Thr3e Read online

  “The blood’s over here,” Milton said.

  Jennifer directed her light to where he stood looking down at two large dark stains on the concrete. She squatted and studied each.

  “The splatter’s consistent with blood.” The basic position of the stains also matched Kevin’s story—both he and the boy had bled. “At this age we probably won’t get any reliable DNA evidence, but we can at least verify species. I knew Kevin was hiding something the first time I talked to him.”

  She glanced at Milton, surprised by his tone.

  “And this isn’t the last of it. I guarantee he’s hiding more,” he said.

  Milton was a first-class pig. She stood and walked over to a small, almost unnoticeable hole in the ceiling. “The boy’s way out?”

  “Could be.”

  So, assuming this read as fact, what would it mean? That Kevin hadn’t killed the boy? That they had fought and that Kevin had locked the door from the outside, but then the boy had managed to crawl out through the rotting ceiling? Who knew why he hadn’t come back to terrorize Kevin until now?

  Or it could mean that the boy actually had died in here, only to be discovered by some passerby years later, body disposed of. Unlikely. Unless a drifter or anyone else had reason to hide the body, it would have been investigated. She’d already run a search for reports and found none.

  “Okay, we need to do a bloodstain distribution analysis. I want to know what happened down here. Assuming it is blood, did anyone lie in it? Any blood on the walls or up through the ceiling? I want species identification and, if possible, blood type. Send a sample to the FBI lab immediately. And this stays out of the press.”

  Milton said nothing. He looked up at the corner and frowned. A shadow passed over his face. It occurred to her that she might actually hate the man.

  “Don’t get any ideas, Detective. Everything goes through me.”

  He looked at her for a moment and then walked for the door. “Sure.”

  Kevin drove them along Palos Verdes Drive, west toward Palos Verdes. Slater’s bugged phone sat on the dash, turned off.

  Sam stared ahead, eyes sparkling. “If Slater can’t make contact, how can he play the game? He’s driven by the riddles, but if we neutralize his ability to communicate a riddle, then there is no riddle, is there? At the least he has to rethink his strategy.”

  “Or blow up another bomb,” Kevin said.

  “We’re not technically breaking one of his rules. He detonates a bomb and he’s breaking the rules of engagement. I don’t think Slater will do that.”

  Kevin thought about Sam’s plan. On one hand, it felt good to be doing something—anything—besides waiting. The idea made sense on its surface. On the other hand, he didn’t trust Slater to follow his own rules. Sam knew him better, maybe, but it was his life they were messing with.

  “Why not just turn off the phone and stick around?”

  “He’d find a way to communicate.”

  “He still might.”

  “Possible. But this way we also get you out of there. The one thing we need now is time. A dozen new leads have surfaced in the last twenty-four hours, but we need time.”

  There was the we word again.

  “We should at least tell Jennifer, don’t you think?”

  “Think of this as a test. We cut off all contact and then we gradually resume contact. Unless Slater’s following us now, he’ll be lost. His opponent will have disappeared. He may rant and rave, but he won’t play the game without you. We add some people to the loop and see if Slater suddenly knows more than he should. Follow?”

  “What if he has the car bugged?”

  “Then he did it today under the noses of the FBI. They swept it this morning, remember?”

  Kevin nodded. The idea was growing on him. “Just like that we’re gone, huh?”

  She grinned. “Just like that.”

  “Like sneaking out at night.”

  It took them half an hour to reach the quaint hotel—an old Victorian mansion that had been converted and expanded to accommodate forty rooms. They pulled into its parking lot at ten after six. A cool, salty breeze drifted off the Pacific, half a mile down green sloping hills. Sam grinned and pulled out her overnight bag.

  “Do they have rooms available?” Kevin asked.

  “We have reservations. A suite with two bedrooms.”

  He looked up at the hotel and then back toward the sea. A Conoco station with a Taco Bell stood a hundred yards to the north. Outback Steakhouse, fifty yards south. Cars drifted by, a Lexus, a Mercedes. The madness in Long Beach seemed distant.

