One Scream Away (26 page)

“No answer,” Copeland said and tried again. “Christ.”

“Carter’s been hit,” Neil said, heading for the door. “Go!”

Action exploded. A wild flurry of energy, chaotic yet organized. Orders spewed from Copeland, phones rang down the hall in response. Teams poured from the building, and Rick shouted into his phone as he ran through the parking lot behind Neil, ordering the nearest cops to Beth’s house on Ashford Drive.

“No way he could get to Carter,” Harrison called, keeping up. “Got a regular battalion on that street.”

Neil stopped for half an instant, looking at all the people trying to reach Carter: Copeland with a connection to Carter’s cell phone, shaking his head as he listened to it ring and ring; Brohaugh talking into a headset to one of the surveillance units on Ashford Drive; Harrison contacting yet another unit.

Brohaugh looked at Neil. “He says nothing’s happening, man.” Ditto from two other street units, while O’Ryan barked into her phone about getting a tape recording of the call.

Neil hesitated, needing to think. The surveillance teams on Beth’s house saw nothing. Maybe he was wrong about Carter, and Bankes was leading them into a trap. “He said she was a fake. Gotta be talking about Carter.”

“Could be a setup,” Copeland warned. He pressed a headset to his ear, pushing the microphone to his mouth. “Wait for the SWAT team to secure the house, then send in the entry unit.” To the rest of them: “Let’s go.”

Copeland got in the house thirty seconds ahead of Neil. He passed Neil on his way out, his face a colorless hue that left no doubt about what he’d seen.

Neil’s gut dropped. “Son of a bitch. Son of a
bitch
.” He stood on the porch for a minute, then pulled himself together.

Lexi Carter was on the kitchen table.

“Holy hell,” Rick said from a step behind. He rubbed his head, paced away a few steps, then came back. “Holy, holy hell.”

Neil wasn’t listening. The tang of blood and human waste clogged his nostrils. A stream of people moved in past the SWAT and entry teams and began their work as if in another dimension. Crime scene investigators collected like scavengers, securing the scene, flashbulbs popping in an uneven strobe. Except for the syncopated snap of cameras, Beth’s house was deathly silent.

“Anyone call Carter’s husband?” Neil asked, but no one answered, and he realized the words must not have cleared his throat. He tried again, louder.

“You can do it,” someone answered. “Heard you know the guy, right?”

“Reggie,” Neil said. “He’s an English teacher. Boxes on the weekends.”

Control broke. Neil let out a howl, spinning on his heel. Someone had set a black duffel on the floor in the foyer, and he kicked it out of his way, barely noticing the shocked blonde who rushed in to pick it up after it smashed into the wall. She grabbed it and carried it protectively out the door, and Neil ignored the astonished stares and barreled outside. He couldn’t stand the smell of Beth’s kitchen any longer, like the butcher’s section of a grocery store.

He paced the yard as the task force members continued to arrive. Standlin pulled up last, just as the first county van pulled away, and Neil heard the driver of the van say, “Hope you didn’t eat yet.” Two minutes later, looking nauseous, Standlin joined the others.

“Forensics says Carter’s been dead for several hours,” Copeland said.

“So he got her in her sleep,” Rick said.

“Had to,” Harrison agreed. “That’s the only way he could’ve overpowered her.”

“But how’d he get in?” Rick asked. “Through all the surveillance. Disguise?”

“Surveillance units would’ve seen him, no matter how he was dressed,” Harrison said. “There were no solicitors, no newspaper boys, no neighbors, not even a dog came near the house this morning.”

“But Bankes got in anyway,” Copeland said. “Somehow, the son of a bitch got—”

“He was already there,” Neil said.

For a second everyone went still, then Neil’s words hit home. Copeland actually trembled as he lifted his radio. “Secure the perimeter, secure the perimeter,” he said in a frantic hush. “The perpetrator may still be on the premises.”

“A CSI van just drove away,” Neil said, feeling as if the truth had him by the throat. “Who was in it?”

Copeland lowered his transmitter and gaped at the empty spot on the driveway. “Son of a bitch.”

“It hurts, it hurts…”

Jenny’s voice, slicing through the white-hot rage in Chevy’s chest. The pain was so intense he thought his soul was in flames. “I know,” he said, clutching Jenny close with his free arm. Drive. Keep looking, keep going. Need to dump this van, need another car.

