Touching Evil (33 page)

"Being a team player?"

"Don't tell me you're used to it."

He smiled. "Usually a team leader. So this isn't so easy for me either. But as long as I can feel I'm contributing, I can handle not being the one in charge."

Dryly, Maggie said, "I have a feeling you've been in charge since you got here. One way or another."

"Don't tell Andy that. Or Quentin, for that matter."

"If you think they don't know, you're wrong."

Realizing he was still holding her arm, John forced himself to let go of her. "Then they've been very gracious about it. So—we're going in there, huh?"

"I don't know if it'll help. Maybe he spent as little time here as he did all the other places he left his victims. Maybe I won't find anything new. But I have to try."

"Okay. Hang on a minute—it's so overcast out here, we're bound to need flashlights inside."

Maggie waited while he returned to his car for a couple of flashlights, and then they entered the building.

The flashlights helped them see a place very like the one where Hollis Templeton had been left—a dirty, ramshackle building that had long ago been stripped to its bare bones. The floor creaked underfoot, and they could both hear the whispering scurry of rats.

"Yuck," Maggie said. "I hate rats."

"I'm not crazy about them either. And there's no blood trail to follow this time; according to the report, she was found down that hallway, a room at the rear, on the left side of the building." John kept his voice matter-of-fact.

Maggie stood there for a moment, collecting herself, slowly opening the door to those inner senses. Almost immediately she could smell the blood, and it was no easier to bear than before, thick and cloying in her nostrils. But this time, she forced herself to push past that, to let her senses probe beyond the sickly sweet odor.

"Maggie?"

"I'm okay. It... feels different somehow."

"In what way?"

"I'm not sure." She began moving slowly down the long hallway toward the back of the building, where there were half a dozen rooms, their doors long gone and broken casings leaning drunkenly like a child's drawing of doorways.

"Creepy place, even with only five senses," John muttered.

Maggie wanted to tell him it was infinitely creepier with extra senses, but her attention was tunneling, fixing on the particular slanted doorway to the left that was drawing her toward it. The blood smell was growing stronger, and with it came flashes of darkness,
much as she had sensed where Hollis had been left. Flashes of darkness, and pain, and terror, and—Why was it getting harder to breathe? Why did she feel an odd sensation, as if some great weight or ... presence . . . hung over her, bent toward her—

She didn't even hear John's cell phone begin to ring.

CHAPTER
 
SEVENTEEN

Scott joined Quentin in the conference room, tired
and dusty but triumphant, to add to the bulletin board two more photos of victims killed in 1934. "Dug these out of a file box over at the North station," he reported. "Victims number three and seven in that year."

Quentin stopped frowning over files on the conference table long enough to study the photos. "Resembling Samantha Mitchell and Tara Jameson, respectively."

"Yeah. That's six victims so far, and they match up with our six. Call me crazy, but I'd say that was fairly conclusive evidence that our guy is a copycat."

Andy, who had come in virtually on Scott's heels, nodded. "I'd say so."

Quentin said, "We're reasonably certain there were eight victims that year, right?"

Scott nodded. "According to that book Jenn found, yeah. But so far there's no sign of the police files for the remaining two victims. I've got two more possibles to check, including a hell of a big box of old miscellaneous files that somehow ended up at City Hall."

"Our tax dollars at work," Andy muttered. "Well, we don't know that finding photos of the last two victims will help us—but we don't know that it won't, either. Keep at it, Scott."

"You bet." Energy renewed by success, Scott hurried back out of the conference room.

Andy sat down at the table and rubbed his face with both hands. "I'm barely ten years older than he is, and it feels more like twenty. Jeez—what happens to stamina after thirty-five?"

"It's still there," Quentin told him. "It just has to be tended a bit more carefully. I like catnaps, myself."

Andy eyed him. "How many of those have you had today?"

"I'll get one later." Quentin frowned at the cluttered table. "I'm still in search of whatever it is that's bugging me."

"Still no idea what it is?"

"Not yet. But I know it's here somewhere." He reached for another file. "Something a friend or family member of a victim said in an interview? Something in an autopsy report or crime-scene photo? I just don't know."

Before Andy could respond, Quentin's cell phone rang, and as the agent answered, Andy could hear the excited, booming voice distinctly even across the table. It sounded like a big bear in a very small cave.

"Quentin? Hey, Quentin]"

"I hear you, Joey." Wincing, Quentin put a prudent
few inches between the phone and his ear. "What's up?"

"Listen, Quentin, I got to thinking maybe I could help you find that rapist you cops are after, so I been asking around, and I think maybe I got a lead."

"Joey—"

"Guy I know swears he seen an old black Caddie like my dad used to drive parked weeks ago near where they found one of the ladies after he got done with her, and he thinks he seen it more than once since then. In the neighborhood, you know, around, 'specially at night."

Quentin untangled that as best he could. "All right, Joey, but, listen, don't—"

"The guy I know, he thinks he seen the car again just the other night, you know, where that poor Mitchell lady was found? So maybe it's the bastard you're looking for. I'm gonna check it out, Quentin, see if maybe I can find that Caddie for you."

"Joey, we can—"

"I'll let you know soon's I find something, Quentin— and I'll be careful, I promise."

"Joey?
Joey?"
Slowly, Quentin turned the phone off. "Shit," he muttered.

Andy said, "I gather that was the source who gave us Samantha Mitchell's fake kidnapper?"

"Yeah."

"You think he might be on to something?"

