Theodore Glenn was not on the bus. He was not among the passengers. And he stood listening to the old bus driver with fear.
“We was only on the road twenty minutes when the old man complained he was sick. I left him at the Motel Six right outside Calexico.”
“Do you normally stop the bus if someone is ill?”
“’Course not, we got a toilet on board. But he looked white as a sheet and said it was his heart. I didn’t want him croaking on my watch.”
“What time was that?”
The driver made a point to look at his log. Will grabbed it from him. There was no mention of a stop outside Calexico. The log indicated no stops until this one.
“Did you stop or not?”
“Look, if I make an unscheduled stop, I got this huge pile of paperwork to deal with, and the guy was sick and—”
“What did he look like?” Will interrupted, keeping his voice low and even.
“Old. Least sixty, sixty-five. White hair. Lots of it, but white as snow. He’d have been tall if he wasn’t so crouched over and walking with a limp. Coughed the entire time. No one wanted to sit near him. I was glad to dump him off.”
“Did you see him get on the bus?”
The driver shrugged. “Sure.”
“Are you certain?” Will asked, his voice rising.
“Yeah, I did,” the driver said, defiant.
Will strode over to the group of passengers waiting to continue their trip.
“Raise your hand if you remember the stop at Motel Six where a sixty-year-old white-haired man was let off the bus,” he asked them. Virtually all of them raised their hand.
“How many of you would be able to recognize that man?”
A couple people put their hands down, but most kept them up.
“How many of you saw that man board the bus?”
After some hesitation, one by one the hands went down. The only hand remaining was a young boy of about ten.
Will went over to him. “What’s your name?”
“Keith Gomez.”
“Are you traveling alone, son?”
He nodded. “My mom and dad got divorced. I come on the bus to visit my dad every other weekend. I’m going back home to my mom. She’s going to be worried if the bus is late.”
“We’ll explain it to her, Keith. You saw the white-haired man board the bus.?
He shook his head.
Will frowned. “You kept your hand up. I thought you understood that meant that I wanted only those people who saw him get on the bus.”
“He didn’t. See, there was this other man. He was sitting in the back, right next to the bathroom door. As soon as the bus started to go, he went in there. He was coughing a lot. He was in there a long time. Like ten minutes. When he came out he looked different. He had brown hair, then he had white hair. He saw me staring and winked at me.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“He was coughing a lot and told Fat Ernie—the bus driver—that his ticker wasn’t good. What’s a ticker?”
“It’s slang for heart,” Will said.
“So Fat Ernie dropped him off. Ernie said it was to sleep off a bender. What’s a bender?”
“When someone drinks a lot of alcohol in a short period of time. What did the white-haired man look like before he entered the bathroom?”
The kid shrugged. “Brown hair. Sort of old, like you.”
Will unfolded Glenn’s mug shot and put it on the table in front of the kid. It instantly grew moist in the drizzle. “Is this the man you saw?”
The kid nodded. “Yeah, but he looked a little different. I think that’s him.”
Will stood and walked over to Blade and the others. “He’s not going to be at the motel, but someone should check it out. I’m going to check the bus. The kid said Glenn changed his appearance in the bathroom.”
Will boarded the bus and went straight for the bathroom. Pulling on gloves, he went through the trash. He found a receipt and bag from a costume shop in Calexico. On the bag Theodore Glenn had written:
By the time you read this, I’ll have Robin.
Hurry home, William.
FORTY
Robin stared at the gun in her hands. She’d been holding it since the last time Mario checked in with her. He was outside her door, the only entrance and exit into her third-floor loft. One of his men had made sure all the fire escapes were secure and watched the doors into the building and underground parking garage.
Quiet. Too quiet.
Will hadn’t called, but she couldn’t expect him to from the field. He was working. How could she do this every day he went to work? Worry that he wouldn’t come home?
Stop. She was making excuses. On the surface, because of her fear that what she and Will had was too good to be true; but deep down she knew it was because she feared Glenn would make good on his threats. That he would kill Will. And her. That this entire ploy was a ruse to put Will within Glenn’s reach. Dear God, if he killed Will…A groan escaped Robin’s lips. Though intellectually she understood that she wasn’t responsible for the deaths of her friends seven years ago, in her heart she knew Glenn’s obsession with her had contributed to the murders.
She turned her gun over and over in her hands. “I will kill you, Theodore Glenn. I promise, I will kill you.”
Pickles leapt onto her bed and made her jump. He purred loudly and massaged his paws on her lap.
She stared at the lamp in her room. Even if she turned it off, she still had the small light in the kitchen on. She hadn’t really tried to be in the dark since the last time she freaked out, and that was years ago.
She turned off the lamp.
Her apartment plunged into darkness. Pickles me-owed as her grasp on him tightened. She let go and he jumped down, running under her bed. Her breath came in quick gasps. She tried to focus on the dim light coming from the kitchen, but it seemed to be moving farther and farther away. Her heart raced and she frantically reached out for the lamp, fumbled, knocked it onto her carpet.
“No, no, no!”
