Chapter 107
AT THAT MOMENT, DCAK was playing another part, that of Detective James Corning, who put down his surveillance camera and stared out his car window, like, well, any dumb-ass cop would. He had just snapped a pic of Alex Cross kissing his patient Sandy Quinlan, which, of course, wasn’t her real name. Sandy Quinlan was just another role to play. Like Anthony Demao. And Detective James Corning.
Corning had made it his business to keep tabs on Cross and Bree Stone all week. Getting too close wasn’t wise, but their basic comings and goings were easy enough to track.
Now he followed Cross to a parking lot near his office and then to Bree Stone’s apartment building on Eighteenth.
The two of them left together about ten minutes later. Stone was carrying an overnight bag, traveling light, something few women seemed capable of doing. James Corning stayed on them until it was obvious to him that they were headed for Reagan National. Well, well. He wasn’t all that surprised, actually.
At the entrance to the airport parking garage, he got in behind them again. Cross found a space on level three, and Corning kept going up. He parked on four and caught up with Cross and Stone again on the skyway to the terminal.
James Corning stayed back in the pack to avoid any chance of being spotted.
They checked in at American Airlines, so the departure board narrowed things for him. Denver was the logical choice. He waited for them to go down the escalator to security, then circled back to the ticketing area.
He held up his badge for the next customer in line. “Excuse me, just take a second here. Police business.”
Then he showed his creds to the American Airlines agent at the counter. “I’m Detective Corning, MPD. I need a little information on two passengers you just checked in. Stone and Cross?”
After he got the information he needed, James Corning stopped and bought a doughnut, which he had no intention of eating. It was all part of his plan, though. An important prop. Fun one too. He headed back to the parking garage.
On three, he stopped at Cross’s car. He put a brand-new cell phone in with the doughnut, folded the bag over, and duct-taped it to the bottom of the driver’s door seam. It was just out of sight for anyone passing by but surely wouldn’t be missed when Cross and Stone came home.
On Sunday, four thirty, Flight 322 from Denver.
DCAK might just be back to meet the flight himself.
Chapter 108
BREE AND I FLEW to Denver on Friday afternoon, then up to Kalispell, Montana, the next morning. Our return flight was early on Sunday, so we had only a day or so to get everything done and find out as much as possible about Tyler Bell, about whatever had been going on up here in the North Woods, and about what he might be planning next.
The drive from Kalispell to Babb took us straight through Glacier National Park. I’d always wanted to see Glacier, and it didn’t disappoint. The switchbacks on the Going-to-the-Sun Road had us alternately hugging a mountain wall, then looking straight down one. It was kind of humbling, actually, as well as beautiful, and would have been romantic—if Bree and I had any time for that on this trip. At one point, she did look over at me and say, “Where there’s a will!”
We got to Babb just after noon on Saturday. Deputy Steve Mills kindly agreed to drive up from the sheriff’s office in Cut Bank, saving us about seventy-five miles on twisting country roads, more than an hour’s trip.
Mills was loose and amiable, and answered our very first question without being asked.
“Met my wife while I was on holiday here from Manchester. Fishing trip, of all things. Twelve years ago, and never looked back,” he said in his proper English. “Once this place grabs hold of you, it doesn’t let go. You’ll see, I’m quite sure. I used to call myself Stephen, not Steve.”
We followed Mills south on 89, past the Blackfeet Reservation, to the tip of Lower St. Mary Lake.
From there, he took an unmarked dirt road for another mile and a half, until we came to a mostly overgrown track on the right.
The side road was partitioned with two police sawhorses, one of them thrown over on its side. I wondered how effective these had been against the likes of CNN and God only knew who else had wanted to visit.
High wheatgrass brushed against the sides of the car as we drove back several hundred yards, then onto a cleared acre or more of land.
