Black Lightning

CHAPTER 59

Anne heard the sound of the mail dropping through the slot in the front door and seized the opportunity to shift her eyes away from the monitor, relax the muscles of her neck, then stand up to stretch her whole body. Could it really be almost three hours since she’d sat down at the computer in the den to review a few of the interview files? Now that her concentration had finally been broken, she realized that it felt like even longer — her legs were stiff, and her right shoulder was sore from manipulating the mouse she’d been using to navigate through the files. So far she’d gotten nothing for her very literal pains. Only a long and tedious review of information that was already so familiar to her that she felt she could have repeated it in her sleep.

Richard Kraven, whether or not he was the serial killer she’d made him out to be, had been a man of many parts. He’d mastered both biology and electrical engineering, and had studied religion and metaphysics as well. He’d loved the arts, especially dance, contributing at least a thousand dollars each year to the ballet.

Dozens — hundreds — of people had known him.

And no one had thought of him as a friend.

Over and over the people she’d interviewed had used the same words. A lot of them had been complimentary: “Charming … Fascinating … Well-read … Genius …”

But other words kept recurring as well: “Cold … Distant … Detached … Remote …”

Sighing, her certainty fading that she would find something in the files she’d overlooked before, Anne moved through the living room into the foyer.

She saw it even before she bent over to pick up the mail strewn across the floor. A plain white envelope — the kind you could buy anywhere — with her name and address written across it in the same spiky script she’d seen only a few days ago when she followed up the police call to Rory Kraven’s apartment. Leaving the rest of the mail where it lay, Anne snatched up the envelope and tore it open. She was about to pull the single sheet of paper out when she stopped herself.

Fingerprints! Maybe, just maybe, whoever had written the note had gotten careless. Her hands trembling, she brought the letter to the kitchen, found a pair of tongs, and carefully pulled the neatly folded sheet out of the envelope. Her heart pounding, she spread it open so she could read it.

Dearest Anne,

An explanation: As I’m sure you’re aware, I had no opportunity to hone my surgical skills during my recent incarceration. Hence, the incident with your daughter’s cat; I simply needed something to practice on. Perhaps I should have left my signature on it, but it was only a cat, and not truly representative of my best endeavors. By the way, no one let the cat out. I came in and got it, just as I came in and left the note on your computer. I can come into your house any time, you know. Any time at all.

An icy numbness spreading through her, she read the note a second time, then a third. She felt panic rising in her, felt an insane urge to run through the house locking the doors and windows and pulling the curtains. But it was broad daylight outside — eleven o’clock on Saturday morning. What could happen to her? Besides, if Richard Kraven—

No! Not Richard Kraven! Richard Kraven was dead!

She took a deep breath. If whoever had written the note really intended to come into her house, why would he warn her?

He was only trying to scare her.

Her panic of a moment before now yielding to anger, Anne carefully reinserted the note into the envelope, then picked up the telephone and dialed the number Mark Blakemoor had given her after their last meeting. “Call me any time,” he’d told her. “If anything happens, or you find something, or you even think of something, call me.”

She let the phone ring a dozen times — didn’t he even have a machine? What kind of cop was he? Finally, she hung up, and dialed his office number from memory. On the fourth ring someone picked it up.

“Homicide. McCarty.”

Jack McCarty? What would the chief of Homicide be doing in the office on a Saturday? “I’m looking for Mark Blakemoor,” Anne said. “This is Anne Jeffers.” When there was no immediate reply, she added, “It’s important. It’s about the Richard Kraven killings.” She hesitated, then took a gamble: “The new ones.”

“What did Mark tell you about them?” McCarty growled suspiciously.

“He didn’t tell me anything,” Anne said quickly, remembering Mark’s warning not to repeat anything he’d told her. “But I have something to tell him. He gave me his home number, but he’s not there.”

“He damn well better not be,” McCarty replied. “He’d better be up on the Snoqualmie, doing his job.”

“The Snoqualmie?” Anne echoed, feeling a chill of apprehension creep over her skin. “What’s going on up there?”

There was another silence, then McCarty spoke again, his voice dripping with the contempt he held for every member of the press. “You’re a reporter, Jeffers. Why don’t you go find out?”

The phone went dead in her hand. “I’ll do that, Jack,” she said out loud. “I’ll just do that.” Leaving a message for Heather, although her daughter had said she’d be gone until five, Anne shut off the computer, locked the house, and went out to get into her car. But, stepping onto the front porch, she found herself remembering the note she’d stuffed into the depths of her gritchel.

I can come into your house any time, you know. Any time at all.

Though she fought against the impulse, furious that anyone who might actually be watching her would know how well he’d succeeded in terrifying her, she couldn’t resist scanning the street.

Empty, except for a few kids playing on the sidewalk a couple of houses down.

And the motor home.

Its massive form squatted near the end of the block, the sight of it sending a chill through her.

Who owned it? Where had it come from?

Why was it here?

Could someone be inside it even now, watching her? Instead of going directly to her car, parked in front of the house, Anne walked down the sidewalk toward the suddenly ominous vehicle. She circled it slowly, finally venturing close enough to peer into its windows.

Empty.

But for how long?

As her memory of Richard Kraven’s love for his motor home rose in her mind, she dug into her gritchel for her dog-eared notebook and a pen. Jotting down the li-should go back into the house right now, and start the mechanics of putting a trace on it.

Later, she told herself. Plenty of time for that later. Right now she had to find out what sent Mark Blakemoor up to the Snoqualmie River. She slid behind the wheel of the Volvo and twisted the key in the ignition, already knowing the reason. Only one thing would have sent Mark up there this morning.

A body.

They had to have found another body.