55
MONSTERS WEARING HUMAN masks, and acting their parts to perfection.
Peter Hillstead has fooled everyone, including me. Worse, he has been with me in my moments of greatest vulnerability. But there is something even more terrible, something that makes me want to vomit as I realize it. He has not only fooled me, used me, and violated me--he has also helped me. To his own ends, true, but still . . . The thought that some part of me is better for having met him makes me want to scream and puke and shower for a year.
'I know who he is,' I say, answering Alan's question. Shocked silence, followed by a babble of voices. Alan shushes them all.
'What are you talking about?'
I point at the signature on the final page of the journal. 'Keith Hillstead. His son's name is Peter. My shrink's name is Peter Hillstead.'
Alan looks doubtful. 'That could be pure coincidence, Smoky.'
'No. I can be a hundred percent certain if I can see photos of Keith and Peter Hillstead. But the ages match up.'
'God damn,' James mutters.
I head toward the stairs. 'Come on.'
Patricia is still in the living room. 'Ms. Connolly? Do you have a picture somewhere of Keith Hillstead? And of your son?'
She tilts her head, looking into my eyes. 'You've found something, haven't you?'
'Yes, ma'am. But if I could see pictures of Keith and Peter, I could be sure.'
She lifts herself out of her chair. 'I found out after he left that Peter had taken all the photos I had of him. I do have one of Keith. It's buried at the bottom of a drawer, but I kept it to remind me what evil looks like. Hold on for a moment.'
She heads toward her bedroom, returning with an eight-by-ten photograph. 'Here it is,' she says, handing it to me. 'Handsome as the devil. Which makes sense, I suppose, since he and the devil were such good friends.'
When I look at the photograph, a chill runs through me. Any remaining doubt evaporates. I see those electric blue eyes, as shocking and beautiful in this portrait as Peter's are in real life. 'They look almost exactly alike.' I nod to James. 'I'm sure now. Peter Hillstead is Keith Hillstead's son.'
'So, you mean . . . we know who he is? The man who killed Renee?'
Don Rawlings is asking this question. Hope is trying to dawn in his eyes, but he is fighting it, reining it in, like a man trying to lasso a sunrise. Even with the turmoil churning inside me, I manage to give him a smile.
'That's right.'
I watch ten years of age melt away from him. His eyes become even clearer, his face determined. 'What do you want me to do?'
'I need you and Jenny to process the hell out of that basement. And this house. If we can find fingerprints to match up to Peter's . . .' I don't have to elaborate. They understand. We know who Jack Jr. is, but knowing and proving it in a court of law are two different things.
'We're on it,' Jenny replies. 'Where are you guys headed?'
'Back to LA to catch this fucker.'
I feel a touch on my arm. In the blitzkrieg of excitement, I had almost forgotten that Patricia Connolly was there.
'Promise me something, Agent Barrett?'
'If I can, Ms. Connolly.'
'I know Peter is a bad man now. He was probably doomed the moment his father made him set foot in that basement. But if you have to kill him . . . promise me you'll make it quick.'
I look at Patricia and I see what I might have become. Had I continued to sit in my bedroom, staring at my scars in the mirror. If I had not killed myself, I would have become as she is: a ghost, made of smoke, chained by memories of pain. Waiting for one good gust of wind to blow her away into nothing.
'If it comes to that, Patricia, I'll do my best.'
She touches my arm, this woman of gray, and sits back down in her chair. I imagine she will be found dead in that chair one day, having dozed off and never awoken.
'Can you give us a ride to the airport, Jenny?'
'You bet.'
I look at James and Alan. 'Let's go and end this.'
56
I 'M ON THE phone with Leo as we hurtle through the air, halfway back to LA.
'Are you serious?' he's asking me.
I have just finished filling him in on what we found at the house in Concord.
'I'm afraid so. I need you to start putting together a warrant. It needs to cover his office and his home. Flesh it out, and when we arrive I'll fill in the details.'
'Right.'
'Dig up a photo of Hillstead. Then I want you to have the photographs that have been culled from the sex parties compared against that, and only that.'
'I'm on it.'
'Good. Let everyone know what's happening. I have to call AD
Jones. We should be back in a little over an hour.'
'See you then, boss.'
I hang up and dial into reception. They connect me with Shirley. 'I need to speak to him now, Shirley. Wherever he is, whatever he's doing. It's important.'
She doesn't ask or argue. Shirley knows I do not cry wolf. Within the next thirty seconds, I'm on the phone with AD Jones.
'What's happening?' he asks.
I give him the whole story. Concord. Keith Hillstead. The basement and what we found there. Ending with the revelation about Peter. Stunned silence. Then I have to hold the phone away from my ear for a moment as he rants and raves and curses.
'So the primary shrink for our agents in LA for the last decade--is a serial killer? That's what you're telling me?'
'Yes, sir. That is what I'm telling you.'
A moment of silence, then: 'Tell me the plan.' His outbursts are over. Time for business.
'SFPD is processing the scene in Concord. Hopefully we'll find Peter's prints in that house. Even better, in the basement.'
'Prints? After nearly thirty years?'
'Sure. There's a case of prints being developed off porous paper after forty years. I also have James putting together a warrant for his home and office, which I'll finish once we arrive. Once we have the warrant, I want to hit the search like gangbusters.'
'What do you want to do with Hillstead?'
I understand his question. We don't have the evidence needed to arrest him, much less convict. 'I'll have him pulled in and detained for questioning while we do the searches. Between that and the house in San Francisco we should be able to turn up something that we can make a formal arrest with.'
'Bring me the warrant when you get here. I'll walk it through personally.'
'Yes, sir.'
He hangs up. I look at James and Alan. 'It's all a go. Now we just need to get this damn plane to fly faster.'
