Читать книгу Maximum Security - Tracy Montoya - Страница 13

Not a ghost, or a vision. Just a too-vivid memory that echoed in the stark halls of his empty home. He would have thought that the months would have eased the pain of Jenna’s death, but every day, every damn day, Billy could see her and hear her as clearly as if she were actually standing before him. Everything but touch her.

“Jenna,” he said again. And then his sister was gone.

This one had been from three years ago—her high-school prom. Biggest night of her life, up to that point, and she’d come down with food poisoning. She’d met him at the door, wrapped in an old quilt with a weak smile on her face. He’d helped her into bed, held her long, sand-colored hair while she was sick. He’d called her boyfriend Tom and apologized for her, then convinced her to stay in bed when she’d wanted to crawl to the Mission High School gym, bad breath and gray complexion be damned.

He’d thought there’d be a hundred more dates. A thousand more dances.

He shook his head with a sharp jerk, half wishing the violent movement would clear the images once and for all. But they were still there. They’d always be there. At least he could be thankful that the brutal slide-show memories of the crime-scene photos only assaulted him on special occasions.

Billy strode through the house he and Jenna had shared before she’d gone off to college. He went into the living room, tearing off his T-shirt and shedding the rest of his clothes as he went. Empty picture frames hung on the pale-green walls, the contents torn out and the glass long since swept away. As usual, he paid them no mind. Stripped down to his boxers, he picked up a pair of gray sweatpants that had been carelessly tossed over the back of a battered blue recliner and put them on. Some white athletic tape lay in the chair’s seat cushion, and he scooped it up to wrap his hands. His slender hacker’s hands with their wiry tendons and fingertip calluses from rapid typing. His good-for-nothing hands.

He’d destroyed most of the living room furniture long ago, other than the recliner and the TV set. The other half of the room was bare, except for the Everlast punching bag hanging from the ceiling by a thick metal chain. Billy figured it was probably the only thing standing between him and the deep well of insanity Maggie Reyes had fallen into.

Beautiful, crazy Maggie.

He punched with his right hand, then followed with a quick jab from his left. Right. Left. Uppercut. Jab. Right. Left. Uppercut. Jab. He would not think of Maggie.

Controlling his breathing, he fell into the familiar rhythm of hard exercise for the next couple of hours. Small drops of sweat flicked off his hair and forehead with every movement, but he didn’t stop to wipe his face. He didn’t need to. After an hour or two of a punishing workout, he didn’t feel much of anything. And that was the point.

Right. Left. Uppercut. Jab. Right. Left. Uppercut. Jab.

Jenna.

The next punch went wild and his fist skimmed off the bag, tipping him off balance, and he crashed to the floor. His right hip and elbow hit the bare wooden boards with a loud smack.

“Jesus,” he breathed, unsure whether it was a curse or a prayer. He rolled over onto his back, his arms flung out from his sides as he caught his breath.

“Nope, just me,” a voice said above him. “Not that I haven’t been confused with the divine before.”

Billy swiped the back of his hand across his eyes and pushed himself up into a sitting position. “Agent Parker,” he said calmly, as if his boss wandered into his house uninvited every day.

“Special Agent Corrigan.” Somewhere in that ageless territory between fifty and infinity, Fay Parker, Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco field office, strode into the room and sat down on the edge of his recliner. She smoothed the skirt of her black power suit before crossing her ankles and fixing him with the stare that had earned her the nickname “the Basilisk.” One slight move of her head, and her gold wire glasses slipped far enough down her nose so she could eye him over the rims. “You’re a goddamn mess, Agent Corrigan,” she said finally, her deep, raspy voice the hallmark of too many cigarettes.

Billy leaned back against the wall and drew his knees up so he could rest his elbows on them, only slightly breathless from the two hours he’d spent at the bag. “I am.” He paused. “Ma’am.”

She raised an eyebrow at the hint of challenge in his tone, but chose to ignore it. “Well, now that everyone’s in agreement.” Her voice was soft, but cold. “Judge Randall told me she hasn’t seen hide nor hair of you or the affadavit for the DigiSystems case you told me you were going to submit today. Where is it? And where’s the cell phone you’re supposed to have with you at all times?” She tapped her fingers rapidly on the chair arm, but otherwise gave no outward sign of her agitation. But she was agitated.