Tyler Bell’s cabin certainly wasn’t deluxe, but it was no Unabomber shack either. He had sided it with natural red cedar that blended nicely into the landscape. It was small and nestled in the crook of a west-flowing river, with a gorgeous view of the mountains in the distance.
I could certainly see why someone would choose this place to settle—so long as they had no need for human contact, and maybe murdered people for a living.
Chapter 109
THE FRONT DOOR to the cabin had no lock. Deputy Mills waited for us outside, and once we entered, we smelled why. Some combination of food and garbage had been rotting in here, possibly for months. It was beyond putrid.
“So much for this being a little slice of heaven on earth,” Bree said, putting a handkerchief over her nose as if this were a homicide scene. Maybe it was.
The main room was a kitchen/dining/living area—a picture window at the back looked onto the river. All along the sidewall, Bell had a workbench littered with tools and several dozen fishing flies in various stages of completion. A small collection of rods hung on the wall.
Other than two leather easy chairs, the furniture seemed to have been made by Tyler Bell himself, including a pair of pine bookcases.
“You can tell a lot about a man by his books,” Mills said, finally deciding to join us. He stood in front of them, scanning the lot. “Biography, biography. Cosmology. All nonfiction. That say anything to you?”
“Whose biographies? That would be my first question,” I said, and came over to look for myself.
There were several volumes on American presidents—Truman, Lincoln, Clinton, Reagan, and Bushes forty-one and forty-three. Other world leaders too: Emperor Hirohito, Margaret Thatcher, bin Laden, Ho Chi Minh, Churchill.
“Delusions of grandeur, maybe?” I said. “Fits the bill for DCAK. At least, what we think we know about him.”
“You don’t sound too confident about your intel,” huffed Mills, who was a huffy sort.
“I’m not. He’s been messing with us from the start. He’s a game player.”
Bell’s bedroom was smaller and darker—dank, actually. He had a toilet and sink right in the room, partitioned off with another bookcase. I didn’t see a tub or shower, unless you counted the river. In fact it reminded me of a prison cell—and that made me think of Kyle Craig again. What the hell did Kyle have to do with all this?
The only decorations were three framed photos on the wall, in a vertical stack that reminded me of the new Web site. The top one was an old black-and-white wedding portrait, presumably Mom and Dad. The middle was a picture of two golden retrievers.
And then a shot of five adults standing in front of the same red pickup that now sat abandoned outside.
I recognized three of them right away, and that gave me a start: Tyler Bell, Michael Bell, and Marti Lowenstein-Bell, who would eventually be killed by her husband. The other two, a man and a woman, weren’t familiar to me. One woman held two fingers up in a V behind Tyler’s head. So, she thought he was the devil?
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” Bree said. “They actually look happy. Don’t you think so?”
“Maybe they were. Hell, maybe he still is.”
Finally, after hours of poring over every inch of the bedroom, we went back out to the main room to tackle the kitchen area, which we had saved for last. There was no sense opening that fridge any sooner than we had to. It was a propane appliance and had obviously run down a long time ago. The shelves were half stocked. Most of the food looked like bulk purchases—grains and beans in plastic bags alongside other unrecognizable produce mush.
“He sure likes mus
tard,” Bree said. There were several kinds in the door. “And milk.” He had two half gallons, one of them unopened. I leaned in closer to look.
“Milk doesn’t keep,” I said.
“Milk’s not alone.” Bree had the handkerchief up over her mouth and nose again.
“No, I mean one of these is dated one day after anyone saw him around here.” I stood up and closed the refrigerator door. “The other carton’s dated nine days after that. Why would he buy more milk if he was getting ready to disappear?”
“And,” Bree said, “why would he need to disappear so suddenly? He seemed pretty safe and secure here. Who would bother him?”
“Right. That’s the other angle to figure out. So which one do we follow?”
But the question was almost immediately moot. As soon as I’d posed it, my phone rang, and everything changed all over again.
