Thr3e (33 page)

“My, my, my, my. I don’t know what I’ll do without Princess,” Eugene said, heading off to the left.

Kevin let them go. “Bob, could you show me your room?”

Bob lit up and skipped through the narrow passage between the stacks of newspapers. “You want to see my room?”

Kevin walked down the hall on numb legs. It was surreal, this world he’d escaped. An issue of
Time
poked out of the stack to his right. The face on the cover had been replaced by a smiling image of Muhammad Ali. Only God, the devil, and Balinda knew why.

Bob hurried into his room. He snatched something off the floor. It was an old beat-up Game Boy, a monochrome version. Bob had himself a toy. Balinda had softened in her old age. Or was it because Kevin had left?

“It’s a computer!” Bob said.

“Nice. I like it.” Kevin peeked into the room. “Do you still read stories that Bal—Princess gives you to read?”

“Yes. And I like them a lot.”

“That’s good, Bob. Does she . . . make you sleep during the day?”

“Not for a long time. But sometimes she won’t let me eat. She says I’m getting too fat.”

Bobby’s room looked just as it had five years earlier. Kevin turned back into the hall and pushed open the door to his old room.

Unchanged. Surreal. He set his jaw. The flood of emotions he’d expected didn’t come. The window was still screwed down and the bookcases were still full of bogus books. The bed he’d spent half his childhood in was still covered by the same blanket. It was as if Balinda was waiting for him to return. Or maybe his leaving didn’t fit into her reality, so she refused to accept it. With her mind there was no telling.

No keys to Slater here.

A wail—Eugene—carried through the house. Bob turned and ran for the sound. So it was true.

Kevin walked back out to the living room, ignoring the sounds of lament issuing from the back bedroom. He should take a torch to this place. Burn out the rat’s nest. Add a few more ashes to the backyard. The stairwell to the basement was still choked off with a mountain of books and magazines, stacks that hadn’t been touched for years.

Jennifer stepped out of the master bedroom. “He took her.”

“So I gathered.”

“He left a note.” She handed him a blue slip of paper. Three words were scrawled in the familiar handwriting.

Fess up, Puke
.

“Or what,” he said. “You’ll dump her in the lagoon?”

Kevin stared at the words, numb from four days of horror. Part of him didn’t care, part of him felt sorry for the old hag. Either way, all of his deepest secrets would soon be on the table for the world to pick through. That was the point. Kevin wasn’t sure how much he cared anymore.

“Can we go now?”

“Are you finished?”

“Yes.”

She looked around. “The health department is going to have a field day once this gets out.”

“They should burn it.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” she said. Her eyes settled on his. “Are you okay?”

“I feel . . . confused.”

“As far as the rest of the world is concerned, she’s your mother. They may wonder why you don’t seem to care. She may be a witch, but she’s still human. Only God knows what he’ll do to her.”

The emotions came from his gut, unexpectedly and in a rush. He suddenly felt suffocated in the small, dark space. She was his mother, wasn’t she? And he was horrified by the fact that he even
thought
of her as a mother, because in reality he hated her more than he hated Slater. Unless they were one and the same and she had kidnapped herself.

A confusing mixture of revulsion and sorrow overcame Kevin. He was falling apart. His eyes swam with tears and his face wrinkled.

Kevin turned for the door. He could feel their stares on his back.
Mommy
. Fire burned through his throat; a tear spilled from his left eye.

At least they couldn’t see. He would never allow anyone to see this. He hated Balinda and he was crying for her and he hated that he was crying for her.

It was too much. He hurried for the door, crashed through with far more noise than he wanted, and let out a soft sob. He hoped Jennifer couldn’t hear; he didn’t want her to hear him acting this way. He was just a lost boy and he was crying like a lost boy and he really just wanted to be held by Mommy. By the one person who had never held him.

“Kevin?” Jennifer was running after him.

He only wanted to be held by Princess.

22

Monday
Afternoon

T
HE QUESTIONS HAD NAGGED at Samantha through the night. The scenario fit some unseen hand like a glove; the question was, which hand? Who was Slater?

She’d talked to Jennifer upon waking and heard about the note on Kevin’s windshield. She should have taken an earlier flight! Jennifer suspected kidnapping, but as of seven this morning there had been no evidence of foul play.

