The house, in southern California’s trademark Mediterranean style, had been built in 1926 by an insanely imaginative architect. It had seven bedrooms, five full baths and two half baths, a vast kitchen, a step-down living room under a barreled ceiling, a study, a media room, and a covered veranda featuring one of the home’s four fireplaces. And a maid’s room, de rigueur in the twenties. But Faust had no live-in help. He enjoyed privacy.
The maid’s room was on the ground floor near the back door. It was windowless and small.
Six years ago, when Faust purchased the house, he made alterations to the room. The work was done quietly and without the inconvenience of government permits or union contractors. He stripped the faded wallpaper and had the room soundproofed. He had the flimsy door replaced with one of solid oak. He tore out the carpet, exposing the hardwood floor.
To carry out his final alterations, he hired day laborers who spoke little English and had no idea who he was. At his instruction they built a new paneled wall in front of the door to the room. The wall had a hinged section that could be swung forward to permit access to the door behind it. When the hinged section was closed, it blended seamlessly with the rest of the wall.
The maid’s room had effectively ceased to exist. No visitor to his home—or almost none—ever imagined that there was a room behind the paneled wall. Although Elise had spent many nights in the house, had roamed it freely, even she did not know.
But Raven knew.
Faust had kept Raven in the hidden, soundproofed room for ten days now, subsisting on soda crackers and bottled water. He was most impressed with her. She had held out so bravely during her captivity.
But all her courage would not save her from the same fate as the others. The many others whose lives he had taken, all the pretty young things killed by his hands.
I am not a serial killer, he had told Abby Sinclair. I killed just once.
He had delivered the same lie to Elise. She believed him. Sinclair had been skeptical. Yet in the end she had taken the job anyway. For Elise’s sake. To protect the innocent. That was the sales pitch, and it had worked. He had turned her own morality against her.
Now Sinclair was working as his agent, while convinced she was on the side of good. He wondered what Raven would think of that.
Faust almost asked her, after he unlocked the door and entered the room and untied the linen gag from around her head. But he forgot. He was struck again by her beautiful innocence, her absolute helplessness.
She lay before him, naked, bruised, manacled to the headboard, coughing weakly after biting down on the gag for many hours. He never left her unmuzzled. Although the room was soundproofed, he took no chances. For the same reason he had positioned the bed well away from the walls, so she could not stamp her feet and create reverberations that would travel through the house.
Her hair was long and black, and might be silky when clean. He wouldn’t know. She had been dirty when he met her, one of countless urchins living in the streets or in condemned buildings, turning tricks for a little pocket money. She was a runaway from somewhere. The appellation Raven was only a nickname, presumably a tribute to her jet-black hair; he had no notion of what her real name might be. She would doubtless tell him, but he had never thought to ask.
Although she had been dirty enough on their first encounter, she was positively filthy now. The sealed, airless room was hot, and she was scared, a combination that had left her ripe with body odor. He did not mind. He liked the smell of unadorned human flesh. Americans masked their scent with perfumes, colognes, and deodorants. He preferred nature’s uncomplicated musk.
Although he was indifferent to her true name, he had inquired after her age. She was fifteen, she had said. That was good. He still liked them young.
She had concluded her coughing fit. He unscrewed a bottle of mineral water and tipped it to her mouth. It was a gesture not of kindness but of necessity. Deprived of water she would expire of thirst, and he did not want her to die that way.
She swallowed half the bottle, choking on it at the end. He pulled it free and wiped her chin.
With rheumy eyes she peered up at him. She asked the question she always asked.
“Why?” Her voice was a sad, toneless croak.
She had asked him this question many times over the past ten days, sometimes tearfully, sometimes angrily, and sometimes—as she did now—in exhausted futility. Always he gave her the same answer, the only answer there was, but one she did not want to hear.
“There is no why,” he said. “There is no reason for anything, ever. You distract yourself in seeking what cannot be found.”
She only stared at him. The words had not reached her. They never did. She was a creature of her ethos, her mythos. She believed in reasons, in purpose. She could not accept, could not grasp, the ultimate pointlessness of it all.
After a long moment she asked a new question, one she had not voiced before.
“When?”
In the deflated pessimism of her tone, he caught her meaning. When would it be over? When would she be over?
“Soon,” he said, almost kindly. He could afford to be kind to one who was utterly under his power.
He never could predict his exact timetable. There came a point, invariably, when the victim ceased to interest him. When the last glimmer of life and hope had drained away, and there was only a shell, staring and mindless. He took no enjoyment in maintaining the victim’s life after that. Once she had been thoroughly broken, reduced to something less than human—then it was time to put her down.
He thought of it as a mercy killing. The termination of a life no longer worth living.
Raven was nearly at that point. He had charted her descent with scientific exactitude. In the beginning, she had tried to kick him whenever he approached; her legs were not chained. When ungagged, she had screamed for help, the cries echoing through the empty house.
