The Watcher (25 page)

Only Smith fully knew about the unique structure of the house, an isolated refuge where he could hunker down for a while. He moved in on August 21, a sweltering day even in the forests at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

His plotting had begun immediately.

The watcher now continued his pacing of the room, bare feet slapping with each step on the wooden floor, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides to a tempo only he could hear. He muttered and stopped, then continued until he’d reached the far end of the room. Making a quick about-face, he resumed his urgent movement toward the other side.

The room was empty except for the dark curtains, a battered and torn armchair, and an old upright piano which stood in one cobwebbed corner. Smith paused in his movements to stare at the instrument, looming in the shadows like a giant bird of prey. When he was a child, he’d practiced every day, sitting on the bench, his feet dangling because his legs were too short to reach the pedals. His grandmother stood behind him. One hand gripped his shoulder, squeezed in time to the antiquated metronome on the bench beside him. With each misplayed note, Grandmother dug her fingers deep into his shoulder until bruises erupted the next morning on the pale skin.

Smith jerked to a halt and shook his head back and forth.

He knew what the profilers would say was happening to him. The so-called experts called it accelerating. That meant he wasn’t getting enough of a thrill from his hunting. Things had gone badly since he came here, true. This was the one place he should’ve avoided. What did they say?

Dogs don’t shit where they eat?

That’s what he’d done, and he knew better. Never take someone near your safe house. It was a mistake, a big mistake, to come back to his childhood home. He should’ve stayed around Chicago, so much easier there, lots of girls running around loose, druggies and whores, no one watching them, no one caring what they did or when, all hours of the night. Easy to snatch them there, no one even noticed they were missing, hardly made the papers.

The roaring in his head was the clash of a thousand cymbals, and the thumping in his chest was bass drums gone wild.

The recent failed attempt had emasculated him, he thought crazily, leaving him agitated and restless. Damn little bitch had finally left the park surrounded by half a dozen classmates. He’d trailed behind her as she walked with her friends, but in the end he’d given up. She’d never been alone. It was too dangerous.

He sank to his knees, rolled over on his side, and curled into a fetal position, rocking back and forth, arms clutching his shins, moaning softly.
What should he do now?

The urge was strong in him and he knew he had to find relief soon. What if he lost control, out
there,
at work, around other people? He shuddered uncontrollably. Unimaginable. But it was getting harder to be calm around them. Harder and harder to go to work and keep an innocuous smile pasted on his face.

He hated maintaining the pretense.

He despised the witchy-bitchy-eyed women.

When he’d first gotten the mail clerk job, that little slut Denise had started flirting with him, staring with wide, calculating eyes. As if he’d be interested in a tramp like her.

It’d serve the stupid cow right if he took
her
to the basement room.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Slater had run on almost no sleep all day while every little detail went wrong. He’d postponed the incident conference once because he had a hard time contacting the Sheriff.

Damn Marconi! Where had he gone?

They’d lost forward momentum on the case and taken a hit from the newspapers and television coverage. Both murdered girls resided within the county, and the media was keeping the public awareness and fear level high. Calling the unknown suspect the Bigler County Butcher was only one example. The name disgusted Slater, and he wondered how the family could face the morning papers that described in grisly detail the murders of their daughters. The community closed ranks on their children and held tight reins on their activities.

Not only was the department’s lack of success reflected in the bad press, but the detectives and deputies were frustrated and discouraged. They’d finished their checks on new arrivals to Placer Hills and were spreading the investigation to the outlying areas of the county.

Suspicion in a homicide always fell first on family members, then friends and acquaintances, but when checked thoroughly, all alibis were solid for those who were closest to the two victims. The findings disappointed Slater, but didn’t surprise him. The parents might have been careless about monitoring their children’s whereabouts, but they weren’t suspects.

He took advantage of the relatively quiet afternoon to review the murder books on the two cases. The teams investigating and interviewing the family members, neighbors, and friends had no major or follow-up leads. Slater had pulled Bauer off the interview schedule to continue investigating the death of Mary Stuckey. There had to be someone connected to the woman who could shed light on the events of her death in 1989. He’d gotten the teams started on the hospital records, plus two more working the new residents list.

Kate worked alone in her cubicle, tracking down possible leads from surgery centers across the nation. She was looking for an explanation for the time gap in killings between 2004 and the 2008 murder in Bishop, California.

Slater tried to reach old contacts in various state labs to link further cases to their UNSUB, but he wasn’t having much luck. Bauer had located a relative of Mary Stuckey, an older sister. He had a scheduled interview this afternoon with Mary’s sister Angela Holster, who now lived in Galt, south of Sacramento.

With increasing certainty, Slater believed in Kate’s theory about the killer, thought their best clues would come from the past, from the events surrounding Mary Stuckey and what happened to her in New Haven. The tricky thing was he couldn’t move full speed ahead in that direction without clearing his actions through the Sheriff.

Marconi would expect him to follow the regular leads and not go off on what he’d certainly call a half-assed idea. Even though the man had been increasingly scarce during the media blitz surrounding the case. That wasn’t unusual. Marconi was notorious for avoiding conflict when dealing with the press. The best Slater could do at this point was direct the teams toward the leads that he, Bauer, and Kate had discovered during their all-night brainstorming.

#

Kate pushed thoughts of Slater out of her mind and worked assiduously in her office most of the day. She and Slater arrived at and left the courthouse in separate vehicles. By tacit agreement they showed no sign of being anything more than colleagues during work hours. Both of them wanted to be discreet until – until she wasn’t sure what.

