Watch Me (2 page)

The three became a two, then a one. Arms and legs appeared.
Blip, blip
. Two limbs for each second. The last digit turned to a zero, the diagram turned red, then it disappeared.

Twenty became nineteen, and the base of the gallows flashed up onto the screen. With each passing second more parts were added. The tall back post, the top beam, the diagonal brace, the rope. Head, body, arms, legs. The last digit changed from a one to a zero, the diagram turned red then disappeared, and the whole ten-second process started over again.

I ran the mouse across the screen, looking for hidden links. There hadn’t been any the first time I’d done this, and there weren’t any now. The web address didn’t tell me much, either: www.violescent.com. A Google search revealed violescent to be an obscure word that meant ‘tending to a violet colour’.

My guess was that the unsub had used a random word generator. That’s what I would have done. If you try to think up a random word, it’s never going to be truly random because your subconscious gets in the way. The domain name would need checking out, but my money was on it being another dead end. Registering a domain name under a fake identity was a fairly straightforward process.

It had crossed my mind that this could be an elaborate hoax. There was no body, no crime scene, no physical evidence whatsoever. All the cops had was the video clip and the website. It wasn’t much to go on, but I was convinced this was the real deal.

First off, Sam Galloway was missing.

Secondly, the person on the film had been positively identified as Sam.

Thirdly, and this was the big one, what did they have to gain? You don’t do anything without a reason. It was the effort/outcome principle at play. The benefit gained from an activity had to outweigh the amount of energy expended. If Sam wanted to fake his death, there were a lot of easier ways to do it.

Fourthly, and this was the clincher for me, there was no way that film had been faked. If it had been then you were looking at an acting performance worthy of an Oscar.

For a long couple of minutes I sat there considering my options‚ a steady stream of numbers and hangman figures filing across the screen.

It was eleven-thirty in the morning here in Charleston. Dayton was an hour behind, so it was only ten-thirty there. The countdown was due to run out at the stroke of midnight Louisiana time. During that time another 4,860 stick figures would die.

Louisiana or Honolulu?

Swamps or bikinis?

It was a no-brainer. I’ve always been a sucker for the dramatic gesture, and there was no doubt that this unsub had a flair for the dramatic. The truth was that this guy had got me at hello.

2

‘Jefferson Winter?’

The question echoed around the vast hangar. I traced the sound to its origin and saw a giant bald black guy standing by the steps of a Gulfstream G550. The size of the hangar made the private jet look like a toy, yet this guy still looked huge in comparison to the plane. All the perspectives were wrong.

I walked over to the jet, my footsteps disappearing into the girders. Up close, the black guy really was a giant. Six-six and at least two-eighty pounds of solid muscle. I’m only five-nine, so he towered above me by almost a whole foot. The conflicting shadows cast by the overhead lights spread from his feet in all directions, creating a lake of grey with him standing slap bang in the middle. His black uniform had a shiny gold star on the chest, and Dayton Sheriff’s Department patches on both arms. It looked brand new.

He was younger than I’d first thought. Early twenties, maybe even late teens. He had one of those baby faces, a trust-me face. It was open and honest, and I wondered how long that would last. This job wore everyone down, some faster than others. Given enough time, the darkness always found a way in.

I was also wondering about that private jet. The FBI could afford a Gulfstream, it could actually afford two, but the FBI had an annual budget in excess of eight billion dollars. From what little I’d gleaned off the internet, it was a safe bet that the Dayton Sheriff’s Department was not operating on a ten-figure budget. Six figures was probably closer to the mark, and once the day-to-day expenses were taken care of there wouldn’t be much left for those little luxuries.

Like a Gulfstream.

There were no clues on the plane itself. Gleaming white paintwork, a number on the tail, and that was it. No logos, which was unusual. People who owned private jets wanted you to know who they were. They wanted to advertise their wealth and status. They wanted to fly that flag from the highest mast, and that mast went all the way up to 51,000 feet. Owning a private jet had nothing to do with getting from A to B, and everything to do with showing the world how important you were. There was a reason the president had his own 747 rather than flying coach, and, as much as the White House PR department would like you to believe otherwise, that reason had little to do with pragmatism.

