Blown Away (25 page)

“I don't want to hear this!”

“Too bad. I squashed them like armadillos and got back to my motel before the first ambulance arrived. But the kill wasn't perfect.” Marwood put his chin in his palm. “Having been a soldier for several years, I assumed I could smite anything in a single blow. Wrong! Mama survived to love her precious Emmy another full year. That was simply unacceptable, so I volunteered for the Green Berets. I wanted to learn to do these things right.”

“Yeah, it takes real brains to kill middle-aged people carrying ice cream,” Emily taunted.

“Damn straight,” Marwood retorted. “Nobody else in that fucking school of ours could have done it. Not the nuns. Not you. Not anybody. Only me.” He sauntered to the coffeepot. “The psych courses and hands-on field training I got in the Berets were infinitely more useful for my purposes than sitting in a classroom bored out of my mind. I retired with a doctorate in knowing what makes people tick. But I needed university credentials to form my practice and build my reputation as the go-to guy for law enforcement. The friendly database hackers at the CIA were happy to help.” He stroked his squarish ears. “As was the plastic surgeon in Bombay who altered my physical identity. I killed him afterwards, of course.” His smile was chilling. “I profiled you between corporate assignments and hunting trips.”

“Always the big-game hunter,” Emily said, quoting from his criminal profile.

“You don't know the half of it, Princess,” Marwood said. “There are sixty-seven unsolved murders across these United States with my name on them. Not counting the bodies right here in River City.”

“Sixty…” she breathed, stunned.

“Practice makes perfect. They were inferiors—runaways, crackheads, prostitutes. People nobody cared about. If I left a clue by mistake during practice, I wanted to ensure no cop would give enough of a shit about them to do anything beyond file paperwork.” He kissed his fingers, savoring his own brilliance. “I visited Naperville regularly over the years to update your profile.”

“And shoot your video,” Emily said.

“I've always wanted to direct,” Marwood said. “Then you met Jack and became happy with your life. Started putting your parents' tragic deaths into perspective. So naturally, it was time to take that away.” He chuckled. “Ah, the poor sap never knew what hit him.”

Emily's eyes roamed as Marwood described the fiery explosion under the viaduct. That mental tug meant something. What was it? What had she missed? What hadn't she considered?

Wait! The noose is looped
over
my hair, not under!

Maybe, just maybe, Marwood never found the key taped to my neck!

 

The knob quit turning. Annie cracked the door just enough to prevent relatching, then cranked back the pipe wrench and hammer.

 

“You blinked thirteen times,” Cross said. “That's the letter
M
, correct?”

Blink.

“All right then. Next letter.”

Blink.

“One,” Winslow said. “The letter
A
.”

Blink.

“Did that mean yes or the letter
A
?”

“Single questions only, Ken,” Winslow reminded.

“Oh, right. Branch, was that the letter
A
?”

Blink.

“Good. Third letter.”

The pause was so long, Winslow checked Branch's vital signs.

Blink-blink-blink-blink-blink-blink…

“
R
,” Cross said when he finished. “
M-A-R
.” His eyes widened. “I don't believe it,” he whispered, incredulous. “Marty? Marty Benedetti is the Unsub?” He whipped his head toward Winslow. “First or last name, Barbara?” he demanded. “Which did we ask Branch to spell?”

She stared. “I don't know. I don't remember!”

“Shit!” Cross groaned. He started to ask Branch for clarification, but the captain's eyes had already glazed over.

 

Emily relaxed her knees and let a soft moan escape.

“Finally sinking in that you're going to die, Princess?” Marwood asked.

“Only in your dreams,” she said. “And stop calling me Princess. Your tongue isn't fit to clean my father's behind, much less use his nickname for me.”

“I thought Princess was Jack's nickname for you.”

“They both used it. Not that it's any of your business, you hair ball.”

“Behind. Hair ball.” He snickered. “You know, Princess, it's just not the same. I really miss the old potty-mouth Emily. Too bad you promised Daddy about swearing.” His voice turned reminiscent. “Remember third grade? When you cussed a streak so filthy, the penguins washed out your mouth with laundry soap? What a stitch. Then in fifth grade when you…”

She wiggled her scalp as he yakked on, trying to feel the handcuff key. Marwood confiscated the one on her ankle because the I Spy cameras in her bedroom recorded her attaching it. The neck key might still be there because she taped it at the police station, out of camera range.
Thank God for superstition!
But how would she get her hands on the get-out-of-jail card when those hands were behind her back?

