Susan hid behind a tree and tried to fathom what she was hearing.
Now she understood why the police operator didn’t know anything about the girl. It all started to make sense in a weird, frightening way. Earlier, when she’d heard Shaffer on his police radio reporting a possible kidnapping or hostage situation, he must have faked the call. Susan hadn’t heard any response when he’d made that second radio report.
She listened to the static-marred reply from the operator now. The woman said something about Rosie’s store. Susan couldn’t make out the rest of it.
“Well, I’m way out here by the winery,” the deputy lied. “I was chasing down a potential DUI, but the guy got away. So call Rosie’s and tell Ms. Blanchette I can meet her at the house at Birch Way in about forty-five minutes. That’s the soonest I can get out there, okay? Let’s keep her happy, and tell her I’m looking into this thing with the teenage girl. We’ll figure out what she’s talking about later. Okay?”
There was a garbled response on the other end. But Shaffer must have understood it, because he chuckled a bit and then said, “No kidding, over and out.”
From the wooded area, Susan watched the patrol car—with its lights still off—slowly round a curve in the driveway. She threaded through the trees and bushes and followed the vehicle toward the front of the cabin.
Shaffer shut off his motor and then climbed out from behind the wheel. The car’s interior light went on, and from what Susan could tell, nobody was in the backseat. He must not have run into Jordan’s friend on Carroll Creek Road; otherwise, he would have picked him up.
Shaffer wasn’t wearing his police hat, and the front of his uniform shirt hung over his pants. He looked as if he’d recently been in a tussle or something. Pausing outside his patrol car, he tucked in his shirt and smoothed back his short blond hair. He took out his gun and crept toward the front door.
A hammering noise erupted from the basement.
Stopping in his tracks, Shaffer glanced over toward the side of the house. He seemed to notice the light in the basement window. He skulked along the side of the house, then bent down and peered into the window.
The pounding from inside the house continued. Shaffer gazed into the basement for another minute. When he finally turned away from the window, Susan saw he was grinning.
He moved over to the front door and tried the knob. He put an ear to the door and then shoved the gun back in his holster. From a side pocket of his trousers, he took out something that looked like a ruler. He slid it in the door hinge a few times and then quietly opened the door. Putting the rulerlike device away, Shaffer took out his gun and stepped inside the cabin.
Susan sprinted across the driveway to the bushes at the side of the house. She crawled back to the basement window.
The pounding noise had been replaced by a creaking, splintering sound. She couldn’t see Allen in the basement anymore. She had to put her face close to the ground before she finally saw him near the top of the rickety-looking cellar stairway. He had a crowbar in his hands. He must have found a knife or some shears to cut the duct tape because his hands were free now. She guessed he’d also found some clothes in the basement, as he now wore a too-tight white T-shirt and white painter pants. With the crowbar, Allen alternated between hammering at the door and trying to pry it open. She couldn’t see his face, but she heard him cursing.
Susan gently tapped on the window, trying to get his attention. But he obviously couldn’t hear her past all of the racket he was making. She wasn’t sure about Shaffer’s intentions. Whatever they were, the guy couldn’t be trusted, and she had to warn Allen. She knocked on the glass again.
Then directly above her, a light went on in the living room window. Susan ducked and rolled against the side of the house. Sweeping across the bushes was the shadow of someone in the living room. He was at the window, looking out.
Lying on the cold, damp ground, Susan pressed against the side of the house. She held her breath—until finally, that figure moved away.
From the basement she could hear wood splintering. Susan scooted over and peeked down into the cellar again. But she didn’t see Allen anywhere.
Getting to her feet, she glanced over the ledge of the living room window. The deputy stood in the front hallway with his gun drawn. Then Allen staggered out of what looked like the kitchen area. He saw the deputy and stopped dead.
The deputy smiled at him. “Hello, Mama’s Boy,” he said. “We meet at last.”
