Because he had the feeling he wouldn’t be able to catch one minute of sleep until he knew she was okay.
Stacey watched Dean slow as she turned off the road, and waved him on. She knew he was worried; he’d been as shaken up by that filth Rob Monroe as she had. Later, when she had time, she looked forward to cleaning her home thoroughly, eradicating every trace of the vile man. But she had one more task to fulfill before she could, for at least a couple of hours, give in to her bone-deep weariness.
The Covey house sat at the top of the hill, and as she crested it, she saw Seth’s truck parked outside. Wondering if he had just missed his grandmother’s note and gone to bed when he’d gotten back home last night, she found a last bit of energy to jog up the front steps of the two-story farmhouse and knock. And knock. And then to pound.
No answer.
Stepping across the creaky wooden planks of the porch, she reached a window, cupped her hands, and peered inside. The living room looked the same as it had since she was a kid. Plastic on the furniture. An old-fashioned upright piano, untouched and unplayed. Fussy and protected and cold, just like Alice Covey.
She returned to the door, knocked again, then walked to the opposite side and looked into the kitchen window. She’d just about decided to give up when she saw movement. A door inside the kitchen was pushed open a few inches, a skeletal hand appearing around the edge of it.
“Seth!” she called, rapping on the glass.
Seth stumbled out from behind that door, shock widening his eyes. His naturally pale face grew one shade paler, which emphasized the harsh red acne scars on his cheeks.
He met her stare through the glass, looking terrified. Jeez, if he was this startled, the kid must have been coming up from his room anyway, not having heard her knock.
“Sorry,” she said, speaking loudly. “I need to talk to you. Open up.”
His eyes shifted. He was thinking about it. Frozen with indecision.
Which was when she realized how wrong this whole situation felt.
She took a step back from the window. Staring straight ahead, she saw the smear her own face had made on the glass. Saw Seth’s dark form move around the kitchen, heading past the window toward the front door. Saw that he was dressed in black from neck to toe, despite the earliness of the hour.
Her heart began to thud, tripping in an unexpected rhythm. Her pulse followed suit, surging through her, really waking her up for what felt like the first time in hours. Her body had gone into instant readiness even though her brain hadn’t yet caught up and told her precisely why.
The front door opened a crack. Forcing herself to stay calm, she stepped over.
“What do you want?” Seth asked, his voice gravelly and filled with sleep.
“I need to talk to you. It’s about your dad.”
He stared, his eyes shifting. Glancing down, he spotted the blood on her khaki uniform pants, which she’d been wearing for twenty-four hours, and his mouth fell open.
“Oh, no, that’s…” She almost said, That’s not his blood, but caught herself in time. “Your dad was involved in an accident, but it looks like he’s going to pull through.”
Silence.
“Seth? Did you hear me?”
“My grandmother left me a note,” he mumbled.
“Yes. She called the station this morning because she hadn’t heard from you.”
Another quick shift of the eyes. Then an explanation. “She didn’t leave any number. I figured she wouldn’t be able to answer her cell phone inside a hospital.”
Plausible. Maybe. But still, how weird that Randy’s only son wouldn’t have gone right down to see his dad.
“Okay. Well, please do give your grandmother a call.” She told the young man the name of the hospital, suggesting he write it down.
“I’ll remember.” He began to push the door closed.
Stacey reached out and touched him before he could shut it all the way. “Seth, is everything okay?”
His brow pulled down over his eyes and he glared at her hand, visible anger appearing, as quick as it was shocking. “Don’t touch me.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his thin neck. “You… you’re dirty.”
She let go immediately, seeing the stains on her blouse. Yes, she was a mess. But dirty? He’d said the word with such revulsion.
“I’d better go call Grandmother.”
She nodded once, then watched as he shut the door in her face. The loud click of the lock cordially invited her to get the hell off his porch.
Shaking her head in pure confusion, she did so. For some reason, though, as she walked down the steps she found herself unable to face forward; she kept her head turned and edged down sideways.
Something in her didn’t want to present her back to that closed door and all those windows. To Seth.
Her instincts screamed in her brain, demanding that she admit why.
And suddenly she did. The shocking possibility took shape and flashed in her head.
Ridiculous. But not impossible.
Her steps slowed as she walked down the driveway, to Seth’s covered pickup. An American-made one. Late-model.
She didn’t touch it, just peered through the driver’s-side window into the cab. Nothing.
Walking to the back, she looked in that window. And saw something that turned her blood to a river of ice.
It was a backpack. A child’s ninja-warrior backpack, the type a seven- or eight-year-old boy might like, lay on the floor of the truck. A few boyish toys spilled out of it.
“Oh, fuck,” she whispered, slowly backing away from the window, her hand rising to her mouth.
It couldn’t be, could it? Seth Covey? Quiet, unassuming, twenty-year-old Seth?
The wheels turned, the gears clicking into place in her head. That night at Dick’s, his father had feared his son had been there and had left early. Had he, in truth, seen him or his truck lurking around the tavern?
The video and computer equipment-of course Randy would steal it for his son.
