Nowhere to Hide (36 page)

September . . .

He found a parking place at the far end of the lot and backed in carefully. The lot was crowded and he needed to be able to get out fast. He moved into the bar and pushed himself behind a group of people so that he could see the woman, but she couldn’t see him. He wished she would get up and dance. He wanted to see her move.

Sidling a bit closer, he saw that the bar stool behind her had opened up. He stared at it, wondering if he dared. She was leaning toward the guy next to her, giving him a full shot of her breasts. Taking the chance, he slid onto the stool. He couldn’t see her face but he could hear her conversation and the way her dark hair was clipped back, and the angle of her shoulder and neck and waist . . . She could be September.

And, oh, God . . . there were red highlights in her hair, glistening under the low lights.

He felt an erection coming on and pulled his attention back to the bar. He rarely drank, but he needed camouflage in this room. He was too exposed. He never let himself be seen, but . . . it was so good . . . so good.

“A beer,” he croaked out.

“What kind?” the bartender asked a bit impatiently.

Behind him, he saw they had Bud on tap and that’s what he ordered. When the beer was served to him, he wrapped his hand around it and tried to appear casual.

“. . . see there’s two types of seriously sick fuckers: the psychopaths, and the sociopaths,” she was saying drunkenly. “They’re both total whack jobs, if you know what I mean. I’m doing a paper on it. And you know people get ’em confused all the time. Like, what’s the difference, you know what I mean? Psycho, in Latin, means one, whereas, Socio, is many. Like society, y’know? We live in a society of many people. But the main difference is a nature versus nurture thing. Psychopaths just come out that way. It’s like . . . you play the percentages, and a certain amount are just gonna be rotten eggs. Psychos. Period. But psychos know what they’re doing. They know it’s wrong, but they just don’t have the capacity to give a shit. Sociopaths, on the other hand . . . they’ve been influenced by their upbringing. Like if they were abused, then they turn around and abuse someone else. For instance, sexual abuse? If that’s what happened, then they turn into sexual abusers themselves.”

She paused to slurp down half of a martini. He found himself staring into the mirror across the bar, his mouth open. He closed it quick. His nerves were sending hot messages of panic. He needed her to shut up. SHUT UP!

“Okay, so sociopaths,” she began again, never turning his way. Her companion’s eyes were looking around the room like maybe he was getting bored. “They’re not as organized. They might think they are, but they’re not. Cracks’ll start to show. They can’t move through society like a psychopath can. They can’t be charming. They’re just a mess, and sooner or later, they fuck it up, and everybody’s onto them. But they can form attachments to a few people. The ones closest to them. But just wait.” She wagged her finger in front of the guy’s face. “If they think you’ve turned on them, spurned their affect . . . affection. God, that’s a hard word to say.” She gave a little trill of laughter. “Affection,” she repeated with more punch. “If they think you’ve spurned their
affection
, then suddenly you’re at the top of the hit list.”

This was her come-on line? He wanted to scream at her:
Like you know, bitch!

Suddenly she didn’t look like September any longer. She looked like a crone. A hag. Like the old lady.

He got off the stool and shoved his way out the door, leaving one kind of steaming heat for another. The weather had been blasting hot for over a week and there seemed to be no end to it. He was hot inside and out.

He went to his van and sat in the dark, his hands on the steering wheel. He wanted her. He was going to have her. But he didn’t think he could have sex with her. She wasn’t September. She wasn’t even Glenda, or Emmy, or Sheila, or even that whore.

It took two more hours before she stumbled out of the bar with a different guy. He was trying to peel her off his arm and he practically ran away from her as soon as she was weaving by her well-used Ford Mustang. She was stumbling on her heels, just like the whore. He didn’t know anything about her and he didn’t care. All he wanted was to see her die.

He followed her back to her home, across the Hawthorne Bridge to the east side of the Willamette. She was living in one of the older homes that didn’t have garages, some didn’t even have driveways. Everyone parked on the street. She bumped the car in front of her, trying to park. The first sign that she was inebriated as she’d been very careful driving home.

