Prey (Jefferson Winter)

by James Carol

  ‘What room is this?’

  Marty slid the tablet closer and peered at the screen. ‘If I’m reading this right, then it’s either 107 or 117. I’m not sure which since they’re on top of one another. Give me a second and I might be able to tell you.’ He reached for the mouse and the computer monitor flared to life. A couple of clicks, then he nodded to himself. ‘Yeah, it’s 107. There’s no one in 117.’

  ‘What name did they use?’ asked Mendoza.

  ‘Wren Firestone. Middle initial J.’

  She exchanged a glance with Winter. ‘Is Ms Firestone on her own?’

  Marty nodded. ‘So far as I can tell.’

  Mendoza turned to the cop standing immediately behind her. ‘I want to know what’s happening in room 107. And be discrete, okay? I don’t want her spooked.’

  When the cop reappeared a couple of minutes later he was carrying a laptop. He placed it on the counter and lifted the lid. At first glance the heat signatures looked psychedelic. Amelia was represented by colours from the upper end of the spectrum. Red, orange, yellow, white. The rest of the screen was filled in with cooler colours. Black, blue and purple.

  ‘This is in real time, right?’ Mendoza asked.

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ the cop replied. ‘As far as we can tell she’s sleeping like a baby.’

  Winter leant in for a closer look. He could make out Amelia’s chest moving. It looked as though she was in the deepest part of her sleep cycle, which would make things a bit easier. The jagged splash of white near her head puzzled him to start with, then he got it.

  ‘She’s left a night light on, hasn’t she?’

  The cop answered with a nod.

  Mendoza turned away from the laptop and addressed the cops standing directly behind her. ‘We use the battering ram, then take her down as quickly as possible. I want it so she doesn’t know what’s hit her. Does everyone understand?’

  Nods all around

  ‘Okay, let’s do this.’

  The six cops turned for the door in unison, tugging at their Kevlar vests, reaching for guns. Pumped and primed and ready for action.

  ‘Wait up,’ Winter called out.

  Everyone froze then turned to face him.

  ‘This isn’t going to work. If we force her into a corner she’s going to choose suicide by cop. Are we all agreed that the aim here is to bring her in alive?’

  Winter focused on Mendoza. This was her show. She was calling the shots.

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ she asked evenly.

  ‘I go in alone, and persuade her to come out quietly.’

  ‘With all due respect, that doesn’t sound like much of a plan.’

  ‘I can do this, Mendoza. This isn’t the first takedown I’ve been involved with. A little faith, please.’

  ‘What makes you so sure that she’d pick suicide over prison.’

  ‘Because of what her father did to her when she was a child. All that time spent chained up in the dark, there’s no way she’d choose to go to prison. She’d rather die first.’

  The lies were delivered smoothly, so smoothly that Winter almost believed them himself. The truth was that Amelia would do anything to stay alive. She’d survived being abused by her father for all those years, she wasn’t just going to give up now. Suicide by cop was not on the agenda.

  Mendoza stared at him a second longer. ‘You need to wear a vest. You’re not going in there without one.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll need a gun as well.’

  She unclipped the gun from her shoulder holster and handed it to him butt first. Then she motioned for one of the cops hovering near the doorway to come forward, the one who was closest to Winter’s size. She told him to take off his vest. Told him that he was to stay put in reception and keep his head down since she didn’t want to be on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

  Winter put the Kevlar vest on and made sure the Velcro straps were done up tight. It was heavy and bulky and restricted his breathing. He thumped his chest once, and felt the reassuring thud echo through his chest.

  ‘You sure you want to do this?’ Mendoza asked. ‘You don’t have to, you know.’

  ‘What’s this? You’re actually worried about me?’ Winter smiled. ‘See, you do like me really.’

  60

  Winter made his way slowly around the edge of the deserted parking lot, hugging the side of the motel building and merging with the shadows being cast by the motel lights and the fat full moon. The vest was digging into him and the gun felt heavy in his hand, but there was something reassuring about that.