Tim had said Seth used to do the ride-alongs with Randy. Perhaps to the very mall where the last victim had been snatched?
He didn’t seem to care about his father’s accident, wanting to stay inside his dark, empty home. Quiet, secretive, secluded. Her father’s house was the only other one for two miles. Nobody would hear anything while his grandmother and father were out.
The pieces continued to fall into place.
The mother who’d walked out. The grandmother who was so bitter, possibly even abusive. She had hated Randy’s teenage wife, Seth’s mom, had called her dirty even in the presence of others. Good God, how many times had Seth heard that growing up?
Dirty.
Quiet, soft-spoken Seth who had always been so incredibly bright as a kid. Smarter than anyone else his age, yet had shown no interest in going to college or doing anything with himself. He just wanted to play… “Video games,” she whispered.
She darted for her car, yanking the door open, grabbing her phone out of her pocket and the handset off her radio at the same time. She punched in Dean’s number, getting his voice mail. “It’s me. Get to the Covey house now. It’s Seth. I think Seth’s the Reaper. And I think he already has a little boy inside the house.”
She cut the call, lifted the handset, and put out a call for backup. The deputy handling dispatch promised to get help out there right away, within fifteen minutes at the most.
Not good enough. Seth knew she was here; he was spooked. That child might not have fifteen minutes.
She checked her Glock, got out of the car, and ducked behind Seth’s truck, trying to keep out of sight of the house. Front door? Back? Maybe even the Bilco access doors for the basement, just visible on the side of the house?
Before she could decide, she heard a car coming up the driveway. No way could her backup be here so fast.
Only it was. The best damn backup she’d ever seen in her life.
“Stacey!” Dean said as he jumped out
of the sedan. Darting over, he joined her behind the truck, both of them instinctively taking cover. “I heard on the radio about a little boy who went missing fifty miles south of here last night. Local yokels tried to handle it themselves and didn’t go public for hours.”
“You came back to tell me?” she asked, knowing he had to have been almost here when she’d left the phone message.
“That, and I had a bad feeling. I was calling Wyatt to tell him about the report when you called. Couldn’t click over in time. Jesus, I just heard your voice mail as I pulled into the driveway and almost had a heart attack until I saw you were okay.”
Staying low, she gestured toward the rear window of the truck.
He glanced in and saw. Tension sizzled off his hard form as he growled, “The description of the kid mentioned that backpack.”
“That’s called probable cause.”
“Damn right it is.”
They both peered around the side of the truck at the house. “He came up from the basement. The window on the east side goes into the kitchen; basement door is about six feet from it, on the right.”
“Got it.”
With matched gaits, they darted toward the house, staying low. They certainly wouldn’t fool Seth into a sense of security if he looked out the window and saw the vehicles. But he might not be expecting them to go on the offensive so soon. Especially not just the two of them.
If they were lucky, he hadn’t looked outside. He might not even know Dean was here.
Reaching the end of the porch, they climbed up over the rails onto it, avoiding the steps. With weapons upraised, they positioned themselves on either side of the window. Dean silently counted down, then jabbed his elbow sharply toward the center pane just below the lock. Glass tinkled, but the blow was precise and only the one pane broke.
He reached in, unlocked the window, and slid it up, both of them watching the closed basement door. It remained closed.
Dean climbed in first; she followed. Slowly crossing the kitchen, they eased open the door, peering down into the dimly lit stairwell, which, as she recalled, ended outside the rec room Randy had finished. A sharp turn led down a short hallway to a series of other small, finished rooms, one of which was Seth’s.
They crept down, covering each other. Dean faced the bottom, Stacey backing step by step with her weapon pointing up in case Seth had hidden upstairs, lying in wait for them.
Her feet had just hit the floor when she heard the slam. It came from down the narrow hallway, in one of the back rooms.
“The Bilco doors,” she snapped, immediately recognizing the metallic clang and squeal.
They both hurried toward the sound, hoping to stop Seth from escaping. But as they skidded into the last room, with its low-hanging ceiling and uneven, damp cement floor, they realized they were too late. Sunlight poured from the open doors that led from the darkness up into the day.
Neither of them raced up the steps, however. Because they were both entirely focused on the small cot in the center of the room. And the nightmare that had been taking place down here in the hellish dark.
“Oh, my God, is he…?”
Dean fell to his knees beside the cot, touching the boy who lay there, still, pale, silent. He listened to his chest, touched the tips of his fingers to his throat. It seemed like an eternity before he finally muttered, “He has a pulse. It’s slow and thready, but he’s alive.”
So relieved she almost cried, Stacey knelt, too. Using her pocketknife, she cut through the duct tape binding the child’s hands and feet. He remained utterly motionless, and she surmised that he had been drugged.
Seeing a towel on the floor, covered with a few tools and implements, she shook it empty and dragged it over the boy, trying to keep him warm and protected from the cold, damp air of the basement. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay; you’re going to be fine. We’re not going to leave you.”
He didn’t groan or whimper; in fact he barely even breathed as she gently wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Now that they thought they’d saved him from certain death, she prayed that whatever Seth had given the child to knock him out didn’t kill him anyway.
