Nowhere to Hide (39 page)

“Yeah, as far as I know. ’Cause his middle name was Wharton,” T.J. explained. “That was the grandparents’ name. Wharton. I was with Marsh at a Pop Warner game against Twin Oaks—I think Cargill had already switched schools by then—and he was there, and he saw Marsh and came over and said something weird . . . hmmm . . . don’t remember exactly, but he said to Marsh, ‘Call me Wart when you talk to me.’ Made Marsh and me just crack up. Oh, yeah, now I remember what he said. He said he knew who the laughers were. I guess he meant us.”

Jake’s head was flooding with memories. He remembered Peter Cargill, always alone, always slightly off. “T.J. I gotta go. Thanks.”

“Hey, Belinda wants to be a June bride. I’ll call you.”

“Yeah . . .”

He clicked off, then immediately called September. Her cell phone rang and rang, then went to her voice mail. “I know you’re busy,” he said urgently. “But I think Wart might be Peter Cargill. Peter Wharton Cargill from Sunset Elementary School. Call me.”

September slowly came to, aware that she was being bumped and jostled, aware that her throat was hot and hurting inside and out. Vaguely she recalled the chain-link fence and the concrete building and then someone had come and—

Her heart lurched and she gasped. She tried to move her hand. She wasn’t tied but she was being rattled around.

“I can pull this from here,” a voice said, and she felt tension and searing pain at her neck as something tightened against her. The cord from the blinds. He was pulling it from where he sat in the front seat.

Immediately she collapsed back down. She was in a vehicle, a van—the white van!—and her captor had her in his grasp. He’d been following her, she realized dimly. She hadn’t been wrong when she’d felt a presence all summer long. He’d been the one following her. Wart . . .

And the cord . . . the noose . . . he was also following the path of another killer who’d strangled women and left them in fields. . . . That was why this case seemed so much like the Zuma one. There were similarities in methodology, but they were separate doers.

Who was he?

She dared not lift her head. She was dying of thirst.

“Won’t be long,” he told her. “You know where we’re going, huh? You know?”

His voice was unfamiliar.

“We’re going to Westerly Vale Vineyards. You couldn’t wait for me, though, could you? Y’see, I know. I know you were there with
him.
”

Something rattled loudly and September’s eyes flew open. She was staring at a large toolbox. A pair of bolt cutters lay beside it and the motion of the van made everything jump and clatter.

“We’re going to be together,” he said on a loud sigh. “The time has finally come.”

She tried to speak but it hurt to try. Better to save her strength. Better to save it till they got to Westerly Vale. She assessed herself and realized he’d taken her gun but her cell phone was still in her pocket. She tried to move her hand, but he demanded, “What are you doing?” and she froze. He was watching her too closely in the rearview mirror, but there might be another time and she didn’t want to give herself away.

If only she could call Jake.

Jake left a text on September’s phone: Call me. She needed to get back to him, but she was clearly not answering her phone. What was she onto? A hunch, she’d said. A hunch about what?

He thought about her partner, Sandler. He didn’t have her cell number, but he could call the station and ask for her. Or, would that be getting Nine in hot water? He knew she wasn’t supposed to be working the case and it had sounded like she was flouting that edict, some aspect of it anyway.

With a frustrated growl meant for the world at large, he checked the Internet on his cell, searching for a phone directory. He tried Peter Cargill in and around Laurelton and failed. Then tried the name Wharton and also failed except for an unlisted number. He thought a moment, then plugged in Boonster and was rewarded with Avery Boonster’s number and address on Farm Hill Road, which was not all that far from where one of the victims’—the prostitute’s—body had been located.

Should he go there himself? he wondered. Would that foul up the investigation? Piss off the authorities? He did a quick search of his feelings and realized he didn’t give a shit. He wanted answers, and he wanted Nine to be safe.

After plugging the address into the Tahoe’s GPS, he turned the vehicle’s nose southward, toward an unincorporated area outside the Laurelton city limits that was dotted with rolling farmland and small stands of timber. He knew approximately where he was going, and he felt his attention sharpen with each passing mile.