  “Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s settle in and get something to eat.”

  Half an hour later they sat across from each other in a cozy café on the hotel’s ground floor, overlooking a dimming horizon. They’d left their cell phones, turned off, in the room. She still wore her office pager, but Slater had no way to reach either of them. It seemed that Sam’s simple plan wasn’t such a bad idea.

  “What would happen if I just disappeared?” Kevin asked, cutting into a thick New York strip.

  She forked a small bite of cheese-smothered chicken into her mouth and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Just up and leave until we find him?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not. Leave him high and dry.” She took a drink of iced tea and cut another piece. “You could move up to San Francisco.”

  “He’s ruined my life down here anyway. I don’t see how I can continue in seminary.”

  “I doubt you’re the first seminary student to have his sins exposed.”

  “Murder isn’t exactly your typical confession.”

  “Self-defense. And as far as we know, he lived.”

  “The confession sounded pretty ominous. I think I’m finished.”

  “And how’s murder so different from gossip? Wasn’t that your point to the dean? You’re no more capable of evil than the bishop, remember? Murder, gossip—what’s the difference? Evil is evil.”

  “Evil is evil as long as you keep it in the classroom. Out here in the real world, gossip doesn’t even feel evil.”

  “Which is why any good detective learns to trust the facts over feelings.” She went back to her food. “Either way, I don’t think you can run. He’ll track you down. That’s how his kind works. You raise the stakes and he’s likely to come back with higher stakes.”

  Kevin looked out the window. Darkness had all but swallowed the horizon. Jennifer’s words came back to him. Take him out, she’d said.

  “Like a hunted animal,” he said.

  “Except that you’re not an animal. You have the same capacities he does.”

  “Jennifer told me that if I had the opportunity I should blow him away.” Anger boiled through his chest. He’d come so far, worked so hard, pulled himself out of the deepest despair, only to be hijacked by some ghost from the past.

  He slammed the table with his fist, rattling the dishes.

  He met the stares from an older couple two tables down. “I’m sorry, Kevin,” Samantha said. “I know this is hard.”

  “What’s to prevent me from being the hunter?” he asked. “He wants a game; I’ll give him a game! Why don’t I throw out a challenge and force him to respond to me? Would you do anything different?”

  “Fight terror with terror.”

  “Exactly!”

  “No,” she said.

  “What do you mean, no? Maybe the only way to corner him is to play the game his way.”

  “You don’t fight evil with evil; it just leads to anarchy. We have rules and we have scruples, unlike Slater. What are you going to do, threaten to blow up the convention center unless he gives himself up? Somehow I don’t think he’d do anything but laugh. Besides, we have no way of contacting him.”

  The maître d’ approached from Kevin’s right. “Excuse me, sir, is everything all right?”

  Someone had complained. “Yes. I’m sorry, I’ll try to control myself.” Kevin flashed him an embarra
ssed smile. The man dipped his head and left.

  Kevin took a deep breath and picked up his fork, but his appetite was suddenly gone. The fact was, when he thought about what Slater was doing to him, he could hardly think of anything but killing him. Destroy the destroyer.

  “I know it sounds a bit pretentious right now, but Slater doesn’t scare me,” Sam said, staring off into the darkness outside, wearing a coy smile. “You’ll see, Kevin. His days are numbered.”

  “And mine might be as well.”

  “Not a chance. I won’t let that happen.”

  He wasn’t brimming with her confidence, but he couldn’t resist her infectious smile. This was his Samantha. G.I. Jane.

  “Jennifer said that, huh?” Sam asked. “Blow him away.”

  “Actually, I think she said ‘take him out.’ Makes sense to me.”

  “Maybe.” She stared at him across the candle flame. “You like her, don’t you?”

  “Who, Jennifer?” He shrugged. “She seems like a good person.”

