Hunter: A Thriller (27 page)

“
Mmmm
.... Dark hat, dark trench coat or raincoat, I think.”

“Yes. That was him.... Thank you.”

“You have a nice evening, my dear.” The woman closed her door.

She stood there a moment, trying to make sense of it. The only sound was Luna scratching at the door.

FALLS CHURCH
,
VIRGINIA
Saturday, November 22, 9:15 a.m.

Even her third cup of coffee couldn’t compensate for the lack of sleep. And nothing she told herself could tamp down the rising tide of fear that had kept her awake.

She knew what she had seen. She spent all night trying to force it to fit into her conception of a sane world. But she couldn’t.

She had seen him leave his building, on foot—his departure confirmed by another eyewitness. She had seen him enter a public parking garage. And she had seen only one vehicle leaving that garage, right after he entered.

When they were training her in investigations, they made a big deal of
Occam’s
Razor: the principle that the simplest explanation for a given phenomenon was almost always the valid one. Now, Mr.
Occam
was telling her something both mysterious and ominous.

The simplest explanation was that a man known to her only by an admittedly false name, Dylan Hunter, had left his own car parked in the garage of his residence, and had taken instead a second vehicle—
a pizza delivery van
—from a parking place at a nearby garage that he could reach quickly, on foot.
Occam
told her that the van had to belong to Dylan, and that he was parking it there because he didn’t want it to be linked to him.

She didn’t know why. But she couldn’t imagine any reason that wasn’t criminal.

His false name. His secrecy about his past.

How well do you really know him? So far, we’ve been accepting him on blind trust.

Trust.

She knew so little. But what little she did know now shattered her resolution to confide in him.

During the night, she ordered herself to begin to detach from him, emotionally. She knew she had to put aside her feelings, now. She had to reclaim her objectivity. She had to use her skills as an investigator, if she were ever to find out the truth about the man calling himself Dylan Lee Hunter.

She went to the kitchen counter, where she had dropped her purse last night. She opened it and removed her cell and the business card. She tapped in the number.

“Cronin here.”

“Oh. Annie Woods here, Detective. I didn’t expect you to be at your desk on a Saturday. I figured I’d have to leave a voice mail.”

“Yeah, well, duty calls and I’m not at my desk. What can I do for you, Ms. Woods?”

“You said to call if I had any further information about Dylan. Well, I’m afraid I do.”

“‘Afraid.’ That doesn’t sound good. Look, I’m kind of busy right now. Can you give me the headlines?”

She did. She wondered why he remained silent after she finished speaking.

“Ms. Woods,” he said, his words sounding measured, “is there any chance we could meet today? Like, in an hour or two?”

“Why, sure. I suppose so. I have to warn you, though, I’m running on fumes. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Me either. We had another vigilante murder late last night.”

The way he said it bothered her. “Well, it sounds as if we both had busy nights. Before we meet, though—” She stopped.

“What?”

Just say it.

“I want to give you Dylan’s home address.”

BETHESDA
,
MARYLAND
Saturday, November 22, 9:55 a.m.

The sky had cleared from last night’s rain, so, still in his bathrobe, he took his coffee out onto his balcony. He bent and rested his elbows on the damp railing, sipping the hot liquid. That, combined with the chilly November air, helped to restore his alertness.

He was thinking about the events of the previous night when he heard the slider door open on the next balcony. Sarah Oglethorpe emerged, bundled in a long coat and carrying a black garbage bag, which she crammed into the trash bin she kept out there.

“Morning, Sarah,” he said, nodding.

She looked over, her face brightening. “Oh, good morning, Dylan. Did you have a nice evening?”

“Yes. You could say that.”

She looked impish. “I’ll bet you did. She is certainly adorable.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your lady friend. My, she’s lovely!”

He lowered the cup to the railing, steadying it there. “Are you referring to the woman I’ve been dating recently?”

“Well, before last night I didn’t know you were seeing anyone
.
But she certainly was eager to see
you
.”

Keep smiling. “I didn’t know you two had crossed paths.”

“Just after I came home. You remember that you and I passed each other near the elevator? Well, she happened along just a few minutes later. I heard her banging on your door and calling for you, so I told her you’d just left. She mentioned that she thought she saw you go, but wasn’t sure. Anyway, I told her that you’d probably be right back, then. I’m so glad she waited.”

Whatever you do, keep smiling. “Me, too. I really appreciate that, Sarah.” Confirm it was her. “So. I gather that you approve. Did you like her new hairstyle?”

“Oh, yes! So cute, those shorter cuts. They go so well on brunettes with wavy hair like hers.”

“That’s what I told her, too.... Well, Sarah, it’s a bit cold out here. Perhaps I’ll see you later this weekend.”

