The Dark Corners of the Night

by Meg Gardiner

  She caught a fresh sting of petroleum on a gust of wind. The sky sank to indigo. Christmas lights were coming on. It was deep in December, but the holidays had blurred past her. Now Christmas decorations struck her as garish and out of place.

  She nodded at the Bingham home. “This house. Evaluate its location along with the home in Torrance and the route he took to escape. Can that tell you which of the two buffer zones he’s using as his home base right now? Where he is tonight?”

  “His hunting zones separate sharply into north and south sectors. Roughly the San Fernando Valley versus the LA Basin. I think the Santa Monica Mountains form a mental barrier for him. When he leaves his home base to hunt, he sticks to whichever side of the hills he’s on.”

  “So he’s nesting downtown right now.”

  “Probably.”

  At LAX, a heavy jet went to takeoff thrust and poured down the runway. The roar reverberated through Caitlin’s chest. The jet lifted off into the dusk. As it rose into the scintillating sunset, its thunder faded. Caitlin felt her phone buzzing in her pocket before she heard it.

  Keyes pulled his phone out at the same moment she did. They both had a text from Rainey.

  Call just came in to the task force from

  Hannah Guillory’s father. Vandalism in

  their neighborhood.

  Keyes looked up. “Vandalism? Another police car?”

  Caitlin’s phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hendrix.”

  “Caitlin?”

  The voice was young. It was scared.

  “Hannah?” Caitlin said.

  “You told me I could call you,” the girl said. “Are you coming? Here to my house? Because I think the Midnight Man is watching us.”

  34

  At the curb outside LAPD headquarters, Keyes jumped out of the idling Suburban. The complex’s icy walls were starkly lit. Cold air soaked through the vehicle.

  Rainey jumped in. “Thanks.”

  With a wave, Keyes shut the door. Caitlin pulled out.

  “Patrol unit is on scene at the Guillorys’, detectives en route,” Rainey said.

  “Good. Hannah sounded freaked. And I want to see firsthand what’s going on.”

  It was around five p.m. and full dark had settled over the city. Downtown was a yin-yang of night-black sky and dazzlingly lit streets. The evening was bustling. Shoppers were out, restaurants full, holiday concerts in swing. A Lakers game was scheduled to tip off at Staples Center. Caitlin rolled by City Hall and past a church with a banner strung above the doors. Welcome the Prince of Peace.

  Her stomach tightened. “Gloria in excelsis. I am beyond good and evil.”

  “Legion of the night. The newborn king.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “Impossible. I don’t care if this killer was born without a conscience, or whether he was made into a monster. He’s intelligent. Vicious. And sane.”

  “Somebody topped off your iced tea with vinegar,” Rainey said.

  “He’s not beyond anything. He knows the terms ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’”

  “But doesn’t feel them,” Rainey said. “So he doesn’t feel bound by them.”

  “Sucks for him that feelings don’t count under the law.”

  Caitlin accelerated onto the freeway. Traffic was swift. Headlights formed a shining river.

  “He knows that laws exist,” she said. “There’s right and wrong. And, for us, righting a wrong. That’s never beyond good and evil.”

  “No? Thinking everything you do is righteous makes it easy to fall into the shadows. And being God is above your pay grade.”

  Caitlin ground her hands on the wheel. “I don’t want to be God. Or even an avenging angel. I just want to protect others.”

  And she wanted to keep control over her life. The sleeves of her sweater covered her arms down to her thumbs. Nobody could see the fresh cuts on her arms. There were more of them now.

  She felt both powerful and clearheaded. And confused, and drowning. Each cut staved off submersion for a few pure moments.

  “The Midnight Man’s just trying to drill a hole into children’s heads with those words,” she said. “Hitting them with an emotional hollow-point.”

  “So he can leave them alive, but blown apart.” Rainey exhaled. “We do whatever it takes to keep him away from any more kids.”

  “A-goddamn-men.”

