Into the Black Nowhere

by Meg Gardiner

  She walked out.

  41

  She was still stressed out when she checked into her motel. Blood resounded in her ears.

  Detrick’s gaze, his insidious composure, his male-model pose, his . . . Ready for your next session?

  She pulled off her suit jacket. It caught on the cuff of her blouse. A button sprang free and hit the wall with a click.

  She checked her e-mail. Special Agent Sayers was driving up late in the afternoon. They’d meet with the Crying Call prosecutor to prepare to testify at Detrick’s hearing. Rainey was coming in the morning to work with the county criminal attorney’s office to develop the case for what they presumed would be a long trial.

  Caitlin snapped copies of Sonnet White’s photo, front and back, and sent them to Nicholas Keyes at Quantico. Last seen early August, San Antonio. If there’s any information we can give her parents, it’ll help.

  She yanked off her boots, unzipped her roller carry-on, and hauled out her running shoes. She tried to loosen her jaw.

  She grabbed her phone and called Sean.

  “Babe,” he said. “I’ve got three minutes.”

  His voice made him sound under even greater strain than she felt. She’d called on the spur of the moment, without considering his workday. She was not thinking clearly. She walked to the window. Outside, craggy red mountains were dappled with pines.

  “What is it?” she said. “The bombing case?”

  “It’s deeper and weirder than it first looked.” Sean exhaled, hard. “Everything okay with you?”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “The second device, the one that exploded in the Financial District—it was more sophisticated than the first. Screws and razor blades again, but detonated remotely with a cell phone. And it used PETN and boosted TNT,” he said. “The guy has access to high explosives and he’s improving his technique.”

  That was all bad. She paced by the window. “Any indications yet of motive?”

  “Monterey device targeted a DOD facility. San Francisco, the biotech firm that was hit has links to the defense industry.”

  “You think this is political?”

  “Maybe.” A pause. “Last year, a primitive device was found in a trash can at Columbia University Medical Center. NYPD defused it. It may have been the bomber’s first attempt.”

  “A hospital? Jesus.”

  “Right now, it’s all air and suspicion. Nothing solid.”

  The stress in his voice told her that the case was more than serious. It was alarming. And it was on his shoulders.

  “You think it’s a single offender?” she said.

  “Security footage from both the Defense Language Institute and the biotech firm shows a single suspect placing the device. Five-nine, hoodie with a full-length duster over it, sunglasses, gloves. Maybe Caucasian. We can’t determine sex.”

  But most bombers were male. She continued to pace. “You’re worried he’s going to strike again soon.”

  “Two bombings in two weeks? Yes.” He paused once more and lowered his voice. “The video footage—there’s something. It’s hard to explain. But when I watch it, I get déjà vu.”

  She slowed. “How so?”

  “It’s like I’m getting a visual echo. Seeing a shadow that’s not there. The hair on the back of my neck stands up.”

  She stopped. “Sean?”

  “I don’t know.” He breathed. “Never mind. I’m seeing things.”

  “You don’t see things, Rawlins. Unless they exist.”

  “Never used to. Forget it—I gotta go.” Apologetically, he added, “Everything okay with you?”

  “Fine. Love you.”

  “You too.” A beep said he’d ended the call.

  She crossed her arms, holding tight to the phone. She was even more amped up than before she’d called him. She changed and headed out for a long run.

  The afternoon was sunny, the temperature hovering in the low forties. Above the mountains, a sheen of white cloud was bearing down from the northwest. It added a portentous grandeur to the day. She warmed up for a mile, sticking to the shoulder of a two-lane highway that led into a national forest. The air stung her lungs. Her legs felt sluggish from the cold and the altitude.

  Sean had sounded so uneasy. Déjà vu. An echo. A shadow. Never used to . . . He was talking about the attack that almost killed him. He was talking about the Ghost.

  She hated hearing the doubt in Sean’s voice. Hated that the Ghost had crawled into his head. Hated, above all, the idea that the Ghost could have any connection to these bombings. She fought a shiver.

