He went down the wooden stairs to the kitchen and poured another cup of coffee, then drank it looking out the window at the ginger blossoms tapping against the glass in the wind. It was going to rain again. He went to the phone on the wall by the refrigerator, dialed Mike on speaker, and went back to the window.
“How’s it, Chris?”
“I found her picture in today’s Houston Chronicle.”
“So did I. I just printed it out for you.”
“Don’t worry about it. I just need to decide what I’m going to do.”
“Okay.”
They didn’t talk for about a minute. There were dogs barking outside of Mike’s house, children’s voices.
“You still there, Chris?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Keep your cell on. I’ll call you if I need anything.”
“You got it.”
He went to the phone and hung it up. Then he went back to his study and booked the first flight to Houston.
Chapter Four
He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness inside Allison’s apartment.
After he closed the door, the first thing he noticed was the sharp chemical smell from the forensic team. That would be print-developing chemicals applied to the walls and door knobs and probably every sharp or hard object in Allison’s apartment. A good team could lift a print from a glass that had gone through a dishwasher. With the right tinctures and tests, a careful lab technician could tell the print of a smoker or heavy coffee drinker by the chemical traces deposited with the rest of the oils in the print; a single print could yield a DNA sample. But the strength of the chemical smell told him what he also already knew: the forensic team had gone wall to wall and floor to ceiling and had not found a single print that could not be ruled out as belonging to Allison or Ben.
He crouched low, shining his dim flashlight at his feet. The floorboards in Allison’s apartment were either refurbished originals from the condominium’s days as a cotton warehouse, or had been salvaged from an old barn by an interior decorator. They were aged a deep brown and dented with the wear of years, but the new stains were easy enough to see. A rivulet of dried blood ran out of the living room into the foyer. He stepped to the side and played the light across the floor until it reached the red brick wall of the living room. He crept across that space, mindful the flashlight beam stayed low and well clear of the three tall windows on the far side of the room. Now, in addition to the smell of the forensic team’s chemicals, he could smell something far less clinical. Blood was rotting in the grain of the wood. The entire living room reeked of it. Combined with the antiseptic bite of the print-developing chemicals, the room was close and thick with a smell like bandages peeled off an infected wound. And it was painfully hot. The police left the air conditioning off, and the living room’s west-facing windows let in the sun all afternoon.
Breathing shallowly, he went to the bedroom.
It started here.
He risked letting the light shine up the wall behind the bed, then let it roam upwards. Fine blood droplets misted the ceiling; the spray was thicker as it came down the wall towards the bedframe. The mattress and box spring were both missing. The forensic team would have bagged them both and carried them to a lab, for trace analysis. A spill of semen, a single hair. He could see the things Allison stored under her bed: a Prada shoebox, a giant Tupperware container of folded sweaters, a low cardboard box of photo albums. Dust bunnies were strewn around, motionless in the breezeless air.
The blood trail started by the bedframe, crossed the floor between his feet, snaked through the living room, and ended in the kitchen. He imagined Allison being dragged by an ankle or by her soft red hair, off the bed and through the apartment. He followed the trail into the kitchen, knowing before he got there what he would find, knowing that this time he was early enough but not too late. The apartment hadn’t been cleaned yet, so what he was looking for would still be here.
He knew very little about his quarry, but there was one thing about which he was absolutely certain: sometimes he came back.
It might be two days after, or even as long as five, depending on how long it took for the girl to be missed, the police to be called, and the forensic team to finish its work. Then, sometimes, but not always, he would come back to finish what he’d begun. This was the first thing Chris had learned, the primary fact that governed all of his trips.
Sometimes the killer came back to finish feeding.
Chris stepped into the kitchen and turned off the flashlight. He could see well enough by the streetlight outside the kitchen window and the green glow from the clock on the microwave oven. There was a deep cast iron frying pan on the stove. The pan and stovetop were spattered in grease. A fork lay on the countertop. Its tines were filmed in oil and flecked with blood. Next, he put the light into the frying pan.
Left-over scraps of meat had blackened to crisps as the pan had cooled.
He had no doubt these were all that remained of Allison’s breasts. There was no way the police would have missed this. They didn’t see it because it wasn’t there during the investigation. The killer had stayed close enough to watch them, to know when it was safe for him to come back and cook what was left of the pieces he’d hidden.
He turned to the refrigerator, knowing. A lidless, empty ice cream carton lay on its side on the floor in front of the freezer. He knelt and aimed his flashlight. The white cardboard inside the container was smeared with blood. He snapped off the light and closed his eyes. His ears were ringing and his head was spinning, rolling back and back and getting nowhere, as if he’d swallowed half a bottle of whiskey on an empty stomach. He breathed the rank air and counted backwards in his mind, still kneeling on the floor. Finally, he stood. He put the fork in a wax paper evidence bag and pocketed it.
He walked with his hands in his pockets until he got back to the street, then stripped off his latex gloves. It was a humid and hot night, but compared to the apartment, it felt cool and wonderful. The air smelled of oak bark and saltwater. He took three steps in the direction of his motel, then stopped.
