The Christine Murders (27 page)

Luther looked at the phone and then at her. “Who might that be, Christine? Ted? Or maybe John? He’s a new one, isn’t he? Or perhaps someone else I’ve missed? How many are there? You’re a slut just like Alyson, aren’t you?” He laughed, enjoying himself now, his horrid blue eyes glinting insanely at her. “And I expected so much more from you. It’s a pity, Christine.”

He opened the door and pulled her into the hallway, waiting several seconds to make sure nobody was about. Christine took advantage of the delay to pull the apartment door very gently, so that it closed but did not lock fully. One more thing out of the ordinary for Laura to find, and then her cell phone tossed on the floor. Please, she prayed, make her call the police or even Ray!

Luther grabbed her now and pulled her roughly toward the stairs, while Christine prayed that someone would come out of an apartment or be on the staircase so she could scream for help and get away from this madman. The knife was inside the sweater, so he couldn’t easily use it right away. But not a soul was in sight anywhere, as they both made their way undisturbed to the garage.

Inside her apartment, her cell phone continued to ring.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

It was four o’clock and Kinsella realized he had not spoken to Christine all day.

While a crew combed through Luther’s BMW, its front seats stained with blood, Kinsella wondered if Christine had already left for the airport. He had sent an officer out to Sutter Court to check on her a short time ago, but he knew he had to speak with her himself. His interest in her went far beyond this case. He didn’t want her to leave San Francisco tonight thinking that last night had been only a one-time fling for him. He should never have left her so abruptly this morning.

His phone rang as he reached his car. It was one of his task force officers at headquarters. “John, I’ve got a guy on the line who says he’s a close friend of Christine Lindsey. He’s pretty upset about something and will only talk to you. Will you take it?”

Kinsella’s heart lurched. “Yes, go ahead,” he said, trying to calm himself. Now what had happened? “This is John Kinsella.”

“Lieutenant Kinsella, my name is Peter Breen, and I’m Christine’s friend. I’m hoping you do know her, and Bill Arnett perhaps. I also hope this isn’t some figment of the imagination, because Bill has been in a coma after a mugging last week. Do you know who these people are?”

“Yes, I do. Go ahead.”

Peter continued. “Bill woke up this afternoon and has been in a frenzy over somebody named Luther Ross-Wilkerson. He told me that Luther is the one who attacked him, and that Luther also has a key to Christine’s building. Bill begged me to call you. He said you were the only one who could help now.” Peter stopped and took a deep breath before plunging on. “Am I making any sense? I called you because I trust Bill completely. He’s been very sick, but I doubt he’d tell me something like this without very good reason.”

Kinsella felt as if ice was running through his veins. He knew there had been something about that mugging that was wrong, something had been eluding him.

“What you’re telling me makes perfect sense, Peter. Where are you, and where is Christine right now?”

“I’m at the hospital. Christine went home to get ready for work. I had lunch with her today, but she never said a word about being in any trouble, although she seemed terribly nervous, I thought. I just moved to San Francisco last week, so I haven’t seen her or Bill for some time.

“When I came back to the hospital after lunch, Billy woke up and, well, I’ve been trying to reach Christine at home but I’m getting no answer. Everything just keeps going to voicemail. And Billy’s been yelling that her life is in danger. He was so upset they finally had to sedate him again. I have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, yet people are telling me several women have been murdered in the city recently. Anyway, something obviously is very wrong. I’m going to Christine’s apartment now. Will you meet me there, please?”

He’d been phoning and getting no answer. Luther has a key to her apartment. Good God, why hadn’t he put somebody outside the apartment this morning before he’d left her? Why hadn’t he trusted her instincts from the start? “Peter, I’ve already sent a car to Christine’s building, and I’m on my way there now. Wait for me outside, Peter. Do not try to go inside, do you hear me? Wait for me.”

“Yes, of course. Now could you please explain what this is all about?”

“I will when I see you, Peter. I’m on the way.” Kinsella disconnected and jumped into his car, honking sharply as he saw Phil Lawrence coming toward him from Luther’s building.

“There are all sorts of evidence in that car – fibers, hair - aside from the blood stains everywhere. John, what’s going on?”

“We’ve got to get to Christine’s place. I just got word that Ross-Wilkerson has keys to her apartment.”

“What? How?”

“Come on, I’ll tell you while we drive.” Little things came back to him. Bill inside the locked gate. All the mumbling about keys while he tried to break out of the coma. Why didn’t they make the connection? Now he knew where Luther had found the flight schedules. He wasn’t a hacker. Somehow, he’d managed to get into her apartment without her even suspecting it.

John Kinsella didn’t pray much anymore. He hadn’t bothered in a long time. He couldn’t think of a decent prayer he’d ever had answered in his entire life anyway. But now, racing along the empty Sunday streets of the city with Phil, trying to reach the officer he’d sent to Sutter Court, he prayed like he’d never prayed before. Please God they would all look like damn fools when he got there – he, Phil, his officer, and Peter Breen – when Christine, dressed and ready for work, opened her door to the whole lot of them, startled at all the fuss just because she had not had time to answer her phone that afternoon, yet pleased at the prospect of riding safely to the airport with him.

But the report he quickly received from the officer who had just entered Christine’s unlocked apartment told him, as his heart dropped, that that was not going to be the case.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

SUNDAY EVENING

Christine drove north through the city and onto the Golden Gate Bridge, while the late afternoon sun dipped lower over San Francisco’s hills and skyline, but neither she nor Luther paid any attention to the magnificent view before them.

Luther had ordered her to drive to Sausalito. At first, she thought about causing an accident to draw attention, but she threw that idea out instantly. She was in enough danger now without deliberately doing something that might injure her or provoke him to sudden violence. He still held the knife. Instead, she concentrated on keeping the car steady on the road.

