Last Breath

by Michael Prescott

  He walked off, his footsteps receding. From what seemed like far away he spoke again, his voice raised to cover distance.

  “By the way, I lied about not remembering that song. And, darling—I’ve saved the last dance for you.”

  PART TWO

  A Countryside in Arms

  8:00 P.M.—MIDNIGHT WEDNESDAY

  31

  Treat paced his bedroom, clenching and unclenching his fists, lifting his hands to run his long fingers through his hair. He almost believed that he was agitated, but he was never agitated. He prided himself on his self-control. The world could not touch him. He had risen above it. He had mastered death and life.

  Even so, he could not stop pacing. He traced a series of irregular ellipses over the bedroom carpet.

  By now he should have had her. Should have already begun the night’s entertainment. And it would have been such a special night, because she was special.

  Instead she had been removed from his reach, and why? Because the police were on to him.

  It was the only explanation for the insane vision that greeted him when he drove down her street at 6:45, only an hour ago. He had expected to see lights burning in the windows of her bungalow, the yard dark. Perhaps there would be the soft chatter of television voices from inside. That was how it had been on other nights, when he had reconnoitered the house.

  Instead he saw a police car—a Sheriff’s Department patrol unit—parked in her driveway. At her front door, two deputies.

  He cruised past without slowing. Whatever was happening, he could not afford to be seen there.

  For fifteen minutes he drove aimlessly, trying to decide what to make of this unwelcome development. Deputies at her house? It made no sense. The mid-Wilshire area was not even under the Sheriff’s jurisdiction. There was no reason for any deputies to be there.

  Perhaps they were friends stopping by to say hello. If so, they might already have left.

  Once this cheering prospect occurred to him, he returned to her neighborhood for a second look.

  This time things were worse.

  The deputies’ car was still there, but joining it were three unmarked sedans, obviously official vehicles, and a pair of LAPD squad cars. The bungalow blazed with light. Uniformed and plainclothes cops were visible inside.

  Again he drove past without reducing speed. Then he headed home.

  He had not permitted himself to formulate any opinions until he had more information. Hasty, unwarranted speculation was anathema to him, the bane of methodical reasoning.

  Once home, he had switched on his laptop and checked the Web site’s video feed. It was still running. The lights in her bedroom were on, and cops wandered in and out. Nobody was looking at the camera or seemed to suspect its existence. That was one good thing, at least.

  He owned a police scanner, which he tuned to the frequencies used by the LAPD’s Wilshire Division. He monitored the cross talk as the scanner hopped from band to band.

  Finally he turned on his TV and clicked through the channels in search of a news bulletin. He saw nothing but entertainment programs, each more witless than the last.

  His gaze had kept returning to the computer screen. Once, he saw an older, rumpled man in a wrinkled suit walk slowly through the bedroom. He knew that man’s name. Morris Walsh, head of the task force hunting the Hourglass Killer.

  Now what the hell was he doing there?

  There could be only one answer. The police must have discovered that Caitlin was his next target. He had pressed his luck too far, following her after she left work. She had seen the van—he’d caught her looking at him outside the Korean market. No doubt she’d reported the incident to her fellow cops. Somehow a white van had been linked to one or more of the previous Hourglass Killer slayings—perhaps somebody had spotted it near one of the abduction sites or the dump sites of the bodies. Walsh had moved Caitlin to a safe house and was now inspecting her home for clues. But they had not yet learned of the Web site itself. If they had, they surely would have taken it down by now.

  What to do, what to do?

  He didn’t know, and he hated not knowing.

  Uncertainty was rare for him. Ambiguity was not a daily feature of his life. He felt lost, and this was a feeling both new and disagreeable.

  He stopped in the middle of his bedroom, worn out by worry. For a few moments he just stood there. The TV flickered in a corner; the computer, resting in its docking station, displayed the video feed; the scanner hissed and crackled with snippets of radio code.

  Treat ignored it. He looked at himself in the mirror over the bureau, a tall man with thinning hair and sharp features and a spindly, angular body. For a moment he saw the teenager he had been, the lonely, remote, pale thirteen-year-old dubbed Spider-Man by his peers—not from any similarity to the comic-book crime-fighter, but because he had reminded them of a spider with his double-jointed appendages branching out in weird directions.

  He hadn’t minded the name. He liked spiders. He admired their patience, their craft, and their cold ruthlessness. Even as a child, he had known that these were the special qualities he wished to nurture in himself. He had taken to raising spiders in the cellar. His parents hadn’t objected. They had heard that it was advisable to encourage a gifted boy in his hobbies and interests. Besides, they were afraid of their son.

  He had learned much from spiders, so much that he supposed he had become something of a spider himself. Certainly he was a creature who spun elaborate webs and even lived, in a sense, on the great Web of the Internet.

  But now he felt entangled in a web not of his own making—and he didn’t like the feeling, didn’t like it at all.

  Perhaps he should flee. He had done it before, in other circumstances, when he had begun to feel that his luck had run its course.

