Authors: Iris Johansen
“Talked to anybody … like a therapist?”
Kendra nodded.
Beth laughed. “You’re kidding, right? I’ve heard that a few times since I got out, but I never expected to hear it from you. I thought you understood me.”
“I do. It’s just that … You’ve been through hell. You can’t just shrug off an experience like that. It could sneak up behind you and ambush you.”
“Believe me, I’m not pretending it didn’t exist. I’m still working through it. As crazy as it sounds, there are days I wish I was back in that institution, medicated out of my mind. Sometimes it’s easier to not feel anything than to face real life.”
“But have you actually even started to face real life? It doesn’t seem like you have. At least not yet.”
Beth looked away for a long moment. “I’m facing it as much as I can right now. Okay? I need to ease back into things.”
“Sure. Just remember that there are people in the world who have your back. People you can trust.”
Beth smiled. “I remember. Thank you, Kendra.”
“I just wanted you to know.” She stopped and took the condo keys off their ring and handed them to her. “I hate to do this, but I need to leave you for an hour or so.”
“You’re ditching me?”
“I need to talk to the head of the local FBI field office.”
“Now?”
“Yes, I texted him while we were still sitting there with Sheila. I don’t think he’s very happy with me right now, but he agreed to meet at his office.”
Beth looked down at the keys in her hand. “I don’t suppose you’d let me go with you?”
“Not this time. Griffin isn’t into sharing with unauthorized personnel, and he’s not as easy to manipulate as Sheila Hunter. He’d probably throw you out.”
She made a face. “Pity. It would have been interesting.” She turned toward the door. “Okay, see you.”
“Beth … You’ll be here when I get back, right?”
Beth grinned. “Depends if I get a better offer. I guess that means you’d better get back here soon.”
“I will.” She shook her head in amusement. “I promise.”
FBI Field Office
San Diego
KENDRA STOOD UP FROM THE BENCH
in the main lobby and moved toward Special Agent in Charge Michael Griffin. He had just come from the parking-garage stairwell and looked irritated as hell.
“Thanks for meeting with me.”
“I had just gotten home, Dr. Michaels.”
Now she knew he was annoyed. He only called her “Dr. Michaels” when he was genuinely pissed.
He continued, “I was sitting down to dinner with my family, thinking about the Chargers-Cowboys game on my DVR…”
“It was a rout. Cowboys trounced the Chargers forty-seven to six.”
His face fell. “Great. You had to take that away from me, too.”
“I’m kidding. I didn’t even know there was a game tonight.”
“Oh, you’re hilarious.”
“I didn’t come here to entertain you. I think I may finally have some evidence that Colby is still alive.”
He sighed. “I liked you better when you were ruining my football game. Let’s go to my office.”
They took the elevator to Griffin’s spartan office on the fourth floor. They passed a half dozen agents in cubicles, some working late, others toiling away on their evening shifts. Griffin closed the door behind them. “Now what do you have for me?”
Kendra raised a lined notepad and tore out two pages. “Sorry this couldn’t be more polished, but I drew them down in the lobby while I was waiting for you.”
Griffin took the pages and studied the hastily drawn sketches. “Hmm. You’re amazing in many things, Dr. Michaels, but freehand drawing isn’t one of them.”
“I’m still learning. Schools for the blind don’t have ‘crayon time.’”
“Are these glorified stick figures supposed to be people dancing?”
“No. They’re dead people. This is how the corpses were posed at a murder scene in Redondo Beach a few weeks ago. I drew them from memory based on some crime-scene photos I saw just an hour or so ago.”
He smiled. “You couldn’t have just brought me the photos?”
“Not an option. My source wouldn’t let me have them. My rotten drawing aside, do those poses mean anything to you?”
He stared at the drawings a moment longer. “I get it,” he said quietly. “Military signals … just like Colby’s victims.”
“And what’s more, they don’t appear this way in the official police crime photos. Just the photos I saw.”
“What, exactly, are you saying?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t know what the cops could possibly have to gain by rearranging the corpses to hide Colby’s possible involvement.”
