Night Hunter

by Carol Davis Luce

  What reason indeed? It was all her fault. He couldn’t let Van Raven get away with this. He had to punish her. She, above all, would pay the ultimate price.

  And he knew exactly what that price would be.

  At 11:55 Kristy stood under the awning in front of The Farm House. She watched for the gray-and-black Oldsmobile, the one her chaperon, Mrs. Nash, drove, and hoped that her mother wouldn’t arrive first.

  Her mother had insisted she not do anything regarding the contest until they’d had a chance to talk, and she rarely disobeyed a direct order, but jeeze, how could she possibly know she would get a call to do a last-minute photograph session? Her mother, who was obviously being paranoid, just didn’t know how important this was to her. No one wanted to hurt the contestants. What could happen at a photo session? As soon as she arrived at the photographer’s studio, she’d call. Her mom would be pissed, but she’d get over it.

  The parking lot roiled with driving pellets of rain. Kristy hoped the humidity wouldn’t frizz her hair.

  Wearing jeans, sweater, denim jacket, and high-top Reeboks, she was told that everything she needed would be supplied by the studio. She hoped so, because she had no time to go home and change; besides, she’d promised she wouldn’t go back to the apartment alone.

  A dark car pulled up. Someone called her name. She lifted the umbrella and ran to the car. The door opened.

  Halfway inside, Kristy hesitated.

  “It’s all right, Miss Van Raven. It appears I’m to be your chaperon this afternoon. Mrs. Nash had something of a crisis regarding her dog. Everyone is running behind. Hurry, you’ll be soaked.”

  Kristy climbed in and closed the door.

  “So how are you, my dear?”

  “Fine, Your Honor.”

  “No need to be so formal. Today, Miss Van Raven, as far as you’re concerned, I am neither a superior judge nor a contest judge. I am just a pageant official helping out in a pinch.”

  Suddenly, without knowing why, she sensed a pinprick of fear. “Sir, I forgot to call my mother to tell her where I’ll be. I think I better do that first. It’ll only take me a minute.”

  Matthew Corde pulled away. “Relax, child, you can call her from the studio.”

  Kristy watched the wipers on the old car sweep across the windshield. They made a sad, mewling sound.

  She looked for the door handle. There was none.

  She hugged herself and shivered.

  Regina glanced at her watch as she pushed open the restaurant door. 12:06. She was always punctual, usually early, but the rain-slick streets had tied up traffic and caused at least two fender benders.

  In her calico uniform, Sonya was leaning over an empty table just inside the door when Regina arrived.

  “Hi, Sonya. Is Kristy in the back?”

  “She had to leave, Regina. She told me to tell you she’d call you here.”

  “Where’d she go?”

  Sonya busied herself clearing a table.

  “Sonya, where did she go?” Regina heard a rising hysteria in her voice.

  “A photo session.”

  “What photo session? For the model search?”

  Sonya nodded, looked away.

  Regina clutched at her purse nervously. She whirled around, exasperated. “Why? Why would she do this after I begged her not to?”

  Sonya shrugged her shoulders, looking miserable.

  “Where is she?”“

  “I don’t know.”

  “Who called her?”

  “One of the officials. She got the call about a half hour ago and ten minutes later she was gone.”

  “Her car’s out there. Did Mrs. Nash pick her up?”

  Sonya shrugged.

  Regina went to the pay phone, found the number for the chaperon in her purse, deposited coins, and dialed. There was no answer.

  Regina was returning to Sonya when she looked up to see the girl gesturing wildly at her from the cashier counter. She held up the phone receiver.

  Regina hurried over

  “It’s for you, Regina,” Sonya said. “He says it’s urgent.”

  Regina grabbed the phone. Her pulse, sounding like ocean waves roaring in her ears, made it difficult for her to hear. “Hello? Hello?”

  “I have your daughter. I will rape, torture, then kill her if you say a word to anyone. No police. Nobody. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, feeling faint. She cleared her throat repeated louder, “Yes, I understand.”

