Disappear (31 page)

Quick. Clean. Just don’t look at the face, he told himself. Pretend it’s a random victim. A thrill kill. No purpose. Just pleasure.

But the steel band, already in place around his skull, squeezed tighter and he felt no sexual high. Just the pressure to complete his business, then flee.

He moved with the stealth and speed of a jungle cat. That hadn’t changed. This was his natural persona, had been ever since that afternoon in the alley with Vinnie. This was the one time, the only time, that he felt that the power was rightfully his.

Samantha bent forward towards the bin. The jogger was upon her instantly, the wire looped around her throat and then drawn tightly, blocking off her air supply, piercing her flesh.

She tried to scream. No sound. No air. Couldn’t breathe. In vain she attempted to jerk herself free. She was held too tightly. Her arms shot upwards, her fingers desperately clawing at the wire but she had no leverage. No hope.

Pain seared through her entire body. Her vision blurred.

She would have been dead within sixty seconds if it hadn’t been for the sudden, blinding light that filled the driveway, illuminating them.

The car swung in and pulled to a stop. Lachlan switched off the motor but left the headlights on as he jumped from the driver’s seat.

The jogger released his grip, simultaneously withdrawing the wire. He flung Samantha violently against the wall, leapt over the bin and ran.

Jennifer stepped from the shower, towelled herself dry, pulled on a fluffy white terry-towelling robe and walked into the living room. She saw that Samantha wasn’t there, that the side door was open, the glare of headlights. She ran outside.

Her breath caught in her throat when she saw Samantha sprawled on the ground, a stream of blood circling her neck. Lachlan charged up, glanced down at the girl and then at Jennifer. ‘Get her help,’ he yelled, ‘I’m going after him!’

The rain crashed down. The jogger slipped on the grass in the backyard but regained his footing quickly. He hurtled towards the back fence, jumping and clearing it but coming down hard on his side in the neighbouring property.

He was too desperate to feel pain. On his feet again instantly he raced across the yard, leaping another fence, then out onto the street and into the properties on the other side. The copper was hot on his tail. He could hear Lachlan’s footsteps and his breath, hard and heavy, as he leapt the same fences. He didn’t think Lachlan had fallen over and he knew his pursuer was stronger and more agile.

Why the hell had the copper arrived at the house this evening? The jogger hadn’t considered that possibility. Lachlan was fit and relentless, he wouldn’t give up. He’d chase him to the end of the world and back.

Another house. Another driveway running along the side. The jogger sighted one of the large rubbish bins pressed up against a side fence. He slowed, grabbed the bin with both hands, and rolled it back at full force down the sloping driveway behind him.

Lachlan ran at breakneck speed, just entering the driveway. He saw the bin tumbling towards him, tried to avoid it, but it delivered him a glancing blow to his right leg, knocking him off his feet. He sprawled on the concrete, gashing his cheek.

He sprang back up, oblivious to the blood. The jogger was out of sight now but Lachlan presumed he’d gone over the back fence. He raced to the fence, clambered to the top of it, scanned the landscape beyond. Heavy sheets of rain obscured the view.

His policeman’s instinct pricked at him. All was not as it seemed. He jumped back into the yard and ran back the way he’d come. Just a hunch but he knew, if he’d been the one running, he would have circled around the other side of the house.

Back on the street he knew he’d judged correctly. The killer was half way to the next cross street. Lachlan pressed on. He wondered why the murderer had stayed on the footpath, in full view. If he’d dashed into another garden, leapt another fence, he would have been out of sight. Gone.

And then he saw the reason why.

Nearer the corner, just visible to Lachlan through the haze and mist of the rainstorm, a car pulled over. A middle-aged couple climbed out of it. He partly saw, partly assumed what happened next. The killer knocked the man and the woman to the ground with a vicious sweep of his arm, grabbed the keys and dived into the car.

Lachlan reached the corner as the vehicle, a wine coloured Toyota Celica, sped away. ‘You all right?’ he asked the couple.

‘Son of a bitch stole my car,’ the man said as he helped the woman to her feet.

Lachlan patted his pockets and realised he didn’t have his cell phone on him. It was in his car.

‘I’m a police officer,’ Lachlan said. ‘You live here?’

‘Yes.’

