Where was Jake?
Her throat constricted painfully.
Jake?
That monster knew nothing about Jake, nothing about this condo. How could he know? Where was Jake? He wouldn’t leave without telling her. Immobilized by fear, she crouched motionless, rubbing the blood on her fingers.
Something moved behind her. She felt a light touch at the back of her head. Robbi gasped, leapt to her feet and spun around, a strangled cry in her throat.
Wearing only a pair of tennis shorts and deck shoes, Jake stood in the middle of the kitchen, his hand out, a bewildered look on his face.
“Oh, God, Jake.” Robbi flew into his arms. “I thought I was alone. When I saw the blood and then felt—”
“I broke a glass … cut my finger on it,” Jake said, holding her face to his chest. “The only Band-Aids I have are in the first aid kit in my car. Hon, you’re shaking. I’m sorry.”
“I thought he’d found me. That he’d hurt you and…”
“He’s not going to find us. There are places we can go. He won’t have a clue. He can’t read your mind. Right?”
“No. But Avondale suspects I’m with you, and Avondale wants him out in the open….”
“That’s stretching the probable a bit far. He’d have to make your whereabouts public, and I honestly don’t think, in all good conscience, that he’d do that.”
Robbi chewed her lip apprehensively.
“Speaking of Avondale, I saw him downstairs. He wants to talk. I told him to give us a few minutes.”
“Do I have time to shower?”
Jake kissed her forehead, lifted her chin until she was looking into his eyes. “You have time to do anything you want.”
She smiled.
He parted the dress shirt, slipped his hands inside, and gently caressed her breasts. “You’re so beautiful,” he said in a husky voice. He pulled her to him and kissed her.
She clung to him tightly for a moment, then reminded herself, “Avondale.”
Several minutes later Robbi was in the double shower stall when Jake poked his head in the frosted door. “He’s here. I found some things for you to wear, they’re on the bed. We’ll be on the balcony when you’re ready.” Then he was gone.
She put on the clothes Jake had laid out for her. A pair of gray sweat pants and a black tank top. Around the deep scooped neck and armholes, Robbi’s braless breasts were exposed more than she cared for them to be. She took up the slack by tying a knot at each shoulder. She shook out her wet hair and ran fingers through it. Without her purse, she had no makeup. She pinched her cheeks to give them a measure of color, then went out to the balcony.
Avondale sat in a lounge chair, Jake leaned on the railing. After Robbi was seated, Jake handed her a cup of black coffee. Her hands trembled, spilling traces of it.
“Miss Paxton, relax. I know you’re scared, and with good reason. The last thing we want is to put you in any further jeopardy. We intend to use a policewoman who looks like you, a decoy, to draw him out. We do, however, need permission to use your house and car.”
Relief flooded through her. “Yes, of course,” she said eagerly.
“We’ve got stakeouts at your house, your office, and the shelter. He won’t get through, I can guarantee that.”
She nodded. “I—we don’t plan to stay in town.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Miss Paxton, granted this isn’t easy for you, but we still need your help. If he’s inadvertently sending you messages telepathically, it’s important we know. I don’t know much about this parapsychology stuff, but if it’s anything like radar, it might be effective only within a certain range.”
Robbi, knowing little more about parapsychology than Avondale, couldn’t deny his theory.
“I won’t go far and I’ll let you know where I’ll be.”
“Appreciate it. Now…” Avondale ran long thin fingers through the deep waves of hair, patted his breast pocket. “Either of you happen to have a cigarette I can borrow?”
They both shook their heads.
“It’s just as well. Since I quit buying them, I don’t smoke nearly as much. Expensive habit.” He looked at Roberta. “So how do you figure he knew who you were?”
“Either he saw me that afternoon in the woods when he killed Belinda but didn’t know who I was until he saw me on TV last night, or—and this is a possibility that makes me shudder to even consider—he’s clairvoyant as well.”