  She wished she could provide insight into the bomber’s motives. She needed to help someone.

  The air smelled like snow. The road gradually ascended, and as she warmed up, the strain of the altitude became a welcome challenge. She managed to pick up her pace.

  It’ll be good to talk without these bars between us.

  Detrick’s words crackled in her mind. Cold eyes, cobra smoothness. Heartless and predatory. She accelerated. After two miles, blowing hard, she reached a scenic overlook.

  Crying Call nestled in a river gorge, with raw peaks on either side. The red stone, the dark green of the pines, the white glaze of snow, and the arching, varnished sky spread around her. She stopped at the overlook and inhaled it all. Her heart was pounding, but with life. A hawk swooped past, screeching. She smiled and pulled out her phone.

  The selfie was poor, but it caught the splendor of the view. She wiped her sweaty hand on her fleece and sent the photo to Michele, with a message: Not a bad day at the office.

  She took another minute to savor the scene and started back down the mountain. Her second wind lifted her to a solid, fast clip. When her phone buzzed in her pocket, she kept going—the motel was in sight. A big rig rumbled past, blowing strands of hair around her face. She sped up and raced to the lawn of the motel like a sprinter crossing a finish line.

  She bent and put her hands on her knees. After a minute, she straightened and pulled out her phone.

  It was a reply to the message she’d sent at the top of the hill. Not as good as mine. The photo showed Michele coming through the doors of the ER, shooting an exaggerated thumbs-up. Outside, it was pouring rain. Her hair and scrubs were soaked.

  Caitlin laughed.

  The breeze gusted. The hawk circled high overhead, a silhouette, soaring.

  42

  The wind woke Caitlin at six A.M. Tiptoeing across the cold motel room, she pulled back a corner of the curtains. The morning twilight was thick with driving snow. Fat flakes battered the window.

  “Oh, boy.”

  She wasn’t a winter driver. She handled rain like a pro, thanks to growing up in the Bay Area, but snow was still foreign to her. The two blocks to the Crying Call Courthouse proved a grinding, slippery drive. She felt like she was steering a bumper car.

  The town square was packed with an extra helping of news vans, but they were vague shapes through the heavy snowfall. She could barely see across the street to the park in the center of the square. The businesses on the opposite side were invisible. She parked the Suburban, tucked her head into the collar of her peacoat, and ran up the courthouse steps, boots sliding on the granite.

  Inside the courthouse entrance, there was a mad buzz to the air. The heater was blasting. The tile floor was wet. The lobby was crammed with locals, gawkers, reporters, and camera crews. Spotlights glared from shoulder-mounted television cameras. A new security checkpoint had been set up, manned by county sheriff’s deputies.

  A throng waited to pass through the metal detector. Caitlin approached, flashed her creds, and surrendered her gun to a deputy. She put her shoulder bag in a plastic tub on the X-ray conveyer belt.

  She checked her watch. She had twenty minutes. Behind her the door opened and, in a blast of icy air, the p
rosecutor came in carrying a fat legal briefcase, wearing a hooded ski parka. She raised a hand in greeting. In the security line, people were excited, murmuring, gossiping, hoping to get a view of him.

  “He’s so hot,” a young woman said.

  “If he put his hands on me, I wouldn’t fight,” another said.

  Yes, you would. And you’d scream.

  Caitlin breathed and told herself to stay calm. But she couldn’t help counting the blonds in the line. They seemed to fill the hall on either side of the metal detector, like an eruption of the Children of the Damned.

  In her bag, her phone rang. She grabbed the purse from the X-ray belt and dug the cell out. Nicholas Keyes.

  “Caitlin.” Keyes’s voice was rushed. “The young woman in the photo you sent. The San Antonio runaway, Sonnet White. You’re not going to believe this.”

  Caitlin inched forward in the line. “What?”

  “She called the Westside Crisis Hotline.”

  Caitlin stopped. “When?”

