by Blake Pierce
If she picked it up right now, would he have the will to wrest it from her
grasp?
Might she smile that glittering smile of hers and take his hand and lead
him to the kill room that he had prepared for her? Might he surrender to her
passively, as he always had back then? Might he wind up in the dark again,
feeling his life ebbing away into the floor—only this time forever?
Nonsense, he thought.
He reminded himself that this was all about power. She had no power over
him unless he granted it to her. To do so would defeat his treasured purpose.
Slowly she turned her eyes toward him again. A strange expression
crossed her dimly lit face and she said, “There are a few things I ought to tell you.”
She fell silent again, and the man swallowed hard in anticipation of what
she might say next.
Then she said …
“I’m not exactly who you think I am.”
The man gasped aloud. It was purely a reflexive response, and he couldn’t
help it.
The woman even sounded like Aunt Florence now.
That voice from his childhood echoed cruelly through his head.
“Out of sight, out of mind.”
Then the woman said, “When we met before … earlier today … I told you
some things …”
Her voice trailed off. The man struggled to control his breathing.
Then the woman said in a faltering voice …
“I think I should go.”
As she started to scoot her way from behind the table, the man was
completely overcome by panic.
I can’t let her get away, he thought.
He was on his feet in a flash,
He snatched the knife from off the tray. Before the woman could get up,
he had the knife at her throat.
She stared at him wide-eyed. Her mouth fell open, but she couldn’t seem
to force any words out.
The candlelight was falling on her face differently now. She didn’t look so
much like Aunt Florence anymore. She looked like just another terrified
victim …
Which is exactly what she’s going to be.
His own terror vanished in an instant, replaced by fierce anger at how
she’d thwarted his self-control. His hope of savoring a long and exquisite
killing had fled, and he felt bitterly cheated.
He was shaking all over with fury.
He yanked the woman to her feet. Holding her from behind with the knife
at her throat, he dragged her toward the kill room.
It was ready for her. He’d already wheeled out the fake interior shelves
and put them into the alternate space he’d designed for them.
He pushed down the latch with his free hand and pulled the door open.
Then he tried to shove the woman inside the narrow space. But he hadn’t
reckoned on her being stronger than the others. She seemed suddenly to
sprout extra arms as she thrashed away at him.
He finally managed to give her a violent push that sent her hurtling back
into the closet. But as the heavy door swung shut, she thrust one arm out and
blocked it from closing. He slammed the door against the crook of her elbow.
Then he slashed back and forth across her wrist with his knife, drawing
blood.
The woman let out a screech of pain, then pulled her hand back inside.
At last he was able to shut the door and lock it.
She was screaming wildly now, sounding as angry as she was terrified,
demanding that he let her go. He stood standing there panting from exertion
as he stared at the door trying to reassure himself …
I cut her good.
I saw the blood.
He hadn’t delivered his usual multiple wounds, and she might be able to
stanch the flow from that one wrist. Even so, she was sure to bleed out. It
would just take longer.
But even through the well-insulated closet walls, her screams were loud.
He’d committed his other killings where nobody was within earshot and
his victims had faded quickly. He’d enjoyed listening to the final scratching
and moaning as they’d died.
But now, if anybody happened to be nearby outside, they’d surely hear this. It was even possible that someone awake in the neighboring motor
homes might pick up those sounds of fury and agony.
His anger was turning inward now.
I should have planned better.
But now he had no choice but to make the best of a terrible situation.
He groped his way to the driver’s seat and started the engine. A thin layer
of snow now coated the windshield. He turned on the wipers, but the glass
was fogged up inside from the cold. He turned on the defroster and wiped the
glass hastily with his sleeve.
Then he put the vehicle in gear and raced out of his camping space,
smashing down a bush on the way.
He had no idea where he was going next, but one thing was certain …
I can’t stay here.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Riley craned forward in the driver’s seat as she peered through the
windshield into the night. Falling snowflakes flickered brightly in her
headlights. She’d expected to be completely free of snow after they left the
higher elevations near Bryce Canyon. There was none on the ground here,
but these light flurries had started up just moments ago,
Fortunately she could still make out the highway pavement and its
shoulder to the right of her vehicle. If she could keep her eye on that, at least she felt reasonably confident that she wouldn’t go off the highway.
She had other worries, though.
Did I miss my turn? she wondered.
She hadn’t seen any signs for the Delphi RV Resort for quite a while now.
