“You’re never scattered.”
“Want to take the chance?”
“No.” She scowled as she got out of the car. “Manipulation, Lynch.”
“It’s important to me, Kendra,” he said simply as he gestured to the front entrance. “Now let’s check out the studio and get some answers.”
* * *
NO ANSWERS TO BE FOUND IN the studio itself. The security was just as tight and incapable of being violated as it had been when Lynch had checked it before. Which caused a myriad of mixed feelings in Kendra.
“Paranoid?” she said as she walked Lynch to the door. “Almost as safe as Fort Knox.”
“Safer, I hope.” He opened the door. “I’ve always thought the security there was overrated. I bet I could crack it.”
“No bet. You could probably crack the security at the crown jewel room at the Tower of London.” She looked out at the sunny parking lot. “But just in case I’m not paranoid, be careful. Okay?”
His brows rose. “What’s the fun in that?”
“Lynch.”
“Joking.”
“Yeah, very funny. I don’t know why I’d care anyway.”
“Yes, you do.” He grinned as he strode toward his car. “Your landlord might make you move if I was slaughtered anywhere on the premises. That kind of thing makes it really hard for a property to survive in the rental market.”
Before she could answer, he’d slammed the car door and was driving away.
She watched as he drove out of the parking lot and turned right.
Her phone was ringing.
“Go in and lock the door,” Lynch said when she answered. “Now, Kendra.”
“You’ve been gone two minutes.” But she went inside and locked the door. “Don’t give me orders. And don’t talk about slaughter.” She hung up.
Make time pass quickly. Make those calls to Janice and her other clients. She shouldn’t pay any attention to Lynch’s perverted sense of humor. It wasn’t as if Zachary would have a chance against him.
But he had killed so many people, and all it would take would be a careless moment.
Lynch didn’t have careless moments. He was always on guard.
Always?
Distraction.
She sat down at her desk and started to dial Janice Walker.
* * *
AN HOUR AND THIRTY minutes later Lynch called her back. “I’m on my way to you. Griffin just phoned and wants me to bring you to the office. He has something he wants you to see. Lock up and meet me at the front entrance. Three minutes.” He ended the call.
He was pulling into the parking lot in exactly three minutes. “Is it urgent?” she said as she got into the car. “Then why didn’t Griffin call me instead of you?”
“He didn’t say it was urgent. He just said he wanted you there.” He added dryly, “Why didn’t he call you? I’m guessing that it’s part of my servitude for the ‘favor’ he did me last night. I was to make sure you appeared when and where he wanted you.”
“Bastard,” she said through her teeth. “I’ll talk to him, Lynch.”
“No, then I wouldn’t be able to negotiate on the same grounds if I have to do it again. He’s probably enjoying this. Leave it alone. I’ll handle it.” He stopped at the parking lot exit before going out on the street. “Turn around and look up at the hill in back of this block. The third street on the hill, fifth house over. Red tile roof. Teal-colored front door.”
“Yes, I see it.”
“And Zachary could see you,” he said grimly. “The house is for sale. It’s also vacant. I was looking for something like that. Anyone sitting in a car in that driveway with a scope could see every detail of what went on in this parking lot. All the comings and goings of all your friends and clients.” He paused. “And you would be readily accessible to him. Three minutes away. I called you from that driveway.”
She was feeling an icy chill as she looked at that pretty little house on the hill. “No proof? Right?”
“No proof. I talked to the neighbors on either side of the house and they said they’d seen a Setzer Real Estate van with the proper logo sitting in the driveway a couple times during the last weeks. Shaded windows. Someone in the driver’s seat doing paperwork, but they weren’t able to give a description of him.”
“Or the van?”
“Dark colored Toyota. No license plate number available. I just called the local Setzer Real Estate office, and they don’t know anything about that van.”
‘Very clever.” She couldn’t take her gaze off that house. How many times had Zachary been up there watching her? How many times had he been vetting her kids to see if they were worth bothering about? “Not paranoid?” she whispered. “Do we have a chance of catching him?”
“We can be on watch, but if he thinks he tipped his hand about the Walkers, he won’t do it again.”
She tried to smother the disappointment. “He’s very bold. Like most serial killers he probably thinks he’s invulnerable.” Her lips tightened. “But he’s not invulnerable. He didn’t get his hands on Janice or Ryan. And I’m still around,” she added wryly, “though I’ve been getting a distinct impression that he might attempt a correction in that area.”
“No way,” Lynch said flatly. “We’ve been blocking him, Kendra.”
“And that must frustrate the hell out of him. He’s arrogant and he’s not going to put up with that for long.” She wearily shook her head. “And that might be a good thing. Frustration breeds mistakes. Let’s go see if Griffin has found any Zachary mistakes that we can use to send him to death row.”
CHAPTER
13
San Diego
FBI Field Office
“I’VE NEVER SEEN ANY of this stuff before,” Hagstrom shouted. “Never!”
Kendra and Lynch were watching a video recording of Hagstrom being interviewed the previous evening. He was staring in apparent bewilderment at the objects they had recovered from his in-wall safe. The recording was playing on the large wall-mounted monitor at the end of the fifth-floor conference room to which Kendra and Lynch had been whisked by Griffin the moment they had come in the front entrance.