Gasping for air, Allen looked exhausted and stunned. “So—the kid called you, huh?” Slump-shouldered, he leaned against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. “Well, they’re both crazy. I’m no serial killer. I came here with my fiancée and her son for the weekend. These two teenagers, they’ve had me tied up in the basement here for—”
“Shut up,” Shaffer said firmly. He shook his head. “No one called me.”
Allen stopped talking. Susan could see he was still breathing heavily.
“You have to take my word for it, Allen,” the cop said. “When I made you come here, I didn’t think this was going to happen.”
Allen stared at him. “You? My God,” he whispered. “You’re the one who’s been sending me all those e-mails and letters….”
The deputy nodded. “That’s right, Mama’s Boy. I’m your number-one fan.”
Clutching a fireplace poker in his fist, Jordan stood in the bedroom doorway and listened to the two men. He still had an awful taste in his mouth from forcing himself to throw up ten minutes before. His throat felt raw, too. He’d swallowed down some cold water and gargled with Listerine, but it just hadn’t done the trick. He’d been in the bathroom when he’d heard the car pull up outside.
He’d figured Meeker must not have heard. The son of a bitch had been too busy wrecking the basement or whatever the hell he’d been doing. Jordan had grabbed a poker from the fireplace set and been about to go downstairs when he’d heard the car. He’d gone to the window and seen the cop doing something odd. The guy had snuck up to the house with his gun drawn, and then he’d let himself in. Jordan held on to the poker and waited in the bedroom. He’d been tired and punchy before, but he was wide awake now.
“You know, I thought you were dead,” the deputy was saying. “Earlier today, I ran into Jordan Prewitt at the abandoned chemical plant off Coupland Ridge Trail. I went back an hour ago and figured he must have sunk that sweet little BMW of yours into a swamp. I thought maybe you were in the trunk.”
“Was that your plan?” Meeker asked edgily. “Is that why you wanted me to come here to Cullen? Did you set something up with that lunatic and his friend?”
Jordan tightened his grip on the poker. He was starting to shake.
“Hey, I already told you, Allen. I didn’t expect anything like this to happen. See, I’ve always wanted to get you to come back here. And well, I’ve been banging a woman at Orcas Property Realtors, which gives me a chance to check out who’s leasing the different properties and where there are rental openings. I’m always on the lookout for a woman vacationing here by herself. Anyway, I knew Jordan Prewitt would be staying here this weekend, and I knew his old house on the bay was available. I thought it might liven things up if you were here the same time as him—and in the same house where you abducted his mother. Honest to Pete, I had no idea you’d actually run into him, and he’d remember you….”
“Listen, we don’t have much time,” Meeker interrupted. “The skinny one, Leo, he drugged his pal. I think he might have dumped him in the car. They’re headed off to the store to call the state police. They left about an hour ago. We can’t stay here.”
“Relax, we have plenty of time,” the cop said.
Jordan strained to hear as Meeker’s voice dropped to a whisper: “What the hell do you want from me?”
“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” the deputy said. “I want to work with you, Allen. I saw you kill her. I was living here when you helped put Cullen on the map. I was seventeen years old, perpetually horny, bored, and tired of just killing dogs and torturing cats for a cheap thrill.” He chuckled. “You know what I mean. You know what that’s like. I had a little crush on Stella. I used to sneak up to the house on Birch and watch her undress at night. Then one evening in August, while she was here with her kid, I realized I wasn’t alone outside. I was already a big fan of your work, Allen. But I had no idea I was in the company of the maestro. I still didn’t know the next day—when I watched you from the woods by the house. It was like I had a front-row seat to your performance. You showed up in the backyard, knocked her out, and carried her away. I can still hear little Jordan screaming and crying. It was beautiful. That’s when I knew who you were….”
His back against the bedroom wall, Jordan couldn’t stop shaking. A tear slid down his cheek.
