Fair Game (21 page)

Elliot’s phone chirped.

Text message from [email protected]. He clicked on the message.

Soon.

He had no proof the Unsub was in this crowd. It was more likely that he
wasn’t
in this crowd. Except this guy liked risk, liked the thrill. He wasn’t afraid of being caught because he was confident he was stronger and smarter than everyone else. He might easily have followed Elliot this evening.

Or he might think Elliot was following him.

Now where had that thought come from? Elliot wasn’t sure. He stared around the room at the laughing, talking, drinking faces. No one was paying him any attention. No one was watching him. Roland was talking to three attractive older ladies with the long, straight hair and baggy peasant dresses that so many of his dad’s admirers favored. Anne was helping herself to another glass of champagne. Charlotte Oppenheimer had just arrived. He saw her wince at the human heartbeat soundtrack overhead.

No. There was something he was missing. Something obvious. Something as plain as the nose on his face.

The thought sank in. Elliot slowly turned back to the forest of marble bodies. Like human tombstones. He knew now what was odd.

Every single male nude was headless.

He wasn’t mistaken. He walked quickly through the exhibit. The female nudes were anatomically if coyly correct. All body parts present and accounted for. The male nudes were blazingly, flagrantly alive—and headless.

Every single one of them.

Elliot began to examine the statues for distinguishing marks or scars. Corian was too much of an artist—of an egotist—not to put them in, even if they could prove incriminating.

He looked around the sparkling room. The streamers wafted gently in the breeze from the main doors. Where was Corian?

If he had been watching Elliot closely, he probably had a very good idea of the deductions Elliot was making. Would he try to make a run for it?

No.

He had too much to lose. He might try to destroy any incriminating evidence, though. Yes. That seemed more like it. Depending on what that evidence might be.

Elliot pulled his cell phone out and called Tucker. Tucker’s phone was busy and the call went to message.

“I think the Unsub is Andrew Corian,” Elliot said quietly. “I think he knows I’m onto him. He may try and head back to his place. If he’s still here, I’ll try to see that he doesn’t leave.”
Fuck.
It was stupid trying to have this discussion with a message box in cyberspace. He hung up, searched the room for Anne and went to her.

“What does Corian drive?”

“Hello to you too!”

“Nice to see you, you look gorgeous as always, what does Corian drive?”

Anne looked ceilingward. “A minivan, I think. A black minivan. Why?”

Elliot started for the main door, making his way through the crowd with more speed than finesse.

Someone grabbed his arm.

Elliot turned, his hand sliding to his open jacket and the holster beneath. He recognized Roland’s frowning face and halted.

“What’s wrong? Where are you going?” Roland questioned.

“Dad, call Tacoma PD and ask for Detective Anderson or Pine. Tell them I think the PSU Killer is Andrew Corian—”

“
What?
”

“—and that he’s here at the exhibit. At least, I think he still is.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?”

“The statues. I think Corian’s models were his murder victims. There’s a sculpture over there with an appendix scar.”

“But that statue could be anyone—”

“Dad, I don’t have time. If Corian realizes I’ve made the connection, he’s liable to make a run for it. Can you please just make the call?” Elliot started to move away. A thought occurred, and he turned back. “And, Dad, whatever you do,
don’t
approach Corian. Don’t go anywhere near him. I’m serious.”

Elliot continued onto the door. The smog-scented night air felt cool against his face. He jogged lightly across the plaza, circling the individuals and couples in his path, until he came to the stairs to the parking structure below. Three long flights.

He took them quickly but cautiously, conscious of the bend and flex of his prosthetic knee joint. Everything was operational. He could do this. He had to do this. If Corian pulled a Ted Bundy and took flight they might not catch him for weeks—might not catch him until he had killed again. That wasn’t a risk Elliot was prepared to take.

Reaching the bottom, he looked left then right. The garage was, as expected, crowded with cars and SUVs. No people, but everyone would be upstairs enjoying the big event.

He started up the aisles of cars. The guest of honor would surely have a primo parking space. Maybe in the employee lot or maybe under the overhang to the left marked “reserved.”

Elliot drew his pistol and held it at low ready, trotting toward the reserved parking area. The lights cast a deathly bluish tint over the concrete walls and gleaming cars. As Elliot passed a security camera he raised his pistol and gestured the direction he was moving. He was not sure whether the cams were live with a human observer sitting in front of a monitor somewhere, but it was worth a shot.