“I’m sorry, Agent Parker,” he said, not bothering to point out that he’d never been late with a paperwork at any other time in his career. Except when they’d called him about Jenna. “I thought it could wait until morning.” The T-shirt he’d tossed away earlier lay next to him, and he grabbed it, using it to wipe his face before he put it on. “But my guess is you didn’t come here for that, or to remind me to turn on my cell phone.”

She didn’t even blink. “Okay, Billy, then how about you enlighten me as to why you were sniffing up Maggie Reyes’s skirt this afternoon?”

Nothing the all-seeing Parker said should have surprised him, but he was still taken aback.

“Oh, yes, I know where you were today. I’ve been watching you for a long time.” She took the glasses from her face and leaned forward, the thin line of her mouth softening slightly. “I make it my business to know when one of my agents is about to sabotage the hell out of his career.”

He sat up a little straighter at her remark, feeling suddenly pinned down by her gaze.

“It’s been two years, son. I know you never get over losing a family member, but you’re killing yourself over this.”

He shook his head, but couldn’t bring himself to form the words of denial that automatically rose to his lips.

“You work all the time. You cut off all contact with the people you used to see socially. You rarely talk to anyone outside of the job.” She shrugged, a faint trace of pity in her dark eyes. “Not that that’s abnormal in a unit full of techno-geeks, but it’s never been normal for you. Driving your body and mind to the brink of exhaustion every damn day for nearly two years is eventually going to take its toll.” She folded her glasses into her fist with a small snap. “And I don’t want any of my agents in the field with you when you finally crack, Corrigan. This has to stop.”

He didn’t even bother to ask her what. “He killed my sister. And he’s coming here.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Says who? Certainly not Violent Crimes.”

“Maggie.”

“Oh, it’s ‘Maggie’ now, is it?” Parker stood, her iron-gray bob swinging along her jawline with her sudden movement. “I don’t care if the entire city of Monterey decides to throw a parade in the Surgeon’s honor. This is not a case for the Computer Crimes Division. And, given your position in the Bureau, this is not a case for you.”

Billy rose off the floor. Parker was only five foot six to his six-three, but she had the presence of an Amazon, and he wasn’t about to let her loom over him. He hated people who loomed.

“I know what you want, Corrigan, and I’m warning you now, I will not have vigilante justice in my department. I’ll say it again.” She punctuated her words by shaking her glasses at him. “This. Is. Not. Your. Case.”

Billy relaxed his stance, as if in preparation for physical combat rather than a battle of wills. “Jenna was everything I had,” he said quietly. “I won’t stop looking for him. You can fire me now, if you have to, but I won’t ever stop.”

She didn’t even blink. “Turn in your badge and your gun.”

Without hesitation, Billy walked to where his jeans lay on the floor and took his badge wallet out of one of the pockets. His gun rested on the fireplace mantle, and he picked that up, too, then handed both items to her.

The room grew quiet for several seconds as they stared at each other. Parker was the first to crack. “Damn you, you stupid, stubborn male.” She sighed and shook her head. “This is an extended leave of absence. When you’re ready to give up any and all delusions that you’re John Wayne, give me a call.”

She placed the items he’d given her onto the recliner she’d just vacated. “Now. Promise me one thing, Corrigan,” she said.

“If I can,” he answered.

“If, through some giant stroke of luck, you run into that son of a bitch before the Violent Crimes Division does, you follow the law to the letter. Because if I hear just a hint of the words excessive force in a sentence with your name in it, I will not lift a finger to save you.”

She spun around and walked to the door, then stopped just before exiting. “Live, Billy,” she said. “Please, just live.”

MAGGIE’S VISION CLOUDED and tunneled until all she could see was the vicious hunting knife, the serrated teeth on its top edge tearing into the wood on her door. She remembered that knife. The Surgeon had worn a mask when he’d taken her, and she’d never seen his face, but she’d remember that knife for the rest of her days. Every time she looked at the scars on her stomach.

“Addy, get a plastic bag from the kitchen, would you?” Her own voice sounded tinny and remote to her ears. She didn’t notice Adriana leave the room, but suddenly, the plastic bag was in her hand. She wrapped it around her fingers and pulled the knife out of her door. A piece of paper fluttered to the floor.

Then her vision cleared, widened, and she could see beyond the door, outside, down her sand-strewn driveway to the copse of trees across the street, so thick she wouldn’t know if someone were standing among them right now, watching.

