Chapter Eighteen
Nancy Gordon heard a tinkle of glass when Peter Lake broke the lower left pane in the back door so he could reach between the jagged shards and open it from the inside. Nancy heard the rusty hinges squeak. She shifted the covers and trained her eyes on the doorway, straining to see in the dark.
Two hours earlier, Nancy had been alone in the task force office when Lake appeared to tell her he had heard about the shooting of Henry Waters on the late news. As planned, Nancy told Lake she had suspected him of being the rose killer because of the gap between the time he had been seen driving home and the call to 911 and his stakeout of Waters's home. Lake had been alarmed, but Nancy assured him that she was satisfied that Waters was the murderer and had kept her suspicions to herself.
Then she had yawned and told Lake she was heading home. Since then Nancy had been in bed, waiting.
Black slacks, a black ski mask and a black turtleneck helped Lake blend into the darkness. There was an ugly snub-nosed revolver in his hand.
Nancy did not hear him cross the living room. One second, her bedroom doorway was empty, then Lake filled it. When he snapped on the light, Nancy sat up in bed, feigning surprise. Lake removed the ski mask.
'You knew, didn't you, Nancy?' She gaped at him, as if the visit was unexpected. 'I really do like you, but I can't take the chance you'll reopen the case.'
Nancy looked at the revolver. 'You can't believe you'll get away with murdering a cop.'
'I don't have much choice. You're far too intelligent.
Eventually you would have realized Waters was innocent.
Then you would have kept after me. You might even have dug up enough evidence to convince a jury.'
Lake walked around the side of the bed. 'Place your hands on top of the sheet and take it off slowly,' he said, gesturing with the gun. Nancy was sleeping a single light sheet because of the heat. She pulled away the sheet slowly, careful to gather it up near her right hip so Lake would not see the outline of the gun that was hidden there. Nancy was wearing bikini panties and a T-shirt. The T-shirt had bunched up beneath her breasts, revealing her rigid stomach muscles. Nancy heard a quiet intake of breath.
'Very nice,' Lake said. 'Remove the shirt.'
Nancy forced herself to look at him wide-eyed.
'I'm not going to rape you,' Lake assured her. 'It's not that I don't want to. I've fantasized about playing with you quite a lot, Nancy.
You're so different from the others. They're all so soft, cows really, and so easy to train. But you're hard. I'm certain you would resist. It would be very enjoyable. But I want the authorities to believe that Henry Waters is the rose killer, so you'll die during a burglary.'
Nancy looked at Lake with disgust. 'How could you kill your wife and daughter?'
'You can't think I planned that. I loved them, Nancy.
But Sandy found a note and a rose I was planning to use the next day.
I'm not proud of myself. I couldn't think of a single explanation I could make to Sandy once the notes became public knowledge. She would have gone to the police and it would have been over for me.'
'What's your excuse for killing Melody? She was a baby.'
Lake shook his head. He looked genuinely distraught.
'Do you think that was easy?' lake's jaw trembled.
There was a tear in the corner of one eye. 'Sandy Screamed. I got to her before she could do it again, but Melody heard her. She was standing on the stairs, looking through the bars on the banister. I held her and hugged her while I tried to think of some way to spare her, but there wasn't a way, so I made it painless. It was the hardest thing I've ever done.'
'Let me help you, Peter. They'll never find you guilty. I'll talk to the district attorney. We'll work out an insanity plea.'
Lake smiled sadly. He shook his head with regret.
'It would never fly, Nancy. No one would ever let me off that easy.
Think about what I did to Pat. Think about the others. Besides, I'm not crazy. If you knew why I did it, you'd understand.'
'Tell me. I want to understand.'
'Sorry. No time. Besides, it won't make any difference to you. You're going to die.'
'Please, Peter. I have to know. There has to be a reason for a plan this brilliant.'
Lake smiled condescendingly. 'Don't do this. It's not becoming. What's the purpose in stalling?'
'You can rape me first. 'tie me up. You want to, don't you? I'd be helpless,' she begged, sliding her right hand under the sheet.
'Don't debase yourself, Nancy. I thought you had more class than the others.'
Lake saw Nancy's hand move. His face clouded.
'What's that?'
Nancy went for the gun. Lake brought the revolver down hard on her cheek. Bone cracked. She went blind for a second. Her closet door slammed open. lake froze as Wayne Turner came out of the closet. Turner fired and hit Lake in the shoulder. lake's gun dropped to the floor just as Frank Grimsbo hurtled through the bedroom door, tackling Lake into the wall.
'Stay down,' Turner yelled at Nancy. He scrambled across the bed, knocking the wind out of her. Lake was pinned to the wall and Grimsbo was smashing him in the face.
'Stop, Frank!' Turner yelled. He kept his gun trained on Lake with one hand and tried to restrain Grimsbo's arm with the other. Grimsbo delivered one more clubbing blow that bounced lake's head off the Wall.
Lake's head lolled sideways. A damp patch spread across the black fabric that covered his right shoulder as blood seeped from his wound.
'Get his gun,' Turner said. 'It's next to the bed. And check on Nancy.'
Grimsbo stood up. He was shaking.
'I'm okay,' Nancy said. Her cheek was numb and she could barely see out of her left eye.
Grimsbo picked up Lake's gun. He stood over lake and his breathing increased. cuff him,' Turner ordered. Grimsbo stood there, the gun rising like something with a life of its own.
'Don't fuck around, Frank,' Turner said. 'Just put the cuffs on.'
'Why?' Grimsbo asked. 'He could have been shot twice when he attacked Nancy. You hit him in the shoulder when you came out of the closet and I fired the fatal shot when this piece of shit spun toward me, and, as fate would have it, caught him between the eyes.'
'It didn't happen that way, because I know it didn't,' Turner said evenly.
'And what? You'd turn me in and testify at my murder trial? You'd send me to Attica for the rest of my life because I exterminated this scumbag?'
'No one would know, Wayne,' Nancy said quietly.
'I'd back Frank.'
Turner looked at Nancy. She was watching Lake with a look of pure hatred.
'I don't believe this. You're cops. What you want to do is murder.'
'Not in this case, Wayne,' Nancy said. 'You have to take the life of a human being to commit murder. Lake isn't human. I don't know what he is, but he's not human.
A human being doesn't murder his own child. He doesn't strip a woman naked, then slice her open from groin to chest, pull out her intestines and let her die a slow death.
I can't even imagine what he's done to the missing women.' Nancy shuddered. 'I don't want to guess.'
Lake was listening to the argument. He did not move his head, but his eyes focused on each speaker as his fate was debated. He saw Turner waiver. Nancy got off the bed and stood next to Grimsbo.
'He'll get out someday, Wayne,' she said. 'He'll convince the Parole Board to release him or he'll convince a jury he was insane and the hospital will let him out when he is miraculously cured-eddo you want to wake up some morning and read about a woman who was kidnapped in Salt Lake City or Minneapolis and the note that was left on
