First to Die

Chapter 38

PHILLIP CAMPBELL had driven since the first light of dawn, setting out in the bulky rented stretch limo. He was nervous, wired- and he absolutely loved it. He chewed up the miles in a steady, purposeful daze, crossing the Bay Bridge and continuing east on 80. He finally broke free of the morning traffic near Vallejo and maintained a vigilant sixty on the speedometer as he headed east. He didn't Want to be stopped. The papers called him a monster. Psychotic, sociopathic. Expert witnesses on TV analyzed his motives, his past, his possible future murders. They know nothing. They are all wrong. They'll find what I want them to find. They only see what I want them to see. From the Nevada border it was a short drive down into Reno, which he considered a vulgar, aging cowboy town. He stayed on the highway, avoiding the Strip. Wide, stucco-lined boulevards of gas stations, gun dealerships, pawnshops. You could get anything here without a lot of questions. It was the place to come to buy a gun, or unload a car, or both. Out by the convention center, he turned into Lumpy's. He pulled the car up to an open area in the lot, opened the glove compartment, recovered the folded paperwork, breathed a sigh of relief. The limo was perfectly clean. Spotless. There were no ghosts whispering. All day yesterday, he had cleaned and polished, scrubbing out the bloodstains until the last trace of evidence was gone. Now the car was silent, as un confiding as the day he had picked it up. He breathed easier. It was as if Michael and Becky De George had never existed. In minutes he had paid for the car and called a cab to take him to the airport. At the airport, he checked in, looked through a San Francisco paper at a newsstand. Nothing about Becky and Michael. He made his way to the gate. He bought a bottle of Fruitopia apricot drink and a vegetarian wrap at a fast-food counter. He checked in at Gate 31, Reno Air to San Francisco. He took a seat and started eating his lunch. An attractive young woman sat next to him. Blond hair, tight ass, just tawdry-looking enough to attract his eye. She wore a gold chain around her neck with her name on it in script: Brandee. A tiny diamond ring. He smiled a quick, inadvertent greeting. She pulled out a Kipling knapsack, took a swig from a plastic water bottle, and took out a paperback, Memoirs of a Geisha. It interested him that of all things, she was reading about a woman in bondage. These were signs. "Good book?" He smiled her way. "That's what everyone says," she replied. "I'm just starting." He leaned over and breathed in the cheap, citrusy scent of her perfume. "Hard to believe," he went on, "it was written by a man." "I'll let you know." She flipped a few pages, then added. "My fiance gave it to me." Phillip Campbell felt the short, thin hairs on his arms stand up. His heart began to throb. He ran a tremulous finger along the edge of his goatee. "Oh- when's the big day?"