“I’m Special Agent Erin Mantz. I’m looking for Kati Starr. Her car’s in the lot, rear right tire’s flat. It’s unlocked. I need to know if she’s in the building, or what time she logged out.”
He scanned the lot, then her face again. “Hold on.”
Mantz took out her phone. She gave her name, her ID number, and asked for the numbers for Starr’s home phone, cell and office.
The cell transferred her to voice mail as the guard came back.
“She signed out at nine-forty. There’s nobody here. Even the cleaning crew’s finished up.” He hesitated a moment, then unlocked the doors. “I tried her home phone and her cell,” he said as he opened the glass. “Straight to voice mail.”
“Did she leave alone?”
“According to lobby security she walked out on her own.”
“Is there security video on the lot?”
“No. Stops at the doors, and she walked out the door alone. That’s usual for her,” he added. “She doesn’t travel in groups or socialize much with coworkers. If she had car trouble, she’d have used her key pass and come back in to call for service. No reason she’d have done otherwise. Nobody else signed out within twenty minutes of her, either side.”
Mantz nodded, keyed in the number for her partner. “Tawney? We’ve got a problem.”
Within an hour, agents had convinced the building super to open Kati Starr’s apartment, roused her editor and took statements from the guard and the cleaning crew.
The editor blocked the request to open her desk computer.
“Not without a warrant. Look, odds are she’s following a lead or she’s banging her boyfriend.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?” Mantz demanded.
“How the hell should I know? Starr keeps her personal life private. So she got a flat tire? Probably called a cab.”
“None of the local cab companies made a pickup at this location.”
“And you want me to leap from there to foul play? So you can poke around in her files? Not without a warrant.”
Mantz pulled out her phone when it signaled and turned away in disgust to answer. “Where? Keep on it. We’re on our way there. We got a ping on her cell phone.”
“There, see?” The editor shrugged. “With a boyfriend, or out having a drink. She’s earned it.”
“Out having a drink,” Mantz said between her teeth as they stood in the rainy parking lot of the rest stop. She snapped on protective gloves. “He left the phone turned on so we’d get a signal. So we’d come out here.”
She waited impatiently while the forensics team documented the scene.
She took the iPhone. “We’ll need to dump the data, go through it.” She looked over at Tawney. “It’s got to be Eckle. It’s not a damn coincidence she gets taken from her office lot. He’s got her. He grabbed her right under our noses. She doesn’t fit his victim profile, but she fits him. Like a glove. We didn’t see it.”
“No, we didn’t see it.” He handed her an evidence bag for the phone. “He’s got a couple hours on us, but he expected more. A lot more. Nobody would notice she’s not around until morning, and even then... maybe her editor gets pissed when she doesn’t show, but he’s not going to call the cops. Maybe not for hours more, until somebody notices and mentions her car’s in the lot.
“He figures he’s got twelve, maybe fifteen hours on us. He’s only got two. We need boots on the ground. Now. I’ll drive, you work the phone.” He swung toward the car. “We want badges checking every hotel, motel, vacation rental. Focus on out-of-the-way spots first. Cheap. He’s used to living frugally. He doesn’t need shine. He wants a place where nobody looks too close, nobody cares.”
Tawney peeled out. “He needs supplies, food,” he continued even as Mantz relayed the orders. “Fast-food joints, places he can pick up road food. Gas. Gas marts would work best, get everything in one stop, move on.”
“He’s got her computer. She walked out with it, so he has it. Maybe he’ll use it. We can trace that. He thinks he’s clear, at least until morning. Maybe we send her an e-mail. We set up a name, a URL, send her a message. A tip. I’ve got information on RSK Two, what’s it worth to you?” Mantz flicked Tawney a glance. “He might bite on that. If he answers, we can track it.”
“Bargain with him, keep him involved. It could work. Get the geeks working on it.”
Eckle slept on top of the thin bedspread, fully dressed. Still his mind raced. So much to do, so much to relive, so much to imagine. His life had never been so full that even his sleep swirled with color and movement and sound.
He dreamed of what he would do with Kati—bright, sharp Kati. He had the place for it, just waiting for him. The perfect spot—all the privacy he’d need. And the irony of it tasted sweet as candy.
Then when he was finished with her—or maybe not quite—he would take Fiona. While they looked for one, he’d take Perry’s lost prize.
Maybe he’d make her watch while he did things to Kati. Make her watch while he turned her from alive to dead. He’d have so little time with Fiona, wouldn’t that enhance the brevity?
So he dreamed of two women, bruised and bleeding. Dreamed of their pleading eyes. Dreamed of them begging him, bargaining with him. Doing whatever he told them to do, saying whatever he told them to say.
He’d be the single focus of their life. Until he killed them.
He dreamed of a room shuttered from the light, a room washed with red, as if he looked through the thin silk of a red scarf. Dreamed of muffled moans and high, thin screams.
And woke with a jerk, breath wheezing in, eyes wheeling.
Someone at the door? His hand shot under the pillow for the .22, the gun he’d use to put a bullet in his own brain should there be no escape.
He would never go to prison.
He held his breath, listening. Only the rain, he thought. But it hadn’t been only the rain. A click, a click, like the turn of a knob, but...
His breath eased out again.
E-mail. He’d left the computer on while he charged it.
He pulled the laptop back onto the bed, studied the unopened e-mail. The subject line read RSKII, and reading it sent a thrill over his skin.
Cautious, he checked the sender’s address against Kati’s contact list.
A new one.
He sat studying the subject line, the sender’s name, while the thrill ebbed and flowed like a tide. And he opened it.
Kati Starr:
I’ve read your stories on RSKII. I think you’re pretty smart. I’m smart, too. I have some information on our mutual interest. Information I think you’ll want for your next article. I could go to the police, but they don’t pay. I want $10,000, and to be reported as an anonymous source. The girl’s already dead, so I can’t help her. I’ll help you and help myself. If you want what I have, let me know by noon tomorrow. After that, I’ll send my offer to someone else.
EW (Eye Witness)
“No. No.” He shook his head, jabbed the screen with his finger twice. “You’re lying. Lying. You didn’t see anything. Nobody sees me. Nobody.”
Except them, he thought. Except the women he killed. They saw him.
A trick, just a trick. He pushed off the bed to pace the room as the tide over his skin rose high and fast. People were liars. Tricksters.
He told the truth, in the end he told them the truth, didn’t he? When he tightened the scarf around their neck, he looked them right in the eye and told them. He gave them his name, and told them who killed them and why.
