by Nora Roberts
He opened the trunk.
Her eyes were wide open, full of fear and pain with that glaze of shock he found so arousing. She’d struggled, but he’d learned a thing or two and had linked the bindings on her wrists and ankles together in the back, hog-tying her so she could do little more than hump like a worm. Still, it was best to keep her absolutely still, absolutely silent through the night.
“We’ll talk in the morning,” he told her as he pulled a syringe from his pocket, removed the tip. Her screams were no more than harsh whispers swallowed by the rain as he gripped her arm, shoved up her sleeve. “Sleep tight now,” he said, and slid the needle under the skin.
He replaced the tip. She, like the others, wouldn’t live long enough to be bothered about any infection from shared needles. He watched her eyes dull as the drug took her under.
After securing the trunk, he got his suitcase and her belongings out of the back and carried them across the broken pavement of the lot to his room.
It smelled of old sex, stale smoke and the cheap detergent that couldn’t mask the brew. He’d learned to ignore such annoyances, and he’d learned to ignore the inevitable groans and thumps from adjoining rooms.
He switched on the TV, scrolled until he found local news.
He entertained himself first with a pass through Kati’s wallet. She carried nearly two hundred in cash—for payoffs? bribes? he wondered. The money would come in handy, another advantage of changing his target type. The coeds rarely had more than five or ten, if that.
He found the current password for her computer hidden behind her driver’s license. He set it aside for later.
He made piles of what he could keep and what he would dispose of from her handbag, and munched on the M&M’s she had in an inside pocket, toyed with her bag of cosmetics.
She carried no photos, not his all-work-and-no-play Kati. But she had a street map of Seattle and one of Orcas, tidily folded.
On the Orcas map she’d marked several routes from the ferry. He recognized the route to Fiona’s, wondered about the others. If time permitted, he’d check them out.
He approved of the fact that she carried several pens and sharpened pencils, a small cube of Post-its, a bottle of water.
He saved her breath mints, towelettes, pack of tissues, removed her IDs and credit cards to be cut up and disposed of along the way.
He used the money in her change purse to buy a Sprite and a bag of Lay’s potato chips from the vending machine outside the room.
Organized and settled, he opened her computer. As with her phone calls and texts, all of her e-mails centered on work and many were cryptic. But he could follow the dots, as he’d been following her.
While he, Perry and Fiona weren’t her only stories, they were, unquestionably, her focus. She’d pushed, and was pushing, for nibbles and bites from numerous sources.
Tenacious, thy name is Kati Starr.
She did well, he thought, digging, digging, digging, amassing details and comments from Perry’s past, from Fiona’s, from past and present victims.
She had files full of information on Fiona’s search unit, on the other members, on her training business, on her mother, her stepmother, the dead father, the dead lover. The current lover.
Thorough. He respected that.
And he understood she’d gathered and was continuing to gather more information, more deep background and areas than a reporter could possibly use in a series of articles.
“Writing a book,” he murmured. “You’re writing a book, aren’t you, Kati?”
He plugged in one of the two thumb drives he’d found in her case. Rather than the novel or true-crime book he’d expected to find, he brought up the file containing her next article.
For tomorrow’s edition.
He read it through twice, so engrossed he barely noticed when the couple next door began to fuck.
The betrayal—for he had little doubt Perry had betrayed him—slashed. A whip across the throat that strangled him so he shoved up to pace the miserable little room, his fists clenching, unclenching.
His teacher, his mentor, the father of who he’d become turned on him, and that turning could—almost certainly would—hasten the end of him.
He considered running, simply abandoning the plans he’d so meticulously set in place and driving east. Kill the reporter along the way, he thought, far along the way, out of what he knew the police would call his hunting ground.
Change his looks, his identity again. Change everything—the car, the plates and then . . .
What? he wondered. Be ordinary again, be nothing again? Find another mask and hide behind it? No, no, he could never go back, never be the pathetic shell again.
Calmer, he stood, eyes closed, accepting. Perhaps it was true and right and inevitable that the father destroy the child. Perhaps that formed the circle, brought the journey to its better, bitter end.
And he’d always known it would end. This new life, this sharpness of being was transient. But he’d hoped, he’d believed he had more time. With more time he could, and would, surpass Perry, in song and story, thought the teacher, the lover of books.
No, he would not go back, could not go back. Would not hide like a rat in a hole. He’d go forward, as planned.
Live or die, he decided. But he would never, never simply exist again.
He sat and read the article again, and this time felt a sense of destiny. Of course this was why he took the reporter. Everything was happening as it was meant to happen.
He was at peace with that.
By the time his neighbors finished and had checked out to go home to, he assumed, the spouses they’d cheated on, he’d found the book. He read through the draft, noting she worked in what he thought of as patchwork style—scenes and chapters mixed out of order that she’d link and weave together in another draft.
He looked at her key ring with some regret. How he wished he could risk going through her apartment. She’d have more there—files, notes, books, numbers.
He began to read again, this time making some changes, some additions. He’d keep the computer, the drives, and merge her work with his if he survived the next stage.
