“I can’t get them out of my head,” he murmured, voice thick from his tears. “I can’t get the Beast out.”
Satan. Beelzebub. The Angel of Darkness.
Liz searched his expression, alarmed. In some people, drugs like LSD and mescaline proved the kindling for a prolonged psychotic event. Typically those people had either a biological or emotional predisposition to mental illness. For example, buried issues they had never dealt with or a family history of schizophrenia. The stress of the acid experience could psychically break them open. Some never recovered, their delusions persisting like the never-ending “bad trip.”
Delusions involving Christ, the devil or other religious figures were common.
“I have to get you to the hospital, Mark. A doctor needs to look at you.”
“No!” He jumped to his feet, expression panicked. “They’ll know. They’re everywhere. They see everything.”
Rachel had said they were listening. That they were everywhere.
Liz shook her head against the thought, not knowing what to believe, what was fact and what was nightmare brought on by the drug cocktail. Frequently, schizophrenics heard voices and felt they were not only being watched but were in mortal danger as well.
She had to get him medical attention. She wasn’t a medical doctor. She knew little about drug interactions or antidotes. She feared for his health. She told him so.
“They’ll kill me, Liz! I know they will.”
She opened her mouth to reassure him that the police would protect him, then closed it. They wouldn’t protect him. According to what Rick told her, they thought Mark killed Tara. They thought the Horned Flower was a figment of her and Mark’s imagination. They needed a suspect and had decided Mark was that man.
She thought of Rick. What did he believe? If she told him she was with Mark, would he turn him over to the police?
She feared he would. She couldn’t allow that to happen.
The two of them were on their own.
Liz reached up and caught Mark’s hand. “All right,” she murmured. “No doctors and no police…for now. But no promises about tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 36
Monday, November 19
2:45 a.m.
Rick sat alone in the empty bar, his cell phone on the table beside him. Libby had left several minutes ago. They had finished closing, but Rick wasn’t ready to leave, not yet. He needed the quiet to think, to untangle his thoughts.
Too much had happened in the past twenty-four hours. His and Liz’s lovemaking. Val and Carla’s visit. The things they had told him. His visit with Daniel and the discovery that Tara ’s tattoo and the drawing in Pastor Rachel’s notes matched.
Mark a serial killer? The good-natured, conscientious Christian boy who never even took a drink? The young man he had not only trusted and relied on but had come to respect?
The seasoned guys in his squad in Miami had seen it all. They used to laugh that really bad shit was perpetrated by the ones you least suspected. The quiet ones. The handsome, smart or educated ones.
Not the penny-ante crimes. Not the everyday street crimes. But the really bad stuff. The serial killers. The drug lords. The high-tech, big-bucks operations.
Rick had seen their theory play out, time after time.
But Mark? Something, some instinct buried deep inside him, told him it wasn’t true.
Everything else told him it was.
That Val and Carla believed Liz was a target terrified him. He shifted his gaze to the cell phone. He wanted to call Liz. To hear her voice. To reassure himself she was all right.
So why didn’t he call? He’d gotten her number from information hours ago and had dialed it a dozen times. And had never pressed Send.
He brought the heels of his hands to his eyes. Why the hesitation? Why the knot in the pit of his gut? Guilt, he acknowledged. The feeling that he had betrayed Jill, their wedding vows.
Jill was dead. She had been gone for more than three years.
No, he admitted. She wasn’t gone. She lived in his heart. She always would.
A knot of emotion formed in his throat even as a feeling of peace moved over him. He bent his head, vision blurring.
I love you, Jilly. I always will.
Love you, too, babe. It’s okay to move on.
He didn’t believe in ghosts or the spirit world; he knew she hadn’t spoken to him. But he felt as if she had. He felt as if she were with him now.
Without examining that feeling further, he snatched up his phone and punched in Liz’s number.
It rang a half-dozen times, then her machine picked up. He listened to her message, heart beginning to thunder.
He racked his brain for an explanation. She was sleeping and hadn’t been able to get to the phone in time, he told himself.
She had a phone beside her bed. He had seen it.
“Liz, it’s Rick.” He heard the panic in his own voice and tried to temper it. “We need to talk. Call me right away, no matter the time.”
He left her his cell-phone number, then hung up.
She was fine. Sleeping. It was the middle of the night, the time when normal people were in bed. Rick stood and clipped his phone to his belt, then began the last tasks he needed to complete before he could go home.
Those done, he flipped off all but the bar’s safety lights, set the alarm and slipped out into the night. If she needed him, she knew how to reach him. He would head home and catch some much-needed shut-eye.
Rick ended up at Liz’s place instead. He pulled his Nighthawk up in front of her storefront apartment. He cut off the engine and gazed up at her windows. A single light glowed from somewhere deep inside the dwelling. The front window stood open-an invitation to every passing maniac to break in.
Or a way for one particular maniac to get in.
He swore, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong. That she was in immediate danger.
Calling himself the lunatic he would look like when he awakened her from a deep sleep, he swung off the motorcycle and strode to her door. He rang the bell, then pounded, fear becoming panic.
