looking for?”
“Child killer. We think he has my partner.”
“Oh, man. Damn.”
“Yeah, that,” she said. “And worse.”
Say you wish you could help.
He made a move to climb into his vehicle, then stopped. “This that Copycat guy?”
“We believe so, yes.”
“Sorry. Shit.”
Offer to do something more. I’ll take you up on it.
Instead, he climbed into his cruiser. She hesitated a moment, then followed his lead. They started their vehicles and headed down the gravel drive. At the end of the drive, he took a right, heading in the opposite direction she had come.
She smiled because he was making it easy for her. Thank you very much, Deputy Shanks.
Kitt took the left, drove two and a half miles, then U-turned and headed back. She cut her lights when she reached the gravel drive. She rolled slowly toward the house, the crunch of the tires on the gravel deafening in the still night.
She eased her Taurus around back, behind the garage. She wouldn’t put it past the deputy to ride by again, just to make certain everything was secure.
Before she climbed out, she retrieved her flashlight from the glove box and checked her weapon. She reholstered her cell phone and pocketed her car keys.
The back door lock proved flimsy, and she was standing in the farmhouse kitchen in moments. A big, old- fashioned kitchen, she saw. Looked as if it hadn’t been updated since the fifties.
And it was, obviously, empty. She snapped on the pencil light and made her way through the doorway that led into a living room. She moved the beam over the room. Furniture covered in sheets. The stale, airless smell of a place that had been closed up for a long time.
The dining room was completely empty, as was the bedroom on the main floor. Next, Kitt crept up the stairs. Several of them creaked; each time she stopped, held her breath and listened. No one came running. No alarms sounded. Nothing.
If anyone else was in the house they, like her, were trying to be very quiet.
She reached the top landing. The bathroom lay directly across the hall. She crossed to it, eased open the door with her fingertips.
It had recently been used. A roll of toilet paper sat on the floor by the toilet. She stared at the paper, heart pounding.
That meant the water supply to the house had been turned on.
She tiptoed to the sink and put her finger under the faucet-and found it damp.
A moment later, she saw that one of the bedrooms had been slept in. A rumpled sleeping bag lay on the floor under a window. Beside it sat several Coke cans and candy bar wrappers.
She started toward the bag, then froze at the faint sound of voices. Kitt snapped off the flashlight. Where were they coming from? she wondered, straining to locate the source.
The floor vent at her feet.
She knelt beside it to listen. Voices, definitely. So faint she couldn’t determine if they were male or female or how many people were speaking.
Where were they? She had searched the entire hou-
The basement, she realized. An old farmhouse like this one would have had a basement, but she hadn’t seen a door.
Kitt made her way back down to the first floor. Knowing she wasn’t alone, she kept her light off and weapon out, and moved as quietly as she could.
She found the door. Nearly seamless, tucked into the space under the stairs, she had walked right by it earlier. Kitt pressed her ear close.
Nothing.
The silence caused a clammy chill to settle in the small of her back. Voices meant life. A conversation involved more than one person.
She grabbed the knob, gently turned it.
The door was locked.
Kitt nearly cried out in frustration. She laid her ear to the door again. Someone humming. A man. The sound growing louder.
He was coming up the stairs!
She looked frantically around for a place to hide. The sheet-draped furniture. She scrambled for the nearest piece, what appeared to be a hulking chair. A key turned in a lock. Crouching behind the chair, she had full view of the doorway. She took aim.
The door swung outward, shielding the man. He left it open. A moment later, she heard the kitchen door open, then swing shut.
Apparently, he hadn’t noticed it was unlocked. That had been a stupid mistake on her part. If he did, he would realize she was there, and depending on where he was headed, he could see her car.
She could go after him, but M.C.’s safety was her first priority. Scrambling out from behind the chair, she darted for the open door.
The basement was dark; she snapped on her pencil light and circled the room with it. Typical basement stuff. Metal shelves stacked with all manner of things
M.C. wasn’t there. She frowned and moved the beam over the room again, wishing for a more powerful flashlight.
“M.C.,” she whispered, as loudly as she felt she could. “Are you here?”
“Here,” the other woman called. “I’m here.”
Thank God. Kitt hurried in the direction of M.C.’s voice. A wall. Holstering her Glock and holding the pencil light between her teeth, she felt her way across the wall.
“Where are you?” she asked again.
“I don’t know.”
The sound had definitely come from behind the wall. Another room. A hidden room behind this one.
But where was the door?
From the room above came the sound of footfalls. He was coming back! Quickly, she snapped off her light and ducked behind a group of moving boxes.
A moment later, he trotted down the stairs. Humming again. A tune from Oklahoma!
He carried a can of Coke and a straw.
She studied the tall, thin man. She recognized him from his DMV photo she’d called up, though he was better- looking in real life. She saw why M.C. had been attracted to him-he possessed a kind of boyish good looks. Very nonthreatening. Like a redheaded Peter Pan.
Further confirmation her mother had been right-never judge a book by its cover.
He crossed to the battered bookcase, crowded with a mishmash of junk. He picked up what appeared to be a television remote control, pushed a button and the bookcase swung open.
A safe room. Shit.
Most safe-room doors were made of reinforced, bulletproof steel. Once he closed the door behind him, short of dynamite, she wouldn’t be able to get inside until he opened it again.
She would not allow him to lock himself inside that room with M.C.
Luckily his back was to her. Kitt eased from her hiding place, weapon out. She took aim, preparing to fire.
Still humming, he tossed the remote back on the shelf and stepped through the doorway.
Kitt let out a relieved breath. Now she knew how to get in. All she had to do was wait for the right moment.