“Why did you switch names?” Emily tried, hoping to extend Remember When. “Was Kepp too many letters for your pea brain to remember?”

Marwood laughed. “A new identity is a must. After they find you dead, every cop in this country will hunt Brady Kepp till the end of time.”

“Which is almost here, you know,” Emily said. “Benedetti and Cross know we've disappeared because Sergeant Bates stopped checking in. They'll figure out you came here to play the final game. You're too obsessed not to, and they know it.” She shifted to ease the cramp in her left calf. “Just surrender, Ellis. You could plead insanity and get away with it. Lord knows, I'd testify you're nuts.”

Marwood laughed. “You don't get it. This place was scoured by the feds and your own SWAT team. Every door and window is boarded tight, and I check in every fifteen minutes. We're out of sight here, out of mind. Your colleagues aren't going to save you, Princess. Neither are guns, batons, helicopters, SWATs, task forces, and all the other bullshit you cops wave like magic wands. You're the only one who can save your life, Princess, by winning our final game. But you aren't good enough to beat me. Not then, not ever—”

 

Annie kicked the door and heaved the wrench at Marwood's head, screaming. With the reflexes of a cat, Marwood dodged it and the hammer to his abdomen, then flung Emily's bayonet deep into Annie's stomach. The SWAT went down howling, Marwood on her like a mongoose. “A for effort, Sergeant,” he said, stunning her with a vicious hand chop to the neck. “But no reservist beats a Green Beret.” He broke Annie's pelvis with a heel stomp, and she fell unconscious. He placed the bayonet on her carotid for the killing thrust, then reconsidered. “I know! I'll slit your throat when I hang Emily. You can watch each other die. That'll be fun, won't it?” He cuffed Annie's wrists, removed the bayonet, duct-taped her wound—“Can't croak till I say so, Ossifer,” he said—and hurried to the basement door. “One peep from you, I'll come up and fillet her to bone,” he warned Emily. “So don't get stupid on me.”

 

“Not Martin. Marwood!” Winslow insisted. “Commander Benedetti isn't capable of murder!”

“Everyone's capable given enough motivation, Barbara!” Cross said loudly, over the snoring captain, desperately trying to think through this dilemma. If he wasted even a minute hauling in the wrong man…“I'm positive I told Branch to spell his first name! Not his last name, his first! So it has to be Marty! Not Marwood!”

“We drugged this poor man up to his eyeballs,” Winslow shot back. “And Branch is human. He misunderstood our directions. Or believed he was spelling Marwood's first name. Or something else entirely.” She clapped her fists together, burning off adrenaline. “To hell with logic, Ken. Who do you
believe
committed these crimes? Ellis or Marty?”

Cross closed his eyes, weighing what she said. He opened them a minute later and pulled out his cell phone. “Marty? Ken. We've been suckered!” he barked. “Marwood is the Unsub. Repeat, Dr. Ellis Marwood is the Unsub.”

 

“You killed Flea, didn't you?” Emily growled, sickened by her certainty at what this monster just did in the basement. “All of them.”

“Of course, I did. I don't need more fucking surprises.” Marwood wiped the bloody blade on Emily's legs, slipped it in his belt. “What were we talking about?”

“Your CIA identity,” Emily said, seeing Annie stir.

“Ah, right. Those political assassinations I did were on presidential orders. So if you believe the CIA will hand my new identity to your people, you're crazier than I am.”

“The courts will make them.”

Marwood snickered, fluffed his hair. “‘Golly, Judge, the paperwork on this Kepp fellow you ordered us to produce?'” he falsettoed, mimicking a bewildered CIA lawyer. “‘It's disappeared. We're looking high and low, Your Honor. We'd never disobey an official court order.'” A harsher laugh. “Nothing about me will leak. Kepp is dead, long live Marwood.” He bowed in admiration. “Nice gambit, though, Princess. You're playing the game brilliantly.”

“I told you not to call me that.”

