Thr3e (34 page)

“Genuine. Yes, he is genuine. Nearly transparent. Which is why it’s strange he can’t remember this sin Slater demands he confess, don’t you think? I’m wondering, is there anything that’s occupied him in these last few weeks? Any reoccurring themes, projects, papers?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. He was quite interested in the natures of man. You might say consumed with the subject.”

Sam picked up the rough draft of the paper. “The true natures of man,” Sam said. “And what are the natures of man? Or what would Kevin say are the natures of man?”

“Yes, well, that’s the mystery, isn’t it? I’m not sure I can tell you what Kevin would say. He told me he had a new model, but he wanted to present them cohesively in his paper.”

“Hmm. And when is this paper due?”

“He was scheduled to turn it in this Wednesday.”

“For what class?”

“Introduction to Ethics.”

“One more question, Doctor, and I’ll let you go. You’re a religious man with an education in psychology; would you say that the natures of man are primarily spiritual, or psychological?”

“I know that Freud would turn in his grave, but in my mind there’s no doubt. Man is primarily a spiritual being.”

“And Kevin would agree to that?”

“Yes, I’m sure he would.”

“Thank you for your time, Doctor. You sound like a reasonable man.”

He chuckled. “They pay me to be; I do try. Anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”

She set the phone down. Ethics. She scanned the paper and saw that it was hardly more than the recitation of several theories on man’s natures. It ended with a new heading: “The True Natures.” She set the pages down. Where would Kevin keep his notes on the natures of man?

She stepped over to the bookcase and reached for a large gray book titled
Morality Redefined
. The book was used, frayed around the edges, pages yellowing. She lifted the cover, saw that it was a library book. Copyright
1953
.

Sam flipped through the pages, but there were no notes. She was about to replace the book when the back cover fell open. Several loose sheets of white paper dropped to the floor. On the top of one in Kevin’s handwriting:
The True Natures of Man, an Essay.

Samantha withdrew the pages and sat down at the desk. They were only notes. Three pages of notes. She scanned them, a simple outline with headings that fit the subject. Summaries.

We learn as we live, and we live what we learn, but not so well
.

How can a nature be dead and yet live? He is dead in the light, but thrives in the dark.

If Good and Evil could talk to each other, what would they say?

They are all pretenders, who live in the light but hide in the dark
.

Insightful. But there was nothing here that Slater would have . . .

Sam froze. There at the bottom of page four, three small words.

I AM I
.

Sam recognized the handwriting immediately. Slater! “I am I.”

“Dear God!”

Sam set the pages on Kevin’s desk with a trembling hand. She began to panic.

No. Stop.
What does “I am I” even mean, Sam? It means Slater is Slater. Slater snuck in here and wrote this. That proves nothing except that he has his nose in every part of Kevin’s life.

If Good and Evil could talk to each other, what would they say?

Then how had Kevin and Slater talked to each other? The FBI had a recording. How, how? Unless . . .

A second cell. He’s using another cell phone!

Sam ran for Kevin’s room.
Dear God, let me be wrong!
He hadn’t moved. She crept up to him. Where would he keep the phones? The one Slater had left him was always in his right pocket.

There was only one way to do this. Quickly, before she awakened him. Sam slipped her hand into his right pocket. He wore cargo pants, loose, but his weight pressed her hand into the mattress. She touched the phone, felt the recording device on the back. Slater’s.

She rounded the bed, crawled up for better access, and slid her hand into his left pocket. Kevin grunted and rolled to his side, facing her. She stayed still until his breathing returned to a deep slow rhythm and then tried again, this time with his left pocket exposed.

Her fingers felt plastic. Sam knew then that she was right, but she pulled it out anyway. A cell phone, identical to the one Slater had left for Kevin, except black instead of silver. She flipped it open and scrolled through the call history. The calls were to the other cell phone. One to the hotel room phone. Two to Kevin’s home phone.

