Dark Prophecy (11 page)

Now confident, the stranger turned his back on her and raised his hand as if ordering another drink. Within a few seconds the stranger sensed her behind him. Then he felt her small fingertips lightly tapping his shoulder.

“So? What’s so important that I had to come all the way over here?”

The stranger spun around and grinned.

“I just knew that if I fingered you long enough, you’d come.”

The effect was priceless, the stranger thought. As if he’d slapped her across the face. The surprise and shock caught her off guard. No one speaks to
her
this way. She’s a girl with class. She’s a fucking graduate student, for fuck’s sake! The blonde seemed like she couldn’t decide whether to throw a drink in the stranger’s face or knee him in the balls or just ignore him all together.

She chose the third option. Tried to, anyway.

The stranger kept flashing his grin, full intensity, as she rejoined her friends, leaned over, whispered her version of the exchange. The stranger wondered if she’d quoted him verbatim, or invented something more cruel. She looked over at him, utter hate in her eyes, but he didn’t flinch.

Soon she convinced her friends to join her in the ladies’ room. They carried their drinks with them.

It was almost time to begin.

What a fucking asshole!

As she sat back down, Kate Hale chastised herself. Why the hell had she gone over to that jerk? Because she was an idiot, that’s why. She was also more than a little drunk.

But she deserved it. The first few weeks of grad school—absolutely crushing. She looked forward to fall break, the chance to catch up on papers. First things first, though. Tonight was about getting all dressed up and downing martinis with her friends. She wasn’t going to let some thickneck moron ruin that.

“Forget about it, honey,” said Donna, who stood in front of the mirror and checked her eyebrows and smoothed the wrinkles on her blue dress. “A place like this, you’re going to have a high asshole factor. We should have gone to Old City.”

Johnette, meanwhile, ducked into a stall. Johnette wasn’t big on martinis. She’d been nursing the same vodka and orange all night. Blow was her thing. She’d welcome the opportunity to hit the ladies’ room.

“This is 2010, though, right?” Kate asked. “Does that guy know pickup lines like that died around the turn of the century?”

“It’s Philadelphia. What can I say? You grow up here, you get used to it.”

“I should have picked a school closer to home.”

Donna smiled. “Then you and I wouldn’t be here, drinking beers, blowing off steam, and fending off lame pickup lines from Alpha Chi thicknecks. Look. Don’t let it ruin your night. We’re here to celebrate.”

Monday Night Drink Fests were a ritual for Kate and her two best friends. See, Monday was the one night you really shouldn’t drink your face off, which is exactly why they did it. Because they could afford to suffer through a hangover on a Tuesday since they were still in school. They wouldn’t have the luxury of Monday Night Drink Fests a year from now.

Kate couldn’t help herself. A grin broke out across her pretty face, too.

“World domination.”

“World domi-fuckin-nation, baby!” Donna yelled.

“Yeeee-hah.”

“And we could be dominating more if Johnette would finish powdering her nose,” Donna said, exaggerating each word.

Kate giggled. “Johnette?”

Nothing.

The women exchanged glances. Johnette had done this before. Jacked herself higher and higher until she just . . . crashed. Wouldn’t be the first time on a toilet, either. But no, Johnette insisted. She didn’t have a problem. It was a performance enhancer. How the hell else do you think she made it through undergrad with a sky-high GPA?

“Johnette, honey,” cooed Donna. “Come on.”

Kate sighed, then stepped over to the stall door.

“Seriously, girl. Enough’s enough.”

Nothing.

“Hell . . . oooo?” she said, nudging the stall door open.

Johnette was indeed sitting on the toilet. Her dead eyes stared up at Kate. A red cord had been wrapped around her neck so tightly it dug into the flesh, bunching it up.

An icy numb blasted through Kate’s body. She took a step backward. The ground felt like jelly. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. The sinks were behind her. Kate reached a hand behind her to steady herself. She looked over at Donna—Donna was always the stronger of the two of them.

Donna wasn’t there.

“Donna?” Kate shrieked. “Oh God, Donna, please ...”

Then Kate felt the cord around her own neck. Hands pressed her shoulders, guiding her down to her knees. There was a full-length mirror next to the door, so she was able to see herself.

And the person standing behind her.

Kate regained consciousness for a few seconds.

Not long, really. But it was enough time to see what was happening around her. She was frightened to find herself standing, somehow. How could she be supporting her own weight? Her limbs felt numb, her head spinning. Kate blinked tears out of her eyes, tried to focus. Donna was standing, too, just a few feet away. Her eyes were wide and her mouth flapping open and shut, like she was trying to scream but no sound could be forced from her throat. Kate tried to speak, too. She wanted to tell Donna they’d be okay, that she didn’t know what was going on, but she swore she would make it okay, whatever it was.

And then the stranger moved behind Donna. Placed the gleaming blade of the knife under her chin. Held a martini glass in front of her chest. The hand with the knife jerked to the right—almost too fast to watch.

Blood spluttered from the gash across Donna’s throat, running down her chest and into the glass.

Somehow Kate found the strength to push an anguished scream out of her mouth.

“WHY? WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”

The stranger looked at her, smiled.

