Kill Fee (36 page)

S
tevens was awake, barely, when the knock came on his door. He was lying in bed watching
SportsCenter
, waiting for the Timberwolves highlights and missing Nancy and the kids. He’d called home as soon as he checked into the room, woke Nancy to ask about Andrea.

“She’s fine, Kirk,” his wife had replied, in between yawns. “Soon as I told her you’d gone back to work, she lit up like a Christmas tree. I
took her in to the doctor today anyway, just to be safe. He’s going to set her up with a counselor, but he doesn’t think we have any reason to be worried.”

“You tell him I was out of town on a case?”

Nancy yawned again. “No,” she said. “Why would I tell him that?”

“I don’t know.” Stevens sighed. “I just want to know that I’m not doing Andrea any damage being out here, I guess. I worry about it.”

“She’ll be fine, Kirk. Just hurry up and come home.”

Stevens told her he would, and he told her he loved her. Then he hung up the phone and turned on the TV and watched it and thought about home. Now, at nearly two in the morning, he was ready for sleep. Or he had been, until he heard the knock at his door.

The knock came again, insistent, and Stevens cursed softly and swung his legs to the floor. He walked to the door and stared out through the peephole. Then he stepped back. “Shit,” he said. “One second.”

He hurried back into the room and pulled on yesterday’s pants. Fixed his hair in the mirror and turned on another light. Then he unlocked the door and let Windermere into the room.

“Hey,” she said. She walked past him and sat in an overstuffed easy chair. Eyed the bed. “You asleep?”

Stevens followed her into the room. Leaned against the wall and gestured at the TV. “Not quite. Waiting for the Timberwolves’ score.”

Windermere glanced at the TV. “Beat the Grizzlies 92 to 86,” she said. “Love had a double-double.”

Stevens frowned. “You hate basketball.”

“Yeah, well.” She made a face. Looked around the room, anywhere but his eyes. Then she laughed, a humorless staccato. “So, I slept with Mathers.”

Stevens laughed, too, more out of shock than anything. Then he caught the look on her face. “Jesus,” he said. “That’s why you came over?”

“No.” Windermere sighed. “Yeah.”

“In Philadelphia. While I was away.”

“I was, I dunno, lonely,” she said. “He was there. We got drunk. You were off with your wife. I figured, why the hell not?”

Stevens stared at her across the room. She sat in the armchair and held his gaze, about as beautiful as he’d ever seen her. He leaned against the wall and tried to think up a response. “So, what?” he said finally. “Why tell me this, Carla?”

She shrugged. “I swore I wouldn’t. Then I figured you’d find out eventually. I wanted you to hear it from me.”

“How thoughtful.”

She looked away suddenly. “Yeah, well.”

“That’s why Mathers was so weird in Vegas, huh?”

She nodded. “We’re not together. It was a one-night thing, and before you ask, it’s not something I normally do. I don’t sleep around, Stevens, but it’s damn well within my rights if I want to.”

Stevens didn’t say anything.
Why does this feel like a fight between two married people?
Why should I give a damn who Carla sleeps with?

Except, of course, he did. It was irrational—didn’t make any sense at all—but there you go. He felt jealous of Mathers, and angry, just as if Windermere were his cheating wife.

You’re the cheater. Just by feeling this way, you’re unfaithful to Nancy.

Stevens let out a long breath. “Sure,” he said. “Of course. It’s none of my business, anyway.”

“No,” Windermere said, after a moment. “It’s not.”

“Exactly.”

Windermere didn’t say anything else. They stared at each other. Then Windermere looked away, and Stevens wondered what she was thinking.

Who cares what she’s thinking? She’s not your damn problem.

“This is why you came over?” he said finally. “To tell me about you and Mathers, at two in the morning?”

She shook her head. “Actually, no.” She reached into her pocket and
pulled out her cell phone. “Got a text from Mathers in Delaware. I guess he made it down to that crime scene pretty quick.”

“And?”

“And it’s a murder scene, Stevens.” She looked at him. “Police found two bodies in a ditch a half mile from the scene. Two guys—as far as anyone can tell, they’re just innocent bystanders. Cut up pretty bad, and their IDs are missing.”

Stevens pushed himself off the wall. “Can’t be a coincidence,” he said.

“No way,” said Windermere. “Local cops are working on names for our victims, but in the meantime it’s more bodies for O’Brien or Gray. And they’re still at large, Stevens, up there in Delaware.”

“And we flew to Charlotte.” Stevens leaned against the wall and ran his hands through his hair. “God damn it all, Carla.”

E
arly the next morning, Lind parked the Mustang outside a little police station along the highway in Newport, Delaware. He turned off the ignition and looked at Caity Sherman. “Okay,” he said, “this is it.”

She was bruised, he saw: her cheek and her throat, where the killer had strangled her. Her clothes were torn and dirty, her hair unkempt and her eyes tired. She looked deflated, and Lind felt something like shame when he looked at her. He’d dragged her into this mess. The man had been right to warn him not to make friends.

