Dead Shot (27 page)

Silence greeted this prediction. It had taken many long years to get the museum built, and suddenly it seemed as if all the hard work would be for nothing.

“But this is entirely different,” Chip said with an air of mild astonishment. “Lives are at stake.”

“Community pressure is community pressure,” said a sculptor. “If we set this precedent, who knows what will be up for grabs next.”

“We are a museum,” Stephanie argued, “a place to experience art. If some crazy man twists that experience, we cannot be held accountable. Catching that person is the responsibility of the police, not the Gray Visual Arts Center.”

Scattered applause broke out, along with grumblings and an angry buzz. People were glaring at each other across the table and across the room. Chip hammered the gavel again, opened his mouth to call for a motion to end discussion. A bustle at the door stopped him.

Without warning, Gillian stepped into the room.

The bickering ended as if it had been choked off. Everyone stared at the newcomer, who was shadowed by Ray Pearce at her back. Between dinner and the meeting, he’d found some respectable clothes and now wore a dark suit and tie.

“May I speak?” Gillian asked, cool and polite, as if Chip didn’t know what she was up to.

He tried to keep his face expressionless. He’d felt it his duty to tell her about the meeting. After all, she was his granddaughter. But he’d hoped she’d have the good sense to stay away. He should have known better. Gillian liked nothing more than a public scene.

“I don’t think this is the time—”

“She has a right to speak,” the sculptor said, and the banker glared at him.

Mumbling around the room ensued, some supporting Gillian’s right to address the meeting, others shaking their heads.

Chip’s jaw tightened. The unity of the board, of the museum itself, was shaky enough. They were already fighting among themselves. The last thing he needed was for Gillian to make some kind of a Custer’s Last Stand, defending her position to keep the show open. But though he sorely would have liked to, he couldn’t deny her the floor. Not in front of the other trustees.

“Of course,” Chip said, but with a reluctance he couldn’t hide.

Gillian took a breath, stared everyone, including her grandfather, down. The girl had guts, he’d give her that. Not to mention her grandmother’s steely eyes.

“Before you decide anything,” she said, “I’d like you to know that I’m withdrawing my work from the exhibit.”

A collective gasp, and the room burst into sound, everyone talking at once. For his part, Chip was so astounded, he didn’t know what to say.

Gillian held up her hands. “I’ve already spoken with—” She had to shout over the racket, and finally Chip pounded his gavel again.

“Gentlemen! Ladies!”

“I’ve already spoken with BMA,” she repeated when quiet had prevailed, “and explained the situation. They’ve agreed to allow the photographs to be crated and stored, either here or in Chicago, where the exhibit is scheduled next. And I’ve agreed to cover any extra costs.”

Once again, whispers and mumblings began, but this time in approval and relief. Gillian looked around the room, ending on her grandfather’s face. Her eyes softened, and all at once she reminded him of his beautiful Holland, his lost child. Tears suddenly stung his eyelids, and he had to look away. Clear his throat.

Did Gillian see his difficulty? He couldn’t be sure, but she gave him time to recover by turning back to the meeting and speaking. “And, since I’m sure some of you are involved with the hospital fund-raiser, I think you should know that I’ve withdrawn from the art auction as well. And, I will, of course, stay home Saturday night.” She smiled tightly. “That’s all I wanted to say.” She made a curt little bow and disappeared through the doorway.

Gillian closed the door behind her and paused in the hallway, leaning against the wall, her eyes closed. She was shaking and needed a minute to recuperate.

A touch on her shoulder, and she opened her eyes. Ray stood in front of her. He caressed her cheek, raised her chin to stare up at him.

“Sure you want to do this?”

She wanted to sink into his hand, revel in the comfort he seemed so willing to give. But she turned her head to loosen his hold. “Don’t.”

For a moment he stood there like a fool, his hand in the air. But he was tired of stepping in and being pushed aside. She started to move away, but he wrenched her back. Pushed her against the wall and caged her there, a hand on either side of her. “Why not? Because you’re so tough?”