The street was empty except for a beat-up blue van parked illegally in front of a fire hydrant. Its sliding door was open. A dirty blanket hung off the seat and dangled over the gutter; food wrappers were littered across its dashboard.
He saw a shadow rushing up behind him and turned, grabbing uselessly for his holstered pistol. The man was wearing a black ski mask and was already reaching out to him with an object the size of an electric razor.
“Good night, asshole.”
He heard this gravelly voice at the same time the stun gun crashed into his chest and the two sharpened electrodes punched through his sweatshirt. The current was like a shotgun blast, but before Chris collapsed to the sidewalk, the man had him under the arms and dragged him five more steps to the waiting van and muscled him inside. The man crawled in after him and slammed the door.
Chris was face up on the wool blanket and the man in the ski mask was kneeling next to him. Chris jerked when he felt the needle go into his neck. He fought to sit up but the man had the stun gun’s electrodes pressed into his throat. His arms were pinned somehow. He felt the needle probe deeper, then gasped at the stinging heat when the man pressed the syringe’s plunger. The effect was almost instantaneous. His jaw went slack and his mouth fell open. His neck felt like molten wax and his head collapsed back into the blanket. The man in the mask was pushing on his chest but let up after about fifteen seconds.
Then the man’s hand was over Chris’s mouth and nose, pushing down hard enough that he felt the cartilage in his nose buckle as it bent sideways. He saw purple flashes behind his closed eyelids. His arms and legs might as well have been an amputee’s fantasy. He couldn’t move them at all.
“I could smother you. What could you do about that?”
Chris couldn’t answer. He was choking, but his stomach was a mile away and he didn’t retch.
The man pulled his hand away and Chris felt a lit
tle air trickle into his chest.
“Saw you eight months ago in Vancouver,” the man said. “Hanging around the docks. I couldn’t grab you then. This time I was ready. Wait’ll you try this.”
Chris could do nothing but wait.
He was screaming in his mind, begging his arms to move. The inside of the van felt like a pool of quicksand. He was sinking. The man had a new syringe in his hand.
“It’ll put you down.”
He felt the second needle’s sting, and this time, the wave that spread from it was black and empty.
Chapter Five
Chris had no idea how much time had passed. He wasn’t in the van anymore. He couldn’t open his eyes. It was cold; his skin had tightened into goose bumps. Something was squeezing his face and there was a rushing feeling in his nose. It was too cold to be blood. There was a whirring noise from somewhere behind him. He kept trying to open his eyes but couldn’t. He felt himself slipping back into the drug that had knocked him out. He told himself to focus. Where was the man in the mask? There was no noise but the mechanical whirring from below and behind.
I’m going to lose this fight, he thought, and slipped back.
Later, his eyes were open. He was looking at man in a chair for a long time before he realized he was awake. He was seeing himself in a full-length mirror. He was naked and was sitting in an ancient wheeled office chair. His arms were taped to the armrests and his ankles were taped to the single column that supported the seat. Many wraps of duct tape went around his chest and held him upright against the back of the chair. His mouth and nose were covered with a clear rubber mask that was held in place with webbing straps. A flexible hose led down and disappeared behind the chair. The whirring noise came from back there.
The mirror was about five feet away and might have been the door to a closet. There was thin carpet on the floor and an aluminum stand with a canvas webbing top. A fake marble sink was backed by another mirror and he could see plastic cups wrapped in plastic bags, and a basket of sample-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
The only light came from the vanity over the sink. The rest of the motel room was dark. The mirror showed him the front wall of the room and the ends of two tiny beds. The window was covered by a curtain the same wet-sand color of the carpet. The mask and its machine whirred on and on and forced cold air up his nose and down his wide-open mouth. His tongue felt rough and dry. He couldn’t move it. He studied the mirror again but couldn’t see his clothes anywhere. He assumed they were in the room. The man would not have stripped him before bringing inside. Of course the gun was probably with his clothes and was no use anyway when he was taped to a chair, naked, and couldn’t even close his mouth.
He heard the bedsprings creak and then heard steps across the carpet. He still couldn’t turn his head but he could move his eyes. In the mirror, a shadow passed on the front wall of the hotel room. He had never felt this cold, but his muscles were so useless he couldn’t even shiver. He heard a quiet click.
“He’s awake. White male, I’m guessing mid- to late-thirties, approximately one hundred eighty pounds. No ID. Beginning interview.”
It was the same gravelly voice. It sounded excited.
“Can you talk yet?”
He couldn’t. All that came out, muffled through the mask and the forced air, was a low aahhh.
“Subject was given a muscle relaxant. Pancuronium. Not taking any chances with this son of a bitch. It might wear off in the next fifteen minutes.”
There was another click. The man must have switched off his tape recorder.
Chris didn’t try to say anything. He just looked in the mirror, waiting for the man to show himself. The TV turned on. He couldn’t see it in the mirror, but from the sound he presumed it was mounted on a wall bracket in a corner of the room. The show sounded like a documentary about great white sharks.
