Savage Art (A Chilling Suspense Novel) (9 page)

Across the street, a gardener stopped and removed his hat, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. His curly dark hair was wet and matted to his head. A thick mustache covered his lip. He glanced in her direction and without thinking, she ducked. Sitting on the floor, she actually wondered what size shoes the man wore. "Stop it," she commanded herself.

Pushing to her feet, she turned and closed the curtains, fighting to close the shades with her two knoblike fists.

With the shades drawn, she forced the inspector's words from her head. What she needed was a project, something to distract her. She wasn't going back to work, but she couldn't sit on her ass for the rest of her life, either. If she did that, she would be better off dead.

She took mental inventory of the things in the house that still needed repair. The locks on the kitchen window were bad. The back door had only one bolt. The alarm system was fidgety.

Gasping, she stared at her hands. What would she do if Leonardo got in? How could she defend herself? Without the use of her hands, she was a sitting duck. Undoubtedly, that was exactly as he wanted it. Why, after so many months of silence, were the alarms suddenly going off in her head? Was it the inspector's visit, the memories of working cases? Or was Leonardo really here? Could she actually feel him like thick smoke, burning in the air?

If so, she was as good as dead.

Chapter 6

She was as good as dead. He turned off the leaf blower and lifted the worn baseball cap to wipe his brow. From across the street he watched Agent McKinley move in the bedroom, then quickly draw her shades. He smiled. So she knew. He could see it in her face—the sheer terror of knowing how close he was. And he
was
that close. No, he was closer. She could never imagine how close he was.

He sat on the step and put his cap back on, pretending to bask in the sun that sliced between the tall eucalyptus like a machete. It was an act, of course. He hated the sun, had always hated it. His rage, like molten lava, burned inside him. He had succeeded. He'd waited almost a year for her, hidden out, worked menial jobs, but his time had come. She thought she was so much better than he. Everyone undervalued him.

Even as a child, the kids had made of fun of his pasty skin and scrawny physique—as they had made fun of his drawings. He had practiced sketching, just like his uncle said he should. "Medicine is art. You must be able to draw a perfect line—first with the pen and later with the scalpel."

He had always been good. But they denied it, told him he was a sissy. What did they know? His uncle had recognized his talent and tried to teach him, but his man-hating mother wouldn't hear of it.

He remembered the old copy of
Gray's Anatomy
his uncle had brought for him. He had overheard his mother talking with his uncle at the door. It was his eleventh birthday. Closing his eyes, he could envision it now. He'd only seen his uncle one more time before he died. But his mother hadn't given him the book—she gave it to his sister instead. He'd gotten only a hat, a stupid red birthday hat that had been his sister's only months before.

He didn't care. He had proven himself. He'd studied
Gray's Anatomy
in secret and learned all the parts—every single one. He'd practiced on neighborhood cats, squirrels, and birds, even a dog once, although it was big and bulky and hadn't required nearly so much skill as the smaller animals. The scratches from the dog still marked his arms, war wounds of his own personal battles. He could have been a doctor like his uncle.

But then he had been denied entrance into medical school. He should be a doctor—he was good enough. No, he was better. His mother and sister had mocked him, continued to do so up until five years ago. But that was the last time. His sister's birthday, too. What a perfect final present for them both.

Now he was his own doctor, he performed his own surgery, and created his own art. Each piece was a puppet to his power. Let his coworkers at this latest joke of a job think what they want. Stupid, worthless. That's how they thought of him. He had lied to them about his background in security, about his name. Even his appearance had been a lie—the dark brown hair, the brown contacts. He held the deceits like carrots in front of them, and they had bitten. With each new lie, they moved closer, more trusting. How he would love to show them how stupid they were, how careless and naive. But they wouldn't know. They would never know.

He toyed with the idea of letting them find out one day. The image of their horrified faces filled his head. He felt the warm rush of glee. When they learned that the man they had trusted with their security and then belittled had so much power, they would be terrified. He wanted to haunt them.

But they weren't enough. They were easy targets, worthless worker bees in the intricate hive of his power. He could play them like puppets, but there wouldn't be the same joy. The job had never been enough. A resting place, a time to build his power again, to watch and wait. Now he needed more.

Now he needed Casey. She had caught his attention—and made him think of his mother. Casey had disapproved of him, doubted him, but he had shown her who was in control. And he would again. She was responsible for his new direction as an artist, made him realize he could do even better.

He had always sculpted around a focal point—everyone had one. Casey McKinley's had been her hands—her ability to shoot a gun. The stripper's was her chest, the runner's her legs, the model's her face. It was all about finding their core—that was his art. He was still doing it. He hadn't realized that children had a core, too, but they did. And the children's rawness was a whole new level of excitement that he hadn't expected. He'd taken apart the little ballerina's feet and the face of the girl so self-conscious about her braces.