Luther had taken her down the stairs and into the garage at Sutter Court, meeting no one along the way. As she pulled away from the building, she never saw the SFPD squad car John Kinsella had sent, just pulling up at the building, and missing her by only minutes.

She wondered about Laura. What time would she come in to feed Tommy? Would she call the police when she discovered the open door and the two wallets, phone, and purse left tossed on the bed? Perhaps John would be looking for her as well. She realized she’d never had a chance to check her voicemail when she arrived home, to see if he had called her during the afternoon.

With a horrible feeling of despair, Christine wondered what good anything would do her now. Nobody knew where she was. Nobody would even know where to look for her, especially not John. If only she had at least one electronic device with her that could be quietly, secretly, turned on. Somebody could track her. Of course, if John discovered her car missing after the apartment scene had been discovered, he would start a search for her. But by that time . . .

She shivered again, and the car swerved. Someone honked at them. She didn’t want to think about what was going to happen to her, but she knew she would fight to the end no matter what Luther tried to do. She would not go down quietly.

His voice pierced her thoughts. “Be careful, for heaven’s sake, Christine. Don’t get reckless. Drive on into Sausalito, into the town. I’ll tell you exactly where once we get there.”

“Where are we going?”

“I said I’ll tell you when we’re there. Now just drive and do what I say,” he snapped back. He shifted the knife from hand to hand, playing with it.

In the gathering darkness, he turned to face her. “Do you remember when we met, Christine?” His voice was soft and gentle now.

“Of course I do,” she said. Keep him calm and talking, although she could not predict when he would have another mood swing.

“It didn’t have to be this way, you know. I only wanted to be with you, to make you happy. I’m a wealthy man. I could give you anything you wanted. But instead you rejected me. Oh, you knew best, didn’t you?” He turned around in his seat and stared at the road ahead.

“Those other women, they were all so much like you. And like Alyson. I went out, looking for you, I guess. Foolishly. I didn’t know I’d meet them.” He turned to look at her. “Tell me, Christine, is Bill your lover?”

Christine swerved slightly once more. That name again, Alyson. She struggled to sound reasonable and calm. “No, he’s not. He’s gay actually, Luther. But he’s my best friend, my closest friend, since our flight training days. You should not have hurt him. But he’s getting better every day. He’ll be all right.”

He just looked at her. “Then what about Ted MacIntyre?”

Keep him talking. “Ted and I dated for a while. But there was nothing serious going on. I had broken off with him, actually.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Well, it’s true. Please tell me about Alyson, Luther. You keep mentioning her. I don’t know who she is.”

He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he was searching along the road ahead. They were nearing Sausalito. “When you come to Bridgeway, go straight ahead until you reach the slips. Are you familiar with Sausalito?” She nodded. “Well, I have a small boat docked there. That’s where we’re going. To
The Gemstone
. I used to take Alyson out on her. She loved that boat.”

“What happened to her?”

He was quiet again. Christine glanced at him quickly. He seemed troubled and confused now. “She died. I loved her very much and thought she loved me. I gave her everything she ever asked for. But the voices kept getting in the way. And then she would say I was hurting her, she was afraid of me, and that I needed help. She told me that there was something wrong with me. Everyone told me that, all my life, something wrong with me! And then one night she told me she had met somebody else and she didn’t want to see me anymore. Just like that - please go, and don’t call me anymore.

“Well, the voices told me I had to teach her a lesson. I only wanted to frighten her at first, but she died. I killed her.”

They had reached the boat slips, and Christine stopped the car. To her chagrin, the street was quiet and deserted. Was no one out this Sunday evening, anywhere?

Luther continued his story. “I saw you on that flight and I thought you were Alyson. I thought she’d come back to me. I was so glad because I felt I was getting a second chance. You are so like her. And the voices had not bothered me in such a long time, I was sure they would leave us alone, that we could get to know each other and you would be mine, and it would be like Alyson again. But you didn’t want me either, did you? And you have all these other men. Who is John now? Why do women always use men for what they can get and then lie?” He kept rambling on about women being sluts as Christine listened, more terrified than ever. Then he talked about the other women he’d killed and what he’d done to them first. He was starting to lose control again.

“Those other women I saw, I thought maybe they would be better than you, that they would love me. But I only wanted you, I realized that. They couldn’t take your place, my lovely Christine. I didn’t really want to hurt them either, especially Ann, the doctor. But the voices came back, you see, the voices always tell me what I have to do. Always, since I was a child. And I have to obey, or else I will suffer.”

Quite suddenly the ranting stopped and he was himself again. “All right, don’t keep the car sitting here. Take it up the road, up there, away from the lights. We’ll park and walk back. Come on, be swift about it. Enough time has been wasted.”

Christine, sick with horror as she’d listened to what he’d done to the women he killed and to Alyson, knew there was no other choice for her right now but to follow his orders. She drove to the place Luther pointed out and parked.

Once they were on that boat, she knew her options for escape would be gone. She would have to find a way out of this soon. She only knew she was determined not to be Luther’s last victim.

She had been trained to deal with crashes, with fire, with terrorists, and hijackers. She had handled crazy people and merely annoying people in her job. But she had never come up against a deranged killer ready to murder her.

And now that things had reached a crisis point, what could she possibly come up with to defeat this madman and save her own life?

CHAPTER FIFTY

Luther had not been near
The Gemstone
since he’d last brought Alyson here. Only Shirley Lao and her family used the boat now.

The Gemstone
dredged up memories Luther thought he had locked away forever. Rebelling against them, he grabbed Christine roughly and shoved her ahead of him and onto the boat. He couldn’t afford to fret over the past now. He had Christine, and nothing had interfered with his plans. No one knew where they had gone. By the time anyone did start looking for her, it would be too late to do anything.