Hunting Fear

CHAPTER 16

Wednesday, October 3

Caitlin Graham honestly didn't know why she was still involved in the investigation of kidnappings and murders. Why she wanted to be here, and why they allowed it. She thought of herself as the only civilian in the bunch, despite Samantha's lack of law-enforcement credentials; the other woman clearly understood the procedures involved, as well as possessing an obvious investigative knack.

"The only thing we have that even remotely resembles a lead," she was saying now, "are those ATV tracks the CSU found up at the mine this morning."

Looking over a printout he'd just received, Lucas said, "Preliminary report is that the vehicle is likely to be a Hummer, just like we've been driving up there."

Wyatt grunted. "We have four in the motor pool. Other than those of us who have to patrol in the mountains around here, they aren't all that common-though more so than they used to be."

"Impressive TV ads," Caitlin said. "And they're on some high-profile TV shows. So now they're sexy."

The sheriff agreed with a rueful nod.

"Still out of reach of most car owners, though," Lucas noted. "And still pretty rare. I'm getting a list covering owners in every state in which there's been a kidnapping, including this one."

"And then?" Wyatt inquired.

"Hoping a name will jump out at one of us," Lucas replied with a sigh.

"Would he be driving with an out-of-state tag?" Jaylene wondered aloud. "Wouldn't it make him look even more conspicuous?"

"At this time of year?" Wyatt shook his head. "Place is full of tourists, especially in October. They come to hike, look at the leaves, camp. Even with all the publicity lately-or maybe because of it-the numbers I'm seeing are up over last year."

"Lost in a crowd of strangers," Samantha murmured.

"My bet," Lucas said, "is that he only drives the Hummer when he has to. When he's moving around here in town, he'll have something a lot more ordinary and inconspicuous."

"Bound to," Wyatt agreed.

"Look," Jaylene said, "he can't be staying at any of the motels in town, right?"

"Unlikely," Lucas said. "He's a loner; he won't be around other people any more than he has to."

"Okay. And so far, he's been leaving his victims in remote areas, mostly up in the mountains. But he knows we've been searching those places, at least the ones on our list of possibles, which is probably why he hid Wyatt away in a mine that wasn't on any of our maps and that no one remembered."

"Big assumption," Wyatt said. "The mine must have been on his list, otherwise he wouldn't have had time to get his guillotine up there."

She nodded, a bit impatiently. "Yeah, but that's not what I'm thinking. He has to be staying somewhere during all this. We've had rangers and cops checking campers and hikers since we got here, obviously with no luck, but he has to know what we're doing."

"He's watching," Samantha said.

Jaylene nodded again. "He's watching. So he won't put himself in a position to be noticed or questioned. And he won't be too far away, not any more often than he has to be. Which means he can't be sitting in a cozy tent off the marked campsites and trails way up in the mountains. He has to be close. Most of the time, he has to be close."

"Pretending to be a member of the media?" Caitlin guessed. "Lost in that crowd of faces?"

Lucas considered, then shook his head. "He's too focused on his game to be able to act a part, and he'd know that. But I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't tried to talk to a journalist at least once in order to get information. Probably after those periods when he'd been occupied by a kidnapping."

Wyatt lifted his brows. "I can put a few people to questioning the media-if you don't think it might tip our hand in some way."

Lucas didn't have to consider that. "I think we need to get as much information as fast as we can."

Samantha was looking steadily at him. "You feel it too. Time's running out."

He returned her stare, nodding slowly. "You were right-we beat him yesterday. And he is not going to want that hanging over his head for long."

"Another kidnapping so soon?" Wyatt said. "Christ."

"If we're lucky," Lucas said, "he'll act out of haste, or at least out of anger, make a move before he takes the time to work out all the details. Because that's the only way we're going to catch this bastard-if he slips up."

He had no idea how much those words would come to haunt him.

"What're you, made of iron?" Quentin inquired somewhat irritably as Galen continued to pace from window to window in the living room of the small house rented for the duration. "Get some rest, for Christ's sake. They're all together and watching each other's backs; we need to sleep while we can." He had been trying to follow his own advice, stretched out on a rather lumpy couch.

"Something's wrong," Galen said.

"Yeah, there's a kidnapping murderer on the loose. Got the memo."

Ignoring the characteristic sarcastic humor, Galen merely said, "I thought you were supposed to be precognitive."

"I am."

"And you can't feel that something is about to happen?"

Quentin sat up and eyed the other man. "None of my senses are telling me anything except that I'm tired as hell. Comes of tramping over half a mountain and then spending the night on guard."

"You didn't need to watch Sam; Luke was with her."

"Habit. Besides, I couldn't sleep. Then. I'd like to now, if you don't mind."

