He is so shocked to see her, trying to wrap his mind around what it means, that it gives her that few second’s advantage. He is just that one second too late to raise his gun.
It’s a big, scary weapon.
But hers is bigger.
She stamps on the accelerator and drives straight for him.
Chapter 32
Portland - present
Singh and Snyder
Singh sits back on the sofa. While Agent Snyder has been telling his story, she has been supplying her suppositions about Cara’s place in the narrative. Now he stands from the armchair where he has been sitting, and looks out the glass doors of her suite, contemplating the river view in silence.
She has no idea what he is thinking.
After a moment she adds anxiously, “I have no evidence Cara Lindstrom was there. I only know from the coroner’s report that on that day in 2005, Wayne Gilman was crushed by a pickup truck on a property he owned in the woods outside Richmond. The truck was left abandoned on the property and found to belong to an associate of Gilman’s. The associate claimed the vehicle was stolen from the parking lot of a gun show he had been attending. He had many alibi witnesses and was not charged with Gilman’s murder.”
She pauses, remembering another point. “I am guessing that it was the police arriving at Gilman’s house at ASAC Roarke’s moment of peril.”
Finally Snyder turns to her. “No. That was me. The T-shirt I gave Matthew to put on had a concealed tracker. When he disappeared from the gun show, I was able to trace him to Gilman’s house.”
“And Ms. Gilman?”
He gives her a look of quiet triumph. “We got her and her children out that day. She didn’t know Gilman wouldn’t be coming home, so she went with us on the spur of the moment. Fortunately, Matthew had managed to establish that much trust. Of course, as things unfolded, she didn’t need witness protection after all.”
Singh feels a rush of lightness that she recognizes as joy.
He nods in acknowledgment, and continues, “Gilman’s body wasn’t found until some days later, on that property in the woods. And we—that is, the Bureau, recovered hundreds of weapons from a mobile home that had being used exclusively as a weapons stash.”
He has not mentioned a point that Singh has been wondering about. She raises it now. “In your account, you said that ASAC Roarke saw Gilman drive away from the gun show back lot in a white van. But the van was not listed as seized property in the police report.”
Snyder nods to her. “Correct. We never recovered the van full of weapons. It could’ve been stolen, or the items relocated. But that would leave a mystery. Why didn’t the thief or thieves take any of the weapons or munitions inside the trailer? The door of the trailer was left wide open, but the armaments inside didn’t seem to have been touched. Maybe there just wasn’t time. We simply don’t know.”
Singh is thinking of the lake near Gilman’s forest property. A large lake in a recreational area. If the authorities dredged it, would they find the van and the weapons, sunk without a trace, all those years ago?
Or is that more of her own fancy?
Snyder finishes, “No one was ever apprehended, for the theft or for the murder. It could have been one of his militia associates betraying him. It could have been one of the weapons dealers—”
“But nothing was ever proven.”
“No,” Agent Snyder answers absently. “Nothing was ever proven.”
He looks toward the map and the dual timelines.
“Now. The red string?”
Singh takes a breath and relates what Lam told her of the red string of Fate.
When she has finished, he is frowning deeply. “If I am understanding you correctly, you are postulating that Matthew’s and Cara’s paths have crossed, not just in the Gilman case, but many dozens of times over the last sixteen years. And that their connection is the key to solving potentially dozens of murders.”
He has articulated it better than she has been able to, herself. At the same time, hearing him speak the words, she thinks she has possibly never heard something so insane. She fully expects Agent Snyder to order her back to San Francisco on the spot.
“I know it sounds mad…” she begins faintly.
Snyder gives her a wry smile. “’We’re all mad, here.’”
Singh recognizes the quote from Alice in Wonderland. It perfectly encapsulates the down-the-rabbit-hole feeling of the case.
He turns and looks at the chart again. “There’s no question there is some uncanny bond between Matthew and Cara. It’s so evident we may as well call it fact. Your ‘red string’ theory is as good an explanation as any. Better than anything I’ve come up with.”
She bites her lip. “I have not spoken with ASAC Roarke about this theory.”
Agent Snyder laughs shortly, startled. “No. No, that’s probably wise.”
He moves to the white board with the list of Cara’s murders, then walks to the end of the map, and stands looking up at the state of Oregon.
“This may explain… can it explain…?” He trails off, and is so silent for so long she becomes uneasy.
Suddenly he turns to her, and his face is grave. “If your theory is even remotely true, Agent Singh, we have urgent work to do. Data entry can wait. We must fill in this timeline, these charts of yours, leaving nothing out.”
He glances at back at the map. “I believe we’ll be needing more string.”
PART THREE
Chapter 33
Phoenix, Arizona - September 27, 2008
Cara
It is her country, now.
She has been across it five times, and has traveled all of the major North-South, South-North interstates as well.
There is a unique pleasure in knowing every mile of the Interstates, the veins and arteries of the land, the quirks and rhythms of each region.
