They didn’t bother Cait. Not really. She was used to them.
12
The problem with hunting at night in the neighborhoods Milo liked to frequent was that there were too damned many potential victims. In addition to the usual suspects—prostitutes, pimps, gang members, petty criminals—there were always plenty of clueless ordinary citizens who somehow felt comfortable walking the streets of a dangerous city alone after dark.
These fools were the people Milo tried his best to stay away from. He wasn’t always successful, but he tried. Ordinary citizens were the ones most likely to cause problems when they vanished. They were the ones with money, with pull, with worried families only too willing to make tearful appearances on the TV news and beg for their loved one’s return. Their cases were the ones the police spent most of their time and efforts trying to solve, and therefore Milo considered them, with rare exceptions, off limits.
Milo was much more interested in the hunt and in the subsequent pleasure he could get out of his victim than in any cat-and-mouse game he might play with the authorities. He wanted to satisfy his cravings in anonymity, not have to spend precious time and effort avoiding capture. That goal had vanished when Carrie Collins of Channel Seven news had coined the term, “Mr. Midnight,” but it was nevertheless still good practice to stay away from publicity. To that end, the people of the night—lost souls similar to himself—made much more logical targets.
And there were plenty of them.
Tonight, having decided upon a hooker as his prey, Milo took his time, stalking the streets patiently. A light drizzle cloaked the scene in an eerie glow, indistinct yellow halos surrounding the streetlights, making the city look more like nineteenth-century London than twenty-first-century Boston.
Cars cruised past, some low-slung and sporty, successful horny middle-aged businessmen with more money than sense out for taboo satisfaction, others boxy and utilitarian, less successful horny middle-aged businessmen out for their own taboo satisfaction. The parade seemed endless. Milo paid them little attention.
The girls, however, were a different story. His tastes weren’t overly particular, but if he was going to go to the trouble of selecting a companion, he wanted to take his time and do it right. There was no point grabbing the first girl he saw and then being disappointed; having to kill her and dump the body and then begin his search all over again.
So the girls he paid attention to. He wandered along the sidewalk, scrutinizing them as they stood in the shadows in groups of two and three. Most often they were bored, passing the time by chatting and joking with each other as they waited for potential customers. When a car containing a john drove by slowly and deliberately, the occupant’s intentions clear, the girls would emerge from the shadows like modern-day vampires, strutting and posturing, offering up the most favorable view of the merchandise.
Sometimes the car would pull to the curb and stop, the driver rolling down a window, chatting nervously with his favorite, negotiating terms. Other times the car would accelerate away, the shopper unimpressed, continuing his search elsewhere, and the girls would retreat into the alley or doorway, resuming their wait for the next potential customer. They never had to wait long.
Milo glided through the night, haunting the streets, occasionally catching a vision as he passed the hookers. Here was an aging pro, prematurely hardened by years on the street, worried about getting beaten by her pimp—again—because her earnings were slipping.
Here was a younger girl, prettier and less hardened but still a veteran of several years, snapping gum, strutting for customers, but in her mind thinking she was going to have to take the next few days off. She felt bloated. Her period was about to start, and that was exactly what she didn’t need. Taking time off would cut into her income stream. She was pissed.
Milo continued, unimpressed with the pickings. He hated the visions, wished for the millionth time in his miserable life he could be a normal guy with a normal brain, unencumbered by the unending onslaught of mental pictures and snippets of the thoughts and conversations of strangers. Then maybe this compulsion to hunt and torture and kill would disappear. Maybe he could finally achieve some peace. Maybe.
But it didn’t matter, because it was never going to happen.
He rounded a corner and saw her. A pretty young thing, new to the game. You didn’t have to be the recipient of inexplicable mental images to see that. The girl stood off by herself, awkward and uncomfortable, differentiated from her peers by the approach she was taking to lure business. Her contemporaries were dressed as provocatively as possible, decked out in micro-minis, fishnet stockings, tight crop-tops, four-inch heels.
They looked like sluts, in other words, and why wouldn’t they? They were sluts. Professional sluts.
But this girl had taken a different approach. Her chestnut hair, straight and lush and shiny in the drizzle, was split into two long ponytails, cascading over her shoulders and down her back over a tight sweater. A short plaid skirt barely covered her ass, and long bare legs, adorned only with white striped knee socks worn over patent leather shoes, drew the eye like yesterday’s trash draws flies.
The schoolgirl look.
Most pros, especially low-rent ones like the girls in this neighborhood, simply couldn’t pull off the look. They were too old, or too hard, or too used up, and weren’t able to effect the appearance of innocent sexuality it required.
But this girl was different. There was no telling how long she could manage it—the girls around here hardened quickly and permanently—but for now her freshness was unmistakable, and a welcome counterpoint to the cynical carnal excess on display everywhere else.
She was the one.
He had to have her.
Milo approached as slowly as he could manage without drawing undue attention to himself. He had been moving at a leisurely pace before and now scuffled along even more deliberately, dragging his feet and doing his best to make it appear he was paying no attention to the schoolgirl when, in reality, his entire being was focused upon her.
