THE WOMAN SOUNDED DEMENTED. SHE WAS LAUGHING AS SHE disconnected the line. Avery, shaken to the core, handed the receiver to Oliver, and as she did so, she leaned into the counter and, slipping her hand into her backpack, pushed the speed dial number that would connect her to the pen. She waited a second, then pushed the star to signal an alert. Cannon hurried toward her and dropped the printout of information she’d demanded on the counter.
“You were right,” she said, her voice strained with what she hoped sounded like good cheer. “That was Carrie on the phone. It was all just a crazy mix-up. Now, if you’ll excuse us, John Paul and I are going for a ride.”
She was trying not to let them see how frantic she was. She shoved the papers Cannon had placed on the counter into her backpack before he could snatch them back, grabbed her cell phone and the map, and sprinted for the entrance.
She glanced at each face she passed, but there were so many people loitering in the massive lobby, it was impossible to get a good look at all the women. Where were the phone banks? There were palms and huge ficus trees everywhere. The caller could be hiding as she watched Avery now.
“Let’s go,” she shouted to John Paul before she realized he was right behind her.
“What’s going on?”
She didn’t answer. She rushed to the fountain, dropped her cell phone into the water, and then ran out the front doors and bumped into the bellman.
“Miss Delaney, if you’ll give me your room number, I’ll take your luggage up—”
Ignoring him, she ran down the stairs and stopped in the middle of the circle drive as she tried to locate her rental car. Where was it?
John Paul lifted the black duffel bag from the luggage rack. “This one hers?” he asked the bellman.
“Yes, sir. See, her name’s on it. Has she checked in yet?”
“What have you done with my car?” she shouted at the same time.
She was running toward the valet stand when John Paul intercepted her. She wasn’t going to go anywhere until he let her, and he wasn’t going to do that until she told him what the hell was going on. She was shaking violently.
“Take a deep breath and calm down. You aren’t going to faint, are you?” he asked.
“No.”
“Okay, tell me what happened. Talk to me, damn it. Who was on the phone?”
“It was a woman. I didn’t recognize her voice. She said they have my aunt.”
“They?” he demanded. “You’re sure she said they?”
“Yes,” she said. She was growing more frantic with each passing second. “Carrie’s in trouble, and I have to get to her before it’s too late.”
“Did the woman tell you to get rid of your cell phone?”
Struggling to get away from him, she whispered, “Yes. Look, this isn’t a prank. I could tell. She said that they would kill Carrie and two other women who are with her if we don’t get moving. Please,” she pleaded in desperation. “You have to go with me. She said you’re in the game now. We have to hurry. She’s given us two hours to get to a place she marked on the map, and I don’t know how we’ll make it in time. It’s so far away . . .”
“You know this is probably a trap, don’t you? You’ve got to know—”
“Yes,” she shouted, no longer caring who heard her. “And once we’re on our way, I’m going to try to think of a way to stay alive and help Carrie. Listen to me. I don’t have a choice. If it were your mother or your daughter, would you stand here analyzing the situation? I know you wouldn’t. You’d do exactly what I’m going to do. Play along and seize whatever chance you can. Now move it, Renard. Time’s running out.”
She was right. He would have paid the ransom or done anything humanly possible to keep someone he loved alive a little longer.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll take my car.”
Weak with relief because he wasn’t arguing, she whispered, “Thank you.”
He grabbed her hand and ran to the parking lot, with her stumbling along behind him. His SUV was illegally parked in front of a walkway. There was a security guard standing beside the hood shaking his head.
“Are you the owner of this—” He stopped when he saw the expression on John Paul’s face, then quickly backed away, stepping into a bed of pansies.
John Paul ignored him. He pushed the security button on his key chain to unlock the doors and tossed Avery’s bag into the back with his gear while she ran around to the front passenger seat.
She had the map out and was pointing to the red X by the time he slid behind the wheel. “We’ve got exactly two hours. No, one hour and fifty-seven minutes now, to get to this spot. Let’s go.”
John Paul studied the map for about ten seconds. “It’s going to be close,” he said as he started the ignition.
“But we can make it?”
“Maybe,” was all he would allow. “You navigate. Put your seat belt on.”
He couldn’t floor it until they were out of the parking area, but by the time they’d reached the gate at the end of the long, winding road, he was going fifty.
Avery was leaning forward, rocking, as though that motion would help them get closer to their destination. She realized what she was doing and forced herself to sit back while she concentrated for the moment on giving him directions.
He sped down the highway. “There,” she shouted when she saw the sign. “Take the cutoff up ahead. It should be about a mile or so. You can stay on that two-lane for at least twenty miles, maybe thirty.” Gripping her hands together, she watched the road until the turnoff came into view. “Slow down. There it is. You’ll miss it.”
“I see it,” he said calmly.
He took the blacktop road on two wheels. Avery braced herself with her hand against the dashboard. Didn’t these things turn over all the time? That was all they needed, for John Paul to wreck the car. Carrie would be doomed.
