“Don’t they tear these things down?” she asked.
“They used to hold all kinds of goods in these warehouses before the navy moved in just south of here. The government bought this land and hasn’t seen fit to rebuild yet. I’m sure they’ll get around to it.”
A lone cop stood at the bottom of the stairs, shining his flashlight on the threshold. “The door was locked from the outside—took some jarring to get it loose.”
Jennifer descended. A steel door led into a ten-by-ten room, concrete, empty. She played her torch over the pitted walls. Exposed floor joists held the ceiling. Most of it. One small section had rotted through.
“The blood’s over here,” Milton said.
Jennifer directed her light to where he stood looking down at two large dark stains on the concrete. She squatted and studied each.
“The splatter’s consistent with blood.” The basic position of the stains also matched Kevin’s story—both he and the boy had bled. “At this age we probably won’t get any reliable DNA evidence, but we can at least verify species. I knew Kevin was hiding something the first time I talked to him.”
She glanced at Milton, surprised by his tone.
“And this isn’t the last of it. I guarantee he’s hiding more,” he said.
Milton was a first-class pig. She stood and walked over to a small, almost unnoticeable hole in the ceiling. “The boy’s way out?”
“Could be.”
So, assuming this read as fact, what would it mean? That Kevin hadn’t killed the boy? That they had fought and that Kevin had locked the door from the outside, but then the boy had managed to crawl out through the rotting ceiling? Who knew why he hadn’t come back to terrorize Kevin until now?
Or it could mean that the boy actually had died in here, only to be discovered by some passerby years later, body disposed of. Unlikely. Unless a drifter or anyone else had reason to hide the body, it would have been investigated. She’d already run a search for reports and found none.
“Okay, we need to do a bloodstain distribution analysis. I want to know what happened down here. Assuming it is blood, did anyone lie in it? Any blood on the walls or up through the ceiling? I want species identification and, if possible, blood type. Send a sample to the FBI lab immediately. And this stays out of the press.”
Milton said nothing. He looked up at the corner and frowned. A shadow passed over his face. It occurred to her that she might actually hate the man.
“Don’t get any ideas, Detective. Everything goes through me.”
He looked at her for a moment and then walked for the door. “Sure.”
Kevin drove them along Palos Verdes Drive, west toward Palos Verdes. Slater’s bugged phone sat on the dash, turned off.
Sam stared ahead, eyes sparkling. “If Slater can’t make contact, how can he play the game? He’s driven by the riddles, but if we neutralize his ability to communicate a riddle, then there isno riddle, is there? At the least he has to rethink his strategy.”
“Or blow up another bomb,” Kevin said.
“We’re not technically breaking one of his rules. He detonates a bomb and he’sbreaking the rules of engagement. I don’t think Slater will do that.”
Kevin thought about Sam’s plan. On one hand, it felt good to be doing something—anything—besides waiting. The idea made sense on its surface. On the other hand, he didn’t trust Slater to follow his own rules. Sam knew him better, maybe, but it was his life they were messing with.
“Why not just turn off the phone and stick around?”
“He’d find a way to communicate.”
“He still might.”
“Possible. But this way we also get you out of there. The one thing we need now is time. A dozen new leads have surfaced in the last twenty-four hours, but we need time.”
There was the weword again.
“We should at least tell Jennifer, don’t you think?”
“Think of this as a test. We cut off all contact and then we gradually resume contact. Unless Slater’s following us now, he’ll be lost. His opponent will have disappeared. He may rant and rave, but he won’t play the game without you. We add some people to the loop and see if Slater suddenly knows more than he should. Follow?”
“What if he has the car bugged?”
“Then he did it today under the noses of the FBI. They swept it this morning, remember?”
Kevin nodded. The idea was growing on him. “Just like that we’re gone, huh?”
She grinned. “Just like that.”
“Like sneaking out at night.”
It took them half an hour to reach the quaint hotel—an old Victorian mansion that had been converted and expanded to accommodate forty rooms. They pulled into its parking lot at ten after six. A cool, salty breeze drifted off the Pacific, half a mile down green sloping hills. Sam grinned and pulled out her overnight bag.
“Do they have rooms available?” Kevin asked.
“We have reservations. A suite with two bedrooms.”
He looked up at the hotel and then back toward the sea. A Conoco station with a Taco Bell stood a hundred yards to the north. Outback Steakhouse, fifty yards south. Cars drifted by, a Lexus, a Mercedes. The madness in Long Beach seemed distant.
“Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s settle in and get something to eat.”
Half an hour later they sat across from each other in a cozy café on the hotel’s ground floor, overlooking a dimming horizon. They’d left their cell phones, turned off, in the room. She still wore her office pager, but Slater had no way to reach either of them. It seemed that Sam’s simple plan wasn’t such a bad idea.
“What would happen if I just disappeared?” Kevin asked, cutting into a thick New York strip.
She forked a small bite of cheese-smothered chicken into her mouth and dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Just up and leave until we find him?”
“Why not?”
“Why not. Leave him high and dry.” She took a drink of iced tea and cut another piece. “You could move up to San Francisco.”
“He’s ruined my life down here anyway. I don’t see how I can continue in seminary.”
“I doubt you’re the first seminary student to have his sins exposed.”
“Murder isn’t exactly your typical confession.”
“Self-defense. And as far as we know, he lived.”
“The confession sounded pretty ominous. I think I’m finished.”
“And how’s murder so different from gossip? Wasn’t that your point to the dean? You’re no more capable of evil than the bishop, remember? Murder, gossip—what’s the difference? Evil is evil.”
“Evil is evil as long as you keep it in the classroom. Out here in the real world, gossip doesn’t even feel evil.”
“Which is why any good detective learns to trust the facts over feelings.” She went back to her food. “Either way, I don’t think you can run. He’ll track you down. That’s how his kind works. You raise the stakes and he’s likely to come back with higher stakes.”
Kevin looked out the window. Darkness had all but swallowed the horizon. Jennifer’s words came back to him. Take him out, she’d said.
“Like a hunted animal,” he said.
“Except that you’re not an animal. You have the same capacities he does.”
“Jennifer told me that if I had the opportunity I should blow him away.” Anger boiled through his chest. He’d come so far, worked so hard, pulled himself out of the deepest despair, only to be hijacked by some ghost from the past.
He slammed the table with his fist, rattling the dishes.
He met the stares from an older couple two tables down. “I’m sorry, Kevin,” Samantha said. “I know this is hard.”
“What’s to prevent mefrom being the hunter?” he asked. “He wants a game; I’ll give him a game! Why don’t I throw out a challenge and force himto respond to me? Would you do anything different?”