Riptide (37 page)

Her gaze shifted to the nearest trash bin, and she saw a rustle of oleander.

“
Behind you!”
she screamed.

Draper spun in a crouch as Parkinson emerged from the shrubbery.

A single gunshot slapped the alley walls in a volley of percussive echoes. She didn’t know which man had fired until Parkinson fell.

Draper approached him and kicked his gun away, then rolled Parkinson onto his back, exposing a red gash in his throat. His breath came in bubbling wheezes.

Jennifer stepped into the alley. She stared at Parkinson, his face still bloody where she had gouged him, his neck a broken stalk. She smelled the copper-penny scent of blood. Draper applied pressure to the wound, an empty gesture. Parkinson lay unmoving except for the heave of his chest and a faint fluttering motion of his right hand. He was reaching for his shoe—no, his pants leg.

Three paces, and she knelt beside him, grasping his wrist. She rolled up the trouser leg and found a knife strapped to his shin. Carefully she extracted it. The blade was dark with crusted blood. Maura’s blood.

She stood. Parkinson looked up at her. His mouth twisted in a grimace of pure malice, then relaxed. Even the effort of hating her was too much for him now.

“Evidence,” she said to Draper, handing him the knife.

“Thanks.” He set down the knife out of Parkinson’s reach, then got on the radio, requesting medical attention. When he was through, he replaced his hand on Parkinson’s neck, maintaining pressure.

“How long till an ambulance gets here?” Jennifer asked.

“Four or five minutes.”

“Will he make it that long?”

“That long? Yes.” The unspoken addendum was,
But not much longer
.

“I’m going to check on Sandra.”

“You may not like what you find.”

“I know.’

She retraced her steps, wending through the crowd. She still didn’t know if Parkinson had been about to enter the C.A.S.T. office or had just left. The difference was slight enough, but it was the difference between life and death for Sandra Price.

She arrived at the door, still open. She reassured herself that he hadn’t had time to do to Sandra what he’d done in Maura’s condo.

thirty-nine

“Sandra?” she called, entering.

From the rear of the building, a soft metallic creak.

She moved in the direction of the noise, navigating a narrow hall.

“It’s Jennifer. Are you okay?”

“Go away.” Sandra’s voice, weak and low, coming from the open door at the end of the corridor.

“Is everything all right?” Jennifer asked.

“Just...go away. Please.” Her voice cracked on the last word.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jennifer said, and she stepped through the doorway and found Sandra Price seated at a small metal desk, her hands resting on a careworn blotter, a knife held against her throat.

“She told you to go away,” Richard said. “But you never would listen to anybody.”

He stood behind Sandra, his eyes staring with unfocused hostility. Eyes that hated the whole world.

Jennifer stopped inside the doorway. She spent a long moment studying those eyes. “What’s going on?”

“You tell her, Sandra. You tell my big sister what’s going on.”

Sandra shifted in her seat, and the swivel chair creaked. That was the noise Jennifer had heard. “He came in a half hour ago. Found me back here. Since then, we’ve been getting to know each other.”

“Has he...hurt you?”

“No. We’ve been having a little chat, is all. He’s quite the raconteur.” She tried to smile, couldn’t pull it off.

“What are you doing here, Richard?”

His lip curled in a sneer. “
You
know. If anyone knows, you do.”

She took a step closer. “Tell me.”

“You sent them after me. This bitch—and the other one.”

“What other one?”

“The one who was spying on me. Following me. He was in the library today. So were you. That’s when I knew for sure that you were in it together.”

“I had nothing to do with that man. Neither did Sandra.”

He barked a sharp laugh. “You’re so full of shit.” The knife trembled in his grasp, its blade gleaming in the glow of the desk lamp. “She put up those posters with my face on them. And you talked to her. And now you’re here.”

“I’m here because I thought Sandra was in trouble.”

“You were right. I’m going to cut her. Cut you, too.”

“Sandra and I weren’t following you. The man who did that is in police custody now. He won’t bother you again.”

“You’re lying. You always lie. You’re in league with this bitch and that other one. All three of you, in your little conspiracy. You think you had me fooled. But I
know
.”

His hand jerked, and Sandra winced as a thread of blood appeared on her throat.

“You’re all working against me. Just admit it, and I’ll let her go.”

She would not admit to anything. It would only reinforce his paranoia.

“You’re imagining things,” she said.

Sandra spoke in a dry whisper. “Honey, that is
not
what the man wants to hear.”

“No more bullshit.” His red-rimmed eyes glared at her. “You want to destroy me. You want me dead. Just say it!”

“That’s what you want to hear me say?” Jennifer asked. “That I’m your enemy?”

“Yes, God damn it!”

“I would never hurt you, Richard.”

Sandra inhaled sharply, scared by this answer.

His face was wild. “You want me to cut her throat? Is that what you want?”

Jennifer didn’t reply. She was rolling up the sleeve on her left arm. She stepped closer, letting him see the scar. “Remember this? Remember how you saved me?”

He stared at her arm, transfixed by the scar. His voice was quieter when he said, “That was a long time ago.”

“But I haven’t forgotten. Have you?”

“No.”

“I’ll always remember hearing your voice. You were calling for me, and I thought it was a dream, so I didn’t answer. You found me anyway. I never asked you how you knew I was in the utility room.”