“You give the lady my regards, now.”

Smile. “I will.”

The smile vanished the second he got inside.

BETHESDA
,
MARYLAND
Thursday, November 27, 8:07 p.m.

For a special task force, they really weren’t very good.

The trick to surveillance detection is to never let them know that you’ve made them. Let them think they’re observing you undetected. Meanwhile, to make them start to doubt that you’re really a viable suspect, you do nothing but innocuous things. You bore them to death.

He’d picked up the team following him the minute he left his apartment, just before six o’clock. He drove over to the city lot across from the Barnes & Noble and parked. Then he spent half an hour browsing its bookshelves, before taking the thriller he’d purchased to a restaurant right around the corner. He sat there reading and eating for a bit, forcing the plainclothes cop they sent in to keep an eye on him nurse a beer at the bar. Finally, he led them on a grocery-shopping expedition before returning home.

There were two more
unmarkeds
staking out his building tonight, parked in spots different from the ones they occupied last night. He made them the minute he turned into the short side street running alongside the
highrise
. Never glancing in their direction, he swung down the ramp into the garage, leaving the Forester in its usual space.

Tonight, like all the previous nights since Annie had tipped them to his address, he’d been working to lull them into thinking that he wasn’t going anywhere.

He flipped on all the lights when he entered the apartment, left all the curtains wide open, too. See, fellows? Nothing to hide. Even though he swept his car and apartment and found no bugs, so far, he whistled while he put away the groceries and fed the cat—just in case they’d installed some while he was out.

The absence of bugs told him they didn’t have enough on him to get a court order. So this was still just a fishing expedition. Cronin and his buddies had suspicions, but nothing solid. Tonight, though, his goal was to satisfy them that they could rule him out as a suspect.

He turned on the TV in the living room, cranked up the volume a bit. Poured a glass of wine and made a show of walking past his windows with it in hand. Yep, just another lonely single dude, dumped by his girlfriend, spending another quiet, pathetic evening home alone with his cat. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along....

He collapsed onto the sofa, not bothering to watch the popular amateur dance competition on the tube. Luna had disappeared somewhere else in the apartment, leaving him alone with his plans. And his demons.

His “girlfriend.” He remembered when he’d called her that. He fought down his anger as her image flashed into his consciousness. It had been so long since he’d let anyone in. He’d let her in, all right. He had to admit it: He’d fallen in love. Hard. Like he’d never fallen for anyone before. Yes, he had opened himself, even admitting to her that he had been betrayed before.

And he’d been prepared to open up even more. All the way. To tell her everything, past and present. He had understood from the beginning that if this were to grow into something important, he couldn’t keep her in the dark. Eventually, she’d have to know.

For him, it
had
become something important. So important, that he was ready to walk away from everything else. Ready to let all the chips fall as they might, when he told her. Ready, because he thought she was worth it.

And look where it had gotten him.

She’d been playing him. How long, he wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter. And it didn’t matter that she loved him, either. Of that, he had no doubt; he could tell how conflicted she was. But he didn’t give a damn about her conflicts. You either love someone, or you don’t. You either trust somebody all the way, or you don’t. And she had betrayed him. That was all that mattered. She was working with the cops to bring him down. Why, he didn’t know. And couldn’t care less.

Not anymore.

Okay, so if she wanted to play him, he’d play her right back. She’d become part of his alibi for this evening.

He pulled a cell from his pocket, inserted its battery, and keyed in her number.

“Hello?”

He felt in icy control. “Hi, you.”

Hesitation. “Hi, you.”

“I’m just calling to tell you how much I miss you, Annie.”

Silence. Then: “Oh, Dylan. Me, too.... I wish I could be there tonight.... I’m so confused.”

Sure you are. “You still haven’t told me about what.”

“It’s so complicated.” She paused, then added: “There’s so much that we don’t know about each other.”

“Apparently not.” He heard the edge creeping into his voice. Careful.

“Remember what we talked about on our first date? That we both have trust issues?”

“I remember. Very well, in fact.”

“I...I just can’t seem to get past mine.”

He found himself gritting his teeth. “Well, I thought I’d gotten past mine. But maybe not.”

“Dylan—I keep going back and forth on this in my mind. Some days, I want desperately to see you. But other days, I just want to run away.”

“I know how you feel.”

A long pause.

“You sound so distant,” she said.

The undertow of anger began to tug at him. He didn’t want to say it, but he had to.

“I thought we had something very special, Annie. I don’t exactly know what happened. I feel blindsided, though. It still sounds as if you have some things to sort out. ‘Things,’ plural.”

She didn’t respond.

