Under Cover of Darkness (30 page)

He could see her whole body now, her face, her hair. The hair!

Outside, the change had been hidden beneath her winter hat. The brunette was gone. She'd colored it. Son of a bitch!

Three days of preparations and planning for nothing. He was furious at first, until he realized it was of his own doing, a manifestation of the immense power he wielded. The publicity had gotten to her. Yet another woman unnerved by reports of a serial killer who targeted thirty-something brunettes and who was apparently working his way south from Seattle. He wondered how many other women had been affected the same way and were now driven by fear, though he realized the purse snatching had probably driven this one over the edge.

He watched as she slipped into her robe and admired her new color in the mirror. He was tempted to go through with it, just out of anger. After all, the last one hadn't been such a perfect match either. Then inspiration struck. He could kill her and dye it back to the rich shade of brown it used to be. That would send a message that no one was safe. If you didn't look the part, the killer would remake you. Blondes and redheads were no longer immune. No more hiding behind your bottle of Lady Clairol.

It was a stupid idea, giving a corpse a dye job. He had n
o i
nterest in playing beautician. In fact, he had nearly lost interest in this one altogether. Those self-proclaimed expert profilers would probably say he was in some supposed cooling-off period. They'd say he was still too sated from the last one to get excited about the next. The FBI thought it had everything figured out, as if every serial killer on the planet went into hibernation after a kill and needed time to rejuvenate before the next strike. Some of them did. Some slept for days. But he wasn't like them.

They didn't share his energy.

Quietly, as secretly as he had come, he sneaked away from the house. This wasn't a failure, his walking away. His lack of enthusiasm had nothing to do with timing. It wasn't even the dye job that had ruined the excitement for him. At bottom, he was simply losing patience with the whole scheme. After three dead look-alikes he had to know.

Was Beth Wheatley with him? Or was she against him?

Chapter
Thirty-Seven.

Early Friday morning found Andie at Goodwill shopping for secondhand clothes. She bought two pairs of old jeans, one black, one blue; hiking boots; a stained sweatshirt; two sweaters; and a brown winter coat with a torn pocket. She returned to the office at mid-morning and met with a backup technician to construct her cameo persona. They didn't bother with the phony driver's license, Social Security number, apartment, telephone number, employment history, credit record, bank account, and other trappings of identity that came with a full-blown undercover operation. For such a short assignment she needed only a name and a story. For the next three days she would be Kira White-hook, a high school dropout who had drifted in and out of trouble and part-time work for the past ten years. It was not the kind of past to be proud of, which was perfect. She couldn't be expected to answer many personal questions.

It took some effort to look the part of a transient. She did most of the work herself in one of the office changing rooms. She stripped the polish from her nails and cut them down jagged, till they looked bitten to the quick. She had a few calluses from the weights at the gym. She roughed them up with a pumice stone and gave her knuckles a few nicks with the car keys. The hair was next. Too stylish. She trimmed it at the ends, making sure the ends were slightl
y u
neven. She wet it and blew it dry for nearly a half hour, till it looked baked and over-processed. Finally, the face. The eyebrows were far too perfect, but she couldn't unpluck them. She shaved off the very outside tip of the left one. Nothing too distracting, just enough to create a little asymmetry, as if she'd been in some kind of brawl at some point in her life. She washed off every bit of makeup, but the Cover Girl complexion wasn't exactly in role. She did a caky, over-brushed job on her cheeks. A waxy brown lipstick helped harden the soft mouth.

She checked the mirror and nearly screamed. Then it seemed funny. She imagined herself sneaking up on Isaac and telling him this was what she looked like on the morning after. Suddenly, it wasn't so funny. Two weeks ago she would have joked at her own expense, but now for some reason she wouldn't think of letting him see her like this.

Life is too damn complicated.

She wore the beige cable-knit sweater, and baggy blue jeans, no jewelry. The rest of her belongings went in the duffel bag, along with two hundred dollars in cash, the entire budget she had managed to squeeze out of Lundquist. She left her FBI shield and credentials behind in her desk. The gun, a Walther PPK .380, she strapped to her ankle inside her pant leg. It was smaller than her usual Sig-Sauer P-228, more suitable for undercover work.

She left the office during the lunch hour, sneaking out the back so no one would ask her where she was headed or what the new look was about. No one outside the Wheatley kidnapping team, her supervisor, and Isaac would know she was working undercover. It was simply too dangerous to divulge a secret like that, be it to the victim's family, outside law enforcement agencies, or other FBI agents who didn't need to know. As much as she would have liked to assure Gus that she was following up his lead, phoning him was out of the question.

The Greyhound bus left Seattle at 3:10 P
. M
. She probably could have driven, but the safest course was to stay in her role from the minute she left the field office.

She was one of eleven passengers scattered about the bus. Andie had a window seat in the middle. She rode in silence, save for the occasional outburst from the two young boys with their grandmother up front. The creepy guy across the aisle made eye contact once, smiled, and pulled a big wad of chewing gum from his mouth.

"Want some?"

Andie looked away and ignored him.

It was a four-hour bus ride over the mountains. Seattle was separated from central and eastern Washington by the North Cascades, a beautiful range reminiscent of the Alps, which extended seven hundred miles from northern California to the Fraser River in southwest Canada. The western slope was the windward side, green and lush and given to wet weather. Abundant water only heightened the beauty, creating huge reflecting lakes, rushing rivers, and impressive falls like the one at Snoqualmie, an avalanche of water more than a hundred feet higher than Niagara. Skiing at White Pass had been excellent this winter, and the views were astounding all year round. Mount Rainier near Seattle was the most impressive peak, permanently snow-capped and visible in all directions from two hundred miles. There were six others of note, including Mount St. Helens, famous for having blown its top in 1980. The volcanic ash had drifted for hundreds of miles, falling like gritty urban snow in places as far away as the Yakima Valley in central Washington.