“I thought for sure you might have noticed my old, beat-up Ford following you and Stella,” the deputy continued. “I followed you all the way to your dumpy little shack in North Seattle. It served you well for a while—isolated as it was. There was no one around to hear the women screaming. I saw you take Stella in there. And the next day, I saw you deposit her naked body in the woods by her house on Birch Way. I could have turned you in, but I didn’t. That’s when I became your number-one fan, Allen.”
“And that’s when the letters and e-mails started,” Meeker muttered.
Jordan could barely hear him. But it was the confirmation he needed. Meeker was admitting it. He was Mama’s Boy.
“Didn’t slow you down any, and I’m glad,” Shaffer said. “I’d like to think it kind of excited you to know someone else was in on it. I used to take weekend trips down to Seattle and sleep in my car. I’d check out your house at night. I missed a couple of murders. But seven months after Stella, I saw you take Rhoda Mundy out of the trunk of your car and then carry her into that house, Allen. She was a real step down from Stella, though. In fact, from her photo in the newspapers, I’d say she was kind of a skank. You must have thought so, too, because just six hours later, you were carrying her in a Hefty back to the trunk of your car. Something about her must have gotten under your skin, because one of the newspapers reported that you’d beaten her so badly, it looked like she’d been trampled by a horse. I don’t know how they figured it out, but they said it appeared as if she’d been strangled up to a point and revived several times—until you finished her off. I wish I’d seen that. But you were always so careful about closing the shades. Was that repeated-strangulation thing something you did with any of the others? I imagine it was like watching them die several times….”
Jordan heard Meeker mutter something, but he couldn’t make out the words. It tore him up inside to imagine that might have happened to his mother.
“Were my letters the reason you moved in 2000—after you killed that woman with the twins?” Shaffer asked. There was a hint of melancholy in the deputy’s tone.
“Partly,” Meeker replied.
“That wasn’t what I wanted,” Shaffer said. “I just wanted to be in on it, Allen, be a part of it. I didn’t mean for you to move away. Hell, you’re the reason I became a cop. I realized it gave me access to all sorts of things that helped me keep track of you. When those women were killed down in Oakland, I knew it was you. I knew exactly where you were living at the time. Then there were the murders in Fairfax and Alexandria in 2003. I’ve visited all the spots where you’ve abducted woman—and the places where you deposited their bodies when you were finished with them. I know you and your work better than anyone else. You may have tried to go straight and set up house with Susan and her kid. But I wasn’t buying that cover. Maybe you figured you’d lose me if you laid low for a while. But I never lost track of where you were, Allen…never.”
Jordan didn’t move for fear they’d hear the floorboards creaking. He kept his back to the bedroom wall. But he could see the clock on the nightstand: 8:09
PM
. Leo had been gone for over an hour. It only took ten minutes to drive to Rosie’s from here. Why had Deputy Shaffer been so confident that they had plenty of time? Had he spotted Leo on his way to Rosie’s and pulled him over?
Jordan imagined his Honda Civic parked along a dirt trail off Carroll Creek Road, a birthday cake in the backseat, and behind the wheel, Leo with a bullet in his head. Jordan prayed it wasn’t true. He felt sick to his stomach again.
For the last several hours, he’d desperately wanted some kind of confirmation that Allen Meeker was indeed Mama’s Boy. Now he had it—thanks to Deputy Shaffer. But the person downstairs confronting Meeker wasn’t an accuser.
He was an admirer.
And it sounded like he planned on helping this mother-killer get away.
Hovering outside the living room window, Susan was in shock.
She couldn’t believe what they were saying. She kept waiting for Allen to tell the deputy that he was mistaken, that he had the wrong guy.
Allen wasn’t a murderer.
But he just stood there in that ill-fitting white T-shirt and those painter pants, leaning against the newel post—sometimes even nodding as Deputy Shaffer attributed these horrendous murders to him.
Susan thought of Allen abducting that poor little boy’s mother right in front of him, and the others he’d abducted and murdered. She thought of the motherless boys left behind. Allen was responsible for all of it.