He had not punished her for these actions. They were a natural response, a manifestation of the will to survive. She was no better than an animal, after all, and like an animal she acted on instinct.
Now she neither fought back nor called out. She was spent. Or nearly spent. But not quite there. A day longer, perhaps two, and she would be done. When the last faint spark faded from her eyes.
“Soon,” he said again, brushing her matted hair. “Soon now.”
He was so very pleased with her.
16
At eleven a.m. Abby called Faust on his landline. He answered on the second ring, sounding unusually cheery. “And how may I be of service?”
“We need to work out your plans for tonight.”
“I am afraid I already have plans. I am making a public appearance at a bookshop in Santa Monica. The event is long scheduled and cannot be changed.”
“That’s okay. What time are you supposed to be there?”
“Seven o’clock.”
“Is Elise going, too?”
“Why, of course,” he said, as if his girlfriend’s presence was inevitable at any of his events.
“What I need you to do is text-message Elise, reminding her of when to be there and where to go. Be sure you mention the name of the store.”
“All this is for my stalker’s benefit, I presume?”
“Exactly.”
“And you still will not share his name or address with me?”
“I’m funny that way. Get used to it.”
“It appears I have no choice. Your assumption is that the man will be present at the bookshop?”
“He’ll show.”
There was an uncomfortable pause as Abby realized she had run out of things to say. To fill the silence, she asked if he expected a big turnout.
“A select crowd. Those of refined sensibilities. Those who embrace the full implications of the postmodern.”
“Terrific. What are you going to do, read from your book?”
“That would serve no purpose. Everyone in attendance will have read it already. No,
I will deliver some extemporaneous remarks and answer questions. Perhaps,” he added, “you have some questions you wish to have answered.”
“Why would I?”
“In our last conversation you seemed most interested in my modus operandi.”
“I don’t have any questions.”
“Pity. I do enjoy talking about myself. I am quite shameless in that respect. Most people, of course, are too courteous—or too intimidated—to ask about Emily Wallace. Ordinarily they select some safer topic. Geschwur, for instance.”
“Geschwur?”
“Surely you’ve heard of them. They are one of the most commercially successful musical groups in Germany. They have been awarded two Echoes, the German equivalent of your Grammy Awards. Not to mention the Comet, another prestigious prize.”
“The Comet, huh? How about the Ajax? Or the Formula 409?”
“You make light of them. You should not. Their most recent album sold more than four million copies. It was titled Flammen.”
“Meaning?”
“Flames. The fires of hell, perhaps.”
“Lovely. Why would anybody be asking you about this band?”
“Because I toured with them. Oh, yes. For more than four months.”
“You don’t strike me as a rocker.”
“I have no musical talent. I spoke to the audience from the spotlight while the band played and appropriate images were projected on the screen above the stage.”
“Appropriate images. Such as Emily Wallace’s morgue photos?”
“Among other things. The audience adored my performance. I made many new fans.”
“Well, I’m not interested in Gesundheit.”
“Geschwur,” he corrected. “The word means ulcer.”
“Somehow I don’t think they’d appeal to me.”
“I believe they would. They speak to the jungle animal within us all. Some listeners are too civilized to hear their siren call. But not you, I think.”
“You’re not one to be passing judgment on who’s civilized.”
“No judgment. Merely an observation. I know you, Miss Sinclair. Perhaps better than you know yourself.”
Abby wasn’t too happy with that thought. She did her best to get it out of her mind when the call was over, throwing herself into the task of researching Mark Brody.
She accessed several online databases and ran the name and address on his driver’s license. The address—an apartment in Reseda—was legitimate, but out-of-date. He had moved out six months ago, having lived there for less than a year. Before that time, there was no record of his whereabouts. She searched news stones on the Iraq War. There was a Mark Brody who was involved in action at Karbala Gap that took the life of his CO. Without a photo she couldn’t be sure that it was the same man; conceivably her Mark Brody had stolen the other guy’s identity. Still, she thought he probably had been telling the truth.
He said he’d left the military after the incident, which meant he had become a civihan sometime in the late spring of 2003. From that time forward, until he established residence in Reseda, his history was a blank. Well, he’d told her that he had remained in Iraq. Whatever he’d been up to over there, he’d stayed off the grid.
She checked other databases. He had a few credit cards, but they were all registered to the defunct address. Presumably his mail was being forwarded, but to where?
She returned to the news articles on the Iraq incident. One of Brody’s fellow A-team members was quoted. His name was Carter Holloway, and according to the story he hailed from the small town of Creston, Idaho. If he’d left the service by now, he might have gone back there. She looked him up in a database of Creston residents and found his name and number. She called. When a man answered, she asked to speak to Carter Holloway.
“That’s me.”
“Sir, did you serve in the army with Mark Brody?”
His wary pause told her the answer. “Who’s asking, if I may?”
“Oh. Sorry. My name is Sally Mayhew. I knew Mark in Iraq, but I’ve kind of lost touch with him, and I’m trying to track him down.”
