Night Hunter (54 page)

John helped her into the passenger seat. Within seconds they had left the Corde house behind.

“
Oh god oh god oh god,” Regina said under her breath, visibly shaken. “I almost died of fright. I didn’t get a damn thing. It was all a terrifying waste of time,”

“
No it wasn’t,” John said, tossing a black leather driving glove onto her lap.

John, double parked, watched Regina as she talked to the doorman at Pandora Cudahay’s high-rise apartment building. Regina handed the gray-uniformed man a bag containing the glove taken from Corde’s Rolls. John hadn’t been surprised to see a cellular phone in the judge’s car. Convenient for making warning calls near the scene, he thought.

Regina joined him in the station wagon. “Pandora’s out. The doorman will see she gets the glove. What now?”

“
Marilyn Keane.”

In Mill Valley, less than a hour later, going to an address found in the phone directory, they arrived at the house of Marilyn Keane. An attractive, gray-haired woman answered the door.

“
I told you on the phone that Marilyn was not taking calls or seeing anyone.”

“
Mrs. Keane, we just want to ask her a few questions.”

“
Absolutely not.”

“
What happened to Marilyn?”

“
My daughter…my little girl was attacked by a maniac. She was slashed and severely disfigured. It’s a miracle she’s alive.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Mother, who is it?” a voice from inside called out.

“
No one, honey. Go back to bed.”

From behind Mrs. Keane, another woman appeared. With the sun shining on the screen door, John could only make out a tall, slim figure in a long robe.

“
I know you,” the woman said to John. Her voice was soft and lilting, her manner of speaking unhurried.

“
Could you refresh my memory?” he said, squinting to see her inside the dim foyer.

“
We met at your first autograph signing. I have both your books.”

John was taken aback. He rarely ran into people who recognized him as an author. “Thank you, I’m very flattered.”

“
You’ve come about the attack?”

John nodded.

“
Come in.”

The mother opened the door. Regina and John entered. Marilyn had turned and was walking into the living room. Her long black hair shimmered with blue highlights. She crossed to a sofa and sat in the corner, gracefully folding her legs up under her. She looked up at her mother, an angelic smile on her face. “Momma,” she said, “Would you mind getting our guests iced tea, please.”

John found himself staring at the young woman. Marilyn Keane’s face was crisscrossed with slashes. Angry, red, welt-like slashes punctuated by hundreds of stitch marks. Despite the jagged slashes, the beauty of her face was apparent.

With radiant sapphire eyes Marilyn looked over at him, smiled sweetly when he self-consciously dropped his gaze. “It’s all right. People stare. Most don’t mean to be rude.”

“
Miss Keane, can you tell us what happened?” he asked.

“
He came into my house and attacked me,” she said in that soft, even tone. She lightly touched her face, her breasts, and her legs. “He said terrible things. Things that I thought had nothing to do with me. But I understood.”

“
What do you mean?”

“
It was a message. I was the chosen.”

“
What did he say?”

“
He called me by someone else’s name. His words were foul, filled with hatred.”

“
Did you know him?”

“
No.”

“
What was the name he called you?”

“
I can’t remember.”

“
Did they catch him?”

She shook her head.

“
Would you recognize him if you saw him again?”

Again she shook her head. “He was a black apparition.”

Regina bent forward. “You mean he was dressed all in black?”

“
He was a black apparition. The evil one.
Satan.”

Marilyn’s mother stood in the arched opening of the dining room with two glasses of iced tea. “Honey, maybe you should rest.”

Marilyn ignored her. “He was sent to punish me for my vanity. I was the chosen.”

John and Regina exchanged glances.

“
Marilyn,” John said, “do you know of a man by the name of Matthew Corde?”

She tilted her head, appeared to think, then shook her head negatively.

“
Did you receive a warning?”

“
Warning?” she asked with a puzzled expression.

“
Before the attack. By telephone.”

She shook her head.

“
Marilyn was on the phone to me when she was attacked,” Mrs. Keane said. “Darling, say good-bye to our guests. It’s time to rest.”

Marilyn unfolded her long legs and rose. John caught a glimpse of red and purple gashes across her thighs. “Thank you for coming. It was kind of you,” she said, then left the room.

John and Regina stood. Mrs. Keane set the glasses on the dining room table. “The cuts will heal eventually. Her mind may forever be scarred ... childlike.”

“
I’m sorry,” John said.

“
She said she had been punished for her vanity,” Regina said. “What did she mean?”

“
My daughter was a contestant in a beauty contest. She’s certain that her vanity had something to do with this monster’s attack.”

“
A beauty contest? Which one?”

“
A model search, actually. The Miss Golden Gate Model Search.”

Pandora Cudahay entered her eighteenth-floor apartment. In her spacious, high-ceilinged, Italian marble foyer, she hastily sorted through the day’s mail. She would barely have time to shower and change before she had to go out again.