The TV switched off when the show ended. Maybe an hour had passed; he’d heard a lot of commercial breaks. He’d suspected for the last five minutes that he could talk. The numb deadness in his face had given way to tingling and then to pain. He’d managed to work his jaw shut and to move his tongue side to side. His mouth was so dry he could not swallow. The same tingling was spreading down his arms and legs, but he did not try to move them. He told himself he wouldn’t get the chance; it was useless to hope for one. He told himself if the time came, he wouldn’t scream. He would hold on to the picture of Cheryl in his mind and swim down deep with it and wait until it was over.
“My name’s Chris Wilcox. My wife was Cheryl Wilcox. If you ever knew her name.”
He heard the man walk close to the corner, just out of view of the mirror. There was another click.
“Subject says his name is Chris Wilcox. Wife is Cheryl.”
The man stepped into view. He was still wearing the ski mask—or had put it back on before stepping around the corner. He was taller than Chris and bulkier, and the rasp in his voice said he was past his fifties.
“You’re not what I was expecting when I took you,” the man said.
Chris just looked at him in the mirror. He could see himself as well, tied to the chair and hooked to the breathing machine. The image didn’t fill him with confidence.
“I watched you go in. Perfect touch with the lock. Stupid to come out the way you came in. Who the fuck is Cheryl Wilcox?”
“Cheryl Arianne Wilcox, M.D. Red hair, green eyes. Murdered December 13, 2003, in Honolulu.”
“You’re the husband?”
Chris just looked at him.
“Shit.” The man disappeared behind the corner. Chris heard the sound of a laptop booting up.
“You say you’re Chris Wilcox, I can check that right now.”
“Do it,” Chris said.
He flexed the toes on both feet and tried his ankles out. They were working fine again. He tried his knees and found strength there. The tape securing his ankles to the chair was too strong to break, but he could feel it stretch very slightly. He looked at the chair in the mirror. It was a rolling office chair from the early sixties with five steel wheels, a central column, and adjustable arm rests that moved up and down with the push of a thumb button on the inside edge of each armrest. The steel, painted battleship gray, felt cold and thick against his legs. He pressed the left armrest button and lifted his left wrist. The armrest slid upwards on its steel post. Another centimeter and it would lift free of its mounting bracket. He pushed the button again and slid the arm rest back to its original position.
Chris closed his eyes, held his breath and imagined he was choking. His stomach lurched and when it came, it was painful and loud. The clear rubber mask filled up with vomit, which the air tube blew back into his mouth. He coughed and heaved, then threw up again. Now he really was choking.
From his doubled-over position, eyes tearing up from the spasms, he saw the man in the mask come around the corner. Chris was struggling to breathe, retching and convulsing. Some of it was real. The man took three steps closer, then moved to the front of the chair and leaned down to pull back the mask. Chris’s right shoulder was angled away from the man, so he chose that arm. The distance would give him a longer swing. He pushed the button on the armrest, and pulled it, together with its steel rod, up and out of the chair. In the same motion he leaned back as far as he could, threw his arm out to the side, and then swept it back against the man’s head. The impact caught the man on his left temple. The force of the blow spun the chair all the way around. The tube to the breathing machine tangled in Chris’s feet. The man had fallen on one knee and was struggling to get up. Both his hands were on the dirty carpet. Chris pushed the button on the other armrest, freed it, and clobbered the man in the nose with his left fist. He had never hit anything so hard in his life. His hand exploded in pain, but the punch was perfect. The man was down. The front of his ski mask was wet with blood. The man jerked twice and then lay still. He was breathing through his smashed nose, blood oozing from the ski mask at his nose and from his temple. C
hris swiped his forearm across his face and dislodged the rubber mask with its load of vomit. He took huge gasping breaths. He wanted to pause, to just breathe and wait for his heart to stop pounding, but knew there was no time.
Chris spun in the chair and caught the wall next to the bathroom door. He looked behind himself, gauged the distance and the amount of resistance he’d get from the carpet, then pushed hard. He rolled backwards, going diagonally across the narrow hall to the bathroom. He came to the wall on the other side, swiveled in the chair, pushed off the wall, and rolled backwards to the foot of the closer bed in the main part of the room. He pulled himself along the end of the bed, then pushed across to the second bed. His things were bundled against the headboard. He pulled his way up and grabbed his clothes, feeling immediately for the heft of the Glock in the sweatshirt. The gun tumbled out but he caught it before it fell on the floor. He could tell it was still loaded by its weight, but he took a second anyway to yank out the magazine and see the cartridge at the top. Then he slammed it back into place, chambered a round, and took the safety off.
His folding knife was still in the pocket of his jeans. He cut his shins twice and his wrist once in his hurry to slice through the duct tape. Then he was free of the chair and he stood up, the pistol in his left hand and the knife in the other. The man’s cell phone was on the foot of the other bed and Chris picked that up too, carrying it so he could drop it quickly if he needed to use the knife. The man was just starting to sit when Chris came around the corner and leveled the gun at him.
“Lie on your face and put your hands on the back of your head.”
The man hesitated and Chris came within three feet of him.
“This is a forty-five,” Chris said. “I’ve been shooting a hundred rounds a week for six years. Right now it’s loaded half with steel jackets and half with hollow points. Your guess is as good as mine which is first. Lie on your face.”
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