“Perish the thought,” Avondale said with a roll of his eyes.
“There’s one other possibility. Carl Masser knew about my ESP.”
“Masser? Yeah. There’s a strong link there. Checked it out like I said I would. He hasn’t been to work since Monday morning. And no one around his apartment house has seen him coming or going all week. Would you mind giving him a call right now?” Avondale asked.
“Not at all.”
Jake brought out the cordless phone and the phone directory.
Robbi found the number and dialed. No answer.
“We’ll put out an APB on Masser’s vehicle.” Avondale crossed his long legs. “Is there more we should know about the perpetrator? Dr. Reynolds tells me he hit him with his car last night. What of his bullet wound?”
“I think he has a very high pain threshold,” she said. “But he ran off last night instead of fighting, so his injuries may have slowed him down a bit.”
“Let’s hope. A guy like that—hell, it wouldn’t bother me if he crawled into a hole and died, case unsolved.” Avondale flipped a page on his notebook. “Okay, this is what we’ve got. He cast his net at Bernie’s Saloon on Virginia Street last night. The bartender remembered serving a big, dark-haired man matching the composite. He left early. There’ve been no reports of missing women in the last twelve hours. If he goes back there looking for someone, we’ve got him.” Avondale leaned forward. “Anything more to do with a church?”
“No.”
“Could he be a minister?”
She shrugged.
“Just in case, we’re running a check on churches in a fifty-mile radius. So far nothing.”
“He could be self-ordained or substituting for another clergyman.”
“Will you run the composite in the media?” Jake asked.
Avondale shook his head. “We’ll hold on to it for a bit. Don’t want to send him running just yet. I can look into having a chopper crisscross that area, though. Might see something worthwhile.”
________
Eckker took the curved tapestry needle and threaded it with coarse black thread. With two fingers he pinched the small hole at his side together, then forced the needle into the angry flesh, drawing the thread through. This he did three times before tying off the end and snipping the thread.
He seethed deep inside, to the core of his pain. The bullet wound had been aggravated by the car hitting him. A bruise the size of his open hand covered one thigh. But aside from the fresh bleeding of the gunshot wound and the bruise, he was unhurt.
The steady chuk-chuk-chuk of the helicopter caused him to pause and look heavenward. He forced himself to relax. No reason to believe the chopper was looking for him. In the summer, hikers got lost or injured in the mountains. Although he wasn’t comfortable with the helicopters passing overhead, he failed to let it panic him like it did years earlier when he first took up residence here. If they hadn’t seen anything in four years, they weren’t likely to see anything now.
Wiping the bloody needle on his pant leg, he rethreaded, reached behind him, and tried to close the larger opening with his thick, blunt fingers. Unable to see what he was doing, he worked by feel, his fingers sticky with blood and viscous body fluid, the sharp point stabbing but failing to close the hole. Sweat ran down his face, soaked his body. He breathed in grunts, from pain and from the effort of straining to work in such an impossible position. Finally he gave up, folded an old T-shirt, and taped it over the bleeding wound.
&n
bsp; She was probably working with the cops by now. But it didn’t matter, he would find her and kill her.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
The police placed a heavily guarded vigil on Roberta’s house. Plainclothesmen were stationed in the metal shed in the backyard and in a van across the street. Inside the house were two officers—one of whom was Roberta’s look-alike—and a police dog. The phone was monitored. No one would get near, let alone inside, without detection.
At four A.M. he came out of thin air, smashed out the window in the back door, and stormed in.
Avondale and his newly assigned partner, Clark, parked in the van in front, heard the glass shatter, radioed for backup, drew their guns, then ran across the street and rushed into the house.
Just inside the kitchen door the German shepherd lay dead in a pool of blood. In the hallway was Detective Jackson, semi-conscious, both shoulders dislocated, his right foot crushed. They rushed into the bedroom to find the rumpled bed empty and the window open. Over recorded Gypsy music they heard a man shouting outside.