On her hands and knees she found the lamp and turned on the switch. It flickered and came on. She righted the lamp on her nightstand and hated herself for her fear. Dammit, she was thirty-one years old! She’d faced belligerent customers, hurtful boyfriends, and Theodore Glenn in court. Back then she had testified against him with less palpable fear than she had right now when submerged in darkness.
Isabelle had suggested a psychiatrist would be able to help with her phobia, but Robin didn’t want to admit that it was a mental problem. How could she expect Will to sleep every night with the lights on? Last night she knew, even after his exhausting week, that he’d been awake half the night.
For Will, she would find a way to get over this. Maybe with him in her bed, she wouldn’t need a light to feel safe.
“Sorry, Pickles,” she said to the cat still hiding under her bed. She put the gun down on her nightstand so she could take a hot shower. Water always made her feel better. The ocean, the bath, the shower, didn’t matter what, water was soothing.
Halfway to her bathroom, the light went out. Damn, the bulb must have been loose when she knocked the lamp off the table. She felt her way toward the bathroom door to flick on that light. Her heart was beating rapidly, but she felt like she was in control. A start.
Until her hand reached the light switch, turned it on, and nothing happened.
No bathroom light.
No bedside light.
Not even the kitchen light above the stove glowed.
She breathed deeply, but couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She felt along the wall toward the partition that separated her bedroom from the rest of the apartment.
Thump. Thump.
What was that?
She drew her breath in to scream, but it came out a croak. She couldn’t even scream! She didn’t care if Mario thought she was a fool, she just wanted light. Any light.
As her eyes adjusted to the dark, the distant glow
of the streetlights below cast odd yellow shadows across her ceiling. A shadow moved outside her bedroom window.
Just the wind. Come on, Robin! It’s just the wind! You’re three stories up.
Rain in San Diego was rare, but it had been drizzling for most of the evening. The clouds obscured any moon that might have been out. A mist hung above the streets.
Thump.
Click, click, squeak.
“Mario!” Her voice couldn’t shout above a whisper, it was as if her throat had been sewed tight and she was trying to scream through a pillow.
Her alarm. Yes! Her alarm would alert her security company. Any time the power went out, a silent alarm went off and the security company would send someone if they couldn’t reach her by phone. Her phone didn’t work when the power went out.
She needed to hide.
Just get to the door! Dammit, Robin, Mario is somewhere in the building. Get to the door and bang on it. Make noise!
She was at the edge of her partition. To the left was a wall, to the right open space, then her living area which contained two sofas facing each other. A large lamp was on the side closest to her bedroom. If she knocked it over, it would crash on the hardwood floor.
A sob escaped her lips. She was pathetic. Scared of a blackout. It was the first rain of the season, for all she knew the relay station had been flooded or something. San Diegans didn’t handle rain well.
Scrape, thump.
Cold, damp air rushed into her loft.
Her bedroom window was open. Someone had opened it.
Everything happened so fast, she didn’t have time to scream. She felt like her lips were thick and she moved in slow motion.
She started for the door, sucking in air to scream, then stumbled over the end table, falling hard on the floor. The air rushed from her lungs, the wind knocked out of her.
For two seconds she couldn’t move. Then she got to her knees.
“Robin?”
It was Mario on the other side of her door.
She opened her mouth to call out to him, then someone slammed her back down to the floor, forcing the air from her lungs with a rush.
She kicked backward, made contact with hard flesh. Her attacker grunted, grabbed her hair and yanked her head back. Any farther and he would have broken her neck. She couldn’t swallow.
Cold metal touched her throat. A sliver of pain shot through her body, as if her neck had been burned. Warm blood slid down her skin.
“One word and I’ll kill you.”
Theodore Glenn.
“Robin!” A key turned in the lock. Mario had a set of keys, but she’d slid the security bolt. To make her feel safer. Instead, her own fear had trapped her inside with a killer.
Glenn yanked her up, his left arm tight around her waist, his right hand holding the knife to her throat. He moved soundlessly through her apartment toward the open window.
Robin felt like laughing hysterically—or breaking down in tears. For years she’d trained with a gun. Took self-defense classes, qualified for a concealed carry permit, practiced drawing her gun quickly.
But when she saw the shadow, her only thought was to run. She didn’t even think to grab her gun on the nightstand. Fight or flight, and she’d chosen flight without consciously thinking about it. How pathetic was that?
Mario banged on the front door.
Crunch.
Glenn pulled her to the window next to her bed, the rain blowing into her room, dampening everything.
Her nightstand was to the left of the window. She needed to buy time for Mario to get in. As Glenn maneuvered her through the window, she reached down, feeling for her gun.
Her fingers skimmed the barrel.
Glenn pulled her to the ledge. She reached out for her gun. A pain unlike anything she’d felt sunk into her side.
“Don’t think about fucking with me, Robin,” he growled in her ear.
He also had a knife in his left hand, and this one had cut into her side. Her head swam, her fingers slid across the gun, and suddenly she was pulled onto the narrow ledge of her building with Glenn.
She should push them both over. Kill him with her.
Will.
