Unknown Means (35 page)

And now Marissa had gone home, to her apartment, which this man, determined to kill her, could enter and leave at will.

Robert is there, Evelyn reminded herself. And an armed guard.

But he attacked her with me sleeping right beside her bed. He is not afraid of other people. And he may not know there’s an officer with her, he might take the chance that Robert would be working another late shift at the hospital.

Light flooded the lab from another crack of lightning; the bright sheen temporarily overpowered the indoor bulbs. Evelyn had no reason to believe Marissa might be in danger—

Screw that. She had every reason to believe it.

She called David on a Nextel connection tinged with static, but she could make out most of his words. “We’re taking her statement now. Craig’s father is named Tufts, John Tufts.”

Her throat burned where he had choked her, her skin electric with recognition. “That’s him. That’s the guy who services Grace’s elevators. That’s how he got in. Does he go by Jack?”

David’s voice disappeared into muffled tones. Either the signal had faded or he had turned away to talk to another person. Then:

“She says his friends call him Jack.”

“What’s the name of the cop you have in Marissa’s apartment?

We’ve got to warn her that this guy can get in any time he wants.”

“She’s armed, Evelyn. And she’s going to notice if some strange guy suddenly pops out of the elevator.”

“You’re not getting this, David! He’s good at it. He could disable the lights in the elevator car, turn off the bell. He maintains those doors, he knows how quiet they are or aren’t. He could do it.”

“Okay, I get your point. The cop on night duty is Connie Seraviso. I don’t have her Nextel number, but I can get it from Dispatch.”

“Thanks. I’d rather call her radio than the apartment phone, just in case there’s nothing wrong and Marissa is finally getting a decent night’s sleep.”

“Unlike the rest of us. Here’s the car, Ms. Sinclair. Watch your head. Evelyn, I—”

A crackle, then nothing.

The signal had faded. Perhaps lightning had hit a radio tower.

She tried to call him back and got only a buzzing noise. Before she had a plan in mind, she moved down the stairs, out the back door, and unlocked her Tempo. The number for Cleveland PD Dispatch refused to come up in her weary brain, and she finally called 911 to be connected. The young woman on duty recognized Evelyn’s voice and gave her Connie Seraviso’s phone number without argument.

She pushed one tiny, glowing button at a time while peering through her windshield, the wipers going at maximum speed against the driving rain. The wipers lost, and she navigated by the few streetlights and traffic lights still operating. Euclid Avenue seemed to stretch all the way to Indiana.

The cop’s phone gave a busy signal. All this modern technology, Evelyn thought, and no one put call waiting on these damn things?

Who would the woman be talking to at this time of night? A boyfriend, also stuck working the night shift, and bored?

Perhaps David, she hoped. Maybe David got through.

She splashed to a stop in front of Playhouse Square, saw no one around, and started to drive through the red light. She nearly hit a very wet man with an overfull grocery cart. He shook his fist at her.

“Like I don’t have enough problems!” he shouted over the thunder.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said aloud for the next three blocks, unsure if she spoke to the man or her friend who might already be dead, trussed up at her own kitchen table as if testifying before a jury about the woman who destroyed Craig Sinclair’s life.

C H A P T E R

35

WHEN SHE DARED TAKE HER EYES OFF THE ROAD, Evelyn dialed Marissa’s home phone with her cell phone. The number hadn’t been programmed into her Nextel, and she couldn’t do it from memory.

No answer. No busy signal, no nothing. She dialed the number and simply nothing happened. She refused to hang up until the obnoxious beeping began, telling her that the call had not been completed and that was that. Were the apartment’s phones out? Had Evelyn’s cell service gone out? Had Jack cut the wires?

David would have officers heading to John Tufts’s address. He’d soon be in custody and Marissa would be safe. Except—what if John Tufts wasn’t at home? Knowing the identity of the killer did not solve her every worry. Until they actually had him in cuffs, he remained free to kill.