Caity stared out the window and sighed. “You’re going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine once I find him,” he said.

“You don’t have to find him.” She reached across and touched his
hand. “You don’t have to go after him, Richard. I’ll talk to the police. You stay hidden. We’ll let them solve the problem.”

A uniformed police officer had come out of the station house. He walked slowly across the lot to a patrol car. Noticed the Mustang and studied it for a moment. Lind watched him, anxious. It was time to go. “Give me a head start,” he told Caity. “Like we agreed, okay? Don’t tell them everything right away.”

Caity snorted. “What would I tell them?” she said. “I don’t
know
anything. You won’t tell me where you’re going.”

“The lake house,” said Lind. “That’s where he took me.”

“Yeah, and where’s that? You don’t even know.”

“I’ll find it,” he told her. “If I can find the hospital, I can retrace his steps. I just have to remember the way.”

Caity looked at him. “This is a bad idea.”

“Just give me a head start, okay?”

“Even if I told them everything I know,” she said, sighing, “there’s a thousand hospitals and a million lake houses. I don’t even know your real name.”

Lind looked at her. “Malcolm,” he said. “That’s my first name. I don’t know my last. The man in the dream called me Malcolm. That’s my name.”

“You’re sure?”

He nodded. “It feels right.”

Caity studied his face for a long time. Then she exhaled. “Well, okay, Malcolm,” she said. “I guess this is good-bye.”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I’m sorry I can’t come with you.”

“No you’re not.” He squeezed her hand. “Thank you, Caity.”

She gave him a smile. “With a
C
,” she said. Then she reached for the door. Climbed halfway out of the car before she stopped and leaned back inside. Fixed him with a look. “Take care of yourself,” she said. “Be careful, okay?”

Lind nodded, and she leaned across and kissed him once, quickly, on the cheek. Then she ducked out of the car and slammed the door closed behind her. Lind watched her as she crossed the parking lot. When she’d reached the police station, he turned the key in the ignition and the big Mustang rumbled to life. Slowly, he idled out of the lot and headed back toward the interstate.

W
ilmington, Delaware,
Stevens thought.
Derek Mathers.

It was morning. The bedsheets lay in tangles around him. He hadn’t slept much through the night, and he wasn’t sure whether it was Andrea and Nancy or Mathers and Windermere or Gilmour and Gardham that had kept him awake.

One thing was for certain: Richard O’Brien and David Gilmour had been in Wilmington, Delaware. And two more men were dead.

Gilmour’s doing, probably. O’Brien’s Mustang was missing. Gilmour’s rental car was abandoned. The two murdered men had been discovered on the side of a lonely road. Gilmour had probably hijacked their car.

So he was mobile. So was O’Brien. They were both up in Delaware. And meanwhile, Stevens had dragged Windermere to North Carolina. They still had no leads. And Windermere had slept with Mathers.

Stevens rolled over in bed. Kicked the sheets off his legs. Who the hell cared who she slept with? She was young and beautiful, and he was married. She’d had a boyfriend when they’d met, and he hadn’t cared then. Why the hell did he care so much now?

They’d come close in Philadelphia. That was why he cared. They’d
shared something, briefly, and at the last moment, they’d flinched. He’d gone home to Nancy, and she’d gone straight to Mathers.

Stevens stared up at the ceiling. It was stupid to feel this way. It was practically cheating. He was never going to leave Nancy, not in a million years. So why did it matter who Windermere slept with?

Stevens didn’t have an answer. He had a jealousy problem and a labyrinthine case. Sighing, he swung his legs off the bed and stood stretching in the hotel room, trying to push Windermere from his mind.

L
ind drove south on Interstate 95, the wind whipping through the ruined driver’s-side window and shaking the car. He stopped at a roadside gas station outside Baltimore and filled the tank. Bought a McDonald’s hamburger and a large Coke and sat in the restaurant and ate and stared at the cars headed southbound.

Somewhere down that road was a hospital. Lind could picture it—a sprawling brick high-rise complex, modern and clean-looking—in his mind. He could trace the path the man drove in his Cadillac from the hospital parking lot to the highway, down miles and miles of highway, to the little house in the trees by the lake. He could trace the path farther, too, if he wanted, could follow the man out of the Cadillac and through the trees and into the musty old house, down the creaking narrow staircase and into the basement. Into that stinking little room where the nightmares began.

He could follow the man now. He remembered. Soon enough he would walk down those stairs again, but not yet.

Lind pushed the thought from his head. Pushed away the panic and the buzzing in his ears, the insidious black behind his eyes. He ate his hamburger and stared out at the cars and trucks on the highway and thought about how he would find the man.

He wondered what Caity Sherman was telling the police. Looked out at the big Mustang in the parking lot and wondered how much time he had. It wouldn’t take long to find the lake house, he knew, just a couple days. He hoped Caity would give him that long.

Lind finished his hamburger and walked out to the car. Just as he reached it, the cell phone in his pocket started to ring. Lind stiffened as he felt it. It was the man’s phone.

You always answer the phone.
When I call, you always answer, understand?