Avondale and Clark leapt through the window.
“He went that way, through there! He’s armed with a lead pipe. He’s got Howe!” Holding a hand to his bloody head, the cop from the shed pointed with his gun in the direction of the six-foot hedge that paralleled the driveway. Avondale crashed through it, wincing from the twigs that racked over exposed skin, nearly gouging his eye. He stopped, looked around, his stomach sinking. The neighboring yard was a maze of bushes and trees.
Jesus!
“Clark, get out front, down to the corner,” he shouted. “Move it!”
Jesus H. Christ, how can this be? In disbelief, as he ran through the yard to the adjacent lot, listening to his partner’s soles slapping on concrete, dogs barking in adjoining yards, and the sound of police sirens in the distance growing louder, he asked himself: How in the hell could one man, with a bullet hole in him, abduct an officer right under the noses of four armed cops and a trained dog?
________
Joe Eckker ran with his unconscious burden, carrying her like a sack of grain through the dark neighborhood, keeping in the deep shadows of the houses. At the third house down he saw a real estate lockbox attached to the front door. He hurried down the driveway to the back. He broke out the pane in the back door, unlocked it, and slipped inside.
He put his burden down, then removed any visible shards of glass in the door.
He lifted the woman and carried her through the house to the windowless hallway. He eased her to the floor. Her thick, beautiful hair spread like a fan over the thin carpet. He sat on the floor, his back against the wall. Blood oozed from the wound in his side. He stroked her hair and felt a stirring inside him. His fingers roved over her like those of a blind man as he caressed her face, her neck, and throat. She moaned, muscles twitched beneath her clothes.
He had grabbed the sleeping woman from her bed. All those morons protecting her and he had beaten them all. A rush of pleasure spread through him. Nothing could stop him. He was invincible. Joseph Eckker was invincible.
The woman jerked violently, pulling away from him. In a reflex action his arm shot out and fingers buried in the mass of hair. She continued to distance herself from him, yet her hair remained in his clawed grasp. A wig!
He lunged forward and tripped her with the lead pipe. She crashed to the floor and he fell on her.
Something was wrong. From his pocket he pulled out a penlight, clicked it on. The woman pinned beneath him had short dark hair, as short as a boy’s.
This wasn’t Roberta Paxton. He had the wrong one, an impostor. Another fucking cop.
________
Roberta stirred in her sleep. She dreamt of a whirlwind—what her mother referred to as a dust devil— spinning through a Gypsy camp, killing and maiming everyone in its path, carrying off a young man with short dark hair. At the end of its destruction, when the force of its power was spent, the dust devil released all that it had sucked up. The boy was dropped to the earth, bleeding and still.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
At 11:09 the following morning Star Realty’s top producer of the month, Ernie Riccardi, took the key from the lockbox, opened the front door, and ushered the elderly couple into the vacant house. The stale, musty odor of the closed-up house instantly assaulted his nostrils. He hoped the old folks’ sense of smell was as infirm as their hearing—he’d been shouting all morning and his throat was raw as all hell.
The old lady asked the same questions she’d asked in every house he’d shown them. The old gentleman tapped the walls with the knobby head of his cane, bobbing his feeble head. Riccardi figured it was going to be a long day.
When they reached the dim hallway, the woman, in the middle of one of her repetitive questions, stopped first, the others followed suit.
“My goodness, what’s that pile of messy rags doing in the house?” she said, stepping forward curiously.
Riccardi felt a jolt, as if someone had smartly whacked him on the back. He grabbed her bony wrist and pulled her back. “Outside,” his raw throat cracked. “Everyone outside.”
“What the heck—?” The old man peered past the real estate agent, who had turned and was trying to usher them out.
“Gotta call the police,” Riccardi whispered.
That was when the old man collapsed, taking the old woman down with him.