  She said it with conviction, but a voice deep in her head whispered, Whatever it takes? Really? You ready to own what that could mean?

  “Using deadly force against a teen …”

  Rainey gave Caitlin a hard look. “If he was endangering my life or the lives of others? Without hesitation.” She turned and stared through the windshield. “And it would be like shooting myself in the heart. We don’t want it to come to that.”

  When they reached Bay Rise and pulled off the freeway onto the Guillorys’ street, Caitlin said, “Damn.” The road was crowded with cop cars—and news vans.

  “Exactly what Mina Guillory didn’t want,” she said.

  But the news crews weren’t aiming their cameras and microphones at the Guillory home. TV lights blasted the hill behind houses further down the street, where billboards overlooked the neighborhood. Caitlin parked the Suburban near the corner, well away from the cameras’ glare. There was a nerve-racking buzz in the air. She and Rainey walked down the street.

  “Jesus on a poodle,” Rainey said.

  One of the billboards had been painted wall to wall with red eyes.

  Dave Guillory opened the door six inches wide. Body-blocking the entrance, he sized up Caitlin and Rainey with mistrust. He was a wiry man with ropy arms inked with tattoos. Caitlin and Rainey held up their FBI credentials.

  From inside, Mina called, “Get them in and shut the door, Dave. Now.”

  When Caitlin stepped into the front hall, she could almost smell the sense of siege. In the living room, two LAPD patrol officers were speaking to a detective. Mina Guillory held little Charlie on one hip.

  Dave gestured toward the cops. “Join the party.”

  From the back of the house, Hannah emerged, running. She slowed, sliding on the parquet floor in her socks.

  “You came.” Her eyes were too wide, her face flushed.

  “Told you we would,” Caitlin said.

  Her parents turned sharply toward the girl. Mina said, “You phoned the FBI?”

  Abruptly Hannah blushed a deeper red. “I …”

  “I told her to call if she needed anything,” Caitlin said.

  Mina hoisted Charlie higher on her hip. “Then do your thing. Whatever it takes to make this nightmare go away.”

  Caitlin put a hand on Hannah’s shoulder. “Let me and Special Agent Rainey talk to the police officers for a minute. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Hannah’s reply was almost a sigh of relief.

  In the living room, Caitlin and Rainey introduced themselves. The LAPD detective told them that thus far they’d found no witnesses to the billboard vandalism. And no other evidence that the Midnight Man had returned to the neighborhood, much less the Guillorys’ property.

  Rainey drew Caitlin to the front window, out of the family’s earshot. She put her hands on her hips.

  “Something’s off.” She hung a long, slow gaze on the spotlighted billboard. “This would mark a brazen change in his MO. And the drawings strike me as … wrong.”

  With her phone, Rainey snapped photos of the billboard.

  Caitlin glanced at the cops near the Christmas tree. “The fact that the killer paints crime scenes with bloody eyes has been closely held.” She crossed her arms. “And we haven’t heard a peep to suggest that it’s leaked.”

  “He painted eyes on the nursery walls in Arcadia. Plenty of people saw that. Patrol officers, crime scene technicians, EMTs, the ME’s staff … It’s possi
ble.”

  “Why would anybody besides the UNSUB paint the billboard? Publicity? Chaos?”

  Rainey’s lips pursed. After a second she shook her head. “No. There’s no evidence that somebody else is the culprit. The Midnight Man had to have come back here and done it.”

  From the living room came a flurry of activity. The LAPD detective spoke to Mina and Dave Guillory. The parents conferred, nodded, and ushered Hannah down the hall. As the girl headed toward her room, she darted to Caitlin’s side.

  “We’re leaving. Will you come with?”

  The detective ambled over. “Think it would be a good idea for the Guillorys to get away for an hour or two. Until we can process the scene out there. And until the media leaves.”

  Mina said, “I called a friend. We’re going to hang at their place until the spotlights shut off.” Charlie fussed on her hip. “Hannah, grab some books and snacks, and Charlie’s toys.”

