Thr3e Page 11

  “You’ll have to do better than that. Kevin, Kevin, Kevin. Two little challenges, two little failures, two little booms. You’re beginning to bore me. Did you see my little gift?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s three times three?”

  Three times three. “Nine,” he said.

  “Smart boy. Nine o’clock, time to rock. Time for the third. What takes you there but takes you nowhere? You have sixty minutes. It’ll be worse this time, Kevin.”

  The phone on the counter rang shrilly. He had to keep Slater on the phone.

  “Can I ask a question?” he asked.

  “No. But you may answer the room phone. Maybe it will be Sam. Wouldn’t that be cozy? Answer the phone.”

  Kevin slowly lifted the room phone off the hook.

  “Kevin?” Sam’s familiar voice filled his ear, and despite the impossible situation, he felt a bucket of relief wash over him. He wasn’t sure what to say. He held the cell phone against his right ear and the room phone against his other ear.

  “Tell her hello from Slater,” Slater said.

  Kevin hesitated. “Slater says hello,” he said.

  “He called?” she asked.

  “He’s on the other line.”

  “Too bad Jennifer left so early,” Slater said. “The four of us could throw a little party. Time’s running out. Fifty-nine minutes and fifty-one seconds. Your move.” The cell phone clicked.

  Sam spoke again. “Kevin, listen to me! Is he still on—”

  “He’s gone.”

  “Don’t move. I’m turning up your street now. I’ll be there in ten seconds.” She disconnected.

  Kevin stood, immobile, a phone in each hand. Play the game. Play the game. It was the boy; it had to be the boy.

  The door flew open. “Kevin?” Sam ran in.

  He spun. “I have sixty minutes.”

  “Or what?”

  “Another bomb?”

  She stepped up to him and cradled her hands under his wrists. “Okay. Listen to me, we have to think this through clearly.” She eased the phones out of his hands and then took him by the shoulders. “Listen to me—”

  “We have to call the FBI.”

  “We will. But I want you to tell me first. Tell me exactly what he said.”

  “I know who the Riddle Killer is.”

  She stared, stunned. “Who?”

  Kevin sat heavily in a chair. “The boy.”

  “I thought he told you he wasn’t the boy.”

  Kevin’s mind began to work faster. “He said, ‘What boy?’ He didn’t say he wasn’t the boy.” He ran to the refrigerator, opened the door, pulled out the milk jug, and slammed it on the counter.

  She stared at the thick-stroked letters. Her eyes shifted to him and then back. “When was—”

  “He was in here last night.”

  “It’s so dark. What’s so dark?”

  Kevin paced and rubbed his head.

  “Tell me, Kevin. Just tell me. We’re running out of time here.”

  “Your dad made the boy leave, but he came back.”

  “What do you mean? We never saw him again!”

  “I did! He caught me on my way to your house two weeks later. He said he was going to hurt you. And me. I ran and somehow . . .” Emotions clogged his head. He glanced at the clock. 9:02. “Somehow we ended up in a storage basement in one of the warehouses. I don’t even remember which one anymore. I locked him in and ran away.”

  She blinked. “What happened?”

  “I had to do it, Sam!” He spoke desperately now. “He was going to kill you! And me!”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay, Kevin. We can talk about it later, okay? Right now—”

  “That’s the sin he wants me to confess. I left him to die in the dark.”

  “But he didn’t die, did he? Obviously he’s alive. You didn’t kill anyone.”

  He paused. Of course! The dark night flashed through his mind. Unless Slater wasn’t the boy, but someone who knew about the incident, a psychopath who’d discovered the truth somehow and had decided that Kevin should pay.

  “Either way, I locked a boy in a basement and left him to die. That’s intent. That’s as good as murder.”

  “You don’t know that this has anything to do with the boy. We have to think this through, Kevin.”

  “We don’t have time to think this through! It’s the only thing that makes any sense. If I confess, this crazy game stops.” He paced and rubbed his head, suppressing a sudden urge to cry over the thought of actually confessing after all that he’d done to rid himself of his past. “Oh God, what have I done? This can’t be happening. Not after everything else.”

