Stealing Faces

by Michael Prescott

  Walter might have his problems, but this was not one of them. The drawing he produced was a perfect likeness of Kaylie McMillan at age nineteen, an image culled from a library of faces in his photographic memory and put on paper without a single smudge or wasted line.

  He showed it to the maid, and her face brightened.

  “Ah, the senora,” she said. “I make up room for her. Very pretty, very nice.”

  Walter nodded. He thought Kaylie was pretty too. He thought he might even kiss her once, smack on the lips, after she was dead.

  “Where is she?” Walter asked. “I’m looking for her.” He rarely lied, but the importance of this moment inspired him to a brilliant prevarication. “I’m her brother, and I’m here to pick her up.”

  This sounded convincing, though he wasn’t sure the maid quite understood.

  Whether she did or not, she seemed happy to help. “She is in room, uh ... how you say nombre? Three and seven.”

  Three and seven? Room 10? No, that couldn’t be right.

  Then Walter understood.

  Room 37. Just a few doors down.

  “Thank you,” Walter said. He took the drawing with him when he left.

  Well, that had been easy. Now he would kill Kaylie and go home. His stomach was getting a little restless, and he suspected that lunchtime had passed. He hoped he would not miss dinner.

  “Thirty-seven,” he said, and rapped on the door.

  No answer.

  He knocked again. “Kaylie,” he called. “Are you there? Come out, Kaylie.”

  Nothing.

  He was rather disappointed. It appeared she was out.

  The idea that she might not open the door never occurred to him. At the hospital, the only world he knew well, people always responded when he knocked on their doors or called out to them or pressed a buzzer for help.

  If Kaylie was not responding, then she wasn’t home. But she would be back. He could wait.

  Waiting was another thing he was good at. He could sit in the same position for hours without moving.

  Next to room 37 there was a stairwell. A good place to hide.

  Walter retreated into the far corner of the stairwell and leaned back against the wall, his arms at his sides, his gaze focused straight ahead on nothing, no thoughts in his mind, no distractions, and he waited for Kaylie to return.

  29

  “Ma’am? You okay?”

  Elizabeth heard the words and looked up.

  Two small boys, no older than ten, stood watching her with wary concern. One had a book bag slung over his shoulder, and the other wore a Diamondbacks baseball cap cocked on his head.

  “Ma’am?” the boy with the book bag said again, his face scrunching up in a puzzled frown.

  “I’m fine,” she answered automatically, wondering why he and his friend had stopped to ask.

  Then she realized that unconsciously, while sitting on the bus-stop bench, she had begun to shred the newspaper in her hands. Long curling strips lay everywhere on the bench and sidewalk, a scatter of confetti.

  “You’re not s’posed to litter,” the boy in the baseball cap said sternly. “It’s against the law.”

  He seemed less helpful than the other boy, and more afraid.

  Elizabeth found a smile for him. “I’m sorry. You’re right.” Her gaze widened to include them both. “I won’t do it again.”

  The second boy did not return the smile. He just stood silently appraising her, worried by what he saw.

  His companion, more trusting, said, “That’s okay. You didn’t mean to. What’s your name?”

  Before Elizabeth could answer, the other boy cut in. “I don’t think we should be talking to her, Tommy.”

  Tommy ignored this. “You waiting for the bus?”

  “No. Just sitting down. I wanted to get out of the wind for a while.” She got up, taking care not to scatter the loose strips of newsprint in her grasp. “Guess I’d better get going.”

  “We go to Sewell Elementary,” Tommy said.

  “Come on.” The other boy tugged at Tommy’s arm. He seemed even more concerned now that Elizabeth was on her feet. “Let’s go.”

  Tommy reluctantly yielded to the pressure. “Okay, well ... we’ll see you.”

  He produced a slightly goofy, lopsided smile, and Elizabeth realized that he was enamored of her, in his boyish way. That was why he’d stopped to talk.

  She was charmed, yet at the same time oddly saddened. It took her a moment to realize that she was wondering how much time had passed since anybody had smiled at her like that.

  She hadn’t dared intimacy in years. A serious relationship posed the risk of exposing her safeguarded secrets, or of drawing another person into the dangerous mess of her life.

  “Bye, Tommy,” she said, with a smile of her own.

  She glimpsed a red tinge inflaming his cheeks as he turned quickly away.

  The two boys walked off, and she heard the one in the baseball cap saying, “What’s the matter with you, man? You nuts or something?”

  She watched them go. They were heading west on their way home from school; her motel lay in the same direction. She didn’t want them to think she was following them. She had a feeling Tommy’s companion wouldn’t care for that development.

  When they were well down the street, she wedged the newspaper under her arm and started walking. She knew what she had to do, and she had better get moving if she intended to do it tonight.

  The risk was high, but she’d tried everything else.

  She could run, of course, just run away and let Cray kill again and again, never to be stopped.

  But then she would dream every night of the ride into the desert in the black Lexus, knowing that other women were taking that journey, women she might have saved. And one of those women might have a boy like Tommy, a boy who would grow up without his mother. Sharon Andrews, the last victim, had left a son behind.