  “I don’t mean in a ‘good person’ kind of way.”

  “Come on, Sam. I hardly know her. I haven’t dated anyone for years.” He smiled sheepishly. “Good night, the last girl I kissed was you.”

  “Is that so? When we were eleven?”

  “How could you forget?”

  “I haven’t. But you do like her. I can see it in your eyes when you say her name.”

  Kevin felt his face flush. “She’s an FBI agent who’s trying to save my neck. What’s there not to like?” He looked to his right and caught the continuing stare of the older couple. They looked away. “She reminds me of you.”

  “Really? How so?”

  “Kind. No-nonsense. Pretty . . .”

  “Like I said, you like her.”

  “Please—”

  “It’s okay, Kevin,” she said softly. “I want you to like her.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. I approve.” She grinned and placed the last small bite of chicken in her mouth. Even the way she chewed her food was nothing less than spectacular, he thought. Her chin and cheeks were so smooth in motion.

  “What about . . .” He trailed off, suddenly self-conscious.

  “What about us? That’s very sweet, my knight, but I’m not sure we could ever be romantically involved. Don’t get me wrong, I love you dearly. I’m just not sure we want to risk what we have for romance.”

  “Great things always come at great risk,” he said.

  She stared at him with those intoxicating eyes, caught off guard by his forward statement.

  “Isn’t that right?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “So then don’t say we could never be romantically involved. I kissed you once and you sent me to heaven. Didn’t you feel something?”

  “When you kissed me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was floating for a week.”

  “You never told me that.”

  She grinned, and if he wasn’t mistaken, now she was embarrassed. “Maybe I wanted you to make the next move. Isn’t that what a knight does for his damsel in distress?”

  “I guess I never was a very good knight.”

  “You’ve turned into quite a dashing one,” Sam said with a twinkle in her eye. “I think she likes you.”

  “Jennifer? She told you that?”

  “Woman’s intuition. Remember?”

  Sam set down her napkin and stood. “Would you like to dance?”

  He glanced around. No one else was dancing, but several colored lights turned slowly on the tiny dance floor. Michael Bolton crooned over the speakers.

  “I . . . I’m not sure I know how to—”

  “Sure you do. Just like when we were kids. Under the moonlight. Don’t tell me you’ve never danced since then.”

  “No, not really.”

  She looked at him gently. “Then we definitely should. Will you?”

  He smiled and dipped his head. “It would be my pleasure.”

  They held each other gently and danced for several long minutes. It wasn’t a sensual dance or even romantic. It was just the right thing to do after ten years of separation.

  Slater did not call that night.

  14

  Sunday

  Morning

  THE WALL IS DARK BROWN, almost black, and pitted. Slightly damp in spots, leaking an odor of mold and mildew and something else he never has been able to place. A single incandescent bulb glows in the bathroom, casting just enough light into the main basement for Slater to see the darkness of the wall.

  These are the things he likes: cold, dark, wetness, mildew, and chocolate sundaes with equal portions of ice cream and fudge. Oh, yes, and he likes fascination. In fact, he likes to be fascinating above everything else, and really, in order to be properly fascinating, he has to dispense with the expected and deliver only what they don’t expect. This is why confused teenage boys pierce their eyelids and tattoo their foreheads, and why girls out to impress them shave their heads. It is all a pathetic, hopeless attempt to be fascinating.

  The problem with doing something so senseless as piercing an eyelid is that it reveals your intentions. Here am I, a poor teenage slug who requires your attention. Look at me, see how I resemble a puddle of dog vomit? Won’t you please throw your fingers to your teeth and be wildly fascinated by me?

  The pitiful first gropings of the dark man.

  But Slater knows what they do not. He knows that the dark man is most fascinating when he moves in complete obscurity. Hidden. Unknown. That’s why he is called the dark man. That’s why he has started in the dark. That’s why he does all of his best work at night. That’s why he loves this basement. Because for all practical purposes, Slater is the Dark Man.

