There was silence for a couple of minutes. He’d been absolutely right to be concerned: between them, Allen and Blake had worked it out. Or rather, perhaps not all of it, but enough to bring them out here, to where it had all begun.
The Samaritan glanced over at Allen and she looked instinctively away. Still jumpy from what had very nearly been a fatal crash, perhaps. Or did she suspect something? She’d been cagey earlier in the garage, as well. It didn’t really matter though, not now. It was too late for them by the time they were sitting beside him in the passenger side. He felt a flutter of excitement in his gut at what was to come. Allen would be an indulgence. An unscheduled bonus. He’d followed her in the hope she’d lead him to Blake, but there had been no sign of his old comrade in arms. No sense wasting a trip, however. And he had no doubt that Blake would mourn her loss. Another reminder of who was the better man.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” he said. Allen said nothing, probably not wanting to think about the crash.
It was true, she really was lucky to be alive. The small explosive charge he’d placed inside the wheel well was intended only to disable the car, not to cause a fatal accident. He hadn’t counted on her driving this road like a lunatic. He was glad she’d survived. For the moment.
As the road curved around, the platform of the observation tower loomed into view, about a mile or so distant. In another minute or two, it would be time to let the mask slip.
He’d been giving the matter of dealing with Allen some thought. Usually, it was enough to lock the doors and keep on driving. The other women out here had all reacted in the same way, progressing through the same steps in the process. Had he been the academic type, he could have written a self-help book on the stages of dealing with one’s own imminent murder. First, there was confusion, transitioning quickly into disbelief. Then fear. Then bargaining. From there, things diverged somewhat from the traditional stages of grief. They never had time to get depressed, and he was reasonably sure none of them ever progressed to anything like acceptance. Instead, they seemed to bide their time, perhaps hoping some unlikely circumstance would arise that would allow them, somehow, to escape. He was always mildly surprised that none of the victims seemed to move on to the use of force, to make a last-ditch effort to effect an escape. Soon enough, they all looped back a step to fear.
He harbored no illusions that the standard pattern would hold for Detective Allen. As he turned off Mulholland and passed the boundary for the San Vicente Mountain Park, he rehearsed the sequence actions in his mind. He would pull to a stop and wait until she turned away from him to open the passenger door. Then he would say her name casually, as though she’d forgotten something, and when she turned back to him, he would hit her full in the face. If she was still conscious after that, he’d take the time to bind her hands for the remainder of the journey. Then the fun would begin.
“Smith.”
The Samaritan turned his head and found himself facing down the barrel of Allen’s Beretta nine millimeter. Despite his surprise, he was impressed. He had glanced in her direction immediately beforehand and she’d been looking out the window. She must have drawn and aimed the weapon in a fraction of a second.
“How fucking stupid do you think I am?” she asked.
The Samaritan said nothing. He saw no reason to attempt to continue the pretense. That would be demeaning. He let the cop talk as his mind worked out a solution to the current problem.
“You just happen to appear at my parking garage, and then all of a sudden you just happen to be there right after I get a blowout? Only that wasn’t a blowout. I heard a pop before I heard the tire blow. You rigged it, didn’t you?”
“Very good, Detective,” he said. “I apologize. I certainly didn’t mean to insult your intelligence.”
“Nice cover, I guess. A photographer. Lets you return to the scene of the crime without suspicion.”
An astute observation, the Samaritan thought. But that wasn’t the only advantage to posing as Smith. The ability to speak to contacts within the LAPD had been a bonus when the first three bodies were discovered. He’d been reassured to discover how little they knew, before Blake decided to stick his nose in.
Allen was shaking her head. “I should have known earlier. You slipped up the other night, on the phone. I just didn’t realize it until now. You knew the LA cases were different from the others because the victims looked so alike. ‘Like sisters’ you said. Only we hadn’t released any details of the murders in the other states, so as far as anyone knew, all the victims looked like that.”
“You’re right; that was sloppy,” he said, growing more impressed with Allen even as he admonished himself.
