The River Runs Dry (22 page)

“I'm damned if I know,” said Jack. “Seems like a set up, like he wanted us to find her out there. He could have killed her a hundred times, but left her alone. I don't know why, he might just be playing with us.”

“It seems as though he's enjoying manipulating things, moving us around, causing us all of this pain and terror. He's buying into this press image, this Death Valley Demon from the plains who can slip in and out of any house without anyone seeing. I mean, he set the fire to catch her, that was super risky. He could so easily have been caught, just like coming here, to the hospital, to kill Leanne Graves. He's beginning to lose his poise Jack, it's only a matter of time before he goes too far, before he slips up.”

Jack took another drag, blowing the white smoke into the warm night air.

“He's making it impossible to predict what he'll do next, that's the problem we've got here. There's no rhyme or rhythm to his actions any more. If he was going to go through all of that, why did he leave her alive? I thought...maybe he'd left her until the next night, that's why he drugged her and left her there, but then why take the phone, why leave it with her. He must have known we'd trace it. It's random Jess, I can't work it out.”

Jessie moved forward towards him. “You will Jack....we will. We'll catch him, we'll get him together.”

She moved her hand up to his face and dragged it to hers. “You're smarter than him Jack. You're gonna catch him, I know you are.”

Their eyes lingered on each others for a moment, their lips close, almost touching. Then Jack's eyes dropped and he turned his head from hers, staring out onto into the night, a sudden sense of doubt creeping through him.

“I'm not so sure any more.”

...

“Shut up down there,” shouted a voice, deep and cold, his words echoing around the room. “Or I'll come down again....and you don't want that, do you?”

The whimpering in the basement below stopped abruptly, and silence hit the house once more.

The man stood, watching an old television set, an artist's drawing of him flashing across the screen.

He nodded his head slowly. “Fairly accurate,” he said, his tone mocking and sarcastic. “They've got me just right.”

He kept watching the report, telling of the discovery of Darcia Robinson in an old shack several miles into the barren plains outside of Burgess. A smile crept over his face. He could have killed the bitch at any time, he could have taken her life, and her eyes, just like the rest of them.

But he didn't. He didn't really care for her. She was just part of his game, a game he controlled.

No, there was only one he wanted now. He'd seen her before, even talked to her. She was perfect – her face, her hair, her eyes. It was like looking at a memory, one etched and scarred into his brain.

She'd complete his set, she'd be the one to join his little family, just as it had been before. Then she'd know pain, then she'd know torture, then she'd know suffering. He'd suffered himself, suffered for years and years. Now it was her turn.

He walked to the TV and switched it off. It was old, barely functioning now, but he didn't use it, he didn't care. This entire place, it wasn't what one might call comfortable or homely. It served a purpose, that's all.

He walked to the window and looked out at the quiet plains beyond. There was darkness all around him, not a single light of life in sight. Only the stars, only the moon, shining millions of miles away. But nothing human. Nothing man-made. No light of a house or a car. Nothing but blackness, nothing but silence.

He moved to the kitchen, dank and decrepit and long disused, and opened up a cupboard door. Inside were several jars, greenish brown liquid inside them. But there was more than that, something else floated inside.

Eyes. Human eyes.

Several jars were filled, lined up inside the dirty wooden cabinet. The eyes of his victims so far, lifeless and empty. But there were two jars that sat empty, and they wouldn't be filled yet, not yet....

He didn't ever stay here long, he didn't like to. It gave him bad memories, made him turn to the past in a way that he didn't want to. He hated to lose control like that, hated it when that torment he suffered came back to dominate his thoughts. He used it for himself, used it by killing, but when he wasn't killing, he had no use for it, no desire for it.

No, he didn't stay here long. It held a single purpose, and she was in the basement right now, tied up in chains, dirty, cut and burned, like he'd been. But there was another set of chains opposite, another space waiting to be filled.

Waiting for her.

