Scare Me (18 page)

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

 
 

Will was standing outside the den, the spotless hallway an anteroom to a grisly slaughterhouse. Whatever she'd done, he had to secure his souvenir with his fingers and his mind. The screams of the man's death now only echoed in his memory. The silence from behind the closed door seemed bloated and ugly. He drew in some scented air through his nostrils and opened it.

When he saw the body of the man who, less than half an hour ago, had been living and breathing and frantically trying to free himself from his bonds, Will immediately recalled the last words the woman had said.

Out of sight, out of mind.
 

He was seated on the couch, but still bound, the black tape in place over his mouth. Blood circled him like a dark spotlight. His cheeks ran with it and thick streams had escaped from his nostrils and soaked into his moustache. His eyes had been carved out, the deep pits of shadow removing every trace of sentience from the shell of his head. But what made the dead man appear to be nothing more than a husk, a macabre Halloween ornament, was the fact the cap of his skull had been removed.

Will knew where he was to find his prize. The man's head had been emptied out so a substantial object could be concealed in the place where his brain had been.

 

Will put the polythene parcel into his inside jacket pocket and made for the pool room door. He would take the stairs. He didn't want to summon the elevator and breathe the same air as she had.

“Anybody home?” It was a friendly, cautious male drawl of a voice.

Will stopped dead in the doorway. Somebody had walked into the apartment through the open front entrance. He could hear tentative footfalls in the hallway moving closer. There was no way he could close the door and conceal his presence; his shadow had already fallen on the wall opposite. Whoever they were, they knew he was there. He had to seal the room from the other side and conceal the body.

Will thrust his gloved hands into his jacket pockets, stepped forward and was confronted by a man in a tan suede suit with shoulder length, white locks and a solid potbelly poking his check shirt out of his belt. His facial hair was the same colour and wavering between stubble and a beard. Standing next to him was an emaciated, leather-clad teenager who would have been entirely androgynous if not for the pencil line sideburns that slit his gaunt cheeks. They stopped in their tracks just inside the hall.

“Sorry. Who are you?” The man spoke first, bushy eyebrows like shutters of suspicion over his piercing blue eyes.

He seemed strangely familiar, but Will could still see the butchered body out of the corner of his right eye.

“I was under the impression that nobody would be here this weekend.” The man gazed past Will's shoulder as if looking for other interlopers.

A neighbour? Will was relieved they'd halted where they had. “Well, I'm sorry...you were misinformed.” If he closed the door in the middle of their surprise encounter it would look immediately suspicious, particularly if they saw he was wearing gloves. Should he be reacting more to the fact these people had just walked in unannounced? “Can I help?”

“Jake gave you your own keys?”

Nodding, Will looked from his inquisitor's face to the teenager who looked sleepy, stoned or bored. “Yes.” He met the man's gaze again, but resisted asking him who he was. The corpse waited to be introduced. “I'll be gone in a couple of days.”

The man looked at the carpet and waved his hand dismissively.

“Do you have a message I can give Jake?” Will used the name he was expected to be familiar with. Did it belong to the victim?

The man closed his eyes and sternly shook his head, like even suggesting it was foolish. “No, no, no – nice to have made your acquaintance, come on.” He hurried the teenager back out of the door and closed it behind them.

Will waited, not allowing relief to relax his shoulders. The pair didn't speak as they got into the elevator. As soon as he heard them descend he sealed the doors to the pool room and the apartment, grabbed the laptop and took the stairs.

He felt as hollowed out as the man he'd left behind. His legs attempted to maintain rhythm as he spiralled down the stairwell but, after three flights, his feet became unsynchronised. He almost fell headfirst and had to put one palm against the concrete wall. He wanted to leap down to each level, but had to compose himself and take the steps one at a time.

When he eventually made it through the exit into the foyer, he burst the front doors wide. The keen breeze played over the mask that had set into the muscles of his face. There was no sign of the visitors. The package was in his pocket, violet silk that had been compressed inside the sealed polythene. He peeled off the gloves, took the steps slow and kept walking.

He headed down East Went Street, towards the glow of green water at the end. He didn't know where he was going, he just knew he had to keep moving, not give himself any pause to contemplate. Suddenly police vehicles were pulling up behind him.

He turned, pacing backwards. A white car with blue stripes had already ejected its pair of uniformed occupants. His heel slid off the edge of the sidewalk, but he managed to right himself before he toppled. Somebody was meeting them at the entrance.

Had she called them again or was it the neighbour? The apartment seemed pretty well soundproofed, but if they hadn't picked up the screams they might have registered the impacts when Will tried to kick the door down. He turned and strode faster, almost at the end of the block. The lake expanded before him, grubby malachite water on the shoreline extending to deep blue. As he reached the corner, he looked back again. There was significant distance between them now, but Will could see the blobs of their faces turned in his direction.