But Jenny was hurt. And Mother’s voice, faint, beginning to sing in the back of his mind. The years threatened to melt away, back to that night in Seattle. Anne Chaney, dead without a scream. Beth Denison, refusing to perform her swan song. Jenny hurting, hurting…

“It hurts,” she said.

“I know, doll,” he answered, holding Jen. He wheeled the county van around a corner, too fast. God, don’t do anything stupid. Slow now, careful. They weren’t onto him yet, but he needed a new car. Then he could take care of Jenny.

He pulled through the lot of a strip mall, searching. Forced himself to breathe. The lot was almost full, all the way to the ends of the aisles.

“It hurts, it hurts.”

He pulled between two SUVs, concealing the county logos on the sides of the van while he scanned the lot and murmured to Jenny. He needed to see how badly she was hurt, but there wasn’t time. Seconds ticked away like hours, and finally a man—no, a teenager—came toward the end aisle, jiggling a set of keys. Chevy pulled out, tailing the guy as if hawking for a parking space, then stopped just short of the Ford Escort whose taillights chirped to life.

He turned off the ignition and jumped out, the duffel clutched in his free arm.

“Hey, buddy,” he called, and the boy turned around. Surprised at what he saw, but more curious than afraid. “Could you help me, young man?”

“What—”
Umph
. Chevy poked him in the gut with his gun.

“Do what I say and you won’t get hurt,” Chevy said, careful to keep his gun hand low. He wrenched the keys from the boy’s hand and tossed the county van keys a few feet out. “Give me your driver’s license.”

“My driv—”

“Do it.” He gave the muzzle of the gun a punch.

The boy reached into his hip pocket and stripped his license from a wallet, his bony fingers shaking, dropping a couple of membership cards on the pavement.

“We’re trading cars,” Chevy explained. He pointed at the keys on the ground. “Take those keys and get in that van. Turn right at the light. Drive for five minutes. If you make a phone call or slow down before then, I’ll come to your house and kill your mother right in front of you.” He held up the license, proof that he could find the boy later. “Do you understand?”

A convulsive little jerk sufficed as a nod.

“Right at the light. Five minutes.”

The teenager bent to grab the van keys from the pavement and humped to the van. Wide-eyed, he climbed into the driver’s seat while Chevy held his gun low between the cars but not wavering. When the van lurched past, Chevy folded into the Escort and pulled out in the opposite direction.

“It’s okay, Jenny,” he said, bracing her on the passenger seat with his right hand. In the rearview mirror he could see the boy stop at the light. A minute later, the van turned north and Chevy turned south from a different exit, moving back toward Beth’s house. He went three blocks, then pulled around a corner to stop.

“Jenny,” he said. “I’m here. I’ll help you.”

“You can’t. No one will believe you. Mother has them fooled.”

His eyes blurred with tears as he yanked open the duffel labeled Crime Scene Unit and took out his own gym bag from inside. Crying. Jenny was crying, and Chevy could barely get his hands to work the zipper. He had to get it open; he had to get to her. Like the day he turned twenty-one and found her again.

Go get her, Chevy… Happy birthday
.

The words of his mother’s codicil rose like flames in his mind, cutting through the fog of tears and voices and memories. The land, the house, the sale to Mo Hammond. Get rid of it all; never look back. Just take care of Jenny.

He unzipped the gym bag and spread the top wide, his heart feeling like pulp. He looked inside. The sight wrenched a sob from his throat, and he sat rocking in the driver’s seat as the memories jumped him.
Don’t hurt the baby, Mother… It’s not her fault. It’s Grandpa’s. Grandpa gave her bad blood. She’s crying, can’t you hear? Stop singing so you can hear her…

Who caught his blood? I, said the Fish, with my little dish…

Chevy shoved his fists against his ears.

“Help me, Chevy.”

He uncovered his head. He glanced at traffic, all moving normally, then looked down at Jenny. Neil Sheridan’s handiwork glared back at him. She was hurt.

The rage swelled. A change of plans was necessary.

He pulled down the visor and looked in the mirror. Mascara trailed down his cheeks, the charcoal black eye-liner smudged. His wig sat askew and he tilted it, then saw a pair of women walking down the block toward the Escort. Shit, he had to move. If someone saw him like this, a mess, with Jenny… Beth’s house was only blocks away.

