41
The torrential rain against the leaves reminded Engelmann of the hiss of white noise through a listening device. The tree trunks he braced himself against were spongy from the damp. Fallen leaves and pine needles were slippery beneath his feet. His injured knee protested with every step as he limped through the thick Virginia forest toward Evelyn Walker’s house, and his sodden clothes stuck to his frame.
But he did not falter. He did not slow.
At thirty thousand feet, the sun was shining-the sky a clear, fine blue. Engelmann had watched the clouds flicker like paper lanterns beneath the morning’s United Airlines shuttle-tiny, distant, insubstantial. His fellow passengers had seemed insubstantial to him, too, so heady was the afterglow of his time with Lester Meyers. Though Engelmann had washed up since, he’d been certain he could still detect the faint whiff of violence-of death-upon his clothes and skin. When he discovered it, he’d breathed deep, savoring the taste. It restored him. Invigorated him. It marked him as superhuman, as a killer of men. And as he grudgingly released it from his lungs-a profound sense of purpose settling over him-he’d wondered if the others on his flight could sense it, too.
When the plane descended toward Dulles, the foul weather had enveloped it. A dark portent of things to come, he’d thought. Perhaps his arrival had been foretold.
The notion fueled Engelmann as he pressed onward through the forest.
Occasionally, as he cut a rough diagonal from the turnaround at which he’d parked his rental car to Evie’s house, he spied other homes through the trees. He saw TVs tuned to the weather, to cartoons, to morning news programs; couples reading the paper over cups of coffee; families eating pancakes in their pajamas. In every house he passed, lights blazed to dispel the rainy Sunday morning gloom. But when he finally spied the Walker house, he saw no movement, no light, no sign of life-and not a sound could be heard over the constant roar of the rain against the leaves.
He broke from the tree line, rain soaking him to the bone, and slinked along the perimeter of the house, staying low so as not to be seen-clinging to the foundation, the bushes, the latticework that framed the base of the deck, only popping up long enough to peek into the occasional window. But the curtains on the windows were all drawn, and those low enough to climb into were boarded shut.
His quarry, he realized, had beaten him here.
The realization angered Engelmann. He didn’t understand how Hendricks had outflanked him. He thought he’d been so careful-so clever. Perhaps he should not have left that cripple to die slowly, but Engelmann had enjoyed the notion of prolonging his suffering too much to kill him outright. Still, his miscalculation mattered not a whit. He wanted his quarry to come, and come his quarry had.
Now the killing time was near.
Engelmann drew his weapon, a knockoff Ruger purchased not twenty minutes before from a less-than-reputable pawnshopafewmilesfromtheairport.He’dboughtaknifeas well-this one designed for gutting deer-which he wore inside his boot. He knew it would perform admirably on human game should the need arise.
Though the storm clouds blotted out the sun, and sheets of rain blurred everything around him, intermittent lightning blazed-brief snapshots clear enough to navigate by. On his second circuit around the farmhouse, he noticed the front door. Open, but only a crack, the darkness showing at its right-hand edge an invitation.
Engelmann grinned. Bold, he thought. Too bold. Hendricks must think him a fool, an amateur. He bypassed the open door in favor of the bay window farther down-not nailed shut like the others on account of its shape, but instead barricaded with a large piece of furniture.
He broke three panes with the butt of his gun and climbed onto the cushioned built-in bench inside. Then he placed both feet onto the heavy wooden piece-a hutch, or entertainment center perhaps-that barred his entrance to the room and kicked it over. His knee flared with pain. The hutch toppled inward with a crash of breaking plates.
Engelmann stepped low and light across the room, taking up a position behind one couch arm. The house reeked like a landfill-alcohol and vinegar and a thousand other smells combining to turn Engelmann’s stomach and set his head reeling. He wondered if disorientation was Hendricks’s intent when he unleashed this olfactory horror upon the world. If so, it was hardly enough to dull the diamond edge of his focus.
He held his breath and listened. From somewhere deep in the house, he heard a woman’s cry and the low growl of a dog, both quickly silenced-the former by a short, harsh “Shhh,” and the latter, it seemed, by a muffling hand. The dog whined quietly, mouth held closed. The woman and the man who shushed her said nothing.
Engelmann smiled luxuriously. “I confess, Michael, I’m impressed,” he said, hoping to draw Hendricks into the darkened room. “I didn’t expect to find you here when I arrived. Very kind of you to extend an invitation, by the way,” he said, referring to the open door. “You’ll forgive the impertinence of my declining your proffered method of ingress. And if I might be so bold, you could have cleaned.”
“There’s no need to bring Evie into this,” called Hendricks from somewhere deeper in the house. “How about you let her leave so we can settle this just you and me.”
Engelmann, realizing his quarry was not nearby, scampered low across the room, ducking into the next one down the farmhouse’s main hall just long enough to call, “My pleasure! The front door’s still open, if you’d like to send her out that way. I only hope something unpleasant doesn’t befall her-the forest is quite dangerous.” Then he ducked into the room across the hall and waited to see if his misdirection would bear fruit in the form of Hendricks chasing after.
It didn’t. But Engelmann’s words did have an effect on Evelyn, at least, as he heard her wail in fright. Her terror gave him a quiver of satisfaction-not least because he realized it wasn’t coming from the same location as Hendricks’s calls. That meant he’d stashed her somewhere-along, he assumed, with both her husband and her dog, if the photos on the walls revealed by the lightning strikes were any indication. And unless he was much mistaken, that somewhere was not far from the spot where he’d taken refuge-closer, it seemed, than Hendricks himself.
Thunder shook the house like battle drums, in perfect synch with the many lightning strikes. The storm was precisely overhead. Engelmann’s face tingled with excitement.
As the storm outside raged, Engelmann rose and headed down the hallway, drawn like the hungry predator he was to the quiet, muffled sounds of Abigail’s frightened whining.
Charlie Thompson pushed the needle of her Ford Escape past ninety, her wipers sluicing back and forth at top speed but making little headway against the driving rain. Dim yellow spots jittered in her rearview as she struggled to stay on the winding country drive. Her backup’s headlights, she hoped. She couldn’t stomach the thought of facing two stone-cold killers by herself.
Diane had told her she’d call back in twenty minutes. It took her over seven hours-but she’d come through with the intel Thompson had asked for. Turned out Hendricks sent letters every week for most of his deployment to a woman named Evelyn Jacobs. Girlfriend or fiancée, Diane wasn’t sure. She’d married since-her last name was Walker now-and settled down in rural Virginia, about an hour from DC.
Thompson was certain that’s where Garfield’s perp was heading-and that her ghost would follow. Which meant she had to follow, too. For the bodies carted out of Pendleton’s. For her dead partner. For herself, no matter the cost.
Her GPS piped up with a flat, monotone command, instructing her to turn, and informing her that her destination was four-tenths of a mile away. She took the turn at speed, nearly one-eightying in her haste. She thanked God when the headlights in her rearview did the same.