It took her a while to get out of the car. He pulled up next to her and said, “You gonna leave a note on that car you hit?”

She looked around at him, then at the vehicle in front of hers. “I barely touched it,” she declared with disdain.

She started to walk away, heading toward the back of his van and a house apparently somewhere down the block. The neighborhood was dark. Not a light on. Quickly, he snatched up his noose and stepped onto the road, then moved to the back of the van, opening the door with a soft screech. She was on the sidewalk and she glanced his way, stumbling a bit.

He darted at her, surprising her, the noose over her head before she knew what was happening. He pulled hard and she made a strangling sound and he hustled her into the back of the van, climbed in beside her and held the cord on her until she was gone. Not dead. Just passed out.

Feeling a clock ticking in his head, he climbed back out of the van and into the driver’s seat just as a car turned onto the street behind him, moving slowly his way. The road was narrow, cars on either side, so he eased the van into drive, knowing the car could not get around him.

He drove back toward Grandview Senior Care and past its grounds. There was a park on the far side. He’d spent a lot of time there waiting outside the hospital for his outpatient treatment. Stupid doctors. They’d kicked him out of the hospital and back to the old lady because there was no money to pay for his treatment any longer. They told him all he needed was outpatient treatment anyway. It was a scam. Navarone was the worst. He wanted to experiment on all the freaks. Navarone had told him that it was important that he continue his treatment and for a while he had. The bad thing had troubled him. Troubled him because he wanted more. He would never tell the doctor about it. He would contain it himself. Control the beast.

But he made sure each time he showed up at Grandview that he would detour from Navarone’s office to the common room and watch the other freaks in the hospital. He thought about taking them to the park. In the open fields, under God’s eyes.

He stopped the van toward the back of the park. Where the grassy area turned up a hill to a thick stand of Douglas firs. He couldn’t go back toward Laurelton because he would give himself away. Maybe already had.

He’d left the noose around the bitch’s neck. Now, he grabbed his knife and walked around to the back. She was lying as he’d left her but he could make out the shallow rise and fall of her breaths.

He pulled her out by her feet, slung her over his shoulder, quickly took her to the trees, and laid her on the needle-covered ground. She looked peaceful and his mind moved back to September. Yes . . . she
was
September. The words she’d spoken at the bar crowded his mind anew and he almost lost the moment, but then he saw her hair, remembering the red glints he’d seen under the lights. He stripped down her pants and ripped open her blouse. He kept glancing around, his heart pounding with excitement. This was closer to other houses than he’d been. There was more danger.

Quickly, he pulled a condom from his pocket, and pulled down his own pants. His member shot out and suddenly there was a shriek and she sat up and clawed his face, her nails ripping the skin in front of his left ear.

Shocked, he grabbed the noose and pulled and pulled and pulled until she flopped around on the ground and finally lay still. Fury kept him holding the cord. It actually bit into his skin and he had to stop before blood could fall, though he wanted to kill her again and again.

He had tools in his van. And solvents. And bleach. You just never knew . . .

With cold fury sliding through his veins, he ran back to the van, pulled out a bottle of bleach, popped off the child-proof top, took it back to the bitch and poured it over her hands, then her face. He stopped then, holding his breath, listening, but all was quiet. Picking up his knife from where he’d dropped it, he glared down at her bare torso.

Do Unto Others
screamed across his mind.

He stabbed downward into her soft flesh and then he heard the noise. Voices. Soft laughter.

Laughter.

No time. No time.

Swiftly, his thoughts on September, he moved the knife, making his mark. Dragging her by her feet, he slid her out into the grass.

. . . in fields where they lay . . .

Lightly he ran across the grass, jumping into his van, twisting the ignition and sliding out of the lot. He glanced into the rearview mirror and saw the dark line on his face where her nails had dug, filled with his own blood.

As he drove away his mood grew darker. The reckoning was coming sooner than he’d expected. It was time for him and Nine to make their last stand together.

His last disquieting thought was that the bitch he’d just killed had been right: he’d screwed up.

