turned to warm water and the warm water turned to cold water. Then she turned the faucet off and opened the curtain just a touch, enough to stick her head out.
“Can I have a towel?” she asked.
Draven threw her one. She dried off behind the curtain, wrapped it around her body and then stayed there.
“Get out here,” Draven said.
She pulled the curtain open, sized him up, and must have decided that he wasn’t playing around, because she stepped out. Her hair dripped on the floor.
Suddenly Draven felt hungry.
“You want some breakfast?” he asked.
She nodded. “That would be nice.”
He sat her in one of the orange vinyl chairs at the kitchen table and said, “Put your hands on top of your head and leave them there.”
She hesitated, but then complied.
He kept a good eye on her, made two bowls of cereal, carried them over and put one in front of her. She started to bring her hands down and he said, “Not yet.”
She kept them up.
The towel unwrapped and fell into her lap.
She knew better than to reach down.
He got the coffee pot started then sat down and told her she could eat now.
She brought her hands down and immediately covered up.
“Don’t even think about trying anything,” he warned.
“I won’t.”
She devoured the cereal so fast that he realized just how long it had been since she last ate. He fixed her another bowl and watched her.
“Just let me go and none of this ever happened,” she said. “I won’t tell a soul. Not a single soul. I promise.”
Draven smiled.
How many times had he heard that before?
“Oh, really?” he said.
“I promise,” she said. Her voice took on an animated tone, as if she believed she could actually talk her way out of it. Draven played along, asking her the details of how they would work things out, and how he could be sure she wouldn’t ever tell anyone.
Then she said something he didn’t expect.
“If you don’t let me go they’ll find you sooner or later,” she said. “I put the two thousand dollars in the safe, with a note that it’s from you.” He must have reacted to the words, because she seemed to brighten. “Your fingerprints are all over the money.”
He stood up, put his hands in the middle of the table and leaned towards her.
“What does the note say, exactly?”
“Money from Nash Evans for Denver tattoo. The police will eventually figure out that I left the shop with you and never came back.”
Then he remembered telling her that was his name.
Good thing, too, in hindsight.
He eased back in his chair.
“That’s not my real name,” he said.
The smug look fell off her face.
But then she said, “It doesn’t matter. The name’s in the logbook. So is the name of the woman I was tattooing when you came in. When the police ask her about Nash Evans, she’s going to describe you.”
Draven stood up, his heart pounding.
She was right.
“Then they’ll ask around town, or get a composite sketch on the TV,” she added. “Someone will end up calling in with your real name.”
Shit!
She was right again.
The guy at the hotel might pick up the phone.
Or someone from a gas station.
Damn it.
A surveillance camera might have even picked him up somewhere.
He slammed his hand on the table-so hard that her cereal bounced up and fell in her lap. Then he grabbed her hair and yanked her out of the chair.
“You goddamn bitch!”
40
DAY SEVEN-SEPTEMBER 11
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Brad Ripley’s shot face stayed in Teffinger’s mind on the drive back to the office, but soon faded as he drank coffee and delved into the reports that Sydney had put together on the four victims.
The central theme appeared to be that there was no theme.
If there was any connection between the four women-other than the fact they all disappeared at about the same time and ended up buried in the same place-it wasn’t popping out in neon lights.
Other than those two facts, the women had no obvious overlap.
He took a sip of coffee, found he had let it cool too much, and swallowed what was in his mouth but dumped the rest in the snake plant.
Then he walked over to the pot for a refill.
Come on.
Think.
But instead of coming up with some brilliant theory, he stared out the window aimlessly, across the street to the houses that had been turned into cartoon-colored bail bond dens. A couple of small boys raced down the sidewalk on bicycles, pedaling as fast as they could, a reminder of how innocent we all start out. How does someone go from that to sawing someone’s head off?
The oversized industrial clock on the wall said 3:52.
It was probably time to head home since his brain had pretty much turned to mush at this point anyway. Or, to be more precise, head to Davica’s house and take her for a ride in the ’67.
Then his cell phone rang.
Katie Baxter.
She sounded as if she had just stepped out of a plane crash. “Nick! I need you over here, right away.”
“Here, where?”
“Oh, sorry. I’m still at the crime scene. Brad Ripley’s. The guy who got shot in the face.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Just come over,” she said. “You have to see this for yourself.”
When he arrived at the victim’s house, he put on his gloves, registered with the scribe, and found Katie Baxter in the media room.
She seemed to be equal parts excitement and stress.
“Sit down and watch,” she said. “I have to warn you, though, this is graphic.”
He sat down on a leather couch and faced a flat-panel television while Katie got a DVD playing. Within ten