He passed a convenience store, one of the franchises known for being open twenty-four/seven. Not this location. This place was closed up tight, the owners having apparently decided the convenience to customers of a twenty-four-hour operation was not worth the constant threat of armed robbery. Metal shutters, the kind that could be levered up inside a steel awning during business hours, covered the windows, preventing entry from anything short of a military assault vehicle.
In the store’s recessed entryway stood a cluster of girls, three of them, chirping to one another like birds on crack as they waited for business to pick up. Their conversation died off as Milo wandered past and they watched him with a suspicion that caught him by surprise. He was used to being ignored, not scrutinized. Somehow, concentrating so hard on the girl he wanted had made him more noticeable.
He cursed softly. This was the sort of thing that they would remember. Not right away, but when their little schoolgirl compatriot disappeared and her pimp and/or the police started asking questions, sooner or later one of them would recall the strange man walking all alone in this neighborhood, the man who showed up just before she checked out.
Milo knew he should just forget about this one, cut his losses; walk away and continue the search. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t be able to find another suitable playmate before the end of the night. But something about this girl really stoked his fire. Maybe it was nothing more than the fact that she represented an interesting challenge, but Milo wanted her. Only her. And he was goddamned well going to have her, the consequences be damned.
What would these drugged-up witnesses remember, anyway? He was just another anonymous guy in anonymous clothing. And he would disappear like smoke. There was nothing to worry about.
Milo walked past the hookers, ignoring them even as they eyed him with a mixture of curiosity and resentment. They seemed to realize he wasn’t a customer, and if he wasn’t planning to drop some cash on any of them, they wanted
him away as fast as possible, so as not to scare off the next potential sale.
He didn’t care. He wasn’t going to hurry things along just to please a couple of skank hookers. He stared them down as he passed, knowing he shouldn’t do it but unable to stop himself. Who the hell did they think they were? He blinked as an image of a knife flashed into his head. One of them had a knife hidden inside her boot and she was thinking about it, grateful she was protected against…whatever the danger was. She wasn’t even sure. She only knew that she felt uneasy and concerned for her safety.
Then the vision passed and Milo was able to refocus his concentration on his target, the little faux schoolgirl standing off by herself on the sidewalk ahead. This novice streetwalker apparently had not yet developed whatever sixth sense the pros in front of the convenience store had that warned them of the menace inherent in Milo Cain. She looked ill at ease, but didn’t seem to feel she was in any danger.
The girl twirled a finger through a stray lock of hair, gazing across the misty street at nothing in particular that Milo could see, so totally oblivious to her surroundings that he was able to move up right next to her, invading her personal space, before she even realized anyone was standing there. She turned and almost bumped into him, jumping back with a tiny yelp.
Milo arranged his face into what he hoped was his most ingratiating smile, aiming to look like just another pathetic horny bastard out for a little professional action on a Friday night. His nerves were thrumming and the tension in his gut was building as he approached the point of no return.
The hooker returned his smile hesitantly and said, “Hey, baby. Can I borrow some lunch money?”
The question was so unexpected that Milo laughed out loud in spite of the circumstances. “You don’t even have to borrow it,” he told her. “I’ve got money and it’s all yours. Of course, there are a few strings attached.”
“There always are,” she answered with a wistful smile. “What can I help you with tonight?”
“Oh, we’re going to do all kinds of fun stuff,” Milo said, thrilled that he didn’t even have to lie. Of course, she might disagree with his definition of fun, but that was her problem, not his. “Follow me.”
“Follow you? Where are we going?”
“My car’s right around the corner,” he said. “Let’s get out of this rain.” He began walking away without looking back.
He knew the hooker would follow him. He was right.
13
Thirty years ago
Everett, Massachusetts
The stranger dressed all in black dumped the canvas bag into the truck of his idling car and returned to the doorway. Virginia had warned Robert this moment would be stressful, had told him to steel his heart, to avoid forming even the slightest attachment to the babies. She had said that to do so would only make the moment of parting that much more difficult. But how could it possibly be more difficult than this?
She had explained, clearly and patiently, that this parting was a necessary step. It represented the only way to protect the children, to ensure them of a fair chance at a happy life, and, more importantly, at a safe life. It had to be this way.
And Robert understood, at least as much as was possible. He had listened without judgment to her dispassionate recitation of her strange and terrifying family history, their discussions lasting hours at a time, deep into the night, for weeks on end. He trusted his wife, had complete faith in her, accepted the words she told him without reservation. He knew she would never suggest abandoning her own children unless there was simply no other way.
So he had agreed.
And it had all led to tonight. He had thought he was ready; had believed he had constructed a wall around his heart, impenetrable and thick.
But he had been wrong, because the moment he laid eyes on the two tiny newborns, helpless and innocent and entirely dependent upon others for their survival, Robert had fallen hopelessly in love.
He could not do it. He could not give them up.