The doorbell rang. Looking through the peephole, she saw the full-cheeked, mustached face of the building’s doorman. She opened the door.

“
Sorry to bother you, Miss Cudahay, but I forgot to give this to you.” He held up a brown bag with a note clipped to it. “A Regina Van Raven dropped it off earlier. Said you were expecting it.”

Pandora took the bag, thanked the doorman, and closed the door. After stepping out of her shoes, she removed the paper clip and opened the bag. She reached in and pulled out a man’s black leather glove. She held it in both hands and, closing her eyes, slipped her fingers inside. She stiffened, feeling the vibrations immediately. Violent sensations of rage and dementia, the bizarre thoughts of a madman, as well as the frantic thoughts of his victims, rushed at her. The razor slashing. The cold smile. Those eyes. The face that belonged to the glove stood out so clearly in her mind’s eye that she opened her eyes to eradicate the brutal, piercing effect. Her knees suddenly felt weak. She lowered herself onto the brocade cushion of a settee.

“
My God,” she whispered. She sensed the horrible violence inside the man. Something told her his fury was intensifying day by day, growing like a cancer, eating away what conscience he may have originally possessed. Soon he would be out of control.

Pandora rose unsteadily to her feet and crossed the living room to the phone. She dialed Regina’s number and cursed silently when a recorded message came on. At the beep, unable to bridle the tremor in her voice, she said, “Regina, it’s Pandora Cudahay. Call me, it’s urgent. I’ll be at home until six-thirty.” Barely audible, she added, “I saw his face.”

He dialed, patiently listened to Regina Van Raven’s recorded message, and, at the tone, pressed the two digit-code that would retrieve any messages on the machine. He heard the message from Pandora Cudahay. The words “I saw his face” pounded in his head. Pandora Cudahay. Who was this woman? The name was familiar. Cudahay? And then it came to him: the psychic from the ‘City Gallery’ show. Was it possible that through telepathic means it was his face she had seen? Impossible. He refused to believe in such garbage. But, he told himself disconcertingly, he could not afford to take any unnecessary chances.

He reached for the phone book, turned to the Cs, and ran his finger down a column. There were three Cudahays. He dialed the first number. After only two rings the phone was answered. The woman, sounding breathless, said hello several times. He hung up. He had heard enough to know hers was the voice on Van Raven’s answering machine. He noted the address, then left the house.

At 6:38, no longer able to wait for Regina’s call. Pandora slipped on a white angora cardigan, tucked her clutch purse under her arm, picked up the folder containing her notes for tonight’s speech at the Psychic Research Institute, and walked to the apartment door.

Since touching the glove, she’d had an unrelenting premonition of danger and doom. So overwhelming were these ominous vibrations, that her stomach quaked and her head throbbed. As her fingers touched the doorknob, a shower of black images exploded in her head. The razor slashing wildly. Those sadistic eyes. That horrid grin. A wave of dizziness passed over her, and she wondered if she would be able to make the presentation after all. None of her visions had ever been this intense, this internal.

Stop
, she told herself. Put it from your mind. The killer was a madman, but Regina would survive. This she strongly sensed.

Before she could change her mind and cancel her speaking commitment. Pandora grabbed the doorknob and twisted, pulling the door open quickly.

The razor came at her from the other side of the threshold. Pandora’s first stunned impression was that it was suspended in air, slashing at her throat on its own volition. But then she realized through a haze of terror that the blackness on the other side of the razor was human, and he was pushing his way inside.

Her scream was nothing more than a foamy gurgle of blood.

On the way back to the city Regina could hear John talking, but she found it difficult to concentrate on his words. After a time he too fell silent. They stopped for an early dinner at an Italian restaurant on Redwood Highway. In a secluded booth, over eggplant rigatoni that Regina was too preoccupied to enjoy, they talked quietly.

“
Marilyn Keane had never heard of Corde,” she said.

“
There must be a connection. Why would Wilma give you her name?”

“
It may have nothing to do with Corde. Wilma knew Marilyn was a contestant in a beauty contest and that she was attacked, not with acid, but in a manner just as effective.” Regina sipped her red wine. “Objective was to disfigure. A coincidence?”

“
From what Marilyn said, he appeared crazed, cursing and striking out in a frenzy. The M.O.
is
different.”

“
The woman in Novato,” Regina said, rubbing her aching temple as she stared off in the distance, “she was slashed. Her throat cut.”

John was silent.

Back in the car, John hesitated before starting it. He reached over, slipped his hand into hers, and squeezed. “You’re worried about Kristy, aren’t you?”

She looked at him and saw deep caring in his light blue eyes. She returned the pressure of his hand and nodded. “I’ve denied her very little over the years,” she said solemnly. “Fortunately, she asked for little. But this time I have to renege on a promise. Kristy will drop out of this contest, or by God, I’ll send her to my parents until this bastard is caught.”