BoneMan's Daughters

by Ted Dekker

  Or a man broken long ago when he was a much younger man, when he was in basic training and suffered his first snap.

  When the drugs administered by BoneMan had worn off, Celine had screamed until the neighbors found her floating in the pool. She’d been hysterical for several hours and hadn’t made any connection to the possibility that the man who’d taken her daughter might actually be Ryan until this morning; the reason for her demand that Valentine and Welsh meet her at the house.

  Even to Ricki the idea had first seemed preposterous. But the more she considered the killer’s profile, the easier it became to match Ryan with that profile.

  He had a history of breaking under intense stress that extended beyond his trauma in the desert.

  The string of murders had ended at about the same time he’d been deployed for his second tour in the Middle East, just coincidently the same time that Phil Switzer had been arrested.

  He’d come out of Iraq after supposedly encountering a kind of BoneMan in the desert, which could easily be a fabrication built upon his own obsession.

  Ryan’s unusual intelligence might account for the cleverness that BoneMan had exhibited in each of his murders. And his falling out with Celine and Bethany provided the motivation for this most recent assault.

  There was more, and all of it pointed to the man who’d held them at gunpoint this morning before fleeing.

  All of it except for the love she’d seen in the eyes of the man who’d fallen apart in his hotel room two months ago.

  Then again, Ricki knew how easily eyes could lie.

  One thing was certain: if Ryan was indeed BoneMan as they now suspected, he was one twisted and very shrewd adversary. Enough to send a chill down her back now, as she paced in front of the joint task force.

  “That’s right,” she said softly. “One very sick puppy. So tell your men to keep their guard up. He’s scary sick. In all likelihood, he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”

  Burton Welsh stepped up. “We can’t let him out of this city.”

  “Please, sir, have a seat.” She looked him over, satisfied by the twitch in his cheek. “The reason he hasn’t crossed our paths in the last hour is because he hasn’t left the city. And if he’s as smart as I think he is, he won’t leave till it’s dark. We’re going to leave roadblocks in place on the seven primary thoroughfares leaving the city.” She nodded at her partner. “Mark?”

  He turned to the wall map and pointed out the roads.

  “Good. We have two more helicopters en route from Dallas as we speak. When they arrive, they’ll join the four we have in the air now and monitor the tributaries that funnel into these seven routes. In the meantime I want you to pull all of your cars off all these other roadblocks you’re setting up and begin a full sweep of the city itself.”

  She could almost feel the DA’s face heat up. “The FBI is posting a $50,000 reward for information leading to the capture of Ryan Evans. Please circulate the news as aggressively as possible. I’m open to any and all suggestions. It’s no secret that we missed this guy once; no one wants to miss him again. Any questions?”

  The deputy chief was already on his phone, quietly speaking orders. She didn’t give the rest of them time to consider her request for more than a few seconds.

  “Good.”

  Ricki grabbed her cell phone and strode toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Welsh demanded.

  “To Waco, Mr. Attorney. I’m going to take a look under Ryan Evans’s sheets, if you don’t mind.”

  20

  THE VALUE OF leaning on the power of understanding and wisdom in a world ripped apart by schoolyard bullies and third-world tyrants had first become saving knowledge to Ryan when he was in the sixth grade.

  He’d always been a bit of a nerd, admittedly so even at twelve. And Bobby Knutz had always gone out of his way to make sure he didn’t forget it. Ribbing and an occasional beating on the playground had been a part of Ryan’s life as long as he could remember. But Bobby Knutz and those he ran with were simply taller and thicker.

  Thing of it was, any idiot in the school could see that Bobby didn’t exactly come from a home brimming with goodwill and covetous treasures. His father was an unemployed drunk and his mother didn’t make enough as a waitress to keep Bobby in much better than rags. Muscle, it occurred to young Ryan, didn’t pay.