“Liz!” he shouted. “It’s Rick.”
Several seconds passed. Finally, the dead bolt slid back; the door cracked open.
Liz peeked around the door frame. Rick went weak with relief. “I was sick with worry. I called and you didn’t answer.”
A strange expression crossed her face. “I turned off the ringer.”
Of course, it was something simple. Logical.
He was a lunatic.
“We have to talk. Can I come in?”
She didn’t move. “Now’s not a great time.”
“It’s important.”
She hesitated, looking uncomfortable. “If it’s about what happened earlier-”
“It’s about Mark.”
Wordlessly, she swung the door wider.
Rick stepped into the foyer. She shut the door behind him, but didn’t lead him upstairs. She faced him, arms across her middle in an almost defensive stance.
Something had changed in the few hours since they parted. Something that had caused her to distance herself from him.
Thoughts of Val and Mark and Tara’s murder fled his mind. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked.
“Not at all.” She dragged a hand through her already tousled hair. “You said you had information about Mark.”
He ignored her pointed attempt to shift the conversation away from their relationship. “Would you have let me in if I said it was about what happened earlier?”
“I don’t expect anything from you, Rick. You don’t have to-”
“Dammit, Liz, maybe I expect something.”
She searched his gaze, expression altering subtly. “Oh. I…I don’t know what to say.”
He looked at the ceiling, frustrated by her response. After a moment, he met her eyes again. “Say anything, Liz. I’m dying here.”
A hint of a smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. “All right.
What do you expect…do you have any idea what that might be?”
“Not yet.” He closed the distance between them and cupped her face in his palms. “I like you, Liz. Being with you tonight…it wasn’t…I’ve been with women since Jill. But never in a meaningful way. It’s going to take me a little time to deal with this. Are you okay with that?”
“More than okay.”
He returned her smile, bent and pressed his mouth against hers in a quick, possessive kiss. When he released her, he saw that she looked dazed.
He liked that, he decided. He liked it a lot.
“Val and Carla paid me a visit at the bar tonight.”
She became instantly alert. “What did they want?”
“There’s a warrant out for Mark’s arrest. They think he killed Tara.”
“Same old song, Rick. They’re obviously desperate, trying to convince-”
“They believe he killed Naomi Pearson as well. They have evidence against him, Liz. Strong enough to issue a warrant.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“There’s more, Liz. They think you may be his next target.”
For the space of a heartbeat she didn’t even seem to breathe. Then she shook her head. “That’s crazy.”
“That’s what I told them. But-”
“But what, Rick?” She hugged herself, as if in protection against his words. “Why are you selling Mark out this way?”
“Just listen, please. I don’t want to believe he did it either, but I know enough about police work to understand that it takes real evidence to issue a warrant. The clock starts ticking the minute an arrest is made. The police have to be able to convince the D.A. that they’ll be able to prove guilt. And that’s tougher than you think.”
“Then why are the newspapers filled with stories about new evidence surfacing that exonerates some poor guy serving time for a crime he didn’t commit?”
“The system’s not perfect, Liz. Mistakes happen. They’re the exception, not the rule.”
“So what is this strong evidence?”
“They wouldn’t tell me.”
“Great.” She let out a long breath. “I’m tired. It’s been a long night. I think I’d like you to leave now.”
He ignored her. “Serials killers work in a couple different ways. Most begin their killing career with a person close to them, a neighbor, friend or co-worker, then they move on to strangers.”
“Stop trying to scare me.”
“But some serials select their stranger, then forge a minimal relationship with them before killing them.”
“You’re leaving now.”
She crossed to the door and began to open it. He stopped her. “The relationship, the trust is a stimulant for these killers. It increases their thrill in the kill. Gavin Taft operated that way. Ultimately, it was his undoing. Most probably it will be Mark’s as well. If he’s the one.”
She didn’t make a move, so he forged ahead.
“Naomi and Mark knew each other through their church. They were in Bible study. That would inspire a deep element of trust.”
She looked shaken. “I don’t want to hear any more. Please leave.”
“Now he’s forging a relationship with you. The frightened boy. The victim. You respond to that. You trust him because he needs you.”
“Stop it.”
He caught her arm. “But you do trust him. Isn’t that right, Liz?”
“Why are you doing this!” She wrenched her arm free of his grasp. “Why are you trying to frighten me this way!”
“Because I don’t want anything to happen to you, dammit!”
Her expression softened. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I know things you don’t.”
He caught his breath. “He’s contacted you, hasn’t he?”
She hesitated, but only a fraction of a second. And in that moment Rick knew. “He’s wanted by the police, Liz. On a murder charge, for God’s sake.”
“I haven’t heard from him.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then that’s your problem, isn’t it?”
He swore and swung away from her, frustrated. She didn’t get it. Her blind trust in this kid could get her dead.
She came up behind him and laid a hand on his arm. He looked at it, then at her.
“Thank you,” she said.
“For what?”
