'McGuire here.' He spoke in a gruff, efficient voice. Travers could tell he was intimidated as hell and trying to cover it with the briskness of his tone.
'Well, Agent McGuire. Let's play a little guessing game to find out where I am, shall we? I'm thinking of a lovely crocheted wall piece with dark brown beads hanging from its fringes. Looks like it belongs on the floor of a doghouse, but someone made the unfortunate decision to display it as a wall ornament. It's a virtual shrine to the seventies, as seems to be most of the house. And look, here's a beautiful blue marlin plastered above the fireplace, evincing the Hemingwayesque masculinity of the man of the house. How noble in reason. In action, how like a god.'
'H N E.' Three letters splashed in crimson, their boundaries marred by the drip of the dark blood. They looked ready to slide right off the window; they were drifting, living letters.
Allander's bloody fingers were wrapped around a cordless phone. He moved into the kitchen and plucked a photograph off the refrigerator, leaving a red smudge across the front.
'How cute,' he said into the phone. 'A photograph of Grandma on her eightieth birthday. However did you fit all those candles onto the cake… Agent McGuire?'
Allander smiled in awareness of the stunned silence on the other end of the phone. He walked into the living room and faced the two boys who were bound to chairs with tape.
They were about fifteen and sixteen years old, just starting to build muscles in their chests and shoulders. Tears ran over the tape that bound their heads firmly to the high backs of the chairs. Only a small strip of their faces was visible, their eyes and a thin band of their cheeks.
Behind them on the floor lay the body of their mother. Both of her ears had been cut off and her throat was slashed. Allander had used the spout of blood that welled from the wound as his paint bucket. The blood was still warm when he dipped his fingers into it.
Firecrackers were pushed into the boys' ears. Allander had wedged them tightly into the ear canals so they would be sure not to slip.
He walked over to the counter and calmly picked up a book of matches. The boys' panic found expression only in their eyes. They were taped to the heavy chairs so tightly that even their most frenzied wrenchings barely moved their heads or bodies.
Allander watched how their eyes flicked around the room with urgency and disbelief. They were terrified. He loved having their complete attention, loved them watching his every move, knowing that their lives depended on it.
As he bent to light the fuses of the firecrackers, he looked like a mother tucking in her children. His lips brushed against the sides of their cheeks as he leaned over them.
'Hear no evil,' he whispered.
Travers watched McGuire's eyes widen as he held the phone to his ear. Everyone in the room jumped when they heard the loud bangs from the phone. They echoed off the stark walls of the apartment.
McGuire kept the phone to his ear for a few moments longer and then held it out to Travers with trembling fingers. Travers could hear the dial tone.
'Oh my God,' McGuire said. 'He's in my house. Oh God.'
He had barely finished speaking before the agents in the living room sprang to life, clearing the house and jumping into vehicles.
McGuire remained frozen in precisely the same place, alone in the small apartment. He was still holding the telephone out with one shaking hand, and his right cheek began to quiver beneath his eye.
Chapter 49
The house finally quieted down. The agents had driven to McGuire's home in the city as quickly as possible after radioing in help from the SFPD. McGuire lived in the Sunset District, on Ninth and Irving.
Travers was not surprised to find Jade already there, sitting calmly in a kitchen chair. He shook his head when she and the others walked in. Too late. At least he'd gotten there before the blood could clot.
When he'd first arrived at the house, he'd been furious that he had missed Allander. He had called 911 to get ambulances on the way, then had left the boys taped to the chairs to look for him. After checking the house and yard for any trace of him, being careful not to disturb the crime scene, he had walked out onto the street.
Even though Allander had left no visible evidence, the location of McGuire's house tipped his hand. It sat on a network of wide-open streets with very few alleys. Visibility was extremely high. Since he would have had to stick to the streets, it would have been nearly impossible for Allander to escape on foot and get very far. He had come in a car. And for the first time, he had brought something with him: firecrackers. That could mean he had a base from which he was working. Somewhere he could keep the car and make his plans. Somewhere they could catch him.
Jade could feel the net tightening. Just had to pick up a few more corners to trap his prey.
He went inside to free the boys.
The ambulances picked them up and took them to the ER at St. Mary's. The body of McGuire's wife was left for further examination. Most of the agents had departed after searching the area, and only the forensics team remained.
Allander had slipped away in broad daylight, leaving no traces. It was almost as though he wasn't real; they could only sense him, like an image seen through murky waters. The other agents noticed a hint of a smile on Jade's face, though they couldn't tell why it was there.
Travers dealt with the neighbors, interviewing them in case they had seen anything, or could offer any leads. It proved futile, of course. When she returned to the house, Jade was still in the kitchen, sitting in one of the high- backed chairs, his right leg pumping up and down excitedly. A cup of ice sat on the table in front of him.
'What?' Travers asked. She was exhausted and her hair was down, fanned loosely across her shoulders.
Jade looked up, noticing her for the first time. He stood, swinging the cup of ice with his thumb and forefinger. 'We know he's somewhere. He's at a fixed location now, operating from a base. We can check for clues. Get forensics in here.' He turned to the door and yelled, 'FORENSICS!'
Two men scurried into the room. 'I want a full materials check,' Jade ordered. 'Fibers, particles, anything. Comb the place-the rug in the living room especially; it could've picked up a lot of shit.'
The men stood there and stared at Jade.
'Well, go. What are you waiting for? Go.'
One of the agents cleared his throat. 'Uh. We already did. Picked up some particles. Already got the read from lab. Lead. Lead traces in the carpet, definitely a foreign material tracked in here. Also got some hairs, but no surprises there.'
'Lead? What the hell does that indicate?' He looked back and forth at the two men, who shrugged. He shook his head in disgust. 'All right. Good. Out.'
They left.
He turned to Travers. His mind was so tightly wound he felt as if it might snap. 'He's working from somewhere. Got room, got time, got privacy. Resources.'
Jade ran his thumb across his bottom lip over and over, feeling it push softly to the side. 'A house. Deserted, empty, or hostages. No, no hostages. Wouldn't want to leave them.'
'He could've broken in, killed a family,' Travers said.
Jade was struck with a sudden, horrible thought. What if Allander had used his pistol? The Glock that he'd stolen from the back counter. Jade had not yet told anyone about it. He was hoping to keep it his and Allander's little secret, at least until it became relevant.
At least he hasn't used it yet, he thought. At least not yet.
He nodded. 'Could be. The average response time for SFPD to this site is sixteen and a half minutes. He would've known that we'd radio in after he called us. He probably even timed his call by it. And this is a bad neighborhood to make an escape by foot. Too open, way too open. He came here in a car, left in a car. And he would've wanted to be back to his base by the time police arrived here, even before to beat the roadblocks. I'd say he'd want to be back to his base in fifteen minutes.'
