The Watcher (39 page)

They lifted the table and shoved aside the four chairs surrounding it. Then they eased the refrigerator from the wall by rocking the sides back and forth until the rug was completely freed and they could raise one edge.

Rather than being a doorway, as Slater had anticipated, the access was a hatched entry with a lift-up, brass ring.

“This is it,” he said, pointing to the hatch.

“You think they know we’re here?” Bauer asked.

“If Kate had heard us, she’d be screaming her head off.”

“Unless – ”

“Don’t even think about it,” Slater snapped. “We have to assume all three of them are down there, and that McClelland didn’t hear us because we haven’t heard him. We proceed with caution and the assumption that Kate’s still alive. First, we get Kate and the Sheriff. Then we get this animal.”

Bauer fetched the other men while Slater and Randolph waited. Everyone knew silence was critical from now on. “In the vault” they called it, using a term from an old Seinfeld episode. Meaning dead silence. Once they raised the hatch, they had to assume their sounds could be heard below.

Slater assigned one federal agent to the inside of the front door, the other to the back. Speckling and Randolph to guard the outside perimeter in case there was another egress from the shelter and the perp tried to escape through it.

He gripped the heavy brass ring. They had no way of knowing what lay beneath the house. The opening could be booby-trapped, it could send a signal to warn the killer immediately that his burrow had been breached, or it could simply be empty.

No, Slater was certain Kate was there – dead or alive.

“Should we call for backup?” Borem whispered.

“No time. You stay here and guard the hatch. Bauer and I’ll go down.”

He carefully raised the hatch and placed a finger over his lips. They knew the signal. Slater motioned he’d descend first, then Bauer.

A flight of sturdy wooden steps wound farther down than Slater would’ve imagined, down into a cavernous darkness. There was no indication from the outside that a whole world existed below this house in the rich soil of northern California.

Slater held his breath and groped the wooden railing. He couldn’t see more than a few feet below him. Dust clung to the steps and railing. God, don’t let one of them sneeze. He descended backwards ladder-style, glancing over his shoulder and finally seeing a tiny pinpoint of light below.

They dropped into the lair of the monster Caliban.

Chapter Forty-six

The first distant shuffle was so faint Kate thought she was mistaken. However, as Joseph reached to unloosen her other wrist, he paused abruptly, his face as alert as a bloodhound on the scent of a fox.
Had he heard it too?

When the second noise repeated on the heels of the first, she knew she wasn’t deluding herself. She’d heard a stealthy disruption to the unearthly quiet surrounding them. She coughed loudly and scrutinized Joseph for an indication he understood what the sound meant.

He stared at her intently.

“I’m thirsty,” she whispered.

“Do you want some water?”

“No, no.” She didn’t want his attention diverted. She lowered her voice, forcing him to move closer. “I want something else.”

Dear God, she pleaded silently, let it be help. Let it be Slater. Don’t let Joseph hear.
Keep him distracted.

She listened for the muffled noise again, prayed she’d hear it once more, needed to hear it to reassure herself. To verify that Slater was here and coming to rescue her, even though she knew a third sound would certainly alert the monster.

From a deep, primal place within her, Kate summoned the courage to say what she needed to. “Would you like to touch me, Joseph? I’d like to touch you.” Her skin crawled with the thought of his hands on her. Of her touching his hideous body.

He caressed her cheek, and she forced herself to lie still. A flinch or cringe would betray her. Her free arm lay lifeless at her side, numb and tingling. Now that her hand was unfettered, he’d expect her to touch him.

“You’re very pretty,” Joseph said, trailing a finger down her neck and across the top of her breast. “I never saw anyone so beautiful.”

“You think I’m pretty?”

“Your eyes are like my mother’s.”

Buy time for Slater. Please let the sound be Slater coming to save her. Don’t let her die without telling him she was sorry, that she forgave him, that she thought she might even love him. She needed to forgive him, have him forgive her.

