Face of Death

His hand lingered on the car door handle, just about to stealthily get out and make his approach, when a woman came into view.

The watcher let his muscles sag immediately. There was no way that he could approach the man at his car, now that someone else was on the scene. With any luck, she would get into her own car and drive away, before the engine came back to life. Then he would be back on track.

Come to think of it, the woman would have been a better choice. She was smaller and slim, while the man at his engine was tall. It would have been easier to slip the garrote around her neck instead. She was slowing down, coming to a stop just a few paces away. This could be interesting. Perhaps there was a way he could lure her deeper into the rows of cars, toward the edge of the parking lot, away from the potential witness of the man?

But wait—what was that in her hand?

“Turn around and put your hands in the air. Slowly.”

The watcher froze, his eyes going wide. A gun. It was a gun.

“FBI! Turn around and put your hands in the air!”

No! Law enforcement—here?

The watcher saw with growing panic how she ordered the man to drop what was in his hand once, then twice. His mind was racing. It was only now that he looked closer and realized that the man was driving a similar car—only green, not red, but like his in all other particulars. Could it be that they knew?

Could they be onto him already?

A gunshot rang out, loud and startlingly close, and the man hit the ground, dropping out of the watcher’s line of sight. Had she killed him? Shot him right there, on sight?

There was only one thing on the watcher’s mind, and it was escape. That could have been him, lying on the ground now, bleeding out. In agony. The pattern would never be completed if he was shot by the FBI.

No, he had to get out of here—he had to get out right now. Other people were coming running, plain clothed but carrying radios and guns as they ran—they had to be police. Maybe a whole FBI taskforce. The idea of that was a slightly prideful one, that they would send so many people after him, but that could wait until later. Right now, he just had to make sure he was gone before they realized they had shot the wrong man.

He switched on his ignition, the engine roaring to life, and shot out of his parking space. He cursed and had to swerve to avoid a woman with a small child, who were both moving toward the source of the shot and gawking, their mouths wide open. This was not the time to get in his way. He would have run them both down if he weren’t surrounded by others, all of them holding guns, some even glancing his way as he peeled around them and out of the parking lot.

A cold trickle of sweat made its way down his spine as he glanced in his rearview mirror again and again, watching unmarked cars speed over to the lot with a determination that seemed deliberate. More undercover units. He passed a group of cars on the shoulder of the highway, the drivers standing and talking with one another. A roadblock waiting to happen.

His fingers were clenched so tightly on the steering wheel that it hurt, and he made a conscious effort to relax them. He eased off the accelerator pedal. Now was not the time to be pulled over for speeding.

Besides, he couldn’t go too far away. The pattern still needed to be completed. If he left and didn’t come back, it would be broken. He couldn’t allow that to happen.

He still needed to make tonight’s kill.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Zoe paced up and down the hall, restless and ready to begin. She had been ready for over an hour, waiting for the doctor to tell them that it was time to interrogate their suspect.

“Sit down, Z,” Shelley suggested, patting the empty plastic seat beside her. “We might be in for a long night.”

Zoe was just about to give in and sit when the door to the private room in which their suspect was being treated opened.

“You can talk to him now,” the doctor said, pausing to lift a finger in warning. “But nothing too strenuous. If his heart rate monitor goes off, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Understood,” Zoe said, eager to get inside. She had heard it all before. The gunshot was only to his leg—it wasn’t like the guy was in too much danger of further damage. The doctor was just covering his bases.

Which meant she had no qualms at all about pulling out all of the stops to get a confession.

“Stick to the plan?” Shelley asked. They had been going over their strategy for the whole time they waited for the doctors to be finished.

Zoe gave her a quick nod and allowed Shelley to enter ahead of her, getting their suspect’s attention first.

“Hello, Mr. Bradshaw,” Shelley said, warmly as always. “How is your leg? Did they give you enough pain medication?”