Chapter 21

September hadn’t said a lot on the way over to Hague’s apartment. She and Liv didn’t know each other that well, and after the sleepless night September had just had, she wasn’t much in the mood for chatter. Now, as she and Liv walked into the building and the elevator cage, she turned off the sound on her cell phone so she wouldn’t receive a call that could possibly disturb Hague.

“Auggie was called out to a crime scene early, so I didn’t have to lie about what I was doing,” Liv told her.

“I’ll call him as soon as we’re done, I promise,” September said. “Sorry to put you in this position. I just didn’t want to hear about it before I talked to Hague.”

“I hope you get what you’re looking for,” Liv said as she shut the accordion-like gate of the elevator and pushed the button for the third floor. “Della’s not going to be very welcoming.”

September understood the implied message: this is your last shot. Liv had used September’s cell to call Della on the way over and from what September could hear of the conversation, she knew they were lucky to be getting past Della, the gatekeeper, at all.

At the door Della’s icy blue eyes glared at them, and September wanted to roll her own eyes, but managed to keep from doing it. She’d debated on what tack to use with Hague, and decided to go straight to the heart of things. If he faded out on her, well, that was that.

Della warned Liv, “Every time you come you upset him.”

“I wish it were different,” Liv responded, as they were reluctantly led to Hague’s room. “But you’re holding the reins, not me.”

“I’m the only one who knows what’s best for him,” Della declared.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Liv muttered softly.

September shot a glance at Della, but she’d moved toward Hague’s chair and had missed the remark. She kinda thought she might like Liv more than she’d expected.

“Hague,” Della was saying, leaning over him in a motherly manner.

“Give me some room,” he said, shooting Della a dark look.

She snapped up straight, hurt. “Your sister’s here, with that detective.”

“September Rafferty,” September introduced herself, taking a step forward.

He regarded September stonily beneath bushy brows. Without looking over, he said, “Hi, Liv.”

“Hi, Hague,” Liv answered. “You okay?”

His eyes held September’s. “So far.”

“Mr. Dugan, the last time I was here, you mentioned the name Wart, and then you went away.”

“I went into a fugue state,” he corrected her. “It’s Hague.”

She nodded. “Who is Wart?”

“He was Navarone’s patient. I had Dr. Tambor.”

September had that much already. “Wart was a friend of yours?”

Della made an involuntary movement, but pressed her lips together. She was trying hard to let Hague tell his tale in his own way, but it was against her nature.

“Friend . . .” Hague said, as if trying out the flavor of the word. “I thought so. I was fourteen or fifteen and messed up.”

Della put in, “We all know this. And we know whose fault it is.”

“
I
don’t know,” September reminded her.

“Wart told stories,” Hague said. “He didn’t listen to me about the government. He
pretended
to, but he didn’t listen. He doesn’t know. He wanted to talk. That’s all.”

“What’s Wart’s real name?” September tried. She didn’t want to send Hague down some obsessive path.

Hague stared off into space for nearly a minute. September was afraid she’d lost him, and she had so many more questions. Della started to say something, but Liv grabbed her by the arm in a death grip. Della’s eyes shot fire, but Liv ignored her.

“I heard someone call him Peter once,” Hague said carefully.

“Peter,” September repeated, feeling a jolt of excitement. Finally, she was getting somewhere. “He had Dr. Navarone,” she reiterated, trying to keep him going.

“Jeff had him, too.” He made a face and seemed to pull in on himself.

“He doesn’t like talking about Navarone, and this Wart wasn’t even there at the same time Hague was,” Della burst in. “He was older. He wasn’t at the hospital when Jeff and Hague were there. And his being with Glenda Navarone is an urban legend. I told you that.”

“No, it’s true,” Hague said. “It’s true.” He looked at September as if for support. “Wart took her on the examining table. He wanted the girls with dark hair.” Hague’s eyes zeroed in on her auburn tresses that September had clipped back. “The doctors . . . out of the sides of my eyes . . .” he said, glancing sharply around the room.

“Hague,” Liv warned.

“But he had a knife,” he said. “He could cut the receivers out of his head.”