The simple brilliance of it almost took Carlson’s breath away. A delicate string bridging generations, stretching downstream through time. He visualized the last human on Earth, dirty, cowering in fear as Carlson lifted the blade. It would be so beautiful.
And his own eyes would see it. He would live on. Immortality, of a sort.
He focused on the clone. It smiled back at him, its eyes wise and knowing. This clone wasn’t a mutant after all. It was the one, true copy of him. It carried the seed of his plan. And now the clone showed him how to plant that seed, let it grow and flower.
Carlson realized what a fool he had been. It wasn’t his ambition that had been overreaching. It was his lack of patience that brought his Grand Goal to its knees. He wanted to see it in his own lifetime. But that wasn’t necessary. Not when he could live a thousand lifetimes.
“Play the long game,” he said at last.
The clone nodded and gave him a knowing smile. “The patient man shall reap the rewards of history.”
For the first time in months, Carlson felt a weight lift from his shoulders. The Great Goal was alive.
Fifty-Three
The house–no, mansion–was like a mausoleum. Harley stepped through the broken double doors. She could have stood on Graves’ shoulders and still not been able to touch the top of the doorway.
The place smelled musty, unused. There was another scent underneath the mustiness. Something vinegary. Like someone had been canning pickles in the house.
The entryway was paved with gray stone. Probably expensive as hell. Just like everything about this place. The walls were paneled with dark wood. A great, black iron chandelier hung from the ceiling. Harley looked around, but couldn’t see any light switches to turn it on.
“Creepy as hell,” Graves said. He held out a flashlight he’d retrieved from the SUV. She flicked it on. It cast a wide beam into the darkened hall before them. Graves turned his on and played the beam over the walls.
“No artwork,” he said, “Nothing personal.”
“Artwork is a human thing,” Harley said. The stump of her leg ached. The itch on her phantom foot had been going crazy ever since the Jim Bob twins had told her they’d found the Reaper’s name. And his address.
They went deeper into the great hall. The windows were covered with heavy black drapes. A small wooden table sat in the middle of the room. With a single chair. She went up to it, her footsteps echoed off the stone walls. She pictured him sitting on the chair, taking a solitary meal in the emptiness of the hall. What would he have eaten? The liver of his latest victim? Eyeball stew, maybe?
“Not very sociable,” Graves said, “No dinner parties for him.”
Harley started to reach out to touch the chair, then thought better of it. Later, maybe. She walked away from the table, down the hall toward the single door at the end. She played the beam over the walls. There were more doors. Probably kitchen or servants entrances. She was more interested in the blood red door at the end.
Even now, the son of a bitch was playing her. She had a feeling this was all theater, set up for her benefit.
The door was broken. The knob and lock sheared off, leaving a ragged semi-circle stuck to the frame. The door itself, paneled and painted a deep red, looked like it had a bite taken out of it.
“The crash team didn’t find anything,” Graves said. He shone his light on the door, moving it up and down the broken edge.
“Like I told Parker, the Reaper wasn’t going to let anyone figure out where he lived until he was already gone.”
“Figures it was a stinking rich guy,” Graves said, “Guy could have bought a small country if he wanted. The accountants are still trying to figure out exactly what he was worth.”
“And trying to figure out where he put it all,” Harley said.
She pushed the red door open. Another dark corridor awaited. More gray stone with an arched ceiling. Doors broke up the gray monotony every twenty feet or so along the left side. On the right were more windows. Blacked out.
“Yeah, Parker’s crapping himself over it,” Graves said, “If he could be whipping the accountants to make them work harder, he would.”
“Asshole.”
“He’s desperate,” Graves said.
“And an idiot.”
“Harley…”
“People who don’t listen, who refuse to see what’s in front of their faces are idiots. End of story,” Harley said.
Not that she could claim an immaculate record of listening. It didn’t matter. If anyone ever called her a hypocrite, she’d cheerfully agree with them.
“You read the forensics report, right?” Graves asked.
“Sure.”
“Found lots of Savoy’s fingerprints. Not much else.”
“The Reaper,” Harley said.
Graves gave her a look. “What?”
"Carlson Savoy doesn't exist anymore. If he ever did," Harley said. "The Reaper left Savoy behind. His ghost is bouncing around here, looking for an exit."
Graves played his flashlight over the stone walls and the arched ceiling. “You’re creeping me out, you know that?”
“They figure out what the vinegar smell is?” she asked.
“There’s some kind of underground complex,” Graves said, “Used to be a winery. There’s some chemical residues, but the place is cleared out. Not even any fingerprints down there.”
Harley stepped down the corridor. Her prosthetic leg creaked and popped. The sound echoed up and down the corridor like a freaked out ghost.
“That’s where he was making copies of himself,” Harley said.
“Yeah, that’s what they figure,” Graves said.
“They find the farm yet?”
“Why don’t you ask your boyfriends?” Graves said.
Harley was glad for the darkness that hid her smile. It tickled her to hear the jealousy in Graves’ voice. The man was human after all.
“I’m sure they’re working long and hard on it,” she said.