Her heart thundered in her chest. “You can kiss me if you like, Joseph. You can touch me.”

“Okay, I want to – but I don’t know if I can – you know – do the thing.” His voice was a mixture of self-pity and loneliness, the sound of every rejected teenager she’d ever known. “If I try, you’ll laugh at me like the others.”

Kate strengthened her resolve. “Oh, but I won’t, I won’t. I won’t laugh. I know how to do the thing. I’ll show you, I promise. But you have to untie my other hand first.”

He untied the other wrist.

“And my legs.”

She knew immediately that in her eagerness to escape, she’d made a mistake. The change was lightning fast. For one brief second the man’s face was both hopeful and yearning. Then lunacy descended over his features, his eyes turned cold and flinty, his voice charged with derision.

“Do you think I’m stupid, bitch?” he asked. The quiet threat in his voice was more alarming than his earlier ranting. “I’ve known girls like you all my life, heartless sluts, vile women who eat a man’s soul. My mother was a cunt just like you.”

Before she could answer, he picked up the knife from the floor and held it against her carotid artery. Kate felt a tiny prick and the warm oozing of liquid down her neck.

“You’re going to be so sorry you tried to trick me,” he growled. “I’m going to slice and dice you.” The man laughed at his own joke, a calculating look in his eyes. Then burst into maniacal cackling.

#

Slater heard Kate’s voice through the open archway, took in the scene in an instant: the man wielding a long-bladed knife, Kate’s lovely body, dirty and bruised, naked on a filthy makeshift bed. And registered in seconds that she was alive.

But for how long?
He assessed the blood trickling from her neck. Trickling, not spurting. McClelland had nicked her. On purpose? As part of his torture? Or would the next cut sever the artery?

Kate’s eyes widened and Slater realized she’d seen him. He raised his revolver, set one foot on the last wooden step, the other flat on the concrete flooring. Not close enough for a clear shot, he edged away from the steps and flattened his body against the cement wall. Bauer trailed close behind.

Joseph McClelland hadn’t seen them yet.

Suddenly the man plunged his knife even as Kate twisted her torso away from the blade. The tiny bubble of blood welling from her neck became a torrent gushing down her back and arm, across her breast. Slater couldn’t tell how serious the cut was, but God, there was so much blood. She arched her body away from the man, and the second blow deflected against her back, opening a gaping wound in the muscle.

Slater screamed a warning. “Police. Put the weapon down. Do it, do it
now.”

He continued to shout and advance. The man pivoted, and taking in the two of them at the entrance to the second room, crouched behind Kate, the knife aloft, poised for another blow, a crazed grin plastered on his face.

“Stop. Police. Stop or I’ll shoot.”

Kate’s body was sheltering McClelland and Slater couldn’t take the shot. He moved toward the horrible scene, Kate bleeding and half-tied to a platform, a tattered army blanket lying near her feet. McClelland hovered at the edge of her body, the weapon angled for another plunge into her side.

Bauer circled from the opposite side so that the suspect was flanked to the right and left. McClelland’s head pivoted from Slater to Bauer and back again like a trapped animal searching for escape.

“Give it up, McClelland. You’re surrounded. You can’t get out of here. Put the knife down,” Slater commanded.

With resignation in his eyes, McClelland moved his hands out to the side in a classic sign of surrender. Then, without warning, he uttered a blood-curdling scream. He banged against the bed on which Kate lay as he rushed toward Slater in a deranged assault.

Opposite Slater, Bauer screamed, “Put down the weapon!”

McClelland continued his manic advance. Slater poised to take a lower body shot at McClelland just as Kate screamed his name.

In the second that Slater diverted his attention from the man rushing toward him to Kate toppling onto the hard cement floor, the killer hurled forward. He grappled Ben’s middle, plunged the knife upward, and aimed for a killing blow to the heart. Instead, the blade ripped through Slater’s side, laying open a chasm of flesh and muscle and deflecting off a rib. Slater’s revolver clattered out of reach.