“You're in no position to dictate rules,” he said. “I'll call you whatever—” He darted for the submachine gun, slicing a finger across his throat. “There's noise on your back porch,” he whispered. “Say one fucking syllable and I'll shoot you. Annie, too. Savvy?”

Emily nodded, hoping whoever it was carried grenades and heavy weapons. She'd gladly die in a SWAT assault if it meant taking Kepp with her. It was one thing to terrorize her for the crimes he imagined she'd committed against him. Lucy Crawford deserved no such fate. Neither did the other lost souls, especially Mama, Daddy, and Jack, whose only crime had been to love her. She prayed for a lightning entry and instant annihilation.

But the only “assault” was a light scratching on the door, followed by thumps. Not in the middle, where people put their hands, but way down at the bottom.

“It's the neighbor's dog,” she whispered. “The yellow Lab from the fun run.”

“Shelby,” Marwood whispered back.

“Right. He's come over to play. Probably heard Annie scream and wants to join the party.”

Marwood peered through the puffball curtains. “All right. Just keep your mouth shut,” he ordered, hooking the submachine gun on the doorknob. “Animals are stupid. If Shelby doesn't hear anything for sixty seconds, he'll get bored and leave.”

The porch noises faded. It was time. This escape plan was desperate, practically suicidal. But Marwood held every other card. “Please, Shelby, don't go!” she blubbered. “Don't leave me with this bad man!”

“I told you to shut up, Princess!” Marwood snarled, pulling the bayonet.

“And I told you not to call me that, you lunatic!” Emily shouted.

“That's it, Princess!” Marwood thundered, eyes bulging. “Time to hang you by the neck till you're dead-dead-dead! Not by snapping it quick and easy, nosirree. I knotted that rope so you'd strangle! Your face will turn purple. Your tongue will sag, and your eyes will bulge. At that point I'll cut your cunt pal's throat, and you'll watch each other die. Then I win our final game! After thirty years of plotting and rehearsing and dreaming of this—”

“We didn't play Hangman at my birthday party, you idiot!” Emily screeched, going for broke, praying Shelby hadn't wandered too far. “There were only eight games! Not nine! Thirty years and you're still a pathetic loser—”

“Hangman was my game!” Marwood thrust the bayonet like a picador. Blood spurted from her thigh. “It's the game I was bringing to your party, if only you'd invited me!”

“There's no way I'd invite you, Fraidy Brady! You're a loser! A bed wetter! The kids at school laugh because a girl beat you up! Your father whips your sorry butt because you're such a disappointing son! You're weak! Pathetic! A disgrace to your family! Your underwear's always wet! Boo-hoo-hoo, better run to Mommy and have her change your widdle—”

Marwood howled, pulling back his leg to kick the game table away.

“Shelby! Help!” Emily screamed as the burly Lab blasted through the pet flap she'd installed so many years ago. “Bad man, Shelby, get him! Help me!”

The dog yowled, ears flat to his skull. He rocketed across the kitchen and sank his teeth deep into Marwood's left arm. The profiler screamed, the bayonet clattering under the refrigerator as Shelby tore muscle and tendon. “Let go of me, goddammit!” Marwood shouted, punching Shelby's head with his free fist while straining to reach the guns. Shelby dragged him back, eyes glowing, frothy slobber turning the pine floor into a skating rink.

“Good boy! Attack! Kill!” Emily prepared for the high-school gymnastics move she prayed would save her and Annie. “That's right! Get him! Get the bad man. Awk!” Shelby's butt knocked the table away, dumping her sideways and jamming the noose deep in her throat. “Do it!” she screamed at herself, panic overwhelming her nervous system. “Do it now or die!”

She moved her wrists as far apart as the handcuff chain allowed, lifted her knees to her chin, kicked her feet back behind the chain, then dropped her legs all the way down. The “dislocation” made her shoulders squeal in pain, but it moved her hands where she needed them—from the back of her body to the front.

 

“Gotta land, Commander,” the FBI pilot warned by radio. “Air's too unstable. We'll go back up at first break.”

“Understood. Thanks.” Benedetti turned to Cross, who'd just dashed up from his car. “The storm's grounded the choppers. Nothing from the road search. Marwood's got nine lives—”