  Intelligence, on the other hand, like that exhibited by professors and all those who worked in office buildings, did pay. He began a very purposeful and quietly successful retreat away from the impulsive, macho, pubescent world of the American teenage scene then, determining instead to excel in the more rewarding pursuit of knowledge.

  Ryan had torn up less than a mile of Barton Creek Boulevard after fleeing Celine’s house when his good sense returned and announced in no uncertain terms that if he didn’t settle down and think like he’d never thought before, he was going to the clinker. And if he was going to the clinker, Bethany was going to the grave.

  It was that simple.

  In a strange way he’d been thrown into the same situation in which Kahlid had found himself in the desert. Like the father in the Middle East, Ryan was reacting out of love for his child. He could never do what Kahlid had done, killing innocents for the sake of others.

  The thought made him shiver. Dear God, help him. For the first time since seeing what he’d seen in the desert, Ryan’s mind was able to comprehend Kahlid’s anguish at losing his child.

  War was hell, quite literally. And Ryan was now in a war, wasn’t he? This was no different. The only difference was that having suffered as he had in Iraq, he would be unwilling to sacrifice any innocent blood. Period. He just could not go there.

  He grabbed a lungful of air, then another, and slowed down. Nothing like a speeding Toyota Camry to draw attention.

  His mind, however, did not slow. To understand that he was in a pickle required only a very little bit of intelligence, the amount that graced the minds of America’s upper half, including him.

  He had just held his wife, two police officers, the district attorney, and the FBI special agent in charge of the BoneMan case at gunpoint. And he’d done so after being asked if he might be the BoneMan. A ludicrous suggestion, of course, but one that was now undoubtedly all but assured in their minds.

  Having held these five individuals at gunpoint, he’d fled the scene, an act of complete desperation because he, like they, surely knew that he couldn’t get away. Yet he’d fled anyway, having walked directly into a trap.

  To make matters worse, he’d made it perfectly clear that he had special knowledge of the case, knowledge only BoneMan should have.

  But none of these particulars were as disturbing to Ryan as the one that flogged his mind as he tried to harness its calculating prowess, fleeing down Barton Creek Boulevard, sixty seconds after leaving Celine and company against the wall: Bethany was with BoneMan.

  Think, Ryan. He took another deep, cleansing breath. Think.

  Okay. He had to ditch the car. They would be all over Bee Cave Road and Southwest Parkway, the two primary roads that fed the vicinity, and Southwest Parkway was a wide-open thoroughfare with little traffic—not the best road to blend in on.

  He whipped the Camry around and tore back the other way, past the house, relieved to see that they weren’t climbing into their cars to chase him down. No, they were too smart for that. More likely on the phone, getting choppers in the air, locking down the surrounding streets.

  Ryan turned right on Lost Creek Boulevard and took the twisting road through two valleys before jerking the car into Lost Creek Country Club’s private drive.

  He rolled into the parking lot, stopped between a black Mercedes and a BMW M6, and turned off the ignition.

  The motor clicked softly.

  Now what?

  Now two things: One, he had to avoid being taken into custody at all costs. Two, he had to find BoneMan. To do either he had to remain perfectly calm and reasoned.

 
; The second objective was one that had eluded the law—there was no reason to think that he could succeed where they had failed. Except that BoneMan had engaged Ryan directly, maybe even wanted him to find his daughter. If the law got too close before Ryan found them, they would be gone. Which meant he couldn’t help the FBI find BoneMan.

  He had to find BoneMan on his own.

  Ryan looked at his hands, trembling on the steering wheel. See, now his mind had retreated into reason, but his body wasn’t keeping up, not since his breakdown in the desert.

  He placed both hands on his lap.

  BoneMan’s words echoed through his mind. “Where the crows fly.” What the oblique reference could possibly mean was beyond him, but then so was every cipher at first glance.

  Or was it a simple riddle? For that matter, it could be a straightforward clue. Either way he’d broken it down a dozen times on the drive down to Austin, and he did it again now, knowing that meticulous repetition was the key to breaking all codes.