The big guy was hiding his nerves well. There was an electrical buzz in his movements, and he kept checking the far shadows for snipers. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. Should he offer one so we could shake? Should he offer to take my suitcase? In the end, I made the decision for him. I put my case down and held out my hand. He hesitated, then shook it. His hand swallowed mine, completely engulfed it. At the same time, there was a gentleness that surprised me.

‘Nice ride you’ve got there,’ I said, nodding to the plane.

‘I wish.’

That deep resonant bear growl again, a low rumble that started way down in his diaphragm. The voice was still young enough to lack authority, but something about this guy hinted that this would come in time. There were no rank markings on his uniform, which meant he was right down at the bottom of the pecking order. The spark of intelligence in his eyes indicated this was a temporary state of affairs.

Big, yes. Stupid, not a chance.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Taylor.’

‘That’s it? Just Taylor?’

A nod. ‘Just Taylor.’

‘Which means your first name must be something really embarrassing.’ I grinned. ‘You might as well tell me now. I will find out.’

‘No you won’t,’ he said, mirroring my grin.

An airport worker appeared from nowhere and magicked my suitcase off into the hold. Everything I needed to get through the day was in it. Since my father’s execution I had spent my life travelling the world hunting serial criminals, and I’d travelled light. I’d chased monsters in Paris and Sydney, LA and London, Johannesburg and Buenos Aires. Evil had no respect for borders.

These days home was whatever hotel suite I found myself booked into, which suited me fine. Some were more comfortable than others, but that didn’t worry me. Even the most basic suite was going to be better than a crappy motel room, and believe me I’d seen more than my share of those.

I did own a house. It was up in Virginia, within easy commuting distance of Quantico. I hadn’t been back there in years, and had no intention of doing so any time soon, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to sell it. I’m sure a psychiatrist could give a dozen good reasons why I hadn’t, and I’m sure some of those might even have been valid. I guess that everyone needs somewhere they can call home‚ even if it’s an empty gesture.

Before I quit the FBI I was their lead profiler, the youngest in the history of the Behavioral Analysis Unit. I had the G-man suit, the shiny shoes and worked from dawn until dusk for a faceless master I respected less and less with each and every passing day. The execution was my personal Road to Damascus. A couple of days after the state of California pumped a lethal chemical cocktail into my father, I quit.

Whenever I picture my father, it’s in that execution chamber. It took six minutes and twenty-three seconds for him to die and for most of that time he was unconscious. Unlike Sam Galloway‚ he got off far too easy.

Way too easy.

I’ve seen the case files. Seen the photographs. My father murdered fifteen women before he was caught. He abducted them and took them to the wide rolling forests of Oregon, then hunted them down with a high-powered rifle and a night scope.

My father had left those girls where they died. He hadn’t even bothered to dig them a shallow grave. Exposure to the elements had sped up the decomposition process. The insects and animals had feasted on their flesh. It’s amazing how quickly Mother Nature can strip away beauty, how merciless she can be.

In my opinion, they should have skipped the pentobarbital. My father should have left this world struggling for his last breath, fully awake and fully aware. That still wouldn’t have come close to making amends, but it would have been a start.

‘Marion,’ I said. ‘Your parents were big John Wayne fans.’

‘Not even close.’

‘Chuck?’

Taylor laughed and made an ‘after-you’ gesture and we climbed the stairs. The flight attendant who greeted us when we ducked into the cabin was in her early fifties. Hair dyed black to disguise the grey, sensible flat shoes. She’d been hired for her ability to do the job, not her looks, which said a lot about the person who owned the plane. There was a time for looks and a time for efficiency. When it came to flight attendants, I’d take efficiency over looks any day. Flying was tedious enough without adding incompetence into the mix.

The interior of the Gulfstream was understated and subdued and reminded me of the FBI’s jets. There were none of the ostentatious touches you associated with rock stars or the Hollywood glitterati. None of the bling.

