Thr3e (13 page)

I hope you are listening, you snake
. She clenched her jaw.

Kevin offered an anemic smile. Apparently he understood, but he wasn’t in a place to like anything about Slater’s game. “The threes could be coincidental,” he said. “Maybe.”

“Nothing is coincidental with this guy. His mind works on a whole different plane than most. Can I see the cell phone he gave you?”

He pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to her. She flipped it open and scrolled through the activity log. One call at
4:50
yesterday afternoon, as reported.

“Okay, keep this with you. Don’t give it to the police, and don’t tell them I told you not to give it to them.”

That earned her a soft grin, and she couldn’t resist returning it. They’d take a crack at tracking Slater’s number and triangulating his position, but she wasn’t optimistic. There were too many ways to beat the system.

“We’ll bug the phone—”

“He said no cops.”

“I mean we, the FBI. We’ll use a local device that will attach to the cell. I doubt a conventional listening device will do us any good—too easy to scramble and limited on range. The recording device will be noticeable, a small box we’ll fix to the back here.” She drew her finger through an inch square on the back of the silver phone. “It’ll contain a small chip we can remove for analysis later. Not exactly real-time surveillance, but it may be all that we get next time.”

He took the phone back. “So I do what he says? Play his game?”

She nodded. “I don’t think we have a choice. We’ll take him at his word. He calls you; the second you hang up, you call me. He’ll probably know about it, and then I guess we’ll know what he means by no cops.”

Kevin stood and paced to the kitchen counter and back. “Detective Milton grilled me on motivation. Without motivation you have nothing. I can understand that. I think I have an idea.”

“Go ahead.”

“Hate.”

“Hate. That’s pretty broad.”

“Slater hates me. I can hear it in his voice. Raw contempt. There are few things left in this world that are pure, from my observation. The hate in this man’s voice is one of them.”

She looked up at him. “You’re observant. The question is why. Why does Slater hate you?”

“Maybe not me, but my type,” Kevin said. “People tend to react to other people in wholesale rather than detail, right? He’s a minister, so I hate him. She’s beautiful, so I like her. One month later you wake up and realize you have nothing in common with the woman.”

“Do you have firsthand experience on the subject or are you just spinning this from a sociology text?”

Kevin blinked, caught off guard. Unless her intuition was misfiring, he had very little experience with women.

“Well . . .” He ran his hand over his head. “Both, sorta.”

“This may qualify as new knowledge, Kevin, but there are men who judge a woman by more than her appearance.” She wasn’t sure why she felt obligated to say as much; she’d found no offense in his remark.

He didn’t bat an eye. “Of course. I see you and you’re beautiful, but my attraction to you is based on your caring. I can tell that you really do care about me.” He broke eye contact again. “I mean, not in the way it sounds. As your case is what I mean. Not as a man—”

“I understand. Thank you. That was a nice thing to say.”

The short exchange felt absurd. Kevin sat back down and for a moment neither spoke.

“But your point is valid,” Jennifer said. “Most serial offenders choose victims based on what they represent, not on personal offenses. It’s the meticulous thought that Slater has put into this case that makes me wonder if we aren’t dealing with personal motivation here. Obsession comes to mind. He’s taken a very personal interest in you.”

Kevin looked away. “Could be that he’s just a very meticulous person.” He seemed particularly interested in depersonalizing the motive.

“You’re a profiler—what is my profile?” Kevin asked. “Based on what you know, what is there about me that might set off someone?”

“I don’t have enough to offer—”

“No, but based on what you do know?”

“My first blush? Okay. You’re a seminary student. You take life seriously and have a higher intelligence than most. You’re caring and kind and gentle. You live alone and have very few friends. You’re attractive and carry yourself with confidence, notwithstanding a couple nervous habits.” It occurred to Jennifer as she ran down the list that Kevin was an unusually good person, not merely innocent. “But it’s your genuine innocence that stands out. If Slater has no personal stake in you, he hates you for your innocence.”

There was more to Kevin than she could see at first glance, much more. How could anyone dislike, much less hate, Kevin Parson?

“You remind me of my brother,” she said. Then she wished she hadn’t.

What if the Riddle Killer wanted Jennifer to see the similarities between Roy and Kevin? What if he’d chosen Kevin because he intended to make Jennifer live through the hell once again?

Pure speculation.

Jennifer rose. “I have to get back to the lab. The police will be here shortly. If there’s anything you need, or if you think of anything else, call. I’ll have one of our men watch the house. Promise me you will never leave alone. This guy likes to drop his little bombs when they’re least expected.”

“Sure.”

He looked lost. “Don’t worry, Kevin. We’ll make it through this.”

“In one piece, hopefully.” He grinned nervously.

She put her hand on top of his. “We will. Trust me.” She once said those same words to Roy to calm him down. Jennifer removed her hand.

They stared at each other for a moment.
Say something, Jennifer
. “Remember, he wants a game. We’re going to give him a game.”

“Right.”

Jennifer left him standing in his doorway looking anything but confident.
Trust me
. She considered staying until the techs arrived, but she had to get back to the evidence. She’d cornered the Riddle Killer once, before he’d gone after Roy, and she’d done it through careful analysis of the evidence. She did her best work when climbing around in criminals’ minds, not holding their victims’ hands.

On the other hand, Kevin was no ordinary victim.

Who are you, Kevin?
Whoever he was, she decided that she liked him.

9

K
EVIN HAD NEVER FELT entirely comfortable around women—because of his mother, Sam insisted—but Jennifer seemed different. As a professional it was her job to engender trust, he knew, but he’d seen more than the expected professional facade in her eyes. He’d seen a real woman who’d warmed to him beyond the demands of her job. He wasn’t sure how that translated to her capability as an investigator, but he felt certain he could trust her sincerity.