And there has been a vast relief in the discovery of just how much of the country is free of people. At how infinitely many places there are to escape, to hide. In wilderness, in deserts, in mountains, valleys… particularly in the national parks, with their infinitely varied, otherworldly Beauty—but in populated areas as well. In unincorporated desert communities where no one questions anyone else’s past. In anonymous beach towns where the second and third houses of obscenely wealthy owners are left empty for predictable spans of time, providing luxurious accommodation during what the unadventurous call the off-season.
Everywhere she goes she is cataloguing, making notes. Learning distances to major highways, learning the peculiarities of state highway laws.
And planting stashes of money and other essential items.
She began the practice some time into her second cross-country drive. Now in every state she crosses, she opens a mailbox drop or small storage unit and automates the payments to one of her false identity credit cards. In these boxes she stashes emergency cash and IDs. She puts combination locks on all of them, all with the same numerical code except for the prefix, which varies with each state. Each storage unit is at a town on a one hundred-mile marker within the state, so she can never lose count and so she will always know how close she is to an emergency stash.
She takes these elaborate precautions because she knows, beyond doubt, there will be a time when she will need to use them.
The whispering of the moon has not ceased since she has been on the road. In fact, it has become more focused, its directions more clear and implacable. The closer the moon is to full, the more likely there will be an Encounter: a moment, an incident, that will force her to do battle. When It will reveal Itself and cannot be ignored. When the instructions—from the moon, the earth, the wind, the stars, the murmur of the planet itself—cannot be denied.
There is no questioning why. Abomination must be eliminated. Atrocity must be halted.
She knows no other sane way to live in the world.
There is still the essential question: Why her? Why has she been chosen for this bleak mission?
> She only knows that she sees. She cannot in her heart believe that others don’t see, as well. How can it be possible not to see: the glinting looks, the leers, the predatory intent. Predators wear masks, but there is something always that slips, that reveal It. Sometimes her own revulsion is so palpable that she is hard-pressed not to cry out at the sight of the monster, in random encounters at a gas station, in a hotel lobby, on a city street.
But somehow others are unwilling to fight. To stand in the street and name It for what It is.
She does not often stop to wonder why. The loneliness would be crushing. But if The Mission is hers alone, it is no less urgent. In fact, it is more so.
So she prepares her stashes. For the inevitable time when she will need them.
Other aspects of her road habits have evolved as well.
For the first several months of her freedom, she slept only outside. As the weather grew colder, she ventured into anonymous motels along the interstates. The novelty of having a soft bed, of not having to seek out a shower in a campsite or a gym, or bathe herself in a lake or stream, proved alluring. She was surprised and relieved to find the motel clerks pay little attention to travelers. They see so very many.
She has found it is good practice for her to speak a few words with them, to practice different accents, different languages. To blend chameleon-like into any environment.
She understands that these forays into civilization are important, even critical. If she stayed only in the wilderness she would become altogether feral, too noticeably Other to survive the inevitable encounters with other human beings. She must practice the mask of civilization regularly.
She doesn’t stay in cities often, but she discovers the hotels near airports are so anonymous she is able to add them to her routine. She finds she enjoys a gym to work out in, to keep her body toned and strong, ready to fight. Foraging in a hotel mini-bar is one more way to avoid people.
One evening in Denver, when she is taking in the historic sights downtown, she wanders into an old restored mining hotel. It is old and strange and she likes it. She impulsively books a room for the night. It is by far the most expensive place she has ever stayed in.
But that night, it finally sinks in, that she has the cash to stay in any hotel she wants to if she chooses.
So sometimes she allows herself these luxuries. And sometimes she is simply drawn to the beauty of a place.
Such as the hotel where she has stopped now, outside Phoenix. A central hotel of almost extra-terrestrial aesthetic, and vast grounds with many satellite compounds of villas and suites. A masterpiece of desert design, with participation by the most famous of American architects, Frank Lloyd Wright.
She does not enter the long, low main building at first, but parks in the parking lot and does as she has learned to do before she enters any hotel: she watches the guests coming and going. What she sees will determine how she will dress, what persona she will adopt.
Far more men travel, alone and in groups, than women do. Being female, she is always aware of being in the minority and therefore dangerously noticeable. She has become practiced at blending in to whatever large group might be staying at a hotel: tourists, a sales force, a church group.
At this Arizona resort, there is a large group of some kind of business conference attending, so she drives a short distance away from the parking lot to prepare her costume.
She generally keeps several changes of clothes in the trunk of her car, clothes she uses as camouflage. A business suit, a cocktail dress, a battered hoodie, a track suit. Printed tank tops, camping clothes, eyeglasses, lanyards, baseball caps, knit caps. All bought from thrift stores so that the fabric will contain other people’s DNA.
