She would come to him whenever she wanted. She would control it. She would take it from him. She’d take his fantasy, piece by piece.
She was still too strong.
He finished drying off and went to his room. He dressed quickly, then emptied out a small sea bag that his father had left behind one of the times he’d left in the middle of the night. He pushed some jeans and some shirts into the sea bag, along with a few paperback books he’d borrowed from the library.
As quiet as he could, he slipped out of his room and into his mother’s bedroom. In the top drawer of the dresser, he found a wooden box full of jewelry. Underneath that were a number of folded bills. He took both, slipping the cash into his pocket and bringing the jewelry box back to his room, where he put it into the sea bag.
His coat hung in the hall closet. He carried the bag with him, moving woodenly, without emotion. It was as if when he spewed out the contents of his stomach in the bedroom, all of his emotion had left him, too.
She didn’t look up as he walked to the door. He thought about not turning around, but something made him pause. He looked over his shoulder at her. She met his eyes. He saw no remorse in them at all.
“You’re leaving, then?” she asked, her slurred tone matter-of-fact.
He nodded.
“Well, good,” she said. With that, she turned her attention back to the television.
He waited. A hundred things that he might say raced through his brain, but in the end, one question won out.
“Cora?” he said. Since she wanted to be called by her name so goddamn bad, then he’d do it now.
She turned her gaze back to him. “What?”
He licked his lips, then asked, “Why don’t you love me?”
She smiled, a cruel grin that licked at her cheeks. “Because you are the reason my entire life has been wasted, that’s why.”
He expected those words to rock him in the gut like mule kick, but strangely, he felt nothing. He simply turned away from her and left the apartment.
His first steps down the street were light and euphoric. He couldn’t think of why he hadn’t done this years ago. Take some of her precious money and just go. He felt free. He felt like a new person.
His footsteps carried him to a bus stop. He got on without thinking. He sat and stared out the window at the wet, gray Seattle streets. His sense of freedom was short-lived. Already he felt a brewing, seething rage building in the pit of his stomach. He knew he could never be free of it. He knew he would have to come back and find her. Someday, when he was stronger. He’d come knocking on her door. She’d answer it, probably with a glass full of vodka, that whore’s drink, in her hand. He’d push his way in. He’d give her the back of her hand. Then he’d lay the whammo on her, better than his father ever did. He’d control it. He’d show her what power was.
He would.
Someday, he would.
The city bus stopped near the Greyhound terminal. He exited and walked across the street. Once inside the terminal, he stood in front of the list of destinations. He didn’t have much money. He couldn’t go far. But he had to go far enough. Where was that? Tacoma? Vancouver?
His eyes flitted down the list until his gaze came to rest on River City. That was clear across the state, on the other side of the Cascades. Far enough, but close enough.
He smiled.
Besides, it snowed in River City.
Part IV
May 1996
RIVER CITY, WASHINGTON
Failure, then, failure! so the world stamps us at every turn.
We strew it with our blunders, our misdeeds, our lost
opportunities, with all the memorials of our inadequacy…
NINETEEN
Wednesday, May 8th
Day Shift
0909 hours
Detective John Tower tapped his pen against his knee. A half-cup of coffee, long cold, stood next to his open case file, but instead of looking at the contents of the file, Tower stared at the picture of Stephanie on the corner of his desk.
He wondered how he’d like it if it had been his girlfriend that had been attacked by the Rainy Day Rapist, only to have the case assigned to a complete moron like himself.
No, he corrected himself. Better yet, what if she were the next victim in line, relying on him to catch the guy before he was able to assault her?
Tower sighed. He dropped the pen on top of the case file and rubbed his eyes.
You can’t afford self-pity right now, John. Get your ass to work.
He opened his eyes again and paged through the case file. Nothing new jumped out at him on this, easily his hundredth time through the file contents.
Strike one.
None of the calls into the police tip line had resulted in anything of value, even though he’d run down anything remotely promising. They all just led down blind alleys, unfortunately. Most of the tips were the result of the Mr. Every Other White Guy composite that Lieutenant Crawford had released to the media. He’d spent countless hours contacting men who tipsters had been certain were “that guy on the news,” only to know within moments that it wasn’t the Rainy Day Rapist. Still, he had to interview each of them, get their alibi and then confirm it. That took time, but yielded no results.
Strike two.
On the scientific side of the house, there was nothing in the way of useful forensics that might help to identify the suspect.
Strike three.
There’d been no rapes or attempted rapes since the threats made against MacLeod a week and a half ago. While he was glad that was the case, there was a single positive to another criminal event — the potential for evidence.
Tower shook his head at his own morbidity. What kind of a sick bastard wished for a rape to happen just so he might have a shot at some additional evidence? It was stupid, anyway. This guy had been careful. There were no witnesses except the victims themselves and they didn’t see much that helped identify the bad guy.
On top of that, there hadn’t been a whisper of activity at MacLeod’s house during the surveillance by officers there. No appearances by the rapist there or anywhere while she was on patrol. Chisolm reported no suspicious activity at the hotel they were staying at, either. That led to amateur hour, with Lieutenant Crawford trying to convince him that the Rainy Day Rapist had hopped a train out of River City. He wanted to shut down the operation.
So what did that make it? Strike four? Five?
Tower decided to dump the baseball analogy. Instead, he imagined this to be a back-alley scrap. One with no rules other than the most basic rules of conflict — never give up and the last man standing wins.
He wasn’t going to quit. He was going to find the son of a bitch.
He reached for the small stack of tips and leafed through them. All were vague and unlikely candidates. He decided to pass them back to Crawford. The lieutenant would give them to Finch and Elias to run down, which was fine by Tower. Let those glory boy homicide dicks do a little work for someone else for a change, instead of the other way around.
Tower half-chuckled, half-snorted at his own thoughts.
Jeez, am I really turning into that big of an asshole?
Rather than study that question any further, he reached for the list of license plates that the surveillance officers had jotted down. At his request, they’d noted any cars that pulled onto Calispel during surveillance, as well as cars parked a block in either direction. It was a long shot, but at this point, he didn’t have much else.
Systematically, he began running the license plate numbers through the Department of Licensing computer. That gave him the registered owner. If it were a male, he’d run that male through the criminal database. He’d also run a history on the address and get any other male names from that, which he’d also run through the criminal database. Anyone with a criminal record would be a nice start, but he figured he should look hard at anyone whose car didn’t belong in the neighborhood by virtue of living there. Maybe the Rainy Day Rapist had driven by to case MacLeod’s house.