Click.
For an endless moment Kevin stood glued to the linoleum. Blood throbbed through his temples. The black VTech phone trembled in his left hand. He roared and slammed it on the counter with all of his strength. Black plastic splintered and scattered.
Kevin shoved the cell phone in his pocket, whirled around, and flew up the stairs. He’d hidden the gun under his mattress. Three bullets left. Two days earlier the thought of going after Slater would have terrified him; now he was consumed with the idea.
It’s dark down here.
He shoved his hand under the mattress, pulled out the gun, and crammed it behind his belt. Dark. Down. I’ve got a few ideas about dark and down, don’t I? Where the worms hide their nasty little secrets. He knew, he knew!Why hadn’t he thought of this earlier? He had to get out unseen and he had to go alone. This was now between him and Slater. One on one, man on man.
The FBI car was still somewhere down the street. Kevin ran out the back and sprinted east, the opposite way. One block and then he cut south. They would know that he’d left. In fact, they would have recorded Slater’s last call to him through the home surveillance. What if they came after him? He had to tell Jennifer to stay away. He could use the cell phone, but the call would have to be short, or they would triangulate his position.
If darkand downwas where he thought it might be . . . Kevin ground his teeth and grunted. The man was a pervert. And he would kill Balinda—empty threats weren’t part of his character.
What if the FBI sent out helicopters? He turned west and hugged a line of trees by the sidewalk. The gun jutted into his back.
He started to jog.
“Now! I need some facts now, not in ten minutes,” Jennifer snapped.
Reports normally came in from Quantico at intervals established by the agents in charge. The next report window was in ten minutes, Galager had explained.
“I’ll call, but they’ve only had the evidence for a few hours. This stuff can take up to a week.”
“We don’t have a week! Do they know what’s happening down here? Tell them to turn on the television, for heaven’s sake!”
Galager dipped his head and left.
Her world had collapsed with the call from Sam two minutes ago. She still didn’t want to accept the possibility that Kevin could have blown up the bus or the library.
From her corner station Jennifer could see the exit across a sea of desks. Milton barged out of his office, grabbed his coat, and headed for the door. Where was he going? He paused, glancing back, and Jennifer instinctively turned her head to avoid eye contact. When she glanced back, he was gone. An inexplicable rage flashed through her mind. But really none of this was Milton’s fault. He was simply doing his job. Sure he liked the cameras, but he arguably had a responsibility to the public. She was directing her frustration and anger at him without appropriate cause—she knew this but it didn’t seem to calm her.
It wasn’t Kevin, she reminded herself. Even if Kevin was Slater, which hasn’t been established, the Kevin she knew wouldn’t blow anything up. A jury would take one look at his past and agree. If Slater was Kevin, then he was part of a fractured personality, not Kevin himself.
A thought smacked her and she stopped. Could Slater be framing Kevin? What better way to drag the man down than to frame him as the lunatic who tried to blow up Long Beach? She sat behind the desk, grabbed a legal pad, and penciled it out.
Slater is the boy; he wants revenge. He terrorizes Kevin and then convinces the world that he is Kevin, terrorizing himself because he is Slater. Kevin is ruined and Slater escapes. It would raise the bar for perfect crimes.
But how could Slater pull that off? Sam had found twophones. Why would Kevin be carrying around two phones without knowing it? And how could the numbers that Slater called be on that second phone? An electronic relay that duplicated the numbers to make it look like the phone had been used. Possible. And how could Slater have placed the phone in Kevin’s pocket without Kevin’s knowledge? It would have had to be while Kevin slept, this morning. Who had access to Kevin . . .
Her phone rang and she snatched it up without thinking.
“Jennifer.”
“It’s Claude, surveillance. We have a situation at the house. Someone just called Kevin.”
“Who?” Jennifer stood, knocking her chair back.
Static. “Slater. We’re pretty sure. But that’s not all.”
“Hold on. You have the recording from Kevin’s cell phone?”
“No, we have a recording from inside the house. Someone who sounded like Slater called Kevin from insideKevin’s house. I . . . uh, I know it sounds strange, but we have both voices inside the house. I’m sending the recording down now. He threatened to kill the woman in six hours and suggested that Kevin meet him.”
“Did he say where?”
“No. He said Kevin would know where. He said it was dark down here, that’s it.”
“Have you talked to Kevin?”
“We made the decision to enter premises.” He paused. “Kevin was gone.”
Jennifer collapsed in her chair. “You let him walk?”
Claude sounded flustered. “His car’s still in the garage.”
She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. What now? “I want that tape here now. Set up a search in concentric circles. He’s on foot.”
She dropped her phone on the table and closed her fingers to still a bad tremble. Her nerves were shot. Four days and how much sleep? Twelve, fourteen hours? The case had just gone from terrible to hopeless. He was going to kill Balinda. Inevitable. Whowas going to kill Balinda? Slater? Kevin?
“Ma’am?”
She looked up to see one of Milton’s detectives in the door. “I have a call for you. He says he tried your personal line but couldn’t get through. Wouldn’t give his name.”
She nodded at the desk phone. “Put it through.”
The call transferred and she picked up. “Peters.”
“Jennifer?”
It was Kevin. Jennifer was too stunned to respond.
“Hello?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m sorry, Jennifer. I’m going after him. But I have to do this alone. If you come after me, he’ll kill her. You’re recording the house, right? Listen to the tape. I can’t talk now, because they’ll find me, but I wanted you to know.” He sounded desperate.
“Kevin, you don’t have to do this. Tell me where you are.”
“I dohave to do this. Listen to the tape. It’s not what you think.
Slater’s doing this to me. Don’t bother calling me; I’m throwing this phone away.” He abruptly clicked off.
“Kevin?”
Jennifer slammed the phone in its cradle. She ran her hands through her hair and picked up the phone again. She dialed Samantha’s number.
“Hello?”
“Kevin’s gone, Sam,” Jennifer said. “He just received a call from Slater threatening to kill Balinda in six hours. He baited Kevin to meet him, said he would know where and that it was dark. As far as I know, that’s it. The tape’s on the way down.”
“He’s on foot? How could they let him walk out?”
“I don’t know. The point is, we’re now on a very tight time line and we’ve lost contact.”
“Slater’s cell—”
“He said he was getting rid of it.”
“I’ll go back,” Sam said. “He can’t get far.”
“Assuming you’re right about Kevin, Slater’s drawing him to a place they must both know from their childhood. Any ideas?”
Sam hesitated. “The warehouse?”
“We’ll check it out, but it’s too obvious.”
“Let me think about it. If we’re lucky, we pick him up. Concentrate the search to the west—closer to Baker Street.”