Chapter 23

The next few days ran into each other, nights and days merging into one as the town continued to be gripped by fear.

For Jack and Jessie, little time was spent apart. Jack had Bill's ever watchful eye on him as he refused to let Jessie go home, except to go and pick up some of her personal belongings: clothing, her washbag, and anything else she might need. When she did, he went with her.

They both stayed together in the department overnight, Jessie under the protection of both Jack and the officers on duty there. If there was a stronghold in town, the police department was it, and it was the best place for Jessie to be right now.

Little progress was made in finding the killer. The scene out in the shack where Darcia had been found gave little away. The only hint or clue that Jack discovered there were tire marks, quickly being eroded by the desert winds, that matched those he found weeks earlier down the street from Leanne Grave's house.

Yet such signs were little consolation for a man desperate for something more concrete, doing nothing to confirm what he didn't already know: that Trey Hunter, or whatever he called himself now, drove an SUV, and had used it to take Darcia Robinson out to this deserted shack in the desert.

The press had released the image of what they thought Trey Hunter would look like now, along with the picture Jack had got from his uncle in Texas, as out of date as it was. Yet nothing came of that either. No calls were made from any resident telling them they knew someone who fit the description. No one came forward at all, leaving Jack and his team back at square one.

It was Jessie who'd helped to keep his hopes up in their quieter moments together, during the long evenings when Jack stay glued to his desk, running over everything he'd found again and again. When he showed any sign of weakness, any sign of giving in, she'd be there to tell him what he needed to hear: that he was getting closer, that every single day another piece of the puzzle, however small, was being put into place.

After three nights confined to the police department, getting sleep where they could, Bill insisted that Jack go home for a proper rest. He told him that it was unhealthy, what he was doing, that sleeping and working in his office was doing nothing for his effectiveness out in the field. If anything, he said, it would begin to hinder his ability to do the job.

When Jack finally went home to rest, however, he refused to leave Jessie alone. Like a parent always watchful of a new born child, Jack felt an overwhelming responsibility to keep her safe, keep her from this man's clutches.

“No one else is going to die,” he told himself, “and especially not her.”

A police officer followed behind them, his car gliding in their wake as Jack drove Jessie back to his apartment. He'd stand vigil outside, his instructions not to move, not to fall asleep, to call anything in that looked suspicious. His own tensions were high, despite being a large man, a man of the law, locked inside a secure vehicle. Strange things were happening in this town, such that even the hardest of men were beginning to feel that tingle of fear and dread running up their bodies.

The Death Valley Demon. It was another name the press had been putting to this killer. They'd spoken to a couple of the old timers, listening with intent to their stories and fantasies.

This man, they said, was sprung from hell, spat up over the long, harsh drought. Only in the hottest years does this happen, they'd said, only once in a generation, when the water dries up and the earth begins to crack. This was no man, but a demon, climbing from the splintered earth and out of the pits of hell itself.

Anyone with a logical bone in their body would dismiss it, but the heat did funny things to people, made them believe in the abnormal. Maybe, the town was saying, this wasn't just a man. What sort of man could do this? He can't have been human.

But for Jack, and Jessie too, they knew exactly what this man was, and who he was. He was a classic case of abused child turning to abusive adult, but amplified by a thousand. His mind was as cracked as the scorched earth around him, his own interpretation of reality skewed by the torment he'd suffered.

What they couldn't work out, however, was whether it had all happened before, whether he'd been killing for years, across Texas, in Houston where he was seen.

Jack had run with the theory, scouring old unsolved murders and missing persons across California and Texas. There were more than he could count, but no murder matched this killer's MO. No shaved heads, no cut out eyes. It looked like he had been saving that specialty for Burgess, his original home.

He spoke with Jessie, who offered her own insights, drawn from textbooks and scholarly analysis. She'd taken to helping out wherever she could, revisiting her old work and looking for links or anything that Jack could use. Over the last few days, it would be fair to say, she'd become an adopted member of the team.

