by John Lutz
“Plenty of swimming pools in Maine,” Harold said.
“And lakes,” Sal added.
Quinn rubbed his chin and studied the area Lido had delineated by bordering it with red ink. The killer didn’t know it, but the noose was about to tighten.
“We’ll call motels and lodges in the area,” Quinn said.
“That’s almost half of Maine,” Helen pointed out.
“We’ll alert the law in those places, let them spread the word in their jurisdictions.”
“What if he kills her in her home or apartment?”
“She’ll be from New York,” Quinn said, “even if he kills her in Maine.”
Helen smiled sadly. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be thumbing his nose at us.” She shifted to face Quinn and pointed. “At you.”
“Is it that important to him?” Sal asked.
“All-important,” Helen said.
Quinn said nothing.
They spent the rest of the morning working the phones.
It was nine o’clock the next morning when Quinn got the call on his cell phone. He and Pearl were driving toward Creighton County, Maine, the center of the area where Lido had calculated the killer would take his next victim.
His iPhone identified the caller as anonymous, but somehow Quinn knew who it was.
“I’m having fun,” the voice said. “Are you?”
And the connection was broken.
Quinn was aware of Pearl sitting straight up beside him, listening.
“It was him,” Quinn said. “Taunting. Playing games.” He didn’t have to remind Pearl that this was the sicko who had taped her rigid and silent as a log and then stuffed her under a motel bed with a dead maid.
They drove along for a long time, the only sound the ticking of the tires over tarred highway seams. Then Quinn’s cell phone chimed again.
When he saw that the caller was Creighton County Sheriff Will Chalmers his heart picked up a beat and his foot eased farther down on the accelerator. Chalmers was a former Iowa Sheriff who’d retired and moved to Maine. Quinn had met him, liked him, trusted him.
Careful to keep his speeding and rocking black Lincoln Town Car on the road, he pressed the cell to the side of his head. Said simply, “Quinn.”
“I’m calling from the Antler Lodge,” Chalmers said. He sounded excited, but holding it in. “They had a guest who thought she heard a woman scream. When the Inn manager went to investigate, he was stabbed to death. He lived long enough to call emergency on his cell phone. A woman in the room was dead. Carved up and burned with cigarettes. Looked like one of the cigarettes touched her cloth gag and burned it through so she could make some noise. Didn’t last long, though. Asshole slit her throat.”
“You sure it was—”
“He’d gotten around to carving a D on her forehead.” Chalmers let Quinn digest that news, then said, “Listen, Quinn, your killer’s on the run in the woods. He’s hemmed in between the law and the lake. Case you don’t know, that’s Creighton Lake.”
Pearl had moved closer to Quinn. She wanted to hear every word of this phone call. She reached for the printout of Lido’s map with motels and lodges on it and spread it out on her lap. They needed the quickest route possible.
He heard the map rattle in her lap as she pointed at a turn coming up.
Chalmers spoke. “Antler Lodge is—”
“I know where it is,” Quinn said. He didn’t mention the “catch me if you can” phone call from the killer.
“You hurry, Quinn, and you could maybe get in on this.”
Quinn hurried.
The old black Lincoln was like a ghost on the highway, and Quinn was Death on a mission.
Quinn vs. D.O.A.—the final showdown is yet to come!
Don’t miss
FRENZY
Coming from Pinnacle in October 2014
Photo by Jennifer Lutz-Bauer
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A multiple Edgar and Shamus Award winner—including the Shamus Lifetime Achievement Award—John Lutz is the author of over 30 novels. His novel SWF Seeks Same was made into the hit movie Single White Female (1992), starring Bridget Fonda, and later remade as The Roommate (2011), starring Minka Kelly and Leighton Meester, and The Ex was a critically acclaimed HBO feature. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri, and Sarasota, Florida. In describing his serial-killer thrillers, John Lutz says: “I’m trying to provide readers with the kind of roller-coaster ride that will scare them a lot but compel them to buy another ticket.”
His website is johnlutzonline.com.
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Copyright © 2014 John Lutz
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3631-8
First electronic edition: August 2014