“It was the blood.” His eyes were far away. “Spots of blood on the floor.”

She took another step, and now she was three feet from the desk.

“You picked me up and carried me to a car. I didn’t even know whose car it was. You didn’t have a license. You were only fourteen.”

“It was Jim Hobarth’s car. I borrowed it.”

“And drove three hundred fifty miles to San Francisco. You’d talked the operator into tracing the call to the pay phone in the shopping center.”

“She didn’t want to do it. I said it was life-and-death. She got her supervisor to approve....”

“You made it to the shopping center and got inside somehow.”

“Through a back window.”

“And you found me and drove me to the hospital, and later when I’d had a transfusion, I woke up and found you in the room with me. You know what you said? Remember the words?”

He shook his head.

“You said, ‘I knew you were in bad shape. You needed me.’ That’s all.”

She closed the gap with the desk, and now he was within her reach.

“I was—everything was different then.” His face hardened. “
You
were different. You weren’t after my money. You weren’t trying to put me away.”

“There’s hardly any money left, Richard. You’ve spent almost all of it.”

“You’re hiding it from me. You want it for yourself.”

“It’s nearly gone. And our house—it’s gone, too.”

His lower lip quivered. “You’re a lying whore.”

“It burned tonight. It’s all gone, and the family papers are gone, and soon the money will be gone. And you know what? I’m glad.”

“You’re not making sense.”

“I don’t want anything holding on to us anymore. I want a fresh start. Remember how we used to play miniature golf, and you’d give me a do-over if I hit a bad shot? That’s what I want. A do-over.”

“We don’t get do-overs.”

“Sometimes we do. We just have to ask. How about you? Would you like a new start?”

He reared back, and Sandra shut her eyes. “I’m going to cut this bitch’s throat, and then I’m going to cut yours.”

Jennifer held his gaze from a yard away. “No, you’re not.”

“Who says?”

“You’re not a killer, Richard. I thought you were, but I was wrong. You’re not going to hurt Sandra or me.” She extended her hand, her left hand, so he could follow the seam of the scar down her arm. “Are you?”

Her fingertips brushed his chest. He stared at them, at the pale vulnerability of her offered hand.

“Everyone’s against me,” he said, the words so soft they almost went unheard.

“I’m not.”

Doubt flickered on his face. “Then why’d you come after me? Why’d you hunt me down? Why wouldn’t you leave me
alone
?”

“I knew you were in bad shape,” she said. “You needed me.”

He heard the words, and their echo from years ago.

Slowly he handed over the knife, dropping it into her upraised palm.

Sandra exhaled.

Jennifer withdrew her hand. “Thank you, Richard.”

“You’d better not be fucking with me,” he muttered.

1911

Hare was dying.

He had known it for some time. The pain in his belly had become progressively worse, stealing his breath and his heart’s blood. Over the past several months he had been stricken intermittently with spells of weakness. The movements of his bowels were bloody and agonizing. He had trouble keeping food down. Of late he had subsisted on corn mush and warm beer.

He was fifty-one years old. His great work was at an end. Never again would he prowl the streets, purging them of the female element. The whores...and they were
all
whores, every last one. Toward the end he no longer singled out streetwalkers. Any woman would do, if she was young and had life in her.

His thinking in this regard had changed after the consummation of his marriage on the kitchen floor. He brooded long over the significance of the act. He had never meant to defile himself. It was her blood that overmastered him, robbed him of sense and self-control. It was her blood that made her a harlot.

And all women bled.

Even knowing this, he could not resist her wiles. He continued to take her from time to time, and not always when she was bleeding. He hated himself for it but could not stop. Thankfully, his illness had accomplished what his willpower could not—cleansed him of carnal desire.

He carried on with his work as late as possible. Only last month he claimed the sixth of his victims to be interred in his cellar. The sixth and last. He would not hunt again.

But his work would continue. He would see to that.

“Are you ready, Papa?” a small voice called from the top of the stairs.

Hare smiled. The lad was eager for his promised birthday present. It would be a grand surprise, his father had assured him.

No one was ever permitted in the cellar. In the three and a half years since his family took up residence in the house he’d commissioned in Venice, both his wife and his son had been absolutely barred from entry. The cellar’s trapdoor was ordinarily secured with a padlock to which Hare alone possessed the key, and when he was in the cellar, he secured the door from below with a dead bolt.

But today, on the occasion of his boy’s seventh birthday, Hare had left the trapdoor unbolted. He had lit the room with a kerosene lamp. And he was indeed ready.

“You may come,” he summoned.

The boy raced down the stairs so precipitously Hare feared he might break his neck. He reached the bottom, flushed with joy.

Hare knelt by him, fighting the pulse of agony that throbbed continually in his midsection. As yet he had not let the boy see what was under the stairs. It was necessary to prepare him for the sight.

“You’re a man now,” he said, laying a hand on the child’s shoulder. “You deserve to see my secret room, and to learn its mysteries.”

The boy was awed. “Yes, Papa.”

Hare picked up a metal box and held it in outstretched hands. “This is for you.”

His son fumbled open the clasp and peered inside, registering disappointment when he saw the contents. “A book?”

“Not just any book,” Hare said. “It is my diary from my years in London when I was a younger man. A record of the things I did there. Secret things. Famous things.”

“How can they be secret
and
famous?” the boy asked, sensibly enough.