Touching Evil (38 page)

"Right." She immediately bent to the task.

"Andy, do we have a copy of that DMV list of black Caddies in the area?"

"Yeah—it's right here."

"Let's see if any of those names jump out at us."

"We can't possibly be that lucky," Andy said, but handed over half the list to Quentin.

They were all tired, too tired to be doing what they were doing. Not that it stopped them, of course. But the weariness did make Andy question what he thought he was seeing nearly half an hour later. "Reported stolen," he murmured.

Quentin looked at him across the table. "What?"

"There was a black Caddie reported stolen two years ago. Never found."

"Probably not so unusual," Quentin noted.

"No, not that part. It's who reported it stolen. Who it belonged to."

"Who?"

Before Andy could answer, Jennifer said, "Hey.
Hey.
Do you know who used to work for the same electronics company as David Robson? Who was, in fact, his boss in the software design department?"

Slowly, Andy said, "Simon Walsh."

She stared at him. "How'd you know that?"

"Lucky guess. He reported his father's old black Caddie as missing and probably stolen just over two years ago. I love a good coincidence, but this can't be one."

"Christina's husband," Jennifer said. "Christina's husband was David Robson's boss
and
had him fired, just like Robson said. And he used to own a black Cadillac?"

"Yeah."

"But he's dead."

"According to the record, yes." Andy looked at Quentin. "Which would explain why the computer didn't come up with a match. We didn't even have his name on our lists, since Christina was—or was supposed to be—a widow. It was a sailing accident, wasn't it? That supposedly killed him?"

"Yeah. In fact, since I knew Christina and John, I came to his memorial service." Quentin shook his head. "He was a sailing nut, often went out alone even in bad weather. This time, the storm won. And there were witnesses, of a sort. Another boat near enough to see Walsh struggling with equipment, see the boom swing and hit him. And over he went. The other boat pinpointed the area, there was a pretty massive search, and they recovered his boat mostly intact—but he was never found. As I remember, John hired experienced mariners and rescue people to search even after the official search was called off, but they had no better luck than the Coast Guard."

Jennifer fumbled for a cinnamon toothpick and thought longingly of a cigarette. "But, Andy—she was his
wife.
You're saying he did that to his own wife? The rape? The acid?"

Softly but with a distinct note of loathing in his voice, Quentin said, "Vows don't mean much to sociopaths, Jenn. After what you've seen him do, how can you doubt he'd balk at brutalizing a loyal and loving wife?"

Andy said, "And wasn't Walsh some kind of computer genius?"

Quentin nodded. "Electronic security systems would have been child's play for him."

Jennifer was still protesting. "If you're right about this, Christina was his second victim. Why marry her, then fake his own death a few years later—and not attack Laura Hughes until a year and a half after that?"

Quentin
 
said,
 
"He
 
might
 
have
 
been
 
drawn
 
to

Christina without really knowing why and believed himself in love. Sociopaths don't feel the way we do, but they often pretend to feel, to live normal lives. He could have married her, intending to live that normal life. Then either felt too confined or just got tired of the game. Faking his death was a nice dramatic way out of all the ties binding him, gaining him his freedom without any messy emotional confrontations.

"Then he sees Laura Hughes one day," Quentin continued, "and something about her face triggers his psychosis. We can be pretty sure it's the way these women look that makes him single them out, even if we're not entirely sure what it is. He sees Laura—and goes after her. Once he attacks her, once he begins to explore and satisfy his needs, his hungers, whatever restraints he felt before would melt away. He not only has the taste of it but possibly understands now why he was drawn to Christina, why her face attracted him in the first place. And she becomes his next victim."

It sounded all too horribly likely, even to Jennifer. She stopped protesting.

Andy drew a deep breath. "Okay, we've got to start looking for a dead man. And we have to do something else."

"Yeah," Quentin said. "We have to tell John."

Hollis adjusted the sunglasses on her nose. They felt oddly loose somehow. Looser than the bandage had been.

"We'll keep the lights out in here, Hollis," the doctor said, his voice both soothing and disappointed. "We don't want to add any unnecessary strain. It may
just take a little time, that's all. The muscles are working properly, and the pupils. The optic nerve looks fine. The eyes themselves are very bloodshot in appearance, but that's perfectly normal."

Hollis thought he minded more than she did. "It's all right, doctor. We both knew the odds."

"I don't want you to lose hope, Hollis. In optical surgeries, there's often a period of adjustment when the bandages come off. Give it a little time, okay?"

"I don't have any pressing appointments," she said lightly.

He sighed. "I'll come back in a few hours, and we'll check again."

"Sure."

When she was alone again, Hollis turned her face toward the window. The blustery night had been followed by a miserable day, according to the nurses. Wet, dreary, cold. So she wasn't missing much, at least as far as the view out the window went.

But she would have liked to see it.

She really would have liked to see it.

Hollis?

"Hello, Annie. Were you around when the doc was here? I'm still blind, you know." Her voice was the same as it had been with the doctor, even and calm, almost placid.

Hollis, listen to me. Are you listening?

"Sure. Sure I'm listening."

You have to see.

"I can't."

Yes, you can. The eyes are yours now, Hollis. They belong to you. They were a gift, so you could see. You must see.

"But I can't. Just darkness. That's all I see."
Do you want to help Maggie?

