by Kay Hooper
“That tank. Is that where—”
“It’s how he killed Lindsay, yes. I’m sorry.”
Caitlin looked at it for a moment, thinking only that it seemed so unthreatening, just sitting there on the concrete floor, empty of water and life. And death. Or at least, so it seemed to her. She looked at Samantha. “What’re you going to do?”
“I have to touch both of these machines. He built them. I have to try to connect with him.”
Remembering the pendant and Samantha’s frightening vision-induced pallor and nosebleed, Caitlin said, “Nobody has to tell me this isn’t a good idea, Sam.”
“I have to try. I have to help them find him, if I can.”
“But—”
“I’m running out of time. I have to try.” She reached out with both hands, her right one touching the steel blade resting in its stained groove and her left one touching the glass of the tank.
Caitlin knew instantly that whatever well of emotion or experience Samantha had been psychically dragged into was very deep and very dangerous. She actually jerked, a faint sound coming from behind the lips pressed so tightly together, and what little color she could claim drained from her face.
“Oh, shit,” Caitlin muttered.
As Lucas listened to the journalist—a newspaper reporter from Golden—talk about the “really nosy guy” who had twice approached him with curious questions during the past week, something began to nag at him.
“He didn’t have much of an accent,” Jeff Burgess said thoughtfully. “Not from these parts, that’s for sure.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Well . . . not a young man, but not quite middle-aged. Maybe forty or so. Tall. One of those barrel chests you see on some men, the bull-strong ones. Otherwise very average. Brown hair worn short. Grayish eyes. One thing—he tilted his head just a bit to one side after he asked a question. Funny sort of studied mannerism, I thought. And irritating. Somebody should have told him to quit it years ago.”
“What else?”
“Well, would you believe it, he called me ‘sport.’ I mean, how long since you’ve heard anybody use that? ‘Don’t mean to bother you, sport, but I was just wondering’ . . . whatever. Probably why I remember him so well. Had a funny sort of smile too, like a guy who knew he should be smiling but didn’t really want to, you know?”
“Yes,” Lucas said. “I know. Mr. Burgess, I’m going to ask you to repeat this to a deputy, if you don’t mind, so we’ll have a written account.”
“Nah, I don’t mind.” Burgess’s eyes were sharp. “So he wasn’t just a nosy tourist, huh?”
“When I find out,” Lucas returned pleasantly, “I’ll let you know.”
Burgess snorted but didn’t protest as Lucas waved a deputy over to take the statement.
Retreating to the conference room, Lucas was barely aware that both Wyatt and Jaylene were following him, and he was honestly startled when his partner spoke to him.
“Something rang a bell?”
Lucas looked at her, his mind working quickly. “Maybe. The description . . . mannerisms . . . and I imagine he could certainly hold a grudge against me, though he never showed it then.”
“Luke, who is it?”
As if he hadn’t heard her, he murmured, “I just don’t understand how he could be doing this. Not killing, and not this way. He was a victim. He suffered, I know he did. He lost—He lost. I lost. Maybe that’s the crux of the whole thing. I lost her, wasn’t able to find her in time, and he blames me. I should have found her, it was my job. It was what I did. But I failed, and he suffered for it. So now it’s my turn to fail. My turn to suffer.”
Jaylene sent Wyatt a somewhat helpless look, then said to her partner, “Luke, who are you talking about?”
His eyes cleared suddenly and he looked at her, saw her. “When Bishop recruited me five years ago, I was working on a missing-persons case out in L.A. A girl, eight years old, never came home from school one day. Meredith Gilbert.”
“Did you find her?” Jaylene asked.
“Weeks later, and far too late for her.” He shook his head. “Her family went through hell, and very publicly, since her father was a real estate baron out there. Her mother never got over it and killed herself about six months later. Her father . . .”
“What about him?” Wyatt asked intently.
“He’d started out in construction, I’m pretty sure, so he knew how to build. Big man. Tall, barrel-chested. Amazingly powerful physically. And he had a habit of addressing another man as ‘sport.’ ”
“Bingo,” Jaylene said. “If he blamed you for not finding his daughter and, by extension, for the suicide of his wife, then he could have been carrying around a hell of a grudge, Luke. Five years to plan, plenty of money to do what he needed to do. Background in construction. Even a solid knowledge of real estate could have helped him plan and set things up here in the East. It even explains his bribe to Leo Tedesco; a man like that would think of buying what he needed or wanted.”
“I would have sworn he didn’t blame me.” Lucas shook off the thought, saying to Jaylene, “We need to check it out, find out what happened to Andrew Gilbert after the deaths of his wife and daughter. And there was an older son, I think—away at school at the time, so I never met him.”
“I’ll call Quantico and get them on it,” she said, turning away.
That was when Lucas realized something else. “Where’s Sam? I left her in here.”
“Didn’t see her go out the front,” Wyatt said.
Lucas barely had time to feel the beginnings of a cold knot in the pit of his stomach when Caitlin appeared in the doorway, her face white.
“It’s Sam. The basement—hurry.”
Samantha barely felt the physical contact of the tank and the guillotine. All she felt . . .
