Bone Music

by Christopher Rice

  Charley thinks there’s a chance the guy’s just a concerned neighbor who might be worried about the dogs. That said, why feed them steaks? Isn’t that supposed to make dogs more aggressive?

  She can’t handle another unanswered question right now. Not for another ten minutes at least. She sucks in a deep breath, rolls over onto her back, and stares up at the motel room’s cottage-cheese ceiling. She tries to inhale a few deep, steadying breaths without distracting Luke from what he’s doing on the other side of the bed.

  “Sleepy?” he asks.

  “My brain feels like wet cement. Is that the same thing?”

  “Not really. So how many?” Luke asks suddenly.

  “How many what?” she asks, genuinely confused.

  She doesn’t have the slightest clue what he’s asking about. How many dogs did Marty spot at Pemberton’s vineyard? How many times had he seen the visitor drop by to feed them? How many car mounts did they buy? She’s been so lost in thought she can’t remember which of the facts, assessments, and plans swirling through her head they’ve actually had a conversation about since returning to the motel.

  He’s assembled both the mounts. He holds them up proudly with a boyish, endearing smile that makes something unnerving happen in her stomach. There’s a suction cup on each that will allow it to stick to the dash.

  “The Xanax,” he asks. “How many did you take?”

  “Oh, right. Ten.”

  She already told him, but he’s probably forgotten. Lord knows they’ve got enough to think about.

  “And they were two-milligram pills?” he asks, dumbfounded.

  “Yep.”

  “You took twenty milligrams of Xanax, and you didn’t even get drowsy?”

  She nods. “Same deal as the wine and the vodka I drank the other night.”

  “How’d you trigger?”

  “If I never have to run across another highway again in my lifetime, it’ll be too soon.”

  “Which highway? The 101? When did you guys do this?”

  “Night before last. We told you we were getting ready. People honked but none of them even grazed me this time. Probably thought I was a ghost. But it was enough to trigger; that’s for sure.”

  “I figured you were looking up directions and stuff.”

  “Marty had a sponsee who went and helped a newcomer clean out his house of a bunch of prescriptions he didn’t exactly need.”

  “Newcomer?”

  “That’s what they call them in AA.”

  “Gotcha. So Marty got his hands on a bunch of pills and thought, Hey. Let’s see if we can make Charley overdose while she’s on Zypraxon.”

  “Not exactly that, no. If this guy’s a medical professional and he’s really pulling off these abductions in public, chances are ten to one he’s using some kind of tranquilizer or anesthetic. Something to subdue his victims long enough to get them into a vehicle.”

  “What other pills did you try?” Luke asks.

  “Well, he also had Percocet and OxyContin. Oh, and Ambien.”

  “How many did you take of those?”

  “Ten.”

  “Each?”

  She nods.

  “And you didn’t feel a thing?”

  “No. It’s like it just burns up in my system.”

  “Jesus. Not to be too blunt, but I don’t understand how you can take this stuff without your heart exploding.”

  “Neither can the people who made it, apparently.”

  Luke fastens both tablets into the mounts to make sure they fit. When it’s clear they do, he pulls them out again, sets them aside, huffs out a deep breath, clearly in search of another place to focus his nervous energy.

  Bad news.

  The text appears on both their burner phones at the same time.

  Charlotte types: ???

  His computer bores me to tears.

  “No pictures of murdered women on Pemberton’s computer, and my brother calls that bad news,” Luke says.

  You finally got in? Charlotte types.

  With help.

  Luke makes a low sound in his throat; the same sound he’s started to make every time Bailey references the other hackers he may or may not be working with and they’ll never know because he doesn’t discuss procedure and they should stop asking already or they’ll risk sounding like tools of the establishment.

  But it’s what’s not there . . .

  Luke types, What would that (not) be?

  No porn.

  “Well, that’s suspicious,” Luke says.

  “Seriously?”

  “A man with no porn on his computer? That’s full-on weird.”