She was annoyed with herself for not being sure she could find her way.
But why wasn’t Crivaro here and helping instead of in his bed at the back of
the camper, apparently fast asleep?
She knew he was tired, and he’d seemed to be in a terrible mood. But
couldn’t he at least have stayed awake awhile and been a second pair of eyes
to help her find her way through this unfamiliar territory in the snow?
She thought about giving him a sharp yell to tell him to get up.
But right then she saw the sign with an arrow …
DELPHI RV RESORT
“At last!” she murmured aloud.
She braked and tried to take the turn as cautiously as she could, but even
so the vehicle fishtailed a little as she steered onto the private road that led the rest of the way to the campground.
She growled under her breath and thought …
At least Crivaro’s not awake to complain about my driving.
And the road was well paved and wide enough for much wider vehicles
than hers to travel comfortably. Still, her mind started to fill up with new
worries. What exactly did she plan to do when she arrived at the
campground? Sure, she’d had a strong hunch, but a hunch wasn’t much good
if she didn’t know how to act on it.
Would she charge into main office and start demanding answers from whoever was on duty?
Would she even find anybody on duty?
It was late, and for all she knew the office would be closed for the night.
Then what would she do?
At times like now, she felt sharply aware of her greenness as an agent. She
simply didn’t k
now what to do in every instance. Maybe someday she would,
but right now that time seemed like a long way off.
She sighed as she thought …
I’m going to have to wake up Crivaro when I get there.
And he wasn’t going to be happy about it.
After a short drive, she arrived at the entrance to the campground. The
entryway was marked by two big white brick pillars with lights atop of them.
She was on a slight hill, looking down on vast well-tended grounds with
lighted walkways. She pulled through the entryway and came to a stop just
beyond it to take a better look. She saw an impressive cluster of buildings off to one side, and a few large motor homes spaced well apart on the other side.
The snow added to the strangeness of the view, making it all resemble a
snow globe paperweight scene. With its trees and gardens placed between the
campsites, the Delphi Campground looked like some kind of upscale
neighborhood with RVs instead of houses. The campground seemed to Riley
even more like a fairytale setting than the Spring View Campground back in
Arizona, with all of its New Age trappings.
She remembered again how those women back at Spring View had
described this campground …
“… a very blessed place …”
And she had to admit, it did cast quite a charming spell as the snow
danced among the streetlights.
Then she realized that something was moving out there. A big white motor
home had pulled out of its space and was turning toward the entrance where
she had stopped. That struck her as odd. She wondered why someone would
be pulling out of here at this late hour, especially now that it was snowing.
But there it was—an enormous vehicle driving none too slowly in her
direction. As it drew nearer, Riley could see that it was a Winnebago with a
stripe along its side.
A red stripe? she wondered, remembering Sergeant Gray’s description of
the RV with the lone driver.
She thought maybe so, but it was hard to tell the color for sure in this light
and the snowfall.
She wondered—had her hunch been right after all?
Might this be the killer?
If so, why would he be leaving this elegant setting? Where might he be
headed? And most importantly—was he alone?
She warned herself not to jump to conclusions. She really had no idea who
might actually be behind that wheel. But how was she supposed to find out?
She was again about to yell for Crivaro to wake up and help her but there
was no time for that now. The other vehicle was speeding up.
She flashed her headlights as a signal, hoping the driver would at least
slow down.
He didn’t.
Riley felt a tingle all over. She knew one thing for sure—she couldn’t just
let the vehicle go on its way without personally confronting the driver. She
fleetingly considered rolling down her window to try to flag him down. But
she felt sure that he wouldn’t stop on account of that either.
He’d be on his way out of the campground in a matter of seconds if she
didn’t take action immediately.
She backed up her vehicle slightly, then turned the steering wheel hard as
she pulled forward again. With her RV turned sideways on the pavement, she
figured she was effectively blocking the other vehicle’s approach.
But the oncoming Winnebago veered sharply to its left. The driver was
obviously trying to make an end run around her in order to charge on through
the space between her RV and the entryway pillars.
I can’t let him do that, Riley thought.
She backed up again, fully aware that the driver had no intention of
stopping, and braced herself for impact.
The larger motor home slammed into hers, and Riley struggled with the
steering wheel to keep her vehicle from spinning around.
But it was hopeless.
The RV she was driving tottered violently.
The whole world seemed to lurch around her.
Riley’s head cracked against something hard as her vehicle rolled over on
its side.