“What have you done with Kimberley Frank?”
He smiled. He guessed this had been Blake’s discovery. “She’s alive, Detective Allen. You might get to meet her, in fact.”
He’d slowed down as they talked, but now the entranceway to the missile site was approaching on the left-hand side. He let his foot drop a little on the gas pedal, and the needle began to climb.
Allen leaned closer until the gun was pressing against his temple. “Stop the car. Now.”
“Okay.”
The Samaritan yanked the steering wheel hard to the left, timing it perfectly so that the car slammed into one of the solid concrete gateposts at the entranceway. Allen’s side of the vehicle took the brunt of it, but both of them were flung forward and back violently as the truck smashed to a stop. A secondary jolt bounced them forward again as the truck’s back wheels, which had lifted off the road on the abrupt impact, came back down to earth and bounced. The gun had been jolted from Allen’s hand and had landed in the footwell. Her head lolled to the side, stunned. The Samaritan decided not to take any chances. Before the detective could shake off the effects of her second crash in the space of half an hour, he reached his right hand across and pinched the carotid artery. Just long enough to knock her out; he didn’t want her impaired in any way for later.
She opened her mouth and her eyes rolled toward him, and then they rolled upward and her head dropped against her chest.
The Samaritan opened the driver’s door and got out of the truck, surveying the damage. The passenger side of the hood was caved in around the solid concrete gatepost, and from the way the vehicle had come to rest, he could tell he’d snapped the front axle. He cast a glance up at the parking lot but saw no sign of anyone waiting. Had anybody been there, they would surely have come running at the sound of the crash. There were no other cars parked up there, meaning he’d have to make the rest of the journey on foot.
He pulled Allen out through the driver’s side and laid her down on the road. Then he retrieved his kit from a compartment in the flatbed of the truck and bound her hands tightly with a zip tie, opting to leave her ankles free. He had no objection to carrying her across the remaining distance, but if she happened to come to, it would be quicker if she was able to walk. And then he bent, gathered his arms around her at the waist, and straightened up, heaving her limp body over his shoulder. He had a couple of miles to go, so he started walking at a good pace. He had another guest, after all, and he didn’t want to keep her waiting.
Detective Mazzucco’s still-open eyes stared up at me from the dirt floor of the barn. It looked like his killer had cut his throat from behind. The ragged gash across his neck was sickeningly familiar. I was still holding the pistol I’d taken from McCall. I tucked it into the back of my belt and knelt down beside the dead cop.
I felt a strong urge to find a sheet or something to drape over Mazzucco’s body, or at least close his eyes, but I knew I couldn’t. Forensic considerations aside, I didn’t want the Samaritan to know somebody had been there. He was nothing if not prepared, so I didn’t want to give him any extra warning if I could avoid it. I patted the body down and found nothing of import. His gun and cell phone had clearly been taken by his killer, disposed of as far from here as possible. I looked up and scanned the immediate area around the body. The interior of the barn was almost pitch-black in the twilight, but the body had been close enough to the door that I could examine the area well enough. The only thing I found, funnily enough, belonged to me. In his coat pocket, I found my sketch of Crozier from a couple days before. Why had he kept it?
I stood up and glanced back out the doorway. I listened for sounds: a distant engine, perhaps. Nothing. I looked back down.
I examined the position of the body and thought about it. Rigor had yet to set in, which meant Mazzucco had been dead less than a couple of hours. The light would have been better when he’d come in here, so it would have been harder to surprise him. And yet I knew he’d been ambushed, from the lack of defensive wounds on his hands. If he’d been facing toward the door when he died, did that mean he’d been on his way back out of the barn when he was jumped? What had attracted his attention?
I cast a last glance at Mazzucco’s body and decided it was time to check out the house I’d seen at the far end of the set.
I exited the barn and moved to a point where there was a gap between two of the facades that made up one side of the main street. From here, I had a clear view of the access road, which came over the crest of the hill. I watched and listened for a minute. Nothing. I began to worry that the encounter with McCall had delayed me enough to miss the Samaritan entirely.