“Okay, so how about we leave it this way: Let’s take a bit of a break, a couple of weeks. Take the time to try to figure out what we each need. And whether what we each need can mesh together.”

“If that’s what you want.” Her voice sounded soft. Tentative.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with what I want. It’s what I think we need, though. You need some time. I do, too.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll call you again in a few weeks. Right now, though, I feel like crap. I think I’m going to wrap things up here, then turn in early.”

“All right,” she said. Then: “You promise you will call me, won’t you?”

“I promise,” he found himself saying.

“Dylan?”

“Yes?”

Her breath was coming in short, broken gasps. He realized she was crying.

“Dylan...I do love you.”

Someone was squeezing his chest, so tight that he could hardly breathe. He clenched his jaw tight. No, he wouldn’t say it. He had vowed to himself that he would never say that again. To her. To anyone.

He closed his eyes. “I love you, too, Annie.”

He had to snap the phone shut.

He cursed himself for his weakness. Cursed her for her hold on him.

This was no time to be a pussy. He had to focus on tonight’s mission. He knew he could always control his emotions when he focused on the mission.

After a few minutes, he felt the coldness return. She was just an alibi, now. Nothing more.

He checked his watch. Just after nine. Time to move.

He removed the battery from the cell, then went through the same routine he’d established on the previous nights. He clicked off the television, rose from the sofa, stood in front of the balcony door, and stretched. Then drew the curtains shut and turned off the living room lamps.

He went into the kitchen and filled Luna’s water bowl and food dish. She heard the noises and emerged from her hiding place to feast.

Entering the bedroom, he flipped on the lights and the other TV, then shut the curtains there, too. Unseen now, he spent the next five minutes sweeping the whole apartment for bugs. It was still clear.

He entered the walk-in closet, changed clothes, then went into the bathroom to do the rest of his prep. When he was done, he stood in front of the full-length mirror on its door, making sure everything looked just right.

At nine-forty, he set the timers on the circuits in the bedroom. He left the lights and TV on when he left the room, closing the door behind him.

It was dark in the living room, now. He sat down to wait. After a moment, Luna joined him on the sofa. She pranced back and forth under his hand as he pet her.

“Well, girl,” he said softly, “I’ve had to make some substitutions on the team. Since Hyattsville, things have gotten a little too hot for
Lex
, so I’ve benched him. Maybe permanently. Tonight will be Shane Stone’s turn again.” He smiled. “As we know, he’s every bit as good.”

He felt her flop against him, purring. He reached down, found and scratched her head. Sat there, thinking. Recalling the Vigilance for Victims meeting. Remembering the haunted faces.

Remembering his silent vow to them.

“You can’t walk away,” he repeated, aloud to himself. “You have to finish this. But there’s more to do, yet. A lot more.”

He felt the cat lick his hand with her sandpaper tongue. Felt himself smile in response.

“So, you still up for this?”

He heard a contented purr in the darkness.

“Glad you’re still on the team.”

*

He kept checking his illuminated watch. At nine minutes before ten, he rose, opened the door to the apartment, and checked outside. The hallway was clear. He slipped out, closing the door softly behind him, then moved quickly to the fire door onto the emergency stairwell. It took him a couple of minutes to descend to the garage level. From behind the door there, he peered outside. Watched an arriving couple get out of their car and walk toward the elevator. When its doors closed, he left the stairwell and walked without hurry over to the car.

It wasn’t the Forester, which remained in its spot on the other side of the garage. This one was a black 2007 BMW 7 Series High Security
sedan. Dark-tinted windows and lots of useful toys. He got in, not worrying about the garage’s security cameras. Their tapes, if ever checked, would reveal the vehicle’s registered owner: the older, wealthy, seldom-seen occupant of unit 7D.

*

At two minutes before ten, Cronin nudged his partner. A vehicle’s headlights were visible inside the garage’s entrance.

They watched a sleek black BMW emerge. “Nice wheels,” he said.

“Not his, though,”
Erskine
answered.

“Don’t assume. Remember, he had that pizza truck in the garage over there across the street.”

Erskine
pointed at the building and raised his binoculars. “Not him, though. I just saw his bedroom lights go off, this very second.”

Cronin looked. The bedroom window to his apartment, lit brightly just seconds ago, had gone almost dark; only the intermittent flickering of his television screen was visible through the linen curtains.

“See? He can’t be in two places at the same time. He’s up there watching TV, like he always does before he goes to sleep.”

At that moment, Cronin felt the vibration in his jacket pocket. He took out his cell and noticed the Caller ID. “It’s our girl,” he said, then flipped it open. “Ed Cronin here.”

“Sorry to bother you this late, Detective Cronin,” she said. Her voice sounded stressed.