by Sharon Sala
Wells turned red from the neck up but didn’t comment.
Tate pulled up his desk chair. “Ma’am?”
Lucy sat, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress and then patting her hair to make sure it was in place. It was like looking at a Cosmopolitan version of Granny Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies.
“So talk to me,” Tate said. “How did you come to run those prints?”
Bo winked at Lucy. “This pretty lady called me with a concern about a recent renter of hers, and Grant and I went to check it out. A man calling himself Paul Leibowitz did a Houdini act on her last night without letting her know. After reading the log she’d kept on him, we went to the apartment and lifted some prints. Not in a professional capacity, though. Strictly as a service to one of our own, you understand. One of your agents caught the flag and sent us here. She also told us to bring our witness, so we did. Lucy, honey, show them your journal.”
She promptly handed it over.
The moment Tate opened it he could see it was circumstantial evidence that would actually stand up in court as corroboration. From dates and times to what might have seemed unrelated details to others, she’d been meticulous in documenting what had been going on.
“I’m impressed,” he said as he scanned the entries.
Lucy sniffed and glared at Wells. “Thank you. I know my stuff.”
Wells looked down and then walked off to keep his composure.
Cameron showed her the photo they had of Inman buying a balloon in the grocery store.
“Mrs. Taft, can you identify this man?”
She looked and then handed it back.
“That is the man who’s been renting the apartment over my detached garage. His name is Paul Leibowitz.”
Wade moved as if he’d been ejected from his seat. “Oh, man, we actually have an identification and an active alias. Excuse me,” he said, and left the room to call Jo and let her know.
Cameron was anxious, too, but for Laura’s sake.
“You said he left the apartment as of last night?” he asked.
Lucy nodded. “I did not see or hear him come home, which I always do. When I checked this morning, he was gone and so were his things. As I told the boys, he’s changed vehicles once since his arrival, and both of them were vans—handy for hauling bodies. He also complained of a back injury the same night the last victim went missing. It was pretty serious. I saw him crawling up the stairs to get to the apartment door.”
“Did he ever threaten you?” Cameron asked.
Lucy glared at Wells again. “I believe I mentioned in my phone call to Detective Wells that there was an instance where he made me afraid, and that had I not been holding my gardening shears, I’m not certain what might have occurred.”
“You are a very fortunate woman to have been in such close contact with Inman and still be alive. You need to be aware that he might take it in his head to consider you an unwanted loose end,” Cameron added.
Bo slid an arm across Lucy’s shoulders.
“Don’t worry about that. We’ve got her back,” he said.
Burch touched the arm of her chair. “Mrs. Taft, I apologize for how casually we took your call.”
She shrugged. “Two more people died because you ignored it. You might want to direct your apology to their families.”
Burch felt as if he’d just had his butt paddled and his mouth washed out with soap.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Burch was reading the journal entries when he paused and looked up.
“Here’s something we need to get a BOLO on. You say he’s driving a black Chevrolet van with this tag number,” Burch said.
“Last time I saw him, yes,” Lucy said.
Cameron shook his head. “If he’s on the run, then he’s either already changed vehicles again, or tags, or both.”
Burch frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He swaps license tags like some people change shoes,” Tate said.
“And you can bet he no longer looks like this,” Cameron said, pointing to the picture in Lucy Taft’s lap.
It was good news and bad news. They knew where he’d been, but they didn’t know where he’d gone.
* * *
Hershel’s motel room in D.C. was nothing like Lucy Taft’s apartment, but he’d checked in late last night—or early this morning, however one chose to look at the fact—without a care for décor.
He’d fallen asleep on top of the covers without removing his clothes, and when he woke up hours later, a maid was knocking on the door. He got up to let her in, asked for more soap, towels and washcloths, and then told her he was going back to bed and to come back tomorrow.
But once he was awake, he had a chance to see the room in a better light. It was not nearly as clean or quiet as he had hoped, and damn sure not nearly as comfortable as where he’d been. When he tried to turn on the television, it didn’t work. Now he was faced with calling attention to himself by complaining, but if he couldn’t stay abreast of the ongoing investigation, then he was going to have to move.
Finally he called the front desk.
The clerk who answered sounded sleepy, which irked him even more.
“The television doesn’t work in room 124. I need one that does.”
“Did you try unplugging it and plugging it back in again?” the desk clerk asked.
Hershel frowned. “No. Why would that have anything to do with the television?”
“The plug needs rewiring. The owner knows. It ain’t been fixed yet is all.”
“Is the place gonna catch on fire?” Hershel asked.
“I ain’t got no way of knowing that,” the clerk said. “Do you want I should move you to another room?”
“I’ll let you know,” Hershel snapped, and hung up in disgust.
He unplugged the television, then plugged it back in and turned it on. It worked like a charm.