  “Uh-huh. Maybe you have a porn problem and you’re projecting?”

  “Single man, living on his own. I’m just speaking truths; that’s all. The only men who don’t have some form of porn on their computers are superreligious or they share a computer with their wives.”

  “So wives can’t have porn? Wait. Does Tumblr count as porn?”

  “If you have to ask . . . Wait a second, though.”

  Did you check his web history? Luke types.

  Do you think I started doing this yesterday? I’m wanted by the FBI, genius.

  “I guess that’s a yes,” Charlotte says. “So why are we talking about Pemberton and porn?”

  Luke points to the phone to indicate he wasn’t the one who raised the issue. Good point. She asks Bailey the same question.

  Makes me want into that country house more, but there’s no way in . . . yet.

  What about his office? Charley types.

  Harder. More secure. Probably because of patient info. Not impossible, but harder.

  “So he’s not volunteering to hack his office,” Luke says.

  “I’m still not sure on the etiquette here. Should I ask him? Offer to send him a fruit basket?”

  “He hacks satellites, but suddenly a doctor’s office is hard.”

  “Maybe he’s getting tired. And cranky.”

  “Tell him what a good little hacker he is and how he’s changed your opinion of hackers forever and ever and you promise to be less hackerphobic in the future.”

  Charlotte laughs.

  There’s a ping from one of the tablets.

  “Doc’s on the move,” Luke says.

  She studies the map.

  “He’s not headed home.”

  “Maybe the gym?” he asks.

  Bailey had sent the name and address of the doc’s favorite fitness club before they left Altamira. They’d cruised past the place that morning after it became clear Pemberton was going to be in surgery for a while. It’s one of many businesses inside an upscale corner mini-mall with big walls of glass and escalators traveling all four floors.

  “Looks like it,” Luke said.

  “Let’s go.”

  A few minutes later, the tracker shows Pemberton’s motorcycle has stopped in what appears to be the dead center of Barry Fitness, probably because it’s in the parking lot below. As he closes in on the place, Luke eases his foot off the gas and gives her a long glance that tells her he’s awaiting instructions. It’s almost dusk, and she’s got a baseball cap tucked low over her head. Together with a black hoodie Luke brought, it’s a passable disguise.

  “I’m gonna hop out. Circle until I text.”

  “Charley.” He brakes, grips her elbow gently. “If you’re gonna use yourself as bait, he can’t see you until it’s time. It’s not time, is it?”

  “No. I need a good look at him.”

  Luke wants to ask more questions; she can tell. But he restrains himself. Maybe something about her tone conveyed a meaning she wasn’t aware of even as she spoke. Early that morning, they’d reached Pemberton’s high-rise just in time to see him roar out of the parking lot on his bike. But he was helmeted. Faceless. And she’d found herself disappointed that she didn’t get a chance to look into his eyes, to see if she could glimpse something that reminded her of the Bannings. Something predatory, feral.


  Luke’s right. Looking into his eyes now is too much of a risk. But she needs to watch him, if only for a few minutes. Needs to observe him when he doesn’t know he’s being observed.

  “Be careful,” he says.

  She nods and jumps from the Jeep.

  Barry Fitness is on the mall’s second floor, with giant walls of glass overlooking the street and the escalator atrium. It’s a small gym, but the equipment inside looks pricey and new. A row of flat-screen televisions hangs from the ceiling, angled down slightly so they can easily be watched from all three rows of cardio equipment.

  First she tries the floor above the gym to see if that’ll give her a good vantage point through the escalator well. All she can see is the registration desk, the bored-looking attendant on her smartphone, some weight machines behind a glass partition.

  The same spot one floor down gives her a better vantage point, with a greater risk of being seen. From here the gym looks like a glass bubble attached to the mall’s facade. No doubt the design of the place is intended to tap into the exhibitionist tendencies of its clientele, of which there aren’t very many at present. A few women of varying ages and sizes work themselves tirelessly on the treadmills and striders. Even fewer people are on the weight floor, which extends from the first row of cardio machines all the way to the glass wall overlooking the street.