  “Go home. Wait for my call.”

  “I want to hear her voice.”

  The connection was broken.

  Matthew Corde hung up the phone. He looked down at Amelia’s pale body, the blood from his broken nose drying on her face and throat. He felt a renewed surge of rage. She was still beautiful even in death. She had beaten him. The conniving bitch had beaten him. But the other one wouldn’t.

  He had to get the body out of his bed. Out of his house. There would be the other bodies to dispose of also, but he’d worry about that later.

  He dressed Amelia in slacks, cashmere sweater, and the boots she had worn that morning. He omitted the bra because it was too difficult to put on. He doubted that anyone other than himself would know she would never be caught dead braless. He chuckled at the unintended pun. With an effort, he carried her dead weight down the stairs, through the large house, and out into the attached three-car garage. He propped her already stiffening form against the Mercedes. Then he went to a shelf containing cleaning, garden, and pool supplies. From the back he pulled out the plastic container of sulfuric acid, poured it into a mason jar, then cautiously carried the jar back to where his dead wife sat.

  He wondered if the acid would react effectively on dead flesh. It had to if his plan was to work.

  Standing now before her body, Corde positioned the head so the face would take a direct hit. He knelt.

  “My only regret, my love, is that you’re not alive to experience this,” he said to the frozen-like head. “How you would have carried on to have your exquisite face destroyed.”

  He dashed the acid into her face, aiming directly at the milky eyes. The oily liquid made contact and began to run down her face. Nothing happened at first. Then her alabaster skin began to redden and change.

  Never having seen the acid eat into flesh, Corde stared, fascinated. With the others he had heard the gasps, followed by the shrill disbelieving screams, but until now he could only imagine the horror that his elixir had created.

  It was something he would like to see again —on living flesh.

  CHAPTER 32

  Regina had run out of the restaurant without a word to Sonya. Minutes later, at home, pacing the floor, her raincoat open and slapping at her legs, chewing her lower lip until it was raw and bleeding, she prayed for the phone to ring.

  She longed to call John at police headquarters, but reconsidered. She dared not tie up the line in case Kristy’s kidnapper called.

  Kristy’s kidnapper.

  Judge Corde.

  The voice —that rich, powerful, resonant voice that belied the man’s odd, wimpish countenance—was unmistakably his. Twenty years ago that very voice had wrought repugnance in a seventeen-year-old beauty contestant. Now it wrought terror and images of pain and death.

  In the event that she wouldn’t have time to contact John, she scribbled out a note telling him that Corde had kidnapped Kristy and she had gone to meet him. She begged him not to contact the police.

  Half an hour after receiving the call at the restaurant and ten minutes after entering her apartment, the phone rang. Regina answered.

  “Regina,” a male voice said. “I need to see you. Will you meet me somewhere?”

  “Who is this?”

  “Nolan.”

  In frustration she said, “I can’t talk now—”

  “Wait! You’ve heard already?”

  “Heard what?”

  “That she wants a separation. That—”

  “You sonofab
itch,” Regina said, slamming down the receiver. The phone rang beneath her trembling fingers. She snatched it up.

  “Go immediately to Fort Point. Alone. Inform no one or she dies. She’ll be in a place where no one will find her until it’s too late. And her death, I promise you, will be slow and quite agonizing. Twenty minutes. Do you have that?”

  “I have to hear her voice.”

  Regina heard rustling on the line, then, “Mom?” The voice was squeaky, frightened.

  “Kristy?! Are you all right?”

  “Why is he--”

  “Nineteen minutes,” the deep voice said.

  Regina hung up.

  To the note for John she added, “12:50 at Fort Point. Don’t show yourself. He’ll kill Kristy.” She signed it, folded it in half, then ran out the door and down the stairs. At John’s apartment she opened the door and rushed in. She pulled the rocker away from the wall, placed it directly in front of the door where John couldn’t miss it and laid the note on the cane seat. In the doorway, as she turned to leave, she collided with her landlady.