Galen moved from a side window to the front one and stood to one side of it as he peered out.

Still watching him, Quentin said, "If we're seen during the day, it could blow our cover. Well, mine, at least. You blended nicely into the carnival these last weeks."

A flicker of amusement showing briefly on his harsh face, Galen said, "Jealous?"

"Didn't you want to run away and join the circus when you were a boy?"

"No. Wanted to run away and join the army. Which I did." He paused, eyes narrowing as he gazed out the window. "As with most fantasies, it turned out that reality wasn't nearly as much fun as what I'd imagined."

Quentin was about to take the opportunity to further explore his taciturn companion's rather mysterious past when fate intervened, in the form of one of the flashes of knowledge with which his ability often gifted him. He went perfectly still, concentrating.

Galen turned his head, eyes still narrowed. "Something?"

"Oh," Quentin said. "Shit."

"What?"

"We need to get to the carnival."

"Why?"

"Games," Quentin said. "He likes games."

"I need to touch it," Samantha said.

"No." Lucas's voice was flat.

They happened to be alone together in the conference room, at least for the moment, but Samantha kept her own voice low and steady. "So far, I haven't touched any of his murder machines. But he built them, Luke. With his own hands and all the hate inside him."

"Which is why you aren't going to touch either the tank or the guillotine," he said.

"They're all we've got. And just because science couldn't find any evidence on them cjloesn't mean I can't."

"Jaylene tried. Nothing."

"I'm stronger than she is, you know that. And I've already touched this maniac's inind, with the pendant. I can connect with him by touching his machines. I have to try to do that."

"No."

"We have no leads worth pursuing. We're questioning journalists and waiting for a list of Hummer owners on the East Coast you know as well as I do will be hundreds of names long. We're waiting, Luke. Waiting for him to make his next move. We're playing his game, just like he wants. And we can't afford that luxury anymore. You know that."

He was silent.

"One of us has to connect with him." She allowed that statement to hang in the air between them, never taking her eyes off his face.

Lucas almost flinched, but his gaze remained steady. "Then I will."

"Your ability doesn't work the same way. Touching doesn't help you connect. So how're you going to connect, Luke? How are you going to open yourself up enough to feel your way into this monster's mind?"

"I don't know, dammit."

Caitlin came into the room just then, holding the cup of coffee she had gone to get and saying, "One of the journalists is saying he remembers somebody asking a lot of questions. Luke, Wyatt thinks you should hear what he has to say." She stopped suddenly, looking from one to the other of them, and added uncertainly, "Should I leave?"

"No," Lucas said. Then, to Samantha, he repeated flatly, "No." He left the room.

"A man of few words," Caitlin noted, still uncertain.

"And all of them autocratic."

"You don't really mean that. Do you?"

Samantha got to her feet. "Let's just say that this is one time I can't let Luke tell me what to do for my own good."

"Have you ever?" Caitlin set her cup on the table and followed Samantha from the room. "Hey, don't get mad at me. I just-"

"I'm not mad. At least, not at you. Or at Luke, really. He can't help being the way he is; if he could, there wouldn't be a problem."

Caitlin wasn't sure where Samantha was going, or why she was following her, but didn't allow either question to stop her. "I gather this has something to do with you making him so angry yesterday so he was able to find Wyatt?"

"Something," Samantha agreed, turning into a stairwell that took them down to the garage basement of the building. "I don't seem to have the energy to do that again today. So I'm going to try something different."

"Like what?" Caitlin followed her across the currently deserted garage to a room off to one side. When she saw what it contained, she felt a chill. "Sam-"

Samantha looked at her with a small smile, then moved to stand between the glass tank and the guillotine that were placed about four feet apart. "I'm sorry, Caitlin. I shouldn't have let you come down here."

"That tank. Is that where-"

"It's how he killed Lindsay, yes. I'm sorry."

Caitlin looked at it for a moment, thinking only that it seemed so unthreatening, just sitting there on the concrete floor, empty of water and life. And death. Or at least, so it seemed to her. She looked at Samantha. "What're you going to do?"

"I have to touch both of these machines. He built them. I have to try to connect with him."

Remembering the pendant and Samantha's frightening vision-induced pallor and nosebleed, Caitlin said, "Nobody has to tell me this isn't a good idea, Sam."

"I have to try. I have to help them find him, if I can."

"But-"

"I'm running out of time. I have to try." She reached out with both hands, her right one touching the steel blade resting in its stained groove and her left one touching the glass of the tank.

Caitlin knew instantly that whatever well of emotion or experience Samantha had been psychically dragged into was very deep and very dangerous. She actually jerked, a faint sound coming from behind the lips pressed so tightly together, and what little color she could claim drained from her face.