He had no weapon; it wasn’t his deal. He sure as hell hoped things didn’t come to that, but he knew there was a slim chance he could meet Cargill face-to-face if the guy had stayed on at his grandparents’ house.

Just to the right of the Boonsters’ address was a narrow gravel drive with a tuft of brown grass growing down the center. The track branched off toward another building right before the hedge that divided the two properties. A garage of sorts, with an upper story, was on the west side; the main house on the left. The hedge, spotty in areas, ran between the two buildings, mostly blocking the view of each place from the other.

After a moment of indecision, Jake decided to drive up to the main house, which was a sorry affair that looked as if any and all repairs had stopped somewhere in the eighties. A satellite dish sat on the roof of the house, the only new thing about it.

Pulling the Tahoe to a stop beside the dilapidated porch, he tucked his cell phone in his pocket and then stepped out and walked up the creaking wooden steps to the front door.

His knock wasn’t answered, so he tried again, louder. He thought he heard someone moving around inside, and wondered if he was being ignored, but then the door slowly swung inward. A stooped woman with steel gray hair and glasses that magnified her eyes in that owlish way of the elderly looked him up and down. “What’cha selling, mister?” she asked with asperity.

“Mrs. Wharton?” Jake tried.

“Yes?”

“I was actually looking for Peter Cargill,” he said.

“Peter?” She glanced toward the hedge that divided the garage from her house. “You got the wrong house. He’s over there.” She pointed with an arthritic finger.

“You’re his grandmother.”

“Yep. All he’s got left. How do you know Peter?”

“We went to school together.”

“Then you know about my husband’s daughter and that criminal she married. He’s dead and so is she, thank the Lord. My husband loved her, but she was an addict and so was he. Put Samuel in an early grave.”

Jake got the feeling this was something of a mantra for her. Something she told everyone who crossed her path. “Is Peter home?”

“I don’t keep track of him. He comes by to adjust my satellite and steal my change.” She
humphed
in disgust.

“Okay. Mind if I leave my car here while I check in on him?”

“No, mister. Ya gotta move it. I might have to leave. I don’t let no one park in my drive.”

“Oh. Okay, thank you.”

He got back in the Tahoe, reversed, and then headed down the other lane. His nerves were stretched thin. He’d just telegraphed his approach and, if Peter Cargill truly was Wart, this could be one really bad idea.

There was a carport around the back and, from his angle as he climbed from the Tahoe again, he could just see there was no vehicle there. Drawing a breath, he walked purposely toward the front door, which he suspected had been put in place at the time the garage door was removed and the building turned into a separate residence. He knocked several times, loudly, but there was no answer. He was pretty sure there was no one home.

Cupping his hands, he tried to look through the windows, but the curtains obscured his view.

T.J.’s words crossed his mind again:
He said he knew who the laughers were. I guess he meant us.

From some distant part of his brain he recalled that a different serial killer had once said he’d been deeply embarrassed when he’d been teased in grade school by kids saying, “Your epidermis is showing.” He hadn’t known it had simply meant his skin and he’d carried that moment of humiliation into his adulthood.

He wanted to see inside Cargill’s place, but apart from breaking in, he didn’t see a way. He walked all around the place, looking for anything. Finally, he noticed there was the tiniest of slits at the bottom of a living room window where the lower blinds hadn’t flipped completely down. Squinting, he peered inside and saw a television and DVD player against the far wall. Above them, he caught the bottom edge of a picture. The ocean, he thought. Sea anemones.

Sea anemones.

Could it be a coincidence?

Jake half-ran back to the Tahoe, pressing the button for September’s cell again. He had to interrupt her. Had to. When she didn’t answer, he yelled in frustration, “Pick up, pick up,” but the call went to voice mail.

Climbing into the Tahoe he backed out of the drive, the tires spinning a little. She wasn’t at the station. She said she was following a hunch, but what did that mean?

Where the hell was she?