“Worthless piece of shit,” he muttered, and stretched out on the bed with the remote in his hand and began channel surfing.
Eighteen
Hershel drifted off to sleep in the middle of a game show and woke up in the middle of the latest news bulletin about the discovery of the serial killer’s fourth body. He fumbled for the remote and turned the volume up.
The information officer for the D.C. police was typically noncommittal about where they were in the investigation, which was cop speak for they were fucked and they knew it.
Hershel grinned. He loved it when a plan came together.
“Okay, boys. That was your fourth and last clue. You are now on your own. I, however, am ready to bring down the curtain.”
Then the news report segued to an update on the gas leak that had decimated a Reston neighborhood. Since this involved his next target, it was in his best interests to know about this, too.
There was a sound bite from the night of the explosion, some film of the explosion site the next day, and then a reporter doing a live shot of the area.
“...area has been cleared of any danger, and the residents of the surrounding houses are now free to return to their homes.”
Hershel smiled. Damn but this day just kept falling into place. This meant Laura Doyle would most likely be going home. He glanced at the clock. It was almost noon, time to go get some lunch and then check out her whereabouts. If he was lucky, all this could be over today. He headed for the bathroom to wash up and get back in disguise.
* * *
The buzzer went off on the dryer, signaling a load was ready. Laura stopped to turn down the heat under the pan of soup she was making. She wiped her hands before heading for the utility room. She was tired, but in a good way. It felt wonderful to be home, doing ordinary things, surrounded by her own belongings, and she imagined all the evacuees who’
d gone home today felt the very same way.
She took the load of towels out of the dryer, then stood and folded them on the worktable. This house was the place that stabilized her world, along with the man who slept beside her at night. That led to thoughts of her wedding. It had been almost two months since she’d last seen her dress, and she was anxious to see it on, fitted to perfection. She felt giddy with excitement and was still smiling as she carried the towels through the kitchen, then down the hall to the linen closet.
* * *
Cameron couldn’t be still. Ever since the discovery of the last body he’d been battling a case of all-out panic. The only pattern they had was that a new abduction took place the day the body of the previous one was discovered. It was not lost on any of them that it could have happened already and they just didn’t know it.
Burch and Wells were in a meeting with the chief of police, and the Stormchaser team sympathized. They’d already had their “come to Jesus” meeting that morning. For three years, law enforcement at all levels had been thwarted by one angry, crazy man, and they couldn’t let him slip away again.
Tate felt certain this time was going to be different. Jo Luckett had notified him less than an hour ago that Paul Leibowitz, officially of Lake Chapala, Mexico, would not be allowed back into that country, and that the staggeringly substantial bank account under Leibowitz’s name was frozen, along with his credit card.
They’d already found the van Leibowitz had driven into Virginia at the used-car dealer where he’d made his trade, and thanks to Lucy Taft’s diligence, they had a BOLO out for the one he was currently—as far as they knew anyway—driving.
When Burch came running into the room with new information, their focus shifted again.
“Just got a report off the wire from a town north of Reston. Some guy reported somebody took his license plate and put a different one on his truck. I just ran the number. It’s the one that was on the black van Inman traded for.”
Tate’s pulse kicked up a notch. This just kept getting better.
“Do we have the number for the stolen tag?”
“Yes,” Burch said. “Dispatch is sending out word as we speak. Now we know the color and plate number of the van he’s driving. It won’t be long. I can feel it.”
“From your lips to God’s ears,” Cameron muttered, and turned back around to look at the murder board.
The victims’ pictures ate at his conscience. Four more people dead because they kept letting the sorry bastard slip away. He was staring at the maps as he’d done a thousand times before when something about the Reston map clicked. His heart skipped a beat.
“I need a ruler,” he said.
Wade turned around. “A what?”
“A ruler!”
Wells circled his desk and dug through the top drawer.
“Here’s one,” he said, and handed it to him.
Everyone turned around to watch as Cameron slapped the ruler onto the map and drew a line from the first victim’s home to the second victim’s. Then he drew a line from the third victim’s home to the fourth.
Shit.
His breath caught in the back of his throat as he stared at the point of intersection. He began tapping at the place where the lines crossed.
“What’s this address? Who lives here?”
Even though the houses were represented by tiny squares, and side streets and house numbers were not visible, he knew the answer.
Tate pulled out his phone and synced the coordinates with a map of Reston.
“It’s Laura’s house! You were right! That son of a bitch is targeting her! He was showing us all along who the final target was going to be, and we didn’t see it,” he said. “Call her, Cameron. Tell her to batten down and stay put. We’ll dispatch local police to her house until we can get there.”
He needn’t have bothered saying a word. Cameron was already making the call.
* * *
Laura had just put away the towels and was on her way back into the kitchen. Soup would be done by the time Cameron came home, but she still had cookies to bake.