“For caring what happens to me.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t.” He stepped away from her hand. “Because with your reckless attitude, you may not be around that long.”
CHAPTER 37
Monday, November 19
Noon
Carla parked her cruiser in front of Paradise Christian. Pastor Tim waited in front of the church for her, expression panicked.
She shook her head and climbed out of her car. A popular pastor disappears. A serial killer is slicing up young women. A prominent citizen bilks a million bucks from his employer then kills himself. Now a depression had formed in the western Caribbean, a depression with the potential to become a full-fledged hurricane. It seemed to her that paradise was going to hell in a handbasket.
The pastor rushed to meet her. “Thanks for coming, Detective. It’s Stephen, the church caretaker…I didn’t know what to do, so I called the police.”
“Slow down,” she murmured. “Tell me what happened.”
He nodded and clasped his hands together. “I hadn’t seen Stephen in a day or two, so I grew concerned. I went to his quarters to check on him. And I found-”
His voice broke. “Come, let me show you.”
They hurried around the side of the church, bypassing the garden. Carla saw the parsonage, then a smaller building behind it.
“That’s where Stephen lives,” Pastor Tim said as if reading her mind. “Originally it was the buggy barn, then an equipment shed. It was converted to living quarters after Stephen returned from the sanatorium in Miami. He didn’t do well there, and the church decided to accept responsibility for his full-time care.”
They reached the dwelling’s entrance. The door stood slightly ajar. “Was the door open before you went in?” she asked.
The pastor hung back slightly, expression queasy. “No. I knocked, then tried the knob. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone in, but I was worried.”
Carla didn’t comment. She crossed to the door and tapped on it. “Police! Anybody home?” No one responded and she tried again. When she got the same response, she pushed the door the rest of the way open and stepped inside. The interior was neat, its furnishings basic.
Pastor Tim came up beside her. “There-” he pointed “-on the bed.”
The twin bed was pushed up against the right wall, under a small, curtainless window. The baby-blue chenille spread looked worn. Ditto for the pastel, floral sheets. Carla crossed to the bed.
Pastel, floral sheets smeared with blood. Carla gazed at the unmistakable puddles, spots and swirls, her vision blurring for a fraction of a second.
To hell in a handbasket, no doubt about it.
So much for paradise.
“Is that what I thought it-”
“Yes,” Carla replied grimly. “Please stand back, Pastor. Did you touch anything earlier?”
“No, I-”
“Good.”
“Do you think Stephen is-” The clergyman’s voice shook. “I mean, that seems like an awful lot of blood. Is it an awful lot, Detective?”
It wasn’t a little.
Carla thought of Tara. But she had seen more. A lot more.
“You say you haven’t seen Stephen in a couple days?”
“That’s right.”
Carla fitted on a pair of rubber gloves. Bending, she carefully examined the bedding, pulling the top sheet away from the fitted. The blood appeared fairly fresh. She touched a large irregular-shaped spot and found it was still damp.
She shifted her gaze to the floor by the bed. A bloody trail led away from the bed and toward the back of the room and a door set into the wall. A bl
oody handprint stood out in bold relief on the pale yellow paint.
Carla’s heart jumped to her throat. She swallowed past it. “That a closet?”
“I think so but I’m not sure.”
She unclipped her cell phone, punched in the number for headquarters number and requested backup, ASAP. Possible homicide, she informed the dispatcher, then flipped the phone closed. She glanced at the pastor. “I think you’d better wait outside.”
“But Stephen may need-”
A moan from the other side of the door interrupted his words. Carla sprang toward the door and yanked it open. Not a closet, she realized in the same instant she registered the condition of the room’s occupant.
He was naked save for a pair of bloodied boxer shorts. His limbs, torso and hands were also stained red. A Bible was open on the cot beside him; pages that had been ripped from it littered the cot and floor. His face was tipped heavenward and Carla saw that his eyes were rolled back in his head.
“Stephen,” Pastor Tim cried, alarmed. “Are you all right?”
The caretaker’s head snapped down. For the space of a heartbeat he stared at them, his good eye wide, expression terrified. Then he opened his mouth and a terrible sound came out, the sound of a wild animal in pain. The sound tripped along Carla’s nerve endings and sent shudders racing up her arms.
She saw the knife clutched in his hand. The kind a hunter might use, with an edge that was both serrated and smooth. Its four-inch blade was covered with blood.
Dammit. Carla went for her weapon. But not fast enough. With a bloodcurdling howl, the caretaker launched to his feet and charged her.
“Watch out, Pastor!” she called, lunging sideways in an attempt to protect them both.
She didn’t completely elude the caretaker. He caught her shoulder and sent her crashing into the opposite wall. Pain shot through her side, and even as she righted herself and took off after him, she wondered if he had managed to cut her.
“Freeze!” she shouted. “Freeze or I’ll shoot.”
He didn’t acknowledge her command with the slightest pause in his flight. Carla was vaguely aware of a group of tourists in the distance, of their frightened squeals. And of the sound of sirens. The cavalry. Thank God.
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