Unfortunately, it did nothing for his confidence.

Kevin walked to the telephone and dialed Samantha’s number. She answered on the fifth ring.

“Sam.”

“Hi, Sam. The FBI was just here.”

“And?”

“Nothing new, really. She thinks it’s the Riddle Killer.”

“She?”

“The agent. Jennifer Peters.”

“I’ve heard of her. Listen, there’s a chance I may need to fly back to Sacramento today. Actually, I have my office on the other line. Can I call you right back?”

“Everything okay?”

“Give me a few minutes and I’ll explain, okay?”

He hung up and glanced at the clock.
8:47
. Where were the police? He checked the dishwasher. Half full. He dumped in some detergent and turned it on. It would take him a week to fill the thing up, and by that time it would begin to smell sour.

Slater would have his hands full; that much was good. Surely between Sam, Jennifer, and the Long Beach police he would be safe. Kevin crossed to the refrigerator.

Jennifer thinks I’m nice. I don’t care if I’m nice—I want to be alive. And I wouldn’t mind if Slater were dead. How nice is that? If a man gossips, is he not nice? The bishop gossips, so he’s not nice.
Kevin sighed.
Here I am rambling again while the world’s blowing up around me.
What would the psychobabblist say about that?

I don’t know why I do it, Doctor, but I think the strangest things at the oddest times.

So do all men, Kevin. So do all men. Women don’t, of course. The female tends to be the more intelligent or at least the more stable of the sexes. Turn the country over to them and you’ll wake up to find the potholes down your street filled in like they should have been a year ago. You’re just a man finding his way in a mad world gone madder, madder hatter. We’ll break that down next session if you drop another check in the pay box over there. Two hundred this time. My kids need . . .

Kevin twitched. He didn’t remember opening the fridge, but now, standing in front of the open door, the milk jug filled his vision. Someone had scrawled a large
3
on the Albertsons jug with a black magic marker, and above it three words:

It’s so dark

Slater!

Kevin released the door and stepped back.

When? What’s so dark? The
fridge
is so dark? Was this another riddle? He had to tell Jennifer! No, Samantha. He had to tell Sam!

Dread crept into his bones. Where is it so dark? In the cellar. The boy! He stood still, unable to breathe. The world began to spin.
It’s so dark.

Dear God, it
was
the boy!

The door closed on its own. He backed to the wall. But Slater had said he wasn’t the boy!
What boy?
he’d said.

The events of that night so long ago swept over him.

For a whole week after young Kevin’s encounter with the bully, he waited in agony. Dark circles gathered under his eyes and he caught a cold. He made up a story about falling out of bed to explain the bruises on his face. His mother had put him to bed early in the afternoon to fight the cold. He just lay there, sweating on the sheets. His fear wasn’t for himself, but for Samantha. The boy had promised to hurt her, and Kevin was sick with worry.

Six days later a tap had finally sounded on his window. He’d eased the blind up, holding his breath. Sam’s smiling face stared at him from the backyard. Kevin nearly hit the ceiling in his excitement. As it turned out, Sam had been away at camp. She was horrified by his haggard features, and only after much urging did she convince him to come out to talk. No one would see them; she swore it. He made her search for the boy all around the yard, just to make sure. When he did sneak out, he went only just beyond his own fence, keeping a watchful eye on the greenway. They sat there, hidden in the shadows, and he told Sam everything.

“I’ll tell my dad,” she said. “You think if he licked my window we’ll still be able to see it?”

Kevin shuddered. “Probably. You have to tell your dad. You should go tell him right now. But don’t tell him about me sneaking out to see you. Just tell him I was walking by and saw the boy at your window and he chased me. Don’t even tell him that he . . . did anything to me. Your dad might tell my mom.”

“Okay.”

“Then come back and tell me what he says.”

“You mean tonight?”

“Right now. Go home by the street and watch out for the boy. He’s going to kill us.”

By now Sam was scared, despite her typical optimism. “Okay.” She stood and brushed off her shorts. “My dad might not let me back out. In fact, he might even make me stay home for a while if I tell him.”

Kevin thought about that. “That’s okay. At least you’ll be safe; that’s the main thing. But please, come back as soon as you can.”

“Okay.” She held out her hand and pulled him up. “Friends for life?”

“Friends for life,” he said. He gave her a hug and she ran off toward the street.

Sam didn’t come back to his window that night. Or the next. Or for three weeks. They were the loneliest weeks of Kevin’s life. He tried to convince his mom to let him out, but she wouldn’t hear of it. He tried to sneak out during the day twice, not through the window, of course—he could never risk Mother discovering the screw or the loose board. He went over the back fence, but only got as far as the first tree on the greenway before Bob began to wail. He barely made it back onto the ash heap before Mother hurried out in a tizzy. The other time he went through the front door and made it all the way to Sam’s house only to find, as he had known he would, that she was gone to school. His mom was waiting for him when he tried to sneak back in, and he spent the next two days in his room.

Then, on the twenty-second day, the tap came at his window. He peeked very carefully, terrified that it might be the boy. He would never be able to describe the warmth that flooded his heart when he saw Sam’s face in the moonlight. He fumbled with the screw and yanked the window open. They threw their arms around each other before he tumbled out and ran with her through the fence.

“What happened?” he asked, breathless.

“My dad found him! He’s a thirteen-year-old who lives on the other side of the warehouses. I guess the boy has caused trouble before; Dad knew him when I described him. Oh, you should have seen my dad, Kevin! I’ve never seen him so angry. He told the boy’s parents that they had two weeks to move, or he was going to haul their boy off to jail. Guess what? They moved!”