Wardell glanced down at the speedometer, realized that this automobile was deceptively fast. He’d thought he’d been taking it reasonably slowly while he composed his thoughts, but the needle was way past sixty. He took his foot off the gas as he considered his three scenarios.
Option one was probably the most unlikely. He didn’t discount the possibility that a man with a gun might have wanted to pay Eddie Nolan a visit — besides himself, of course — but everything in Nolan’s life had been strictly small-time, and so he’d have expected a very low-echelon gangster at best. This man had not been that. Besides, how would anyone else have known precisely where to look for Nolan? During the brief call from the pay phone at the Kentucky truck stop, Wardell had suggested an out-of-the-way place for a reason. No, this was not a coincidence.
Option two: a bounty hunter. This was a possibility, but in Wardell’s experience, your average bounty hunter had a great deal in common with your average low-echelon gangster: a lot of guns, a lot of unresolved anger issues, not too much upstairs. But still, a possibility.
Wardell’s hunch, however, was the third option. An operative working with the FBI, with enough knowledge of the investigation to be able to track Wardell, but without the fast ties to the Bureau that would have seen him dragged down to Missouri with the others. The fact that the man had been alone suggested that either he had kept his paymasters out of the loop, or more likely they hadn’t given credence to his line of inquiry. Their mistake, it would seem.
Wardell turned the radio on for some background noise. He found a news station, caught the tail end of a report from Missouri, where everyone seemed to think he was. Wardell hadn’t paid much heed to the messages purportedly from him in the media, but by the sounds of things, this red van business went way beyond a simple hoax. He mused on it for a while before deciding to let it lie for now. He’d stay cautious and wait and see what, if anything, developed from it.
A sign for US Route 34 appeared ahead, informing him of the distance to the destinations at either extremity of the highway: Berwyn, Illinois, at 760 miles, or Granby, Colorado, at 320. East or west.
Wardell slowed to a crawl to give himself time to think. The next name on his list wasn’t in either direction. The next name was a few hundred miles north. Up until an hour before, Wardell had planned on heading straight on up there. He had felt confident in his plan so far, reasoning that the feds would expect him to head for Chicago and keep picking random targets. While it appeared they hadn’t deviated from that expectation, the encounter at the cabin gave him pause. The man in the cabin had been a step ahead, had seen the Nolan hit coming and had managed to track the old man down. The next name on his list was even more obvious — the hunter would predict it easily. It would be rash to proceed. Safer to delay this mission, mix things up with some more randoms. Or maybe even forget about the list and jump straight to the finale, now that he had all of the necessary tools at his disposal.
But then again, he enjoyed a challenge. And if, as he anticipated, the man at the cabin predicted the next target, that would offer the chance of a rematch on Wardell’s terms. Only now did he realize that the farther west he’d traveled, the more a sense of disappointment had built. Disappointment at the lack of obstacles, of challenges. When he’d reached his destination back there in Allanton, he’d been downright depressed. Even when he’d squeezed the trigger to end the pathetic existence of his… of that man… it hadn’t felt like he’d thought it would.
But that cloud of despondency had lifted entirely during the ensuing firefight. And it hadn’t returned now, even though the adrenaline had mostly worked its way out of his system. With an alien feeling of surprise, Wardell put a hand to his mouth to confirm a suspicion. He was smiling. And he reckoned he’d been doing so since he’d fallen back from the cabin.
35
The ride up from Missouri in the shiny black Bell 407 was smoother than Banner had anticipated. After she’d gotten off the phone with Blake and realized how she’d be filling the next couple of hours, she’d glanced up at the sky, seen the threatening clouds, and shivered. Banner was prone to airsickness and knew that even a moderately turbulent ride would reduce the chances of her keeping her breakfast down to around zero. But as the pilot upped the pitch of the main rotors and lifted them into the air, the sky brightened a little. It was almost as though the weather had had second thoughts. Banner set her jaw and willed the status quo to remain. Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day. Or don’t.
The nausea meant she was grateful that Castle was in a reticent mood, barely exchanging four words with her throughout the two-hour flight. She used the time to look back over the Wardell file. She scanned the pictures and reports and interviews, wondering how Blake had gotten so far ahead of the rest of them. She wondered how the hell he — or anyone — was going to predict the bastard’s next move. She sighed and put the Wardell section to one side, then opened the victim profiles for the original nineteen.
Whenever a case threatened to overwhelm her, this is what she did: took it back to the basics. The crime and the victim. Just like their killer, every one of the nineteen had a backstory. The accountant celebrating a promotion. The alcoholic fresh out of completing her first successful stint in rehab. Stories cut short for no reason. Lives blacked out on a whim.
Victim number six hit her the hardest. Her name was Emma Durbin, a thirty-two-year-old corporate lawyer recently separated from her husband and raising a young daughter. Banner stopped reading the text and just stared long and hard at the picture of a smiling Durbin at the beach, hugging both arms around her kid’s neck as they posed for the camera.
Jesus, Annie.
She snapped the file shut and closed her eyes. Where had the time gone? Her daughter’s entire childhood was playing out in the background, drowned out by louder distractions: the fights with Mark, the punishing demands of her work. And then once Mark had gone, the demands of the job had increased to absorb any breathing space she might have expected.
She took out her phone to call Helen, but it went straight to voice mail. She left a message, asking how they both were and saying that she hoped she’d be home soon. As she hung up, she promised herself it would be different once they caught Wardell. She could take stock, start to prioritize better, focus on what was important. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Everything was so goddamned important.
They touched down on the wide, flat plain that separated the line of hunters’ cabins from the lake. They were latecomers to the party, and the usual circus of law enforcement, forensics, and media were already entrenched in their traditional positions. Castle leapt from the side door as soon as the skids touched the earth, and Banner followed, ducking down instinctively to avoid the propeller wash.
The center of attention was a cabin that had probably once been fairly indistinguishable from its neighbors, but now looked like it had been transported there from some battleground in Afghanistan. Every window was shattered, lengths of guttering hung loose, large-caliber bullet holes pockmarked the surface like some weird decorative effect. How in the hell had Blake survived this? She wondered where he was now. A couple of states away, perhaps, doubtless hot on Wardell’s trail.
The earthly remains of Edward Nolan lay prostrate on the floor of the cabin, half visible through the open doorway. Castle had told the crime scene people that they could do what they like so long as nobody removed the body before he arrived. “Body” was perhaps too substantial a word for what was left of the man. Three-quarters of his head was gone. Wide blood blossoms adorned the rest of his body, evidently the result of getting in the way of automatic rifle fire. The left hand had been blown off at the wrist.