Face Off (Dr. Evelyn Talbot Novels)

by Brenda Novak

  At least he’d stripped Amarok of one of his female admirers and left him another dead body to deal with. The count was rising, which had to be making him crazy. Imagining his anger was Jasper’s only solace.

  He slowed at the next road to see if that was his turn. He’d charted his course before leaving for work and printed it out, since he didn’t have a cell phone he could use to navigate. He’d stuffed the map into his coat pocket in case he couldn’t get back home, and now he was damn glad. He was going to stay as far away from that side of town as possible—circle wide and go an hour north, where there was a municipal airport. He’d chartered a small plane there to take him to Vancouver. He’d fly to Mexico from Canada. He’d also booked a flight from Anchorage, however, just to throw off Amarok and anyone else who might come looking for him, since they’d probably expect him to fly out of Ted Stevens International. As much as he’d hated to waste the money, it never hurt to add a little subterfuge. Hopefully the cops would be so intent on catching him at the airport, they wouldn’t even look at his laptop, which was now going to fall into their hands, until after he reached Mexico.

  He fiddled with the radio, trying to get something to come on. The Subaru was relatively new—maybe three years old. It had navigation, he belatedly realized, but he didn’t know how to use it and he wasn’t about to take the time to figure it out. He wanted to get to Butte as soon as possible. He had to find a place to ditch the Subaru where it wouldn’t be found for several days. He’d only taken it because he’d wanted to erase any immediate sign that the body in Amarok’s bed wasn’t Evelyn in hopes that it would cause him a scare. He’d wanted to make what he’d done in Amarok’s house as traumatic as he could, a reminder to Evelyn of what he’d eventually do to her—once he had a chance to recover and regroup.

  Finally, he found some music he liked and settled back for the drive. He’d arrive in Butte soon. He’d be early, but he wanted to get off the road. He was assuming Amarok had sent out a BOLO, or Be On the Look Out, for Samantha’s car and didn’t want to pass a police officer.

  Once he got to the airport, he could just lie low and wait for his flight.

  Soon he’d be gone—well out of Amarok’s and Evelyn’s reach.

  30

  “He hasn’t shown up yet,” Amarok said.

  Evelyn drew a deep breath. Amarok had left Phil at their house to await the coroner, who was coming out from Anchorage, and had driven her, Makita and Sigmund to his trooper post. Amarok needed to return and take charge of the scene, but catching Jasper before he could leave the state or the country came before everything else. If they didn’t catch him, there’d just be more dead bodies.

  “He’s not going back to wherever he was staying,” she said dully. It was too much to hope that he’d fall right into their hands.

  “The detective at the house he’s been renting told me there’s a suitcase filled with clothes in his bedroom, so they think he was planning on returning. But the place has been burglarized—I know, terrible timing—so it’s a mess. They’ve been searching for a computer or something else that might give some indication of where he might be, or where he might be going, but so far, they have no clue.” He pulled over a chair and sat down next to her. “And there’s something else.…”

  She rubbed her arms as she braced for more bad news. She could tell by his tone and his manner that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “Tell me.…”

  “He’s tricked out his basement.”

  “In what way?”

  “Turned it into a torture chamber.”

  “If he had a torture chamber, why did he kill Katherine at the Barrymore cabin?”

  “It appears to be brand-new. And your pictures are all over one wall.”

  “He was saving it for me,” she said as the realization dawned. “That’s what he’s been doing with his time—besides building our trust and the trust of everyone else who lives in Hilltop.” She let her breath seep out. “From a clinical perspective, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “And from a personal one?”

  “It’s terrifying. If we don’t catch him, he’ll come back for me.”

  Amarok stretched his neck. It was getting late and the strain of what had started with Sierra Yerbowitz going missing was beginning to wear him down. It’d been a rough two weeks, with a lot of stress and very little sleep. Evelyn felt bad for him, but she was too anxious, too worried, to offer him any comfort.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “He heard me talking to Phil about the manifests earlier. He knows we have them. I’m assuming that’s why he killed Samantha. He no longer had to worry that we’d figure out who he was. He knew we were about to do that. So when you didn’t come home as expected—thank God for Brianne’s call—he got angry, killed her instead of you and is now on the run.”

  “What was she doing at our house, Amarok?”

  He didn’t look particularly comfortable with the question. “I can only imagine. You heard her voicemail the other day.”

  “She was almost as obsessed with you as Jasper is with me.”

  “I guess.”

  As much as she’d disliked Sam, as much as it’d bothered her that Sam was always coming on to Amarok, Jasper had no right to take her life. “Has Anchorage PD alerted airport security?”

  “They have. He’ll be arrested as soon as he tries to board a plane. They’re waiting for him at Ted Stevens. So there’s still hope.”

  She nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. This thing between her and Jasper had to come to an end. He couldn’t continue to terrorize her forever.

  Except he could—there was nothing to ensure against that—and chances were better that he’d escape than that he’d be caught. He knew how to avoid capture. He’d done it for twenty-two years.