She remembered when that woman had vanished in Volunteer Park ten years ago and how terrified she’d been. A police artist had made a sketch of Mama’s Boy, and she’d had nightmares that one night the man in that sketch would invade her home. She’d locked her doors and carried around a canister of pepper spray to protect her family and herself from that monster.
But he’d gotten in, despite all her precautions.
She’d let him into her life—and her son’s life. She was engaged to him. He’d been inside her.
Susan felt sick. Her legs were shaky, and she couldn’t get her breath. She leaned against the side of the house and clung to the window ledge.
“I’m sorry things got screwed up, Allen,” the deputy was saying. “I was going to get in touch with you while you were out on the boat today—between noon and four, like I told you. I thought you might agree to a little plan I had. I won’t go into the details just now, but it would have looked like a sailing accident. They’d have found the little brat washed up on the shore, but no sign of Susan. I was hoping you’d hand her over to me….”
Susan watched Allen shake his head over and over.
“Why not?” the deputy asked. He still held the gun in his hand, but it wasn’t pointed at Allen anymore. Instead, he casually caressed it. “I’m very good at making women disappear, Allen. They’re still looking for two ladies I had a little fun with.
Missing, presumed dead.
It could have been the same scenario with Susan….”
“What the hell makes you think I’d have given her up to you?” Allen asked, frowning.
“Maybe the notion that if you didn’t cooperate, you’d find the state police waiting for you when you returned from your afternoon sailing excursion,” Shaffer replied. “I started to e-mail you on the boat. I thought you were avoiding me for a while. That’s when you must have run into Jordan. What those boys put you through, was it rough?”
“I’ve been through worse,” Allen muttered. He turned and walked into the living room.
Susan saw him approaching the window, and she dropped to the ground. She could see his silhouette directly above her. “What makes you so certain those two haven’t gotten hold of the state police by now?” she heard him ask. He was so close to the glass, it sounded as if he were talking to her.
“Relax,” the deputy said, with a cryptic smile. “They won’t give you any more trouble.”
Susan watched the shadow move away from the window. She remained crouched down below the ledge.
“I’ve come up with a plan for them that I think you’ll like,” Deputy Shaffer went on. “By tomorrow morning, there will be three dead teenagers in this house. The two boys—and the third, I don’t think you’ve met. She’s Jordan’s girlfriend, a very pretty girl. You’ll like her. In fact, your lovely Susan pulled a fast one on me and e-mailed me from the boat, pretending to be you. I thought you’d finally come around, so I sent you a photo of this pretty, young thing. I have her tucked away in a closet at the old Chemerica plant. I was going to kill her myself, but I’d really like to do her with you, Allen. You know, like Bianchi and Bruno—the Hillside Strangler? Wouldn’t that be fantastic—if we killed together, and they ended up giving us one name like that? We’d be a team, Allen. Maybe the Cullen Killer? This sweet teenager is just waiting to be our first joint effort….”
Susan finally dared to peek over the window ledge. She saw Allen sitting in a chair at the far corner of the living room—near the stairs. He was hunched over, rubbing his back while Shaffer stood in front of him. The cop still had the gun in his hand, but the barrel was aimed at the floor.
“Here’s the part you’ll really like,” Shaffer continued. “We’ll leave her body in the woods back here. Everyone will think those two asshole teenagers did her in and then shot each other—until we team up for another kill and then another. They’ll start to see a pattern and realize we’re a force to be reckoned with. There are plenty of women out there for us, Allen. It doesn’t matter how cautious they are either, we can still get to them. One of the nice things about being a cop is that I make a pretty girl pull over on a lonely highway whenever I want. What do you think,
partner
? Are you interested?”
“What if I were to say no?” Allen asked warily.
The deputy let out a long sigh. “Well, you’re going to want these two teenage avengers dead, am I right?”
Allen just nodded.