  “Last August. Three weeks before the Texas killings began.”

  “Keyes,” Caitlin managed to say, instead of Jesus Christ.

  “Got no hits on her from ViCAP. Could find no reported arrests in Texas or neighboring states, no deaths under the name Sonnet White or Jane Does matching the woman’s physical description. I thought I might get a hit when I scanned her photo—that one tattoo is distinctive.”

  Caitlin nodded. “The cat over her left breast.”

  “But nada. Then I got her cell records. She called the hotline on Wednesday, August first, at eleven twenty-two P.M.”

  Caitlin felt electrified. “How long did the call last?”

  “Twenty-two minutes.”

  “Is she still using that cell phone?”

  “No. After she called the hotline, there’s activity for another week. The last recorded entry is data usage just before midnight on August eighth.”

  The subsequent Wednesday. “Detrick worked the phones Wednesdays six to midnight.”

  Caitlin’s stomach clenched. Her astonishment blended with the sinking knowledge that Turk and Mary Jane White’s daughter had probably crossed paths with Detrick.

  Ahead of her, the queue stirred, as if a shiver was slinking down the line.

  “Send me everything. Copy Emmerich and the team, and Detective Berg in Solace,” she said. “Flat-out amazing, Keyes. Flat-out thank you.”

  “Code received. You’re fuckin’ welcome.” Keyes ended the call.

  In the courthouse lobby, heads turned. The hubbub rose to a racket. Caitlin’s head was pounding.

  Beyond the metal detector, where the entry hall ended in a T-junction, the elevator doors had opened. Detrick stood inside, flanked by Crying Call police officers from the jail.

  They held the door and he stepped out. His eyes drank in the crowd in front of him. For a second, he seemed to grow, like an oxygen-fed flame.

  He’d shaved and washed his hair and was dressed in his own clothing—the tweed jacket and dress shirt she’d seen him wear while showing houses in Austin. He didn’t quite smile, but his step had a swagger to it.

  The woman in front of Caitlin blurted, “Oh, my God.”

  Reporters shouted questions. Detrick raised a hand and waved to them.

  Caitlin stopped dead again. Detrick was unshackled.

  He strolled along the hallway between the two officers, one of whom was the young patrolman who’d admitted Caitlin to the jail yesterday. She felt light-headed. Mr. Congeniality had convinced his jailers to spare him the indignity of arriving in handcuffs.

  He saw her. He smiled and winked at her.

  The officers led him out of sight. Uneasy, she beckoned one of the deputies manning the security checkpoint.

  “Ma’am?” he said.

  “The defendant who just went in—Kyle Detrick. He wasn’t cuffed.”

  Women on either side of her turned at the name Kyle.

  The deputy said, “It’s optional when prisoners are under guard.”

  She held up her credentials again. “I need to get through.”

  The woman in front of her said, “I was here first.”

  Caitlin looked over her shoulder for the prosecutor. He was on the phone and simultaneously talking to another lawyer. She whistled to get his attention.

  When he looked up, startled, she called, “Get in there. No shackles on Detrick.”

  He frowned. The bailiff said, “All right, ma’am.”

  She circled the complaining groupies, dropped her shoulder bag on the X-ray belt, and cleared the metal detector. The hall beyond was crowded and noisy. She headed for the courtroom. She got fifteen feet and chaos erupted.

  A fire alarm rang. People shouted. Caitlin ran.

  She shouldered through the crowd. “FBI.”

  She turned the corner. The hallway outside the courtroom looked like mayhem.

  The fire alarm shrieked. Bailiffs and blue-shirted police officers dashed into the courtroom and immediately back out. Spectators ran to the tall window at the end of the hall, which overlooked the square outside.

  She grabbed the sleeve of a rushing bailiff. “What happened?”

  The bailiff’s shoulder radio blared with unintelligible voices. His face was fraught.

  “When Detrick approached the courtroom, the crowd started jostling for a closer look at him. The cops escorting him moved to break them up, and the fire alarm went.”