The tremors were small, at first, starting with her fingers and vibrating up her arms, but soon, her entire body was shaking and jerking hard enough to make her teeth chatter. Her hand loosened its grip on the knife and it clattered to the floor, but still she stood in the open doorway as if rooted to the spot. Staring at the trees.

Adriana gripped her shoulders and steered her toward the couch. She pushed a glass of water in Maggie’s hands before moving away to shut the door. She was saying something, or her mouth was moving anyway, but Maggie had no idea what was coming out. She barely managed to catch the words “—calling 911.”

He’d been at her doorstep. In the trees outside her home. And all she could do was stay holed up in her house like the proverbial sitting duck, practically inviting him to come inside and finish what he’d started. She glanced at the thin panes of glass that separated her from the Surgeon’s terrible hands. How had she ever thought this house, that glass, could keep her safe when it would shatter so easily?

“Little pig, little pig, let me come in…”

Oh, no.

She stood up and backed away from the window.

“…Maggie? Maggie, please.”

Maggie glanced down at the hand on her arm. Focused on the thin silver rings and graceful fingers. Focus. She had to focus.

“Maggie, James esta aqui. I have answered most of his questions but you have to talk to him, por favor.” Adriana’s voice brought her out of her thoughts. “Please?”

She shook her head, scrubbed her hand over her eyes. She’d obviously been in la-la land for some time, it didn’t seem like enough time had passed for the police to be here already. “Sure, Addy. Of course I’ll talk to him.” She tightened her mouth upward in what she hoped was a smile and looked around until she zeroed in on the real James Brentwood, a tall, brown-haired man in a rumpled shirt and tie, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. He wore a pair of trendy brown glasses, behind which were sparkling brown eyes, set deeply in a face that seemed to crinkle into a smile naturally. There was an almost frenetic energy about him—even his hair cowlicked wildly about his head, as if it, too, couldn’t stand still. “Hello, Detective Brentwood,” she said, putting on her best I’m-a-sane-productive-member-of-society voice.

He reached forward and clasped her hand in his in a brief handshake. “Maggie Reyes. A pleasure.” Brentwood introduced her to his partner, Detective Elizabeth Borkowski—Billy’s friend, she noted—who had gathered up the knife and the note in plastic bags. Borkowski was a petite brunette with short, curly hair, milk-white skin dotted with pale freckles, and a wedding ring on her left hand.

Borkowski quickly excused herself and headed outside to check the yard and exterior of the house. Maggie gestured for Brentwood to have a seat. He sank down into the overstuffed, sage-green sofa in the living room and had a brief battle of wills and elbows with the throw pillows piled up near the armrest. When they’d been beaten into submission, Brentwood leaned back and settled in. Adriana lowered herself next to him.

“So,” Brentwood began after they’d dispensed with the kind of pleasantries that usually made Maggie irritable. This time, however, they were a welcome delay of the inevitable. She really didn’t want to think about what that knife or that note meant just now.

But obviously, Brentwood wasn’t going to give her the reprieve she was craving. He placed the note, bagged in plastic, on the table and shoved it toward her. “Any idea what this means?” Sitting back, he batted his too-long brown hair out of his eyes.

She scanned the letter that had been impaled to her door moments before. Someone had scrawled Do you want to live forever? in heavy, uneven letters. Underneath was scribbled, S10 M0. Seemingly meaningless, but if she knew the Surgeon, the message was just as important as the words she knew well.

As soon as she saw the three men in black come through the door of the rotting cabin, she instinctively jerked against her bonds, the movement nearly exhausting what remained of her strength. A sharp pain shot through her wrists as the fishing line cut into her skin, and then she could feel something wet dripping down her arms. Her mind felt thick, ponderous, and it took her a few moments to comprehend that her wrists were bleeding.

She blinked, her eyelids closing and opening in the slowest of motions, and the three men before her coalesced into one. One man, with a neoprene ski mask on his face and a nylon stocking over his hair. One man with a starving, frenzied look in his too-bright eyes.

The springs of the rusty cot creaked as he climbed on top of her, and she heard the sound of metal sing against leather. Slowly, ponderously, she turned her head and saw the large hunting knife he held next to her cheek. With one hand, he looped a leather cord around her neck; the other brought the tip of the knife to the hollow in her throat.