This was the cell phone Slater had used. To talk, to detonate the bombs. Sam’s mind throbbed. There could be no doubt about it.

They would crucify him.

23

S
AM ROLLED OFF THE BED, closed Kevin’s door, and flew downstairs. She gripped the phone Slater had used to make his calls in her right hand—for now Slater wouldn’t be making those calls, at least not on this phone. She didn’t bother being discreet on her exit but walked right out the back, turned up the street, and ran for her car.

I, Slater, am I, Kevin. And that had been Samantha’s greatest fear. That her childhood friend had a multiple personality disorder as she’d suggested to Jennifer a day earlier, and then immediately rejected because Kevin was in the room when Slater called. But it struck her as she lay trying to sleep last night that Slater had not
talked
to her while Kevin was in the room. The phone had only rung while he was in the room. Kevin was in the hall before she picked up and heard Slater. Kevin could have simply pushed the send button in his pocket and then talked to Sam once in the hall. Could multiple personalities work that way?

She’d been with Kevin in the car when Slater called, just before the bus blew. But she had no proof that Slater was actually on the line then. They had no recording of that call.

It was absurd. It was impossible! But try as she might in sleepless fits, Sam couldn’t account for a single definitive situation that necessarily proved they couldn’t be the same man. Not one.

Mere conjecture! It had to be coincidence!

Now this.

If Good and Evil could talk to each other, what would they say?

Sam reached her car, stomach in knots. This might not be enough. She’d been irresponsible to suggest the possibility to Jennifer in the first place. The man you think you might be falling in love with is insane. And she’d said it so calmly for the simple reason that she didn’t believe it herself. She was only doing what she was trained to do. But this . . . this was an entirely different matter.

And Kevin
wasn’t
insane! He was merely role-playing, as he had learned to do with Balinda for so many years. He had split into a divergent personality when he first began to comprehend true evil. The boy. He had been the boy! Only he didn’t know that he was the boy. To Kevin at age eleven, the boy was an evil person who needed to be killed. So he killed him. But the boy had never died. Slater had simply remained dormant until now, when somehow this paper on the natures of man had allowed him to resurface.

She could still be wrong. In true cases of multiple personality disorders, the subjects were rarely conscious of their alternate personalities. Slater wouldn’t know that he was Kevin; Kevin would not know that he was Slater. Actually they
weren’t
each other. Physically, yes, but in no other way. Slater could be living right now as Kevin slept, plotting to kill Balinda, and Kevin wouldn’t have a clue. Some things Slater did would be merely imagined; others, like the bombs and the kidnapping, would be acted out.

She tossed Kevin’s phone on the seat and punched Jennifer’s number into her own.

“Jenn—”

“I need to meet you! Now. Where are you?”

“Sam? I’m down at the PD. What’s wrong?”

“Have you gotten the lab reports on the shoe prints and the recordings yet?”

“No. Why? Where are you?”

“I was just in Kevin’s house and I’m headed your way.” She pulled onto Willow.

“How’s Kevin?”

Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s asleep. I found a second phone on him, Jennifer. It was the phone used to call the cell with the recording device. I don’t know how else to say this. I think Kevin is Slater.”

“That’s . . . I thought we’d already been over this. He was in the room when Slater—”

“Listen, Jennifer, I’ve come at this from a hundred different angles in the last twelve hours. I’m not saying that I can prove it; God knows I don’t want it to be true, but if it is, he needs help! He needs you. And he’s the only one who can take us to Balinda. Kevin won’t know, but Slater will.”

“Please, Sam, this is crazy. How could he have pulled this off? We’ve had people on the house. We’ve been listening to him in there! How did he get out to kidnap Balinda?”

“It’s his house; he knows how to get out without your boys catching on. Where was he between
3
A.M. and
5
A.M. last night?”

“Sleeping . . .”