  Room 107 was easy to find. It was the only first-floor room with a light on. The car parked out front was a small nondescript Ford. It was impossible to tell the exact colour because it was dark, but it was towards the lighter end of the spectrum. There were hundreds of thousands of cars like this one on the road. It was the sort of vehicle you wouldn’t look at twice, a good choice for a killer on the run.

  There was no way to see inside the room. The drapes were pulled tight together and the edges had been stretched past the window frame so you couldn’t see around them. They glowed dimly from the light being thrown off by the bedside lamp. He crept past the window and stopped outside the door. Mendoza’s voice was whispering through the earpiece, telling him that Amelia was still asleep. Even so, he pressed his ear to the thin wood and listened. No noise from the other side.

  He pushed the key into the lock. Slowly, carefully. In the quiet still of the night, the sound of metal scratching against metal was as loud as a klaxon. He slid the key out of the lock and dropped it back into his pocket. The door opened easily. No creaks, no squeaks.

  Winter stepped inside and stopped dead. The room appeared to be full of headless two-dimensional people. He took a closer look and realised that he was seeing her disguises. Amelia had screwed hooks into the door frames, run clotheslines across the room, and hung her outfits up. There was a hanger for the top half of the outfit, and tied to this was a second hangar for the bottom part. The sheepskin jacket and jeans were hanging near the bed.

  He didn’t recognise Amelia at first. She was wrapped up in the quilt, breathing slow and easy, little muffled snores tickling the silence. This was the first time he’d seen her without a wig. Her shaved head made her look like an androgynous automaton, more machine than human. Winter tiptoed deeper into the room, Mendoza’s service pistol leading the way. He kept the gun trained on her, aiming at her body since it offered a larger target. Her Glock was on the nightstand, next to a music box. The laptop bag was wedged between the bed and the stand. He picked up the gun, then leant down towards her ear.

  ‘Wakey wakey,’ he whispered softly.

  He took a couple of quick steps backwards, his gun still aimed at her centre mass. Amelia came awake in an instant, making the transition from fully asleep to fully alert in the space of a single heartbeat. Her hand slapped down into the empty space where her gun had been. She glanced at the nightstand, then looked at Winter. He held up the Glock so she could see, gave it a little wiggle.

  ‘Looking for this?’

  Amelia didn’t reply. She’d thrown off the quilt and was sitting on the pillows. She was wearing a shapeless baggy white T-shirt and plain white panties. Winter pushed the Glock into the waistband of his jeans then unhooked a pair of handcuffs from one of the belt loops. He tossed them on to the bed and they landed with a muted jangle. Amelia glanced at them, then looked back at him.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Winter reaffirmed his grip on Mendoza’s gun and made a big show of aiming it. ‘Attach one cuff to your wrist and the other to the bed. Do it now.’

  ‘Or what? You’re going to shoot me.’

  ‘Last chance.’

  Amelia shook her head slowly, a wide smile playing on her lips. ‘Looks like we’ve reached a stalemate.’

  ‘No, we haven’t.’

  Winter shifted his aim slightly to the left and pulled the trigger. The gun boomed and the bedside lamp exploded in a shower of cer
amic. The darkness that followed was sudden and absolute. The muzzle flash had destroyed his night vision making everything look even darker than it actually was.

  There was a brief moment of stillness before hell broke loose. All Winter could hear were voices. They cut through the dark and broke into the silence. Mendoza was shouting in his earpiece, demanding to know what the hell was going on, and Amelia was screaming from the bed. She sounded like a wounded animal, her terror evident in every strangled sob. Winter touched his throat mike.

  ‘I’m fine, Mendoza.’

  ‘I heard gunfire. What the hell just happened?’

  ‘Later, okay?’

  ‘We’re coming in.’

  ‘No you’re not. Just give me five minutes. I’ve got this under control.’

  Winter walked over to the door and hit the light switch. Amelia had pulled herself into a tight foetal ball at the head of the bed, knees tucked into her chin. Tears were streaming down her face. She’d stopped screaming the second the light came on, but she was still sobbing.

