expressions. Each one could be a brother to Cole, or, in the case of the skier, a doppelgänger.

From three thousand missing men, only seventy-nine remained, scattered across the United States, with definite clusters in North Dakota, Wisconsin, upstate New York, and Wyoming. And now, two in Iowa: Aiden Dumont and Brett Kerrigan.

They’d done it: they’d found Ian’s victim profile. At least, the profile he’d switched to after his escape. After he’d met Cole and built an obsession around Cole, he’d hunted men who looked like Cole. Director King, the BAU, even Cole hadn’t considered what had changed in Ian’s life between his first string of attacks and those after his escape. He hadn’t simply gone back to the same life, to hunting any man who intersected his path at the wrong place and the wrong time. No, he’d focused his fantasy, distilled it to the man who now meant the world to him: Cole.

Eight years of fantasizing about Cole. Eight years of obsession, of reliving his memories of Cole, and of stalking and hunting men who looked like Cole in endless cycles, endless repetitions, the script to Ian’s most fevered daydream. Eight years of replacements, of stand-ins, of runners-up. Until suddenly he was right there. The iris of his infatuation contracting on Cole, on Noah, on their lives.

“No,” Noah choked out. “I haven’t heard from him, and I can’t reach him. Director, I’ve been looking into the Ingram case with my people—” “You what?” “—and we uncovered Ian’s victimology. His new victimology. It changed after his escape. Before he was arrested, his profile was broad, but after his arrest, after he met Cole, it narrowed. Now he’s hunting men who look like Cole. Early thirties, blond hair, brown eyes. We’ve found clusters of missing men matching those demographics in five states, and their vehicles had been moved from their last known location. Those vehicles had shattered driver’s windows. It all matches Ian Ingram’s methodology, Director. His profile has evolved, and you guys didn’t see it. Cole didn’t see it. You thought that Ian was hunting me, but he’s not. He’s hunting Cole.” One, two, three seconds passed. “Get to your house, Downing. Now. Find Cole.”

“North Raccoon River Wildlife Area,” Jacob read, peering at the map. “One hundred and forty-five acres along the river. Oak and hickory timberlands. There’s limited public access for hunting.” “It’s not hunting season right now.” “No,” Jacob said. “Which means that place will be deserted.” “That’s it.” Noah tapped the map again. Jacob plugged the address into Google Maps. Please, please, be the place. Please don’t let me be wrong. “Nineteen miles,” Jacob said. “US 6 to 169.” Noah slammed the tailgate closed and ran to the driver’s door. “Call Sheriff Clarke. This is his county. Tell him everything. Tell him there’s a serial killer hunting in our backyard. Tell him Ian has Cole—” His voice died. “I’ll call,” Jacob rumbled. “You drive, Noah. Get us there.” Cole, I’m coming. Hang on. Hang on.

Noah took in the drowning man in one microsecond sweep, his gaze cataloging the jeans and shoes and jacket, clothes he knew by heart because he saw them every day. Saw those shoes kicked off on the bedroom floor, saw that jacket slung over the back of his kitchen chair. Cole. “Ian Ingram!” Noah roared. Ian jerked back. He stood and faced Noah. Sneered and then reached into the back of his jeans, pulling out a black Glock .40— Noah fired. His first shot grazed Ian’s cheek, ripping off two inches of skin and exposing his cheekbone, a shock of white and red against his tanned skin. Ian howled, and his hand came up to his face. His eyes flared, and took a step toward Noah— Noah fired again. Ian took another step, this time toward Cole, reaching for his unmoving body in the water. Noah kept firing, unloading his weapon until it clicked, all his ammo spent. Ian staggered, and he dropped the gun at the river’s edge as his mouth opened and his hand rose. Blood spilled over his lips, streamed down his chin. Noah had put fourteen rounds in the center of Ian’s chest, sent him stumbling into the river with the force of his shots. His eyes locked onto Ian’s, staring into his twin voids, what seemed like the edges of the world in their depths. He inhaled, held his breath— Ian collapsed, falling backward with a cannonball splash. He hit the water and stared at the sky, unmoving, his arms and legs flung to the sides as the current tugged at his body.

Trembling, Cole grasped Noah’s arms and dug his fingers into his sleeves. “Where is he?” “He’s dead,” Noah breathed. “He’s dead.” Cole crumpled against Noah, wailing as he buried his face in Noah’s neck. Noah grabbed him, dragged him into his arms, rocked him in his hold. The river lapped at their feet, but he held on to his lover, whispering in his ear that he loved him, that it was over, that they were safe. That he wasn’t ever letting Cole go. That they were together. Forever.

The darkness doesn’t outweigh the light, Cole. Sometimes it feels that way, but it’s not true.”

“You’re not alone. I’m here,” Noah breathed. “I’m always going to be here.” He watched the tears spill over Cole’s eyelashes, watched him search the night sky through the windows. “There’s this hole inside me,” Cole said after long minutes of silence. “I call it my grave. It’s where I put the things I’ve seen that can’t be described. Things I can’t talk about or share. The grave sits between me and the rest of the world. Between you and me, even.”

The world was a wash of waves and sunlight, nothing but Cole and his smile, and Katie’s happy laugh, and the warmth that burst out of his own heart. His lips brushed against Cole’s, both of them smiling too wide to really kiss. He laughed and kissed Cole again, and then again, finally deepening the kiss as his arms looped around Cole’s neck.

There was a difference between thinking about something and going into the center of it, as Noah’s instructor had said. Cole had sunk into his nightmares, and the world was different now. The edges were sharper, the shadows deeper. The nights longer. But the dawn was brighter, too. The sun shone warmer. He looked at Katie and Noah and thought, This is happiness. This is joy. He looked into Noah’s eyes as they made love, and he watched Noah sleep, watched him breathe in and out. Cherished every moment, every second. This is the life I love. This is everything I want.