  She stared at him, digesting the new information, her eyes wrinkled with empathy. “So then confess, Kevin. That was almost twenty years ago.”

  “Come on, Sam!” He whirled to her, angry. “This will blow sky-high. Every American who watches the news will know about the seminary student who buried another kid alive and left him to die. This will ruin me!”

  “Better ruined than dead. Besides, you had reason to lock up the boy. I’ll come to your defense.”

  “None of that matters. If I am capable of attempted murder, I am capable of anything. That’s the reputation that will follow me.” He gritted his teeth. “This is nuts. We’re running out of time. I have to call the newspaper and tell them. It’s the only way to stop that maniac before he kills me.”

  “Maybe, but he’s also demanding that you solve the riddle. We may be dealing with the same killer from Sacramento—”

  “I know. Jennifer told me. Still, the only way to stop him is to confess. The riddle is supposed to tell me what to confess.” Kevin headed for the phone. He had to call the newspaper. Slater was listening—he’d know. This was insane.

  “What was the riddle?”

  He stopped. “What takes you there but takes you nowhere? He said it would be worse this time.”

  “How does that tie in to the boy?” she asked.

  The question hadn’t occurred to him. What takes you there but takes you nowhere? “I don’t know.” What if Sam was right? What if his confession about the boy wasn’t what Slater was looking for?

  “What connection is there between the boy and the three riddles he’s given?” She grabbed a piece of paper. “Sixty minutes. Yesterday it was three minutes and then thirty minutes. Today it’s sixty minutes. What time did he call?”

  “Nine o’clock. Three times three. That’s what he said.”

  Her eyes studied the riddles she’d jotted down.

  “Call Agent Peters. Tell her about Slater’s call and the confession. Ask her to call the newspaper and tell her to get over here as fast as she can. We have to crack these riddles.”

  Kevin punched in the number Jennifer had left him. The clock read 9:07. They still had fifty-three minutes. Jennifer picked up.

  “He called,” Kevin said.

  Silence.

  “He called—”

  “Another riddle?”

  “Yes. But I think I might know who he is and what he wants.”

  “Tell me!”

  Kevin told her the rest in a halting run-on that ate up several minutes. An urgency he hadn’t expected crowded her voice. She was impatient and demanding. But her intensity reassured him.

  “So you think you know who he is, and you neglect to tell me about his demand that you confess. What are you trying to do to me? This is a killer we’re dealing with!”

  “I’m sorry, I was scared. I’m telling you now.”

  “Any other secrets?”

  “No. Please, I’m sorry.”

  “Samantha’s there?”

  “Yes. You have to get this confession out,” Kevin said. “That’s what this is about.”

  “We don’t know that. I don’t see the relationship between the riddles and the boy.”

  “He was here, last night, and he wrote on my milk jug,” Kevin said. “It has to be him! You wanted motivation; now you have it.
I tried to kill someone. He’s mad. How’s that? You have to get this confession on the air.”

  Silence stretched on the line.

  “Jennifer?”

  “We need more time!” she said and then took a breath. “Okay, I’ll put the confession on the wire. Stay put. Do not set foot outside that house, you hear me? Work the riddles.”

  “Sam—”

  But Jennifer had hung up. Now there was a no-nonsense girl. He found comfort in the fact.

  Kevin hung up. 9:13. “She’ll call the paper.”

  “Three,” Samantha said. “Our guy’s tripping over his threes. Progressions. Three, thirty, sixty. And opposites. Night and day, life and death. What takes you there but takes you nowhere?” She stared at her page of notes and numbers.

  “She wasn’t exactly thrilled about you being here,” Kevin said.

  Sam looked up. “What takes you there? The obvious answer is transportation. Like a car. But he did a car. He won’t do a car again. He’s into progressions. More.”