I stepped away from the gap and looked up at the house. It was dark enough by now that I’d have expected a light to be burning if there was anyone in there—a lamp or even a candle. Perhaps there would be nothing there, or worse, perhaps he’d already killed Kimberley Frank and departed for who-knew-where. There was only one way to find out.
I approached the house warily, watching the windows for any hint of movement. I circled around the rear to see if I could enter the house around there, but then I discovered there was no back door, or even back windows. Although the house was a real structure, it evidently needed to be seen only from the front.
I completed the circle and stood before the three steps up onto the porch. No sign of life or light at either of the two windows flanking the door. I stepped up onto the porch and put a hand on the doorknob. It was locked. I was about to get my picks out when I heard a muffled banging from inside the house. It sounded like somebody kicking or stamping on something. Somebody who couldn’t speak but wanted to attract attention. Somebody who could be badly hurt, perhaps.
I took a step back, lifted my right foot, and slammed it into the door alongside the knob. I felt a crack as the jamb split, and then another kick sent the door bursting inward. It was as dark as a crypt. I made out a large hallway, big enough to accommodate the film cameras, with two doors leading off into each side of the house and a wide staircase leading to the upper level. It was hot inside, as though the house had spent all day absorbing the warmth of the sun and was reluctant to let it go. Hot, and with a familiar stench. The smell of old blood.
There was a brief silence and then the banging started up again, with greater urgency. It was coming from the upper floor. I raced up the stairs, which creaked and moaned as though unused to traffic. I came out into an open-plan attic. The last of the twilight came in through the single window, revealing a large, low-ceilinged room, with the roof support beams exposed. Hanging from one of them was a set of manacles.
I heard rapid breathing from the far side of the room, in the darkest corner. I walked forward, and my eyes began to adjust to the shadows. A young, dark-haired woman was there, gagged and blindfolded. She wore black slacks and a white shirt. She was bound at the wrists with a plastic zip tie, her hands in her lap. She had drawn her knees up against her chest, and her head was angled toward me, as though straining to hear. Even with her face obscured, I recognized her as Kimberley Frank.
As she heard my approaching footsteps, her breathing quickened. Through the gag, I heard three muffled words, unmistakable as “Oh my God.”
“It’s okay,” I called out as I approached her, my eyes scanning the space, looking for unexpected surprises. The floorboards were bare but looked as though they had been painted or varnished. The room was empty and unfurnished but for a hardbacked wood chair and a small table. “My name is Carter Blake, Kimberley. I’m here to help.”
The gag was tight. I worked the knot for a second until it loosened and then let it fall down around her throat like a neckerchief. Then I slipped the blindfold the other way, taking it off. Her brown eyes blinked up at me. They seemed oddly calm, as though she was studying me with a detached curiosity.
“How do you know my name?”
I didn’t answer, too busy looking at what was on the table. It confirmed that this place was not just used for keeping prisoners. There were knives and blades and saws of all shapes and sizes. There was another doctor’s case identical to the one I’d seen in the warehouse. Handcuffs and wire. Tools. It was then I noticed that the finish on the floor was uneven in patches and realized that the boards were not stained with paint or varnish, but with blood. Almost the entire floor had been washed with it at different times. The variation in the shades and concentrations, as well as the volume that must have been expended, told me that this was the room in which the Samaritan’s first three victims had died.
There was one other thing on the table, and though it seemed innocuous, it chilled me more than any of the tools of murder. It was a thick, binder-sized photo album. I had a good idea what would be inside of it. I put a hand to the leather cover and stopped when I heard the urgency in Kimberley’s voice from across the room.
“You have to hurry up. He’ll be coming.”
She was right. We had no time to waste. I selected a short blade from the table and went back to the corner where Kimberley was sitting.
“You don’t understand. He’ll kill you. He’s my half brother. I thought . . .”