Sam told Jennifer about Salman. If the Pakistani Salman had indeed met with Slater in New York, then whoever the FBI had located with a tattoo could not be Slater, because Slater’s had been removed. Furthermore, Slater couldn’t be the Riddle Killer—he’d been in New York at the time of Roy’s murder. Jennifer hadn’t been ready to accept her conclusion out of hand, but the two cases did have a few significant disparities that were obviously weighing on her mind. She talked about objectives. She was beginning to suspect that the Riddle Killer and Slater weren’t similarly motivated.

As for the tattoo, they would know within a few hours.

Sam’s plane landed at LAX at
12:35
. She rented a car and headed south for Long Beach. Traffic on
405
was as bad as it got for a weekday. She called Jennifer. The agent answered on the first ring.

“Hi, Jennifer, it’s Sam. Anything?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. The tattoo is a bust. Our man works on an oil rig six months a year. He’s been out on one for the last three weeks.”

“Makes sense. Any word on a kidnapping?”

Jennifer hesitated and Sam sat up. “Balinda was taken from her home last night,” Jennifer said.

“Balinda Parson?” Sam’s pulse spiked.

“One and the same. No contact, no leads, nothing but a note left in Slater’s writing: ‘Fess up, Puke
.’
Kevin took it pretty hard.”

Sam’s mind was already whirling. Of course! Taking Balinda would force media attention on Kevin’s family. His past. “Does the media know?”

“Yes. But we’re keeping them away from Baker Street under the claim that it could trigger Slater. There’s wall-to-wall coverage on this thing. I’ve spent the last hour handling interagency concerns. The bureaucracy’s enough to drive me nuts. Milton’s ticked off, the ATF wants the evidence from Quantico—it’s a mess. Meanwhile we’re dead in the water.”

Jennifer sounded tired. Sam braked and came to a stop behind a pickup truck billowing black smoke. “How is he?”

“Kevin? He’s dead to the world. I left him at his house about two hours ago, sleeping. God knows we could all use some rest.”

Sam pulled around the truck. “I have some ideas, Jennifer. Is there a chance we could meet sooner?”

“What is it?”

“I . . . I can’t explain right now.”

“Come by the station. Unless something breaks, I’ll be here.”

“Okay. But I have to chase something down first.”

“If you have information that’s pertinent to the investigation, I expect to be told. Please, Sam, I can use all the help I can get here.”

“I promise you I’ll call the second I know anything.”

“Sam. Please, what’s on your mind?”

“I’ll call you,” Sam said and hung up.

Without evidence her fears would have to remain the paranoia of a close friend, desperate for answers. And if she was right? God help them. God help Kevin.

She drove south, ticking off the facts. Slater had been in New York at the same time she’d been there. Slater knew her, a small detail she’d withheld from the CBI. Knowing Roland, he’d yank her from the case.

Slater was obsessed with Kevin’s past; Slater was the boy; Sam had never seen the boy; all of the riddles had to do with opposites; all demanded a confession. Slater was trying to force Kevin back into his past. Who was Slater?

A chill snaked down her arms.

Samantha approached Kevin’s house from the west, parked two blocks down, and took to foot, careful to keep yard fences between herself and the black car parked up the street. She had to do this without causing a fuss, and the last thing she wanted to do was wake Kevin if he was asleep.

Dread swelled in her chest as she neared. The notion that Kevin might indeed be Slater refused to budge from her tired mind.

She had to wait for the agent up the street to turn his head before crossing from the neighbor’s fence into Kevin’s backyard. She hurried up to the sliding glass door and knelt so that Kevin’s picket fence blocked her head from the car’s line of sight. Working quickly above her head, she inserted a thin pick into the lock and worked it with as much precision as she could from the awkward angle. The pin fell and she pried up the latch. She wiped a bead of sweat from her cheek, glanced back at the black car, slid the glass door open a foot, and slipped past the pulled blinds. She reached back through and closed the door.

If they’d seen her, they would be moving already. They hadn’t.

Sam looked around the house. A two-by-four-foot travel poster of a bikini-clad native walking down a white beach said that New Zealand promised paradise.
Dear Kevin, you want so much. I should have known how badly you were hurting, even when we were children. Why did you hide it from me? Why didn’t you tell me?