  “What if he isn’t going to Ted Stevens International?” she asked. “What if he’s going into hiding? He could reappear at the earliest opportunity. And maybe he’ll settle for a quick kill instead of some elaborate scheme to build another torture chamber. No matter how careful I am, I could never be careful enough to avoid a hit that comes out of nowhere.”

  Amarok took her hands. “We know what he looks like these days.”

  “He changed his appearance once before. He could do it again. I didn’t even recognize him. He’s had plastic surgery, looks nothing like the boy I knew.”

  “Quit beating yourself up for not seeing this coming. It’s been more than twenty years. And that kind of surgery isn’t cheap. He no longer has his rich parents to pay for stuff like that, remember?”

  “Because he killed them.”

  “Yes, but think about what that means. He’s slowly cutting off one avenue after another, which limits his ability to do certain things. It’s only a matter of time before the odds swing in our favor.”

  The phone rang. He got up and crossed to his desk. “It’s Anchorage PD,” he said as he picked up the handset.

  She listened to his side of the conversation, but when he hung up he repeated most of what she’d already heard. “They’ve found a record for him. He’s flying out of Anchorage.”

  Amarok sounded cautiously optimistic, more optimistic than she could be. “I gathered that,” she said. “But … going where?”

  “Chicago.”

  She shook her head. “No. That’s too easy. He knew we’d check Anchorage right away.”

  “Maybe he’s hoping to get out of the state before we can arrest him.”

  “Even if he flew off before we could catch him, we’d have the police waiting for him in Chicago. That flight’s a trick, a decoy. We can’t fall for it. We have to look at other possibilities.”

  Amarok frowned. “There are too many possibilities to predict them all. He could be on his way to some small Arctic community where no one even has a TV. How would we find him then?”

  “I don’t think he’d do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because murder is what makes him happy, and he couldn�
�t function in that kind of environment. He needs people, a lot of people, in order to hide who he is and what he does.”

  “Canada?”

  “Or Mexico. It’s warmer, more relaxed there and has loads of tourists.”

  “Okay, Mexico gets my vote, too. But he’d need a passport.”

  “He has other ID. Why not assume he has a passport?”

  “True.” Amarok motioned her over to his desk, where he got on his computer and called up a list of airports in Alaska. “Everyone knows about Juneau, Fairbanks and Ketchikan, of course. Those are international, so we’ll start there. But look. There are smaller airports everywhere. There’s nothing to say he won’t use one of them.”

  Evelyn’s heart sank. She’d seen Alaska as so sparsely populated that this would be an easy job, but she couldn’t have been more mistaken. There were far too many options to cover them all in the short time available. “He’s going to get away again.…” Tears sprang up. She was so distraught that she wasn’t paying much attention when the phone rang—until she heard the confusion in Amarok’s voice. That was when she tuned in.

  “Did she say who she was?… Okay, just a minute.” He scribbled down a phone number before hanging up.

  “What is it?”

  “A woman’s been calling the prison. She won’t give her name, but she’s adamant about talking to you, refuses to speak to anyone else. And she says it can’t wait until morning. Claims it’s urgent.”

  “That’s her number?” She gestured toward what he’d written on the pad.

  “Yeah.”

  “What could this mean?” she muttered as she came around the desk to dial.

  Someone, a woman, picked up immediately.

  “This is Dr. Evelyn Talbot from Hanover House. Someone from this number has been asking to speak to me.”

  “Yes, um, that’s me.”

  “What’s your name?”

  There was muffled talking, which indicted the woman wasn’t alone. Then she said, “I’d rather not tell you that.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “To warn you.”

  “Against…”

  “There’s this guy named Andy Smith. He has all kinds of knives and torture devices in his basement.”

  Evelyn’s heart began to beat faster. “You’ve seen it.”

  “Yes. And there are pictures of you and newspaper articles all over the wall. He’s been collecting articles about the murders of those two women whose bodies were recently found, too.”

  “He took you there?”

  “No, but I saw it.”

  “When?”

  “Today.”

  Andy was in Hilltop all day. They knew that much. So how was this woman at his place? “Are you the one who broke into his house?” she asked as the answer to that question occurred to her.

  When the woman hung up, Evelyn groaned in despair and called her again.

  The phone rang several times with no answer, so she kept trying.

  Finally, the same woman picked up. “I just wanted to warn you,” she said. “I don’t want any trouble. Please, don’t go to the police.”

  “There won’t be any trouble, but I have to know one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you have his computer?”

  There was a second long pause. “What if I do?” she asked at length.

  “He’s killed another woman. We don’t even know who she is yet. And he’ll come after me again if we don’t do something. I’ve run from him for most of my life. I want that to be over. I’m sure you can understand.”

  “That’s why I called.”

  “I appreciate it.” Evelyn’s mind quickly sifted through the possibilities. She’d much rather the Anchorage police handled this, but there was no time for that. Jasper would likely be gone before they could find this woman, take possession of the computer and search for the information Evelyn thought it might contain. “I’ll take your help, no questions asked. But I need more than you’ve told me so far. Are you able to access his e-mail account, or is it password protected?”

  “It’s not password protected. It was open when we … when I took it.”