  “Detrick pulled it?”

  “SOB’s quick.”

  The alarm bell was on the wall five feet above their heads, screaming.

  “Where’d he go?” Caitlin yelled.

  The bailiff looked around, uncertain. At the end of the hall was the door to the fire stairs.

  He pointed. “Stairwell?”

  “Go,” she shouted.

  Caitlin sprinted back through the crowd to the security checkpoint. She retrieved her Glock. She rushed out the front doors of the courthouse, into a whiteout.

  43

  Caitlin ran down the steps of the courthouse into the blizzard. Coat open. Stack-heel boots slipping on the steps. Weapon in her hand. The snow skewered her, blowing almost horizontally, stinging her face, hitting her in the eyes.

  She raced around the side of the building toward the fire exit. Behind her came muffled voices, people rushing from the courthouse. She skidded on the slippery sidewalk. Outside the fire door, two sheriff’s deputies were examining the pavement. The snow was four inches deep. Footprints led in multiple directions.

  One deputy pointed toward the town square. “That way.”

  They ran past Caitlin toward the square, weapons drawn. The storm erased them to gray outlines within seconds.

  Caitlin almost followed, her nerves singing, but stopped herself. She scanned the crazy trails of footsteps outside the fire door. Multiple shoe prints in the snow.

  Look. Think.

  The deputies’ footsteps were the clearest. Heavy rubber-soled boots, heading in tandem toward the square. Beneath them were a smaller, less defined set of prints. Running shoes.

  Detrick had come to court wearing the clothes he’d brought to Arizona. His tweed jacket. Dress shirt. Jeans.

  Cowboy boots.

  The bastard wore cowboy boots. That’s what he’d had on the night she arrested him.

  She tented her cold fingers over her face to keep the snow from blowing in her eyes. And she saw the prints. The sole and clear heel of cowboy boots.

  Heading away from the town square, west, between buildings.

  She yelled for the deputies, but the wind swallowed her words. She ran, slowly, holding her Glock low by her side, trying to follow the footsteps even as the gale erased them.

  She turned down an alley. Needles of snow funneled between the brick walls of the buildings tha
t lined the passageway. She couldn’t see more than six feet in front of her.

  The wind rose to a shriek. Beneath it, she heard a voice.

  “Should have done yourself.”

  She raised her gun, backed against a wall, and swept her gaze in a steady arc, looking for him. The voice was indistinct, shredded by the storm. She couldn’t pinpoint it. She was breathing like a run-out horse.

  “Gonna wish you had.” The voice slithered over her again, more distant. “You’ll see.”

  West.

  She raced from the alley, her feet sinking into six-inch-deep snow. The whiteout swallowed her. The air howled. She was in the open, on the far side of the square. The ground beneath the snow turned gritty as she ran across a gravel verge.

  She came to the highway. She stopped on the shoulder, looking north and south—and saw nothing. Just white. She could barely hear the rumble of engines and swish of tires.

  Then she heard screeching brakes.

  Her shivering skin contracted. Teeth chattering, she swiveled toward the sound and instinctively backed up a step.

  The crash came as a loud bang. Metal shrieked. An engine roared, downshifting.

  A jackknifed semi materialized from the whiteout.

  It appeared on the highway like a metal mountain, canted, headlights scattering snow, trailer coming around and around, skidding at her out of the blizzard.

  “Jesus.” She dived for safety.

  She hit the gravel flat on her belly, Pete Rose sliding for home, and rolled. The big rig raked past her, ghostly and huge. Sparks flew from beneath it, rooster-tailing orange as it dragged an object along the asphalt. It muted back into the storm, a fallen beast going down at far too high a speed.

  It caught on something and flipped.

  Behind Caitlin, a telephone pole creaked and ripped from the gravel verge. So did the next pole down the line. Wires dropped to the ground around her with a wet slap. She scrambled to her feet and out of the way as a string of poles was yanked out of the ground like Lincoln Logs. They toppled with a thunderous clatter.