  Oh, but he hated to leave when Caitlin’s fate was still unknown. When there was still a chance he might have her.

  Besides, he was safe in his apartment. His shock troops would protect him against all intruders. In the event that the barbarians stormed his castle, he could count on holding them off long enough to flee.

  He decided to risk staying a little longer. Had the victim been anyone else, he would have yielded to prudence and made his escape. But Caitlin was indeed special.

  He had wanted her for so long.

  32

  Walsh was in C.J. Osborn’s living room, conferring with members of the Scientific Investigation Division, when his cell phone buzzed.

  “Detective, it’s Noah Rawls in Baltimore. I see your men have found the house.”

  Walsh almost asked how Rawls could know this, but the answer was obvious. He was still monitoring the video feed.

  “We’re here, all right,” Walsh said, “trying to figure out our next move.”

  “Maybe I can be of help.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Have you tried looking for the Webcam accessories he installed?”

  “What accessories?” Walsh covered one ear to muffle the noise of conversation and police radios crackling everywhere. “And remember, you’re talking to a computer illiterate.”

  “Then I’ll keep it simple. We already know he’s been shooting real-time video of this woman in her bedroom. But it’s not enough just to record the images. He has to get them onto the Web.”

  “Right,” Walsh said, following so far.

  “Ordinarily a Webcam is wired directly to a PC. But I gather that’s not so in this case.”

  “There’s no computer in the bedroom. She has one, but she keeps it in the den.”

  “Then he must have installed a small hidden camera with wireless capability. In other words, the camera is equipped with a transmitter that sends the video signal to a larger receiver, which would be more difficult to conceal. Since the transmitter’s range is probably quite limited, the receiver must be hidden either inside the house or near it.”

  “So we look for a receiver? Like a TV set?”

  “No, Detective, a c
omputer. Not the victim’s, but one that the killer himself could set up and control. Most likely a portable computer, one with the necessary hardware and software to pick up a TV signal and convert it to digital form.”

  “How is this computer connected to the Web?”

  “Via a landline, probably—although he could be using a cell phone as a wireless modem. Either way, he’s sending the video feed from the computer to the proxy server on the Web, which then sends it to the Web server here in Maryland.”

  “Okay, we look for a computer, right? A laptop model?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “And it could be in the house or nearby?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m betting it’s someplace on the grounds. It would be easier for him to obtain access to the yard than to the house.”

  “But he had to be inside the house to plant the Webcam.”

  “I’m going on the assumption that he obtained access to the place on some pretext. Repairman, say. He planted the camera while the victim wasn’t looking. Installing this other gear would have required a separate visit.”

  “Possibly,” Rawls conceded. “If that’s so, where would he hide it?”

  “Could be the garden. Or along the fence. Or in the garage.”

  “Is there a light in the garage?”

  “I think so, yeah.”

  “Then that’s your best bet.”

  “Mind telling me why?”

  “Because a light means electrical wiring—and he would want to wire the computer into the main current. Laptop batteries don’t last very long.”

  “Good point. We’ll check the garage first. Can you stay on the line?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Great. Hold on.”

  Walsh pulled Cellini away from a conversation with Boyle and said he required her assistance in a search.

  Together they crossed the yard. Beyond the picket fence, clusters of neighbors and other spectators stood watching, their faces garish in the flickering glare of the patrol cars’ light bars. What they didn’t know was that Detective Lopez, inside the house, was taking their photos with a long-lens camera. There was an outside chance the killer was among the gawkers at the scene.

  “Should’ve thought of that myself,” Cellini said when Walsh summarized Rawls’s suggestion. “Thing is, I can’t figure out why he would leave any of his equipment in place.”

  “Maybe he planned to return later and retrieve it.”

  “Too big a risk of the evidence collectors coming across the stuff.”

  “Well, in this case he might’ve left in a hurry. Let’s say he’s still in the house when the deputies arrive. He hears them banging on the door, and he gets spooked. Flees out the back way before the deputies can reach it. While they’re searching the interior, he’s making his getaway.”

  They reached the garage, where C.J. Osborn’s Dodge was parked. Shelves lined three walls. Walsh took the right side, Cellini the left. They both pulled on rubber gloves to avoid contaminating the scene. The SID forensics experts hadn’t checked out the garage yet.

  As he searched through racks of hardware supplies, Walsh crooked his cell phone under his chin and asked Rawls if he was still there.

  “Sure am,” Rawls said, sounding much nearer than three thousand miles away.

  “We’re looking through the garage now. Is there any progress on your end in tracking this guy down?”

  “We’re pursuing a couple of angles. For one thing, he corresponded via e-mail with the subject here in Baltimore. We’re reviewing the e-mails now. They were scrubbed—sent anonymously—but there may be some clue in the actual content of the messages.”

  “Don’t you have document analysis experts for that?”

  “Yeah, we’ve sent copies of the e-mails to one of our documents guys. His initial reaction was that there wasn’t much to work with, so don’t get your hopes up.”