  The woman blocked her way. “Mrs. Van Raven — ?”

  “I can’t talk now.” Regina pushed past her. From the foyer she called out, “I’ve left a note for John. Please make sure he gets it.”

  She rushed out into the wind and rain.

  Anna Szabo watched Regina Van Raven charge out the door into a torrential downpour. Her tenant seemed confused, upset, on the point of hysteria. Had she and Johnnie had another spat?

  If they had quarreled, maybe things were not so good between them now? She hoped Johnnie was done with her. Ilona, a young woman of childbearing age, was certainly better suited for her nephew than a woman who had already planted a husband in the ground. And a career woman at that.

  Ilona ... such a sweet girl. She was in Anna’s kitchen at that very moment, rolling out dough for the pinch noodles, having tea, and going through the worn family album.

  When Johnnie returned home, Anna would insist he join them for dinner, then later, after glasses of sweet Tokay, she would run an errand, leaving the two alone.

  She stepped inside John’s apartment and lifted the folded piece of paper from the rocker, turning it over several times. She slipped the note into the pocket of her apron, patted it, sighed deeply, placed the rocker back against the wall, then left the apartment to return to Ilona, the noodle making, and her simmering cabbage soup.

  The rain came down hard against the side of her face. It stung in certain places, felt numb in others. She had to squint to keep the water from blinding her.

  Corinne sat stiffly on the bench staring straight ahead. People scurried by, umbrellas tilting toward the driving wind and rain. Some of the passersby stared, but most were too preoccupied with the downpour to notice the hideously scarred woman on the bench, her black raincoat open to reveal a cheap shift, the hood like a bowl, filling with water.

  She couldn’t go home. Her father was dead and his body claimed. She had gone back to the house, had seen the emergency vehicles, and had continued on by.

  She closed her eyes and thought of John. He hadn’t changed, not really. He was still sweet and caring. And her feelings for him hadn’t changed either. But he had Regina now. Regina, who probably never truly hungered for anything in her entire life, had John’s love. Had Regina been born under a lucky star? Was she more deserving? She had been spared the hideous fate that had touched the others. Was she immune to disaster?

  Corinne chewed at the inside of her mouth until it was ragged and tasted of copper. Hate and jealousy wound around her like barbed wire, cutting sharply into her. It wasn’t fair that Regina had everything and she, Miss Classic 1970, had nothing. It wasn’t fair.

  Corinne had seen the assailant. She knew who he was.

  The night before last she saw a man in black stealthily work his way along the hedge to the rear of John’s building. Less than an hour later she watched him drop from Regina’s window to the ground below and flee. Standing deep in the shadows, he had run right past her, and as he did he flung off the nylon stocking that covered his face.

  Regina, damn her, had escaped once again.

  A small child in bright yellow rain boots and a yellow slicker walked with her mother, the two sharing an umbrella. The little girl stared at Corinne with wide, frightened eyes, then turned and buried her face in the thick wool of her mother’s coat.

  It wasn’t fair.

  At 1:15, two hours after going to the police station to meet Wilma, John was still waiting for Detective Lillard. He had reached the end of his patience. Regina had not returned and there was no answer at her apartment when he called. Wilma had ceased her pacing. She stood at a nearby desk, on the phone, trying to track down the detective.

  John squeezed her fingers gently, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Wilma, I can’t wait any longer. I’m going to find Regina. If Lillard ever shows up, call me at my place. Okay?”

  She smiled weakly, nodded.

  John took a cab home.

  He was about to enter his apartment when his aunt opened her door and called to him.

  “Aunt Anna, have you seen Regina?” John asked.

  She frowned. “Regina?”

  “Mrs. Van Raven. Have you seen her in the past couple of hours?”

  Ilona came up behind Anna Szabo. “Hi, Johnnie,” she said.

  “Ilona has come to help me with the day’s supper. You must stay.”

