Night Hunter (61 page)

The couple —he saw it was Corde and Kristy —moved across the basement to a wall-to-wall wine rack. The judge inserted his hand into a pigeonhole. A portion of the wine rack in front of him opened.

Christ, a secret door. He debated trying to rush Corde before the man could disappear into the room and close the door, but he had waited too long. The couple were already moving inside and the door was closing.

John crept downs the steps. He hurried to the wine rack, located the pigeonhole where Corde had buried a hand, and reached in.

The hole was smooth terra cotta. There was nothing, as far as John could feel, in which to activate the door. He reached into several other holes. Smooth and cool. Nothing.

Regina had heard nothing until the soft click of the latch releasing alerted her that the door was about to open. She stood with her back to the wall, the mace canister clutched tightly in her hand, her breath locked in her lungs, waiting.

Kristy came through first, followed by the judge. But not enough room separated her daughter from Corde to afford Regina an accurate shot. At that moment Kristy looked to her left. The surprised expression on her face when she saw her mother pressed against the wall was enough to alert Corde to her presence. He tried to back up, but the door had closed behind him.

She raised the canister, but he yanked Kristy to one side, throwing her into Regina, blocking the direct opening Regina had counted on for a clear shot of mace into his face.

She pushed her daughter down and, with less than a positive position, blasted the spray blindly. She saw the mist filling the empty air. Corde was already well out of its path, under it, diving at Regina. He caught her around the hips and drove her brutally backward to crash into a metal file cabinet.

In a stunned fog, she heard Kristy scream. The back of her head felt as if it had been split in two, the air had been knocked out of her. She could only gasp for air.

Corde cursed and grabbed her around the throat. She tried to bring the mace canister up again for another shot, but the full weight of his body bore down on her arm; her fingers felt dead.

Regina forgot the pain. Her already starving lungs ached with the unbearable pressure at her throat. His face pressed in on her, so close that she smelled his sour breath, felt the spray of spittle as he continued to call her foul names, saw the dried blood in one nostril. His eyes bulged maniacally and she could see the watery eyelids beneath the upper lashes. She blinked, looked up in time to see Kristy lunge at the madman choking her.

Kristy wrapped a hand across his face, fingers finding strongholds in eye sockets as she pulled hard, her other hand tangled in the sparse strands of hair that covered his bald pate.

Regina watched as Corde worked the pistol out of his waistband and brought it up to Kristy’s face, and then she closed her eyes and prayed that she would die before she heard the explosion.

CHAPTER
33

Through nearly soundproof walls, John heard a muffled scream. He thrust his hand back into the first pigeonhole, his pulse racing out of control.
It has to be here,
a switch or lever to trigger the door opening device,
It has to be here!

And then he felt something. A seam at the top of the cylinder. He pushed upward; then, with a fingernail he tried to pry it open. At last he discovered it was a sliding panel and he pushed it to one side. Inside he felt a switch. He flipped it.

A portion of the wine rack swung toward him. John squeezed the handle of the monkey wrench and charged through the door. What he saw made him both sick and furious. Regina was on the floor, Corde straddling her, his hand around her throat, her eyes wide and staring, Kristy had fallen on Corde, her hands around his face and in his hair, trying to pull the man off her mother.

John saw the gun come up and he wasted no more time. He hurled himself the few yards, his body glancing off Kristy, knocking her out of the way, to come down on Corde’s back. But before he could bring the wrench up to swing at Corde, the gun exploded in his ear. White pain, like a cannonball through his brain, nearly blinded him.

His arms felt heavy, like lead appendages, and useless. All he could think about as he teetered on the edge of consciousness, was that he had failed her. He had again failed the woman he loved, and this time they would both die.

He sank to the floor on his knees. Corde jumped to his feet brandishing the pistol. He waved it toward Kristy and Regina, who were huddled together. Regina had a hand to her throat; she was purple and coughing, but alive.

Corde turned to John, the muzzle of the gun pointed at his face.

John steeled himself for the fatal round.

“
You’ve a hard head, Mr. Davie. The next bullet will not bounce off your thick skull, I can guarantee that.”

John reached up and touched his bleeding forehead. He felt ragged flesh just above his left brow—a two-inch furrow where the bullet had traveled briefly before angling off and away.

“
Do you plan to kill yourself along with the three of us?” John was surprised by the echo quality of his own voice.

“
Why would I do that?”

“
Because the cops know all about you. A SWAT team is upstairs now, surrounding the house.”

“
You’re hallucinating, Davie. There is no reason for the police to suspect me. None whatsoever. It’s you who are the suspect, then and now. Oh, the two of you thought you were so clever, coming here yesterday to steal something for your psychic friend. She saw my face, did she? Too bad she didn’t see my razor.” He chuckled dryly. “But I digress. You, Davie, came to my home to splash my wife. When she saw you, you had to kill her. Then you lured Mrs. Van Raven and her daughter to my home and killed them as well. Shot them with your own gun.” He indicated the gun in his hand. “When you realized you couldn’t get out alive, you turned the gun on yourself.”