“Because it wouldn’t mean anything to some guys, and you’re not one of them.”

He could smell the soap on her, the sweat and sex washed away as thoroughly as yesterday’s tears. A little laser of regret slashed through him, but he shrugged it off, more angry than nostalgic. “Are you saying I can’t love ’em and leave ’em?”

“I’m saying you’re the love-’em type, Ray. And I’m the type that leaves.”

He stared at her. At her hard chin and doomed eyes. He was sick of falling for someone who needed him but didn’t want him. Someone he could never make happy. And like a film rewinding at top speed, he backed off. Way off.

He held up both hands, and she pushed away from the wall. “Anyway,” she said, moving down the hallway, “it takes the pressure off the museum. It’s the right thing to do.”

He watched her straight back and determined stride. “You always take the hard road, don’t you?”

She turned, continued backward down the hall, shooting him a small, rueful smile. “I try, Ray. I try.”

41

Jimmy Burke stared at the murder board in the squad room. The place smelled of long-dead biscuits, gravy, and fried okra. Some kind of breakfast for someone who was no longer there. Or maybe it was dinner. With the overtime and the overlap, schedules were out the window. But though the department had laid on the manpower, so far the extra poundage hadn’t stopped the flow of victims or uncovered a connection between them.

For the moment, he was alone. He stared at the crime- scene photographs taped to the whiteboard, at the marks and slashes delineating questions, theories, statistics. He’d been staring at the damn thing for the last half hour, and the victims still had nothing in common.

The first was divorced, the second single, the last married, though her husband had been away at the time of the murder. Ages ranged from sixteen to fifty. Attacks happened at work, home, and on the street. A map showed locations getting closer to downtown, but in vastly different areas of the city, so whether or not the killer was closing in on a specific target, like the museum, was anyone’s guess. None of the victims knew Gillian Gray, and they had nothing in common except their blond hair.

Now women were wearing scarves, wigs, and staying indoors when they could, but predicting the next strike was near on impossible.

Since the first victim, they’d been tracking the dozens of messages off deadshot.com. And there were still only three that could be connected to the murders. Each one closely followed a killing and was sent from the victim’s own machine, either computer or cell phone. Off to one side, someone had tacked up the three Web site messages, each enlarged and on a separate sheet of paper.

I MAKE IT REAL.

MAKE IT REAL WITH ME.

CHEATERS NEVER PROSPER. THEY DIE.

Who was sending them? At the moment, the assistant seemed to be in the clear, though a phone call to her Manhattan apartment and Gray’s Brooklyn studio had gone unanswered. Kenny Post was still MIA, which put him top of the list. But there was also the unsub from the 1986 murder of Holland Gray.

Jimmy had pulled the old files and gone over them. He’d talked to the cold-case guys, and also Harley Samuels. He’d passed the files on to some of the other guys. No new leads emerged. Just the vague uneasiness that whoever had done the mother was now after the daughter.

Why the long lead time? The favorite theory was that the unsub had been in jail and was newly released. So far, though, they hadn’t found anyone whose dates matched.

The news had reported Gillian Gray’s makeshift press conference three nights ago. Jimmy wondered how the hell Ray could have let her get away with that, but then Jimmy knew how Ray was with his women. Pliable. In any case, the damage was done and Gray’s location made public. Saying they couldn’t provide protection without client cooperation, Carleco Security had dropped the case.

He’d expected Gray to pick up and leave. But she hadn’t.

He wondered what ole Ray was up to. Though they’d have to hold Jimmy’s dick over a flame to get him to admit it, he wouldn’t have minded a little of Ray’s smarts right about now.

Because Jimmy kept circling back to the same thing. If the victims were substitute Gillian Grays, and the creep was after the real thing, why not give it to him?