But now his art gave him an even greater thrill, thanks to Casey. He recalled the day in the mall when he'd seen a mother walking with her child—the woman had looked so much like Casey—and he knew she would congratulate his cleverness in using the children to get to the mothers. What better way to relive the joy of watching his mother suffer as he killed his sister? At first, he'd worried the smaller prey would be duller, but he'd never felt more empowered. He remembered his mother's pleas to let his sister live—she never cared about him, but she had cared more for her daughter than for herself.

Now he sought out children in the malls, each time waiting for the right one. It was perfect. Casey would see the true artistry in it. Her power, her intelligence, had made her the perfect adversary. The fact that he hadn't finished with her made the hunt all the more exciting. Soon she would be forced to give him his due. He felt himself rising in his pants and forced his mind away.

Pulling his gloves off, he looked at his nails. When he'd found a fraying piece of skin, he tugged at it indiscreetly. The layers were red and sore. Still, he dug deeper until he struck blood.

All these months, it had reminded him that he needed to wait. Blood would be evidence. Their blood was joy. His own blood would be damning. He knew when to wait. That was what made him so good.

He rubbed the sore with his finger, feeling the burning of the exposed flesh against the acids in his skin. How wonderful that pain was. In his mind, he could hear them screaming. The pain contorted their faces and made them beg for their lives.

There were the women before—four of them. They had been his mother's puppets, too, but without the same power as her or Casey. His sister had always been the way to pierce his mother's heart. Now he realized. The children were the center of it all. Since Cincinnati, he'd had to wait until Casey was ready to come back to him. There had been only three new pieces of art, but each work was better than the last. The next would be his best yet. The masterpiece was close at hand.

He rubbed his darkened hands across his face, pleased at the new color of his skin. The tan had come from a bottle. With a little help and his own ingenuity, he could be anything he wanted.

Casey's front door opened, and he looked back down at his hands. He found his gardening gloves and pulled them back on, pushing himself to his feet like someone weary from physical labor. The tall black man stepped out of the house and closed the door, easing his way back to the Ford Explorer. The man had the air of a police officer; but without a uniform, a detective might be more likely.

Standing, he turned his back, though he could feel the detective's strong gaze on his shoulder. Excitement and anticipation brewed in his stomach like a wicked ale. He inhaled and soaked it in before hoisting the leaf blower over his shoulder and turning it on again.

He blew the three stairs above where he stood and then moved toward the street. Beneath the bill of his cap, he peeked out at the detective.

The detective was copying down the license plate of the gardening truck in a notebook.

Smiling, he turned his back to the detective again, loving the rush the detective's attention brought to his groin.

He was too good. He had taken care of every detail, worked out every glitch. He'd found the perfect road into Casey's home, the perfect key. He would not be discovered, certainly not so easily as this. Let the detective check the license plate.

It was starting. The game he had waited so long to play was starting again. The police had nothing, but he had planned his next move. Already the score was in his favor.

Chapter 7

Rick Swain stood and took a deep drag on his cigarette, then dropped it to the floor and smashed it out with the toe of his cowboy boot. He glanced at his watch and shook his head. It was already five-thirty. By the time he hit the surface, it would be dark. Another day without light. He was going to go fucking nuts down here.

When he'd trained as a FBI agent, Swain had pictured high-adventure trips into foreign countries and forbidden lands. He would crack the codes of the enemy, break through their barriers and find whatever the Bureau needed. That was supposed to be his job. At least, that was what the Bureau had told him seven years ago.

Not anymore. These days, the best hackers were younger than his last haircut. They say he'd screwed up with McKinley in Cincinnati. They'd investigated it. He'd never seen the results of the investigation, never been given a full report. But he was to blame. He still didn't buy it. He'd installed the microphones himself. There had been no mistakes.

Damn if he knew what the hell had happened, but somehow that killer had gotten into her apartment and attacked Agent McKinley. Thankfully, her partner had come down the hall, heard something strange and gone to investigate. But not before the killer had done permanent damage. Swain had been blamed—he'd been the one who was supposed to hear everything that happened in McKinley's room.

Maybe the killer had deactivated the mikes. No one seemed to care enough to tell Swain. He wondered if McKinley knew. He had tried to contact her, to talk to her, but she'd told him to fuck off. Not that he blamed her. God knows it wasn't her fault. He'd just wished he'd had a chance to apologize—and explain. What good would it have done her? She'd been through hell, and he was trying to nurse a broken ego.

Still, even almost a year later, Swain couldn't let go. He needed a look at the case file, but he'd probably never get to see it. Instead, he'd be stuck in this hole forever. He just couldn't give up without knowing for sure.

The door burst open, and Dan Jamison entered. He coughed twice and waved his hand in front of his face. "Are you crazy?" he whined in his nasal pitch. "You can't smoke down here."