“Kevin may have thought he was, but was he? I don’t think he’s had six hours’ sleep in the last four days. Trace it back. He hasn’t gotten any phone calls while you were listening, at least not in the house. I hope I’m wrong, I really do, but I don’t think you’ll find a discrepancy. He’s too intelligent. But he wants the truth out. Subconsciously, consciously, I don’t know, but he’s getting sloppy. He wants the world to know. That’s the answer to the riddle.”

“
What falls but never breaks? What breaks but never falls?
Night and day,” Jennifer said. “Opposites. Kevin.”

“Kevin.
Kevin
was the boy; that’s why I never saw the boy when we were kids. He was in that warehouse cellar, but only him, no second boy. He hit himself. Check the blood type. The confession Slater wants isn’t that Kevin tried to kill the boy, but that he
was
the boy. That Kevin is Slater.”

“I am my sin,” Jennifer said absently. There was a tremor in her voice.

“What?”

“Something he said last night.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Sam said. “Don’t let Kevin leave the house.”

“But only Slater knows where he has Balinda? Kevin truly doesn’t know?”

“That’s my guess.”

“Then we need Slater to find Balinda. But if we send the wrong signal, Slater may go into remission. If he does and Kevin doesn’t know where Balinda is, we may have our first actual victim in this case. Even if we hold Kevin in a cell, she could starve to death.” Jennifer was suddenly sounding frantic. “He’s not the Riddle Killer; he hasn’t killed anyone yet. We can’t let that happen.”

“So we let him walk out?”

“No. No, I don’t know, but we have to handle this with kid gloves.”

“I’ll be right there,” Sam said. “Just make sure Kevin doesn’t leave that house.”

The sound of his bedroom door closing pulled Kevin from sleep. It was
3:00
. He’d slept over four hours. Jennifer had insisted that he not be bothered unless absolutely necessary. So why were they in his house?

Unless
they
weren’t in his house. Unless it was someone else. Someone like Slater!

He slid out of bed, tiptoed to the door, eased it open. Someone was opening the sliding glass door to the back lawn!
Just ask who it is, Kevin. It’s the FBI, that’s all.

But what if it wasn’t?

“Hello?”

Nothing.

“Is anyone here?” he called, louder this time.

Silence.

Kevin descended the stairs and stepped cautiously into the living room. He ran over to the window and peered out. The familiar Lincoln was parked half a block down the street.

Something was wrong. Something had happened. He walked to his kitchen phone and instinctively felt for the cell phone in his right pocket. Still there. But something wasn’t right. What?

The cell phone suddenly vibrated against his leg and he jumped. He shoved his hand back into the pocket and pulled out the silver phone. The other phone, the larger VTech, was in his left hand. For a moment he stared at them, confused. Did I pick that up? So many phones, his mind was playing tricks on him.

The cell vibrated madly. Answer it!

“Hello?”

Slater’s voice ground in his ear. “Who thinks he’s a butterfly but is really a worm?”

Kevin’s breathing smothered the phone.

“You’re pathetic, Kevin. Do you have knowledge of this obvious fact yet, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?” Slater breathed heavily. “I have someone here who wants to hold you and for the life of me I can’t understand why.”

Blood flushed Kevin’s face. His throat felt as though it was locked in a vise. He couldn’t speak.

“How long do you expect me to play tiddlywinks, Kevin? You’re obviously too dense for the riddles, so I’ve decided to up the ante. I know how conflicted you are about Mommy, but by now I have it under reliable advisement that you aren’t so conflicted about me. In fact, you hate me, don’t you, Kevin? You should—I’ve destroyed your life.”

“Stop it!” Kevin screamed.

“Stop it? Stop it? That’s all you can manage? You’re the only one with the power to stop anything. But I don’t think you have the guts. You’re as yellow as the rest of them; you’ve made that abundantly clear. So here’s the new deal, Kevin.
You
come and stop me. Face to face, man to man. This is your big chance to blow away Slater with that peashooter you obtained illegally. Find me.”