She zigzagged around Public Square and headed into the Flats, down the steep hill that she always avoided like hell in the winter, when the roads were icy. They weren’t much better now. As she was turning left at the bottom, the back end of the Tempo fishtailed and a rear wheel hit the curb. She hoped she hadn’t bent the axle. She couldn’t afford another car, and Angel would be needing her own soon . . .

The night doorman—what was his name, Leroy?—looked up in

surprise as the soaked forensic scientist burst into the lobby. No, the elevator man wasn’t there, and no one had reported any problems.

Ring the Tenneyson apartment? But it’s the middle of the night!

He relented when Evelyn reached over the counter, ready to pick up the phone herself. He dialed the number—helpful, since Evelyn didn’t know it—and she heaved a sigh of relief when he spoke.

“Hello, is this Ms. Gonzalez? No? Well, Officer, I have a lady down here who insists—”

Now she did rip the phone from his hands, albeit with a hasty smile and a thank-you, and found herself talking to Officer Connie Seraviso, very much alive and more than happy to give Evelyn the code to come up and fill her in.

“Thank you,” she said again to the doorman. “Sorry if I startled you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he assured her, discreetly drying off his receiver with a tissue. “Hell of a storm out there, huh? I heard a boom like something took out the Terminal Tower. The lights even flickered. Um—you want a towel or something?”

Evelyn said no, bade him good night, and entered the elevator, punching Marissa’s floor code onto the little white buttons. The doors closed off her view of the lobby just as one more flash of lightning illuminated her Tempo, parked at an angle on the wrong side of the street. Oh well, she doubted traffic cops would be out in this weather. She just hoped no one slid into it in the pelting rain.

She opened her Nextel and found David’s number on the glowing green screen. To her surprise, he answered.

“David? I’m in the Riviere to check on Marissa, but I just talked to the cop, and they seem to be okay. Where are you?”

She listened, got no response, and looked at the screen to see that the call had ended. The signal had probably faded almost instantly—amazing that she’d gotten a signal at all. She had no idea if David had heard a word she said, but she’d try again when she got

into Marissa’s apartment and could stand by a window. Or she’d just use the landline.

Marissa lived on the seventh floor. The elevator had just passed four when the lights went out.

Evelyn stopped breathing.

A roll of thunder like an atomic bomb rattled the building. The darkness closed in on her like a wet blanket, cutting off her air, enveloping her limbs.

Calm down. The power must have gone out. If the killer had stopped the car somehow, the lights would still be on, wouldn’t they?

And no sound emanated from anywhere, as if not only the elevator motor but every fan, refrigerator, and watercooler in the building had stopped running. The tenants were asleep and wouldn’t notice, or stir. The doorman had just told her the lights had flickered. No big deal.

But Jack had, what was it again—the controller? Wires and circuit boards and switches. He controlled every single thing about this elevator. He could turn out the lights if he wanted to. If he wanted to stop her from warning Marissa, from cutting off his secret access.

The answering service girl had asked if she should cancel the call to the on-call repairman—John Tufts. John Tufts was Craig Sinclair’s father.

Cancel the call? Did that mean she had already paged him? Did he call back, only to be treated to the story of the crazy lady who called wanting to know if E-tech serviced all these jobs—and get this, she had only the names of these buildings, not the customer numbers.

If Jack knew she was on his trail . . . But why would he not have come to the ME’s office? Granted, not too many people, even killers, wanted to break into a morgue, but its security hardly compared with the Riviere’s.

But he wasn’t familiar with the ME’s office, and he liked to work

in familiar surroundings. No doubt if they reinvestigated four of the five rapes, they would find that E-tech held the service contracts for the elevators in all four buildings. The home in Parma, of course, sat right across the street from his own. He hadn’t attacked the three women from the accident until he found them in buildings he could get comfortable with. He needed to feel secure before he attacked.

She heard a sound from above, a faint thump, perhaps residual thunder or a cable swinging to rest after its abrupt stop. Other than that, dead silence.