Chapter 110
I LOOKED AT MY CALLER ID. “Probably the kids,” I told Bree, and picked up. “Hello from Big Sky Country!” I said.
Instead, I heard, “Alex, it’s me. It’s Nana.”
The tension in Nana’s voice created waves of dread that traveled up and down my spine. “What’s going on? The kids okay?” I asked automatically. “Damon?”
“The children are fine. It’s—” She let out a quavering sigh. “It’s Sampson, Alex. John has gone missing. No one’s heard from him all day.”
The words hit me like icy water. I’d been half expecting the kids’ cheerful voices when I answered. Hi, Daddy. When are you coming home? Will you bring me something?
But instead, it was this.
“Alex, are you there?”
“I’m here.” The scene around me came back into focus. Bree was watching intently, wondering what was going on. Then her cell went off, and she took the call.
I had a feeling that we were hearing the same story, just from different sources.
“Davies,” Bree mouthed. The superintendent of detectives was on her line. “Yes, sir, I’m listening.”
“Nana, hold for a second,” I said.
“Sampson went to the gym around lunchtime.” Bree gave me a running commentary on her call from Davies. “They just found his car. But not him. They found some blood in the car, Alex.”
“He’s alive,” I told her. “If he was dead, we’d have heard from DCAK already. He’s going to want an audience again.”
Chapter 111
HE HAD CONTROLLED other killers before, in particular a brilliant boy who called himself Casanova and who had worked in the Research Triangle near the University of North Carolina and Duke. Of course, in those days, he had been with the FBI.
He’d even explained himself to Alex Cross once. “What I do . . . it’s what all men want to do. I live out their secret fantasies, their nasty little daydreams. . . . I don’t live by rules created by my so-called peers.” He claimed he attracted others who thought as he did.
Now Kyle Craig had his own ideas about how things should go. He knew it was time for him to take charge, maybe even past time. The man known as DCAK had contacted him through Wainwright, his lawyer when he was in jail, as had other freaks of his kind. DCAK had claimed to be an admirer and a student—as had Wainwright himself—but now it was time for the teacher to step forward and take control of this game.
X marks the spot. That should be easy enough to figure out, he was thinking. Especially for someone who considered himself so brilliant.
Kyle was in position a few minutes before twelve on Saturday night. As promised. He was interested in what would happen next, from several perspectives. First of all, was DCAK bright enough to get himself to the meeting place? That was a legitimate question, but Kyle figured that the killer would be. DCAK was a clever enough fiend.
Then, would DCAK actually show his face to him? That proposition was a little trickier, and Kyle thought the odds were probably fifty-fifty. It all depended on what kind of a risk taker the killer turned out to be. How truly confident was he?
Or would he show up in one of his theatrical disguises? Maybe he’ll come as me. Kyle smiled as he let the final thought drift across his mind. Then he moved on to other things. He continued to be intrigued with the concept of freedom—to be out here in the world like this. He could feel his heart beating, steady but at an accelerated pace. He was getting better and better at controlling his body and mind.
Then he heard something. Someone was here. A voice coming from behind him.
“In your honor.”
DCAK had arrived, and now he stepped forward from a row of shadowy oak trees. No mask, no disguise. A tall, well-built man who looked to be in his thirties. Rather cocky.
Directly behind him loomed Alex Cross’s house on Fifth Street.
X marks the spot. That would be Cross’s house, of course.
“I’m honored as well,” said Kyle, knowing that they were both lying, wondering if this was as delicious for DCAK as it was for him.
Chapter 112
“IT’S GOOD TO FINALLY meet you in person,” DCAK said, but he seemed a little nervous and stiff. “Everything you said has come true. All of it.”
“Yes. I told you I would get out of ADX, and here I am,” Kyle said. He too seemed a little shy, but it was only an act.
“Is he asleep in there? Does he sleep?” DCAK asked, gesturing toward the Cross house across Fifth. He knew the place well and already had dozens of photos from every angle.