Could they see his face? He felt as if testimony was tacked there. He took a few breaths and tried to squint their expressions into focus. One of the officers moved quickly to the car. Will hastily rounded the corner onto the busy street.

He slid himself into the back of an available cab and turned to observe the police car exit the end of East Went and glide past. Distance seemed like the best option so he told the driver to take him to the East Side. The pensioner in the front seat nodded his remaining wisps of silvery hair and peered over the wheel for an opening. They pulled out, overtook and quickly left the police car behind.

As the taxi weaved through the rush hour, Will grazed the cursor on the next house. It was a cut-out of an institutional frontage – tan cinder blocks and a characterless grey door, a window to its right and above. It was not yet active. How could it be? She was only ahead of him by a handful of minutes.

“You want me to take you over the state line?” The driver's acid enquiry seemed to come only moments after they'd set off. But when Will glanced at the meter, he realised how far they'd travelled. The sign said they were about to hit the highway.

“Where's the nearest park?” Will didn't want to incarcerate himself in another coffee shop or restaurant.

The driver said nothing but hung a right. Soon they were on East Columbus Drive before taking a left at Donut Kingdom. Will spotted a phone shop. He got the driver to drop him outside and paid him off with his credit card. He bought himself a disposable mobile and then walked down to the entrance of Washington Park.

It was bizarre to be suddenly surrounded by such a natural backdrop. The sun prickled his scalp and the sound of birds seemed surreal. Lone readers, sunbathers and small congregations of people had spread themselves over the rich green expanse in front of him. It reminded him of flying the Longranger over the parks in London, looking down at the pockets of civilisation. He wanted to be hovering above this place now, a divorced observer and the activity below only insignificant pinpricks of colour.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

 

Pope and Weaver got out of the cab in East Went Street to an all too familiar scene.

“Two patrol cars, what do we do? They're not going to let us anywhere near the place.” Weaver looked back the way they came as a siren announced another car's arrival.

“We shoot the apartment, find out what we can, cover ourselves here until we know where Frost is headed next.” Pope leaned in to the driver. “Can you park up and wait? We might need to leave in a hurry.”

The cabby pulled in snug against the sidewalk and switched off his engine.

Weaver slipped the iPad out of his kitbag and checked it. “We're good for now.”

 

Tam shivered under the lorry. He didn't know how long he'd been hiding there, but although there was no natural light in the loading bay he knew not enough time had elapsed for it to be morning. His parents probably didn't know he was missing yet. Even when day came, with the factory closed for hygiene checks, there was no guarantee that anyone would lift the shutter or unlock the door to the main floor.

At the moment his only path out were the steps to the chicken house and Skinny Man was still down there. Plus it sounded like he'd locked the sliding door. He'd heard him striding back and forth along the gantry a few times. Unless he was conducting a search elsewhere it appeared he believed Tam had managed to escape over the gates.

His neck straightened as he heard Skinny Man's muffled phone ringing. A childlike tune he didn't recognise. He heard footfalls on the steps and then the door opening and his progress across the gantry again.

Tam edged backwards as the loading bay went quiet. Keys scraped a lock and the door to the factory was opened. He heard an apology from Skinny Man in his own language and then another male voice speaking quickly. He couldn't understand what he was saying, but recognised it was tourist language and that he was telling Skinny Man off.

The door slammed and the keys rattled before the bay fell silent again. Tam counted to fifty and then crawled slowly forward through the slick of oil. When he peered out from behind the front tyre of the lorry he quickly ducked his head back in. The two men hadn't gone through the door, but were standing silently in front of it surveying the loading bay.

He closed his eyes and counted onwards from fifty in his head, willing everything outside of the numbers to evaporate. At eighty-eight the men moved across the gantry again and went back down the stairs to where the girl was. Tam continued counting.

 

Will came to a beaux-art statue in Washington Park called Fountain of Time. The oppressed figures of Taft's procession of the doomed cowered from the warm daylight. Across the water, the imposing and hooded Father Time looked down at them from his pedestal. Its static participants reminded Will of the cadavers that had been composed for him. He circled it then seated himself on its low sidewall. He called Carla on the office number with the disposable phone.

“Please don't switch your mobile off again. The GPS says you're heading back towards the airport…Will?”

He could hear her breathing and leaned into the sound. He closed his eyes and took the weight of his body against the phone.

She spoke before him. “They've found a child alive.” It was a development she knew he had to hear.

The statement slowly filtered through. “Where?”

“At the Monro place, their daughter.”

“Monro?” His blunted senses started to revive.

“She was found wandering in the street and the police were called.”

“Who's Monro?”

“Strick's ex-private secretary, Wesley Monro, the one he'd been accused of having an affair with.”

“Monro is a man?”