She pulled out a mixing bowl and her mother’s recipe box and began thumbing through the dessert section. She was just about to start assembling the ingredients when she heard a car pull into the drive. She wiped her hands and started toward the living room to see who it was when her cell phone began to ring. She backtracked to the kitchen to grab it. When Cameron’s name came up on the caller ID she winced, hoping he wasn’t going to tell her he’d be coming home even later.
She was in the living room and heading for the door when she answered. “Hello, honey.”
“Where are you?” he asked.
She frowned. The urgency in his voice made her heart skip a beat. But she could see the tail end of what looked like a delivery van in the drive, and a deliveryman was carrying a beautifully wrapped gift up the steps toward her door, which made her move faster.
“I’m home. I’ve already done the grocery shopping and I’m almost through with laundry.”
“Listen, Laura, there’s something—”
The doorbell rang.
“Hold on a second, honey. Someone’s at the door with another wedding present.”
She was already turning the knob to open the door when she heard Cameron shouting, “Don’t! Don’t open the door! It’s Inman!”
But it was too late.
The moment the door opened, Hershel dropped the box on the threshold and aimed the Taser.
Laura’s scream was instinctive as she ducked behind the heavy door. The electrodes hit the wood instead of her flesh as she slammed the door on Hershel’s foot.
He cursed as pain shot all the way to his knee.
Laura was screaming Cameron’s name as she leaned all her weight against the door, trying to force Hershel out, but he wouldn’t move his foot and pushed back. When it became apparent that she couldn’t shut the door, she turned and ran.
* * *
Cameron’s heart nearly stopped when he heard Laura scream.
“He’s in the house!” he yelled as he grabbed his iPad.
Tate spun, shouting orders to Burch and Wells as he followed Cameron out.
“Call the Reston police. Tell the officers on their way to her address to run hot, and notify the state police that he might take her out of the city.”
“I’m driving!” Tate yelled as they hit the parking lot.
They jumped in his SUV and flew out of the lot with their lights flashing and the siren running.
Cameron already had the tracking app up on his iPad. Once he located her position, it became apparent she was still in the house, but in motion, which meant she was running.
“She’s still in the house.”
Tate nodded and pressed harder on the gas pedal.
It was the longest drive of Cameron’s life. All the way there he had a horrible feeling of déjà vu. It was just like the trip from D.C. to Denver, not knowing what he would find at journey’s end.
* * *
The moment Laura turned and ran, Hershel pushed his way inside the house and chased after her. His foot was hurting, but his need to subdue her overrode the pain. He caught her in the hall, tackling her from behind. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs, with Laura screaming and Hershel cursing.
She threw an elbow backward as hard as she could, hitting him in the chest. She heard him grunt, then heard him cough and thought she might have knocked the wind out of him.
When his hold on her loosened, it was the break she needed. She bucked him off her back and then rolled to her feet. But when she tried to dart past him, he grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her back down. There was no breath left for screaming now. They were in a fight to the death.
When Hershel smashed his fist i
nto Laura’s face, the blow landed on her cheekbone just below her right eye and made her mad. She dug her fingernails into his cheeks and dragged them all the way through the scarred flesh to his neck, but he was so locked into what he was doing that the pain didn’t even register.
Laura landed another blow to the side of his head, right on his ear, and when he moved sideways to dodge a follow-up blow, she kneed him between the legs. To her horror, he absorbed the pain without uttering a single sound.
All of a sudden his fingers were around her neck and she was choking. No matter how hard she still fought, no matter how many blows she landed, he bore them in mute defiance.
The last thing she saw before the world turned black was the reflection of her murder in his eyes.
* * *
Tate was less than five minutes from the Reston city limits when Cameron groaned.
“What?” Tate yelled.
“They’re on the move!”
Wade was back on the phone, this time with both the local and state police.
“Feed me coordinates!” he said.
Cameron’s mind had shut down to the possibilities of what it meant that Hershel had her and was taking her somewhere. They already knew that every other victim had been dead before he tossed the bodies—probably before he left the scene of the abduction. He couldn’t bring himself to apply that thought to Laura. He kept staring at the blip on the iPad as Inman took her farther and farther away.
Tate gave his arm a push, jarring him out of his panic.
“You found her alive once before against all odds. Don’t quit on her now.”
It was all Cameron needed to hear. He started relaying information as they drove, keeping a running commentary of where Inman was going while Wade relayed the info to the cops as they went.
* * *
Hershel hadn’t meant to kill her. He’d bound her hands and ankles with some of the leftover rope out of habit, even though he knew it wasn’t needed.
He’d been so pissed when she’d screwed up the Taser that rage had overtaken everything else. He didn’t want her dead. He wanted to see the fear on her face and hear her begging for mercy when he hung her up to rot.
