by Нора Робертс
“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.
He dreamed of what he would do with Kati—bright, sharp Kati. He had the place for it, just waiting for him. The perfect spot—all the privacy he’d need. And the irony of it tasted sweet as candy.
Then when he was finished with her—or maybe not quite—he would take Fiona. While they looked for one, he’d take Perry’s lost prize.
Maybe he’d make her watch while he did things to Kati. Make her watch while he turned her from alive to dead. He’d have so little time with Fiona, wouldn’t that enhance the brevity?
So he dreamed of two women, bruised and bleeding. Dreamed of their pleading eyes. Dreamed of them begging him, bargaining with him. Doing whatever he told them to do, saying whatever he told them to say. Listening to him as no one ever had.
He’d be the single focus of their life. Until he killed them.
He dreamed of a room shuttered from the light, a room washed with red, as if he looked through the thin silk of a red scarf. Dreamed of muffled moans and high, thin screams.
And woke with a jerk, breath wheezing in, eyes wheeling.
Someone at the door? His hand shot under the pillow for the .22, the gun he’d use to put a bullet in his own brain should there be no escape.
He would never go to prison.
He held his breath, listening. Only the rain, he thought. But it hadn’t been only the rain. A click, a click, like the turn of a knob, but...
His breath eased out again.
E-mail. He’d left the computer on while he charged it.
He pulled the laptop back onto the bed, studied the unopened e-mail. The subject line read RSKII, and reading it sent a thrill over his skin.
Cautious, he checked the sender’s address against Kati’s contact list.
A new one.
He sat studying the subject line, the sender’s name, while the thrill ebbed and flowed like a tide. And he opened it.
Kati Starr:
I’ve read your stories on RSKII. I think you’re pretty smart. I’m smart, too. I have some information on our mutual interest. Information I think you’ll want for your next article. I could go to the police, but they don’t pay. I want $10,000, and to be reported as an anonymous source. The girl’s already dead, so I can’t help her. I’ll help you and help myself. If you want what I have, let me know by noon tomorrow. After that, I’ll send my offer to someone else.
EW (Eye Witness)
“No. No.” He shook his head, jabbed the screen with his finger twice. “You’re lying. Lying. You didn’t see anything. Nobody sees me. Nobody.”
Except them, he thought. Except the women he killed. They saw him.
A trick, just a trick. He pushed off the bed to pace the room as the tide over his skin rose high and fast. People were liars. Tricksters.
He told the truth, in the end he told them the truth, didn’t he? When he tightened the scarf around their neck, he looked them right in the eye and told them. He gave them his name, and told them who killed them and why.
Simple truth. “My name is Francis Eckle, and I’m going to kill you now. Because I can. Because I like it.”
So they died with his truth, like a gift.
But this EW? He—or she—was a liar. Extorting his work for money.
No one saw him.
But he thought of the man in line at Starbucks. Of the pimply-faced clerk at the gas mart whose eyes had passed over him with boredom. Of the greasy-haired night clerk at the motel who’d smelled of pot and smirked at him as he handed over the key.
Maybe.
He sat again, studied the e-mail again. He could answer it, demand more information before any discussion of payment. That’s what she’d do.
He poured himself a short glass of whiskey and thought it through.
He composed a response, editing, deleting, refining as carefully as he might a thesis. When his finger hovered over send, he hesitated.
It could be a trap. Maybe the FBI was poking a finger in, trying to trap Kati. Or him. He couldn’t see it clearly, so he rose and paced again, drank again, thought it through again.
Just in case, he decided. Safety first.
He took a shower, brushed his teeth, shaved the faint shadow over his skull, his face. He stowed all his things in his duffel.
Moments after he hit send, he left the room. He bought a Coke at vending for the caffeine jolt, but realized he didn’t need it.
The idea of being seen, the vague possibility of being tricked, energized him. Excited him.
In some secret part of his heart he hoped he had been seen. It made it all the more worthwhile.
He gave the trunk a little pat as he passed it. “Let’s take a drive, shall we, Kati?”
“Jesus, he answered it.” Mantz leaped toward the tech. “He bit. Can you track it to the source?”
“Give me a minute,” the tech told her, tapping keys.
EW,
she and Tawney read:
I’m very interested in good information. However, I can’t negotiate any sort of payment without more data. Ten thousand is a lot of money, and the paper will require a show of good faith on your part. You claim to be an eyewitness. To what? You’ll have to give me some details, of your choosing, before we can go to the next step.
I can meet you, in a public place—again of your choosing—if you don’t want to put those details in writing or on the record at this time.
I’m eager to discuss this.
Kati Starr
“Smart enough to know she wouldn’t jump without having more,” Tawney commented. “But curious enough not to ignore it.”
“And not mobile,” Mantz added. “He has to be holed up somewhere with Internet access. Awake but not moving. It took him less than an hour to answer, and he’d have thought about it first. He was on top of her computer when we sent it.”
“Got him.” The tech gestured to the screen.
They set it up on the move. Agents, snipers, hostage negotiators—all with orders to surround, to go in silent.
“The agent who roused the night clerk said four single men have checked in tonight,” Mantz relayed as they raced through the night. “T
wo paid in cash. He’s got no holdovers from yesterday, or any day. He can’t make Eckle from the photo, didn’t see any of the cars and can’t say if any of them went into the rooms alone. Basically, he’s stoned and could give a rat’s ass.”
“Let’s get a team in rooms next to the four check-ins. Hold positions. There’s always the chance he took her in with him.”
They parked in the lot of the all-night diner next to the motel, donned their vests. As Tawney assessed the lay of the land, he nodded to an agent.
“Cage, give me the word.”
“We’ve got it down to two rooms. The other two have dual occupancy of the consenting kind. One’s got a couple banging like it’s the Fourth of July, and the other’s got a woman ragging on a guy about leaving his bitch of a wife. Teams said the walls are like paper. It’s like being there.”
“The other two?”
“One’s got somebody snoring loud enough to peel the paint off the walls.” He paused, held up a finger to his earpiece. “Just heard a woman’s voice saying, ‘Shut the fuck up, Harry.’ I’d say that leaves the one. Number four-fourteen. Corner room, back, east side. Team on that says it’s dead quiet. Not a sound.”
“I want the other rooms covered, and the parking lot blocked off. He doesn’t slip through.”
“Affirmative.”
“Desk clerk have a problem with us taking down the door?”
“He’s stoned to the eyeballs. Said do what we got to do—and probably went back to his bong and porn.”
Tawney nodded as they walked. “I want to take it down fast. I want lights in there the second it goes down. Blind his ass. The team’s in there and on him like a wolf on a deer. How about the car?”
“None matching the description or plates on the lot, or in the diner lot.”
“Could’ve switched it,” Mantz put it. “She could be in one of these. Any of them.”
“She won’t be for long.”
He had to hang back, let the take-down team move into position. He wanted to take the door, wanted it like he wanted breath. But he wanted it done clean and fast and safe just a little more.
It went exactly as he’d ordered. With his weapon drawn, he moved forward as the sounds of Clear! Clear! rang out of the room. His stomach dropped. That wasn’t the response he’d wanted. He knew before he reached the door that Eckle had already slipped through their fingers.