At the second entrance of the parking structure, he paused. The left side was cordoned off for repairs. It looked like someone had driven into one of the concrete walls. There were traffic cones and saw horses, shovels, coils of hose, piles of sand and gravel, and a cement mixer, all behind a cat’s cradle of yellow-and-black tape. On the right were two facing lines of vehicles. At the far end, parked near what looked like an elevator, was a dark minivan.

Elliot approached warily. Midway down the row of cars, he stopped to listen. The parking structure had a weird, echoing emptiness. It sounded like water was dripping somewhere.

He continued toward the minivan.

The windows were all tinted, making it impossible to see inside. Elliot circled cautiously. Nothing moved inside the van. Nothing moved around him.

He awkwardly lowered to the cold concrete, pulled his pocket knife out and jammed it into the sidewall of the nearest tire. Hopefully he had the right vehicle or he’d just ruined the evening of some innocent patron of the arts. The air escaped in a loud hiss and the tire began to slump.

Elliot flicked shut the pocket knife, stowed it and pushed up from the ground in an ungainly move.

He paused, listening tautly. Into the hollow silence, his phone suddenly shrilled and he jumped. Shit. He should have put it on vibrate. He grabbed it, checked the screen. Tucker. He clicked.

“Where are you?” Elliot could hear the tightness in Tucker’s voice. Tension not anger. Tucker was worried. That made two of them.

“Underground parking structure at the museum.”

“I’m five minutes away. Are you armed? Is your location secure?”

“
My
location isn’t the problem. I don’t know where Corian is.”

“I’ve notified museum security. If he’s inside the building, he’s not getting out.”

“I don’t know if that’s good news or not. There are a lot of innocent people in there with him.” Including his own father.

“He’s not going to try anything. I’ve spent most of the day reading up on your buddy Corian. He loves himself too much to risk getting blown away by a rent-a-cop.”

“You’d already narrowed it down to Corian?”

“You called it, Elliot.” He didn’t miss the sober note in Tucker’s triumph. “According to the electronic access paper trail, Corian used his personal ID to get in Hanby Hall the evening you went to pick up those papers. He was also on campus the night the Baker kid disappeared. Nothing for the night Gordie Lyle went missing, but it’s not going to make a difference.”

“No, because he’s got a sculpture in that exhibit that I’m guessing matches Terry Baker’s body down to his appendix scar. You’re going to have to see it to believe it, Tucker. I’ve never seen a more blatant signature.”

“I believe it. I’ve been interviewing Corian’s ex-girlfriends, coworkers and everyone else I could find to talk to. We just got the search warrant thirty minutes ago, so if he does show up at home, he’s in for a surprise.”

Elliot’s phone beeped. Incoming text message.

“I think the postman just rang twice.”

“What?”

“I’ve got a text message.”

“Can you pick it up while I’m on the line?”

Elliot scanned the unmoving rows of cars. “It’s easier if I call you back.”

“Watch yourself.”

Elliot switched over to see his text message. [email protected] had written
I’m on the first step.

“Very funny,” Elliot muttered.

Of course maybe Corian wasn’t being funny. Maybe he really was waiting on the stairs for Elliot. Maybe he had managed to get out of the museum building before anyone knew what was happening.

A few yards down, the elevator dinged and Elliot spun to face it. He pulled his weapon as the doors slid silently open. Training his pistol on the scratched and faded interior, he waited.

And waited.

If someone was inside, he was standing out of range.

As Elliot stepped forward, he caught peripheral movement out of the corner of his right eye. He instinctively ducked but not in time to keep the shovel from slamming down on his shoulder and gun arm.

He cried out and dropped to garage floor, the pain of his bad knee hitting concrete submerged in the agony of his broken arm. No question it was broken. Excruciating pressure radiated from his shoulder to his wrist and his arm hung limply from the socket.

He was still trying to catch his breath as he watched his Glock skitter away out of reach across the cement. It landed beneath a Volvo.

“Check and mate, you sonofabitch,” Corian announced, looming over him. He looked like a figure straight out of a horror movie, his bearded face flushed with rage, his eyes seeming almost yellow in the weird underground light. He swung the shovel again—unfortunately not like those movie murderers who liked to take their time explaining their psycho trade secrets to the good guys.