  “Aunt Anna, Ilona, I can’t, really. There’s something very important I have to do.”

  “What could be so important?” His aunt took his hand and pulled at him.

  He resisted.

  “Johnnie, Johnnie, go do what it is you have to do and come back.” Anna released his hand. “Time will only make the soup better.”

  It was useless to argue. John nodded. “Give me a few minutes,” he said. He climbed the stairs two at a time to the second floor. He used the spare key, the one he’d taken from his aunt’s place the night Regina had narrowly escaped being attacked, and let himself in.

  After a quick search of the rooms revealed neither Regina nor a note, he checked her answering machine for messages. None. He suddenly realized she could be waiting for him in his apartment.

  He hurried downstairs, entered his apartment, and called out to her, searching the rooms. He again looked for a note and finding none, sank heavily in the wingback chair to think.

  She must still be with Kristy, he told himself. Instead of coming back to the apartment house, he should have gone to the restaurant where Kristy worked.

  He rose, grabbed the phone book, looked up the number and dialed.

  “Farm House,” a woman said.

  “Kristy Van Raven, please. It’s important.”

  “She’s not here, sir.”

  “Is Sonya Newman there?”

  “That’s me.”

  “Sonya, it’s John Davie, Regina’s friend. Did Kristy leave with her mother?”

  “John, something freaky’s going on here. Kristy gets a call and leaves. Then her mom comes in and she gets an urgent call from some guy and leaves too.”

  “How long ago?”

  “An hour. Maybe an hour and a half.”

  “Any idea where Regina went?”

  “No.”

  John hung up absently, a sense of dread knotting his gut. An urgent call from whom? Kristy? The police? The hospital? The man stalking her? How many people knew she was meeting Kristy at work?

  He began to pace the living room. Corde was on to them. He was on to them and now he had them somewhere. No. Don’t think like that.

  On the coat rack in the entry he caught sight of the wool print scarf that had fallen from Regina’s coat the night they’d made love on the fleece rug. He crossed the room, lifted the scarf off the hook, and, bunching it up, brought it to his face. He breathed in the rich, exotic aroma of her perfume. Images of her, soft and sensual in his arms, played across his mind’s eye.

  Christ, what the
hell had he gotten himself into? After all these years of keeping a clear head about love and relationships, he had to go and get himself romantically involved, Both Corinne and Darlene had met with tragedy after he fell in love. And he’d walked into this one with his eyes wide open. Was he jinxed? Was it inevitable that suffering and death come to those he loved?

  Regina, oh God, Regina, be safe.

  “Call, damnit,” he said harshly under his breath.

  He wrapped the scarf around his neck and resumed his pacing.

  He led her down the basement steps.

  Outwardly he appeared kind and attentive, holding her arm loosely, telling her to watch her step. Despite his solicitous words and actions, Regina knew better than to relax her guard. She had seen the smoldering hatred glowing feverishly in his black eyes when he looked at her. He had no fear she would try to get away. He knew she would cooperate as long as Kristy was a hostage, that she would do whatever was asked of her in order to save her daughter.

  They crossed the concrete floor to a wall of wine bottles. He reached into a pigeonhole in the wine rack. Regina heard a click, then another, and a portion of the wall, wine rack and all, began to move. It was a door. Beyond the doorway was a brightly lit room with bookshelves and expensive office furniture.

  “Welcome to my sanctuary,” Corde said, ushering her in.

  Regina stepped across the threshold, her gaze searching frantically for her daughter. There was no one else in the room.

  “Where is she?”

  “You’ll see her.”

  “I want to see her now.”

  “You’re in no position to make demands.”

  “Where’s Amelia?”

  “They’re together. Contemplating the error of their ways.”

  Amelia a prisoner as well? Regina wondered.

  “Kristy’s done nothing wrong. Let her go.”

  “Oh, but she has. Upstairs, when I gave her the opportunity to enhance her odds, she rejected me. Just as her mother did twenty years ago.”