  Kevin’s mind spun. “A bus. Train. Plane. But they take you somewhere, don’t they?”

  “Depends on where somewhere is. I don’t think it matters—there and nowhere are opposites. I think he’s going to blow up some kind of public transport!”

  “Unless the confession—”

  “We can’t assume that’ll stop him.” She jumped to her feet, grabbed the phone from its cradle, and punched the redial.

  “Agent Peters? Sam Sheer here. Listen, I think—” She paused and listened. “Yes, I do understand jurisdiction, and as far as I’m concerned, Kevin has always been my jurisdiction. If you want to press the matter, I’ll get authorization from the attorney gen—” Another pause, and Sam was smiling now. “My thoughts exactly. But how long will it take to evacuate all public transportation in Long Beach?” She glanced at her watch. “By my watch we have forty-two minutes.” Sam listened for a while. “Thank you.”

  She hung up. “Sharp gal. Feisty. The news already has your story. It’s going out live on television as we speak.”

  Kevin ran to his television and flipped it on.

  “The next edition of the paper won’t hit the street until tomorrow morning,” Sam said. “Slater didn’t mention the paper this time, did he?”

  “No. I’m sure television will work. God help me.”

  Empathy lit Sam’s gentle eyes. “Jennifer doesn’t think this will satisfy him. The real game’s the riddle. I think she’s right.” She paced and put both palms on her head. “Think, Sam, think!”

  “They’re evacuating the public—”

  “There’s no way they can get them all out in time,” Sam said. “It’ll take them half an hour just to get the clearances! There’s more here. Slater’s precise. He’s given us more.”

  The program on the television suddenly changed. The familiar face of Tom Schilling, news anchor for the ABC affiliate, filled the screen. A red “Breaking News” banner scrolled across the picture tube. The graphic behind Tom Schilling was a shot of Kevin’s charred car with the words “Riddle Killer?” superimposed in a choppy font. The anchor glanced off-camera to his right and then faced the audience.

  Kevin stared, spellbound. Tom Schilling was about to drop the hammer on his life. Goose bumps rippled up his neck. Maybe confessing had been a mistake.

  “We have a shocking new development in the case of the car explosion on Long Beach Boulevard yesterday. Kevin Parson, the driver of the car, has come forward with new information that may shed light on the investigation.”

  When Kevin heard his name, the room faded, the picture blurred, and the words grew garbled, as if spoken underwater. His life was over. Tom Schilling droned on.

  “Kevin Parson is a seminary student at . . .”

  You’re dead.

  “ . . . the hopeful clergyman has confessed . . .”

  This is it.

  “ . . . locked the boy in an underground . . .”

  Your life is over.

  He thought it odd that this exposure brought on a sense of impending death even more acutely than Slater’s threats had. He’d spent five years pulling himself out of Baker Street’s sea of despondency, and now, in the space of less than twenty-four hours, he found himself overboard, drowning again. Someone would start digging into the rest of his childhood. Into the truth behind Balinda and the house.

  Here am I. Kevin Parson, a shell of a man who is capable of the most wicked sin conceived of by man. Here am I, a wretched pretender. I am nothing more than a slug, role-playing its way through life in human form. When you learn everything, you will know that and more.

  Thank you. Thank you, Aunt Balinda, for sharing this with me. I am nothing. Thank you, you lousy, sick, twisted auntie for slamming this nugget of truth down my throat. I am nothing, nothing, nothing. Thank you, you demon from hell for gouging out my eyes and pounding me into the ground and . . .

  “—vin? Kevin!”

  Kevin turned. Sam sat at the table, remote in hand, staring at him. The television was off. It occurred to him that he was trembling. He exhaled and relaxed his balled hands, ran them through his hair. Get a grip, Kevin. Hold yourself together.

  But he didn’t want to hold himself together. He wanted to cry.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry, Kevin. It’s not as bad as it sounds. I’ll get you through this, I promise.”

  It’s not as bad as it sounds because you don’t know the whole story, Sam. You don’t know what really happened in that house on Baker Street. He turned away from her. God, help me. Please help me.