  She’s about to scan the surrounding businesses. Maybe Pemberton came here for something besides a workout.

  Just then one of the men inside the gym stands up from the shoulder-press machine and rises to an impressive height of over six feet. Bike shorts hug his armor-plated thighs, leaving his carved, veiny calves exposed. A black spandex shirt accentuates his V-shaped torso, particularly the muscular swell of his upper back. Unlike some of the other men pumping iron around him, his body doesn’t have the bulbous curves of the chemically enhanced. Rather, it looks naturally sculpted by hours of grueling work.

  His black baseball cap casts some shadow on his face, but she can tell it’s him. It’s the nose that clues her in—the impossibly perfect nose that doesn’t seem to match the rest of his face. Now, with the retouching on his headshot removed, she can clearly see his long mouth that doesn’t seem to close all the way over his tongue, the tiny eyes that make him appear like he’s squinting nervously even as he settles into a new machine and begins confidently hammering out a series of chest presses that sends a stack of metal plates as tall as her knee shooting up and down the cable in quick, smooth repetitions.

  Against her will, she feels an almost blinding surge of pity for the man. The quiet gravity with which he expertly goes about his workout seems fueled by neither a love of fitness nor a desire to be healthy; he moves with an angry, bitter determination to be free of his own face. A face, despite his skill and his nose job, he can’t alter to his satisfaction.

  Why should she view him any differently than the girls she went to high school with who were driven to eating disorders by their own insecurity about their bodies?

  Because he might have killed two women, that’s why.

  She realizes she’s been staring too long. Glances down at her phone. There’s a text from Luke.

  Eyes on him, she writes back.

  Good, comes the response.

  She gives Pemberton her full attention again. Tries to see past the muscles, past the facial features. Tries to see what type of man his casual mannerisms suggest. She’s not a gym person, but his workout seems challenging, and he’s not getting tired. He’s barely sweating.

  Now and then he pauses to sip water from the bottle he carries in a holster built into his waistband; a waistband that also holds his cell phone and what looks like his wallet. There’s even a pouch big enough for his keys.

  Maybe he avoids the locker room. Just like he’s avoiding the crowd at a bigger, trendier, name-brand gym by coming here.

  She’s changed positions twice, even pantomimed a phone call, just in case he notices her, by the time she realizes he’s emptied his bottle.

  He heads to the nearest water fountain, starts to refill. That’s when something catches his attention, something on one of the TVs. As if in a mild trance, he walks to an empty bicycle in the second row, leans against it as though he’s about to get on, but instead stares up at the row of screens overhead. From her new position, she can barely see his face, but she can see the TVs and their predictable buffet of entertainment options. A reality-TV catfight in a crowded nightclub, a football game, a syndicated cop show she remembers Luanne watching when it was new.

  It’s the local newscast that’s caught his attention.

  Parked police cars. Shots of bicyclists and hikers entering and exiting the woodsy entrance to some sort of wilderness trail. Shots of local signage: Whiting Ranch Park. And then, as if these details weren’t dread inducing enough, a black-and-white image, taken in a crowded restaurant, of a plain young woman with brown hair and an uneasy smile. The group of friends she’s leaning into, as well as the drink she’s probably holding in one hand, have been cropped out. Then she’s replaced by images of Kelley Sumter and Sarah Pratt. Faces Charlotte last saw on a smaller, grimier TV inside that horrible bar where she almost killed two rapists.

  The chyron on-screen confirms her suspicion about the news report.

  IS MISSING OC WOMAN THIRD “MASK MAKER” VICTIM?

  She steadies herself with a deep breath, reminds herself she’s there to watch Pemberton, not the news. But when she focuses on him, she sees that he’s staring up at the screen like a dog whose owner has a treat in hand.

