Sam reached her car, stomach in knots. This might not be enough. She’d been irresponsible to suggest the possibility to Jennifer in the first place. The man you think you might be falling in love with is insane. And she’d said it so calmly for the simple reason that she didn’t believe it herself. She was only doing what she was trained to do. But this . . . this was an entirely different matter.
And Kevin wasn’tinsane! He was merely role-playing, as he had learned to do with Balinda for so many years. He had split into a divergent personality when he first began to comprehend true evil. The boy. He had been the boy! Only he didn’t know that he was the boy. To Kevin at age eleven, the boy was an evil person who needed to be killed. So he killed him. But the boy had never died. Slater had simply remained dormant until now, when somehow this paper on the natures of man had allowed him to resurface.
She could still be wrong. In true cases of multiple personality disorders, the subjects were rarely conscious of their alternate personalities. Slater wouldn’t know that he was Kevin; Kevin would not know that he was Slater. Actually they weren’teach other. Physically, yes, but in no other way. Slater could be living right now as Kevin slept, plotting to kill Balinda, and Kevin wouldn’t have a clue. Some things Slater did would be merely imagined; others, like the bombs and the kidnapping, would be acted out.
She tossed Kevin’s phone on the seat and punched Jennifer’s number into her own.
“Jenn—”
“I need to meet you! Now. Where are you?”
“Sam? I’m down at the PD. What’s wrong?”
“Have you gotten the lab reports on the shoe prints and the recordings yet?”
“No. Why? Where are you?”
“I was just in Kevin’s house and I’m headed your way.” She pulled onto Willow.
“How’s Kevin?”
Sam took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He’s asleep. I found a second phone on him, Jennifer. It was the phone used to call the cell with the recording device. I don’t know how else to say this. I think Kevin is Slater.”
“That’s . . . I thought we’d already been over this. He was in the room when Slater—”
“Listen, Jennifer, I’ve come at this from a hundred different angles in the last twelve hours. I’m not saying that I can prove it; God knows I don’t want it to be true, but if it is, he needs help! He needs you. And he’s the only one who can take us to Balinda. Kevin won’t know, but Slater will.”
“Please, Sam, this is crazy. How could he have pulled this off? We’ve had people on the house. We’ve been listening to him in there! How did he get out to kidnap Balinda?”
“It’s his house; he knows how to get out without your boys catching on. Where was he between 3 A.M. and 5 A.M. last night?”
“Sleeping . . .”
“Kevin may have thought he was, but was he? I don’t think he’s had six hours’ sleep in the last four days. Trace it back. He hasn’t gotten any phone calls while you were listening, at least not in the house. I hope I’m wrong, I really do, but I don’t think you’ll find a discrepancy. He’s too intelligent. But he wants the truth out. Subconsciously, consciously, I don’t know, but he’s getting sloppy. He wants the world to know. That’s the answer to the riddle.”
“ What falls but never breaks? What breaks but never falls?Night and day,” Jennifer said. “Opposites. Kevin.”
“Kevin. Kevinwas the boy; that’s why I never saw the boy when we were kids. He was in that warehouse cellar, but only him, no second boy. He hit himself. Check the blood type. The confession Slater wants isn’t that Kevin tried to kill the boy, but that he wasthe boy. That Kevin is Slater.”
“I am my sin,” Jennifer said absently. There was a tremor in her voice.
“What?”
“Something he said last night.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” Sam said. “Don’t let Kevin leave the house.”
“But only Slater knows where he has Balinda? Kevin truly doesn’t know?”
“That’s my guess.”
“Then we need Slater to find Balinda. But if we send the wrong signal, Slater may go into remission. If he does and Kevin doesn’t know where Balinda is, we may have our first actual victim in this case. Even if we hold Kevin in a cell, she could starve to death.” Jennifer was suddenly sounding frantic. “He’s not the Riddle Killer; he hasn’t killed anyone yet. We can’t let that happen.”
“So we let him walk out?”
“No. No, I don’t know, but we have to handle this with kid gloves.”
“I’ll be right there,” Sam said. “Just make sure Kevin doesn’t leave that house.”
The sound of his bedroom door closing pulled Kevin from sleep. It was 3:00. He’d slept over four hours. Jennifer had insisted that he not be bothered unless absolutely necessary. So why were they in his house?
Unless theyweren’t in his house. Unless it was someone else. Someone like Slater!
He slid out of bed, tiptoed to the door, eased it open. Someone was opening the sliding glass door to the back lawn! Just ask who it is, Kevin. It’s the FBI, that’s all.
But what if it wasn’t?
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Is anyone here?” he called, louder this time.
Silence.
Kevin descended the stairs and stepped cautiously into the living room. He ran over to the window and peered out. The familiar Lincoln was parked half a block down the street.
Something was wrong. Something had happened. He walked to his kitchen phone and instinctively felt for the cell phone in his right pocket. Still there. But something wasn’t right. What?
The cell phone suddenly vibrated against his leg and he jumped. He shoved his hand back into the pocket and pulled out the silver phone. The other phone, the larger VTech, was in his left hand. For a moment he stared at them, confused. Did I pick that up? So many phones, his mind was playing tricks on him.
The cell vibrated madly. Answer it!
“Hello?”
Slater’s voice ground in his ear. “Who thinks he’s a butterfly but is really a worm?”
Kevin’s breathing smothered the phone.
“You’re pathetic, Kevin. Do you have knowledge of this obvious fact yet, or am I going to have to beat it out of you?” Slater breathed heavily. “I have someone here who wants to hold you and for the life of me I can’t understand why.”
Blood flushed Kevin’s face. His throat felt as though it was locked in a vise. He couldn’t speak.
“How long do you expect me to play tiddlywinks, Kevin? You’re obviously too dense for the riddles, so I’ve decided to up the ante. I know how conflicted you are about Mommy, but by now I have it under reliable advisement that you aren’t so conflicted about me. In fact, you hate me, don’t you, Kevin? You should—I’ve destroyed your life.”
“Stop it!” Kevin screamed.
“Stop it? Stop it? That’s all you can manage? You’re the only one with the power to stop anything. But I don’t think you have the guts. You’re as yellow as the rest of them; you’ve made that abundantly clear. So here’s the new deal, Kevin. Youcome and stop me. Face to face, man to man. This is your big chance to blow away Slater with that peashooter you obtained illegally. Find me.”
“Face me, you coward! Come out and face me!” Kevin shouted.
“Coward? I’m petrified. I can hardly move, much less face you.” Pause. “Do I have to chisel it on your forehead? You find me!Find me, find me! The game ends in six hours, Kevin. Then I kill her. You fess up or I slit her throat. Are we properly motivated now?”
The detail about the six hours hardly registered. Slater wanted to meet him. Kevin shifted on his feet. He actually wanted to meet him. But where?
“How?”
“You know how. It’s dark down here. Alone, Kevin. All alone, the way it was meant to be.”