Elliot dived for the pavement as the shovel whistled past once more. The shovel blade clanged on the garage floor, just missing his good wrist. If that shovel had landed on his skull, Elliot would be dead. He still soon might be if he couldn’t regain possession of his weapon. He scuttled crablike for the Volvo. Adrenaline anaesthetized the torture of his broken arm—bone grinding against cartilage—and gave him the energy to keep moving.

“The cops are on their way,” he yelled.

“Not in time to do you any good.” Corian took another swing with his trusty shovel, slamming it into the Volvo door so hard it dented it. Car alarms began to squall up and down the rows of cars, bouncing off the cement walls and roof.

No way was Corian going to let him get his hands on that gun. He might as well give that plan up now.

Elliot hooked a hand around the side mirror of a Kia and somehow managed to scramble to his feet without passing out. Compared to getting kneecapped this was nothing, he told himself. This was a fucking
picnic.

“Give it up, Corian,” he panted. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re just making it worse for yourself.”

He dodged away as Corian came after him swinging the shovel like a scythe.

“Game end,” Corian puffed. “If I’m not going anywhere, neither are you.”

What Elliot could not afford to do under any circumstance was allow himself to be cornered between these cars. Bracing his broken arm with his good one, he made a staggering run for the main entrance. Where the hell was Tucker? What happened to his ETA of five minutes? Where the hell were the cops for that matter? Or security.

Why were there no sirens?

Oh, but this would be a Code 2. Urgent. No lights or sirens. They would all try to avoid spooking Corian—as though he weren’t the spookiest thing around.

Elliot’s backup might be here even now, might even at this second be moving into position. He just needed to stall a bit longer. That’s all. Stay alive a few minutes longer.

These had already been the longest five minutes of his life. Probably not even five minutes. Every second felt like a week when you were fighting for your life.

Elliot looked around. To stay alive he needed a weapon. Failing that, he needed a decent hiding place.

Spotting the construction site ahead, he sprinted for it, putting on a desperate burst of speed. He stumbled under the web of yellow-and-black tape with the warnings Caution ~ Keep Out ~ Danger.

He stepped back into the shadows of the girded cement wall and felt around, left-handed, for his pocket knife as he tried to catch his breath. That was pain and shock making him so giddy because in the normal course of things—and even with a bum leg—he could still run rings around blubber ass Corian.

He could hear him pounding up the drive. Elliot wiped his forehead with his good arm.

Come on, Tucker. Where
are
you?

“A little old for hide and seek, aren’t you?” Corian inquired in conversational tones. He had not been far enough behind to miss seeing Elliot slip into this section of the garage. He knew Elliot was close by, but the site equipment offered a certain amount of concealment. He proceeded with caution.

Tucker, you’re cutting this pretty damn close.

Elliot stood motionless, trying to control his breath, his knuckles whitening around the bone haft of the knife. His grandfather had given him this knife when he was eleven. Grandpa Mills was an ex-Marine and, unlike his hippie-dippy son, Roland, had no problem with a judicious use of force.

Had his dad made the call to Tacoma PD? Hopefully yes, because if Elliot was standing here reminiscing about Grandpa Mills, he was mere heartbeats from passing out. He blinked the sting of perspiration from his eyes and concentrated fiercely. He heard Corian take a shuffling step forward, his dress shoes crunching on gravel.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Corian murmured. Still leery of charging in after Elliot. Kind of a compliment in there somewhere, wasn’t there?

Sweat damped the back of Elliot’s shirt. His breathing slowed as his gaze gradually zeroed on the sagging concrete wall. All at once, he could see how it would play out. He could see it just as cleanly and simply as if he were studying one of his war-gaming dioramas. Each move and its inevitable consequence appeared before him, the whole progression of action and reaction.

Kneeling, he scooped up a handful of gravel and dirt and tossed it behind him. The bits of rock pinged off the metal surface of the cement mixer and the sand whispered down. Though he couldn’t see Corian around the corner, he felt him catch his breath, felt his complete and utter stillness.

Yet he didn’t move.

Elliot waited, tensed to spring, wondering if he had miscalculated, and then he heard the bite of soles on crushed rock and Corian came around the wall with a roar. He swung the shovel with all his strength, slamming it into the wall where he pictured Elliot standing—stepping so close he nearly fell over Elliot crouched beneath him.

Elliot jabbed the pen knife into Corian’s thigh and rolled out of the way even as the crumbling cement broke away in heavy blocks, large chunks striking Corian’s head and shoulders. Shrieking, clawing at the knife in his leg, Corian careened drunkenly into the toppling wall and the rest of it came crashing around him.