Calm down, she told herself. We’ll make it. We have to.
She looked down, saw the masculine Swatch watch half on top of her little Timex, and quickly removed it. After she examined the front and the back, she carefully placed it in the cup holder between them.
The road straightened ahead, and he glanced over. “Now you start talking,” he said. “Tell me exactly what she said.”
She told him what she could remember, and then she said, “She was there watching us. I tried to find her on my way outside, but there were so many people milling around.”
“She might not have been inside. Didn’t you notice all the security cameras?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“All she had to do was hook into their system. She didn’t have to be there to watch you at the counter. Was there anything to distinguish her voice?”
“No, nothing. She just sounded . . .”
“What?”
“Creepy. She told me not to be a killjoy, called what she was doing a game. She didn’t want me to spoil her fun.”
Avery remembered the papers she’d shoved in her backpack and pulled them out.
“What’s that?”
“I asked Cannon to give me all the information he had on the other two women who canceled at the last minute. She told me there were two women with Carrie now. They have to be the same ones. The first name is Anne Trapp. She lives in Cleveland and owns Trapp Shipping Company. Then there’s Judge Sara Collins from Miami. It appears that all three reservations were made on credit cards. Each with a different name on it.” She read the names to him.
“Do the names mean anything to you?”
“No,” she answered. “I don’t think Carrie’s ever mentioned any of them, and I don’t know how she would know them. Carrie and my uncle live in Bel Air.”
“I figured that was where you were from.”
“For a while I was,” she said. “I live in Virginia now.” She picked up the watch and checked the time again. “Can’t we go any faster?”
“I’m going close to eighty now. The speed limit is fifty-five. I just hope th
e highway patrol isn’t around.”
Oh, God, she hadn’t thought about that. They would be delayed indefinitely if they were stopped.
“Slow down then.”
“Make up your mind, sweetheart. Fast or slow? It’s your call.”
“We’ll make up the speed on the access road. Slow down for now.”
He did. “You’re sure the woman on the phone said, ‘We have her’?” stressing the plural.
“You already asked me that, and, yes, I’m still sure she said they have her. Why is that important?”
He could barely contain his excitement. “Because just maybe Monk is waiting for you at that spot on the map, and that gives me a unique opportunity to kill the bastard. If I can figure out a way to get ahead of him . . .”
He didn’t go on, but she noticed he increased their speed again. “I think it’s time for you to answer some questions,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Why were you looking for Carrie? How do you know her?”
He had to confess. “I don’t know her.”
“But you said . . .”
“I lied,” he said curtly. “I know the man who . . .”
“Who what?”
He was going to say the man who killed her because, if Monk was continuing with his pattern, those three women were already dead and buried. He had changed one thing, John Paul acknowledged. He was obviously now working with a partner.
“. . . who is after the women,” he said. “The man calling himself Monk. I doubt that’s the name on his birth certificate.”
“Tell me what you know about him. Who is he?”
“A professional killer.”
“A what?” she asked sharply.
He repeated himself, and then he glanced at her face to see how she was taking the news. Not well, he decided. Not well at all. She was rapidly turning green.
“Are you gonna get sick?” He asked the question without a bit of sympathy in his voice.
“No.”
He didn’t believe her. “Roll down the window and lean out if you think—”
“I’m okay,” she said, even as she hit the button to automatically lower the window. She took a couple of deep breaths. The air was heavy with an earthy, musty scent. It made her want to gag. No, fresh air wasn’t helping.
A professional killer. My God, she thought.
She exhaled and tried to clear her thoughts. Deal with what you know as fact, she told herself. Think it through.
Anne Trapp. Sara Collins. Those two women were throwing a wrench in her analysis. What was the common denominator?
“There has to be a connection,” she said, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she shook her head. “No, I can’t assume that.”
He concentrated on the road. He had increased the speed once again because there weren’t any other cars around, and he was betting the highway patrol was busy monitoring the more congested areas. He eased up on the gas pedal when the needle hit seventy.
“Road ends in five miles.”
She grabbed the map. “How do you know?”
“I just read the sign.”
“We’re supposed to take the access road.”
“I’m looking,” he said.
She glanced at the watch for what had to be the hundredth time and saw that a full twenty minutes had passed. Then she measured the distance in her mind to the red X.
He glanced over at her. “Without good roads, it’s going to be close. We might not make it, Avery.”
“We’ll make it,” she insisted. “We have to make it.”
“Ah, here we go,” he said as he swerved off the road onto an access. Gravel spit up over the tires and hit the windshield as he fishtailed up the winding road. It was only wide enough for a single car, and the branches of the evergreens scraped the sides of the SUV as it zoomed past.
“We’re headed in the right direction, and that’s all that matters,” he said.
“If we’re lucky, maybe farther up we’ll hook into a better road.”
“Or no road at all.”
“How exactly do you know Monk?”
