Savage Art (A Chilling Suspense Novel) (37 page)

Amy was here. He didn't even try to suppress the smile that curled his lips. It had been much too easy to lure Michael out. And he had watched as Casey greeted them. She was happy. He hadn't ever seen her look happy before.

The very idea that he was at the root of that made him glow from the inside out. And the control he would have over her when he had Amy was almost overwhelming. Her every emotion would be in his power, Casey like a puppet for him to play with. And he couldn't wait to pluck the strings and watch her dance.

Taking the keys from his pocket, he found the one with the red plastic cover and unlocked the basement door. He entered quickly, and carefully locked the door behind him as he always did, inhaling the smell of metal and the cleanser he had used to scrub every inch of his workspace. The blood was gone, but memory gave him its sweet aroma.

His tools, the blood, they were the smell of power. It was a smell that intoxicated him. He never allowed himself to drink. It had been his mother's weakness—she had been especially wicked on those nights when the bottles were drained. She'd come at him with a belt that she claimed his father had left her to whip him with. It had a solid brass buckle that weighed easily a pound. He could still feel the weight of it on his arms and back. He rubbed his arm and closed his eyes, pushing the images away.

He didn't need alcohol. His work provided intoxication enough.

At the base of the stairs, he stopped and trained his eyes on the dark room, waiting until his pupils dilated to let in sufficient light to supply the images. He loved the colorlessness of a room without light.

In the darkness, the ones he'd brought there saw shapes and motions that didn't exist in the light. He loved to watch them struggle with their terror. Of course, once he was prepared to operate, the intricacies of his craft demanded light.

He found the long string in the center of the room and pulled it. A lone bulb popped on, shadowing the room with a yellow glare. The room was almost ready for Amy. He had removed all remnants of the last victim. The boy had been very disappointing.

He hadn't seen the boy enter the toy store with his father. He had only noticed the mother and the girl. Only afterward did he remember that the father and son had been only a few steps behind. And he had seen the father come out first and sit on the bench. It was so obvious now that the man must have been waiting for the wife. He hadn't wanted the boy. It was the girl he had chosen. He had felt himself reacting to her even in the short time in the store.

But what choice did he have when the boy insisted on going? And he had known that two children together would be excessive trouble. He still worried what the girl might remember. But worry was a waste of time.

In each step of the game so far, he'd had a carefully defined strategy for his acquisitions. Each had worked well. But Amy was the final test.

Before, he had merely cruised the malls, watching the women and their children, waiting for a mother who looked like Casey. So many women in the malls these days, it hadn't taken long—a few days at the most. Then, he would watch mother and child, waiting until he could separate them.

Sometimes, it was as easy as it had been with the little black girl. The mother left the child to run an errand. More often, though, it had been a matter of following the women until they got sidetracked and then luring the child away. The capture was the most exciting part of the game. Thrilling and terrifying both. One time, he'd even been caught leading a child away.

But instead of looking suspicious, the mother had actually thanked him for bringing the child back. "My pleasure, ma'am."

He smiled to himself now. Yes, it would have been if she hadn't interrupted. But nothing came of it, and no one questioned his presence. He changed his appearance and location often enough that everyone assumed he was a mall security guard. And why not? He had learned to disguise his intelligence, and people instantly accepted the appearance of a uniform as authority. It was time to finish up and move on to new challenges.

Resting in his director's chair, he picked up a scalpel, reflecting the light off the blade as he thought. Tomorrow was Monday. His check to Michael McKinley would surely be at the bank by then, so he only had until Tuesday before it could be cashed. Once the check bounced, his access to Amy would vanish.

He didn't have as much leeway as he would have liked. He had been surprised to hear Michael had already received the check in the mail when they'd spoken on the phone last week. He should have known the postal system would be efficient the one time he required slow service. It was only a minor issue, and certainly not one he couldn't overcome.

But it did tighten his time frame. He looked around the room, ticking off everything he would need. He had checked and replenished his supply of rope and duct tape. His tools were clean and sharp. He set the syringe of anesthesia beside the bag he carried with him. He had pilfered a great deal of the drug from Dr. Ballari's office before the fire, and it worked beautifully to subdue his patients in the initial stages of panic.

He continued his mental checklist. A fresh white sheet lay still wrapped in plastic on the makeshift operating table. One day, someone else would set his tools out for him. He would come and perform his art and let someone else clean up the mess. That was the day he would truly feel his power. Now he was just finishing the last stages of preparation for his official vocation.

The purple hat sat upright on a small table with his tools, waiting to be fit on Amy's lifeless head. The sight of it reminded him that he had control over how long she lived and when she died. The purple was for the last child in his palette of death.

Tomorrow, he would begin watching them. He was positive he would be able to catch Amy alone. Even the rent-a-cop was no match for him. He had paid for a room at a cheap hotel near Casey's house several days ago, the kind of place where people didn't ask questions. He hoped he wouldn't need the room, but it would give him a place to subdue Amy if need be. He had taken every precaution.