________
From the crowded parking lot of the First Interstate Bank, he watched the brick office building of the Silver State Women’s Center across the street. He waited, no longer patient. He was in a state of extreme agitation, the rage swelling, growing insanely, burning and eating at him like the wound in his side. He had only one goal now, and that was to find her. Nothing else mattered.
After leaving the vacant house in the wee hours of the morning, he had returned to the river condo with its dark windows. Reynolds’s space in the parking garage remained unoccupied. They had run. Both of them.
But someone inside that brick building knew where she was. A fantasy of savagery played out in his head, exciting him.
At seven-thirty P.M. a woman in her late fifties exited the building, walked around to the west side and climbed into a ‘74 Chevrolet BelAir. He remembered her from the TV interview. She pulled out and drove away, the faulty muffler loudly heralding her departure. Eckker followed.
________
Sophie prayed the car would come through again. Oh, sweet girl, just get me home and I won’t ask for nothing more. But she always did. The V-8 ran on six cylinders and a prayer. It coughed, sputtered, and wheezed. At every stoplight she shifted to neutral and pumped the gas, a cloud of black, oily exhaust enveloped everything behind her.
A quarter mile more, sweet-talking all the way, she pulled into the alley at the back of her two-bedroom house on Walnut Street. The car backfired, then died.
She patted the steering wheel affectionately. “You’re beautiful.”
Sophie was in her house only a few minutes when the phone rang and she was summoned on a crisis call. She grabbed her purse and dashed out the door to the old Chevy. “Please, please, ol’ girl,” she whispered reverently, “just get me there and back and I won’t ask for nothing more.” The engine caught immediately. The muffler roared. A black fog billowing out from the exhaust pipe obscured the massive form that passed behind the car and moved toward her backyard.
By the time Sophie had picked up the battered wife and her two kids and settled them in at the shelter, it was dark. This time the car took her to within a half block from home before it stalled out. She slammed the hood with a fist, called it a “piece of shit,” then walked home.
Inside the house it was hot, stuffy. In the rooms in front she moved from window to window, opening each several inches, hoping to catch a bit of the cool westerly breeze.
At the open door of the refrigerator she munched impassively on a roll of summer sausage and sipped from a jar of Clamato juice as she absently stared inside. She rolled the cold
jar over her cheek, the condensation and sweat mingling. It was too hot and she had no appetite. She’d take a tepid shower and eat later.
In the bathroom, as she adjusted the shower curtain, she heard a creaking somewhere in the house. From one of the back rooms. She paused, listened. It sounded like the creaky hinge on the door to her bedroom.
She slowly came to her feet. Pinpoints of fear pricked at her skin. Just that afternoon the police had warned the staff at the center that a killer was on the loose and anyone connected with Roberta Paxton was to exercise extreme caution.
The creak again.
Sophie’s heart banged like cymbals in her chest. In the mirror above the sink she saw herself, eyes wide, fearful, her face a shiny, slick mask of perspiration.
Sophie tried to remember what Robbi had told her about the man in her vision. He was a giant. Shrewd, determined. A killer. He wanted Roberta. Roberta was Sophie’s best friend.
Another creak was followed by a loud pounding. Sophie cried out, slammed shut the bathroom door, and locked it.
The pounding went on at the front door. A male voice called out.
“Mrs. Bennett, Detective Avondale from the Reno police. I’d like to talk with you a minute, please.”
Cautiously, she opened the bathroom door, looked out, then seeing no impending danger, no looming hulk, she hurried to the front door, parted the curtains, and looked out to see the man who had come out to the center to talk to Robbi the day of the dinner dance.
She opened the door, gave him a shaky smile.
Standing just inside, Avondale told Sophie about the killing of the decoy. He advised her to be on her guard.
“Does Robbi know about this?” Sophie asked.
“Not yet. I was going to tell her, but I’ve decided to drive up tomorrow and have a talk with the two of them in person.”
“Poor Robbi. What a nightmare.”
He turned to leave, then turned back. “You live alone here?”
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