Graves didn’t reply. Either he didn’t get the double entendre, or…yeah, he probably didn’t get it. She played the light along the hallway. All of the doors had been busted open. She stuck the light in one of the open doorways. Empty room. So empty it didn’t even have dust on the floor.
“So what are you looking for?” Graves asked.
She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that she had to come and look at the house were the Reaper lived. Except, like his crime scenes, the place had been scrubbed and sanitized. Nothing of value left behind. Nothing to get a better handle on him. Other than the mausoleum of a mansion itself.
“Tell me about his family again,” Harley said.
“Who, the Reaper?”
“No, Carlson Savoy.”
“Though you said he was dead,” Graves said.
“He is, but he gave birth to the Reaper. Or was the conduit for him,” Harley said, “Killers don’t appear out of thin air, something makes them.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Graves said, “Remember the Buckwald Twins? Exact same upbringing, same education, even got jobs at the same place. Then one of them flips out and goes on a killing spree. Sometimes people just turn, you know?”
She did. It was something she tried not to think about, especially after her own dark days. The thought of socialized behavior being some random thing disturbed her on a level so deep, all she could do was slam the door on it.
“I still think there was something in Horace Buckwald’s past,” Harley said, “But right now I want to hear about Carlson Savoy’s past.”
Graves sighed. “Come on, you read the report.”
“Tell me.”
She came to the last door in the hallway. It was busted in like the others. She shined the light in. Nothing. A bunch of empty rooms. What had these rooms been before Savoy took over the mansion? Guest rooms? Servants quarters? Storerooms?
She put the light on the door at the end of the hall. This door was black. And broken, like the red
door had been. She could picture the FBI’s crash team coming through. Two guys hefting the battering ram, four more guys behind them with assault rifles raised. Bashing in door after door.
It would have been really noisy. And probably unnecessary. She reached out to the handle, still stuck to the door frame. The metal was cold under her fingers. There was a scent of pine from the splintered door. She twisted the knob. It released the latch and the chunk of wood and metal crashed to the floor.
Unlocked.
Probably all the doors were unlocked.
Idiots.
She pushed the door open. The beam from her flashlight touched old fashioned furniture and thick oriental throw rugs. A parlor of some kind. She played the light over the room. It was large. Maybe fifty by fifty feet. Big enough for a gymnasium. A massive stone fireplace squatted at the center of one wall. Tall windows lined the wall opposite it.
“Blacked out,” she said.
Graves came up beside, played his own beam over the windows. “Guy didn’t like the light apparently. Maybe he was actually a vampire.”
“Was he trying to keep people from seeing in, or did he not want to see out?” Harley asked.
“I don’t know, you’re the expert on the guy,” Graves said.
“Tell me about his past,” Harley said. She moved over to the fireplace. Two, high-backed chairs sat in front of it, angled for conversation. It looked like something straight out of an old movie. She checked the chair for…whatever, then sat down. Graves gave her a look like she was crazy, but he dusted off the other chair and sat down, too. He shifted on the seat, eyes darting back and forth. She hid a smirk. Was he expecting arms to come out of the chair and grab him? Like some silly Scooby-doo episode?
“Tell me about Carlson Savoy, Walt,” she said.
“You think I have the report memorized?” he asked.
She just gave him a steady stare. Graves sucked down reports and spat them back out at will. The man either had a photographic memory, or darn close to it.
He let out another long sigh. “Alright, fine,” he said. He rubbed his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut. “Okay, Carlson Savory, age 63, born in Brandon County to wealthy parents. Mother died when he was six, mostly raised by nannies. Father ran the company, some sort of real-estate conglomerate. Didn’t have a lot to do with young Carlson, from what they could find. Carlson went to a fancy school, studied business. And anatomy. Looked like he was going to be a doctor, but then the father died at fifty-five in a car accident. Carlson took over the company. Since it was a privately held business, he could do whatever he wanted. So he liquidated the business and hid all the money. Went into stealth mode. Didn’t have much in the way of friends. No one seemed to know him. Didn’t employ any servants in the house, but had a company come in on a regular basis to keep the outside in shape. The company did occasional maintenance inside the house too. Never had any personal contact with Savoy. All done by telephone or email. The guy was the definition of a recluse.”
Harley rubbed her leg. She wanted to take the prosthetic off and rub the stump. The house was too creepy though. It felt unwise to let her guard down.
“No one ever wondered who this guy was?” she asked.
“Probably, but then rich people can buy walls of silence around them if they really want,” Graves said, “Some really wealthy people want to be noticed. They drive flashy cars and live in big mansions. Showing off that they have more than the next guy and all that.”
“Mr. Savoy wasn’t flashy”
Graves gave her a wry grin. He glanced at the massive fireplace. The fricking thing was made of boulders. They could have fit a small car in the opening. Or roasted two cows on spits, side by side.
“He had reason to not draw attention to himself, apparently,” Graves said.
“Any cars registered in his name?” Harley asked. Like any old Buicks?