"Oh, shit," Caitlin muttered.

As Lucas listened to the journalist-a newspaper reporter from Golden-talk about the "really nosy guy" who had twice approached him with curious questions during the past week, something began to nag at him.

"He didn't have much of an accent," Jeff Burgess said thoughtfully. "Not from these parts, that's for sure."

"Can you describe him?"

"Well… not a young man, but not quite middle-aged. Maybe forty or so. Tall. One of those barrel chests you see on some men, the bull-strong ones. Otherwise very average. Brown hair worn short. Grayish eyes. One thing-he tilted his head just a bit to one side after he asked a question. Funny sort of studied mannerism, I thought. And irritating. Somebody should have told him to quit it years ago."

"What else?"

"Well, would you believe it, he called me 'sport.' I mean, how long since you've heard anybody use that? 'Don't mean to bother you, sport, but I was just wondering'… whatever. Probably why I remember him so well. Had a funny sort of smile too, like a guy who knew he should be smiling but didn't really want to, you know?"

"Yes," Lucas said. "I know. Mr. Burgess, I'm going to ask you to repeat this to a deputy, if you don't mind, so we'll have a written account."

"Nah, I don't mind." Burgess's eyes were sharp. "So he wasn't just a nosy tourist, huh?"

"When I find out," Lucas returned pleasantly, "I'll let you know."

Burgess snorted but didn't protest as Lucas waved a deputy over to take the statement.

Retreating to the conference room, Lucas was barely aware that both Wyatt and Jaylene were following him, and he was honestly startled when his partner spoke to him.

"Something rang a bell?"

Lucas looked at her, his mind working quickly. "Maybe. The description… mannerisms… and I imagine he could certainly hold a grudge against me, though he never showed it then."

"Luke, who is it?"

As if he hadn't heard her, he murmured, "I just don't understand how he could be doing this. Not killing, and not this way. He was a victim. He suffered, I know he did. He lost-He lost. I lost. Maybe that's the crux of the whole thing. I lost her, wasn't able to find her in time, and he blames me. I should have found her, it was my job. It was what I did. But I failed, and he suffered for it. So now it's my turn to fail. My turn to suffer."

Jaylene sent Wyatt a somewhat helpless look, then said to her partner, "Luke, who are you talking about?"

His eyes cleared suddenly and he looked at her, saw her. "When Bishop recruited me five years ago, I was working on a missing-persons case out in L.A. A girl, eight years old, never came home from school one day. Meredith Gilbert."

"Did you find her?" Jaylene asked.

"Weeks later, and far too late for her." He shook his head. "Her family went through hell, and very publicly, since her father was a real estate baron out there. Her mother never got over it and killed herself about six months later. Her father…"

"What about him?" Wyatt asked intently.

"He'd started out in construction, I'm pretty sure, so he knew how to build. Big man. Tall, barrel-chested. Amazingly powerful physically. And he had a habit of addressing another man as 'sport'"

"Bingo," Jaylene said. "If he blamed you for not finding his daughter and, by extension, for the suicide of his wife, then he could have been carrying around a hell of a grudge, Luke. Five years to plan, plenty of money to do what he needed to do. Background in construction. Even a solid knowledge of real estate could have helped him plan and set things up here in the East. It even explains his bribe to Leo Tedesco; a man like that would think of buying what he needed or wanted."

"I would have sworn he didn't blame me." Lucas shook off the thought, saying to Jaylene, "We need to check it out, find out what happened to Andrew Gilbert after the deaths of his wife and daughter. And there was an older son, I think-away at school at the time, so I never met him."

"I'll call Quantico and get them on it," she said, turning away.

That was when Lucas realized something else. "Where's Sam? I left her in here."

"Didn't see her go out the front," Wyatt said.

Lucas barely had time to feel the beginnings of a cold knot in the pit of his stomach when Caitlin appeared in the doorway, her face white.

"It's Sam. The basement-hurry."

Samantha barely felt the physical contact of the tank and the guillotine. All she felt…

The black curtain swept over her, the darkness as thick as tar, the silence absolute. For an instant, she felt she was being physically carried somewhere, all in a rush; she even briefly felt the sensation of wind, of pressure, against her body, as though she was actually moving.

Then the familiar abrupt stillness and the chilling awareness of a nothingness so vast it was almost, beyond comprehension. Limbo. She was suspended, weightless and even formless, in a cold void somewhere beyond this world and before the next.

As always, all she could do was wait, grimly, for the glimpse into whatever she was meant to see. Wait while her brain tuned in the right frequency and the sounds and images began playing before her mind's eye like some strange movie.

But from that point on, nothing happened as it always had.