  “So do it, then,” she whispered to herself. “Do it, and get it over with.”

  She thought of Tommy’s serious friend, who’d scolded her for littering. What would he say if he knew her plans for the evening?

  In her mind she heard him saying sternly. It’s against the law. But littering was only a misdemeanor. Tonight she would commit a felony.

  Well, so what? The law had never helped her. The law had been her enemy for twelve years. The law was obtuse and stubborn and blind, and to hell with it.

  The two boys had cut down a side street now. Walking past, Elizabeth saw Tommy’s friend run up the driveway of a small house nestled in tall evergreens.

  She envied him. He had a home and friends, and he ran only for the joy of it, not for survival.

  The boy waved to Tommy, who yelled something indistinct and continued down the street. His house must be somewhere in the neighborhood.

  She thought she saw him turn back once, perhaps looking for her, but probably it was only her imagination.

  A boy of ten. If she and Justin had been married for the past twelve years, they might have a child of that age. A child who ran home from school with a book bag on his shoulder.

  But Justin was dead, of course.

  And she had killed him.

  She had shot him in the chest and left him to bleed to death in the garage.

  She still remembered—she would always remember—the stunned look on his face when he sank to his knees, the empty disappointment in his eyes, and the awful trembling of his lips as he tried to form words and failed.

  The memory moved through her like a shudder, and briefly she was dizzy.

  Too much sun. She needed to sit down. Well, her motel was close now. She could read the sign, outlined against the bright sky. The Desert Dream Inn.

  It seemed appropriate. A desert dream was a mirage, wasn’t it? An illusion. A false hope.

  She had been fooling herself to expect the police to believe her. She had been the victim of an illusion.

  But not anymore.

  30


  Lois Belham had been on her feet from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon, and now, at 3:15, after shedding her waitress uniform and counting her tip money, all she wanted to do was go home and soak in a tub.

  But first she had to talk to the cop.

  He was a plainclothes guy, and he’d introduced himself as Detective Shepherd. She was grateful to him for suggesting that they sit in a corner booth. At least she could get off her feet.

  “I remember her,” Lois said when Shepherd mentioned the incident of the spilled coffee. “Cute little thing, but all fluttery, like a bird.”

  “You hadn’t seen her before?”

  “No, never. Guess Leo and Kurt told you about her, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  Leo Galston and Kurt Bane were the two patrol guys who came into the coffee shop now and then. Lois knew them pretty well. Nice guys, good tippers, and that Leo had a linebacker’s shoulders. Lois was big on shoulders. Her ex-husband Oswald had been built that way, and it might’ve been the reason she married him.

  “Can you describe her?” Shepherd asked.

  “She’s a blonde. Fair skin, freckles—like a schoolgirl.”

  “Color of her eyes?”

  “Didn’t notice. Might’ve been blue. Blue would work well for her, with the blonde hair and all, but I can’t really say.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Let me see. Her hair was fairly mussed, I remember. There was some dirt on her clothes, too. Not that she was, you know, slovenly.” She was proud to use this word, which she’d learned doing her crosswords for relaxation in the evenings when her feet were sore. “She needed to wash up, is all. She looked like she’d spent some time outdoors.”

  Shepherd jotted this in a memo pad, appearing unsurprised. “What was she wearing?”

  “She had on a jacket, one of those vinyl ones with a zipper. It was dark in color, as I recall.” Cops on TV were always saying things like that—dark in color, not just dark. Sounded more official, somehow. “And a skirt, a white skirt. I remember because I thought it looked nice, and I was going to ask her where she got it.”

  “Did you?”

  “Never got a chance. After the wet cleanup, she was so upset, she just paid her tab and scrammed.”

  “How old was she, would you say?”

  “Lord, I’m not a good judge of age. Middle twenties, maybe.” She almost added something, but reconsidered.

  Shepherd seemed to sense her hesitation. “And?”

  “It’s just—well, I’d bet she didn’t go far.”

  He looked at her. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because she was tired. She looked like she’d been up all night and had just wore herself out. I know how that feels.” She surely did. She was bone-tired right now. “You just want to crawl into a bath or a bed and shut your eyes. This lady you’re after had that same look about her.”

  “So you think she’s close by?”

  “Right in the neighborhood. That’s what I think.”

  In the neighborhood.

  Shepherd emerged from the coffee shop, blinking at the glare, and scanned the rows of strip malls lining Speedway Boulevard. He knew of two motels on Speedway within a half-mile radius of the Rancheros Cafe. If the McMillan woman had indeed been ready to crash in a nice, warm bed, she might have checked into one of those motels after leaving the coffee shop.

  It was a long shot, but any shot at all was better than none.

  Which motel? One lay to the east, the other to the west.

  West seemed right. Going west, she wouldn’t have had to make a difficult left turn onto Speedway. She would have simply eased into the traffic flow and let the current carry her to the first available lodgings.

  Worth a try.

  He got in his sedan and pulled out of the parking lot, driving fast out of habit.