‘I need to use your phone quickly, sir. There’s every chance we can still stop him.’

Less than ninety seconds elapsed before the message was broadcast to every police patrol in the metropolitan area.

Twenty minutes later Highway Patrol Officers Patresi and McCormick found the Celica parked outside an apartment block, seven streets away. Ten minutes later a further five police vehicles arrived and combed the area. The jogger, they believed, had abandoned the car to return to his own vehicle somewhere in the immediate vicinity.

The rain beat down in a deluge now, combining with the distorted glare from the city’s lights to reduce visibility to almost zero. An hour later the search was called off.

Doctor Susan Chan was a petite, dark-eyed woman, fortyish, with an intelligent and compassionate face that inspired confidence. Jennifer was glad, for Meg’s sake, that the doctor wasn’t one of the cold, clinical, arrogant types sometimes found in the frantic halls of a city hospital.

Jennifer, Carly and Lachlan waited with Meg as the doctor approached, striding through the double swing doors of the emergency room. Meg, functioning entirely on nervous energy, was the first to snap to attention.

‘Mrs Tanner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your daughter is very lucky to be alive, Mrs Tanner,’ Susan Chan said. ‘I’m afraid she’s far from being out of danger. She has extensive bruising and swelling of the larynx, causing great difficulty in breathing, and she’s severely traumatised.’

‘Oh, my God.’

‘But she’s responding well to treatment and we’ve stopped the internal bleeding. I’m keeping her in emergency for the time being and the next twenty-four hours will be crucial. Your daughter has been sedated but you can go to the ward to see your son. He’s out of theatre and he’s going to be fine. I’ve already explained that he won’t be playing football for quite some time, though. He’s going to need all his energy for his physiotherapy sessions.’

Lachlan introduced himself to the doctor and asked when he’d have the chance to question Samantha about her assailant.

‘Not until morning, I’m afraid. At the earliest. If you’d like to phone then, ask for me personally.’

Jennifer and Carly accompanied Meg through to the ward.

‘I wish you could stay with me for the next week,’ Jennifer said to her long-time friend, ‘to give you some good, old fashioned mothering to help you through this. But it’s hardly a good idea in light of the circumstances. It’s not the safest place to be, with the police watching over Carly and me.’

‘They think Carly’s in danger as well?’

‘Detective Lachlan does. We can’t be sure how much this madman knows, or thinks he knows. We didn’t expect him to come after me. As far as we’re aware, he doesn’t even know that I know about Brian’s audit.’

‘That’s what this is all about, this … Winterstone thing?’ Meg had picked that much up from the snippets of conversation she’d heard between Jennifer, Carly and Lachlan.

‘Apparently,’ Jennifer replied.

They walked out to the lobby. Outside, an ambulance pulled in to the outpatients express driveway.

‘God, Meg, I’m so sorry.’ Jennifer’s words almost caught in her throat. ‘If I hadn’t stirred up all this business over Brian …’ Her voice faded.

‘This monster has to be found,’ Meg said matter-of-factly. ‘Just make sure you two look after yourselves.
Please.
’

‘I’m glad you called. I came straight over. You’re okay?’

Jennifer hugged Kaplan, ushered him in. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Someone tried to kill you?’

‘The same person who killed Stuart James. He attacked Samantha Tanner, thinking it was me.’

‘That explains the police out the front,’ Kaplan said.

‘Carly and I are both under protection.’

‘And Meg’s girl..?’

‘Samantha’s still on the critical list.’ Jennifer paced, which was unlike her. She peered through the front window drapes, then strode back toward him, arms folded. ‘Henry, I think you may be able to help us. I called you over to ask you about Winterstone.’

‘I’ll do anything to help, you know that.’

‘Stuart James believed there was a connection between Brian’s disappearance and his audit of one of the companies in your group.’

‘I know about that. Detective Lachlan spoke to Roger and Harold about it.’

‘That file is now in the hands of the police, but the killer probably didn’t know that. We think he thought the file was still here, that I knew about it, or that I may have found out. That’s why he came after me. Carly could also be in danger.’

‘Lachlan told you this?’

‘Yes. He believes the same killer is responsible for six missing persons found dead, and the recent garrotte killings.’

‘Six missing persons? Christ.’

