The Watcher (17 page)

The recent victims reminded her of that.

She sank onto the sofa, glanced at the pile of folders on the coffee table. This monster was the same one who’d terrorized her family all those years ago. She knew it in her bones, felt it in every muscle and nerve in her body. She wouldn’t stop until the killer was relegated to hell because
he
wouldn’t stop until they caught him.

Of his own volition, he’d never cease his bloody work. The dark desires that compelled him to maim and torture never went away. He would never be cured.

She’d spent a lifetime learning that.

Exhausted, she removed her clothes, dropping them wherever she took them off, and made her way to bed, crawling in with just her panties on. She burrowed deep beneath the covers and prayed she wouldn’t dream.

The jarring of the doorbell awakened her from a groggy sleep.
What?
She dragged the alarm clock to her face to see the luminous digital readout. Twelve-thirty. Slipping on an oversized tee shirt, she padded to the door. “Who is it?”

“Kate, let me in. It’s important. It’s about the case.”

Slater – again.

Chapter Eighteen

The watcher had last gone by the name of John Smith, though he’d been Patrick Cervantes in a state far from California, and Joshua Hart in yet another state. And in Idaho, the state of his birth, where his whore of a mother had dropped him off like a sack of dirty laundry, he’d been given still another name. Unfortunately, necessity required that he now use his real name.

For this reason tonight he drove carefully through the dark streets, taking a great risk.

He’d grown fond of the name Smith and often thought of himself by that fitting choice. Smith, the most common name of all, and John, his grandfather’s given name. The irony of his anonymity being attached to this very plain name amused him.

Smith glanced at the hand gripping the steering wheel, at the other dangling from the open window.
Those
were his only unusual traits. He worked his jaw up and down. A double legacy from dear old grandfather.

He imagined the old man’s hands, stretching down from a great height to smack him across the face. Or to jerk his pants down and whack him hard on the ass, his grandfather’s hands harder than any school paddle. Over the years Smith had found his own oversized hands very useful.

The watcher tapped his foot on the car’s rubber mat. Tonight he hunted with a vague restlessness – a frenzied, careless search – instead of the measured, deliberate forays he usually went on. The cool, deliberate part of his mind knew it was too soon, but the other side—the blood lust, the screw-them-all part of his brain—compelled him.

He couldn’t be responsible for what happened tonight. Going against plan wasn’t his fault. He pursed his lips and kept driving one-armed through the inky night, feeling cheated from his last, unsatisfying experience. It was the bitch’s fault.

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel of the shit-brown Nissan, slightly dented, but otherwise remarkably ordinary, a vehicle no one would remember, one he’d taken in Reno and outfitted with stolen California license plates. Dumping the Pontiac instead of driving it over the border into Canada had been a foolish mistake, he realized. That could come back to bite him in the ass.

Fuck, he’d give his soul for a cigarette, but he wasn’t foolish enough to litter the car with butts. Saliva provided DNA, something he hadn’t considered all those years ago. DNA was a big deal now. After decades, police sometimes caught up with criminals just by tying them to a sample of blood, saliva, semen, even skin and sweat.

The sweat gathering beneath his hairline reminded him of that. He rolled down the passenger window and let the cool air circulate, breathing in a deep lungful of the chilly night as he stopped at a red light. A woman walked across the pedestrian lane. Trim, well-dressed, her hair a carefully coiffed silver blond.

The age his mother would be.

Sometimes he thought he remembered her bending over him, voice soft and face pretty in the glow of a nightlight. Then the image of a man intruded and she stumbled, drunk and laughing, onto a dirty mattress. When she finally sat up, her red-lipped mouth was smeared, her clothing mussed, her face a garish mask.

She’d died when he was old enough to remember the sight of her dead body, but little else. All he had were vague, fragmented flashes of memory.

He could hardly remember when he’d first gotten the urge for hunting. After the debacle of Mary – that’d turned out all right, though – he’d set off for Reno.

When was it? Years ago, ’89,’90, later? Almost winter, but he remembered the sun at his back slipping its orange and pink hues into the horizon. He hadn’t worried that anyone would wonder why a teenager was hitchhiking alone on a major interstate. He was tall for his age, and no one could tell he was barely seventeen.

A year younger than Mary. Mary, the bitch who’d reneged on her promise to teach him things.

He’d headed eastward on Interstate 80 toward Winnemucca and the salt flats, and then to Salt Lake City, before traveling on to Idaho, with some vague thought that he’d trace his mother’s footsteps there. No one would bother to come looking for him. He supposed his uncle might try to find out where he’d gone, but he didn’t really think the man cared enough to get involved in his nephew’s disappearance. Certainly not Grandfather or Grandmother.

A fleeting picture of his grandfather’s unforgiving features caused his hands to tremble on the steering wheel. The old man had power even from the grave. It’d be just like him to try and rise up from the dead, but Smith wouldn’t bet on the success of
that
resurrection.

He felt himself losing control as he tapped his foot faster against the floorboard and the chant sounded in his head.
Ding, dong, he’s dead, he’s dead, Ding, dong.
Finally he regained control and each phrase was an imagined blow smashing his grandfather’s hateful face.

The traffic light changed and Smith pulled out.

God, he wanted a smoke, but he’d been careful over the years to see that his DNA didn’t end up in any databases, and he refused to risk it now by smoking. He’d never been in the military, never taught school, never applied for any job that required fingerprinting. He’d always been very careful. He might’ve left a lonely DNA sample out there, but he was confident the cops had nothing to match it with.

More important, he’d never been arrested.

States routinely tested inmates, and though rules were different from state to state, they all had DNA records for violent offenders.