He glanced at the floor he had scrubbed and bleached. Everything was ready. He stood and moved to his table, flipping the pages of his uncle's old
Gray's Anatomy
in search of the perfect sketch to use. For Amy, the eyes—her mother's eyes, his mother's eyes—would be his focus. He found a perfect diagram of the eye and studied the muscles surrounding it. He would detach the rectus lateralis from the bottom of the eye and the rectus medialis from the top. He would have to enter from the eye cavity because of the hard bone that surrounded the eye, but he would be cautious to do so without injuring the cornea. Once he was in, he would sever the optic nerve and remove the eye. What a wonderful final gift from daughter to mother—a masterpiece indeed.

And she would be his so soon.

Chapter 32

"Are you up, Mom?" Amy yelled from the hall.

Casey rolled over and looked at the clock. It was only eight-thirty. Of course she wasn't up. With Amy in the house, Casey had stirred at the slightest creak all night. She must have checked on the patrol car a dozen times.

"Mom!" Amy yelled again.

Grunting, Casey forced herself onto her elbows. The sound of her daughter's voice in the morning was so foreign, she had to push off the sense that she was dreaming.

"Come on in, honey," she called back.

"Did I wake you up?" Amy asked, coming in wearing Casey's heavy terry-cloth robe. Her wet hair hung just above her shoulders, her face bright with excitement. She plopped herself on the bed.

Casey put her arm around her daughter and closed her eyes.

"Mom!"

"It's early."

"It's eight-thirty. I'm going to make you breakfast—pancakes, okay?"

Casey pushed herself up in bed. "Now, that's worth getting up for."

"And the phone's for you." Amy pulled the portable phone from the robe pocket.

"Is it your dad?" Casey asked.

"No." She shrugged. "Some man."

Casey glanced at the phone with a tight knot in her chest. "Why don't you go into the kitchen and get started. I'll be right in."

Amy jumped up. "Okay."

"No cooking until I get there," Casey added, all the fears of parenthood washing back over her.

When Amy was safely from the room, Casey put the phone to her ear. "Hello."

"It's Jordan."

Casey exhaled. "You ought to introduce yourself when you call," she scolded.

"Caught me off guard to have a kid answer the phone. Is that Amy?"

"Yeah. Michael came by yesterday. I guess he's in town for business. Amy's staying here for a few days. Didn't Renee tell you?"

"I got a message from her about the Oakland police, but I didn't quite understand it."

Casey looked out her window. The patrol car was still parked in front of the house. "He's still here. Did you call to check up on us?"

"Actually, no," Jordan admitted. "You know someone named Rick Swain?"

Hearing Swain's name brought back a wave of helplessness that Casey despised. "Why? What do you know about Swain?"

"So you
do
know him?"

"Yes, I know him. Jordan, what's going on?"

"Renee has a friend at the Bureau who called to let her know that this guy, Swain, was coming out here."

"Out here?" Casey tried to digest the information and the discomfort it brought. "Why?"

"That's what I want to know. As far as I know, the FBI isn't involved in this case. We haven't notified the Bureau. How did they find out about it?"

Casey studied the far wall of her bedroom, remembering the look on Swain's face as she stared up at him, half-conscious, from the gurney. He had blamed himself for the attack. She had blamed him, too. Swain was supposed to have wired her apartment for sound. To this day, Casey didn't know what had gone wrong.

Maybe Swain had been too lazy and had just skipped the wiring. Or maybe something had been faulty. For all she knew, he'd done it all correctly and then fallen asleep without his headset on. But she did know that when she was carried out by the EMTs, she had seen guilt in his eyes.

"Casey?"

"I'm here."

"Who is he?"

"He was with me in Cincinnati."

"Your partner?"

She shook her head, forcing herself to put her lips together and make sound. "He was our surveillance."

"What happened?"

"I don't know."

"He fucked up?" Jordan pressed.

She nodded, reliving the horror of the sound of Leonardo behind her, wondering when someone would burst in on them, when someone would save her from the terror, from the excruciating pain. Then later, knowing something had gone wrong, that no one was listening, no one was coming for her.

"Casey?"

"Yes. Something went terribly wrong," she blurted. Rubbing her eyes, she added more softly, "I don't know what. I never asked. After the attack, I didn't care."

"So why would he be here?"

There was a long pause.

"Unless the Bureau thinks this killer is their man," Jordan added. "Would they send him out then?"

"I don't know. I haven't had any interaction with the Bureau since the month after the attack."

"They're getting their information from someone in my organization, then."

Casey laughed. "That's not tough to imagine. They've got a field office here. It'd be easy to get information from one of your officers. They've got a million ways to do it." Casey thought a minute. "It's not protocol, though. Unless it becomes a federal jurisdiction case, they normally don't intercede until someone's requested help. Are you sure your captain didn't call them? Or maybe the chief?"

"No way." Jordan was adamant. "The chief detests the Bureau. And Tapp wouldn't do anything against the chief's wishes."

"Well, assuming you didn't contact them about the links with the Cincinnati killings, maybe they were able to link the murders themselves. Then, the crimes cover two states, and the case becomes federal jurisdiction."

"They'd connect the crimes without telling me as head of this investigation?" Jordan sounded furious.