  ‘The cuffs,’ he prompted.

  Amelia shook her head and he hit the light switch again. More darkness, more screaming. He left it longer this time, let time stretch to a minute and beyond. Her screams intensified with every passing second. This was no longer the sound of a wounded animal, this was the sound of madness. He let things run past the point where he thought he couldn’t take any more then hit the lights. Amelia was cowering at the end of the bed. With her bald head and wide terrified eyes, she looked like a crazy person.

  ‘Next time the lights stay off. Do you understand?’

  Amelia nodded, then reluctantly reached for the handcuffs. She fastened one end to the bed, the other to her right wrist. She was still breathing fast, but she was coming back down. The fear in her eyes was fading fast, replaced with something more calculating. Her eyes were a dull everyday blue, and Winter was almost certain that this was her natural colour.

  He walked slowly over to the nightstand, her eyes following every step. The music box was the sort of thing that you’d find in a little girl’s bedroom. A place to hide treasures. It was pink and rectangular and, even before he opened it, he knew there would be a plastic ballerina turning endless pirouettes, while a piece of music played on an endless loop. He lifted the lid and sure enough, the ballerina started to dance. It only took four notes for him to place the tune. ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’.

  Inside the music box was his passport. He recognised it from the scratches and creases on the cover. He lifted it out, Amelia watching his every move. Underneath was a second passport, and beneath that was another, and another. He lifted them out. There were seven in total.

  He laid the passports on the nightstand, then picked up the one that had been on the bottom of the pile. Linda Price, Amelia’s mother. Next was Melanie Reed’s. He didn’t recognise the names on the next four, but the picture in the last one rang a bell. The photograph showed a young woman with a black pixie haircut. According to the passport her name was Caroline Mathers.

  Winter took out his cell and typed Caroline Mathers homicide. He looked at what he’d typed, changed homicide to suicide, then hit search. Top of the list was a link to a story printed in the Atwood Herald. Caroline Mathers had hung herself. She was only twenty-two. A second search placed the town of Atwood in Illinois.

  Seven passports. Seven mannequins. He looked at the clothes hanging around the room. Seven outfits.

  ‘These aren’t just disguises. These were real people.’ He walked over to the scarlet dress. It looked old-fashioned, whereas the other outfits appeared to be more up to date. It was the sort of thing an older woman might wear. ‘This belonged to your mother, right?’

  Amelia said nothing.

  ‘Your father made you and your brother watch when she hung herself, didn’t he? The three of you just stood there watching her dance and twitch at the end of a rope. Did Daddy make her do it? Is that how it worked? Did he march everyone out to the barn and taunt her until she finally put the rope around her neck?’

  Still nothing from Amelia. It might not have gone down exactly like this, but he could tell from her expression that he was in the right ballpark.

  ‘After your mother’s death, you took her place. You’d put on this dress and take her seat at the dinner table, and after dinner you’d dance for your father. That was the start. That was the point the behaviour was established. Next you became Melanie Reed. And after that you became someone else. And somewhere down the line you became Caroline Mathers. And now you’re trying to be me.’

  Still nothing.

  ‘So who are you, Amelia? I mean, who are you really? Because my feeling is that you don’t know any more. You’ve spent so long pretending to be other people that you’ve lost sight of who you actually are.’

  ‘I want to know how you found me?’

  ‘There’s a tracking device stuck to the back of the sheepskin jacket you were wearing in the park. It’s a tiny adhesive thing that I borrowed from the FBI. You’d have to look hard to find it. I planted it on you when you patted me down. I put the lighter in your bag because you were expecting me to do something. After all, I’m so predictable. If you hadn’t caught me planting the lighter you would have kept looking. I couldn’t run the risk of you finding the real tracking device.’

  They fell into silence. Winter walked around the room, looking at the outfits. He could feel Amelia watching him again. He stopped at the scarlet dress and ran his hand over the fabric.

  ‘You know something? I almost feel sorry for you, Amelia.’

  ‘And I could say the same thing to you.’

