sobered up a little on the journey out to her home. What was she doing? Her head was slightly fuzzy and she was in the car of a man she didn’t know, letting him drive her home. He was nice. Sweet. A little overbearing, but he seemed okay. Or was he? Who knew these days?
In the bar, to be honest, she wanted to forget all about it — all about Ray and his mistress; she wanted a bit of company. He was there. What was wrong with that? As she reclined in the leather seat of his car, she knew exactly what was wrong with that — he was after only one thing and she was about to be used like a piece of trash.
She was disappointed in herself. There was one rule in life, and that was don’t leave with less than you came with. It was her motto in business and in her personal life. She knew if she let this guy into her house she would come out with less rather than more. Less self-respect, less moral righteousness, less power, less integrity. She now had to think about how to extricate herself from what he might have interpreted as a dead cert.
Sebastian was thinking of getting her inside her room. He patted his side pocket. The plastic bag. He could see her face contort with surprise, shock and pain. He could take what he wanted, how he wanted. Kill. Hold. Rip.
Twang! Twang! Twang! Nick was there in the darkness of his mind, twanging at every violent thought.
The car stopped outside her apartment.
‘Hey, look, I might just turn in,’ she said. ‘I’ve had a great night, though. You’ve been really kind.’
Bitch, thought Sebastian. Trying to turn this around. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Kill her now. In the car. Her body hot against the seat. Kill. Hold. Rip.
Twang!
Twang!
Twang!
Suddenly it was Nick holding on to the steering wheel with all his might. He was breathing erratically.
‘Get out, just get out!’
‘What’s wrong? I’m sorry if I upset you.’
Nick felt Sebastian pulling back. ‘Just fucking leave or you’ll die!’
Kimberly stared at Nick and saw the anger smoking in his eyes. She got out and ran up her drive. Alone, Nick slammed the car into gear and put his foot on the gas.
He smiled. It had worked. He had made himself heard. He had regained control. He had won. Kimberly was alive. He couldn’t wait to get back to Denise to tell her. He drove off with a schoolboy smile, ready to show his teacher.
Chapter One Hundred and Three
Blue Team
December 3, 11.20 p.m.
Harper was unshaven, sitting in front of a wall of sketches. He found it reassuring to sketch Denise’s face from memory and photographs. It kept her alive. There were sixteen of them now. He’d been sitting and waiting too long. Sixteen pencil sketches of a woman who was probably dead or a day away from dying. Finally, Mark Garcia brought his information across.
‘I’ve assembled everything I could get on Macy. It was a difficult history to plot. He’s got so many holes. After his arrest in 1998, he was in a variety of psychiatric units, mainly in New York.’
‘What about before 1998?’
‘His parents must’ve died or abandoned him when he was a kid. He was fostered all over. Twelve different homes is what it says on his record from the MPC and that’s not the lot.’
‘Where?’ said Harper.
‘It doesn’t say. It says he was born in West Virginia, so you got to presume he was all over the state,’ said Garcia.
Harper felt himself getting nearer. ‘If he was born in West Virginia, he would’ve been there in 1982?’
‘So?’
‘I’ve just been on the phone about a 1982 murder in West Virginia. Looks like Sebastian’s work.’
‘Shit. You think they knew each other back then?’
‘It’s possible. There’s a lot of similarities stacking up. What else have you got?’
‘There’s nothing. We haven’t even got addresses in West Virginia. If they’ve got records from the ’70s they’ll be on paper. We’d have to knock on doors to get them.’
‘Look into it, Garcia. We might need those addresses.’
‘All right. I’ll call around.’
Harper went back to his desk and took a call he’d been waiting for from the guys at the FBI New York field office. Harper wanted to know how long Denise could count on. The Feds had the file on screen. Tom could hear them tapping out details, cross-referencing cases. There were two of them at the other end of the line. He could discern their low, barely verbal communications — a sigh, a grunt, an uh-huh.
They came back on the phone. ‘Look, Detective, we’ve got bits and pieces to go on — nothing but surmise, you know.’
‘Just give me the time frame.’
Harper had asked them one question. What was the average length of time a kidnap victim stayed alive when the kidnapper was a known and lethal serial killer?
‘Okay,’ said one of the agents, ‘we’ve got three point four days. But listen, that isn’t an entirely accurate figure. I mean, eighty-four per cent of victims are dead within twenty-four hours, ninety-five per cent dead within forty-eight hours. If they survive forty-eight hours, then the story is a little different. It can go to weeks. You know. Some of these guys keep them for months.’
Denise had been missing for just over twenty-four hours. That gave him another day, tops. Tom felt hope try to scramble and leave, but he wouldn’t let it. He knew that Sebastian wanted games. Denise was his kind of girl, but was the game more important? He wanted someone to suffer. He wanted to punish Harper. He wouldn’t kill her until he had seen Harper suffer. Harper felt that strongly. He would have a game plan in mind. He’d keep her alive, but what for?
The Feds had taken the lead on the task force since the kidnapping, but the NYPD were still heavily involved in the case. Tom thanked them and put the phone down. He picked up the silver shield and looked at it. It was what he stood for — once. He put it in his jacket pocket and then picked up the Glock.
It felt good in his hand. He held it up, looked down the barrel out of his window to the windows opposite. He felt no twinge, only the need to find and face Sebastian. He lowered his gun and took the clip from his desk and pushed it in. It clicked. He holstered his pistol. He wanted to fight. More than anything else, he wanted a fair shot at this guy.
At 11.40 p.m. he took a call from a very disappointed Eddie, who had been looking through the old yearbooks of Meadow Trail High School, from Chloe’s year and upwards. He had found nothing at all. Not a single photograph that looked like Sebastian. Not a single name that triggered off his thinking. It drained him and he was on his way back to New York empty-handed.
In the investigation room, Tom and the team were going through the calls. The search for Denise Levene was in danger of getting lost under a sea of good intentions. Her kidnap had captured everyone’s attention nationwide, but in New York the feeling was tangible. They knew an innocent, beautiful woman was somewhere on the small outcrop of rock called Manhattan and they knew that a deranged sexual predator was with her. They were getting hundreds of tip-offs each hour.
Elaine Fittas crossed to Harper in the investigation room and put her hand on his shoulder.
‘She’ll be all right, Harper. She’s tough.’
‘She doesn’t look that tough,’ Harper replied, staring at her photograph.
‘She’s a woman. She’s made of strong stuff. You’ll get him. Keep the faith.’
Harper looked up at her. ‘Thanks, Elaine. You know what? Maurice Macy still doesn’t make sense to me. Why would he kill these girls if he just liked to pet them? And you know what else doesn’t make sense? Lucy James
