Thr3e (18 page)

He couldn’t say no—might as well wave a red flag in front of her. “Sure. I’m sorry. I’m not on the best terms with my aunt. My mother died when I was young and my aunt raised me. We’ve had our differences. Mostly over college.”

“Okay. That’s not uncommon.”

But she saw more in him, didn’t she? And so what if she did? Why did he feel so compelled to hide his upbringing? It was weird but not demented. Samantha said otherwise, but she was biased. It wasn’t like he was a victim of physical abuse or anything so horrifying.

He took a slow breath and tried to relax.

“You think the boy chased you into one of those old warehouses across the tracks, that’s what you said?”

He looked to his right. The memory of that night came back fresh and raw. “Yes, but I was scared out of my mind, and it was dark. I can’t remember which one.”

“Have you ever checked any of them? To see if there even is one with a basement?”

Kevin fought a wave of panic. He couldn’t let her into the past. He shook his head. “No.”

“Why not?”

“It was a long time ago.”

She nodded. “There are only a few possibilities. Hopefully nothing’s changed. You know we’ll have to search.”

He nodded. “And what if you find him?”

“Then we know he’s obviously not Slater.”

“And what about me?”

“We’ll know that you killed him. In self-defense.”

They drove past the white house. “This is where your aunt lives?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s the old Sheer residence?”

“Yes.”

“None of this jogs your memory of any details?”

“No.”

She remained silent to the end of the street, where she turned around and headed back.

Kevin’s world felt like it was crumbling around him. Coming here alone was hard enough, but doing it with Jennifer somehow seemed profane. He wanted to tell her what Balinda had really done. He wanted her to comfort him, the little boy who had grown old in this world of madness. Waves of sorrow swept through his mind. His eyes went misty.

“I’m sorry, Kevin,” Jennifer said softly. “I don’t know what happened here, but I can see it left its mark on you. Believe me, if we weren’t up against a clock, I wouldn’t have brought you back here in your present state.”

She cared for him, didn’t she? She really did. A tear slipped from his eye and ran down his cheek. The emotion was suddenly beyond him. He began to cry, and then immediately tried to swallow it, which only made the condition worse. He hid his face in his left hand and started to sob, horribly aware of the foolishness of it all.

She drove out of the neighborhood and then stopped. He looked up through blurred eyes and saw that they were by the park. Jennifer sat still, looking at him with soft eyes.

“I’m . . . sorry,” he managed past a tight throat. “It’s just . . . my life’s falling apart . . .”

“Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay.” Her hand touched his shoulder. “It’s okay, really. You’ve been through hell these last two days. I had no right.”

Kevin put his hands over his face and took a deep breath. “Man. This is crazy. Nothing like making a fool of yourself.”

Her hand rubbed his arm again. “Don’t be silly. You don’t think I’ve seen a grown man cry before? I could tell you some stories. There’s nothing quite like watching a three-hundred-pound, heavily tattooed gorilla sob uncontrollably for an hour. I don’t know any decent man who could go through what you’ve gone through without a good cry.”

He smiled, embarrassed. “Is that so?”

“That’s so.”

Jennifer’s smile softened and she looked away. “The Riddle Killer’s last victim was my brother. His name was Roy. That was three months ago. He was chosen because I was closing in on the killer.”

Kevin wasn’t sure what to say. “Your brother?”

“You remind me of him, you know.” She faced him. “I won’t let this maniac kill you, Kevin. I’m not sure I could survive that.”

“I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“Now you do. Want to go for a walk? I think we could both use some fresh air.”

“Okay.”

They walked side by side over an emerald green lawn, past a pond with ducks and two large geese. She was laughing and telling him about a goose that had once chased her for the sandwich she held. Next to the horror that had swept over him not five minutes earlier, Kevin felt unusually peaceful, as if he were walking with his guardian angel. He wondered about Jennifer’s true intentions. She was a professional, doing her job. All FBI agents talked and laughed like this— it was their way of making someone in his shoes feel comfortable enough to work with them.

The thought made him feel suddenly awkward. Clumsy. Like a three-hundred-pound gorilla. On the other hand, she’d lost her brother.

He stopped.

She touched his arm. “Kevin? What is it?”

“Like a three-hundred-pound, heavily tattooed gorilla.”

“That’s what he—”

“The boy had a tattoo,” Kevin blurted.

“The boy you locked in the cellar? Where?”

“On his forehead! A tattoo of a knife.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes! He had it covered with a bandanna that last night, but I saw it the first night.”

They exchanged stares. “How many men have a tattoo on their foreheads? Not many.” A smile nudged her lips. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”

12

Saturday
Afternoon

S
AMANTHA WAS THE LAST PASSENGER to board the flight to Sacramento. An hour and a half later she entered a little-known conference room at the attorney general’s headquarters, the office of the California Bureau of Investigation’s “Alpha Division,” as it was known by some. A bulldog of a man named Chris Barston, who was up on suspicion of aiding terrorists by promulgating bomb-construction methods on the Internet, sat across the table. They’d hauled him in last night. His Internet dealings were not her concern, but the information he had to share evidently was, or Roland, her boss, wouldn’t have insisted she come. Roland sat at the head of the table, leaning back in his chair. She’d liked the chief from the moment they were introduced, and when she came to him two days after her orientation and asked to be assigned to the Riddle Killer case, he’d agreed. The FBI and the CBI were both active in the case, but Samantha suggested that the killer had inside connections, and the possibility had intrigued Roland.

The call from Kevin had blindsided her. She hadn’t expected the Riddle Killer to surface in Southern California at all. She wasn’t necessarily convinced that the Riddle Killer and Slater were the same. If Slater was the Riddle Killer and he was also the boy, it would explain his ties to her, Kevin, and Jennifer. But certain details about Slater’s calls to Kevin nagged at her.

