by Blake Pierce
The man shuddered deeply and added …
“I haven’t known what to believe. But I’m glad you’re here.”
Bill asked, “Are you sure he didn’t say anything at all about his business in Holloway? Anything about what he might do there or where he might go?”
“No, he said nothing about that,” Edward said.
Then Jenn asked, “Edward, are you sure he’s still in Holloway? Are you sure he hasn’t come back to the estate?”
That’s a good question, Riley realized.
Edward squinted and said, “I don’t think he could have come back into the mansion without my knowing it, but …
He thought for a moment, then said, “Let me check.”
Then he took a walkie-talkie out of his jacket and stepped aside and spoke into it for two or three minutes. Finally he came back toward his visitors and said …
“The gatekeeper says that Master Niles drove back here a little while ago. I also talked to the household staff, and he’s definitely not in the mansion.”
“Where might he be now?” Riley asked.
Edward said, “I’m afraid I have no idea. As you know, the estate is very large.”
Riley stood up and said …
“Edward, you’ve got to help us find him. I think you understand how urgent this is.”
Edward had gone pale now, almost as if he were in shock.
The truth is sinking in, Riley thought.
“Did you hear me?” she said.
“Y—yes,” Edward stammered. “It—it should be possible, but it might take some time. In addition to the staff right here in the house, the estate as a whole employs over a hundred people. They’re scattered all over the grounds. I’ll gather the household staff together, and we’ll all start making calls until we find out where he is.”
Riley stifled a discouraged sigh.
This could take a long time.
Then something crucial dawned on her …
She said to Edward said, “Make your first call to the landing pad. Tell the staff to alert you if he turns up there. And talk to the helicopter pilot. Tell him not to take Niles off the grounds.”
Edward’s eyes were wide with alarm now.
He said, “But if Niles orders the pilot to fly him out—”
Riley interrupted sharply, “That can’t happen. Make sure the pilot knows that.”
Edward nodded mutely, then started making calls.
*
Wearing his bathrobe and slippers, Niles sat on the bed listening to Dawn singing in the bathroom.
He was worried now.
I should have planned this better.
This isn’t like the other times.
After he and Dawn had finished their drinks, they had started to kiss passionately. Looking back now, Niles wasn’t sure who had initiated it, although the woman had obviously been very eager.
Then Dawn had coyly suggested that they take turns in the bathroom to get undressed for bed. Niles had taken the first turn, and when he returned, Dawn went into the bathroom. She’d taken along a bathrobe and slippers that were kept in the house for visitors.
She was in there right now, singing cheerfully, apparently taking some time to get ready.
Meanwhile, Niles felt desperately unsure of what would happen next.
Was he really going to make love to this woman before he killed her?
Was he capable of doing such a thing?
Things seemed to be slipping out of his control.
And he hated feeling like he couldn’t control things. The other three killings had been so swift and clean and efficient. When he’d met his nephew on the jogging path, the young man had naturally stopped to talk to him—and Niles had plunged the ice pick into his ear with one swift, decisive motion.
Before he’d planned and carried out that act so smoothly, he’d never given any thought to killing anyone. Such a scene had never seemed conceivable in his well-ordered life.
But he’d gotten immediate and deep satisfaction at the deed. He’d experienced a truly profound sense of righteousness.
He hadn’t even been surprised when his foot stopped aching. That had seemed perfectly in keeping with the beauty of his deed.
How wonderful it had felt to rid the world of his nephew’s imperfection!
Even his father might have been proud of him for that!
After that first ecstatic experience, how could he help wanting to do it again … and again …?
He had no regrets at all about the young woman and the fisherman. But he was starting to realize he should have known better than to take a different course with this young woman—to improvise, as it were, and see how events played out.
Now everything seemed vague and uncertain.
All he knew for sure was that, one way or the other, he was going to have to kill her.
Fortunately, the ice pick was ready and waiting in the nightstand drawer.
But then, after he’d done it, once she was dead …?
He shuddered to realize that he’d be faced with a problem he hadn’t had to deal with the other three times …
How to get rid of the body.
At that moment, the singing stopped, and the woman came out of the bathroom wearing a bathrobe and slippers. She smiled as she began to walk toward him, but when she reached out to join him in an embrace, he said …
“Stop right there.”
Her smile faded and she stood still.
His heart was pounding so loudly he could hear it, and he almost wondered if she could as well.
He said, “Take off your robe.”
She looked startled for a moment, then smiled again, apparently taking pleasure in his command. She let the bathrobe fall to the ground, and she stood naked before him except for her slippers.
“Turn around,” he said.
She obeyed, and he got up from the bed and knelt behind her.
She gasped sharply when he touched one of the scars in the bends of her knees and said …
“You’ve had surgery.”