Many serial killers, she told him, didn't start killing until a later age. Old trauma could have been opened up at any time, building inside him. A regressive episode of some kind might have suddenly opened up Pandora's Box, bringing out this side of him, a side that may have been dormant for years.

It all made sense. He sounded intense and somewhat introverted from what witnesses in Texas had said, but there was nothing to suggest that he was already murderous. Cold, yes. Unwilling to develop proper attachments, yes. But a killer? Not quite. That had developed later in life, that need to solve old torment, to satisfy growing urges.

No, he hadn't killed until he'd moved back to California. This was where it all started, and this would be where it would end.

...

Jack and Jessie moved up the stairs towards his apartment on the first floor. The security door downstairs was only operable by a special keycard, making entry impossible for anyone without one.

When Jack unlocked his door and they went inside, Jessie wasn't surprised by what she saw. Jack was the epitome of commitment, the definition of obsession. His apartment was open-plan, with an interconnected kitchenette and living room all wrapped into one. The place was fairly bare, almost unlived in, with a small table in the center of the living space, and a single sofa up against the wall. Several boxes lay unopened, unpacked, to the side of the room, and the kitchen looked spotless, as if it had never been used.

Along the counter, however, were signs of life: a couple of empty bottles of whiskey and a full ashtray, clear indicators of Jack's growing stress. To the far end were a couple of doors, leading to what Jessie assumed must be a bedroom and a bathroom.

Up against one wall there were pictures, notes, and other pieces of evidence all pinned up on a large board. On the table were other files and pieces of paper, images and reports. It was clear that Jack took his work home with him, if you could call this a home. No, he lived and breathed the job, there was nothing else right now.

Jack moved into the room and allowed Jessie in behind him, before turning, shutting, and locking the door.

“Sorry for the mess,” he said, moving quickly over towards the table and gathering up his things. He picked up the pile and shifted it to the corner and onto a stack of boxes.

“No, no, it's fine. How long have you lived here again?” Jessie asked, still confused by the total lack of comfort or personal items in the room.

Jack laughed. “You'd think I'd have just moved in to look at the place wouldn't you. I've been a while actually, over a year. I've just...never got round to making the place, you know, homely.”

“How come?” Jessie asked quickly.

Jack took a breath and moved over to the long counter that divided the kitchen from the living room. “Because it would be like I'm settling in,” he said, leaning down and pulling out a fresh bottle of whiskey from a box. “I never intended to stay here long. I guess I didn't want to admit to myself that I was actually out here.”

Jessie laughed as Jack poured two glasses and walked over to the sofa where she sat. “It's not that bad,” she said, taking the glass from his hand. “Well....it
wasn't
that bad.”

“It's all perception really, isn't it. And expectation. I never expected to be shunted out to a place like this.”

“So tell me, why exactly were you?”

Jack tipped the glass to his lips and let the cool liquid slide down his throat. “They said it was because there was an opening. I don't know, maybe it was because of my father.”

“Your father?” asked Jessie.

Jack stood up and went back to the kitchen. There was a picture there, up against the wall on the counter, a rare personal item in an otherwise lifeless space. He picked it up and brought it back, passing it to Jessie.

“This is my father, Micheal Slade. He was a detective in LA for a long time.”

Jessie looked over the picture.

“I see where you get your good looks.”

Jack laughed lightly, but his expression remained sour.

“So, what happened with him?”

Jack sipped his drink again, his voice weary as he set into the story.

“There was a killer in LA, a long while back. He was killing women, prostitutes, and dad was the lead detective on the case. He thought he'd managed to catch him, but he didn't. He got the wrong guy and....the killer went on to kill some other women in Oregon. It ended his career....” Jack trailed off, sending the whiskey back to his lips.

Jessie looked at him, a deep well of memory in his eyes. It was like a ghost of his past was there, haunting him, driving him forward.