“Top floor. That’s where he usually works, figures out his puzzles,” Kyle said. “He doesn’t seem to be home, does he? No lights up there.”
“Actually, he isn’t. He’s in Montana, chasing me. You think he’s figured this game of ours out. I don’t,” said DCAK.
“There you have it, then. But you should be careful. I wouldn’t ever underestimate Dr. Cross. He has a sixth sense about these things, and he’s obsessive, a very hard worker. He could surprise you.”
DCAK couldn’t hold back a trace of a smile—cruel. “Is that what happened to you? You mind me asking such a blunt question?”
“Not at all. What happened to me was that my worst enemy finally caught up with me—my pride, my ego, my hubris. Near the end, I made it too easy for Cross.”
“You hate him, don’t you? You want to bring him down in a public way.”
Kyle smiled now. DCAK was projecting, revealing more than he should about himself. “Well, I do want to humble Cross. I wouldn’t mind destroying his reputation. But no, I don’t hate Alex. Not at all. Actually, I consider him a dear friend.”
DCAK laughed out loud. “I would hate to be one of your enemies.”
“Yes,” Kyle Craig said, and then he laughed too. “You wouldn’t want to get on my bad side.”
“So, am I? Have I gone too far?”
Kyle reached out and patted the killer’s shoulder to let him know that everything was good between the two of them. “Now tell me about yourself. I want to know it all. And then,” Kyle said, grinning again, “you can tell me about your partner. I saw someone lurking back there in the shadows. I’d hate to have to shoot whoever it is. But, of course, I will.”
The woman who went by the name Sandy Quinlan stepped forward from the tree line.
“In your honor” were her first words to the great Kyle Craig. Perhaps disingenuous, but maybe not? Certainly fawning. Of course, she was an actress too.
Kyle nodded slowly, then said, “So tell me about John Sampson. Where are you keeping him, and what do you have planned?”
Chapter 113
BREE AND I RUSHED back to Kalispell late that evening—only to find that our original flights were still the fastest way home. There weren’t any alternatives, at least not one that we could afford.
So we checked into a motel, where neither of us got much sleep. Not being able to help Sampson during those critical first hours was killing both of us, but especially me. John and I had been best friends since we were kids, and I had a bad feeling about this. Still, I was with Bree, and we slept in each other’s
arms.
We finally arrived in DC on Sunday—wired but totally focused. I called Billie Sampson from the gate and told her we’d be at their house in twenty minutes. I checked in with Superintendent Davies on our way to the car. He was overseeing this personally. Davies was a friend of John’s too.
“New development while you were in the air,” Davies told me. “The bastard’s running a Webcast sometime today.”
“What do you mean? What kind of Webcast? What time?”
“We don’t have all the details yet. There was an e-mail around two—same distribution as the last one.” That meant a full media press. “He gave the URL for his site and just said it’d be going live by tonight.”
“Bree and I will be there as soon as we can. We’re going to see Billie Sampson first. It’s more or less on the way. Don’t take it off-line! Let it keep running. We need to see what he’s up to.”
“Already with you on that. It may be our only way to track this.” And by this, we both knew Davies meant Sampson’s murder and the gross public spectacle it was meant to become.
I hung up with Davies just as we got to the car.
“What did he say?” Bree wanted to know.
I didn’t answer right away. I was too busy staring at a package that was tape-mounted to the driver’s door.
White paper, silver duct tape. I’d seen something very much like it before.
“Bree? Listen to me, now. Back away from the car. Come over here with me. Take it very slow, and keep back.”
She came around to look. “Jesus. Is it an explosive?”
“I don’t know what it is.” I took out my Mini Maglite and leaned in for a closer look. “It could be anything.”
But when it toned, we both jumped back real fast.
Chapter 114
IT TOOK US a couple of seconds to realize that the sound we were hearing was a ringing phone and that it was inside the package.
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