This was brand-new territory for her.

After all, Slater was her direct superior and automatically off limits. She wasn’t sure that even Bauer knew about their relationship, although she’d discovered that he hid an astute mind behind an “aw, shucks” demeanor.

And of course, she would be leaving eventually, returning to L.A. There was that.

The investigation plodded slowly along, and sometimes it felt like they were simply waiting for another death to occur. For the monster to kidnap and torture another teenage girl.

After the long day ended, Kate was eager to put the worries of the case aside for a few hours and soak in a hot tub before Slater came over. She’d bought a new nightgown to wear instead of her usual oversized tee-shirt and panties. She knew Slater liked the shirt and panties—he claimed easy access—but tonight she wanted to feel more feminine.

It’d been three days since they’d first slept together. However intense, that was short in a relationship. Were they simply two people swept away by passion and good sex?

Terrific sex, she had to admit with a smile.

Was that all it was? In spite of their physical intimacy, she hardly knew Ben Slater. When she’d first met him in Marconi’s office, she’d known instinctively to avoid him, and then she’d capitulated like a third-world dictator. She laughed aloud in the small bathroom and sank under the bubbles.

When the doorbell rang at a little before seven o’clock, she wrapped a terrycloth robe around her nightgown and pulled the door open a crack, leaving the chain engaged. If it was Slater, he was early.

“Hey big guy, you’re earl – ” she began, but the words froze on her lips.

A tall, wiry man stood at her front door, his finger poised to ring the bell again. He was middle-aged, with light brown hair and a long, thin nose over pale lips. His ears stuck out slightly from beneath his short haircut. His hands were disproportionately large in contrast to the rest of him, Kate noticed, as he placed one large paw on the door to hold it open.

Instinct said to get rid of the man as quickly as possible. “Do I know you?”

If he were surprised at her rudeness, his face failed to register it. He continued to stare at her with unblinking eyes.

“What do you want?” she pressed, moving to shut the door. His hand held it ajar with little effort and she felt a tiny thrill of fear run through her.

“I wonder if you’d be interested in supporting my daughter’s school,” he said at last, waving a form in her face. “They’re raising money for new band uniforms.”

“Sorry, I don’t think so. I have to go now.”

The man reluctantly moved his hand from the door. She shut it, quickly fastening the deadbolt, and leaning back against the frame. What a strange man with his vacant stare and immobile face! Her heart raced and her breath came in short, tense puffs. She put a hand to her chest, telling herself she was being foolish. He was just a parent helping out his daughter. Parents did that, didn’t they?

Nevertheless, she waited until she heard the man’s footsteps recede, then doused the lights and moved to the window to peer out. He walked down the main sidewalk leading to the street and paused there, looking back at Kate’s apartment. She ducked her head behind the drapes.

He couldn’t see her, could he?

A shiver ran over her and she wrapped the robe more closely around her.

#

The knocking at the door jarred Kate’s troubled sleep like a jackhammer, and the scissors she clutched fell to the floor. She picked them up, heart racing, and padded on bare feet to the front door. She listened hard, her ear against the cool grain of the wood.

Another sharp rap startled her, and she jumped back as if burned, a rush of blood pounding in her ears. “Who is it?”

“Kate, it’s me. Open up.” She flung open the door and stumbled into Slater’s arms, hugging him ferociously.

“Whoa, did you miss me so much?” Slater laughed.

She clung to him and he moved into the small foyer, shutting the door behind him.

“Lock it,” she insisted.

Slater frowned, but pushed the lock button and twisted the deadbolt. She reached behind him to slide the chain in place.

“What’s wrong?”

She brushed her hair from her face with a shaky hand and smiled without mirth. “Nothing. I’m just being paranoid.”

A look of alarm crossed his face. “What happened?”

“It’s stupid. I’m just edgy because of the case, the old memories.”

She flung herself on the sofa and he joined her after removing his jacket. “A man from the neighborhood came by – selling something for his daughter’s school.”

“Do you know him?”

“No,” she answered quickly. “At least, I don’t think so. He seemed vaguely familiar – tall, skinny – but I’ve probably seen him around town.”

Slater pulled back the drape, looked out into the night. “When was he here?”

“After dark.” She smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m just being jumpy.”

“What’s with the scissors?” Slater asked, pointing to her hand.

Kate stared blankly at the scissors she still gripped. “Well, since they won’t give me a gun, – ”

He grinned. “You could’ve given the poor guy a heart attack, armed with the lethal weapon of scissors.”

She smiled, calmer now, and put her arms around Slater’s neck. “I’m so glad you came.”

“Hmm, now that sounds promising.”

The kiss began as comforting reassurance, but soon spiraled into fire.

Mindless with the urgency to have him again, to feel the comfortable weight of his body on hers, she urged him into the bedroom. He quickly undressed and joined her on the bed, covering her body with his own, muscles straining to keep his weight from crushing her.

She loved this moment, the point at which he held her face between his hands and looked into her eyes while he moved slowly inside her. She loved the look of utter satisfaction on his face as he stared at her, the way he held back until he was certain she’d reached the brink. Then he brought them both together in the little death that made her feel more alive than at any other moment.

Slater
did
make her feel alive, she realized.

Finally, he moved off her and tucked her beneath his arm, his hand buried in her hair, his other arm resting on her belly.