  Of course, it was possible that she had checked into a motel days ago, in an entirely different part of town. But he didn’t think so. If she’d had a place to stay, she would have gone there directly after making her 911 call in order to wash up and change. Women hated dirt.

  He smiled, imagining what Ginnie would have said if she’d heard such an obvious example of stereotypical thinking.

  The motel appeared on his right, two blocks ahead. Drawing near, he could read the sign out front, advertising CABLE TV and AIR CONDITIONING, as if both features were exotic luxuries. In larger letters the motel’s name was spelled out:

  THE DESERT DREAM INN.

  31

  Near the motel office, in an alcove, there was a soda machine. Elizabeth knew she shouldn’t waste any money, even sixty cents, but after her walk in the sun, she was hot and fatigued.

  She fished a few coins from her purse, then fed them into the slot and pressed the Coke button. A frosty can rolled down the chute with a thud. She popped the tab and took a long swallow, leaning against the wall.

  There were plans to be made. She would have to stop for dinner somewhere; she needed to be well fed and alert. And maybe she ought to pick up another flashlight. Her little pocket flash was probably inadequate for the job she had in mind. Also, she’d better remember to take her gloves and the vinyl jacket.

  It was too bad she’d lost her gun. She would have liked the protection it provided. But the gun was gone, and she had no money for a replacement. She would just have to hope she didn’t need it.

  Still organizing her thoughts, she stepped out of the alcove, just in time to see a dark sedan pull into the parking lot.

  And she knew.

  Cop car.

  There was no doubt. She knew it with her nerve endings and reflexes, before her mind even had time to process the reasons. Cops always drove either a Ford Crown Victoria or a Chevy Caprice, and the sedan was a Ford straight out of the police motor pool, complete with a stubby, telltale antenna jutting out of its rear.

  Instantly she ducked back inside the alcove, her heart booming, the can shaking in her hand.

  Had they seen her? She wasn’t sure.

  She had emerged from the alcove only momentarily, and the overhang above the doorway had kept her in shadow.

  They might not have noticed her. She prayed they hadn’t.

  If they had, she was finished. There was nowhere to run. The alcove had no exit except the one that led to the parking lot.

  She hugged the wall and listened.

  The sedan rumbled to a stop not far away. The motor died. She heard a car door open and shut.

  One door.

  One cop, then. Alone.

  Had to be a detective. It was the detectives who drove the unmarked cars.

  He was here, looking for her. He must be.

  She had been stupid, so stupid, to check into this motel. She should have known that the cops at the coffee shop would remember her. Should have left this neighborhood, gone outside city limits entirely. But she’d been exhausted, distracted by the news on the radio, not thinking clearly—not thinking at all.

  Twelve years of caution, and now it all might have ended for her because of one mistake, one moment’s inexcusable carelessness.

  Footsteps on asphalt. The man ... approaching.

  He was coming for the alcove, straight for the alcove, and coming fast.

  God, this was it.

  Arrest.

  The word she hated most in the world.

  Would they put her in another mental institution, or would it be jail this time? She might almost prefer jail. Either way, she would be trapped, caged, and they would never let her go.

  He was close now. A few yards away.

  Wildly she thought of making a break for it, sprinting across the parking lot, perhaps losing him in a back alley.

  Ridiculous. She could never outrun him.

  He stepped onto the walkway outside the alcove.

  Then a door opened—the door to the motel office—and she heard a male voice say, “Excuse me. I’m Detective Shepherd, Tucson PD.”

  The door swung shut. />
  He was in the office. He’d had no interest in the alcove. He hadn’t seen her, after all.

  Relief weakened her. She dropped the soda can, and its contents painted an ink-stain splash on the cement floor.

  Moving fast, she left the alcove and doubled around to the rear of the motel, praying she had time to salvage her belongings and flee.

  * * *

  The manager was in her office, smoking a cigarette and arguing with somebody on the phone. She hung up quickly when Shepherd entered. He’d heard enough of the conversation through the door to know she’d been in a dispute with her bookie, but he didn’t give a damn about that.

  He introduced himself, showed his badge. She was no more interested in it than the receptionist at Hawk Ridge had been.

  “How can I help you?” she asked indifferently. She had narrow, suspicious eyes and three chins.

  “I’m looking for a woman, a fugitive, and it’s possible she’s staying here.”

  “What woman?”

  “She’s blonde, looks to be between twenty-five and thirty, and if she checked in, it probably would have been this morning, before ten.”

  “We don’t get many check-ins at that hour....”

  “It could have been later. She was wearing—”

  “Whoa. Hold on. What I was gonna say is, we don’t get many check-ins at that hour, which is why I remember the lady in question.”

  She was here.

  32

  Elizabeth came around the back of the motel at a run and nearly collided with a maid’s cart outside room 29.

  “Senora,” the maid called from just inside the doorway.

  A note of urgency in her voice made Elizabeth stop. “Yes?”

  The maid came forward, struggling to find words in English. Elizabeth remembered her from this morning, when she changed the room after the early check-in.

  “There is a man who looks for you,” the maid said finally. “A tall man.”

  A man? Detective Shepherd? Had he been here earlier, snooping around? Or was it some other cop?