“I don’t either,” Griffin said. “No reasonable person would. Careful how you tread here.”
“You’ve been telling me to be careful for months now.”
“And you haven’t been listening. It’s one thing to accuse the California Department of Corrections of botching an execution and allowing a serial killer to escape, but when you start hinting at a police conspiracy…”
Kendra dropped down in a straight-backed chair in front of Griffin’s desk. “I think I’ve been pretty low-key about Colby.”
“Depends on your definition of low-key.”
“Okay, as low-key as I can get.”
“In any case, Colby is dead.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Believe it.” Griffin circled around, and instead of sitting behind his desk, he took the seat next to Kendra as he did every time he was trying to show empathy or gently break bad news to one of his underlings.
She just found it annoying.
“Two different law-enforcement agencies investigated your claims,” Griffin said. “They couldn’t find any proof. And neither could you.”
“Colby had help on the outside. If you remember, I was there when Myatt, Colby’s psycho partner, took his last breath on Earth. I talked to him. I found his shopping list that included purchase of that zombie drug that would make Colby appear dead if administered. And we found actual traces of the substances that would make the plan possible.”
“Products of a delusional, diseased mind.”
“That diseased mind concocted plans that allowed him to kill half a dozen people while he was working to free Colby from that prison. He worshipped Colby and was the perfect copycat. He would have done anything to free him.”
“Which is why we took it seriously enough to investigate. Listen, if I thought Colby was really out there, I’d have every agent, every specialist, every secretary on the clock to hunt him down. Hell, even I would be out there pounding the pavement.”
“If you’d done all of that four months ago, we might have him now,” she said baldly.
“Tactful, as usual. You’ve been on the alert all this time, and it hasn’t brought you any closer.”
“He’s planning something.”
“So you keep telling us. But again, no actual proof.”
“I know how his mind works.”
“
Worked.
Past tense.”
“No one will be happier than I if you’re right. But I think he’s spent years laying the groundwork for this.”
“Laying the groundwork … from death row?”
“Other people have underestimated Eric Colby. Almost all of them are now dead.”
“Two of his victims were my own men. Believe me, I don’t need you to remind me.”
“Look, I don’t want it to be true. But that’s no reason to just look the other way.”
Griffin impatiently pushed back the chair with the backs of his legs. Empathy time was obviously over. “That’s not what’s happening.”
“The hell it isn’t.”
He turned away from her. “We’re done here.”
“You won’t help me with this? That’s it then?”
He picked up the two note pages she’d given him. “Yes. Unless you want me to send these out on the wire.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Don’t be disrespectful.” He smiled, obviously pleased to have gotten such a rise from her. “Okay, I’ll reach out to Redondo Beach PD and see what’s going on with the crime photos. Happy?”
“For now.”
“It’s all I can do for you. You really haven’t given me anything else to work on.”
No one knew that better than Kendra. She supposed she was lucky with this much response. “I know that, Griffin.” She got to her feet. “I’m trying, dammit.”
El Cajon Boulevard
City Heights
IT WAS LIKE THEY WERE ALL
moving in slow motion.
Or perhaps underwater, taking their evening strolls in the deep side of the pool.
Moving slower, talking slower, their tiny brains unable to function at the same level as his.
Imbeciles.
Colby glanced around the busy street in the East San Diego neighborhood of City Heights, surrounded by people, yet struck by the sensation that he was occupying a different physical space than the rest of these dim-witted souls. He’d felt this way years before his incarceration, but the feeling had lately become more pronounced. No wonder he was always several steps ahead of the rest of the world. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before everyone would appear to be standing perfectly still. Amazing. Had Einstein and Newton felt like this?
Colby turned the corner. The neighborhood had changed. Many of the empty storefronts were now populated by ethnic restaurants, and he could see that there had been some effort to revitalize this gang-infested hellhole. Nice try, he thought, but no way this place was coming back.
But it would suit his needs for the next couple of weeks.
He approached a shuttered storefront and pressed the doorbell. Did this damned thing even work anymore? He glanced up and saw curtains rustling in the second-story apartment.
