41
Security at the Hawk Ridge Institute was tight. The hospital compound was entirely fenced in, patrolled by a small but vigilant guard detail. The front gate was monitored by a guard in a gatehouse.
But the gate across Cray’s private driveway was not monitored by anyone.
Elizabeth had thought about that gate many times on the long nights when she watched Cray’s house. She thought of it again as she left her perch on the ridge and descended the foot trail to the fire road.
Her car was parked on the road, but she wouldn’t need it. She paused only long enough to stow her binoculars inside. Then she jogged down the winding road toward flatter ground. Had to hurry. She needed to be in position near the gate by the time Cray left for the evening.
When he departed, the gate would briefly swing wide, and for a few seconds the sealed perimeter of the institute would open just a bit.
She reached the main road, a strip of washboard gravel with no streetlights, illuminated only by the stars and the faint glow of the hospital complex.
At the roadside she paused. The director’s residence was directly across the way. She saw movement in a first-floor window. Cray, slipping past. Heading for the garage, it appeared. On his way out.
She crossed the road at a run, then hunkered down in the bushes at the edge of the driveway, ten feet from the spear-pointed gate with its elaborate torsade of wrought-iron curlicues.
There was nothing to do now but wait for Cray’s Lexus to emerge from the garage.
The night was still, the air velvety and fine. She wished she could be somewhere else, in the arms of a lover, perhaps, or swinging on a hammock on a veranda, a cool drink in her hand.
Instead she was crouching in the weeds like an animal, hunting the faces Cray collected like totems, like scalps.
The idea had come to her as she sat on the bus-stop bench with the crumpled newspaper in her hands.
The police had not believed her. Either the satchel had not persuaded them, or they had never received it. But suppose she found evidence they could not ignore. Evidence so compelling it could not be open to any possible doubt.
The faces.
She was sure Cray kept them. She could even guess how they would be preserved.
She could guess — because she had seen one, many years ago.
That one must be in Cray’s possession now, along with the others he had collected since.
How many victims? She couldn’t guess. Six or ten or more….
A bevy of faces, skinned from their victims’ skulls, preserved like parchment, perhaps pressed like leaves between the pages of a book — or hanging from a wall, pasted under glass — or pinned on mounting boards, like prize butterflies.
He had them.
In his house, almost certainly. Where else would he keep his treasures?
They would be hidden away, safe from accidental discovery by a housekeeper or a dinner guest. She would need time to find them. From experience she knew that Cray, when on the prowl, would be gone for hours.
When he got back, his beauties would be gone.
And then? The next step?
She didn’t like to think about it. But there was only one thing she could do.
No phone call this time. No frantic pleading with an anonymous officer on the 911 line, who would dismiss her as a crank.
She would take her evidence directly to the police, take it in person. She would give herself up — Kaylie McMillan, wanted fugitive, desperado — surrender to the authorities, with the trophies as proof that she was not crazy and not a criminal.
And she simply would have to trust in the representatives of law and order to hear her out, to believe her at last.
Trust. A difficult idea to embrace, but she had no choice. She had gone nearly as far as she could on her own. She was tired. She was worn out. She needed to set down her burden, and she would.
After tonight.
At the far end of the driveway, the garage door rumbled open. Cray was leaving.
Elizabeth peered through a veil of foliage and saw red taillights throwing dim cones of light through a haze of dust.
The Lexus backed out. She crouched lower.
Faint music reached her. An opera. Pretty.
Then the gracious notes were erased behind the low squeal of the gate, swinging wide in response to an electric eye within the grounds.
The gate was hinged on one side only, the side farthest from her. It opened with ponderous majesty, the iron spikes catching the taillights’ glow, dripping blood.
Still she didn’t move. She couldn’t risk Cray seeing her.
She squeezed herself compactly against the shrubbery, trying to blend in, wishing she hadn’t lost her luggage, because she would have liked to change into darker clothes that melded with the night.
The gate was wide open now, the Lexus easing through.
She saw Cray at the wheel, his face in profile, the glow of the dashboard filling in the hollows of his cheeks.
Was he thinking of her at this moment? Was he asking himself where she was hiding, where he might find her?
The Lexus emerged fully onto the road, its headlights bright, their spill creeping close to her hiding place.
If she was speared in the glare, would he see her? She thought he might. She bent lower, compressing herself into a tight, shivering huddle of fear.
Then the headlights swung away as the Lexus pivoted toward the open road.
She was safe.
But the gate was closing.
She uncoiled from her crouch and hurried forward, hugging the fence, staying low, still afraid Cray would glance back toward the driveway and glimpse a pale, moving shadow amid the bushes.
The Lexus started forward, down the road. A wisp of an aria reached her through the open window on the driver’s side, then trailed off into silence as the big black vehicle receded.
She was near the gate now, less than two yards away, but it was swinging shut too fast, and she didn’t think she could slip through in time.
Only a narrow gap was left between the leading edge of the gate and the masonry gate post, a post also topped with spikes to discourage intruders.
In a moment the gate would slip into place against the post, the latch fastening automatically, and she would be locked out.
She dived headlong for the opening, aware that if she misjudged her jump she would be caught between metal and stone, with a crushed leg or snapped ribs as her reward — immobilized, stuck here to wait for Cray’s return.
The ground came up fast and shocked her with its impact, and she heard iron squealing on its hinges on one side, felt cold stone on the other, and with a gasping effort she scrambled through, pulling both feet clear just before the gate clanged shut.
Made it.
She lay on the lawn near a flower bed, gulping air, wishing she were on the road to San Antonio right now.