Westerly Vale Vineyards had a few cars parked in the lot and a number of people nosing about. He hadn’t counted on that and it made him furious. He drove right past the first building with its sign that said
TASTING
ROOM
and around the back of the house that they used as a bed and breakfast. He parked in the shade from the building beside an Impala sedan.

Twisting, he looked back at Nine, who was feigning unconsciousness. “Hey,” he said. “Come on.” He gave the cord a couple of hard tugs, but apart from a stutter in her breathing, there was no movement.

Grabbing up his knife, he climbed into the back with her, examining her closely. Her hair had come loose from its clip and he brought a handful of it to his lips.

He was instantly hard.

For a wild moment he thought about taking her right then. In the back of the van!

But that wouldn’t be perfect.

“Get up,” he told her. “I know you’re faking.”

She still didn’t move.

He glanced back at her gun that he’d left on the passenger seat, but he wasn’t as comfortable with a gun. Dropping the cord, still holding the knife, he roughly turned her over. “Get up!” he yelled. “GET UP!”

But she didn’t move and he realized she was truly unconscious again. He’d pulled too hard.

Frustrated, he glanced out the front windows of the van. Had to get her inside the house, but how?

In utter shock he watched as the back door of the building suddenly opened and a curvaceous blond woman descended the steps, heading to the Impala. She was pulling out her keys as she drew near, and she shot a curious look toward his van.

Panicked, he snatched up the gun, then threw open the van’s back doors and jumped out. The blond woman recoiled, her eyes taking in the knife and the gun. She started to turn, but quick as a flash he brought the knife to her neck. “Unlock the trunk,” he said in her ear. “Scream and I’ll slice your throat.”

For a moment he thought she was going to disobey. He pressed the blade tighter. With shaking hands, she popped the trunk.

“Give me the keys.”

She held them out and he growled, “Get inside.”

“Please . . .”

He smacked her alongside the head with the gun. She crumpled forward and the keys fell to the ground. It was a simple matter of sliding her bottom half in, and slamming the trunk.

It had taken all of fifteen seconds.

He put the gun and knife down on the van floor, then dragged September out by her heels, throwing her in a fireman’s carry over his shoulder. Snatching up the knife, he slammed the door on the van then headed up the stairs to the back door. When he tried the knob, it was locked. The bitch had locked up when she left.

“Fuck.” Setting September down, he ran back for the keys. In that moment she staggered to her feet, but he was back in a flash, the knife to her throat. “You’re mine,” he snarled. She didn’t have the strength to do anything but lean against the building.

Turning the key, he popped a head inside. The door led to the kitchen, which looked to be empty. Hauling September up again, he next sat her down on the floor, propped against a wall. Then he gathered up the keys, his knife, and the gun again. Once they were inside, he turned the lock on the door from the inside.

There could be people staying at the bed and breakfast. He knew that. He looked down at the gun in his hand. He was going to take September up to the top floor where he’d seen her with Westerly. If he had to kill others on the way, he would, and though he preferred the knife, the gun was a better instrument if there was a crowd.

Carefully, he pushed his hand against a door that swung into the dining room, cracking it about an inch. He peered through. It was quiet. Not a breath of air. In the light from the front windows, he could see faint dust motes.

He savored the moment, the pause. There had never been enough time with the surrogates, even when he’d taken them back to his cot.

But now he was in control. He had time. And he was with September. One way or another, they were going to be together. Eternally. Starting now.

Turning back, he saw she was staring straight at him, her blue eyes taking him in coldly.

“You killed my sister,” she rasped out.

“Where’s Nine?” Jake demanded into the phone. “Do you know where she is? I need to talk to her.” He’d had to call the station since Nine was not picking up. He’d insisted on speaking with Detective Sandler, and when he’d been told she was unavailable, he demanded that he speak to her and told them to give Sandler his name. Finally, he’d been connected.

“Detective Rafferty is not here,” Sandler told him carefully.

“I know she’s not there,” he said with forced patience. “She’s not answering her cell. She told me she was going to call you. I need to tell her something.”

“I’m sure she’ll get back to you—”

“Wart is Peter Wharton Cargill. He lives in a garage apartment on the Wharton property on Farm Hill Road.”