  Caitlin patted Hannah on the back. “Go on. I’m not leaving.”

  Hannah skipped down the hall to her room. Caitlin lowered her voice.

  “Loading the family in the minivan and driving off with a police escort will only draw the attention of those television cameras,” she said.

  “What do you suggest?” the detective said.

  “Misdirection.”

  Hannah knelt and kissed the cat on the head. “You’ll be okay, Silky.”

  She stood and schlepped her backpack onto her shoulders. Silky, a blue Burmese, almost silvery in his sleekness, rubbed against her legs. Hannah held out her hand to Charlie.

  “Ready for our big escape?”

  “Ready.” He nodded extravagantly and put his index finger to his lips, as Hannah had shown him. “Shh.”

  It was dramatic, but Caitlin didn’t mind. Letting the kids feel that they were having an adventure was better than having them feel cornered and helpless. She and the LAPD detective walked the family to the kitchen.

  Rainey had driven the Guillorys’ pickup past the news vans. The uniformed officers were out on the street, canvassing neighbors about the graffiti on the billboard. In the kitchen, Dave Guillory opened the sliding glass door and led his wife and kids out the back.

  The family who lived directly behind the Guillorys had agreed to let them use their yard for a quiet trek.

  Caitlin and the LAPD detective helped the kids and parents over the fence. When they reached the street, Rainey was waiting with their truck.

  Caitlin retrieved the Suburban. Then she and Rainey escorted them out of the neighborhood and away from the cameras.

  At a quiet apartment building in Long Beach, they accompanied the Guillorys up the steps to their friends’ door. The cold air had the honeyed brush of the ocean. Christmas lights were strung inside the apartment’s front window.

  Mina Guillory hugged the woman who let them in. “Thanks, hon. Couple hours, that’s all we need.”

  On the walkway, Rainey scanned the complex, though Caitlin had taken countermeasures to avoid being followed. Neither of them had seen any signs of a tail.

  Dave Guillory nudged Hannah through the door, but the little girl turned to Caitlin.

  “Are you coming in?”

  “No. We need to get back to work.”

  “Don’t go.” Hannah squeezed her hands into fists.

  Caitlin crouched in front of her. “You’ve got your books, right?”

  Hannah nodded tightly. “The Golden Compass.”

  “You’ve got Dr. Seuss for Charlie—I saw you stick Horton Hears a Who in your backpack.”

  “It’s his favorite.” Hannah’s voice was small.

  Inside, Charlie raced around the living room, laughing at high pitch.

  “I think you’d better read to him.”

  “Maybe I’d better,” Hannah said. “Or he’ll get overstimulated and have a meltdown.”

  “Big sisters always have that responsibility, don’t they?” In her pocket, Caitlin’s phone pinged with an arriving email. “And there’s the office, telling me to hop to it.”

  She smiled. After a few seconds, Hannah made a half-hearted attempt to smile back.

  “And you’ve got my phone number.”

  Hannah exhaled.

  Caitlin stood. She held up her hand and Hannah gave her a high five. Caitlin nodded crisply.

  As she and Rainey descended the stairs, she took out her phone. She opened the email while she walked to the Suburban.

  re: new mm video.

  “Whoa. It’s a new clip of the killer.”

  Caitlin slowed. As with the other videos, this one was high-gain white, a photo negative of the UNSUB. As with the others, he was sauntering down a nighttime street. Hoodie, ball cap, baggy jeans.

  Rainey said, “CCTV?”

  “Looks like a home surveillance camera. Don’t know where it was captured—hold on.”

  The UNSUB’s step had the familiar looseness, but something about this video seemed to have a different intensity. He appeared less … what, postcoital? More focused. Hungry.

  He passed a street sign. Caitlin paused the playback.

  “Whitehorse Drive,” she said.

  “I’ve seen that.” Rainey’s brows knit. “Tonight.” She pulled out her own phone. Checked the map. “Whitehorse is eight blocks away from the Guillorys’ street.”