Bauer quickly assessed the situation and screamed, “Down.”

Slater reacted immediately, understanding his partner’s intention. He realized Matt wouldn’t risk merely wounding McClelland. His partner aimed for the largest mass, and Slater fought through his pain and weakness to roll away from another plunge of the deadly knife.

The sound of the gun firing echoed in his ears. The bullet ripped through Joseph McClelland’s chest leaving a small entry wound and the forward spatter of the exit wound. The suspect slumped against Slater’s bleeding body, both of them bathed in blood.

Stunned silence filled the room for the space of several seconds before everyone reacted.

Even though McClelland was clearly dead, Bauer kicked the knife out of reach and bent to check for a pulse as the others rushed down the steps, weapons drawn.

“It’s clear,” he shouted. “He’s down. McClelland’s down.”

Slater watched with eyes rapidly glazing over as Bauer holstered his weapon and rushed to Kate. Her face was pale and wet, her exposed breasts smeared with blood coursing from her neck, the wound at her shoulder gaping nastily.

Matt ripped a corner of his shirt and wound it around her neck and shoulder, staunching the blood flow. Then he wrapped her naked, bleeding body in the ragged blanket.

Borem leaned over Slater. “Ouch, man, that looks nasty.”

“Never mind,” Slater groaned, struggling to get to his feet. “Kate, are you all right, are you okay?” he shouted across the room.

“Don’t be a shit-head idiot, Slater,” Borem bellowed, stuffing a discarded towel into the wound. “You’ll bleed to death if you don’t put pressure on this. It’s bad, man.”

Slater had no intention of staying where he was. He had to reach Kate, make sure she wasn’t critically wounded.

“Stay there, Ben,” Matt commanded. “I’ll bring Kate to you. The bleeding’s stopped.”

He lifted Kate from the floor and carried her across the room as if she weighed no more than the bales of hay Slater knew Bauer once hauled on his father’s farm.

“I don’t know which of you is worse off,” Matt clucked like a mother hen. “Damn fools.”

“Kate, Kate.” Slater repeated her name over and over, running his eyes over her body to see where she was hurt, inspecting for cuts and bruises. The wounds on her neck and back looked ghastly, but he didn’t think they were deep. He placed a kiss on top of her head.

Slater didn’t realize he was crying until Kate traced the wet trail down his cheeks. Her body shook convulsively and he held her as tightly as his shattered rib and bleeding wounds would allow.

“I knew you’d come, I knew you’d come,” she whispered against his face. “I was so afraid I wouldn’t be able to tell you I was sorry.”

“I was scared of losing you,” Slater admitted, holding on to her fiercely even though his side burned like the flames of hell. “Christ, Kate, I thought you were dead.”

The towel Borem had placed on Ben’s chest had soaked completely through when Kate took a look. “Oh no, Slater, this will need stitches. Look at the blood.”

“Superficial wound,” he ground out, knowing he lied through his clenched teeth, realizing the pain in his side meant at least one broken rib.

“Superficial, my ass,” Matt said. “Borem, see if there’s a first-aid kit in the cruiser. And, for fuck’s sake, make sure one of those idiot feds called an ambulance.”

It was the first time anyone had heard innocent farm boy Matt Bauer swear.

Slater breathed shallowly against the pressure in his chest and began the uncontrollable shivering that he knew signaled the onset of shock. He could feel the cut was deep, and his ribs hurt like hell, but as he felt himself slipping away, he clung to the thought that Kate was safe.

The truly mortal wound would’ve been losing her.

He knew he’d survive. He might even have a good reason to live now.

Chapter Forty-seven

As Slater had predicted, the Federal Bureau of Investigation took command of the case immediately, claiming primary jurisdiction because of the multiple interstate homicides. The preponderance of evidence pointed toward a sure conviction had McClelland not died in the concrete bunker.