  Someone famous should write a comic book based on him.

  Slater stands from his stool. He’s been looking at the pitted wall for over an hour without moving. He finds it fascinating. Darkness is always fascinating. He’s never quite sure what he’s looking at, unlike a piece of white paper, which only grows fascinating if he puts a black pen to it.

  It’s light outside—he knows this because of the single crack in the corner. Samantha has taken Kevin and gone into hiding. Which means that after all these months, she’s learned something new.

  Slater hums softly and walks toward a small vanity. The secret of being the Dark Man is not looking like a dark man at all. That is why the world looks at stupid little teenagers with rings in their noses as idiots. It’s like walking around school, stripped to the waist in a Charles Atlas pose all day. Please. Too obvious. Too stupid. Too boring.

  Now the angel of light routine—those who pile on the white to obscure the Dark Man, like Sunday school teachers and clergy, like priests—not a bad instinct really. But these days, a white collar is no longer the best disguise.

  The best disguise is simply obscurity.

  Slater sits and tilts the mirror so that it catches enough light from the bathroom to cast his reflection. You see, now there is a Nobody. A strongly built man with blond hair and grayish eyes. A wedding band on his left hand, a closet full of pressed shirts and Dockers and a silver Honda Accord out on the street.

  He could walk up to any Betty in the mall and say, “Excuse me, do I look like the Dark Man to you?”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” she would say. Because she wouldn’t associate him with a name like Dark Man. She, along with ten thousand other mall flies, would be fooled. Blind. Shrouded by darkness.

  That is his secret. He can walk under their noses without the slightest hint of guilt. He is virtually transparent, for the very reason that he is so much like them. They see him every day and don’t know who he is.

  Slater frowns at himself and wags his head in mockery. “I like you, Kevin. I love you, Kevin.” Sam can be such a cockroach. He should have killed her when he had the chance, long ago.

  Now she’s in the thick of things again, which is good because he can finish the job, once and
for all. But her audacity makes him nauseated.

  “Let’s run away and play hide-and-seek,” he mocks again. “What do you take me for?”

  The fact is, Sam knows more about him than any of the others. True, her little disappearing act will gain them nothing, but at least she’s made a move, which is more than he can say for the rest. She’s trying to flush him out. She might even know that he’s been under their noses all along.

  But the Dark Man isn’t that stupid. They can’t hide forever. Kevin will eventually stick his slimy head out of his hole, and when he does, Slater will be there to bite it off.

  He leans the mirror against the wall and crosses to the room he’s prepared for his guest. It is slightly larger than a closet, encased in concrete. A steel door. Leather restraints lay on the floor, but he doubts he’ll need them. The game will end here, where it’s been designed to end. The rest of this cat-and-mouse foolishness is only a smoke screen to keep them in the dark, where all good games are played. If the newspapers think they have a hot story now, they are about to be reeducated. The occasional destruction of a car or bus by way of explosion a story hardly makes. What he plans will be worthy of a book.

  “I despise you,” he says softly. “I loathe the way you walk and the way you speak. Your heart is vile. I will kill you.”

  The anger had worked its way up to a seething through the night. Kevin tossed and turned in a fitful attempt at sleep. Sam’s optimism sat like a light on the horizon of his mind, but as the night wore on, the light grew dim until it faded altogether, obscured by bitterness toward the man who had stomped into his life uninvited.

  Fury was a good word for it. Rage. Indignation. They all worked. He relived that night twenty years ago a hundred times. The boy sneering at him as he turned the knife in his hands, threatening to shove the blade through Sam’s chest. The boy’s name was Slater—had to be. How he’d escaped was beyond Kevin. Why he’d waited so long to come after him made no sense either. He should have killed Slater then.

  His pillow felt like a wet sponge. His sheets clung to his legs like mildewed leaves. He couldn’t remember a time when he was so upset, so distraught, since the boy had first threatened him so many years ago.