Kendra and Lynch were seated at the table along with Griffin, Metcalf, Gina, and three of the four dream team members. Huston was absent from the room, but he was the one who had conducted the on-camera interview.
“This is bullshit.” Hagstrom was glaring at Huston on the video. “You guys planted this stuff because it sure as hell isn’t anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Come on, man,” Huston replied. Kendra noticed that Huston’s folksy demeanor had given away to frustration. “We found this in your place. In your hidden safe. A roomful of people saw it in there. There was only one way you could have gotten these things and that’s if you took them from five different people that you killed in four different cities. Cities where you happened to live when each of these people were murdered.”
“You’re framing me. I didn’t kill anyone.”
Griffin paused the video. “And that was how it went, over and over again.” He added sourly, “As you would have known if you’d deigned to come here with us yesterday, Kendra.”
“Which obviously would have been a colossal waste of my time, if you didn’t get him to break.” Kendra was studying Hagstrom’s expression. “And I have to say, he’s convincing.”
“Very convincing,” Gale said. “But then most psychopaths are.”
Roscoe leaned toward Kendra. “Griffin said you were a bit uneasy yesterday after you left us. Do you still doubt Hagstrom’s our guy?”
No proof. Just a pretty little house in the hills with a red tile roof and a teal door.
“Well, I can’t be certain that he’s not. But I’m not willing to just lock him up and stop looking for anyone else.”
“You can’t deny our evidence is pretty compelling,” Griffin said.
“Sure it is,” Kendra said. “Which is why I have a tough time believing that someone as c
lever as Zachary would leave it lying around his condo.”
“It wasn’t exactly ‘lying around,’” Roscoe said quickly. “We might have missed it if you hadn’t been with us.”
Kendra shook her head. “Someone would have caught it, once your people starting popping off vent covers and waving metal detectors around. I’m delighted you give me that much credit, but my feeling is that Zachary keeps his trophy collection someplace where it can’t be easily traced back to him.”
Suber shrugged. “Throughout history, it’s always been the same. The most brilliant criminal in the world is only brilliant until the moment he makes a mistake.”
“Not this criminal, not this mistake,” Kendra said. “At least I don’t think so. And Hagstrom didn’t give up a thing, despite some fairly skilled questioning from Huston.” She glanced around the room. “By the way, where is he?”
“Back at the hotel,” Roscoe said. “He texted us this morning. He said he needed to work on some stuff and that he’d be in later.”
Griffin checked his watch. “Well, we’re meeting with San Diego PD and the DA in about an hour. Somebody call Huston and tell him that we’ll pick him up on our way.”
“I’m on it,” Trey Suber said as he picked up his phone. He looked at it for a moment. “Wait, I just got an email from him.” He frowned, puzzled. “I think he copied it. Did everybody get this?”
There was a general scramble as the rest of the team reached for their phones.
Suber suddenly gasped. “Shit!”
Kendra stiffened and then moved swiftly toward him. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
Suber’s face was ashen. He turned the phone’s screen toward her. There, written on a hotel room wall, was a message scrawled in what appeared to be blood …
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
* * *
GRIFFIN WAS CONTACTING hotel security and San Diego PD as they rushed toward the vans.
“Come on,” Lynch muttered as he grabbed Kendra’s arm and they bypassed the vans in favor of Lynch’s Ferrari.
“Huston,” Kendra murmured numbly. “Why Huston?”
“We don’t know anything yet,” Lynch said. “Maybe it’s a scare tactic. Huston’s one sharp operator.”
But Kendra could still see those words scrawled in blood on that wall.
Only minutes later they joined Griffin and the team at the door of Huston’s ninth-floor room, which security was still trying to access.
“What’s the story?” Lynch demanded of him. If Griffin was annoyed that he was superseding his authority, he hid it well.
The security director turned toward the group. “The card reader is shot to hell. We can’t get in.”
“Break it down,” Griffin said.
The security director raised his hands. “It’s not that easy. These locks are built to withstand a force equal to—
“Screw it.” Lynch delivered two ferocious kicks to the door, then barreled into it with his right shoulder. The frame splintered apart and the door flew open. “You need to get another locksmith.”
The security director’s jaw dropped as he watched the team rush past him into the room.
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
The words were scrawled on the far wall just as in the emailed photo.
Kendra stopped, stood still, staring in dread at the words. What was she going to see if she looked behind her?
Do it.
Kendra spun around.
There, between the bed and the wall, was Arnold Huston’s horribly mutilated corpse. His blood-soaked torso was in marked contrast to his face, which was remarkably clean and serene beneath a red baseball hat.
Gina knelt beside him. “Shit.”
“He’s been gutted,” Griffin said grimly. “And Zachary took a long time with him.”
“He always does,” Kendra said. For a moment she couldn’t look away from the body. Then she forced herself to shift her gaze to that gentle face. Huston was more than the hideous example Zachary had tried to make of him. Think of the kindness and the humor. “Power. Zachary would want to extend the power trip as long as he could.”