“I was with him in Iraq. I don’t recall meeting you.”
“This was after he left the military. As I guess you know—or maybe you don’t—he stayed on in Iraq for some time afterward.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Holloway said, but his guarded tone made her pretty sure he was lying. Whatever Brody had been up to in Iraq, it hadn’t been the sort of thing his friends wanted to discuss with strangers.
“I was just wondering if you had a way for me to reach him. Telephone number or address, e-mail, anything at all.”
He thought it over. “I can give you his number. Hold on.”
She waited while he got it, then wrote down a number with an 818 area code. That made it a San Fernando Valley location, but it didn’t match the number associated with his old apartment.
She thanked Holloway and was about to hang up when he asked, “How exactly did you know Brody, anyway?”
“Well, you know ...” She was good at sounding shy and flustered when she had to.
“Yeah, I think I get it. Look, miss, don’t go messing things up for him, will you?”
She wasn’t sure what this meant. “I just want to say hi to him, that’s all.”
A grunt of skepticism. “I hope that is all. He’s been through a lot. He doesn’t need any more ... complications in his life.”
“I’ll remember that,” Abby promised.
She had a feeling Mark Brody’s life was already a good deal more complicated than Holloway knew.
At the computer again, she ran the number on a reverse directory. The address that came up was in Van Nuys. No unit number, so it was apparently not an apartment but a house.
She took the Miata, speeding north on the 405 into the Valley. His place was a modest ranch-style house on a tree-lined street. The lawn and hedges were neatly trimmed. She parked at the curb a few doors down, wondering if she should risk a little B and E. The house might contain secrets she couldn’t learn anywhere else. But breaking in was chancy, especially in broad daylight. Even so, she just might go for it.
First she rang the doorbell, simply to confirm that the place was empty. If Mark Brody happened to be here, she would have a lot of explaining to do. But she was sure he would still be staking out Faust in Los Feliz. He had to be there to pick up the cell phone messages. He—
The door opened. She missed a couple of heartbeats before realizing that the figure standing before her was not Brody, but a woman in a blue housecoat. A pregnant woman, who appeared to be in her third trimester. If Abby could judge from the nonstop yelling of a tyke in another room, it wasn’t her first child.
Abby was good at a lot of things, and one of them was improvising when circumstances took her by surprise.
“Why, hello,” she said smoothly in a Southern accent that had come from nowhere. “I’m looking for a Mr. Mark Brody.”
The woman frowned, unaccustomed to visitors. “I’m afraid he’s not at home right now.”
“That’s too bad. I wanted to see him, and I won’t be in town long.”
“I can leave a message. Who should I say dropped by?”
“Sarah Joiner.” Instinctively she used a different name from the one she’d given Holloway. “I knew Mark when he was in the army. Friend of mine told me his address.”
“You knew him from the military?”
“From Fort Bragg.” This was where the Green Berets trained. All of a sudden she understood the reason for her Southern accent. Fort Bragg was in North Carolina. “I was on the civilian support staff.”
“You an old girlfriend of his?” the woman asked, pretending to smile.
“No,” Abby reassured her with a dismissive flutter of her hand, “no, it was nothing like that.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Don’t really want the competition.”
“I take it you’re ... with him now?”
“I’m his wife,” sh
e said coolly. “Patricia.”
Wife. Hell. And she had one kid, and another in the oven. This was not what Abby had expected from Mark Brody. Suddenly their close encounter between the sheets was looking a lot less romantic. But at least now she knew what Holloway had meant about not making Brody’s life more complicated.
“Nice to meet you,” Abby said, turning on the Southern charm. “Well, if you could just tell him I came calling. Like I said, I’m in town for only a couple days. I can give you my number at the hotel—”
Patricia cut her off. “Mark won’t be back that soon. He’s away on business.”
“Still the traveling man, huh? He always wanted to see the world. Action and adventure, that was his thing. I guess it still is.”
“Seems so,” Patricia said curtly. Her smile had frozen in place.
“What part of the planet is he off to this time?”
“South America. Now if you don’t mind, I was just in the middle of something.”
“Sorry, didn’t mean to be standing here running my mouth off. My apologies for intruding. You say hi to Mark for me when he gets back.”
“Will do.” That smile never wavered, even as the door slowly closed.
Abby walked back to her car. So Mark Brody had a house and a pregnant wife and a kid. The wife might be covering for her husband with the South America story, or maybe she just hadn’t felt too sociable with someone who, despite her denials, could be one of his old flames.
But Abby suspected that Patricia really believed her hubby was south of the border. It seemed doubtful that Brody would have told her what he was actually up to. Special Forces guys, like cops, tended to be reticent with their family members, even their wives. Brody, of course, wasn’t Special Forces anymore, but old habits died hard.
The bottom line was that she wasn’t going to learn anything in Van Nuys. The guest cottage was the place to look. Seven o’clock couldn’t come soon enough.
17
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