He ducked under Donna’s outstretched arm—God, how could she just be standing there, arms out, after someone cut her throat—and took three steps, bringing him nose to nose with Kate. The knife was still in his hand.

“This is not about you,” the stranger said. “This is about what you would have become.”

Kate tried to cry out again but the stranger was too fast. One second she could feel the cold, sticky blade against her own throat.

And the next second she couldn’t scream at all.

chapter 22

Washington, D.C.

 

 

Around one in the morning Dark managed to find a cheap room near the Capitol building. He’d brought very little with him: a change of shirt, a notepad, his laptop. He knew he should eat something, so he bought a turkey sandwich and a six-pack at an all-night deli. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten something.

Sipping the beer, he thought about Stephanie Paulson. Dark couldn’t ignore the parallels. Paulson had gone after a monster, too. Only, the monster had cut him down quickly. Why had Riggins sent him down to Chapel Hill alone? Usually, you sent a small team. Two agents, at least. Dark had been the only one who could get away with the lone wolf routine. Was Paulson trying to follow his lead? Insisted on doing it solo?

Stop it,
Dark told himself.
This is not about you. Put your mind on the case. Figure out how Paulson’s death is connected with Martin Green’s.

The first was a complicated torture-murder. The killer had to have scouted the scene in advance—for instance, he had to know that the ceiling could support Green’s body weight. By contrast, Paulson’s death seemed less studied. Almost spur of the moment. No torture. Just a push.

But if it was indeed the same killer, Paulson’s death was meant to send some kind of message. Why throw Paulson off his own roof? Why not shoot him, or snap his neck, or run him down with a car for that matter? No, this murder had also been planned out in advance. The killer had to lure Paulson up to his own roof. Or incapacitate him, then bring him to the roof. Revive him. Convince him to step to the edge. Push him. It was too elaborate.

As Dark racked his brain for connections between the two, his cell phone buzzed. A text from Graysmith:

Twenty minutes later a car picked him up outside the hotel. It had been the fastest check-in/checkout the dull-eyed clerk at the front desk had ever seen. “Something wrong with the room? Sir?” Dark ignored him. There was nothing wrong with the room. There was probably something wrong with his head.

Graysmith had told him that less than an hour ago, Philly PD had been summoned to a triple slaying in a sports bar in West Philly, near the Wharton School of Business. Three women, tortured, throats slit, in a locked bathroom. Their bodies had also been “arranged.”

Now, Graysmith had said, was their chance. She could get him to the crime scene immediately, full access, where he could work the scene—before Special Circs even roused someone out of bed. How? Dark had asked. You let me worry about that, Graysmith had said.

Dark decided that, at the very least, it was a chance to see if Graysmith was full of shit or not.

The car brought him to a private airfield where a Gulfstream jet was waiting. The best thing about owning your own plane? You don’t have to deal with any FAA security checks. He was airborne within minutes of stepping onto the plane. The only other passenger: a woman in a business suit. Dark assumed she was just hitching a ride on the Secret Government Agency express until she stood up and asked if she could get Dark anything to drink.

“No, thanks,” Dark said.

The plane cut through the air like its tail was on fire—faster than most commercial travel was allowed, especially over U.S. soil.

It wasn’t just the buzz of the plane. Dark was amazed how alive he felt, even after a full day of travel. Maybe this
was
what he was meant to do. It was a compulsion like no other. If he wasn’t chasing predators, Dark knew he might as well just lie down and stop breathing.

But if that was true, where did that leave his daughter?

 

 

The plane landed at Philadelphia International not more than twenty minutes later. The twinkling skyline of the city was hazy in the distance. Dark thought about Philadelphia. If this
was
the killer’s next stop, why? Was it because Stephanie Paulson was originally from Philadelphia? Maybe this was part of a pattern. Green to Jeb Paulson. Paulson to his wife? Would someone in her family be next? Some other arcane connection?

Within minutes Dark was transferred to another car. It was approximately ten miles to West Philly, the driver informed him—they should be arriving in five. On the way, Dark’s cell buzzed against his inner thigh. He fished the phone out of his pocket. It was Graysmith. Never mind that it was the middle of the night. She sounded wide awake.

“I see you’re en route to the crime scene,” she said. “Got everything you need?”

“You said I’d have access,” Dark said.

“Sending it to your phone right now. Just show the lead investigator your screen. Name’s Lankford. He’ll let you in.”

chapter 23

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

 

 

Without the people, noise, or music, the bar looked like an empty stage. The room was full of props, but no one to inhabit them. The stark houselights highlighted every imperfection—scratches in the wood, dust on the light fixtures, stains on the fabric. In a place like this, you’d only consider drinking or eating if the lights were low.

The bodies had been discovered an hour before closing. After the first screams, a bouncer ran back to the ladies’ room to find it locked, a key snapped off inside the mechanism. Once he had finally managed to pry open the door and saw what was inside, the bouncer couldn’t help it. He’d screamed, too. Panicked patrons fled the bar. The tables were still littered with half-f pint glasses, uneaten chicken wings. Some had even left jackets, and in one case, a pair of high-heeled shoes. If it was a set, Dark thought, then it was as if the actors had been fired mid-production, and told to leave everything where it was.