“This girl is going to disappear anyway. She’s already ID’d me. Unfortunately for you, her bra can be found somewhere at Twenty-two Birch—among your things. Plus I’ve been inside your place in Seattle—and Susan’s place, too. I’ve cleaned your hairbrush for you, Allen. Wouldn’t it be bad luck for you if they found this girl with some silver and black hairs clutched in her fist?”
Allen said nothing. He slumped forward in the chair and buried his face in his hands.
“By the way, speaking of unfinished business,” the deputy said, digging into his pocket. “Susan will have to disappear.”
“What?” Allen looked up at him.
The deputy lobbed something at him—and it hit Allen in the face. Susan realized the white item now landing in Allen’s lap were her missing panties.
“She knows too much, Allen. Besides that, she’ll be a detriment to our work together. I know you’re fond of her. But she has to go. We’ll have to put our heads together on how to handle this….”
Out of the corner of her eye, Susan saw a shadow creeping behind her.
She ducked below the ledge and swiveled around. She saw the shadow was within a patch of light that spilled across the bushes and part of the lawn. It came from the second-floor window, where someone was standing.
Susan raised her head and peered into the living room again. The two of them had stopped talking. The deputy had his gun ready. He put his finger to his lips and shook his head at Allen. Then he pointed up toward the ceiling. Susan realized they must have heard the footsteps above. The deputy didn’t seem at all surprised. In fact, he was smiling.
She crouched down again and scrambled toward the lawn and that little patch of light. She saw Jordan Prewitt upstairs, trying to open the window—possibly to escape. He tugged at it, but the window squeaked. He hesitated.
Susan straightened up and started to wave at him. She had to warn Jordan that they were on to him. Stepping back, she accidentally kicked the metal rake head she had stumbled over earlier. She heard it clatter against the same rock it had struck before.
Susan glanced over and saw Allen approaching the living room window. She quickly darted behind some bushes.
“I think someone’s outside,” she heard him say, his voice muffled in the distance.
Crouching close to the ground, she glanced over at that patch of light—and Jordan’s silhouette as he struggled with the window. It squeaked again, and as far as she could tell, he didn’t even have it halfway open yet. From his shadow, it looked as if he was shaking his head. Then he turned away, and the silhouette disappeared.
Holding her breath, Susan peeked around the shrub. Allen wasn’t at the living room window anymore. She crept back to the ledge and gazed into the house again.
His gun ready, Deputy Shaffer skulked up a few steps toward the second floor. Behind him, Allen waited at the bottom of the stairs.
Susan remembered the pellet gun and took it out of the pocket of her cardigan. She didn’t expect to do much harm with it—except perhaps create a diversion by blowing a hole through the window. Maybe Jordan could get away if she distracted them. Trembling, she stepped back, aimed the gun at the glass, and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
Of course, nothing happened. Shaffer had given her the damn gun.
Susan was about to hurl the gun through the window, when she heard Allen yell:
“Shoot him! Shoot the son of a bitch!”
Two loud shots rang out.
Through the window, Susan watched in horror as Jordan Prewitt tumbled down the stairs. Near the bottom of the steps, Shaffer stepped aside and brutally shoved him. Jordan went crashing through the banister. There was a loud crack as the wooden railing broke and the pieces snapped off. A poker flew out of Jordan’s hand. He fell to the floor amid the scraps of wood.
Allen marched over to his prone body and kicked him in the ribs.
Covering her mouth, Susan turned to run, but she tripped and hit the ground with a thud. The useless pellet gun fell out of her hand. She was almost certain they had heard her. As she pulled herself up, she noticed the rake-head contraption. She swiped it up and scraped her hand on the sharp prongs. But she barely noticed. She was already heading for the police car. She wedged the device—prongs up—under the rear tire.