For the first time in months he felt a bubble of excitement over something other than killing. He’d include the portions of his own book, the draft he’d begun in the first person, with her third-person reporter’s point of view. Juxtaposing his parts of the story with hers.
His evolution and her observations.
And with Kati’s help, he would create his own song and story. Death, even his own, would be his legacy.
IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM where she and Tawney worked together, Mantz held her phone in one hand and tapped her keyboard with the other. “Yeah, got it. Thanks, Tawney.” She set the phone down, gestured. “I just got word that U.S. Report is hyping Starr’s article for tomorrow. They’ve got a teaser online. You should see this.”
He stepped over to her desk, read over her shoulder.
Under “Sneak Peeks” the headline glared:
FACE-OFF
Fiona Bristow Goes to Prison to Confront Perry
A Kati Starr Exclusive
“Son of a bitch.” Tawney murmured it, the low tone more violent than a shout. “The UNSUB will read this and it puts Fee right back in the crosshairs. Front and center.”
“And Starr’s billing’s going up. She’s piling up career capital with this. Whatever she’s invested to get information, it’s paying off for her.”
“We need to find the leak. And we need to see this goddamn story. I’m going to push on her editor, her publisher. She’s hampering the investigation by printing sensitive information, information she may have obtained by illegal means.”
“Yeah, we try that, and ball it up with lawyers on both sides. I’ve got a more direct idea. I can move on that while you try the push. I’ll try a little face-off myself, with Starr.”
“No way she’ll reveal her sources.” Tawney stalked over to the coffeemaker. �
�She’ll lap it up.”
“Yeah. But I’ll go see her, now. Off-hours, late. Try to pump her while she’s trying to pump me. I might get something.” Mantz checked her watch as she outlined the scenario in her head. “Either way, I bring her in, tonight. Obstruction of justice, interference with a federal investigation, harassing a federal witness. I’ll pile it on while she makes her noises about the Fourth Estate and freedom of the press.”
Tawney sipped his coffee. “Okay, then what?”
“We sweat her awhile. She’ll want a lawyer, she’ll call her boss, but we might be able to get her to hold off, just a bit. She wants attention, and she wants information. If we make it seem like we have more, she might try to play us. Buy us time.”
“For?”
“For letting it leak she’s talking. That we’re breaking her down.”
Considering, Tawney edged a hip onto Mantz’s desk. “So her source or sources start to sweat.”
“Worth a shot. It’s probably a waste of time, but why shouldn’t she lose some sleep over this, feel some pressure? She’s shortcutting her way through this, Tawney, and using Bristow every chance she gets. We can work with the media. We do. We use them, they use us. That’s the way it’s done. But she’s not interested in cooperation. She’s just looking for the byline.”
“You’re not going to get an argument from me. I’ll work from here, play the game with her bosses. You go direct. Let me know if and when you’re bringing her in, and I’ll set it up.”
He rubbed the knots of tension at the back of his neck. “Maybe he won’t see the paper. Maybe he’ll make a move tomorrow, one of the mail drops, or we’ll spot his car at one of the trolling sites.”
Mantz nodded as she put on her jacket. “If he’s following current events, and we know damn well he is, Starr’s telegraphing our leads, or enough of them to put him on alert. The mail drops are a long shot. I think he’s done with Perry, and if not, he will be once he knows Bristow went to see him.”
She paused at the door. “Are you going to let her know what’s coming?”
“Like you said, it’s late. Let her get a decent night’s sleep. Tomorrow’s soon enough for that. Work Starr, Erin, then bring her in and we’ll work her harder.”
“Looking forward to it.”
IT FELT GOOD to be outside, to do something that didn’t involve the keyboard or the phone. Mantz didn’t mind the rain. In fact, Seattle’s weather suited her perfectly. She enjoyed catching sight of Mount Rainier on sunny days, just as she enjoyed the cozy sense of intimacy the rain offered her.
Tonight, she considered it an added bonus. Pulling Starr out of her office or dry apartment into a downpour piped a little icing on the cake.
She really wanted a go at the reporter on a personal level as much as professional. While she wasn’t a one-for-all-because-we’re-women sort, she saw Starr’s barrel-ahead style on this story as a woman climbing over the bodies of other women—dead and alive.
She’d climbed her own rocky cliff to get where she was in the bureau, Mantz thought, but by God she hadn’t taken shortcuts, she hadn’t stepped on anyone’s back to do it.
Those who did deserved to be kicked down a few rungs.
With her windshield wipers swishing and the lights blurring wet on the glass, she drove toward the paper first. Most likely Starr had called it a night by this time, but the building was en route to the apartment. Might as well do a check there.
As she drove she considered her strategy. Go in soft first, she thought, let the fatigue and the stress show. Try the girl-to-girl appeal. Her instincts said that approach would bomb, and Starr would see it as a weakness.
That was just fine. It would add an element of what-the-fuck? when she kicked in, bore down and charged Starr with obstruction, maybe tossed in suspicion of bribing a federal employee.
She’d see how it went.
She turned into the parking lot and lifted her eyebrows when she spotted the apple-red Toyota. A scan of the plate verified it as Starr’s car.