  “Then search through his inbox. Look for anything that gives travel information. An airline reservation. A bus ticket. Anything. Check his browser to see what pages he might’ve visited on the Web. If we don’t get this information immediately, he’ll escape.”

  “One minute.” Evelyn could hear more muffled talking while she waited. She was going crazy, wondering if this woman would ever get back on the phone. Finally she heard the same voice.

  “There’s a flight booked out of Ted Stevens International going to Chicago. It leaves first thing in the morning.”

  “I don’t believe he’s really taking that flight. Is there anything else? Anything at all?”

  This time the wait was even more excruciating. Evelyn had just about given up hope that they’d get what they needed in time when the woman returned. “It looks like he’s chartered a flight going to Vancouver.”

  Evelyn grabbed the pen and paper Amarok had used. “Does it say where he’s leaving from? I need the name of the airport.”

  “Butte Municipal.”

  “Is there a company name associated with that flight?”

  “Looks like he booked it through a site where you can pay people who have their own small planes—kind of like Turo does with expensive cars.”

  Evelyn wrote down everything she’d learned; then she asked to have the documents forwarded to Amarok’s e-mail address, so they’d have the originals. “Will you answer the phone if I call again?”

  “Are you going to tell the police how you got this information?”

  “No,” Evelyn replied. “And I’ll give you a computer in trade for the one you have, so don’t destroy any of the information. As far as I’m concerned, you can keep everything else you took—I just want to catch him.”

  * * *

  Jasper had little to say to the pilot who’d be flying him out of Alaska. He’d paid the guy online. Now it was just a matter of taking the flight.

  “No luggage?” the pilot asked when they walked out to the tarmac.

  “No luggage.” Because he’d been an idiot. He’d been so concerned about dumping the body of the prostitute he’d killed last night at that shack behind the cabin before he went to work, he’d made the wrong decision about his luggage and computer.

  The dude—Jasper didn’t remember his name and didn’t care—shrugged as if it made no difference to him whether he had luggage or not and waved him toward a four-seater Cessna.

  “Nice plane,” Jasper said. “How much does something like this cost?”

  “New? Half a million or more.”

  Jasper whistled. “That’s steep.”

  “Yeah, but I’m a mechanic as well as a pilot, so I was able to get something a little older and put her back together.”

  If he’d had a choice, Jasper might’ve hesitated to board. “She’s airworthy, though, right?”

  “Of course. I fly her all the time.”

  “And the weather’s okay today? To go to Canada, I mean?”

  “It might be a bit bumpy here and there, but we’ll manage.”

  “You checked?”

  “Of course I checked. Are you a nervous flyer?”

  “Not on commercial flights, but this is a bit different.”

  “You’re right about that.” The guy gave him a maniacal grin. “It’s a lot more fun.”

  “So we’re taking off soon? You’ve done whatever checks and other stuff you have to do?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Wonderful. They were exactly on time. In another ten minutes, he’d be on his way to Vancouver. And there were so many cities where he could be going, there wouldn’t be much chance of having law enforcement waiting for him on the other end. He’d spend four hours on a layover, which would seem like an eternity, but then he’d be back on a plane, this time on a flight to Mexico. Once he
reached Mexico City, he’d be safe as long as he kept moving and didn’t cause a stir.

  After helping him get strapped in, the pilot patted his own pockets, mumbled that he’d forgotten something and walked back toward the airport.

  While he waited, Jasper leaned back and stared up at the sky. It wouldn’t get light until ten. It’d be nice to go someplace that saw more of the sun. He’d thought he liked Alaska, but the damn darkness got old.

  It wasn’t until the pilot had been gone for more than ten minutes that Jasper began to fidget. Where the hell was he? The guy had been paid; he needed to do his job.

  Jasper was just about to undo his seat belt so he could go find the bastard when he heard a familiar voice.

  “Jasper Moore? Get out of the plane and put your hands up. And if you’re very lucky, I won’t shoot you.”

  Amarok! Jasper’s heart leapt into his throat as he looked out the window and saw the Alaska State Trooper standing on the tarmac with a rifle aimed at him. With the lights on the building and the ones that illuminated the runway, he had no doubt Amarok could see well enough to put a bullet in his brain despite the darkness.

  How did the sergeant find him?

  It had to be because he’d left his laptop behind. That was a catastrophic error.

  Could he get out on the other side and make a run for it? There were some trees along the runway, set off a bit. If he could reach them, he’d have cover. But the pilot held a firearm, too, and he’d gone around to block that option.

  “Give me the slightest provocation,” Amarok yelled, “I’ll shoot you and consider it a public service!”

  Jasper glared down at him, but he could tell by the trooper’s stance that he wasn’t bluffing.

  There was nothing he could do. It was over.

  For now, he told himself.

  * * *

  Amarok took Jasper to the Anchorage jail, since they were better equipped to handle an inmate like him. Everyone who had a criminal complaint against him—in Boston, in San Diego, in Arizona—would be able to prosecute eventually. Amarok wasn’t worried about that. He was just glad he’d been the one to bring him in. There was something extremely satisfying, even cathartic, about snapping on those cuffs. He’d been waiting to do that for so long.…