  He lingered on the whole message. A chopper beat the air far above him, but he ignored it. There was no way they could see through the massive birch under which he’d parked.

  From a dozen feet, BoneMan’s message was plain. I’ve taken your daughter and I want you to see if you can find her. If you can’t do so in seven days, I’m going to kill her.

  Her name is Bethany. Bethany, from the Hebrew Beth, meaning My God is a vow or the vow of God. Bethany is a living reminder of God’s perfection in creation.

  It took you seven days to make her. It took God seven days to create this vow called life.

  Now I’m giving you as much time to save her. But now God’s perfect vow is in trouble and she is in my control because I, not God, have her. I will give you seven days to save her.

  Follow me where the crows fly, alone, Father.

  Follow me … I want you to come, not the FBI or the police.

  Where the crows fly … Where black birds called crows congregate. Where people who remind me of crows congregate.

  Or was it more metaphorical? Where crows fly, meaning in the mind, or up high, in the open…

  In the open. In the air. Where everyone can see you. Follow me where I can see you. I will find you.

  Ryan let the thoughts circulate, like crows, taking whatever path they liked, however jerky or abstract. A full twenty minutes passed, and he decided that it was enough.

  He walked up to the clubhouse and stepped around to the side, where two vans sat next to a large protected garbage receptacle. He’d intended on taking one of the vans either by hotwiring it or by acquiring the keys inside, but he now saw that the closest used a magnetic logo.

  He peeled the large Lost Creek Country Club placard off and slipped behind the vehicle. Working with his utility knife, he quickly unscrewed the license plate and returned to the Camry.

  It took Ryan only a few more minutes to make the switch with his own car and pull out of the parking lot. He now drove a club car with a club license plate, not enough to escape scrutiny for long, but it would slow them.

  Half an hour had passed since his altercation with Celine and company. None of this would get him any closer to finding Bethany, but for the sake of his own sanity he’d set aside the objective for the moment. He had to get past whatever net they were spreading before he took BoneMan up on his challenge.

  In the open. On the air. As the crow flies.

  He couldn’t be sure it was what BoneMan wanted, but until or unless a better idea presented itself to him, he would run with the assumption.

  Ryan drove the Camry to Lost Creek Clubhouse and parked it on one of the upper lots, where it would likely remain inconspicuous for some time. The main resort rose from the golf course a hundred yards farther down and, taking the answering machine with him, he walked to the hotel without concern of being spotted as anyone other than just one more golfer who’d come to take on the world-class course.

  The authorities were much farther out by now—they would never suspect that he was still within a mile or two of Celine’s house.

  But BoneMan wasn’t here, in this mile or two, he was sure of that.

  It took him a half hour to find the right car, a black Ford Taurus that looked as if it had been parked for at least a few days. He was forced to break the side window to gain access, but fortunately this was Texas—he hardly needed a window to keep out the cold.

  Ten minutes later he rolled out of Lost Creek and turned south on Bee Cave Road. He took 360 north to Westlake Plaza, where he once again took his place in a parking lot, just another black car in a sea of similar cars.

  Satisfied that he was safe for some hours, Ryan sunk low in his seat, eyed the radio tower at the lot’s south end, and focused his mind on the problem at hand.

  RYAN HAD FIRST seen the towers two months earlier on his way out of town—an intelligence officer obsessed with communication tended to notice things like antennae. KRQZ FM 106.5 had particularly sexy towers. Not that it mattered. Once he made his statement, every audio source in southern Texas would be rebroadcasting it.

  The hours ticked by slowly as he waited for the day to pass. Once he stepped out they would have a fix on him—he had to wait for darkness to cover his escape.

  So he sat low and he listened to the radio and he waited.

  It was strange to hear his name over the car’s sound system, particularly as the man now identified as being armed, dangerous, and under suspicion of being BoneMan.