Smith almost giggled.
Offenders
– the term they now used for prison inmates. So politically correct, as though the criminal had committed a social faux pas.
Excuse me, did I offend you by slashing your arm off?
He laughed out loud. Small wonder he’d never been caught. Only an idiot would call Smith an offender. He’d definitely
offended
plenty of bitchy girls over the years.

He pulled the Nissan into a service station where he looked carefully around before getting out. He filled up the gas tank and paid inside with cash, adding a quart of milk and a six-pack of beer to his purchases. Driving to the El Dorado Roller Rink on Riverdale Avenue, he parked in the lot away from the overhead street lights. He turned off the ignition and waited, watching the teenagers as they left the rink and congregated in small groups in the breath-puffing, night air.

He despised this kind of hunting. He should’ve stuck to the schools or malls. Most people had the false idea that their kids were safer during the day than night, but he’d taken most of his girls during daylight. It was hard to find the right kind of girl at night.

Smith smiled to himself. It
wasn’t
hard to be smarter than the moronic police, a little harder with the FBI, but no one was a real match against him. He’d spent his whole life studying forensics and could profile the mind-hunters much better than they could figure him out. He’d been green at the beginning, but he was so much better now. Having escaped those so-called brilliant investigators all these years was proof of that. The police still sat on their fat asses somewhere trying to figure out who killed Suzie Q. from Podunk, Whatever.

Smith eased the brown car around to an even darker side of the roller rink, locked the car, and slunk into the shadows to finally allow himself a smoke. Leaning against the brick building, he drew the acrid pleasure of nicotine into his lungs.

Suddenly, his subconscious registered a foreign sound. He froze, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness and his ears to the faint jingle that rose out of the background noises coming off Riverdale. There it was again, a clink, like metal touching metal ever so slightly.

Leaning against the building on the opposite end from Smith was a lumpy shadow, larger at the bottom than the top. It undulated fiercely. His eyes slowly adjusted, and he saw that the mass was really two people, a man thrusting from his hips and a woman kneeling on the damp concrete. He could hear the harsh breathing coming from the man, growing louder with each violent movement, until it erupted in a fierce groan that ended in a growl.

Smith watched them silently until they finished. The man slumped against the brick wall, and after a minute, the woman moved away and the man zipped himself.

Although the sounds were raggedly painful, John Smith thought the man enjoyed what he was doing.

Chapter Nineteen

Why the hell did Slater let her get under his skin like that?
What kind of fool was he to be attracted to this stubborn, annoying woman who refused to let someone get close to her?

As the door swung open, he remembered how she’d looked earlier, vulnerable and fragile in a way he hadn’t noticed before. Even as emotion tugged at him with a thin thread, warning bells clanged in his brain. Julie had been vulnerable too, but she and the boy were now a distant memory.

He took in the long stretch of Kate’s slim legs beneath a loose tee shirt that barely covered her ass. She thrust one fist on her hip in a defiant stance that seemed both a put-down and a come-on. The thin material of the shirt outlining her breasts advertised the latter.

Seeing where his eyes fell, she tugged at the shirt and crossed her arms over her chest. Goose bumps prickled on her bare arms, and she rubbed her hands briskly over her skin.

She flashed him an irritated look, her voice cool and husky at the same time. “Do you have any idea what time it is, Slater? Can’t it wait until morning?”

“No it can’t. It’s about the case.”

She flung the door open, gesturing for him to come in. “Make this quick, I was sound asleep.”

Silence stretched between them like something palpable. Slater’s muscles tightened as he brushed by her. He was painfully aware of her scent and body heat. She’d clearly just gotten out of bed, her lips swollen and eyes drowsy. Her thick hair fell loosely about her shoulders and her smooth face was free of makeup.

“Get some clothes on, Myers,” he growled.

She flushed and headed down the hall, reappearing a few minutes later wearing jeans and an unbuttoned sweater thrown over the tee shirt. She sank into a wing chair and gestured for him to take the sofa.

“What about the case?”

“I got a call from the coroner’s office. Patch Wilson found blood from Alison Mathews’ clothes. Just a trace on the elastic of the slacks. He’s not sure it’s enough for testing.”

“He doesn’t need much.” Her eyes widened as she rushed the words out. “The Brits are doing that low-copy DNA testing with a single cell. It’s expensive, but accurate.”

“I think there’s enough to send to the state lab.”

Her face brightened. “This is great, Slater. We’ll be able to get the bastard with that drop of blood.” She moved from the chair, stood in front of him, her cheeks flushed. She seemed to have forgotten their earlier quarrel.

Slater pulled her down beside him on the sofa. “It’s only a sample. We’ve got nothing to match it with. It’s not enough.”

Her voice was low and determined.
“
Yes, it is.”

“Why don’t you tell me what
you
know that I don’t, why you’re so sure we can find a match?”

She rose and moved to the kitchen, peered into the refrigerator, and retrieved bottled water. He followed her and took the one she offered him. “Tell me what’s going on.”

In her funny pink socks and baggy sweater, her hair all mussed from sleeping, she looked fragile and younger than the thirty-odd years he knew her to be.

He moved closer. “Tell me.”

She looked like a trapped animal, ready to bolt or stand and fight. He thought she’d clam up or argue with him again so he stood like a statue, hardly breathing, giving her space, letting her take her time. As she struggled he was aware of the gentle rise and fall of her breasts inches from his chest.

After a moment she blew out a resigned breath and looked away. “In late fall of 1993 there was a murder similar to these two. A teenage girl disappeared while walking her dog down a dirt road near the family farm in Idaho. The dog returned, dragging his leash, but the girl didn’t come home.”

Slater couldn’t get his mind around her words.
What was she talking about? What girl?
“What happened to her?”