Then she raced for the wooded area at the side of the driveway. She ran as fast as she could toward her Toyota. Bushes scratched at her hands and face as she sprinted through the thicket to her car. By the time she climbed into the front seat, Susan was shaking violently. She could hardly get the key in the ignition, and once she did, the car wouldn’t start. She tried it again, and the car responded with a loud wheezing sound. No doubt they heard it in the cabin. Finally, the engine turned over with a roar. The Toyota started to make that rattling noise again.
Susan backed up to the driveway, plowing over a few shrubs in the process. Turning the car around, she peeled out of the driveway.
Tears streaming down her face, Susan sped down the dark, winding road. Her tires screeched at each bend, and the rattling seemed to grow louder. She kept checking the rearview mirror. The road was dark in back of her. Maybe that pronged device had crippled the patrol car.
Up ahead, she saw the disabled Honda Civic. But the emergency flashers were off. Shaffer must have switched off the lights. It didn’t look like anyone was in the car. Was it too much to hope that Jordan’s friend had made it to the store and called the state police by now?
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Susan glanced in the rearview mirror again. “Oh, no,” she whispered.
A pair of headlights appeared in the distance behind her. They began to loom closer and closer—disappearing behind the tree-lined curves every few moments and then reappearing again. Susan wondered if there was a chance it might
not
be the deputy. Wouldn’t he use his police flashers and the siren? Could it be Tom? The back road to his place was somewhere around here.
She didn’t want to risk slowing down to find out who it was. At the same time, she didn’t want to lead them to Rosie’s—and Mattie.
The headlights in her rearview mirror seemed larger and brighter now. Susan bit her lip and then switched off her own headlights. For a few moments, it felt like she was driving blindfolded. Her hands taut on the steering wheel, she tried to find a trail off Carroll Creek Road. She felt the tires go over some gravel on the side of the highway, and she heard a spray of pebbles hitting the underside of the car. She quickly steered back onto the pavement.
At last, amid the shadows, she spotted a dirt road to her left. The car swerved and skidded as she made the last-minute turn. For a few seconds, Susan thought the Toyota might flip over. She couldn’t help slowing down once she hit the unpaved path. But she couldn’t step on the brake, for fear they’d see the red brake light in the woods. So she just steered and kept her foot off both pedals. The car reverberated with every rock and bump it encountered along the crude trail. Sans headlights, Susan couldn’t see all the obstacles in front of her. She navigated by the contour of the trees and the tops of bushes—and even then, she could barely make out their shapes in all this darkness.
She hit something that finally made the car stop. Maybe it was a tree stump or a boulder, she couldn’t be sure. But the Toyota’s engine kept purring and rattling while the car remained stuck.
She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of Carroll Creek Road. Beams from the approaching car’s headlights swept across the trees. Susan prayed the car would just stay on the main road. For a moment, the headlights illuminated her car—and the surrounding woodlands. Then she was in the darkness again, and the other vehicle sped on down the highway. It was the cop car.
Susan felt so relieved—for about five seconds. Then she realized if they continued down the road, they’d hit Rosie’s store and find Mattie. Allen could easily talk Rosie into letting him take Mattie off her hands. And Mattie would go with him, too.
Susan couldn’t let that happen. She had to catch up with them. She’d do whatever she had to, even if it meant running them off the road or getting herself killed. They weren’t getting her son.
She switched on the headlights and saw a clearing up ahead—a bald spot in the forest, where she could turn the car around. Susan stepped on the accelerator, but the car just wheezed and bucked. Her hands shaking, she shifted to reverse and tried to back up. But she hit a divot, and the whole left side of the car dropped suddenly. “Damn it!” she cried.
She shifted to drive again, and the Toyota lurched forward a foot before it slammed against something again. The rattling noise became louder every second.
Frantic, Susan jumped out and checked the front of the car. The trunk of a tilted tree had created a barrier at least a foot high. “Oh, dear God, please,” she murmured.
She jumped back into the driver’s seat and started working the gear shift. She inched forward and inched back—at least ten times. All the while, she kept thinking that Allen and that horrible policeman were getting closer to Rosie’s store—and Mattie.