As they got near the first blow from the knife, Choi said, “Here comes the new part—”
The camera moved ever so slightly, a flash of blade and another of red cloth, and the woman’s neck erupted with blood.
Choi said, “The camera moved.”
Rousch frowned. “You mean somebody bumped into it?”
“No,” Choi said. “It moved.”
“As in someone moved it,” Anna said, getting it.
Choi turned to Jenny, “Run the last part again.”
This time, Rousch saw it.
“Camera definitely moved,” Anna said.
The FBI agent remained confused. “So it moved — what does that mean?”
Harrow said, “It means Don Juan has somebody running camera for him.”
Choi said, “We figure it’s a hidden camera, behind a two-way mirror or a peephole. We doubt these victims were participating in some kind of porno session, with a cameraman out in the open.”
Chase said, “But it’s possible.”
Choi said, “Possible but not probable.”
“And that means,” Harrow said, “Don Juan has an accomplice.”
“Holy shit,” Rousch said. “Two are in on this?”
Harrow nodded.
“That could change everything...”
“It does change everything,” Harrow said, and leaned forward, eyes traveling from face to face. “We thought we were looking for a single serial killer. This new perspective gives us a fresh start.”
Choi said, “If Don Juan’s had help through all of this, maybe we missed something — something that could lead us to the accomplice, if not Don Juan himself.”
Rousch, impressed, said, “It’s a breakthrough.”
Harrow said, “You’re welcome... Laurene, where are we with the roses?”
Chase said, “They’re rare, but not impossible to find — we’re still running down the leads.”
“Keep at it,” Harrow said.
Anna asked, “Any luck on the computer front? Tracking the cyber theft side?”
Jenny shook her head. “Guy could give me lessons.”
Everybody on the team gave her an astonished look — that was quite an admission.
Harrow said, “Might be we’re looking at this bass-ackwards. He’s choosing single, at least semi-successful women — what do they have in common?”
Jenny said, “They all were, or wanted to be, actresses.”
“So Don Juan likely got to them by saying he was in show business, too — right?”
“Swell,” Anna said, standing with arms crossed. “We’ve just narrowed our suspect pool to every breathing male in Los Angeles who ever hit on a pretty girl.”
That earned some weary smiles.
Pall, not smiling, said, “But our man had to stalk them — he’s cleaning out their bank accounts, so he’s only going after women he already knows have money. How does know?”
Jenny said, “From their accounts.”
“But how did he get in there in the first place?”
“By sending in the Trojan horse and getting their keystrokes and passwords — we’ve already got that.”
“You’re not seeing it,” Pall said. “Don Juan isn’t randomly e-mailing women, who turn out to have money. Nobody’s that lucky. So he’s starting somewhere.”
“With actresses,” Jenny said.
“Yes. And not every would-be actress has money — most are fairly broke, right?”
“Right,” Harrow said, beginning to get it.
Pall said, “If he’s going in the show-business door, maybe he’s an agent, or an acting teacher, or producer...”
“Or posing as one,” Chase said.
“So,” Pall said, “he must go through a number of women who don’t meet his financial standards. But how many does he have to go through to get to the ones with money?”
Anna said, “And who are they, and how were they contacted?”
Choi said, “If you can’t track the killer...”
“... track the victims,” Harrow said.
Chapter Twenty-six
The late-night visits from the old man started not long after their mother abandoned them. His sister — only twelve at the time — had been the first made to pleasure the old man.
A year or so later, the boy also would receive the occasional nocturnal visit — the old man stuffing that thing into this place and that. If the boy gagged or protested, beatings followed. For several years, sister and brother took turns keeping the old man happy.
Finally a new awful ritual began — their father using one of them for his pleasure while the other one was made to watch. ‘Cause if you didn’t watch, somebody got slapped. Maybe the watcher, maybe the watched, which somehow was even worse than getting slapped yourself.
This had all happened a long time ago... ...but tonight he was back there again, back in that tiny, musty attic bedroom of his sister’s. He had long since learned a price was paid when he turned his head, so he watched intently in the darkened room, or anyway his eyes went in that direction though privately, secretly, he was making them blur, as the old man towered over his now sixteen-year-old sister.
That one time, she’d had the temerity to appear without panties, ready for him, having been completely cowed by the old man. That had been a mistake. Turned out, the panties were part of the ritual.
That night the old man had beaten her, severely, not to mention shouting at her that she was a slut and a common whore.
Ever since, they both made sure to play the game by the old man’s rules. That way it would be over sooner and with less pain, if no less shame.
So, while the boy sat in a straight-back wooden chair, his eyes blurred on the action, the old man forced his daughter to stand there facing her brother as father stood sideways and unbuttoned daughter’s blouse and moved in close to stroke her smooth, alabaster skin, nearly luminous with only the moonlight filtering through the flimsy curtains lighting their sins.
That was the only bad thing about the boy blurring his vision — it gave the acts a dreamy look, a kind of gauzy prettiness that wasn’t right.
Dreamy look, but nightmare sounds, smells. Even sitting across the room, the boy could smell that fetid breath — liquor, cigarettes, the very odor of the old man’s hollow existence... must be how Hell smelled. The boy’s sister knew not to protest and had learned to make her whimpers and ouches sound like she liked it though her eyes screamed otherwise.
Briefly, the boy thought about having another go at the old man, but fear overwhelmed him. Every time he had tried to stop their father, the boy ended up on his ass, blood running from his mouth or nose. Once, the old man had kicked him so hard in the ribs, the boy puked blood, continued coughing it up for days.
The old man was solid as a house and had a good fifty pounds on his son’s narrow ass. Knowing he couldn’t win the fight, the boy sat on the chair, willing himself not to cry, to try to show strength for his sister, his fists balled if impotent at his sides.
“Pretty,” the old man said in his scratchy voice.
Even in the moonlit room, the boy could see the old man’s paw tremble as he slowly pulled the girl’s panties down her long, white legs. Then the old man helped her out of them, before he sat her on the edge of the bed.
The old man just stood there, towering over her, not quite blocking her from the boy’s view. When she unzipped the fly, the scratchy sound of metal was like an echo of the old man’s terrible voice.