horrifyingly real, in front of her, and the woman was dead. “Oh, God. Oh God, no, no.”
She watched Savich bend down to unpin a note that was fastened to the front of Linda Cartwright’s bathrobe. She saw for the first time that the woman was heavy, just as Savich had read off her driver’s license. “Don’t let Becca come in here,” he said to Sherlock, not looking up as he read the note. “This is too much. Make sure she stays outside.”
“I’m already here,” Becca said, swallowing again and again against the nausea in her stomach, the vomit rising in her throat. “What is that note?”
“Becca-”
It was Adam and he was turning toward her. She put up her hands. “What is that note?” she asked again. “Read it, please.”
Savich paused, then read slowly, his voice firm and clear:
“He wrote it in black ink, a ballpoint,” Savich said, his voice flat, emotionless, as he carefully eased the paper into a plastic bag he pulled out of his pants pocket and closed the zipper. “It’s just a plain sheet of paper torn out of a notebook. Nothing at all unique about it.”
“Do you think he’s out of control?” Sherlock said to no one in particular. Her face was pale, the horror clear in her eyes.
“No,” Adam said. “I don’t think so. I think he’s really enjoying himself. I think at last he’s discovering who he really is and what he really likes. I can practically hear him thinking, ‘I want to scare Rebecca shitless, prove to her I’m so bad that when I call her again I won’t hear any more cockiness from her. No, I’ll hear fear in her voice, helplessness. Now, what can I do to really make this happen?’” Adam paused a moment, then said, “And so he decided to kill Linda Cartwright and make her into his fictional dog.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said, “I think Adam is right. There’s nothing but control here. Too damned much of it.”
“I need to make some calls,” Savich said, but he didn’t move, just stared down at the note and at what had been Linda Cartwright.
There was silence in the small, bright kitchen and the harsh breathing of six men and two women, one of them drawing hard on a pipe that wasn’t lit. Then Becca broke free, ran out the back door, and fell to her knees, vomiting until her body was jerking and heaving and there was nothing more in her belly. Still she crouched there, holding her arms around herself, shuddering, wanting to die because she’d brought death to Linda Cartwright, just as she had to that poor old woman standing outside the Metropolitan Museum, just as she’d nearly brought death to the governor of New York. She felt him coming up behind her, knew it was Adam.
“Her face-he obliterated her face, Adam, for a sick joke that only he thought was funny. He murdered her and smashed her face so-”
“I know.” Adam fell to his knees behind her, pulling her back against his chest. “I know.”
She felt him begin to rock her, back and forth. “I know, Becca.”
“I’m responsible for her, Adam. If I hadn’t shot him, if I hadn’t-”
Adam pulled her around to face him. He handed her a handkerchief, waited for her to wipe her mouth, then said, “Now, you will listen up. If you feel any guilt about that poor woman, I’m going to deck you. None of this is your fault. He’s the evil one. This guy will do anything to terrorize you, to hear you whimper, beg, plead with him to stop. Anything.”
“He’s succeeded.”
“Yeah, you’ve got to stop that as well. You can’t let him crawl under your skin. That means he wins. That means he’s got the control, he’s got the power. Do you understand me?”
She pulled away from him and began kneading his arms with her hands, not even realizing what she was doing. “It’s hard, Adam. I know he’s evil. I know there must be a reason he’s doing all this, a reason that makes perfect sense to him, but in my gut, it feels like I smashed in that poor woman’s face. Oh, God, if I hadn’t fired at him, hit him-”
“Stop it,” he said and shook her good. “Now, here’s the bottom line. We’re going to leave her just as she is in the kitchen and make an anonymous call. No, don’t argue.” He lightly tapped his fingers against her mouth. “Listen, I know this is very hard to do, given the fact that we’re breaking the law and she’s not going to get the attention she deserves right away. Even Savich and Sherlock are having a real problem with it.
“Even though they’re part of the highest police force in the land, they realize that nothing good would be served if the world suddenly found out that you’re here and you’re up to your ears in another murder. The cops and the Feds would fight to see who could hold you and question you. On the other hand, you’d be protected, and that’s something, but not enough. All of us agree that you would be charged with murder and accessory to murder. It would be a nightmare and it would continue even if they ever let you go. Why? Because he would still be there, just waiting, and it would start all over.
“So, Savich and Sherlock have agreed to keep our connection under wraps for a while. He’s getting the woman’s phone records right now. We’ll find out how long he’s been here, holding her prisoner. We’ll find out who he called besides you. All the guys are going over the house, top to bottom, right now. They’re pros. If there’s anything to find, they’ll find it. If there are fingerprints, and I’m willing to bet there are, they’ll pull those up, too. But it’s going to take time because we’ll have to clean up after ourselves. The last thing we want is to have the police notice some stray fingerprint powder. So we can’t call in her murder for another couple of hours.”
“He knew the phone was tapped.”
“Oh, yes, he knew, and that’s why he had the surprise all ready for you. He can’t be far away now. He’s close. Real close. It’s possible he’s watching all of us right this instant, hiding in the pine trees, but I don’t think even he is that reckless. We’ll get him, Becca. You have to believe that. He’ll pay for what he did to Linda Cartwright.”
“Oh, God,” she said suddenly. “You’re right, Adam, he is watching. Maybe he’s a goodly distance away and using binoculars, but I don’t think so. I’ll bet he’s just over there, somewhere in those trees, and I think he watched you climb through that window, watched me come out here and puke up my guts. You said he was finally realizing who he is, what he likes, and this is it.”
Her eyes went blank, then she said, “He’s seen Tyler and Sam. Oh God, he knows I’m close to them and doesn’t that make them targets, too? What if he goes after them?”
“He could, but I doubt it and here’s why. He knows we’re not fools. He knows there are a lot of us. He wants you. He’s made his point. I can’t see him veering off course to kill Tyler or Sam. Why? He wants to nail me, but I’m with you, staying with you, taunting him. That’s why he wants me. Now, Dave and Chuck will start looking around here when they finish in the house.”
“He’ll be gone by then.”
“Probably.”
“Do you think he killed her in those short minutes between when he called me and all the men got here?”
Adam hesitated, then shook his head. “No, she’d been dead for several hours, at least.”
“But her face, Adam, her face. It looked-fresh, even though all the blood looked dried and clotted.”
“He did that after he called you, after he realized the phone was tapped. She was already dead, Becca.”
“How did he kill her?”
Adam didn’t want to say anything more about it, but he knew she wasn’t going to let it go, she couldn’t let it go. “He strangled her.”
“Why was there dirt all over her? God, it was even on her feet, in her hair.”
Oh, shit, he thought. He didn’t want to say it but there was no choice. “There was dirt on her because he dug her up to smash her face.” There, it was said, and he thought she was going to vomit again. She closed her eyes, her arms fell to her sides, and her head dropped forward against his chest. But she didn’t vomit, she cried, making no sound at all, just cried, her hands fists against his Kevlar vest.
“Oh, God, Becca,” he said and squeezed her hard. “I swear I’ll get him, I swear it.”
She said nothing for a very long time. His knees were starting to hurt when she finally whispered against his neck, “Not if I can get him first.” She shuddered, then he felt her stiffen and slowly, slowly pull back from him. She said, “He was through with her, probably planning on leaving here, and so he killed her and buried her and then decided it would be fun to play this big joke on me.”