The house’s silence engulfed her. So peaceful, so quiet, asleep while the world crumbled. She crossed to the stairs and took them on her tiptoes. Kevin’s bedroom was to the left. She eased the door open, saw him on the bed, and walked quietly up to him.

He lay sprawled on his belly, arms above his head, as if surrendering to some unknown enemy beyond the mattress. His head rested on its side, facing her, lower cheek bunched, mouth closed. His face didn’t speak of surrender, only sleep. Deep, deep, sweet sleep.

He was dressed in street clothes; his tan Reeboks sat on the floor, nudging the bed skirt.

Sam briefly wondered if Jennifer had stayed with him until he fell asleep. Had she seen him like this? This sweet boy of hers? This stunning man who bore the weight of a hundred worlds on his shoulders? Her champion who’d slain the wicked boy on Baker Street?

What did Jennifer see when she looked at him?
She sees the same as you do, Sam. She sees Kevin and she can’t help but to love him as you love him.

Sam reached out, tempted to brush his cheek.
No, not as I love him. No one can love him as I love him. I would give my life for this man.
She withdrew her hand. A tear broke down her right cheek.
Oh, how I love you, dear Kevin. Seeing you these last three days has reminded me how desperately I love you. Please, please tell me that you will slay this dragon. We will, Kevin. Together we will slay this beast, my knight.

The childhood role-playing reference flooded her with warmth. She turned away and walked into his closet. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for. Something that Slater had left. Something that the FBI missed because they wouldn’t have guessed that it belonged to Slater.

Kevin had ordered his clothes neatly. Slacks and shirts hung in a row, jeans and cargo pants folded and stacked, shoes on a rack. Seminary dress to the right, casual dress to the left. She smiled and ran her fingers through the slacks. She smelled the shirts. His scent lingered. Amazing how she recognized it after so many years. He was still a boy.
A man, Sam. A man.

She searched the closet and then slowly worked her way through the rest of his room, walking around him, careful not to make any sound. Other than the rise and fall of his back, Kevin did not move. Sam found nothing.

The bathroom proved no better, and her spirit lightened. She didn’t want to find anything.

His study. Sam shut the door and sat at his desk. She ran a finger over his books:
Introduction to Philosophy. Sociology of Religion. Hermeneutics Revealed
. Two dozen others. He was in his first semester at the divinity school but he’d bought enough texts for two years, easily.

On the floor beside the desk she saw a small pile of paper, which she picked up. A paper he’d titled “The True Natures of Man.” He was a true man.

Please, Sam, let’s cut the romantic drivel and do what you came to do.

She was less concerned about noise; there were two doors between her and Kevin. She searched the drawers and removed the books one by one. This is where Slater would leave a clue. This was the room of the mind. He was obsessed with numbers and mind games. The mind. Somewhere, somewhere.

A small stack of business cards, topped by a slip of paper bearing her own number, sat by a calculator that looked fresh out of the box, perhaps never used. The first card belonged to John Francis, Ph.D., Academic Dean, Divinity School of the Pacific, South. Kevin had spoken at length about the man. Surely Jennifer had already interviewed him.

And what if she hadn’t? The last four days rushed by without time for standard procedure or a thorough investigation. She picked up the phone and called the number on the card. A receptionist with a nasal voice asked her if she wanted to leave a message. No, thank you. She hung up, turned over the card, and saw that Kevin had scribbled another number with the same prefix. She dialed it.

“Hello, this is John.”

“Hello, Dr. John Francis?”

“Yes, this is he.”

“This is Samantha Sheer with the California Bureau of Investigation. I’m working with an agent Jennifer Peters on the Kevin Parson case. Are you familiar with it?”

“Of course. Agent Peters was here yesterday morning.”

“Kevin speaks highly of you,” Sam said. “You have a doctorate in psychology, isn’t that right?”

“Correct.”

“What is your assessment of Kevin?”

“That’s a bit like asking which animals live in the sea. Kevin’s a wonderful man. I can’t say there’s anyone else I’d rather tangle my wits with. Extraordinary . . . genuine.”