“Not long enough.” She followed Griffin out of the cell. “And ‘nervous’ isn’t the term I’d choose.” Dread, horror, and a curious sense of inevitability. “And, yes, it’s been over four years…”
CHAPTER
8
Four Years Earlier
Coachella Valley, California
7:42 P.M.
“THE GAME’S OVER, KENDRA!”
Panic.
Kendra’s heart was beating hard as she huddled behind a clump of large boulders protruding from the mountainside. Although darkness had fallen, the rocks were still warm from the late-afternoon sun.
She desperately needed that cover. Eric Colby stood at the top of the hill, staring in her direction.
“You’re very clever, Kendra. But not clever enough.”
Colby’s voice carried down the small ridge. He had manipulated events perfectly, drawing her and the two FBI agents out to this remote desert valley.
Now the agents were dead.
And she was next.
Kendra carefully moved down the hillside, hugging the large boulders as she mentally mapped an escape route.
“You could have saved them, Kendra. I didn’t care about those agents. I only cared about you.”
Don’t listen. Don’t let him rattle you. Keep moving.
“It gets cold out here. You can wrap yourself in the skin of those dead agents, if you like. Yes, that would be a great idea. The heavyset one looks like he would be hairy and warm. I can skin him in just a few minutes. Want me to throw it down to you?”
It. Throw it down. Special Agent Steven Byers, the sweet and funny man with a wife at home who was expecting a baby in two months, was now an it.
“Don’t feel bad,” he called down. “Before the night is over, I’ll be wearing your skin.” He paused. “Do you think I’m joking?”
He wasn’t joking.
She moved through a deep gully, scrambling to put as much distance between her and that madman as she could. She stumbled, then she stumbled again. What the hell was blocking her way?
Then she caught wind of an awful odor. The same odor as before.
And she knew what was blocking her path.
Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness.
She looked down.
Half a dozen corpses surrounded her on the gully floor, piled like dolls in a toy chest.
She choked back a scream.
No. God, no.
Move. Don’t stand here frozen.
She pushed on, trying not to look at the horror around her.
Colby laughed. “Have you found my friends yet? Did you think that those heads in the warehouse belonged to my only kills? Dozens more, Kendra.” She heard his footsteps sliding down the embankment.
He was coming for her.
She stopped as the sheer rock side of the mountain loomed before her.
No!
The gully’s sides were now over eight feet high, and she was boxed in.
Trapped.
No weapon.
No place to hide.
And he was getting closer.
She dove for the canyon floor and crawled back. Only one chance … She hurtled forward and found herself flat on her stomach.
And face-to-face with a young woman’s corpse.
Kendra grabbed the corpse’s shoulders and rolled over with it, intertwining her arms and legs with those of the decaying bodies on the canyon floor. Kendra fought her gag reflex as the odor flooded her nasal passages.
Must stay still. Perfectly still.
She heard Colby moving faster in her direction. Then he stopped, his gaze searching his macabre graveyard.
He began stepping over the corpses as he called out to the end of the gully. “There’s no way out, Kendra!”
Her head was turned away from him, lost—she hoped—in the horrific jumble of his victims. She heard his boots moving through the brush.
Could he see her?
She pictured him still holding his two large knives, overhanded in his right, underhanded in his left. The blades would still be dripping the blood of those two FBI agents.
He moved over her, close enough that she could hear him breathing directly overhead.
He stopped, his head tilted, listening.
Could he hear her breathing? She held her breath.
Keep going, please keep going …
He stepped over her …
… and then past.
In seconds, he’d know she wasn’t at the end of the trench.
No time to waste.
Or even think.
Her hand closed on a large rock, its jagged edges cutting into her palm. She slid out from under the corpses.
In one smooth motion, she rolled over and jumped to her feet.
A second later, she was behind Colby.
She struck him on the back of the head.
And again.
And again.
He howled in pain as the jagged edge of the rock cut his head. He tried to spin around with his knives, but she struck him again with all her strength.
He staggered forward and fell to his knees.
“Die, you son of a bitch.” She struck him again.
He pitched forward and went limp.
Kendra stood over him, still holding the bloody rock as she waited for any sign that he might rise again. Was he dead?
She hoped he was dead, she thought savagely.
No. He was still breathing.
But three or four more blows would surely do the trick. No jury on earth would convict her. After all, it was the only way to be sure he wouldn’t come after her …
She was giving herself excuses to kill Eric Colby. He was helpless, down for the count.
And she was not a murderer. She wouldn’t let him make her into the same monster he had become. She’d climb the nearest ridge and hope for cell reception there. If that didn’t work, she’d take Agent Byers’s car to the nearest town.
It would be okay. The evidence against Colby was overwhelming. They’d put him away and send him to death row. Eric Colby would never hurt anyone again.
But she still couldn’t let go of that rock. She gripped it tighter.
Just three or four more blows …
She craned her neck, trying to breathe air that wasn’t infected by that awful stench of death.
She staggered backward and scrambled up the side of the gully.
Three or four more blows …
She climbed the ridge and reached for her phone.
And only then did she let the stone fall from her fingers.
San Quentin State Penitentiary
Interrogation Room A
Present Day
KENDRA SAT BEHIND THE INTERROGATION room’s one-way glass, still overcome by the sights, sounds, and smells of that horrible night. She had glanced at Colby at his trial only long enough to point him out for the jury. Otherwise, she hadn’t seen him since their confrontation in Coachella Valley.
And she didn’t want to see him now, especially after seeing the sick shrine he had erected to her in his cell. Even Griffin thought it best that she stay in the closet-sized observation room with Reade and Metcalf while he and Lynch spoke to Colby.
The interrogation room was empty, pending Colby’s arrival. It looked remarkably similar to every police interrogation room in every medium-to-large city in the country. Except for the bolted-down prisoner’s chair, complete with steel eyeholes for leg and wrist restraints.
Where was he? The warden had said he’d have him here right away.
The rear door finally swung open, and Eric Colby walked into the room.
He looked precisely as Kendra remembered him. Jet-black hair, high cheekbones, pale skin, and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. His lips were almost always pursed, and only when he spoke did he reveal his straight, tiny, rodentlike teeth. She’d always thought the effect was downright bizarre, almost as if they belonged in someone else’s mouth.