  Caitlin’s pulsed ticked up. In the corner of the screen was a time stamp. “Video’s dated.” She looked up. “Tonight.”

  Rainey’s eyes widened. “The UNSUB was definitely there.”

  “So he must have painted the eyes on the billboard.”

  Even as she said it, her voice drifted. Something seemed wrong. She zoomed on the time stamp.

  Caitlin gasped so loudly that Rainey grabbed her hand and turned the phone to see the screen.

  Rainey read. “Time stamp says 6:11 p.m.”

  “Twenty minutes ago.”

  “Oh, hell no.”

  “Tonight. The killer’s there now.”

  Rainey broke for the Suburban, placing a call as she ran. “I need police dispatched to Whitehorse Drive,” she nearly shouted to the 911 operator, giving her FBI badge number.

  Caitlin raced at Rainey’s heels. Her hands shook. On the screen of her phone, the UNSUB stalked down the darkened street toward homes full of unsuspecting families.

  35

  When Caitlin squealed around the corner onto Whitehorse Drive, every shred of hope drained from her.

  Police cars and ambulances filled the street.

  This time, Rainey was the one who gasped. “No. Oh, Jesus.”

  The flashing blue light strip in the windshield of the Suburban took on the fevered vibration of a migraine aura. Caitlin yanked the vehicle to the curb and had the door open before she remembered to put the SUV in Park and kill the engine.

  She rushed with Rainey to a house in the middle of the block. She tried to walk and to avoid shoving aside EMTs and uniformed cops but couldn’t keep herself from running up the front walk. The door of the ranch house gaped wide. She stopped at the threshold.

  Emmerich stood inside, his face bleak. He wore latex gloves, and paper booties over his hiking shoes.

  “The family?” Caitlin said.

  He turned his head to spot her. He took a beat. Seemed off balance. “The father’s dead. Mother critically injured. Gunshot wound to the chest. She’s on her way to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.”

  “Kids?”

  The blue flashing lights were joined by red. They lashed the walls, and Emmerich’s face, and Rainey’s shoulder as she pulled on gloves and booties and spoke in a low voice to the officer logging people into the scene. Caitlin didn’t move.

  “The kids?” she said again.

  “Alive.”

  Caitlin found that she too had put on gloves and booties. Sh
e handed back the pen and saw her signature on the log-in sheet. She was in the house, following Emmerich down an entry hall that felt like a throat.

  “But?” she said.

  His voice went flat. “But the kids were tied up. Drawings of eyes were cut into their palms with a knife.”

  Caitlin breathed through gritted teeth. Emmerich led her around a corner, past forensic techs fingerprinting the door to the master bedroom. Inside, half visible, a man sprawled by the foot of the bed. He’d been cut down as he charged at the attacker.

  A boy’s bedroom was across the hall. Caitlin stepped in.

  On the wall, in the child’s blood, was written true night breed.

  Caitlin stood before it. How much blood did the killer claw from the hand of an agonized kid to write that message?

  Voices tumbled around the hallway and the front of the house. Outside the curtained window, the migraine lights shrieked and spun. On the boy’s bedroom floor, below the windowsill, Lego blocks were scattered.

  The killer was long gone.

  Caitlin felt short of breath. Her chest seemed to have a steel band cinched around it. She turned and walked past Emmerich and Rainey, out the front door, past the ambulance and uniformed officers and black-and-whites with squawking radios. The spinning lights felt like the blades of a sickle, slicing her across the eyes. She headed blindly down the street.

  She pressed her fists to her forehead. Dug her nails into her palms.

  The kids in that house had tried to protect their family against intrusion—with toys. The UNSUB had walked right over them.

  The FBI did nothing to stop him.

  They’d been literally around the corner earlier, at the Guillorys’ house. They’d left. Left the neighborhood, left the family in the house on Whitehorse Drive bare and exposed. They had failed them.

  She found herself in the middle of the street beside the Suburban. The night felt icily hot, slippery, atomized.