‘What’s going on, Henry?’

‘I don’t know, Jennifer. It makes no sense. I can see that the evidence points to a connection with our Winterstone firm, but I can’t see any reasons. None of us would get involved with a killer.’

‘What about Harold? He purchased the Winterstone name and set up the warehouse operation. He might know something that could be of use, but just doesn’t realise he knows it.’

‘I’ll question Harold further about this myself. If there’s a link I’ll get to the bottom of it.’ He took hold of her hand, squeezed it. ‘I promise you that.’

‘If ever I needed your help, Henry, it’s now.’ Jennifer was terrified that, despite the precautions being taken, something could happen to Carly. The attack on Samantha was evidence of that.

Jennifer had been determined to solve this case - but now it appeared she’d let the demons out of Pandora’s Box and everything was spiralling out of control.

‘Are you sure you’ll be safe here?’

‘As well as the police watch outside, Neil Lachlan will be staying in the house overnight. He insisted and he’s due back any minute.’

‘Then I’ll wait. There’s something I want to speak to him about, and it’s something you should hear. But I’d prefer that Carly didn’t.’

‘Carly’s in her room, trying to sleep.’ Jennifer was curious but she didn’t prod further. She heard the sound of a car pulling up out the front. Neil Lachlan had arrived.

It was after 1 a.m. when Lachlan finally lodged the umbrella with forensics. Jennifer had identified it earlier after they’d left the hospital. Lachlan had checked in on Bryant at HQ but was disappointed that while Bryant’s call to the US had gone through, there’d been no answer on the Lifelines phone number, and he was now waiting for a return call from the California State police in the hope they might be able to shed some light on the Lifelines name.

Lachlan had now arrived at Jennifer’s home ten minutes after Kaplan, and as Jennifer motioned him in she told him that Kaplan wanted to discuss something.

‘What’s this all about then, Mr. Kaplan?’ Lachlan asked.

Jennifer seated herself on the sofa. The two men remained standing. All were tired. It had been a long day and an even longer night.

‘I gave Carly’s boyfriend, Rory McConnell, permission to write an authorised article about my corporation. He’s had access to my people for interviews, background info, that sort of thing, and he’s been into our main office on a couple of occasions over the past week. Naturally, I had my legal department conduct an investigation into Mr. McConnell’s own background.’

‘Is that normal practice for you?’ Lachlan asked.

‘It’s business, detective. I like to know what sort of people I’m opening up my people and my files to. I was disturbed by what I found.’

‘Disturbed?’ Jennifer repeated, clearly worried.

‘He was a suspect in a murder case, in the town of Forthworth, in the early 90’s. The victim’s throat had been cut. He was never charged, and the police now believe someone else - another killer - was responsible. I might not have thought too much of it. But it appears this garrotte killer is someone close enough to Jennifer to know about the private investigator and the search through the old files. McConnell approached me about inside access to my organisation just after Brian Parkes was found. I got to thinking. It occurred to me that McConnell arrived in Sydney around the same time period that Brian went missing. The connections are loose but they started worrying me so I thought I should mention them.’

‘They worry me too,’ Jennifer said.

Lachlan turned to Jennifer. ‘Carly lives with McConnell?’

‘Yes, but she’s staying with me for the moment.’

‘I’ll look into this Forthworth business further,’ Lachlan told Kaplan. ‘You were right to tell us what you’d learned.’

‘Call me if there’s anything more I can do,’ Kaplan said. ‘Rest assured, Jennifer, we’ll get to the bottom of this whole damn mess.’

This was the Henry Kaplan Jennifer knew so well, so certain, so strong. But was there anything he could really do to help? For the first time ever, she wondered if he actually had the absolute control over his companies she’d always thought he had.

It wasn’t a night for sleeping.

Jennifer, restless, invited Lachlan to join her for a drink in the back room overlooking the garden.

‘No booze for me,’ Lachlan reminded her. ‘I’m on duty.’ He didn’t reveal the other reason, his determination not to slip back into the heavy drinking of his Drug Squad days.

Not for the first time he felt strongly that he’d like to start his new life by seeing more of Jennifer Parkes. He just wasn’t sure how to broach the subject. The timing certainly wasn’t right, with a madman on the loose and a police guard stationed outside her home.