“It’s got a hole in it, that’s how my leg is,” Bradshaw snapped, obviously not taking immediately to Shelley’s friendly manner. Zoe could not yet see him properly, still waiting on the other side of the half-open door. “This is ridiculous. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Well, hopefully we can get to the bottom of that now, and you’ll be able to recuperate in peace,” Shelley told him, dragging a chair over to sit beside his bed. “Let’s start from the beginning, Mr. Bradshaw. What were you doing at the Kansas Giant Dinosaur Fair?”

“It’s a fair. What do you think I was there for?” Bradshaw snapped.

Zoe had heard enough. Shelley’s nice approach wasn’t making any headway, and they needed another ingredient. The intimidation that the presence of his shooter would provide might just make him a little more cooperative. She pushed the door open and entered, walking to stand at the foot of the bed.

Zoe assessed him as she leaned on the metal tray holding his charts, resting her elbows on the uncomfortable edges and pretending they did not affect her. His height, weight, and other measurements flashed before her eyes as she gave him the once-over. He was five foot eleven, skinny, a little extra sinew on the arms to equip him well for pulling a garrote.

All seemed to fit what they were looking for, but she still had this bad feeling about him. That the way he acted wasn’t at all what she had suspected. He had been unsubtle in his waiting, standing obviously, easily seen. She knew how cautious their man was, how he erased all evidence of his movements as long as he was able to. How would this one have been able to erase his footsteps, after abducting someone in plain view? He had parked on the grass, his feet sinking in, the tires of his car leaving deep impressions. It didn’t make sense.

His reaction now was one of wide eyes and a drawing up of his body, shrinking physically away from her. “What’s she doing here?” he demanded.

“Special Agent Prime is my partner,” Shelley said. “She will be here while I question you. Like I said, Mr. Bradshaw, let’s get this over with as quickly as possible so that we can all move on, shall we?”

“Move on?” Bradshaw still watched Zoe, even though he turned his head toward Shelley as he addressed her. “How am I supposed to move on? I’ve got a bullet stuck in my leg.”

“No, you have not,” Zoe told him, calmly.

“What?”

“The doctor removed it from your leg.”

Bradshaw stared at her, not saying a thing. He looked about fit to explode, a mixture of fear and righteous anger building up inside of him, with no safe target to expend it on.

“Mr. Bradshaw,” Shelley began again, then hesitated. “May I call you Ivan? You can call me Shelley.”

There was a pause before Bradshaw tore his eyes away from Zoe long enough to mutter, “Fine.”

“Let’s skip ahead a bit, shall we? When you were asked to turn and drop what you were holding, why did you run?” Shelley’s tone was soft and calm. She sounded like she was really curious to know the answer. Zoe knew she would have sounded accusatory with a question like that, and wondered briefly how Shelley managed it.

“Someone was pointing a gun at me,” Bradshaw said, his eyes darting sharply back to Zoe on the first word. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Was there no other reason for your attempt to escape? Maybe something you thought you might get into trouble for? Look, we’re really here for a murderer, Ivan, so if you’ve done something else then you can just tell us. We’ll get out of your hair.”

“I haven’t done anything. I was just an innocent bystander. This—this madwoman shot me with no provocation!”

Zoe fought down a growl in the back of her throat. They were getting nowhere. She trusted Shelley enough by now to know that she would get through to him, eventually. They might spend hours in here, just talking, before she managed it—but Shelley would break through this anger and fear and get him to really talk.

They didn’t have hours. Or, at least, Zoe didn’t have hours. She had to know, right now. She had to know that she had the right man. Because if she didn’t, then a serial killer was still out there, and still operating on a tight schedule.

The image of the dipstick kept flashing back into her mind, lying there on the grass. The man’s car really had been in need of some attention, and it had not been a deadly weapon he was holding. That didn’t sit right. Their killer wasn’t about to let car troubles get in his way. Their killer was meticulous, studied, precise.