“Thanks for coming, Sam. Enjoy your holiday?”

“I wasn’t aware I
was
on a holiday.”

“You’re not. Your witness.” Roland looked at Chris, who stared past him.

Sam pulled up her chair and opened a blue file Rodriguez had brought to her at the airport. She’d read the contents on the way in.

“Hello, Mr. Barston. My name’s Samantha Sheer.”

He ignored her and kept his eyes in Roland’s direction.

“You may look this way, Chris. I’m going to be asking the questions. Have you ever been questioned by a woman before?”

The man stared at her. Roland grinned. “Answer the woman, Chris.”

“I agreed to tell you what I know about Salman. That’ll take thirty seconds.”

“Great,” Sam said. “Then we can limit our exposure to each other so we don’t . . . you know, rub off on each other. I think we can stomach thirty seconds, don’t you?”

The man’s face darkened.

“Tell us about Salman.”

He cleared his throat. “I met him in Houston about a month ago. Pakistani. You know, India and all. Speaks with an accent.”

“Pakistanis live in Pakistan, not India. That’s why they call it Pakistan. Go on.”

“You going to mock me for the full thirty seconds here?”

“I’ll try to control myself.”

He shifted. “Anyway, Salman and I had a mutual interest in . . . you know, bombs. He’s clean; I can swear that. He had this tattoo of a bomb on his shoulder. I got one here of a knife.” He showed them a small blue knife on his right forearm. “Then he showed me one on his back, a huge dagger. Said he wanted to have it removed because the chicks didn’t dig it back in wherever.”

“Pakistan.”

“Pakistan. He told me he knew a guy who had a tattoo of a knife on his forehead. He didn’t tell me nothing about this guy except that his name was Slater and he was into explosive devices. That’s it. That’s all I know.”

“And you think the name Slater interests us why?”

“The news of Long Beach. They said it could be a man named Slater.”

“When did your friend know this Slater?”

“I said that’s it. That’s all I know. That’s the deal. If I knew more, I would tell you more. I already wrote down where this Salman guy works last I knew. He’s straight up. Talk to him.”

Sam looked at Roland. He nodded.

“Okay, Chris. I guess your thirty seconds are up. You’re free to go.”

Chris stood, glared at her one last time, and left.

“What do you think?” Roland asked.

“I’m not sure what our man would be doing all the way down in Houston, but I think I’m going to Texas. I want to make contact first. For all we know, Salman doesn’t even exist. It may take a day or two to track him down. Until then I want to go back to Long Beach.”

“Fine. Just keep a low profile down there. If the Riddle Killer’s working with someone inside, we don’t want him suddenly running scared.”

“I’m limiting direct contact to the FBI agent in charge. Jennifer Peters.”

“Just watch what you say. For all we know, Agent Peters is Slater.”

“Unlikely.”

“Just tread lightly.”

The prior twenty-four hours had produced more evidence than the entire year combined, but the leads weren’t pointing to any quick answers. Meticulous lab work took time, a commodity Jennifer wasn’t sure they had enough of. Slater would strike again, and sooner or later they would have bodies to contend with. A car, a bus—what was next?

The city was reeling from news of the bus. Milton had spent half the day preparing and issuing statements to hungry reporters. At least it kept him out of her hair.

She sat at the corner desk Milton had graciously given her and stared at the loose sheets of paper spread before her. It was
4:30
, and for the moment she was stuck. A Subway veggie sandwich she’d ordered two hours ago sat on the edge of the desk, and she considered unwrapping it.

Her eyes dropped to the pad under her fingertips. She’d split the page horizontally and then vertically, creating four quadrants, an old technique she used to visually compartmentalize data. Kevin’s house, the warehouse search, the knife tattoo, and forensics from the bus.

“Who are you, Slater?” she mumbled. “You’re here, aren’t you, staring up at me, chuckling behind these words somewhere?”

First quadrant
. They’d swept and dusted Kevin’s house and turned up exactly nothing. Hundreds of prints, of course—it would take time to work through all of them. But in the high-probability contact points—the phone, the doorknobs, the window latches, the desk, the wood dinette chairs—they had found only Jennifer’s and Kevin’s prints, and some partials that were unidentifiable. Probably Sam’s. She’d been in the house, but according to Kevin she hadn’t stayed long or handled anything except for the phone, where they’d found the partials. Either way, the chances that Slater had walked around the place pressing uncovered fingers against dense surfaces had been absurd from the beginning.

No eavesdropping devices turned up either, again not surprising. Slater had used the six bugs they’d uncovered because they were convenient at the time. He had other means of listening in—remote laser transmitters, relayed audio scopes—all of which they would eventually track down, but not likely soon enough. They’d found disturbed ground at the oil rig’s base, two hundred yards from Kevin’s house, and taken casts of four different shoe prints. Again, the evidence might help them incriminate Slater, but it wasn’t identifying him— at least not quickly enough.

The writing on the milk jug was in for analysis at Quantico. Same story. Comparisons could and one day would be made, but not before they actually had Slater in their sights.

They’d affixed the AP
301
recording device to Slater’s cell phone and were monitoring the house using an IR laser.

Let the games begin.

Jennifer had left Kevin in his house at noon, pleading that he get some sleep. She watched him wander around his living room like a zombie. He’d been pushed beyond himself.

You like him, don’t you, Jenn?

Don’t be stupid! I hardly know him! I feel empathy for him. I’m attributing Roy’s goodness to him.

But you like him. He’s handsome, caring, and as innocent as a butterfly. He has magical eyes and a smile that swallows the room. He’s . . .

Naive and damaged.
His reaction to driving through his old neighborhood had been in part precipitated by the stress of Slater’s threats, granted. But there had to be more.