Burning the midnight oil? That was just fine.
As she pulled up beside it, she noted the flat right rear tire.
“Bad luck,” Mantz murmured and smiled as she parked beside the Toyota.
Even as she reached for her umbrella something tickled in her gut. She sat for a moment, studying the lot, the rain, the building. Dark but for the security lights on the main level, she noted. You’d need a light in your office to burn the midnight oil.
She left the umbrella in the car, hitched her jacket back for easier access to her weapon.
She heard nothing but the rain and the wet whoosh of sporadic traffic when she got out. Traffic light enough, she observed, distant enough so the lot, the position of the car wouldn’t be in clear view. And the rain? There was that icing again.
She circled the car, studied the pancaked tire and, going with impulse, tried the door.
That tickle went to a buzz when she found it unlocked.
Following the buzz, she hiked to the building, banged on the locked glass doors. When the security guard crossed the tiled lobby floor, his walk, his body language said retired cop.
Sixty-couple, she judged, and sharp-eyed.
She held her ID up to the glass.
He studied it, and her, then used the intercom.
“Problem?”
“I’m Special Agent Erin Mantz. I’m looking for Kati Starr. Her car’s in the lot, rear right tire’s flat. It’s unlocked. I need to know if she’s in the building, or what time she logged out.”
He scanned the lot, then her face again. “Hold on.”
Mantz took out her phone. She gave her name, her ID number, and asked for the numbers for Starr’s home phone, cell and office.
The cell transferred her to voice mail as the guard came back.
“She signed out at nine-forty. There’s nobody here. Even the cleaning crew’s finished up.” He hesitated a moment, then unlocked the doors. “I tried her home phone and her cell,” he said as he opened the glass. “Straight to voice mail.”
“Did she leave alone?”
“According to lobby security she walked out on her own.”
“Is there security video on the lot?”
“No. Stops at the doors, and she walked out the door alone. That’s usual for her,” he added. “She doesn’t travel in groups or socialize much with coworkers. If she had car trouble, she’d have used her key pass and come back in to call for service. No reason she’d have done otherwise. Nobody else signed out within twenty minutes of her, either side.”
Mantz nodded, keyed in the number for her partner. “Tawney? We’ve got a problem.”
WITHIN AN HOUR, agents had convinced the building super to open Kati Starr’s apartment, roused her editor and took statements from the guard and the cleaning crew.
The editor blocked the request to open her desk computer.
“Not without a warrant. Look, odds are she’s following a lead or she’s banging her boyfriend.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?” Mantz demanded.
“How the hell should I know? Starr keeps her personal life private. So she got a flat tire? Probably called a cab.”
“None of the local cab companies made a pickup at this location.”
“And you want me to leap from there to foul play? So you can poke around in her files? Not without a warrant.”
Mantz pulled out her phone when it signaled and turned away in disgust to answer. “Where? Keep on it. We’re on our way there. We got a ping on her cell phone.”
“There, see?” The editor shrugged. “With a boyfriend, or out having a drink. She’s earned it.”
“OUT HAVING A DRINK,” Mantz said between her teeth as they stood in the rainy parking lot of the rest stop. She snapped on protective gloves. “He left the phone turned on so we’d get a signal. So we’d come out here.”
She waited impatiently while the forensics team documented the scene.
She took the iPhone. “We’
ll need to dump the data, go through it.” She looked over at Tawney. “It’s got to be Eckle. It’s not a damn coincidence she gets taken from her office lot. He’s got her. He grabbed her right under our noses. She doesn’t fit his victim profile, but she fits him. Like a glove. We didn’t see it.”
“No, we didn’t see it.” He handed her an evidence bag for the phone. “He’s got a couple hours on us, but he expected more. A lot more. Nobody would notice she’s not around until morning, and even then . . . maybe her editor gets pissed when she doesn’t show, but he’s not going to call the cops. Maybe not for hours more, until somebody notices and mentions her car’s in the lot.
“He figures he’s got twelve, maybe fifteen hours on us. He’s only got two. We need boots on the ground. Now. I’ll drive, you work the phone.” He swung toward the car. “We want badges checking every hotel, motel, vacation rental. Focus on out-of-the-way spots first. Cheap. He’s used to living frugally. He doesn’t need shine. He wants a place where nobody looks too close, nobody cares.”
Tawney peeled out. “He needs supplies, food,” he continued even as Mantz relayed the orders. “Fast-food joints, places he can pick up road food. Gas. Gas marts would work best, get everything in one stop, move on.”
“He’s got her computer. She walked out with it, so he has it. Maybe he’ll use it. We can trace that. He thinks he’s clear, at least until morning. Maybe we send her an e-mail. We set up a name, a URL, send her a message. A tip. I’ve got information on RSK Two, what’s it worth to you?” Mantz flicked Tawney a glance. “He might bite on that. If he answers, we can track it.”
“Bargain with him, keep him involved. It could work. Get the geeks working on it.”
ECKLE SLEPT ON TOP of the thin bedspread, fully dressed. Still his mind raced. So much to do, so much to relive, so much to imagine. His life had never been so full that even his sleep swirled with color and movement and sound.