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE
Riley struggled to grasp what had just happened. Everything around her
had been spinning, crashing … then the chaos had abruptly stopped.
The RV engine was still running, the headlights still shone into the falling
snow, and the windshield wipers were still moving monotonously back and
forth.
It all seemed perfectly surreal.
Then she remembered. She’d just been rammed by the approaching RV,
and her own vehicle was now lying on its side. She had been slammed
against the driver’s side door and the blow had dazed her for a moment.
She heard a shout behind her.
“Riley!”
Crivaro! She felt a jolt of panic. Had he been hurt?
She unlatched her shoulder harness and shifted around until she could look
between the front seats.
In the back of the RV, her partner was sprawled against the side wall that
was now flat on the ground. The crash had thrown him out of his bed.
Crivaro yelled again, “Did you hear me, goddamn it? What the hell just
happened?”
“We’ve had … an accident,” Riley called back to him. “Are you all
right?”
She saw Crivaro try to pull himself upright. Then he let out a yelp of pain
and sat down again, clutching his ankle.
“Ow,” he snarled. “Hell, no, I’m not all right. I’ve sprained my ankle.”
Riley was relieved that his injury wasn’t worse. He sounded more angry
than anything else.
She touched the side of her own head and felt a little bit of sticky blood
there, but she wasn’t bleeding badly, and otherwise she thought she was all
right.
Then she wondered—where was the RV that had hit them?
She peered out through the badly cracked front windshield.
The Winnebago was right there, and it wasn’t even overturned. The big
motor home was standing upright facing her, but its headlights were off, and
its engine didn’t seem to be running. The collision must have disabled the
vehicle.
But no one was seated behind the wheel and she saw no sign of motion
inside.
Where was the driver?
Had he already gotten away on foot? Could he still be somewhere nearby?
Or could he actually still be inside his motor home?
She knew she mustn’t let him get away.
Trying awkwardly to find her footing in the sideways RV cab, she yelled
back at Crivaro …
“I think the killer’s out there. It was his vehicle that rammed us. I’ve got to stop him.”
“Wait for me, goddamn it,” Crivaro roared back. Then he shouted with
pain again and said, “This ankle’s hurt pretty bad. Give me a couple of
minutes to get myself moving.”
We may not have a couple of minutes, Riley thought.
She reached for her hip holster to make sure her gun was there. She
managed to get to her feet and then climbed across the cab and pushed the
passenger door open. She hoisted herself up through the door and onto the
high side of the camper.
Looking around, Reilly saw that just down the hill lights had come on both
in the resort c
lubhouse and in some of the parked motor homes. She hoped
that civilians wouldn’t start showing up to get involved in a dangerous
situation. But it might help of some security people would arrive.
She jumped down to the ground and turned around slowly, checking her
surroundings. She thought the killer must be on foot, but she didn’t see
anyone outside. Could he have gotten completely out of the visible areas
while she was still in a state of confusion? One of his options would be to go
down into the campground and force the staff or campers to help him.
Another would be to slip past her overturned RV and out the private road to
the highway.
Either of those was possible, but to Riley neither seemed very likely. She
thought the wealthy sociopath she was tracking would hesitate to reveal
himself to these people as a monster. Although he might do that as a last
resort, it didn’t fit his self-image. And she really couldn’t picture him taking off across wilderness territory on foot.
Riley thought it was just as possible that the killer was still in the
Winnebago.
As she approached the big motor home, she touched her 22-caliber Glock.
She’d been given the gun just last Saturday and hadn’t expected to need it
anytime soon. She hoped she wouldn’t need it now.
After all, she’d never shot anyone before.
*
The man pushed a window curtain aside and peeked out at the woman
who was approaching the side entrance to his vehicle.
Who is she? he wondered.
Everything had happened so fast, he hadn’t had time to think. All he knew
was that she had deliberately used her vehicle to try to block him from
leaving the campground. When he had tried to evade her, she had
maneuvered to keep her RV directly in his path. Rather than slow down to
prevent a collision, he had sped up, hoping to shove the smaller vehicle aside
and keep right on going.
But the collision had killed his engine, and he hadn’t been able to start it
up again. He was stranded right here.
As he wondered who the woman was and what she was doing here, he
heard a whimpering cry. It came from the kill room. He’d almost forgotten
that he’d left a victim in that converted closet.
He knew he’d slashed his victim’s wrist, and he’d assumed that the wound