Keep your head; don’t get careless. The FBI would be everywhere now, after the way he’d served up Agent Carter. Like a buffet, faceup on Beth’s kitchen table, spread-eagled, her head dangling over the Formica edge and her own blood crusted in her hair. He hadn’t been able to take his time and enjoy her screams too much—didn’t want to risk the surveillance team hearing her—so he’d gagged her, tied her down, and played with her a little, then measured out the line. Put a bullet in the spot using the silencer.

Then he called Sheridan and waited until the commotion broke out at Beth’s house. People streamed in, credentials carefully checked on anyone who entered but not for those who exited. Within ten minutes of the phone call, a dozen people were in the house and more pulling to the curb, including the media. It was perfect until Sheridan blew in, threw a childish fit of temper, and kicked Chevy’s duffel from his path. Panic had gripped Chevy. He’d lunged for the bag, but it hit the wall with a sickening
crrackk
.

Jenny began to cry. Mother sang. A single, mindless kick, and Mother had started singing again. Louder than ever.

She was still singing now, her voice building inside the Ford. Louder, higher, and closer in his head, like sirens wailing—

Chevy straightened, looking in the rearview mirror.

Sirens, not Mother. These were real, blowing through the intersection a block behind him like black-and-white bees. Gray sedans—Fed cars—came two seconds later.

They’d figured it out. Saw him leave the premises, maybe, or noted the missing van.

Chevy took a deep breath and turned the ignition. Within minutes, the teenage boy would be spouting his story, and the search for this Escort would be on. He needed to move onto his next hideout: Mabel Skinner’s house.

Slow now, careful, obey the rules of traffic. Mabel didn’t live too far away.

Jenny quieted. Mother went silent. The Doppler effect dragged the sirens away, northbound, where Chevy imagined the teenager peeing his pants about now, sitting in the van with a bunch of the nation’s finest crouched around the vehicle pointing guns at his head, yelling through a bullhorn.

Stupid shits.

Chevy drove to Lexington Avenue, wishing he could have stayed to see the look on Sheridan’s face when they searched Beth’s basement. A block from Mabel’s house, he stopped and fixed his makeup—didn’t want to scare her—then pulled into her driveway and walked up to the front porch.

She opened the door, a diminutive woman with skeletal limbs, and he gave her his
Glass Menagerie
smile at the same instant he showed her the gun. He shoved her inside, the .22 pressing into her chest. A stairway in the front hallway led to a basement and he hustled her down—unnecessary, probably, with the silencer and all, but then again, there was no reason to take chances. Might as well keep things quiet.

So he got her to the basement, next to the freezer, and
fwp
.

H
oly Christ.”

Neil stepped forward. The technicians had been at work in Beth’s house for four hours. Neil had known in his gut what he would see in Beth’s basement, but it still hit him like a sledgehammer. He motioned to Rick and Billings, and they peered into the cabinets.

“Son of a bitch,” Rick said.

“How long?” Neil asked one of the lab guys, who poked around in the cabinet. The shelves had been sawed out, the back walls cut to allow access to the crawl space beneath the house.

“I dunno,” said the techie. “Three days, maybe four.”

Neil’s hands balled into fists. “He was here all along, the bastard. We put Carter in here three days ago, and Bankes was already here, holed up in this cabinet where no one even bothered to look.”

“Hey,” a cop snarled. He was the one who’d kept an eye on Beth that first night when Neil came by to pack her clothes. “We looked. Our guys swept the house before the Feds set up the watch. Someone checks the cabinet, and he’s behind it in the crawl space. They check the crawl space, and he holes back up in the cabinet. No way they could’ve found him like that, and you fancy-ass Feds wouldn’t’ve done any better, so get off our backs.”

Neil glanced at Rick, whose face was ashen. The cop was right. No one did anything wrong. Bankes was just smart. And patient. And now he’d simply walked out the front door and driven away in a county van. He’d probably sat a block away in that Ford Escort watching the cops chase down a teenage boy.

So close.

Neil looked back at the cabinets, situated right next to the stairwell that led up to the family room. The hairs on his arms stood up. Bankes would have been here when Hannah drove up, might have walked around inside the house when Carter was sleeping.
A little freaky, isn’t it?
she’d said. And even Neil had thought he felt close.