The Killing House

66

Four video files had been burned on to the compact disk. The first one was footage from the treatment room. Fletcher skipped it for the moment, wanting to watch the video taken from the security camera positioned inside the garage.

Boyd Paulson walked across the driveway, heading for the BMW. He popped the trunk. Then a figure appeared from around the outside corner of the garage. Boyd had turned to the sound and was shot in the head.

Fletcher paused the video. Then he clicked through each frame, stopping when he had a good view of the shooter’s face — not the woman from Colorado but a man. The woman’s partner, Fletcher suspected. The man was roughly the same size as Boyd — five foot ten — but he was wider. Fatter. The left side of the shooter’s face… something was wrong with it. Fletcher couldn’t see anything specific. The man was too far away from the camera, and there wasn’t enough light.

Fletcher found out on the third video, the one showing the fat man rushing into the treatment room and apprehending Dr Sin at gunpoint.

The man had been in some sort of accident; what remained was a face drawn by Picasso — a jagged, scarred mess of severed nerves that resulted in a sagging eyelid and a permanent crooked grin. He bound Dr Sin with zip ties and carried Nathan Santiago out of the room.

The final video showed Santiago being loaded into the backseat of the Lincoln. The disfigured man made a return trip inside the house. He came back with Dr Sin and placed her gently inside the trunk — gently because the man knew the woman was a doctor, and he needed her to remove Nathan Santiago’s organs. If that was true — and Fletcher suspected it was — the disfigured man and his partner, the woman in the fur coat, were holed up somewhere.

Fletcher called M.

‘Meet me in the hotel parking lot,’ he said, and hung up.

Here she came. She did not run, even though she shivered in the cold wind. He found the car controls and turned up the heat.

M slid into the roomy passenger’s seat and kept her body pressed close to the door. Her eyes were cold, but not from anger.

He didn’t drive away. He turned slightly in his seat and said, ‘You left your sidearm on the bed, but not your knife.’

‘What knife?’

‘The one you carry with you at all times. The one tucked underneath your left-hand sleeve.’

She tilted her head. ‘How did you know?’

‘The fine scars on your palms and wrists. Give it to me handle-first please.’

‘No.’

‘Do you want to help Karim?’

‘What kind of question is that?’

‘Give me the knife and you’ll find out.’

M stared at him for a moment before dipping a hand inside her sleeve. She displayed no emotion at being found out.

She came back with a Smith amp; Wesson Special Operation Bowie knife with a black aluminium handle and a seven-inch black stainless-steel blade. She placed it handle-first against his waiting palm.

‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘How long have you been practising Bowie knife-fighting?’

‘Only a few months.’

‘Please lean forward and place your hands on the dashboard.’

‘I’m not wired.’

‘I need to be sure.’

‘No.’

‘Then you can’t help Karim. Goodbye.’

Fletcher opened his door, about to step out, when she said, ‘Wait.’

He shut the door. M did not lean forward. She pulled the sweatshirt over her head and dumped it on the floor. Then she slipped out of her sweatpants. Every inch of her body was exposed. No wire, just smooth skin and a slight puckered scar on her left shoulder.

She showed no sense of self-consciousness at being nude. Nor should she. M had worked exceptionally hard on her body.

‘Satisfied?’

‘Very much so,’ Fletcher said. ‘My apologies for having put you through this. You’ll understand my reasons momentarily.’