She discards her clothes regularly, and buys replacements in the secondhand shops. Even better are the ones she can find in the bins left out on the streets in many cities, as donations meant for the homeless to pick up. Because those items are usually unwashed, and several times more likely than thrift store clothes to have other people’s hair and fluids and fibers on them. Elements that can naturally contaminate the scene of an Encounter, and add another layer of obfuscation. She has also made a habit of picking up bits of hair from gyms, and used tissues with other people’s saliva and mucus, which she stores in the trunk of whatever car she is driving, and leaves in the room of any hotel or motel she stays in. Anything, really, that will make any potential investigation void.
Also in her travel accessories are makeup and sunglasses to alter her facial features. She will often wear a sweater under a shirt or jersey, or a second pair of pants under her jeans, to pad her figure. More rarely she may wear a wig, but she is wary of keeping them in the car.
She carries props, as well. A computer bag, a phone with no battery or SIM card, that she has additionally soaked in water to be absolutely certain it is dead and untraceable. She has no use for a phone, no one to call, no desire to risk using the internet except rarely, and then only at large public libraries. But a phone is useful for avoiding conversation, for blending in.
She returns to the hotel dressed in a tailored, conservative suit and expensive shoes, and checks in without incident.
The resort is the largest she has ever stayed in. But apart from a few golf carts, the vast, open grounds seem deserted. In September, the desert heat of the day is enough that people keep to themselves in their clusters of villas.
Her room is in one of these satellite villas, a luxurious space with a marble-walled bathroom, a bed with fluffy clouds of pillows, an elegant conversation area. She is grateful for all of it, the privacy, the comfort. Especially now. She needs much more sleep when the moon is so close to full.
She showers and slides between sheets as soft as whipped cream.
To prepare herself for what she can feel coming.
Chapter 34
Portland - present
Singh and Snyder
Singh stops her narrative to catch her breath, to sip from a glass of water.
Her interstates map and charts are now set up in Agent Snyder’s study, on polished wooden frames he has used as case boards in the past, in front of a backdrop of his library of criminal psychology.
It makes all her research feel active and real.
Agent Snyder has not yet explained what he meant about the urgency of her theory, and how it connects to the Street Hunter case. He has only assured her he will tell her in time. For the present, he has pressed her to tell him about other murders she has attributed to Cara.
Speaking these things aloud has made her aware that she has been indulging a fantasy about how to be a fugitive in this country, in a time when she herself often wants to disappear. Now she is relating all of this to Agent Snyder as if everything she has fantasized in her private journaling is fact. But he has listened attentively, asking questions only to clarify.
She has told him how she has put together the map by searching for murders which fit a certain set of criteria: crimes which feature grievous injury to the throat, in which the victim has some history or indication of sexual predation, and which occurred on or near a full moon. Today she has been outlining another murder from the past she has long suspected is Cara’s work.
She feels the need to say again, “This is all speculation. What I know is that on the thirtieth of September, 2008, a male guest was found murdered on the grounds of the Arizona Biltmore Hotel. His windpipe had been crushed by someone stomping his throat to pieces.”
Chapter 35
Phoenix, Arizona - September 29, 2008
Cara
As always when the moon is so close to full, she sleeps for the night, a day, and the next night, stirring only for water and the toilet.
On the third day, she wakes well before dawn, already restless.
Until she checked into the hotel, she had been driving for days in a row. Her body is a mass of kinks and tightness. So she eats fruit and cheese and nuts from the mini bar, dresses for a workout, and goes out into the dark to find the gy
m.
She has found that if she goes to a hotel gym early enough, she is often the only person there. She enjoys using the machines, the treadmill, the rowers, the weights. Testing the strength of her own body in the hush of an empty workout room. Strength is survival.
But today, despite the early hour, someone is already there working out. A man running on a treadmill, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts—and top of the line athletic shoes. A corporate type in his late twenties. Not gym-buffed, as so many of them are, but bulky and bearlike, the way men from the Northeast tend to be, with an extra layer of flesh against the cold. Boston, maybe, she thinks. There is an arresting intensity, there. A hungry impatience.
Normally she is wary of working out with anyone else present in the gym. But the man on the machine doesn’t give her a glance. He is fixated on the TV screen above him, tuned to a financial channel.
And she needs this workout, to calm the restless, prickling agitation she always experiences with the fullness of the moon.
She picks a weight machine well away from him, where she can keep an eye on him, and begins her presses.
After a few moments of news, the man has stopped the machine. He holds onto the side bars, staring up at the TV with such intensity that she is compelled to look up at the screen.
She has seen any number of financial programs. The gym televisions in large hotels are always tuned to such channels in the morning, especially since the housing market began to collapse. She pays scant attention to politics. But she is always interested in money.
The chart she is seeing now is disastrous. The lines look like free fall. When the program cuts to live coverage of the Stock Exchange, the trading floor is in chaos.
She moves closer, mesmerized by the faces of the traders, the primal panic radiating from the screen.
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