“
What’s my motive?” John asked, stalling for time.

“
What difference does it make? Your motive shall remain yet another unsolved mystery. The world is filled with crazies. I ought to know, Davie. They come before me every day in the courtroom.” He laughed out loud at that.

“
Look outside,” John said.

“
Shut up,” Corde snapped. “You interrupted something between me and these two lovely ladies. I should like to get back to it before I call in the police. Now stand up.”

John struggled to his feet.

Corde moved around to the side of John, positioning himself so he could see each person in the room. “Open your mouth, Mr. Davie. Let’s make this clean and sure. I trust you wouldn’t want me to slip, making you something less than human, dependent on others for your care.”

“
Fuck you,” John said between clenched teeth.

“
Well, then, in that case,
che sera sera.”
He lifted the muzzle to John’s head.

Regina cried out and came to her feet, rushing into John’s arms. He held her tight.

“
How touching. I’m tempted to hold off on your execution, Davie, and let you watch this woman who obviously loves you tend to my needs.” He kicked the black lacy undergarments to Regina. “But, unfortunately, I can’t take a chance that you’ll find a way to spoil my fun.”

The gun came up again, its cold muzzle against John’s temple.

The scream pierced his already throbbing head like a lightning bolt. Was that Regina screaming? He looked down at her. Though her eyes were open wide, her mouth was not. The shrill scream came from behind him. From the depths of his groggy brain, John realized there was a fifth presence in the room; its shriek froze the blood in his veins. He watched Corde turn sharply, the gun in his hand pulling away from John’s head, faltering somewhat, before pointing toward the banshee that was flying through the doorway from the dark basement.

The gun fired.

The screaming thing faltered and fell to one kneee. Then it rebounded and something sparkled in its hands as it again came straight for Corde.

John watched, mesmerized, as the hands drew upward in a tossing motion, and a clear fluid sailed through the air in what seemed like slow motion. It arched, catching the light in a prism of color, then, before Corde could get off another round, the liquid dashed him squarely in the face.

Corde clawed at his face, stumbled about, the gun firing randomly. John grabbed his arm and tried to wrench the gun away, but Corde, swinging wildly, managed to pull back. He somehow found the door and, his moans rising to screams, fled into the dark interior.

Regina rushed back into his arms, clinging to him. John held her tight for an instant. “Are you okay?”

She ignored his question. “You’ve been shot.”

“
It’s not serious.”

Kristy joined them. The three stood hugging each other. Then, by unspoken agreement, John and Regina converged on the apparition in black, who at that moment was leaning against the desk, clutching a bloody midsection.

“
Corinne,” John said softly, “Oh, Jesus, Corinne.” He gently folded her in his arms.

Another shot rang out upstairs.

John supported Corinne’s body as it sank to the floor. He held her hand. Her hair was wet and plastered to her head. He could hear footsteps thundering down the stairs. “Hang on, Cory. Help is coming now.”

Corinne smiled, turning the scarred side of her face away in what John sensed was a longtime habit.

She squeezed his hand, opened her mouth to say something, then closed it again. She smiled again and rolled her head, as though what she had to say was of little or no importance.

She died as the police and paramedics entered the room.

Epilogue

At the Meadowvale Inn, Regina and John sat close together in a booth in the Oak Room. Regina stared at the red mark on John’s forehead made by the bullet. After two weeks, it was nearly healed, though still vivid. It would no doubt leave a dandy scar.

Her mind flashed back to that rainy afternoon in the Corde basement. Three people had died that day. All killed by the same hand. Amelia, Corinne, and the judge. With acid eating into his face and the police surrounding the house, Matthew Corde had put the gun to his eye and pulled the trigger.

Tammy Kowalski had been buried the day before, and ironically, the funeral for Corinne Odett took place the same day as the double service of Amelia and Matthew Corde. There was no service for Pandora Cudahay.

“
I’m glad you don’t have to go back to the city for the show tomorrow,” John said.

“
All done,” Regina said. “That’s the advantage of prerecorded programs.”

“
Thought you preferred them live?”

She laughed. “That was when I didn’t know what I was doing. Actually, it was Max’s idea. Donna isn’t crazy about live shows and as long as she’s the star, we’ll do it her way.”

“
Have you decided to be her co-host?”

Regina nodded. “She insists she won’t go on unless I’m with her.”

“
When is she returning?”

“
Anytime. Max wants her back on the air as soon as the doctor gives her the thumbs up.”

“
She turned out to be a pretty tough cookie.”

Regina stared across the restaurant. “It’s hard to believe that Donna and I are the only ones left. Five finalists, two survivors.”

John squeezed her hand. “It’s over, honey.”

“
Yes.”

“
Speaking of finalists, did Kristy have any regrets about dropping out of the model contest?”