The stranger cleared his throat respectfully, then reached out and gently plucked the baby girl from Robert’s left arm. He tucked her away exactly as Robert had done, and then lifted the baby boy from his other arm. Robert did nothing to stop him.
Then the stranger looked at Robert and nodded. He said nothing. There was nothing to say. The man turned and walked back to his car, seeming to dissolve into the inky night thanks to his black clothing. He fastened the babies expertly into identical car seats, positioned side-by-side in the rear of the vehicle.
The man walked to the front seat and climbed in, his feet crunching gravel. He backed out of Robert and Virginia Ayers’s driveway and accelerated smoothly forward. He turned left at the end of the lonely road and was gone.
14
The Parkman Hotel was short and squat and had at one time been considered high-end, if not quite luxurious. It had been built in the late 1800s and in its day it had been the equal of any surrounding construction, according to the research Kevin had done on the Internet. The problem was, its day had passed decades ago and the building now appeared overwhelmed by the modern steel and glass high-rises surrounding it.
The room was clean, but the furnishings were dowdy and out of style, not that Cait cared. This wasn’t a vacation or a pleasure trip, but a fact-finding mission with a specific goal—to unearth as much of her family history as possible.
The trip from Logan Airport to the hotel in a Boston cab had been like some crazy amusement park ride, the driver whipping between lanes at will, driving one-handed, sometimes one-fingered, gleefully cutting off other vehicles like the fate of the free world rested upon his passengers arriving at their destination in the absolute minimum time possible. This vehicular insanity had elicited honks and angry gestures, but to Cait’s surprise most of the other drivers’ reactions seemed perfunctory, as if they had fully anticipated being cut off in traffic and were only responding because they knew it was expected of them.
“Christ,” Kevin muttered as he dropped their bags on the hallway floor and unlocked the door to their room. “I’m sure glad we didn’t tell him to step on it.”
Cait smiled her agreement. She trudged to the queen-sized bed in the middle of the small room and flopped down on it, too tired to unpack, surprised to discover the bed was fairly comfortable.
She patted the blanket next to her. “Let’s get some sleep, I want to get up first thing in the morning and get an early start.”
Kevin grimaced. “It’s already first thing in the morning.”
“No rest for the weary,” Cait said, and as she did, a Flicker struck with such force her head was thrown backward, bouncing off the hotel room wall with a thud. She moaned and her eyes glazed over before her eyelids fluttered madly. In the Flicker, she was looking through someone else’s eyes, gazing at a schoolgirl standing on a drizzly Boston sidewalk. Upon closer inspection the girl turned out to be a young woman acting out what she thought might be a man’s schoolgirl fantasy. She stood on a wet sidewalk covered by a shroud of heavy mist, and whoever this Flicker belonged to was gazing at her with a predatory lust that was shocking in its intensity.
He—Cait knew it was a he, although she couldn’t have said how she knew—was talking with the young woman, joking, keeping the conversation light, but there was no real humor behind the words; they were a put-on, designed to keep the woman (the VICTIM) at ease until he could get her alone. He was tense and high-strung, not exactly nervous, more like excited, anxious to begin playing with (TORTURING) her.
The woman was a prostitute, that was obvious, but the man wasn’t interested in sex; at least not primarily, not right now. He wanted to hurt her, to do things to her, bad things; the evil oozed out of him, rolling off his body in waves like heat off a rapidly accelerating fire.
Cait wanted to shout at the girl, to tell her to run, to sprint in the other direction and scream at the top of her lungs, to alert everyone in this grimy neighborhood to the fact that there was a monster in their
midst. But of course she couldn’t yell, she couldn’t warn anyone of anything, she wasn’t even really there. She was a mute witness to a random event occurring somewhere nearby.
The young prostitute was uneasy, but she allowed herself to be convinced to accompany the monster. He said something about his car being around the corner, which was patently stupid. It was raining and no one else was around, and there was no good reason in the world why any john would park out of sight and negotiate with a prostitute on foot before bringing her to his car. It was clear the prostitute knew something was not quite right, even the man (MONSTER) could see that, but he knew she would follow him anyway, and she did.
His thoughts were swirling and violent. He was picturing pliers and knives and what he would do with them, how he would use them to elicit shrieks of terror from the girl. He would taunt her with them, pinching her nipple lightly, just enough to cause her to gasp in shock and fear and a little pain; then he would move down her body and stroke the skin of her inner thigh with the back edge of a knife-blade, barely touching her but demonstrating his evil intent with crystal clarity.
Then he would get down to business in earnest. He would open the jaws of the pliers wide and he would—
—and then the Flicker was gone and Cait’s eyes snapped into focus to see a worried Kevin leaning over her. Concern was written on his face as he held her hand and stroked her arm gently.
She bolted upright and pushed him out of the way, sliding off the bed and rushing into the tiny bathroom where she puked, her partially digested dinner of chicken parmesan with rice and vegetables searing her throat on the way out.
Dead and Gone Page 207