As the other investigators gathered around Huston’s corpse, Kendra turned away.
“Okay?” Lynch murmured, his gaze on her face.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “Yes. I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe get out of here for a minute or two?”
“I said I’d be fine,” she said with sudden fierceness. “He wants me to look at Huston, stare up at his damn message, and know that he’s beaten me again. I’d never admit that.”
He nodded. “Easy. I’m here for you. Whatever you want to do.”
She didn’t know what she wanted to do yet. All she knew was that she couldn’t help Huston now, but maybe she could help get the monster who had killed him.
Put Huston’s warm, sweet, grandfatherly face out of her mind.
Detach.
Concentrate.
The firm, short carpeting wouldn’t reveal any footprints. There didn’t appear to be blood splatter anywhere else in the room, so Huston was probably attacked right where they found him.
“Anything?” Lynch said quietly to Kendra.
“Not much. Further confirmation that the killer is right handed, based on the larger number of stab wounds on the left side of Huston’s torso. And there’s a good chance that he’s about 5 foot 10.”
“How do you figure that?”
She nodded toward the grisly lettering on the wall. “When someone writes on a wall or even a chalkboard, they usually begin writing slightly above eye level. Almost even with the top of their head. The top line of that message is about 5 foot 10 inches from the floor.”
“Very good.”
“And it’s the same handwriting as on the message in Todd Wesley’s apartment.”
“Anything else?”
Her eyes went to the chest of drawers. Sitting on top was a small class ring. Kendra knelt down, her eyes narrowed on it. “Rivermont High School.”
Lynch knelt beside her. “It looks like a woman’s ring. I don’t see any engravings inside.”
“There aren’t any.”
Kendra pulled out her phone and typed furiously into the search bar. After a few seconds, she slowly stood. “This was Charlene Wheeler’s ring. She was one of Huston’s cases, killed in Arlington, Virginia.” She turned to Lynch and the other investigators who were now leaving Huston’s body. “It seems Zachary just left us another souvenir.”
“Two,” Gale said grimly. “I’m pretty sure that red hat he’s wearing belonged to David Schneer, Connecticut.”
Nothing new. How many souvenirs had Zachary taken over the years? How many deaths? But these souvenirs were at Huston’s death scene. He was mocking Huston, mocking all of them.
She couldn’t breathe; she felt suddenly ill. As the others converged around the ring, Kendra backed away. She whispered to Lynch, “Maybe … I’m not so fine right now. I’ve done all I can. I need to get out of here. Now.”
“Enough?” He grabbed her arm and nudged her out the door into the hall. “It’s about time. You’re pale as a sheet. You need some air.”
They pushed past policemen and firefighters as they made their way to the elevator and rode down to the lobby. Kendra felt as if she was suffocating as she ran for the glass lobby doors and stumbled onto the sidewalk.
Then Lynch was beside her, holding her close. “Hey … It’s okay.”
“Tell that to Huston.”
“He was a cop. It’s a dangerous job.”
“I know.” She clutched him tighter. “But I liked him. And you saw what that son of a bitch did to him. It’s just that—”
Kendra’s phone buzzed.
“That’s probably Griffin, wondering why I bolted the way I did.”
“Let it go,” Lynch said. “Screw him.”
Kendra stared at her phone screen.
She froze.
“Kendra?”
She slowly showed the phone to Lynch.
The message read: YOU AREN’T WEARING THE RING I GAVE YOU.
Lynch muttered a curse as he instinctively moved between Kendra and the street, using his body as a shield as he looked up and down the busy thoroughfare.
Kendra looked at the message again. The “from” tag was simply: ZACHARY.
Here? Now?
She whirled and joined Lynch in scanning the pedestrians, the sidewalk vendors, the people in cars … Was Zachary one of them?
Lynch pushed her back toward the hotel doors. “Move. Get back inside.”
“No!” She was still scanning the street. “He’s here. I have to keep looking.”
“The hell you do.”
“Wait.” She was trying to jerk her arm away from him as she looked over her shoulder. Where are you, you monster …
“Get inside. Now!”
Lynch practically pushed her through the door into the lobby.
“But what if he’s out there?” Kendra’s hands clenched into fists. Her eyes were blazing with anger.
He maintained his grip on her. “Exactly. He could see you and you couldn’t see him.”
“I might have if you’d let me keep looking.”
“Think about it. If Zachary is as clever as you’re saying, would he have let you see him? No. And you would be a sitting duck out there.”
Her phone buzzed again.
The screen read: LOOK BEHIND YOU.
She and Lynch spun around.
There was only the everyday activity of a large hotel lobby. Guests checking in, bellmen handling bags, guests waiting for elevators …
Was he playing with them?
Kendra no longer felt fear; pure rage coursed through her veins.
She gripped her phone and began to type feverishly.
“What are you doing?” Lynch asked.
“Typing my response.”
“Kendra…”
She pushed “send” and stared with fierce satisfaction at her message still on the screen:
WATCH YOUR BACK, ZACHARY. I’M COMING FOR YOU.
CHAPTER
14
Look Behind You Page 23