The Yakima Valley was technically a desert on the leeward side of the mountain, where thick forests and green mosses of the windward side gave way to sagebrush and cactus on a brown, dusty plain. It was harsh country, given to extremes, cold in winter and hot in summer. Creeks could run dry or at a trickle most of the year, then gush with muddy torrents of sudden melted snow or unexpecte
d s
ummer rain. That a great flood had once converted the entire valley into a vast lake was both Indian legend and geological fact. The rest of the legend was just legend, there being no proof of the giant canoe that had landed atop Snipes Mountain and the young Indian couple it had brought to repopulate the valley.

Whatever the lore, the Yakamas--not Yakimas, as they were later mislabeled--had indeed roamed the wind-billowed grasslands from time beyond memory, surviving on fish, berries, and camas-root cakes. They had been nomads, the premier horse breeders and trainers of the Pacific Northwest. The white man had arrived in the mid-nineteenth century, bringing cattle and farming and development and conflict. A land once without fences was now neatly sectioned off into huge quadrants of irrigated farmland. Row after row of fruit trees covered the hillsides. Apples in particular put Yakima on the modern-day map.

That, and crime.

Andie had seen the FBI crime stats on Yakima, a city famous for its orchards but notorious for its violence. With roughly fifty thousand residents, it was, per capita, one of the nation's most dangerous cities. At the risk of political incorrectness, some saw the violence as an inevitable offshoot of the daily clash of cultures. Native Americans wrestled with the problems that attended the stresses of reservation life, including a rate of alcoholism much higher than the general population. Hispanic migrant workers arrived in droves for the harvest seasons. They were poor, as in any transient population, and a few were outright dangerous. Most were law-abiding but through no fault of their own brought out the worst in people who didn't speak their language. The white population was divided within itself, with plenty of hardy and longtime residents living in double-wide trailers right across the road from the beautiful new vineyards of the wealthy and visionary landowners who had pioneered Washington's trendy wine industry.

"Yakima," announced the bus driver.

Andie was one of only three remaining passengers. The others had gotten off earlier in Ellensburg.

Andie put her coat on, slung her duffel bag over her shoulder, and stepped down to the sidewalk. It was colder than Seattle, just a half hour of daylight remaining. Her breath crystallized in the crisp, dry air. A chilly gust of wind stung her cheeks. She wished she had invested in a pair of gloves, but that could be remedied at the used-clothing store. She had studied a map during the ride and knew which local bus she needed. The number five bus was stopped at the traffic light just a half block away. With a ten-second burst she reached the bus stop at the corner just in time to board. In five minutes she reached I Street and North First Street.

The bus rumbled as it pulled away, leaving her on the corner by the AM/PM mini-mart. From her research Andie knew of the shootings there, at least one fatality. Farther north toward the town of Selah was an old hotel that had been converted to a mission. Good intentions, but a definite up-tick in derelict foot traffic. Andie saw two of the homeless huddling in cardboard boxes in the empty parking lot across the street. She checked her watch. Quarter till five. They were bedding down for the cold night, no doubt. Andie would have to do the same soon. Just up the street were clusters of rundown motels and low-rent apartments, popular with hookers and boozers. To keep in role, she'd take a room there. But she was in no hurry to check in. The Second Chance clothing store was a couple of doors down. She was eager to pay a visit.

It was a typical storefront with a plate-glass window. The dresses on display were on hangers, not mannequins. Andie peered inside from the sidewalk. The store was long on inventory, short on decor. The overhead lighting was stark fluorescent. The old tile floors were cracked and stained. You could see where the previous tenants had kep
t c
ounters and other fixtures that had long since been removed. On the shelves along the far wall were folded pants, T-shirts, and sweaters. Most of the clothes were hanging on the five metal racks that ran the length of the store. Dresses and skirts on one, button shirts on another. Kids' clothing, winter coats, and miscellaneous items filled the rest. A few wedding dresses were on display in the very back.

As Andie entered, the bell on the door announced her arrival. An old woman came out from behind a curtain in back. She was quite the sight. Wrinkled white skin, like an albino rhinoceros. Jet black hair, as if she'd dyed it with shoe polish. She said nothing, just watched. Andie simply acted like a customer.

It was a strange feeling. There she was, browsing through used clothes, needing nothing, pretending to be someone she wasn't, not really sure how any of this might help her find a woman she had never met, a woman named Beth Wheatley.

The logical thing was to strike up a conversation and see where it went. She found a pair of gloves, which she needed.

"How much are these?"

The woman wasn't far away. She'd been hovering like a security guard, not about to be shoplifted. "Whatever the tag says. You buy a few more things, I'll knock a little off."

Andie tried them on. "These are nice."

"I guess," she said.

"I'll take them." She handed them over, smiling.

The old woman started toward the cash register. Andie followed and stopped before the counter. It was a glass display filled with costume jewelry, none of it very valuable. Andie shot a longing look at a string of faux pearls. "I've always wanted a necklace like that."

"All it takes is money."

"How much is it?"

She punched the register, ringing up the gloves. "More than you can afford."

"How much?"

"I can let you have it for forty dollars."

"Oh." It wasn't worth half that, but Andie played dumb. "I'm sure that's a fair price. But I'm afraid I don't have that kind of money."

"Tough break."

"Yeah. I'm kind of out of work right now."

She gave Andie the once-over, judging her appearance. "What a surprise." The register clanged as the cash drawer opened. "That'll be three bucks for the gloves."

Andie dug in her pockets for two singles and some loose change, acting as though it were her last three dollars. She counted out the dimes on the countertop, then handed it over. "Maybe I could work here."