“Y-yes,” she stammered.
“Here and elsewhere,” he said. “Up on your back. Your stomach.”
He stood up and stepped in front of her. “On your face too,” he added.
She hastily reached down and picked up the bathrobe and put it back on, then stared back at him silently.
He asked her, “Do you feel better now? Less … imperfect?”
She said nothing, but she looked shocked and stricken and sad.
Why won’t she reply? he wondered.
He had many more questions he wanted to ask her.
Was she teased as a child for chubbiness and plainness?
Was she shunned—not only in childhood, but in adulthood as well?
Most of all, he wanted to know …
Doesn’t she understand she hasn’t fixed anything?
Doesn’t she know that she’s nothing more than a living, breathing flaw who has no reason to exist?
Before he could utter any of these thoughts, the room phone rang. He walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver and heard Edward’s voice.
“Master Niles? Are you there?”
With a jolt, he realized …
Edward mustn’t know.
He hastily hung up the phone without saying a word and just stood there for a moment, shaken by the intrusion.
Then he heard a soft scurrying sound behind him.
He turned and saw Dawn darting out of the room.
“Stop!” he commanded.
But when he started to pursue her, his foot was seized with a fierce cramp of pain that almost brought him to his knees.
He heard Dawn’s fluttering footsteps as she continued downstairs, then heard her opening the front door as she rushed outside.
Neither the woman nor his own body were obeying his orders.
He opened the night table drawer and took out the ice pick, then limped across the room, commanding himself …
Ignore
the pain.
You’ve got to catch her.
But then his pain eased a little as something occurred to him.
He’d designed the gardens surrounding this house himself, and they were vast and mazelike …
And I know my way much better than she does.
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE
Riley and her colleagues waited as Edward went into action, calling his five-person household staff together and giving them orders, assigning calls for everyone to make as they tried to contact the personnel all over the estate. His energy, efficiency, and authority were impressive.
And I’m glad he’s on our side, Riley thought.
She knew it couldn’t be easy for a man who had served the Cranston family loyally for decades to suddenly turn against his current master. She didn’t get the feeling that Edward hated Niles Cranston. But the butler had made it clear that he did pity Cranston for his childhood pain, and that he knew what kind of scars that pain had left behind …
And he understands what Cranston might be capable of.
As the room buzzed with servants talking on their cell phones, Riley fought back her rising impatience. She hoped Niles Cranston wouldn’t realize that she and her colleagues were here on his estate—and that his own servants were trying to assist them in his apprehension.
He might try to escape by helicopter.
Of course, Edward had already called the landing-pad staff and the pilot, warning them not to let Cranston get away. But Edward couldn’t make any promises about what they might actually do.
After all, Cranston himself wielded the ultimate authority here.
In the midst of all the chatter, Edward came hurrying toward Riley and her colleagues.
“I think I’ve found him,” he blurted.
“Where?” Riley asked breathlessly.
Edward said, “I just called the main guest house. Someone picked up the phone and put it down again without saying a word. Nobody on our staff is supposed to be there—and besides, none of them would hang up like that.”
Riley, Bill, and Jenn exchanged quick glances. Riley could see that her colleagues shared her surge of hope.
Bill said to Edward, “How do we get to this guest house?”
Edward says, “It’s only a couple of minutes’ drive from here …”
He rattled off some succinct, crystal clear directions.
The agents rushed out to their car.
With Bill driving, they soon arrived at an area where gardens divided by tall hedges spread out before them. The hedges blocked much of the view, but Edward had told them that the guesthouse lay at the very center of this complex network of gardens.
It’s almost like a maze, she thought.
Finally they arrived at the house itself. A black SUV was parked outside—Cranston’s own vehicle, Riley felt sure. The car appeared empty, but the front door of the house was standing wide open.
“I don’t like the looks of this,” Bill said.
“I don’t either,” Jenn said.
All three drew their weapons.
Riley called into the house …
“Niles Cranston, this is the FBI. We just want to talk with you, ask a few more questions. We think we may have a lead concerning your nephew’s murder.”
When no reply came, gave Bill and Jenn a silent signal to stick together as they searched the house.
In the living room, the first thing Riley noticed was a silver tray with a couple of empty glasses and a plate with leftover snack food.
He’s not alone.
Was he here with another victim?
Was somebody dead already?
This whole scene didn’t seem logical to her. So far, the killer had committed his murders in a much less complicated manner. He’d simply approached and attacked. But what exactly had he been doing here? Had he been seducing his next victim?
It seems out of character, she thought.
But then, this monster had been changing his MO all along. He’d broken into Robin Scoville’s house in the middle of the night, but he had approached his other two victims more casually. And after killing his nephew, he’d seemed to switch to killing strangers. His only consistency was in his choice of a weapon and how he’d used it.