  He ran through the dial, surprised at the extent of the coverage. Ryan Evans was described as an embittered combat veteran potentially suffering from mental disorders. An estranged father of the victim and a hostile ex-husband who’d broken into the administration building two months earlier and physically assaulted the district attorney.

  They were offering $50,000 for information that led to his arrest.

  Hearing the reports, Ryan wasn’t sure that he wasn’t some kind of crazed lunatic who had gone off the deep end. They seemed to know him better than he knew himself. It was all enough to lure him back into a state of complete despair.

  But he couldn’t allow despair to cloud his judgment, not now. He was in the middle of breaking the code of his life, a challenge of wits with stakes that made those in the desert seem like child’s play in his way of thinking.

  By midafternoon the authorities had publicly launched the largest manhunt in recent Austin history. By all reports the face of Ryan Evans was plastered all over the Internet and on all of the newscasts. Hotlines were already flooded with tips.

  And yet here he sat, in the corner of a parking lot, lost and alone.

  They were now looking for a silver Camry with Lost Creek Country Club logos on the sides, they said. By morning it might be a black Taurus, but by then, if all went well, he would be across the state.

  Dusk fell at seven that evening, and as the sky began to grow gray, Ryan began to sweat. Contrary to the endless speculation on the airwaves, he wasn’t as bloodthirsty or ruthless as they’d painted him. Thoughts of committing the smallest crime turned him weak.

  But there was one facet of their characterization that rang true and was perhaps even understated. Ryan was desperate. He was a desperate father who would do whatever it took to find and save his daughter. The fact that he’d managed to temper that desperation through great effort did not keep him from sweating as the time approached.

  Satisfied that there was enough darkness to aid his flight, Ryan shoved the gun behind his belt, exited the Taurus, and walked up to the glass door that read KRQZ FM 106.5, THE SEXY SIDE OF COUNTRY.

  He paused with his hand on the door, took a deep breath, and walked in.

  The long, curved reception desk was empty after hours, his first break, and God knew he needed as many breaks as he could get. He walked straight to the hallway door and pushed his way past it.

  A wide, darkened hall lined by several large picture windows that peered into studios ran into the building. No one had seen him so far, no one a
round that he could see.

  And then that changed with the emergence of a man and woman, who pushed open one of the doors and turned up the hall toward him.

  “No, but what I am saying is that American Idol is finished if they don’t completely change up their presentation,” the woman dressed in khaki slacks and a pink top said. “Call it burnout. I know I’m a victim.”

  Her friend lifted his eyes and stared at Ryan. “Not disagreeing. But you gotta admit Seacrest is the real star in…”

  And then his eyes went wide, and Ryan knew he’d been recognized. He lifted his hand and strode forward.

  “Excuse me. Excuse me, you guys know where the manager is?”

  “It’s him!” The young man had red hair piled in curls atop his head, a thin guy who was more frame then flesh, and his round blue eyes bugged like balls from his boney head.

  They both stopped and stared.

  Ryan withdrew the gun but he held it low, in a nonthreatening manner, so as not to frighten them.

  “I just need to use—”

  The pink-shirted woman screamed, and Ryan knew it was all over. He lifted the gun and shoved it at both of them. “Fine, if you insist. But please, keep your mouths shut.” He glanced through one of the picture windows as he passed. A darkened, unused studio.

  Back on the pair. “How many people are working here tonight?”

  “You’re him,” the man said, swallowing with the help of a pronounced Adam’s apple.

  “How many?”

  “Just three of us.”

  “Where’s the other one?”

  “In the studio.”

  “Okay, that’s good.” He stopped two yards from them and held the gun awkwardly. “If you’ve been watching the news, you know that I’m unstable, right?”

  She nodded.

  “So you don’t want to do anything stupid, like scream or try to warn your friend. I’m not going to hurt you; I only want to use your equipment.”

  They thought he was the BoneMan, he realized. BoneMan was standing in their hall, waving a gun at them. They were too shocked to respond.