He might have gotten the call from the E-tech line, left his home—to which David and Riley were speeding—and come to the Riviere to finish his work. He could have entered from the roof, jumping from the building next door and unlocking (or having left open) the stairwell door. Opened the elevator door with the key, brought the elevator up, and gotten onto the top of it.

After he got into the shaft, it could work just as she suspected—he opened the doors of a dark elevator into the quiet Tenneyson apartment, where Officer Seraviso perhaps watched TV or chatted with her boyfriend, unaware that an intruder had slipped out of the metal box. Except that Officer Seraviso now expected Evelyn to arrive. Jack would not find the complacent victims to which he’d become accustomed.

Another thump, or rather a sliding sound. Evelyn gripped the handrail and stared hard into the absolute darkness. Her hand went to her Nextel. She probably wouldn’t get a call through, but she could try.

It’s my imagination, she told herself. He’s not here. He’s not.

A definite click sounded over her head. The residual effect of cooling machinery? Or the sound of the ceiling hatch opening?

She took her hand off the Nextel. Even if it worked, the green glow would illuminate her. Without it, Jack couldn’t see in the dark any better than she could.

He’s just a man, David had told her. Not magic.

He’s also a brutal, ruthless killer. And rapist.

She moved as silently as she could to the other side of the car.

Her wet Reeboks betrayed her with a small squish.

She put her back against the corner, gripping the handrails on both sides.

Cloth, in the absence of other sound, is noisy. She wondered if Jack wore his hooded blue nylon jacket. If so, it must be jersey knit, the back of her mind coolly noted. Tightly woven nylon would swish a lot more.

The front of her mind wanted to curl into a ball and sob.

A brush—possibly a foot against the hatch jamb. Another brush, maybe a calf. She could see with her mind, if not her eyes, his legs slipping into the car. In another second he’d drop down and there would be just the two of them, in a very small space, from which she could not possibly escape. Even if she screamed enough to wake a tenant—and she doubted he’d give her that chance—no one would be able to get to them. They’d assume she’d gotten stuck in the elevator and become hysterical. Then who would they call? The elevator man?

She fought back a giggle of panic.

Remembering the wiry Jack, she knew she could not defeat him in hand-to-hand combat. He was strong and, more important, crazy.

She had nothing except a Nextel she didn’t dare use.

Wait. Perhaps she had one chance.

Without giving herself time to second-guess, she rushed forward with arms swept wide and embraced his lower legs with all her strength.

He was not a figment of her imagination. Rock-hard calves clothed in long pants writhed against her stomach, heavy boots trying to kick without sufficient clearance.

He had to be hanging on to the hatch frame. He had nothing else to grasp for support on the way down, so if he let go, his upper body would fall to the floor full force. She doubted that would harm him in any significant way, but what the hell, it was all she had.

At least it confused him. He wiggled, twisting his legs, forcing her to move around the elevator. She had grabbed him from behind; his heels dug into her abdomen.

Finally he gave up and let go. Directly beneath him, she abruptly took on his full weight. It dropped her to her knees, sending jarring pain through the injured one. His upper body landed somewhere in the darkness, but with his hands to break the fall, it had probably been easier on him than on her.

Still, she hung on. Restraining his legs left him nothing but his arms, and they were facing away from her. Shifting her weight to her right hip, she swung her left leg out and kicked him in the back.

This was her injured knee, so the kick lacked strength, but she felt a pang of satisfaction when she heard him grunt.

He twisted to one side. If he could sit up, he’d knock her block off, so she rested all her weight against his calves to keep him from turning over. It wasn’t enough. With one convulsive move, he bucked her off enough to free one leg. Then a fist connected with her chin, snapping her head back. She let go.

C H A P T E R

36

SHE COULD HEAR HIM BREATHING, AND NO DOUBT HE

could hear her. Evelyn crouched on the floor, instinctively feeling that he would stand and expect her to do the same. She did not move.

Then she heard the air part in front of her as he aimed a vicious kick in her direction. She grabbed his calf, stood, and kicked back, trying for the groin and managing only a glancing blow off what felt like a hip or a thigh. His leg slid from her sweaty grasp. She prepared to duck.