“Do you wanna live forever, Maggie?” he whispered, and he trailed the knife down her breastbone, leaving a thin red line in its wake.

Lost in her thoughts, Maggie barely noticed as her hands jerked upward to clutch at her throat. At the sudden movement, Adriana sprang up from her perch on the sofa arm. “Maggie?” she said.

Maggie shook her head, coming fully back to the present. She waved her friend off with an apologetic smile. “That question—” She picked up the bagged note Brentwood had passed to her and tapped its shiny surface with a fingernail. “—was something the Surgeon asked me when—” She swallowed, trying desperately not to remember any more. “That night.” She trusted that Brentwood would know exactly what night she was referring to.

He did. He took off his tortoiseshell glasses and chewed on one of the bows while his right leg bobbed up and down like a sewing-machine needle. “You think he’s followed you from Louisiana to Monterey.” It was a statement, not a question, but she nodded anyway.

“I know how that sounds,” she said, handing the note back to him. It sounded crazy, that’s how it sounded. She knew it; he knew it.

James nodded grimly. “Serial killers don’t normally stalk across long distances. Especially not after a victim has gone into hiding.” His brow was furrowed in a look of concerned understanding laced with pity. He didn’t believe her.

“I’m no ordinary victim,” Maggie responded.

“You think he’s following you because of your books?” James asked.

Maggie had to admire the man. By now, most people would have passed into the “you flaming idiot” phase of the conversation. “In the criminal world, I’m something of a celebrity. You want to live forever? Just have Maggie Reyes write your story.” She got up and paced to the fireplace, focusing her attention on a photo of herself and her parents that rested on the mantle. She didn’t remember when it had been taken, but it must have been years ago; they were outdoors. Not to mention she hadn’t seen them for eighteen months.

“What you’re talking about is uncharted territory.” James said behind her. “According to the feds, the Surgeon is your basic organized lust killer. He’s smart enough to plan and cover his tracks, but he kills from compulsion.”

“No killer cannibalized his victims with the enthusiasm Jeffrey Dahmer had. No one put up a better guise of sanity than Ted Bundy. No one broke more of the profilers ‘rules’ than the DC snipers.” Maggie turned to face him. “They’re all uncharted territory, Detective Brentwood. And no one has ever tracked victims with the single-mindedness of the Surgeon.”

“So he’s communicating with you so you’ll write a book about him?”

Ah-ha. Now she was getting polite disbelief. Time to bring out the big guns. “The woman who was killed in Carmel—Abigail Rhodes. Did that look like an ordinary murder to you?”

Brentwood put his glasses back on his face and pushed them as far up his nose as they would go. His leg continued to keep time to some rhythm only he could sense. “I’m not at liberty to discuss—”

“Abigail had reported harassing phone calls to the police three days prior to her death,” Maggie broke in, recounting what she knew of the case. “The night of the murder, someone broke into her apartment. There was no sign of forced entry. She was quickly incapacitated by a blow to the head, then tied to her bed and stabbed repeatedly in an almost ritualistic fashion. You found no fingerprints, few fibers, and nothing that would let you point to a particular suspect with any certainty.”

James cleared his throat. “That was all in the papers,” he began, his manner still unfailingly polite.

“And here’s what wasn’t.” Moving quickly across the room, she sat on the edge of the chair across from him, the coffee table between them. “He used fishing line to tie her wrists and ankles. She was strangled, but that’s not what killed her. The cause of death was heavy blood loss due to several cuts on her abdomen arranged in a particular pattern resembling a grid.”

The detective’s leg stopped bouncing.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Maggie said. “He took something off her body—like a piece of jewelry or a scrap of clothing. It’s his trophy, Detective Brentwood. He’ll touch it and look at it and relive his crime over and over and over again. And when reliving it isn’t enough, he’ll find some other young woman and he’ll do the same thing all over again. Unless you’re there to stop him.”

Her macabre litany finished, Maggie sat back against the soft upholstery of the chair, feeling strangely tired. Ever since she’d read about Abigail Rhodes, she’d been so damn tired.

The detective stared at her for a long moment, then steepled his hands and brought them to his lips, resting his thumbs under his square chin.

“I told you she knew what she was talking about,” Adriana said behind him.

“Why is he so fixated on you? Will he come here?” the man finally said.

“Eventually,” Maggie replied. “He’ll kill me because he wants immortality.”