  He touched the throat mike and told Mendoza that the coast was clear. Thirty seconds later he heard footsteps outside the room. Mendoza appeared in the doorway, gun drawn, a couple of cops covering her back. She looked Winter up and down like she needed to convince herself that he was still in one piece. She glanced over at Amelia then turned back to Winter.

  ‘So your mystery woman exists, after all.’

  ‘Admit it, Mendoza, this beats the hell out of Vegas.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Look at the two of you,’ Amelia whispered. ‘You think you’ve got this whole thing all sewn up, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mendoza, ‘You can see why we might make a mistake like that, what with you being cuffed to the bed and everything.’

  Amelia shook her head and met Winter’s eye. ‘What I did with Ryan marked a change in my MO, right? But that’s okay, because that’s the way it works. When fantasy becomes reality you’re always chasing the original high. So you adapt and change in an attempt to find that high. But what if Ryan wasn’t a change of plan? What if there are more Ryans out there? If I were in your shoes, the question I’d be asking right now is what exactly has Amelia been up to for the last six years.’

  Winter felt his heart jump uncomfortably. She was right. He had assumed that McCarthy marked a mutation in her MO. The behaviour was still based on control, the difference was that the risk factor had increased. But what if he was wrong about that? What if there were a dozen Ryan McCarthys out there? Two dozen?

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Whether you believe or not is irrelevant.’

  He studied her face for any indication that she might be lying. Any tic or tell. He couldn’t see anything, nothing at all. Not a damn thing. ‘How many?’

  ‘That would be telling.’ She smiled. ‘You know, I don’t know which I prefer. Watching someone put a noose around their neck, or watching someone take a life. One coin. Two sides.’

  ‘Get her out of here,’ Mendoza shouted.

  Two of the cops stepped forward and walked over to the bed. Amelia ignored them. All her attention was focused on Winter. He met her gaze, refusing to back down. One of the cops unlocked the cuff from the bed, while the other grabbed her arm and dragged her upright. He pulled her arms behind her back, clicked the bracelet closed on her wrists, then marched her unceremonio
usly from the room. She flashed Winter one last smile from the doorway, and then she was gone.

  Mendoza walked across to the bed and sat down on the edge.

  ‘She’s full of shit, you know that don’t you? No way does she have an army of Ryans all prepped and ready to go.’

  ‘I think she was telling the truth.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  Winter said nothing.

  ‘Is this you or your inner psychopath talking here?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Mendoza studied him for a second, then shook her head and swore to herself. ‘So, what now?’

  Winter walked over to the bed and knelt down beside the nightstand. He pulled the laptop bag out, then straightened up and handed it to Mendoza. ‘Well, this is the obvious place to start looking. There’s got to be something on there. You’re going to have to go careful, though. She might have it set up to wipe the hard drive.’ He considered what he’d just said. ‘Actually, I’d say that’s a definite.’

  ‘How many Ryans do you think we’re talking about?’

  Winter shrugged. ‘Maybe one, possibly two.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘You saw what McCarthy did. Even one is one too many.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. The way she was talking, there’s more than two out there. Maybe a lot more.’

  ‘She was toying with us. Again. Creating another Ryan McCarthy is not going to be quick, or easy. Creating two would be harder still. As for a dozen of them, I just don’t see it, not in six years.’

  ‘I hope you’re right about that.’

  ‘So do I.’

  Winter walked over to the door and stepped out into the chilly early morning air. A couple of the other rooms were now lit up, the occupants peering around doors and drapes to see what was happening. The sound of a car engine starting broke the silence. He looked over and saw a cop car backing out of a parking slot. The shadow figure on the rear seat turned its head towards him. He had no trouble filling in the blanks with the face she’d shown him back at the diner. Platinum-blonde hair that was so light it was almost white, bright green eyes, and a playful I-know-something-you-don’t smile. A mirror image of himself, but not quite. The car slowed when it reached the motel entrance but didn’t stop. It swung hard to the right, and a couple of seconds later the tail-lights disappeared from sight.