Hollis sat very still, her fingers curling on the arms of the chair to grip hard. "You know I do."
Then you have to see, Hollis.

"But—"
You have to see.

CHAPTER
 
TWENTY

John didn't say a word in protest as it was all laid
out for him. But something changed in his face, and Maggie, watching him, could feel the pain.

"I'm sorry, John," Quentin said. "We could be wrong."

With a twisted smile, John said, "I hope you are. But somehow ... it makes sense to me. It would explain so much, wouldn't it? How he got into high-security places, for instance. A snap for a computer genius."

Reluctantly, Maggie said, "John, it could also explain Christina's death."

He looked at her, and she felt another flash of pain that was quickly and ruthlessly shoved aside. "Yes, it could. Of all his victims, Christina was the most likely to be able to identify him, given enough time. He must have known that. Must have realized, when she survived the
 
attack, that he couldn't let her live.

Especially if he got into the apartment and saw the work she was doing trying to find her attacker. It could also be why he didn't bother to go after Hollis Templeton or Ellen Randall a second time when they survived the initial attacks; he wouldn't think they had any chance of identifying him, so they were no threat to him."

Maggie thought that if they both survived this, she would have to do something about this tendency of his to repress pain. But for now, all she could do was say, "If I'd been able to walk through her apartment afterward, maybe I could have seen all this."

"It would have killed you," John said flatly.

Andy, who had been mostly silent until then, said, "John, I swear to you I believed Christina committed suicide."

"I know that, Andy. You have nothing to apologize for."

"Then why do I feel so rotten about it?"

"Never mind. What we have to do now is figure out where Simon could be."

Quentin said, "We've started on that. Given that he had access to quite a bit of money before his presumed death, it seems logical to assume that he planned carefully. I think we'll find evidence that he liquidated some assets and investments and possibly sold property as well before he took that boat out to die."

John frowned. "Thinking back, I was a bit surprised there was so little money. Plenty for Christina to live comfortably, but given what he'd been earning with those cutting-edge software programs of his, I expected to find more."

"There was more," Jennifer announced as she came
into the conference room. "While some of the guys are looking for property he might have sold, I've been on another computer, checking out his financial records in the months before his supposed death. Quentin was right—Simon Walsh was moving around a lot of money. No one amount large enough to raise any flags, but taken together it's pretty obvious he shifted a sizable portion of his net worth somewhere I haven't been able to trace."

"He put it in another name," Quentin said. "He laid all the groundwork for disappearing long before he did."

Andy said, "I still don't get why he went to so much trouble to hide his face when he'd already blinded his victims. I mean, I could see him being extra careful with Christina, but the others? None of them knew him, right?"

Quentin said, "I think wearing a mask and wig is tied in with why he blinds them. He doesn't want them to see but, even more, he doesn't want them to know it's him. And he's convinced they would know, if they were able to see him, touch his face, even get a whiff of his natural scent. Because he recognizes their faces somehow, or believes he does, and because he believes he knows them, he believes they could know him."

"It makes sense, I guess," Andy said. "As much as this twisted bastard makes any kind of sense."

"So how do we find him?" Jennifer demanded.

Maggie half listened without offering comment as the others discussed various ways they might find Simon Walsh's secret torture chamber. What would it take, she wondered, to push a precarious mind even further into
 
insanity?
 
Maybe
 
even . . . break it for
good? Was that an effective way to destroy evil, by splintering it so that not even its own will could hold it together any longer?

"Maggie?"

She blinked at John. "Hmm?"

He leaned slightly toward her, his hand coming to rest warmly on her thigh. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." She managed a smile. "Just. . . wondering why I couldn't see this. Couldn't see him. Christina had pictures of him, of course. She showed them to me."

"You couldn't see him because none of the victims ever saw him. He made sure of that."

"I know. Still."

He squeezed her thigh gently, then leaned back and looked across the table to meet Quentin's gaze. "Do you think we'll find him by figuring out what properties he sold before he faked his death?"

"I think we've got a fair shot at it. To do what he does requires isolation and privacy. And he's got to feel safe there, certain no one will find him."

Andy said, "You know, he could still have Tara Jameson at that place. We haven't found a body yet, and he's had her barely forty-eight hours. Plus we think he may have been interrupted if Quentin's source actually found him or at least got close enough to draw his attention. So he could still be ... working on her."

Maggie, remembering the painting, said, "I don't think she's alive . . . but she could be."

"Which means," Quentin said, "he could have a hostage. So assuming we do find a likely place where he might be holed up, we'll have to be damned careful approaching."

Grimacing, Andy said, "Yeah. No fucking S.W.A.T. team. If we blunder in and a victim dies because of it. . ."

He didn't have to finish that sentence, because all of them could do it for him.

Half an hour later they had a printout of a list of properties Simon Walsh had sold in the months before his death. It was a long list. And they found Tara Jameson's name on it. She had been the realtor involved in one such deal.

"You were right," Andy said to Maggie. "He did know her."

Maggie nodded, but said only, "Anything else helpful on the list?"

"So far," John said, "it looks like different buyers. But at least half a dozen were sold to what look like holding companies. It may take some time to find out who actually owned them."

"Of all of us, you're most likely to be able to find information on businesses without wasting time," Quentin noted.