  “I’ll be okay,” he said and cleared his throat. “We have to focus on the riddle.”

  A stray thought whispered to Kevin.

  “It’s the numbers,” Sam said. “Public transportation is numbered. Slater’s going to blow a bus or a train identified with the number three.”

  The thought raised its voice. “He said no cops!”

  “What—”

  “No cops!” Kevin shouted. “They’re using cops to evacuate?”

  The fear he felt spread through her eyes. “Dear God!”

  “I don’t care if they have to delay every flight in the country!” Jennifer said. “We have a credible bomb threat here, sir! Get the governor on the line if you have to. Terrorist or not, this guy’s going to blow something.”

  “Thirty-five minutes—”

  “Is enough time to start.”

  The bureau chief hesitated.

  “Look, Frank,” Jennifer said, “you have to put your neck on the line with me here. The local police don’t have the muscle to push this through fast enough. Milton’s working on the buses, but the bureaucracy’s thicker than molasses down here. I need this from the top.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Meaning what? That I’m jumping the gun? We can’t afford to risk—”

  “Okay. But if this turns out to be a hoax . . .”

  “It won’t be the first.”

  She hung up and took a deep breath. It had already occurred to her that they’d violated one of Slater’s rules. No cops. But she saw no alternatives. She needed the local police.

  A junior detective, Randal Crenshaw, burst through the door. “Milton says they’re tracking down the director of local transport now. He should have an answer in ten minutes.”

  “How long will it take them to clear the buses once they have the word?”

  “Dispatch can move pretty quick.” He shrugged. “Maybe ten minutes.”

  She stood and paced the length of the conference table. They now had the first significant lead in the case. The boy. If indeed it was this boy. He’d be how old now? Early thirties? More importantly, someone other than Kevin knew the killer: Samantha Sheer’s father, a policeman named Rick Sheer, who’d caught the boy spying.

  “I want you to track down a cop who worked Long Beach about twenty years ago,” she told Crenshaw. “Name’s Rick Sheer. Find him. I need to talk to him. Run a search on any of his log
s that mention a boy who was threatening the children in his neighborhood.”

  The detective scribbled the name across a piece of paper and left.

  She was missing something. Somewhere in the notes she’d taken this morning was the identity of the bus or the train or whatever Slater planned on blowing, if indeed they were right about the riddle referring to public transportation.

  The target wasn’t Kevin, and Jennifer found relief in the realization. For the moment it wasn’t his life at risk. For now Slater was more interested in playing. Play the game, Kevin. Lead him on. She snatched up the phone and dialed his number.

  He picked up on the fifth ring.

  “Any thoughts?”

  “Just going to call you. It could be a bus or something identified with a three,” Kevin said.

  That was it! Had to be. “Three. I’ll have them put a priority on anything with a three in the identifier.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “Looks good. We should know something in ten minutes.”

  “That’s cutting it pretty close, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the best they can do.”

  Sam snapped her cell phone closed and grabbed her purse. “That’s it, let’s go!” She ran for the door. “I’ll drive.”

  Kevin ran after her. “How many?”

  “Long Beach proper has twenty-five buses, each identified with several letters and a number. We want number twenty-three. It runs down Alamitos and then back up Atlantic. That’s not far. With any luck we’ll run into it.”

  “What about three or thirteen?”

  “They started the numbering at five and skipped thirteen.”

  The tires on Sam’s car squealed. She was certain Slater had a bus in mind. The planes were less likely targets for the simple reason that security was far tighter than it once had been. She had checked the trams—no threes. Trains were a possibility, but again, high security. It had to be a bus. The fact that there was only one with three in its designator offered at least a sliver of hope.

  Twenty-nine minutes.

  They flew across Willow toward Alamitos but were stopped by a red light at Walnut. Sam glanced both directions and sped through.

  “Now is one time I wouldn’t mind a cop on my tail,” she said. “We could use their help.”