  She changes positions again. Tries for an angle on his face without exposing herself. She finds a reasonably decent one. It gives her a better view of the bike seat, and the hand he’s stroking it with. There’s no better word for what he’s doing. Stroking. Stroking the seat while he gently presses his crotch to the back of it.

  Not just pressing, she realizes. Rubbing.

  Pemberton seems to realize it at almost the same moment she does; he’s become fully erect in his skintight bike shorts in the middle of a gym while watching a news report about a woman who might have been murdered.

  He swallows, glances behind him, and manages to keep his cool as he makes a show of stretching his arms, which gives him an excuse to drive himself against the back of the seat. He’s not trying to cause himself more pleasure; he’s trying for the opposite. Maybe that’s why he’s biting down hard on his lower lip. She can’t tell if any of it works. But at least he’s embarrassed by his display.

  At the very least.

  Quickly, he turns his back to her, heads in the opposite direction. She figures the hallway he’s turning toward now leads to the locker room. Next to him, there’s a shelf lined with fresh hand towels just like the kind the women on the cardio machines are using to mop their brows. He whips one off without slowing his pace and holds it against his stomach so that it covers his crotch as he walks.

  As she heads for the nearest escalator, nausea and dizziness are doing a joint number on her, but she manages to stay upright and text Luke.

  Pick me up same spot, she writes.

  Then once she hits the sidewalk and takes a deep breath, she adds, It’s him.

  37

  I didn’t know.

  They’re following Pemberton back to his condo, which at this hour of the day, makes her feel like they’re about to be swallowed by the sunset’s blaze.

  When did this break? Charley types.

  An hour ago, Bailey responds. No word of this at LAPD this weekend. Elle Schaeffer’s only been here a few months. Moved here from Wisconsin. No family in SoCal, and her parents passed away a few years ago. No one reported her missing until Monday when she didn’t show up for work.

  Where are you getting this info? she types.

  Um. The LA Times website.

  The blood left Luke’s cheeks as Charley had described what she saw in the gym.

  He’s been silent ever since, his focus on the road, his jaw working as if there�
�s something stuck in the back of his teeth. Maybe he was just indulging her, holding out hope they were following the wrong guy, and now the reality of this is sinking in.

  Pemberton uses his remote to get through the entry gate to his building.

  Luke keeps driving, bypasses the spot they parked in that morning, then onto side streets. Meanwhile, the blip indicating the doctor’s motorcycle goes still as he parks.

  “If he has someone alive, this changes everything,” Charley finally says.

  “It does.” For once he’s not disagreeing with her.

  Lag time between abductions and masks. Three weeks, right?

  Longer, Bailey answers. A month.

  “Jesus,” she whispers.

  “A month. A month goes by between the abduction and the mask. Luke, if he’s got a captive, we can’t just keep watching him like this.”

  “I agree, but we don’t have evidence that he does.”

  “I told you what I saw at the gym.”

  “You did, and it’s revolting, but it’s not proof he abducted Elle Schaeffer.”

  “He was literally aroused by the story of her disappearance. As in the actual definition of literally.”

  “Which is proof that he’s a sexual sadist, and maybe even the Mask Maker. But it doesn’t connect him to Elle Schaeffer. The news could just be speculating about her being a victim. People go missing all the time. You really think he’s got a woman up there in that condo?”

  “No, I think if he’s got her anywhere it’s at the Temecula house. I’m calling Marty.”

  “OK. Once you do, I’ve got a question I want you to text Bailey.”

  When Marty answers, he tells her he just got to the RV down at the casino, that he left the surveillance post about twenty minutes before. There’s been no sign of life from inside the house all day. The guy who feeds the dogs came back at the same time, obeyed the same routine. In short, nothing seems any different from the day before.

  “You don’t sound good,” he says.

  “Call me right away if it seems like anyone’s inside. Or anyone else shows up.”

  “Sure thing, Charley.”

  As soon as she hangs up, Luke says, “Ask Bailey how long this plastic-nation—”

  “Plastination.”