Quentin rose and went to a large city map on one wall, where several small red flags marked the locations where victims had been found. "Weeks ago, he said. Probably around the time Hollis Templeton was found. And if the car was seen again the other night near where
 
Samantha Mitchell was
 
found . . ." He
indicated the two flags closest together. "Not more than three miles apart. Definitely what Joey would consider in the neighborhood. Yeah, he might be on to something."

Andy rose. "Then I say we check DMV records for a black Caddie. What model, do you think?
Old
covers a lot of territory."

Quentin came back to the conference table, still frowning. "Joey's dad was killed twenty-five years ago. As I recall, he drove a 1972 Caddie. To be on the safe side, I'd cover 1970 to at least 76."

"Right." Andy grimaced slightly. "There can't be too many thirty-year-old black Caddies still on the road, surely, at least not in Seattle."

"Let's hope not."

On the point of turning away, Andy said, "You look worried again."

"Yeah. Let's just say that Joey has all the subtlety and caution of the proverbial bull in a china shop."

"So if he finds that Caddie—"

"He's apt to find a hell of a lot more than he can handle," Quentin finished grimly.

"Then we'd better find it first." Andy left the room.

Quentin was left alone with his thoughts, and none of them was pleasant. He had no idea where Joey had been calling from and knew he had little chance of finding him before Joey quite possibly found trouble. Bad trouble. As much as Quentin wanted to find and catch the rapist, he really hoped Joey's lead at the very least failed to point Joey in the right direction.

All Quentin's training and experience told him that Joey's simple cunning and brute strength would be no match for the evil he was trying to find. Bad as he was, Joey wasn't nearly bad enough to successfully fight
something he could never understand. Unless he was very, very lucky, he would lose that fight. Problem was, Joey had never been lucky.

And there were too many deaths on Quentin's conscience as it was.

"Shit," he said again, softly this time. He sent a restless glance toward his phone, wishing Joey would call again but certain he wouldn't, not because of any premonition but because he knew Joey was hell-bent to find the rapist and so do something to help Quentin and repay an old debt. A debt Quentin had not hesitated to use in the ensuing years to keep Joey in line and out of trouble.

He was really beginning to wish he hadn't done that.

Trying not to worry about what he couldn't change, Quentin drew another file toward him and tried once again to figure out what was bugging him. But before he could get too deep into that, Andy returned to the room.

"The M.E.'s report on Samantha Mitchell," he told Quentin, not without satisfaction. "A few hours earlier than expected."

"Anything we didn't know?" Quentin asked, accepting the folder and opening it.

"Nah, not really. At least, not that I can see."

Quentin began reading the report, and almost immediately stiffened.
"Shit."

Alarmed by the tone, Andy said, "What?"

"She died there? Samantha Mitchell died where her body was found?"

"Yeah. But we knew that."

Quentin grabbed his cell phone and began punching in a number, saying grimly, "Not all of us knew it."

*
        
*
        
*

John couldn't have said why he felt uneasy. Maybe it was simply because he still had trouble even imagining what Maggie was doing, what it was like to literally feel the sensations and emotions experienced by another person days and even weeks before, simply by walking through a place where they had occurred. Maybe it was this dark, chilled, and definitely eerie building. Or maybe it was just his own increasing sensitivity to emotions. His.

And hers.

"Creepy place, even with only five senses," he offered, more to maintain contact with Maggie than anything else.

He saw her turn her head toward him for a brief instant, but then she was gazing toward that dark doorway at the end of the hall, moving toward it.

John had the strongest impulse to stop her, to get his hands on her so that he could—could what?

His cell phone rang, and he jumped as the strident sound broke the silence. Maggie didn't even seem to hear it, still walking toward the room, going through the doorway. He followed, though he was still behind her as he dug his phone out and opened it. And he heard even before he could get the phone to his ear.

"John? Get out of there." Quentin's voice was sharp, imperative.

"What? What're you—"

"Listen to me. Get out of there. Get Maggie out. Now. She died there, John. Samantha Mitchell died there, in that room. And if Maggie gets too close—"

John heard a thud, saw Maggie's flashlight hit the floor, and quickly pointed his own at her. He was still behind her and at first saw only the cloud of her hair,
long and a little wild. But then she turned slowly, making an odd choking sound.

Her hands were at her throat, the face above them very pale, and her mouth was open as though she wanted to say something to him.

For an eternal instant, John was frozen, just staring at her. Then she took her hands from her throat, looking at them as though they belonged to someone else.

Her hands were covered with blood.

So was her throat.

Jennifer rejoined Kendra beside the car and shrugged wearily. "There are an awful lot of transients in this area, so I guess I can't blame the uniforms for not noticing one in particular. Dammit."

"We can check the shelters again."

"I know. But they won't start filling up until tonight."

Kendra nodded. "And I noticed that a few likely people to question sort of melted away when we got here."

"Yeah. The uniforms say everybody's jumpy as hell around here. And, of course, some of the transients figure if we can't find the actual rapist we'll make do with one of them." She sighed. "Really can't blame them for the distrust, but it doesn't make the job any easier."

"No." Slowly, Kendra added, "Didn't your patrolman friend say Robson was picked up for creating a disturbance?"

"Yeah. According to the arrest report, he was accosting people coming out of that liquor store just down the block, babbling something about how the
ghost of his old enemy was coming after him. And he kept looking toward the building over there where Hollis Templeton was found." Jennifer shook her head, suddenly uncomfortable under the other woman's steady, clear-eyed gaze. "At the very least, this is turning into a real wild-goose chase. I don't know why I thought it could be a legitimate lead. Just a drunk rambling, probably."