  “Okay, what’s the other angle?”

  “Do you recall how I told you that he’s been routing the video feed through a proxy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve obtained a subpoena to see the information in that client’s account.”

  “So soon? Fast work.”

  “The Bureau never sleeps, Detective,” Rawls intoned sententiously, then laughed. “Unfortunately it may take time for the proxy to comply with the order. You ought to see the delaying tactics these outfits will use.”

  “Why would they delay in a case like this? They’re protecting a serial killer.”

  “It’s a privacy issue,” Rawls said mildly.

  “Tell them about C.J. Osborn’s privacy. Tell them—hey, wait a minute. I found something.” Walsh motioned to Cellini, who joined him at the rear of the garage.

  Behind a row of paint cans rested a small black computer, its green LED dimly glowing, and duct-taped to it, a cell phone. Neither detective touched the equipment. There was a small chance the killer had left prints, fibers, or other evidence on the gear.

  “Jackpot,” Cellini said. “We can track him down through his cell-phone account. If that fails, we’ll get the serial number of the computer. He might have registered it with the manufacturer. If so, he’s in their database.”

  Walsh told Rawls what they’d found. “In the garage, just like you thought.”

  “He must have wired the phone into the main current also,” Rawls said. “Otherwise it would have gone dead weeks ago.”

  “So,” Walsh said slowly, “if I wanted to shut down the video feed, all I’d have to do is unplug the phone?”

  “Or shut down the computer. If that’s what you want to do.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “I didn’t think so. I’ve been watching from here, remember. I’ve seen the police going in and out of her bedroom. None of you has even glanced at the camera, though you must know it’s there.”

  “We can guess its approximate location ... Probably hidden inside the curtain rod of the window facing the bed. But everybody’s under orders to play dumb. And we’re going to continue the moron act for a while.”

  “You don’t want him to know you’ve figured out the Internet angle.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s one step ahead of us in every other way. This is the one area where we may—may—have an edge on him. And right now, we need any edge we can get if we want to save C.J. Osborn’s life.”

  There was silence for a moment, and then Rawls said very softly, “Detective, are you telling me he’s abducted that woman?”

  Walsh closed his eyes. “Oh, shit. I’ve just been assuming you knew.”

  “I only know what I see on the monitor. Police in the house. I thought you had tracked her down and taken her into protective custody.”

  “He beat us to her. Not by much.”

  “Is she ... Do you think she’s already ...?”

  “Probably not yet. He, uh, takes his time with them, I think.”

  Another silence on the Maryland end of the call. Walsh wished he hadn’t broken the news that way.

  Finally there was a sigh from Rawls. “This is some job we’ve got, isn’t it, Detective?”

  Walsh found a smile. “It has its ups and downs. How long you been with the feds, Special Agent?”

  “Twenty-six years.”

  “Thirty for me. You think we’re both getting too old for this work?”

  “I think, Detective, these young guys need old farts like us to keep their butts in line.”

  Walsh laughed. He felt the same way. “Call me Morrie, okay?”

  “Okay, Morrie. I’m Noah. We dinosaurs ought to be on a first-name basis. You get to work on the electronic gear, and I’ll see if we can put a little more pressure on this proxy outfit. Maybe we can make faster progress.”

  “I just hope it’s fast enough,” Walsh said.

  “He takes his time with them,” Rawls reminded him.

  “Yeah. But not much time.”

>   He ended the call and checked his watch. 8:15. She had been abducted at approximately 6:45.

  If C.J. Osborn truly was a member of the Four-Hour Club, her time was quickly running out.

  33

  Couldn’t see. Couldn’t move. Could hardly even breathe with the damn rubber ball wedged in her mouth.

  C.J. had one advantage. Adam had left her alone—and while alone, she could try to find a way to free her hands. If she could loosen the duct tape around her wrists or cut it somehow ...

  Then she could remove the gag, the blindfold, the tape on her ankles, even the cord that lashed her to the pillar.

  With her hands free, she could do anything.

  There had to be some way to get the tape off. She fingered the post behind her. The surface was concrete—most likely covering a substructure of steel. Were there cracks in the surface, rough spots where she could abrade the tape?

  No such luck. The concrete was as smooth as if it had been freshly poured.

  What she needed was a tool. Some sort of debris—a shard of glass, a sharp piece of metal.

  Wherever she was, the place had a concrete floor and concrete posts. It might be a work space of some kind, a place where she just might find a discarded screw or a rusty nail lying around.

  She extended her legs and reached out, feeling the concrete floor with the tips of her sneakers.

  She wished he hadn’t blindfolded her. Wished she could see what she was doing.

  Damn Adam anyway. Damn him to hell.

  He’d said that if she knew the how of it, the why would explain itself. But the question why? still rang unanswered in her mind.

  There seemed to be nothing directly in front of her. The floor felt smooth and clean.

  She extended her legs to her left, exploring the floor on that side of her body.

  Still nothing.

  She turned in the opposite direction and again made a sweep of the area near her.