The black curtain swept over her, the darkness as thick as tar, the silence absolute. For an instant, she felt she was being physically carried somewhere, all in a rush; she even briefly felt the sensation of wind, of pressure, against her body, as though she was actually moving.
Then the familiar abrupt stillness and the chilling awareness of a nothingness so vast it was almost beyond comprehension. Limbo. She was suspended, weightless and even formless, in a cold void somewhere beyond this world and before the next.
As always, all she could do was wait, grimly, for the glimpse into whatever she was meant to see. Wait while her brain tuned in the right frequency and the sounds and images began playing before her mind’s eye like some strange movie.
But from that point on, nothing happened as it always had.
Instead, scenes from her own past played before the unblinking gaze of her mind’s eye. Stark, harsh, unrelenting, and in vivid color.
The beatings. His fists, his belt, once a broom handle. The times he had burned her with his cigarette. The really, really bad times when he had slammed her against walls, thrown her across furniture, tossed her about like a doll, and all the while she could hear the roaring fury of his drunken rage.
And the words, over and over, hateful words.
“Stupid little bitch!”
“. . . good for nothing . . .”
“. . . ugly . . .”
“. . . runt . . .”
“. . . pity you were ever born . . .”
Pain blazing along every nerve ending and the bone-deep aches of afterward when she could barely move. Dragging herself to her room, to huddle beneath the covers and choke back the whimpers she never let him hear.
When she could drag herself to bed. When he didn’t toss her into the tiny closet and shove a chair under the doorknob, leaving her in there for hours and hours . . .
The remembered terror stirred in Samantha, so cold, so awful, and as it did the scene she saw changed abruptly. She found herself staring at a man she’d never seen before. He was standing at the open door of a hulking ATV and seemed to be looking past her. Then he moved suddenly, reaching for the gun on the vehicle’s seat.
>
He got off at least one shot, the loud report of it hurting Samantha’s ears. And then there were other shots, scarlet bloomed abruptly on his chest, bubbled from his lips, and he opened his mouth to gasp—
Blackness swallowed Samantha before she could hear whatever it was he said. It seemed to last forever, or maybe it was only seconds. She didn’t know. Didn’t really care. Blackness and silence and a chill that followed her up, slowly, so slowly, out of limbo.
“Sam?”
She hurt. She was cold and she hurt. And he, she thought dimly, would not make it better. Maybe could not. Maybe nobody could. . . .
“Sam!”
Conscious then of the weight of her body, conscious of being back, she forced her eyes to open.
“Hey,” she whispered. Funny how rusty and unused her voice sounded.
“Christ, you scared the hell out of me,” Lucas said.
Vaguely surprised, she said, “I did? How?”
He showed her a bloody handkerchief, and said roughly, “You’ve been out for nearly an hour.”
“Oh. Sorry.” Samantha realized then that she was lying on a sofa in the lounge of the sheriff’s department. Lucas was sitting on the edge of the sofa, and Caitlin and the sheriff were standing a few feet away.
When she met the other woman’s gaze and saw her pallor, Samantha said with more contrition, “I really am sorry, Caitlin. I knew it’d be bad, but I had no idea—”
“Then why the hell did you do it?” Lucas demanded.
She looked back at him and winced. “Not so loud, please. My head is splitting.” And she felt incredibly weak, dizzy, and nauseated.
Wyatt said, “Are you sure she shouldn’t be in a hospital? I’ve never seen anybody so pale.”
“There’s nothing a doctor could do for her, otherwise she’d be under the care of one now,” Lucas said, but in a quieter voice. He frowned down at her and held the handkerchief to her nose, adding, “But if this bleeding doesn’t stop soon . . .”
Samantha took the cloth from him and held it herself. “It’ll stop. Listen, about this killer—”
“We have a name,” Wyatt told her. “Somebody Luke remembered from his past. Jaylene’s checking county property records now to find out if the bastard was arrogant enough to use his real name, like Luke thinks he did.” Clearly, the sheriff could hardly wait to get his hands on the man who had trapped him in a guillotine.
“So,” Lucas said to Samantha, “there was no need for you to put yourself through this.”
“Maybe not.” She refolded the handkerchief and held it to her nose again, feeling very tired. “But when you find him, he’ll be standing in the open door of his truck, an ATV. You’ll need to be careful. There’s a gun on the seat. Don’t let him get to it, or he’ll get off at least one shot.”
Wyatt whistled half under his breath. “Now, that’s what I call a useful prediction.”
“Not a prediction. Fact.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
She eyed him, searching for sarcasm, but saw none.
“Hey,” he said, understanding the look, “I’m a convert. Funny thing about facing death. It really does open up your mind to possibilities.”
“Yes,” Samantha said. “I know.”
Jaylene came into the room then. “Hey, Sam, glad to see you back with us.”
“Glad to be here.”
Addressing Lucas, his partner said, “Got him. You were right, he used his real name. Probably figured we’d never go back so far in checking property records. Andrew Gilbert bought some property here two and a half years ago.” She looked at the sheriff, brows lifting. “From you.”
He blinked. “Say what?”