“Married and living with his family in the house in Bel Air.”

“Their girl survived?” He had to make her say it again.

“Molly Monro, she's in police custody, too traumatised to speak. It's on CNN.”

Will had left the little girl behind. The implications of that jolted him deeply. But he'd searched all the rooms. Had she fled or been hiding in the house?

“The reports are connecting the two murders because they were committed so close together. And obviously because of Strick and Monro's association.”

Will recalled the yellow raincoat hanging in the hallway. She'd escaped.

“They don't expect the girl to make a statement anytime soon, but they're still questioning witnesses.”

Will guessed the police officers, the old man next door and the softball kids in the street. He wondered if they'd seen anyone but him enter the address.

“But there's still no description of this woman.” Carla sounded frazzled.

“I've seen her.”

“At the apartment?”

An elderly lady in sweats and pushing a shopping cart full of flattened beer cans shuffled in front of Will. He got to his feet and turned away from her. “I've seen her once already, leaving the Strick's house, although I didn't realise it at the time. And today in the apartment.” He gazed at the constituents of the statue, the lovers, the mounted soldier and the crouched, hooded figures.

“What happened?”

How could he begin to tell her? “I got what we needed. I glimpsed her face.” The mobile suddenly felt too small for the conversation. “Slim, long, dark hair; I don't know who she is.”

“It's not a lot to go on.”

“Doesn't sound like anybody who's ever come to work for us at the house?”

“It's just Regina now, you know that.”

“Think harder. I'm out of ideas here.” His temper briefly spiked.

Although the sun was starting to burn his head, fat raindrops fell.

She waited for him to collect himself. “I'm doing background checks on everyone who's been in our employ. They still haven't posted any new photos of Libby and Luke.”

Will recalled the unsettling conversation he'd had when he'd landed at O'Hare. “We shouldn't expect them to. Listen, I want you to step up security there.”

“What's happened?”

“There was another photo…you this time.” Now it was his turn to mollify. “It's just a device to terrorise us, but I want you to take every precaution. Speak to security.”

“Which photo?” She couldn't disguise her alarm.

“It was taken at the rally.”

“So is this a caution from Motex?”

“Seems way too heavy-handed and obvious, even for Wardour. But that open day was an ideal opportunity for someone to gather the images for the site.”

“We shouldn't dismiss it as a possibility.”

“I'm not dismissing anything, but time's running out and we need to gain some ground. There's a reason you couldn't reach me in the apartment.”

“What did you do, Will?” There was immediate condemnation in the question.

“When I arrived there I found a purse I remembered her carrying the night I ran into her in Ellicott City. I opened it. It was full of cosmetics, ordinary things.”

“You took something from her?”

“No.”

“There would have been some DNA on a comb or a lipstick.”

Carla was right, but Will had acted on a more immediate solution to tracing her. “I muted my phone and hid it there.”

There was only a buzz from Carla's end.

“Slipped it into one of the makeup pockets and zipped it up.” When Carla didn't react he continued. “We'll be able to track her using the GPS.”

“That was a stupid risk. What if she finds it?”

“I haven't broken any of her rules. But I'm two houses from home and she's murdered everyone along the route. We need some sort of insurance.”

“Molly Monro was spared.”

“That could have been an accident, an oversight. What makes you believe she doesn't plan for us to suffer exactly the same fate as everyone else? This whole campaign has been built around us. We're the targets. I didn't think. I just did it.”

Carla fell briefly silent. “It's done now.” There was reproach in her voice. “We just have to pray it stays hidden.”

“Can you see her on the GPS?”

A pause. “So it's her that's en route to the airport. Where are you?”

“Washington Park.” Will activated the laptop. “What's your password for that?”

She told him and he opened up the same tracking map. “Another flight ahead.” He closed his eyes and exhaled.

“Look, we've got this far…
you've
got this far.”

The words were familiar. It was what he'd said to her, or something very much like it, when she'd been pregnant with Jessie.

Carla's initial excitement at being an expectant mother in her forties had swiftly been bulldozed by severe cramps and intense morning sickness. Every step of her pregnancy had been hard won, but he'd blithely offered the same words of encouragement, never believing anything could possibly go wrong.

They both knew the risks of being older parents, but having brought up Libby they'd been looking forward to enjoying the experience with foresight and not as the terrified couple they'd been seventeen years earlier. Even when he'd driven her to the hospital in agony, Will never expected what had happened less than an hour after their arrival.

He remembered Libby standing at the end of the driveway when he'd brought Carla home, the part of them they'd all waited for left behind in the hospital. The complexion of the house that, until then, they'd only enjoyed happy memories in had changed irrevocably. But they'd all shared an unrefined conviction that they'd emerge the other side.

Droplets trickled down the screen as he studied the basic façade of his next destination.