“I’ve never met him, if that’s what you’re asking. He’s become a hobby of mine. He went after someone close to me.”
“Someone hired him to kill this friend of yours?”
“No,” he answered. “But she got in the way. It was my sister. He was hired to get some information she had, and he tried to kill her to get it. Fortunately, his plans got all screwed up, and he ended up going to ground.”
“So you’ve been tracking him for some time.”
“Yes,” he answered. “The man I called from Cannon’s office also has a vested interest in Monk.”
“Who is he?”
“Clayborne,” he answered. “Noah Clayborne. He’s FBI,” he added with a note of disdain.
“But he’s a friend of yours?”
“I wouldn’t call him that.”
She tilted her head as she studied him. What was his problem? He turned her attention then when he said, “Like I said, Monk went underground for over a year. Couldn’t find more than a hint of his work . . . until now.”
“How did you know he was in Colorado?”
“He used a bogus credit card he’d used before in Bowen . . . that’s where I live,” he said. “Bowen, Louisiana.”
“Then the FBI knows he’s in Colorado too,” she said.
“No, they don’t.”
“But if you tracked him with the credit card receipt, surely the FBI—”
“They don’t know about the credit card receipt.”
“You didn’t notify them?”
“Hell, no.”
There it was again, that surly edge of hostility.
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want them to screw it up.”
“The FBI does not screw up investigations. They’re experts and extremely efficient in their—”
He cut her off. “Spare me the platitudes. I’ve heard all the propaganda before. I didn’t buy it then, and I don’t buy it now. The Bureau has become too glutted with bosses all trying to break the backs of the agents working under them so they can get to the top. There isn’t any loyalty these days. It’s just dog eat dog. They’re . . . bureaucratic,” he added with a shudder.
“You’re cynical.”
“Damn right.”
She looked out the side window. “Thank you anyway.”
“What are you thanking me for?”
“Coming with me. You could have refused.”
“Just so you understand. I’m not doing this for you or your aunt. I want to get Monk before he kills anyone else.”
“In other words, you have your own agenda, and you aren’t doing me any favors. I understand,” she said.
She didn’t understand, though. How could anyone be that hardened? She found herself wondering if he ever went out of his way to help anyone in trouble. Probably not. He was the type of man who drove past accidents and stepped over heart attack victims.
They rode in silence for several minutes, and then Avery said, “Tell me what you’ve learned about Monk. He must have a pattern. They all do.”
He thought it was odd she’d know about such things. “Actually he did have a pattern, but it’s obviously changed.”
“How has it changed?”
“Monk always kept a low profile. In and out as fast and as clean as possible.”
“You sound like you admire him.”
“No, I don’t admire him,” he said. “I’m just saying his pattern never varied much before. In the beginning, the murders he committed all took place within a two-week span every year. That didn’t change for seven years. I have a theory about that.”
“You think he holds down a full-time job somewhere? That he’s living two separate lives.”
“I think he used to,” he corrected. “Murder obviously pays a hell of a lot more, so I’m guessing he probably quit his other job. Couldn’t you just pictu
re him sitting at his desk, diligently working. He would have been the nice guy. You know, the one who draws the chart for the football pools, and because he was so well liked, people would tell him their troubles. I’ll bet you this, Avery. When he gets caught, the people he worked with will be shocked. They’ll all say the same thing. Bob was such a sweet, charming man.”
“So was Ted Bundy.”
“Exactly my point.”
“How do you know the early murders were his work? Did he leave a card or something so he’d get credit?”
“Sort of,” he answered. “He likes roses. He leaves a long-stemmed red rose.”
“That’s eerie,” she said. “So he used to be a nine-to-fiver, and killing people was his idea of a great vacation, but now he’s strictly a professional killer . . . any time of the year. What else is different about him these days? You seem to have studied his work closely.”
He nodded. “He’s never tried anything like this . . . taking three victims. He isn’t a showman. And he’s always acted alone before. Now it appears that he’s hooked up with a woman. Maybe he’s showboating to impress her.”
They struck a bump in the road. Avery grabbed the dashboard again as the top of her head hit the roof.
“Are we still headed north?” It was impossible to tell. The trees hid the sky, and it was ominously dark in this stretch of forest.
“Northwest,” he said.
She heard a scream in the distance. No, it was more like an animal’s screech. The sound gave her chills.
“How does he get his contracts? Do you know?”
“No, but I’m guessing the Internet,” he answered. “It’s easy. It’s anonymous, and up until now, he’s been careful and discriminating in selecting his targets. He probably has enough work to keep busy for the next fifty years. You’d be surprised how many husbands want their wives dead and how many wives would pay through the nose to get rid of their husbands.”
“My uncle Tony had nothing to do with this.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” she answered emphatically.
He let it go for the moment. “You said there had to be a connection between the women . . .”
“I was analyzing what we know, trying to put it together. I made the assumption that one man or woman hired Monk to kill all three women, so that’s why I was trying to think of something they all had in common. But my premise might not be valid.”