“Nothing so far,” Graves said, “The accountants are still pulling threads, trying to figure it all out. The guy had dozens of shell companies. If he did it all himself, he must have been a financial genius. The accountants are pulling their hair out, last time I checked.”
“I bet most of it ends up as cash,” Harley said, “Or gold. Something portable. Untraceable.”
Graves slumped a little in the silly high-backed chair. "Yeah, that's the consensus. We'll see."
“Are they still doing interviews on people who knew him?” Harley asked, “Especially knew him when he was a child. Any of his old nannies still around?”
Graves turned his head, staring into the dead fireplace. “They’re still looking, trying to figure out how many there were. They’re having to go to old state employment records to find out who worked for Savoy’s father. A lot of that stuff is on paper–if it still exists. They’ve found a couple old nannies so far. But they’re both deceased.”
“How did they die?” Harley asked.
“Natural causes,” Graves said, “They were both in their seventies when they died.”
Dead ends everywhere. The Reaper’s past was just as slippery as his present. How had he become the Reaper? Was there an incident somewhere in his past? Something that turned him into a relentless predator? Or was it like Graves seemed to think: the man was just born evil.
It felt to her that there was something more. The Reaper wanted the extinction of the human race. A grand goal for any serial killer. But all the serial killers she had studied did it for the thrill. The hunt excited them. Sometimes there was a pleasure in the act of killing, or there was some weird sexual component. But mostly it was a desire for power over humans. Something that bent them when they were children. Uncles or brothers who abused them. Parents who disciplined them to extreme measures. Something that warped the kid. Turned him–and it was almost always a him–into a killing machine.
So what was Carlson Savoy’s moment? What turned him? Was there a dark place in his past that made him believe the planet would be better off if he killed everyone on it?
“What are you looking for, Kam?” Graves asked.
Harley tried to imagine herself as Carlson Savoy, sitting in front of the fireplace. Would he have lit a fire in it? No, that would be wasteful. Unnecessary. He wouldn’t have sat here. Maybe he walked past these chairs every day. Maybe he would look at them and remember something. Remember a time when he sat there, a fire roaring. The heat of it would be burning his face. In the chair opposite, sat…
Harley levered herself out of the stupid chair. “I’m looking for this guy’s bathroom,” she said, “I want to see where this guy took his regular shits.”
Fifty-Four
Carlson Savoy’s private rooms were disappointing. They were clean, neat, and disgustingly normal. Harley scanned the bedroom. A queen sized bed sat in the center of one wall. Expensive looking nightstands stood on either side. The bed was covered with a comforter, dark green in color. The covers were smooth, as if they’d been freshly made.
“Did forensics go through everything here?” she asked.
“According to the report they did,” Graves said. She noticed him staring at the covers, too, his brow furrowed.
“Then they’re lying or someone’s been back to tidy up since,” she said.
When a forensics team tossed a room, they wouldn’t bother putting everything back nice and neat. The room she was looking at seemed more like a motel room that had just been visited by a maid. She half expected to check the bathroom and find a Sanitized for your Safety sign on the toilet.
“We should call it in,” Graves said, “I can check with the lab manager, interview the team that went in here.”
“Not just yet,” Harley said.
She moved over to the bed, her leg creaking and popping. She reached for the covers.
“Harley! What the hell,” Graves said.
She heard him scrambling toward her, but he wasn’t fast enough. She grabbed the cloth–her skin crawled thinking the cover might have touched the Reaper’s bare skin–and yanked the covers
down.
Graves skidded to a stop beside her. “Holy crap,” he said.
“Yeah. Holy crap.”
On the crisp, white bed sheets were words, written in something dark, reddish brown. Something that looked exactly like dried blood.
Numbers. At first she thought it might be phone numbers, but there were too many digits. She glanced at Graves. His jaw was working.
“You know what this is?” she asked.
“Maybe.”
“What?”
“It looks like latitude and longitude,” Graves said, “I thinking he's giving us a location.”
Great, now the jerk was leading them on a treasure hunt. And what kind of treats would wait for them?
“Better call the forensics boys back,” she said.
Fifty-Five
They didn’t find anything else in the creepy old mansion. Graves took a picture of the bloody numbers on the bed and sent it to the Jim Bob twins. They called back a few minutes later with the location of a farm upstate, about an hour north.
Despite Harley’s protests, Graves called Parker with the news. She wanted to investigate the farm herself.
“We’re not trying to preserve evidence,” she said, “We’re trying to prevent an apocalypse.”
They were in Grave’s black fibbie SUV, heading north at excessive speed. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. Late afternoon sun coming through the driver’s side window made him a glowing silhouette. Harley slumped down in her seat. Her palms were sweaty, despite the chill of the air conditioning. The location was her showdown. It had to be.
“It’s a trap,” Graves said, “I’m not letting you walk into another one.”
“What do you care?”
She regretted the words the instant she said them. Her and her stupid mouth. Graves flicked an annoyed look her way.
“I’m the only one who cares about you,” he said, “Despite your dedicated attempts to piss on our partnership.”
She knew she should apologize. It would be the decent thing to do. So she did something else instead.
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