Toward the back there was a table with four black leather chairs surrounding a walnut-topped table. I got comfy in the forward-facing window seat and put my laptop case on the table. Taylor folded himself into the aisle seat opposite and stretched his legs out as far as he could. The jet started rolling and he reached for his seatbelt.

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ I told him. ‘One perk of flying in a private jet is that you don’t have to wear a seatbelt.’

‘What if we crash?’

‘If we crash, we die. That seatbelt won’t save you. Twenty-five tons of metal smashing into the ground at five hundred miles an hour, you really think that tiny strap is going to save your life?’

Taylor gave me the look. His eyes were narrowed, his brow furrowed, and he was staring at me like I’d grown an extra head. It was a look I was used to.

‘The reason the FAA insist you wear a seatbelt on take-off and landing comes down to crowd control,’ I continued. ‘If there’s an emergency the last thing you want are three hundred hysterical people running up and down the aisles. The same thing goes for the oxygen masks. That’s all about crowd control, too. Those things pump out pure oxygen. Breathe that stuff in and it leaves you feeling euphoric. Would you rather your last moments were filled with terror, or would you rather believe that you were about to reach out and touch the hand of God?’

Taylor looked at me again.

A minute later we turned onto the runway and stopped. The engines whined, and then we were propelled forward like a pebble from a slingshot. The Gulfstream lifted off in a fraction of the distance a passenger jet needed. A grind and a whine as the undercarriage retracted, then we carried on climbing at a comfortable twenty degrees. Whoever was at the stick knew his stuff. The take-off was a textbook civilian effort. No drama, no fuss, and boring as hell.

Outside the tiny porthole window, Charleston shrunk to toy-town size and Carl Tindle became nothing more than a memory. Carl wasn’t the worst I’d come across, but that didn’t make him a saint. Far from it. Carl had a thing for co-eds, and once he’d done his thing he suffocated them with a plastic bag and a leather belt. By the time I came on board his body count was up to eight.

Identifying Carl was straightforward enough and I’d managed that by the end of day one. The challenge was catching him. There was plenty of empty space in South Carolina, lots of places to hide. We eventually tracked Carl down to a remote cabin near the coast, and when he realised he was surrounded he came in quietly enough.

Unlike my father, Carl would not live long enough for the death sentence appeals to play out. Carl Tindle was a small man, a weak man, a dead man walking. He wouldn’t see the end of the year. There was every chance he’d be dead before the week was out, suicide or shanked. Prison justice was harsh and brutal, and so much more effective than the courtroom variety.

When it came to getting the job done, I knew which one I put my faith in.

3

The flight attendant appeared shortly after we’d passed through the clouds. She handed us a couple of menus, asked what we wanted to eat and drink, then disappeared to the galley at the rear. When she returned with our drinks we were still climbing. I was thinking about who owned the Gulfstream again. If I owned a private jet I’d be fussy about who borrowed it. The local sheriff’s department would be way down the list. The easiest thing would be to ask Taylor, but I wasn’t ready to go there yet.

I booted up my laptop, clicked open the film clip of Sam Galloway’s last moments, hit play and turned the computer around so Taylor could see the screen. The smell of beef bourguignon drifted from the back. If the smell was anything to go by, I’d made a good choice.

‘Watch carefully, then tell me what you see.’

I reached for my coffee and took a sip. It had come from the Blue Mountains of Jamaica and was spectacularly smooth. The conditions in the Blue Mountains are perfect for growing coffee. Rich soil, good drainage, and a climate that’s cool, misty and wet. Put that all together and you end up with some of the finest coffee known to man.

Taylor was drinking a Pepsi. He didn’t know what he was missing.

I looked over at him. Light from the screen flickered and reflected in his eyes, a series of warped, indistinct images. His discomfort was obvious in his facial expressions, and a couple of times he winced as though what he was seeing on the screen was happening to him. Taylor would also be overcompensating for the lack of sound. He wouldn’t be able to help himself. His imagination would be providing a soundtrack that owed more to every horror movie he’d ever seen than to what he was actually watching.