As Dean called 911, she looked around and immediately saw the tripod. It stood at the foot of the cot, set low to the ground. It was empty, but had a camera been attached, it would have been level with the boy.
At its base were wires that had been quickly disconnected. They ran to a state-of-the-art desktop computer, which was turned on. The screen was awash with odd, vivid colors. Toys, swings, grass, a blue sky.
Satan’s Playground.
She looked away.
“I need to go after Seth,” Dean said after he’d finished his call. “You okay staying here with him?”
She nodded. “Be careful. Call me and keep me posted. I’ll catch up as soon as backup gets here; it shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”
He leaned over the boy, brushing a tender hand across his pale, clammy forehead. Then, a muscle twitching in his jaw, he pointed toward the sharp tools on the floor. The ones that had been laid out neatly on the towel Stacey had grabbed. “Looks like he was setting everything up.”
Stacey nodded. She’d realized the same thing. “We’re fine. I won’t let anything happen to him. Now go.”
Pressing a quick kiss on her mouth, Dean went.
Seth had taken his truck, driving over the lawn to get around the two vehicles parked behind it. As Dean ran for his, he pulled his phone out and called Mulrooney. He explained in as few words as possible, not having time to give Kyle any more than the bare bones. That they’d found the Reaper. That he was Randy Covey’s twenty-year-old son. And that he was on the run.
“I’m going after him,” he snapped. Then he stopped short. “God damn it.”
“What?” Mulrooney asked.
“He snipped the fucking valve stems on both cars.” Both his car and Stacey’s had two flat tires on the driver’s side. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“Get here fast,” he told the other agent. “But first call Wyatt. Get an APB out on Seth Covey and his vehicle.”
“Hold tight; we’re on the way.”
As he cut the call, he heard sirens, soft, in the distance. But no more than a couple of minutes away. He’d have to jump in with one of Stacey’s deputies.
Hurrying back to let her know, he headed for the open metal doors and descended into the Reaper’s personal hellhole.
“He won’t get far,” she said after he filled her in. “There are only a couple of roads that lead out of town.”
“I know.” Seeing the still-motionless child, he asked, “Any change?”
She shook her head.
A moment later, they heard voices from above. Dean darted back outside, seeing the ambulance, not a sheriff’s car, and gestured for the paramedics. They followed him down, taking over the care of the Reaper’s intended victim. Dean and Stacey watched in silence. Somehow, in the dark, their hands had twined together. She squeezed his, as if knowing that when he looked at that kid, all he saw was Jared’s face. Jared lifeless and near death.
“Do you have any idea what he gave him?” one EMT asked after taking the boy’s vitals.
Stacey hurried to the desk, grabbing a prescription bottle. She tossed it to the man, who read it and shook his head. “Who the hell would do this to a kid?”
If only he knew.
Stacey and Dean stayed out of the way, letting the professionals do their work. His impatience grew with every second that ticked by. The backup was taking too long; every mile that passed beneath Seth Covey’s tires gave him an advantage.
“I know it seems like forever,” she said, “but it hasn’t been. The firehouse is a couple of miles closer, that’s all. We’re pretty secluded out…” Her voice trailed off.
“What’s wrong?”
“You don’t think he’d go to Dad’s place, would he?”
He immediately shook his head. “No way. He’s panicked and on the run.”
/> She didn’t look so sure.“You’d think if he was that panicked, he wouldn’t have stopped to take his camera.”
Not getting her at first, he followed her stare, noting that strangely empty tripod, the computer cables still tangled at the base, yanked free and dropped to the floor. Why would a serial killer lose precious minutes taking a damned video camera?
Unless he still intended to use it.
He swung around and stalked over to the desk, staring down at the desktop CPU. On the screen, nasty little people chattered and talked in excited gibberish. He clicked the mouse, running over the site, not wanting to go down the wrong vile rabbit hole, until he reached the drive-in movie theater he’d heard Lily and Brandon talking about.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered when his instincts proved right.
“What?” Stacey asked, stepping behind him.
He pointed to the sign, the marquee outside the theater. One word appeared on it, bold and large, demanding attention.
Hanging.
She gasped. “The camera.”
He’d taken it, and probably a laptop, for a reason.
“Where would he go?”
Dean had no idea. But it had to be somewhere close, in town, maybe. Someplace where Seth could quickly set up and hop online for his final performance.
The only question was, whom did he intend to hang? God, did he hope Stacey’s fears about her father didn’t bear fruit.
Desperate for more information, he clicked on the entrance to the drive-in. When asked to pay credits, he cursed the techno-psychos, then figured out how to spend some of the Reaper’s own currency.
As soon as he’d done so, the screen faded to black. Then, very slowly, a picture began to emerge. Not a cartoon, not a phantasmic world of garish light and exaggerated color. This was the real world. And a real person.
“Seth,” Stacey whispered, bending low to watch as the picture grew clearer.
When it did, he immediately realized it was already happening. All the excited people in the Playground were shelling out their gold.
Fade To Black Page 30