Riley and her colleagues checked all the first-floor rooms, then crept quietly upstairs.
A single woman’s bedroom slipper lay abandoned on one of the steps.
Riley’s heart was pounding now.
This didn’t look good at all.
She picked up the slipper, and Bill and Jenn followed her the rest of the way up the stairs.
When they went into the large bedroom, Riley saw that the covers on the bed were turned down, but it didn’t look like anyone had actually been in that bed.
Bill checked the bathroom and called back …
“There are clothes in here—a man’s and a woman’s. It looks like they both got undressed.”
And then what happened? Riley wondered.
She paused and tried to imagine how things might have unfolded. She reminded herself …
He’s seeking out victims with imperfections.
That meant that the woman must surely have some distinguishing characteristic that had disturbed him.
Had that flaw been all the more apparent once she was naked?
For a moment she had a hazy sense of connection with the killer …
He couldn’t resist talking to her about it.
He just had to point it out.
And that had been weird enough to frighten his intended victim.
Riley held out the abandoned slipper and said to her colleagues, “She ran away from him. She lost this slipper as she dashed down the stairs.”
Another glimpse of the killer’s mind revealed …
“He took off after her. Limping, but …”
Bill finished her thought. “In those intricate gardens, he’s liable to catch up with her anyway.”
Jenn added, “If he hasn’t already. And killed her.”
“We’ve got to spread out and search,” Riley said.
The three agents dashed down the stairs and out of the house.
Weapons in hand, they headed off in different directions.
Riley followed a path that wound among small gardens that flowered with late-blooming roses and other blossoms. Hedges too tall to see over separated the gardens and blocked her view of anything ahead. As she turned one corner, she came upon an unoccupied bench. After another turn she saw an equally empty swing.
These well-tended grounds had been designed for private or companionable contemplation of nature’s beauty. Now its twists and barriers were likely to be hiding a horror scene.
As she rounded another corner, Riley was startled to encounter a human form.
It was just a statue, a naked woman holding a jar.
With every step, she felt almost overwhelmed by the sheer difficulty of this hunt. How on earth were they going to find anyone in this maze?
Especially someone who doesn’t want to be found?
She was afraid that one of the people she searched for might be already dead. At any turn, she might stumble across the woman’s nearly naked corpse.
And Cranston might be already gone. He would easily find spare clothes. For all she knew, he had already gotten to the landing pad. Fortunately, she hadn’t seen or heard a helicopter flying away.
Then she rounded a hedge and found herself facing them—
Cranston and a young woman, both of them wearing bathrobes.
And in that moment, a gleam of metal caught Riley’s eye …
The ice pick.
He was holding it to the terrified woman’s ear.
Cranston looked frightened himself—which Riley knew only made him all the more dangerous.
He barked at her, “Put down the gun, Agent Paige. If you don’t, I’ll stab her—and she’ll be dead before she hits the ground.”
Riley mentally calculated the risk of firing at him. But she didn’
t dare. He was holding the woman’s body so that it shielded his own. And his arm was tense, ready to strike.
She stooped and put her gun on the ground.
Cautiously, she stood back up and said …
“This is hopeless. You know it. There are two more agents combing the area. You’ll never get out of these gardens.”
Cranston was shaking all over now.
“What makes you think I care?” he said. “You don’t understand what this is all about, do you? You don’t understand why I’m doing this.”
Riley said, “Maybe you’d like to tell me.”
Cranston let out a grim chuckle. “Oh, no. No mind games, Agent Paige. You can’t manipulate me. I understand you better than you realize. You’ve got your own scars, don’t you? You can’t live the life you’ve lived without gathering your share of wounds—both inside and out.”
Riley felt a strange, unexpected shiver.
He’s absolutely right.
He was playing mind games with her.
And if she wasn’t careful, he could win.
“Put down the ice pick, Niles,” she said.
“Oh, I will, gladly,” he said with a sneer. “But only after she’s dead. And I’ll have only one regret—that you won’t be my final victim. I’d been hoping for that ever since we first met. But I’m afraid it’s not to be. How sad.”
Riley kept her eyes focused on his, afraid to divert her glance for even a second.
If she could keep his crazed mind focused on her …
But what could she do except postpone the inevitable?
Sooner or later, her gaze would weaken, and that would be the end of it.
Just then she heard a clatter of footsteps running on the trail behind her.
Bill, she thought. Or Jenn.
One or both of them must have heard their voices.
And at the sound, Niles Cranston glanced aside.
The ice pick in his clenched fist drifted a few inches away from the woman’s ear.
Riley had no time to think …
Now!
She charged forward and threw herself bodily against both the man and his hostage.
All three of their bodies tumbled to the ground.