“You sold a hundred-acre tract of land that had belonged to your parents. Mostly mountainous land, not good for much, with a little piece of a valley on which sits a small old house and a much larger old barn. About twenty miles outside town. It wasn’t included on any of our earlier searches because, even though it’s fairly remote, there are other working farms in that valley, neighbors who would have, presumably, noticed someone carting tanks and guillotines and bodies about.”
“His home base,” Lucas said slowly. “Maybe where he stashes the ATV when he isn’t using it—assuming there’s a back way into that barn so his neighbors don’t see.”
Wyatt said wryly, “And I’ll bet they think he’s just a regular guy but quiet, keeps to himself.”
“Bound to,” Jaylene agreed.
“For God’s sake. Yeah, I remember the guy. Said he was looking for quiet land he could retire to in a few years. Talked about building a log cabin, hunting cabin, like he’d always wanted. Offered a good but not outrageous price, and since I was trying to sell land I didn’t need, I took it.”
“Which is why he never stuck around to speak to you yesterday,” Samantha said. “You might have recognized his voice.”
Wyatt hitched at his belt and said, “Goddammit. Let’s go.”
Samantha began to sit up, but Lucas pressed her back. “You’re staying here,” he told her.
She hesitated, not because she believed she could help him capture a killer safely but because she still felt uneasy. And because she had a strong hunch that if she tried to get off the couch she’d fall on her ass. “I could stay in the car,” she offered.
“You can stay here,” Lucas said. “I doubt you could even stand up without help, not right now. Just stay put, Sam. Rest for a while, at least until the bleeding stops. Wait for us to bring the bastard back.”
“Dead or alive?” she murmured.
“Whichever way he wants it.” He said to Wyatt, “Get everybody ready. We go in in force, and we go in prepared. Everybody wears a vest.”
Caitlin said to Wyatt, “I can help with the phones or whatever while you’re all gone. I mean, I know the place won’t be deserted, but if I can help?”
“You can,” Wyatt told her.
When they had gone, Jaylene said, “I’ll go call the boss, Luke.”
He nodded, and to Samantha’s inquiring look said, “Standard procedure if we’re about to go into a probable dangerous situation.”
“Ah.” She looked after his partner for a moment, then checked the handkerchief before once again pressing it to her nose. “Dammit.”
“The price you pay for being reckless,” he told her.
She decided not to bother arguing. “Just be careful, okay?”
“We will.” He went as far as the doorway, then hesitated and looked back at her. “You are all right?”
“I will be. Go do your job.”
Samantha waited there for some time, listening to the bustle in the building as the deputies and agents got ready to go out. Eventually, the building quieted, and her nose stopped bleeding. And it was only a bit longer before she tried sitting up.
On the third attempt she managed it, and about ten minutes later made it to the conference room. A desk shoved up against the wall held the room’s only phone, and Samantha sat down there to use it.
Maybe Luke was right about being reckless, she thought, fighting the dizziness and nausea. It had never been this bad before, and between that and her pounding head, she was seriously considering returning to the couch in the lounge and napping for a day or three.
Because her part in this, she thought, was over. She was almost positive that she had been able to change the outcome she had originally seen.
In the vision that had brought her to Golden, Andrew Gilbert had not come close to being caught, and he had certainly not been the one to die.
She got through to Quentin on the first attempt, which was rarely possible calling a cell phone in this mountainous area. “Did you hear from Bishop?” she asked immediately.
“Yeah, just now,” he replied. “So our killer is a ghost out of Luke’s past, huh?” He sounded just a bit distracted.
“Looks like. Where are you guys?”
“Fairgrounds.”
“Why?”
“Just a hunch.”
“You don’t have hunches, Quentin.”
“Whoever said that is a rotten liar.”
“Quentin.”
He sighed. “Okay, okay. I knew something would be going on here, that’s all.”
She waited a beat, then asked, “What’s going on?”
“Well, it’s a funny thing,” he said thoughtfully. “The place is practically deserted—but all the rides are going.”
17
“What do you mean?” Samantha demanded.
“Just what I said. The Ferris wheel, bumper cars—
everything but the pony rides. All running. Sort of spooky, actually, in broad daylight and without any music or people.”
“Where’s Leo?”
“Can’t find him.”
“What?”
“Don’t panic. Couple of the maintenance guys said he went into town this morning. They’re currently trying to get the rides stopped.”
“They all have switches; what’s the problem?”
“Switches are jammed.”
Samantha’s uneasiness increased. “I don’t like this, Quentin.”
“No, me either. Spider sense is tingling like mad.”
“You think maybe this Gilbert guy knows the cops are on the way? That maybe he’s waiting for them?”
“You saw them take him down in a vision, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Look, this doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with that, you know.” When she remained silent, he sighed and said, “Okay, so I don’t believe in coincidences either. Assuming they can be reached out there, Bishop will warn the cops to watch their backs. And their fronts. You stay put, Sam. Galen is staying here, and I’m heading over to get you.”
“I’m in a police station.”
“Yeah, a practically deserted one. Sit tight, and I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Samantha cradled the receiver and frowned down at the phone, absently rubbing her temples. She kept remembering her vision, and the dying words of Andrew Gilbert that she hadn’t been able to hear.