A wrinkled old woman’s face appeared, frozen in its perpetual scowl. Some things never changed. She pointed behind her, then disappeared. He walked down a narrow alleyway between the buildings, sidestepping two syringes and a condom as he made his way around to the well-hidden rear entrance. The door creaked open before he even reached it.
“Get in here. Get in here!”
Colby smiled as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Don’t worry, Pamela. I didn’t let the germs inside.”
Pamela Gatlin lowered the surgical mask she held over her nose and mouth. She was in her late eighties, but she always looked the same—wrinkled, freckled, and no eyebrows. “Been awhile,” she said. “Wasn’t sure you were coming back.”
Poor ignorant Pamela, he thought, amused. Of course she had missed the news of his arrest, conviction, and execution. She had no phone, no TV, and read only her Bible day after day. The perfect caretaker.
“I told you I’d be back,” he said. “But I wasn’t sure you’d still be alive. I thought you might be decaying in that floral chair with flies buzzing around you.”
She cackled. “That’ll happen one day, but not anytime soon. I still got a lot of kick left in me.”
“I believe it.”
“When the time comes, you’ll take care of me. You promised.”
“Yes, I did. At the Ruiz Cemetery, next to your son.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
Never mind the plastic tub and jugs of hydrochloric acid that were waiting in the cellar for her, Colby thought. Where, he remembered with amusement, her arrogant son had actually endured his final, terrifying moments on Earth.
“You take care of me, Pamela, and I take care of you. That’s always been the deal.” He looked up the dark staircase that led to the upstairs apartment. “Everything okay here?”
“Yep. Guess you’ve been paying the utilities on time, ’cause they haven’t tried to shut anything off.”
“I’ve made arrangements. Everything will continue to be paid by the Euripides Trust until after you’re gone. Probably until after I’m gone. Has anyone been asking for me?”
“Not personally. I’ve had some people who’ve been asking for the owner, ’cause they want to buy the place. You never gave me a way to get hold of you, so I couldn’t even let you know.” She frowned. “You really ought to tell me your last name.”
Colby smiled. He’d covered his tracks well. There was no way anyone could trace this place to him. “The less you know, the better. Safer for you. Safer for me. Go on upstairs. I have work to do in the cellar. I’ll look in on you before I leave.”
She climbed the stairs, mumbling something to herself all the way. He’d have to check out the apartment later, to make sure no one else had been there. Highly unlikely, he thought. Colby turned to the boarded-up cellar and pried loose the large sheet of plywood. It was painted black, rendering it almost invisible against the dark walls of the empty stockroom.
Colby entered what appeared to be a small closet. In the back of the compartment, he gripped the built-in shelves and pulled them toward him, revealing a steep stairway that led down to the windowless cellar. Stale, musty air wafted upward. God he loved that smell. He felt for the switch, pressed, and light flooded the room below.
Each step creaked as he made his way down. He hadn’t been sure if he would ever see this place again, but it now seemed inevitable that he should return. He finally reached the bottom. He turned.
Ah, at last.
A plastic-lined embalming table centered the room, equipped with nylon wrist and ankle restraints. Acoustic panels covered every inch of the walls and ceiling, rendering the room virtually soundproof.
A row of heavy plastic bags lined the back wall. They contained his tools and instruments, sealed and waiting to be pressed into service. He smiled. He knew he had several hours of work ahead of him, but he didn’t mind. He was back in his element. He had to prepare his chamber for a very special guest.
Ah, there was no place like home …
KENDRA SPENT THE NEXT MORNING
conducting three back-to-back music-therapy sessions in her office studio, and the last appointment ended with a difficult conversation with the wife of an eighty-eight-year-old Alzheimer’s patient. It had become apparent that the man would never respond to this type of therapy, and Kendra couldn’t waste his time when he could pursue other courses of action that might actually help him. His wife was still clinging to hope, trying to convince herself that he was showing improvement.
It just wasn’t happening.
The woman fought back tears as she led her husband out of the studio.