Gillian frowned at the blowup of the photograph she’d taken at the lake behind Harley’s cabin. She was in the basement of her grandparents’ house, where she’d set up a small studio years ago. Remnants of her early work still hung from beams and posts. Stuff she’d done when she was seventeen. Huge black-and-white pictures of her palm, the life line scratched and hand tinted red. Close-ups of the scars on her arms. All experiments with film and color, light and shadow.

It had been ages since she’d been down here, but now she was back, reunited with her Nikon and her portable digital scanner. The camera hung from a hook on one of the posts in case she got a fast urge to shoot something. The scanner sat on a board between a stack of cinder blocks. She perched on a stool in front of a huge drawing board, and the lake stared back at her.

She wondered what Harley would say if she asked him for permission to do a piece back there. Her shoots were massive events—more like movie shoots—with large, intricate sets and dozens of crew members, including grips, best boys, lighting technicians, set builders, set dressers, carpenters, propmasters, wardrobe, and all their various assistants. The eight-by-ten color negatives she shot ended up as giant digital chromogenic prints, often more than seven feet wide.

She smiled, imagining that Harley would not care to put up with the disturbance to his routine.

Not that she’d get that far. At least not if she couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the lake shoot. She set the photograph aside and pulled out a tracing of the blowup. She used this to play with composition, move components around, add set pieces or take them away. Heavy black lines on the white paper indicated trees, shoreline, and dock in simplified shapes. What looked like a crime-scene outline of a body stood in for victim, whom she’d placed diagonally on the shore, ankles still in the water. Gillian wanted her on her back, grit and pebbles on the dead girl’s face, eyes open to the silent, uncaring sky. But something felt out of sync. Maybe if she twisted the body more?

She sketched in a new position. Stood back and gave it a critical look. That unsatisfied feeling still nagged at her.

Picking up the pencil again, she began reshading the contours of the corpse and the shore. Her hand moved in desultory fashion, and as if it had a mind of its own, a crude figure appeared beneath her pencil.

She stared at it. Peoplewise, she’d never had more than herself in a photograph.

She filled in the figure. A man. It was a man. Her heart began to pound.

Frantic, she scrambled for the three-by-fives she’d printed off the digital camera. Found what she was looking for, blew it up until the figure was big enough to excise. She grabbed the X-Acto, and with a few deft strokes, slashed it out.

Her cautious, trembling fingers placed the figure on the sketch. Standing on the shore over the dead body. Watching. Always watching.

Ray.

She wanted Ray in that photograph.

The shock of recognition hit her like a tidal wave, and she jerked to her feet, an instinctive reaction of denial. She yanked his picture away. Stared at the tracing paper sketch. Slowly, put him back in.

She hadn’t seen him for two days. Not since the board meeting. Carleco had washed its hands of her, and so, it seemed, had Ray.

Well, she could hardly blame him. She practically threw him out the door.

She moved the picture of him slightly, testing the effect. It was the photo she’d taken of him that first day on the grounds. He was wearing his dark, G-man suit. He looked sober and a little annoyed but trying not to show it. She smiled. So very Ray.

An unwanted stab of regret went through her.

Thank God, her cell phone rang. Glad of the interruption, she grabbed it.

“Miss Gray? Detective Burke. Got a minute? I have a proposition I think will strike your fancy.”

She couldn’t imagine the hulking Detective Burke could have anything of interest to tell her, but listening to him was better than moping about someone else.

It didn’t take Burke long. A few seconds, and she understood what he wanted from her. She clutched the phone, unable to stop the thrill that shivered through her.

“I’ll do it,” she said, cutting him off in midsentence. “I’ll do it.”

42

Ray poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot he’d just made in the kitchen. Taking it with him, he wandered into what was supposed to be a dining area, but which only consisted of a small table and a couple of chairs. In lieu of pulling one out, he arced a leg over the back and plopped down, a familiar shortcut. The paper sat on top of the table, still stuffed like a sausage in its blue plastic casing. He stared at it a minute, knowing it could make up the meat of his morning, on this the fifth day of his self-styled vacation.