The phone buzzed and chirped in Lind’s hand. He held it at arm’s length, fighting panic that threatened to envelop him. He knew he had to answer. The man had trained him that way.

The man had tried to kill him. He’d sent another asset to the apartment. The man wanted him dead.

Lind slipped behind the wheel of the Mustang and reached for the pistol beneath the passenger seat. Took it out and studied it. The phone went silent in his other hand. He looked at the pistol some more, and then slid it between the driver’s seat and the console. Dropped the phone out the empty window and drove back to the highway.

W
indermere was waiting in the lobby when Stevens came out of the elevator. She sat in a patch of sunlight, a stack of papers in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, a breathtaking still life.

She looked up when Stevens approached. Took a sip of coffee and brandished the papers. “Courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Transportation,” she said. “Gray Cadillacs. Every one in the state.”

Stevens studied the stack of papers. “That’s a lot of Cadillacs.”

“I also called ahead to the local FBI office. They promised to hook us up with a phone book and a computer that does Google. We’re in great shape, Stevens. You want the phone book or the Cadillacs?”

Stevens looked at the stack of papers. Then at Windermere’s face. He couldn’t chase the feeling of hopelessness from his mind. “Jesus,” he said, “when’s the next flight to Delaware?”

Windermere frowned. “You want to cut and run, partner?”

“What are we doing here, Carla? We’re back to the needle-in-a-haystack stuff. You saw how far that got us in Philadelphia.”

“So you’re thinking we should just give up on Charlotte. Run up to Delaware and fall in behind these chumps again.”

Stevens shrugged. “What else do we have?”

She leaned forward. “We have plenty, Stevens. I think you’re dead on the ball with this Charlotte stuff. Thomas Gardham is somewhere in this city, and we’re going to find him. We don’t need to hold Mathers’s hand up in Delaware, either of us. We need a better strategy here.”

“Sure.” Stevens eyed the NCDOT files. “Maybe the Cadillac angle pans out.”

“Forget the Cadillacs.” Windermere fixed him with her eyes, fierce. “I want something better. Something unique. I want the old-school Kirk Stevens. Give me some of that voodoo you pulled when you figured out Arthur Pender. That’s what I’m looking for here, partner.”

Stevens laughed, despite himself. “What am I, a witch doctor?”

Windermere’s phone beeped. “You can be anything if you put your mind to it.” She held up a finger and peered down at her iPhone’s tiny screen. Typed something, and waited. Started to type something else and then shook her head.

“Forget texting,” she said, punching in a number. “I’m too old for this crap.” She waited, the phone to her ear. “This is Windermere,” she said finally. “What’s up?”

Mathers?
Stevens felt another pang of jealousy. Quashed it.
She works well with the kid. They’ll make a good team.

“That’s all she got?” said Windermere. “Nothing else. She doesn’t know the where or when?” She waited. “Yeah, okay, but how many freaking lake houses are there in the world?”

She caught Stevens’s gaze. Rolled her eyes. “Yeah,” she said. “Okay, fine. Call me back if she says anything else, okay?”

She put down her phone. Grinned at Stevens, eyes bright. “A woman named Caity Sherman just showed up at a police station outside Wilmington,” she said. “She claims to have spent the last two days with Richard O’Brien.”

Stevens stared at her. “Holy shit,” he said. “What else did she say?”

“She said a man burst into O’Brien’s home and attacked them. Chased them into Delaware and attacked them again. They got away last night.” She frowned. “Just who this woman is and why she rolls with O’Brien, nobody’s quite sure yet. Anyway.”

“Anyway,” said Stevens. “What’s this about lake houses?”

“Yeah.” Windermere grinned. “It’s a damn good thing we didn’t pack it in and head north, partner. O’Brien’s headed south. Sounds like he’s looking for Killswitch. This woman claims a man kidnapped O’Brien
and made him into a killer. Brainwashed him. Did the same thing to Wendell Gray.”

“Brainwashed,” said Stevens. “Like an old sci-fi movie.”

“Yeah, or something,” she said. “Point is, O’Brien’s headed our way and he’s looking for the lake house where Killswitch trains his killers.”

“Which lake house?”

“Has no idea. Plans to drive around until he finds it, I guess.”

“Jesus,” said Stevens. “That’s a needle in a haystack itself.”

“Except maybe he knows more than he told Caity Sherman.”

“In which case we’re stuck with the haystack and he’s already got the needle.” Stevens shook his head. “God damn this case, Carla.”

“Caity Sherman did say one more thing, though,” Windermere said. “According to her statement, O’Brien’s real name is Malcolm.”

“Malcolm.” Stevens waited. “Malcolm what?”

“Malcolm she doesn’t know. But it’s better than nothing.”

“Christ.” Stevens looked around the hotel lobby. The stack of NCDOT Cadillacs on the table. “Malcolm,” he said. “A mystery lake house. That’s a couple bullshit excuses for breaks.”

Windermere grinned at him. “So use your voodoo, Stevens. Solve this thing.”

Stevens looked at her. Then he sighed. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get to work.”