“Right,” James said. “Kill the woman who immortalized the Green River Killer, the Zodiac murders, Mohammed and Malvo, and you’d have yourself a hell of a biography.”

The three of them grew suddenly quiet, remaining motionless until Adriana started fishing inside her purse. The sound of crinkling wrappers broke the silence, and then Addy shoved a piece of gum in her mouth and began snapping away. She tossed the pack on the table. “Nerves,” she explained. “Help yourselves.”

James patted her knee gently and then turned his focus back to Maggie. “What about these letters and numbers?”

“I think he might be keeping score,” she replied. “Ten murders for him, no leads for me. In New Orleans, I was on the task force that was trying to catch him.”

“Hmmm.” Brentwood turned the note over. “And this?”

Taped to the back was a photo. Maggie stepped closer, too intrigued to be frightened yet by the picture she hadn’t known was there. She picked up the bag and examined its contents. The photo was severely out of focus; the only thing she could tell was that it was taken inside a room with generic beige walls, and the subject was a woman with curly black hair.

“Maggie?” Brentwood’s voice broke her concentration.

“Well, that’s new.” She licked her lips. “He’s definitely sending a message.” She put the note down and pulled the rubber band off the end of her braid, combing her fingers through her hair until her black curls cascaded freely over her shoulders. From the look on Brentwood’s face, it was clear he knew what she was going to say next. “I think that’s me.”

Brentwood narrowed his eyes and squinted at the photo. “You don’t recognize anything in the background, do you?”

She shook her head. “That beige wall could be anywhere. This house, my home in New Orleans, any one of the places I used to give lectures.” She gave him a small smile. “Unfortunately, I’ve always had huge hair, so I couldn’t even tell you when this was taken. Especially since the face is so out of focus.”

Brentwood continued asking questions, and she answered, doing her best to keep herself divorced from the reality that was coming out of her mouth. Finally, the questions stopped, and he simply looked at her, with Adriana cracking her gum on the couch next to him. Brentwood’s mouth flattened, and he clenched his jaw tightly. The man wouldn’t have made a very good poker player.

“You can’t do anything,” she said. “I know.”

He stood, played with his tie, though his eyes never left hers. If he had to leave her at the mercy of a madman, at least he’d be honest and forthright about it. “It could be a prank. A lot of kids in this area know about your…condition.”

The crazy woman on Mermaid Point. Oh, yeah, they knew all right. “Sure,” she said.

“Even if he were stalking you, serial killers normally don’t stray from their comfort zones. This would be highly unusual.”

“Right.” Her gaze traveled out the window, to the shadows between the trees across the street.

“We’ll check for fingerprints on the knife and the note. If it’s any of our known offenders—”

“You won’t find anything,” Maggie interrupted flatly. “He’s better than that.”

Adriana, who’d been listening carefully to the entire exchange, finally burst out, “James, can’t you do something? What if she’s really not safe?”

“I’ll arrange for extra patrols past your house.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, then pulled them out again. “I’m sorry, it’s all I can do at this point.”

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How many people had been apologizing to her lately? Would they keep saying it, even if she were dead? “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his tan trenchcoat, looking a little as if he ought to be in a black-and-white noir film. “I’m listening, Maggie. Call me if you have anything else.” Then he turned to leave.

Maggie turned and walked into the kitchen, only half listening to Adriana argue with Brentwood as she went outside to see him to his car.

She traced her fingers around the smooth, cool lid of her blue sugar canister, the Firestar nestled inside once more, loaded and ready. There were other weapons hidden around the house—guns, knives, Mace. Would they be enough?

They had to be.

Last time around, she’d had the protection of the entire NOPD and a few FBI agents, and it hadn’t been enough. She’d had her gun, her martial arts training, her normally flawless intuition that had warned her of approaching danger countless times. None of it had kept her safe.

Now, she had what her former colleagues politely called “a psychological condition,” she jumped at mere shadows, and she had all the credibility of an alcoholic bag lady. Sure, her friends and family would be there for her if she asked, but she couldn’t involve them. Keeping them far away from this crazy game, more than anything, had to be her first priority. This time, despite the fact that Addy’s detective might believe her, she was alone.

Her eyes fell on Billy Corrigan’s card.

She palmed it off the table, then curled her fingers around it until it was crushed inside her fist.

All alone.