She pictured her lover finding her broken body on the street below. She couldn’t do that to him. Just as important, she didn’t want to die.
Bide your time. He could have killed you inside. He had the opportunity, but he didn’t.
The drizzle had turned to a steady fine rain, and in only a few seconds Robin was damp. Out of the seven days of rain San Diego got every year, why did one have to be tonight?
Theodore held her tight. He pocketed his knives and held her tight with his right hand. She fought, bit his hand, and tried to jump back in through the window.
He backhanded her, and her head hit the brick facade. She shook it, the pain intense, blood dripping into one eye, and hadn’t yet recovered when he forced her onto a rope ladder he’d hung from the roof.
“Stop being stupid, Robin.”
From below them, Robin heard noise in her apartment. She slowed her ascent, but Glenn picked her up and put her over his shoulder. She was looking at the sidewalk below, and it was rapidly moving farther away as Glenn practically ran up the shaky ladder. He wasn’t even holding her, had balanced her on his shoulder, and she found herself grabbing his shirt, fearful of falling headfirst onto the concrete more than three stories below.
When he reached the roof, he held her legs tight against him and ran, walked right onto the roof of the building next door. She cried out, screamed, kicked—anything to get away. He was too strong. Dammit, so was she! She was a dancer, she lugged kegs in from storage. She fought twice as hard, reaching around and clawing his face.
“Argh!” He threw her off his shoulder and kicked her in the jaw. She rolled on the gravel roof, stunned. He hauled her up again and whispered in her ear, “You’ll pay for that, Robin,” as he hoisted her back over his shoulder.
The fall had disoriented her and she shook her head to clear her thoughts. They were on yet another roof. How had they gotten there? Had she blacked out for a minute?
She heard sirens in the distance. Glenn laughed. “Too late.”
They were at the edge of the building. He was going to throw her off. Was that his plan? All that drama for this?
Something white was coiled on the edge of the roof. A rope. What was that for?
He took her off his shoulder, but didn’t let go of her arm. Robin jerked away, stumbled, but Glenn didn’t loosen his grip. He attached the rope to his belt, grabbed her by the waist, and jumped right off the building.
“She’s gone.”
Will listened to Mario tell him how Theodore Glenn had kidnapped Robin right from under his nose. SWAT director Tom Blade was pushing one hundred miles an hour to get them back to San Diego as fast as possible.
He didn’t want to believe that Glenn had gotten to Robin so fast, but it fit the time line. Hell, he had hours to plan it. He may have had it all worked out days ago. Waiting for the right time.
The only thing Will was certain of was that Glenn would kill Robin. The question remained as to where and when.
Will pictured Sara Lorenz’s shredded body and the rage that had caused it.
He’ll kill her soon. He won’t be able to stop himself.
Will closed his eyes, focused on the messages Glenn had left for him and Robin. His twisted desire to watch his victims suffer. His taunting of Will. His talk about Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet. Robin wasn’t dead, not yet. Glenn wanted him to think she was, so Will would do something stupid, blinded with grief. But Will knew Glenn wanted to kill Robin in front of him. That would buy him precious time.
Glenn had the opportunity to kill Robin in her apartment. Why didn’t he?
Because Will wouldn’t have found her. Mario would have seen her body first. That wouldn’t have given Glenn any satisfaction. He planned on taking Robin somewhere where only Will could find her body.
Hurry home, William.
“Commander Blade, take me to my house. Now.”
FORTY-ONE
Robin’s head throbbed and though she tried to keep alert on the drive, she knew she had passed out for at least a few minutes. When she woke, they were parked in an area that seemed familiar. It wasn’t until she was out of the car, heard the waves rolling up the quiet beach, and recognized the row of closely built homes, that she knew exactly where she was.
Will’s place.
Glenn pulled Robin across the middle of the front seat and out his door. He had a bag slung over one shoulder, and she didn’t want to think about what was in it. Knives? Bleach? What had he planned for her? He was parked two houses away, and kept a knife at her back to prevent her from screaming. She was just as fearful of other people’s lives as she was of her own. If someone tried to help her and Glenn killed them…she didn’t want to think about it.
But the street was empty. Nearly midnight on a wet Sunday night. No one to help. No one to see her struggle.
She opened her mouth to scream and his hand covered her lips. She bit him. He continued to hold her tight.
“Whoa, girl, save the festivities for bed.”
Bed? What did he plan on doing? Raping her? She almost laughed. Rape? This was all about power? Control?
Of course it was. Ever since he walked into the club, a year before he killed Bethany, he’d been trying to control Robin. His quiet manipulation. The way he watched her. The women he dated—all friends she cared about.
He’d always been trying to control her. And his lack of control over her had set him off.
She struggled. She was strong, a dancer, a fighter. She could run fast, faster with her life in danger. Just get away…
She kicked back, connected with his balls, and pulled away from him.
He grabbed her leg and yanked hard. She hit the grass, her head bouncing off the ground. If he hadn’t hurt her earlier, she might have had the strength to get away. Dammit, Robin!
She struggled and cried out and he put a long piece of duct tape across her mouth.
Killing Fear Page 34