Instead, scenes from her own past played before the unblinking gaze of her mind's eye. Stark, harsh, unrelenting, and in vivid color.

The beatings. His fists, his belt, once a broom handle. The times he had burned her with his cigarette. The really, really bad times when he had slammed her against walls, thrown her across furniture, tossed her about like a doll, and all the while she could hear the roaring fury of his drunken rage.

And the words, over and over, hateful words.

"Stupid little bitch!"

"… good for nothing…"

"…ugly…"

"…runt…"

"… pity you were ever born…"

Pain blazing along every nerve ending and the bone-deep aches of afterward when she could barely move. Dragging herself to her room, to huddle beneath the covers and choke back the whimpers she never let him hear.

When she could drag herself to bed. When he didn't toss her into the tiny closet and shove a chair under the doorknob, leaving her in there for hours and hours…

The remembered terror stirred in Samantha, so cold, so awful, and as it did the scene she saw changed abruptly. She found herself staring at a man she'd never seen before. He was standing at the open door of a hulking ATV and seemed to be looking past her. Then he moved suddenly, reaching for the gun on the vehicle's seat.

He got off at least one shot, the loud report of it hurting Samantha's ears. And then there were other shots, scarlet bloomed abruptly on his chest, bubbled from his lips, and he opened his mouth to gasp-

Blackness swallowed Samantha before she could hear whatever it was he said. It seemed to last forever, or maybe it was only seconds. She didn't know. Didn't really care. Blackness and silence and a chill that followed her up, slowly, so slowly, out of limbo.

"Sam?"

She hurt. She was cold and she hurt. And he, she thought dimly, would not make it better. Maybe could not. Maybe nobody could…

"Sam!"

Conscious then of the weight of her body, conscious of being back, she forced her eyes to open.

"Hey," she whispered. Funny how rusty and unused her voice sounded.

"Christ, you scared the hell out of me," Lucas said.

Vaguely surprised, she said, "I did? How?"

He showed her a bloody handkerchief, and said roughly, "You've been out for nearly an hour."

"Oh. Sorry." Samantha realized then that she was lying on a sofa in the lounge of the sheriff's department. Lucas was sitting on the edge of the sofa, and Caitlin and the sheriff were standing a few feet away.

When she met the other woman's gaze and saw her pallor, Samantha said with more contrition, "I really am sorry, Caitlin. I knew it'd be bad, but I had no idea-"

"Then why the hell did you do it?" Lucas demanded.

She looked back at him and winced. "Not so loud, please. My head is splitting." And she felt incredibly weak, dizzy, and nauseated.

Wyatt said, "Are you sure she shouldn't be in a hospital? I've never seen anybody so pale."

"There's nothing a doctor could do for her, otherwise she'd be under the care of one now," Lucas said, but in a quieter voice. He frowned down at her and held the handkerchief to her nose, adding, "But if this bleeding doesn't stop soon…"

Samantha took the cloth from him and held it herself. "It'll stop. Listen, about this killer-"

"We have a name," Wyatt told her. "Somebody Luke remembered from his past. Jaylene's checking county property records now to find out if the bastard was arrogant enough to use his real name, like Luke thinks he did." Clearly, the sheriff could hardly wait to get his hands on the man who had trapped him in a guillotine.

"So," Lucas said to Samantha, "there was no need for you to put yourself through this."

"Maybe not." She refolded the handkerchief and held it to her nose again, feeling very tired. "But when you find him, he'll be standing in the open door of his truck, an ATV. You'll need to be careful. There's a gun on the seat. Don't let him get to it, or he'll get off at least one shot."

Wyatt whistled half under his breath. "Now, that's what I call a useful prediction."

"Not a prediction. Fact."

He nodded. "Okay."

She eyed him, searching for sarcasm, but saw none.

"Hey," he said, understanding the look, "I'm a convert. Funny thing about facing death. It really does open up your mind to possibilities."

"Yes," Samantha said. "I know."

Jaylene came into the room then. "Hey, Sam, glad to see you back with us."

"Glad to be here."

Addressing Lucas, his partner said, "Got him. You were right, he used his real name. Probably figured we'd never go back so far in checking property records. Andrew Gilbert bought some property here two and a half years ago." She looked at the sheriff, brows lifting. "From you."

He blinked. "Say what?"

"You sold a hundred-acre tract of land that had belonged to your parents. Mostly mountainous land, not good for much, with a little piece of a valley on which sits a small old house and a much larger old barn. About twenty miles outside town. It wasn't included on any of our earlier searches because, even though it's fairly remote, there are other working farms in that valley, neighbors who would have, presumably, noticed someone carting tanks and guillotines and bodies about."

"His home base," Lucas said slowly. "Maybe where he stashes the ATV when he isn't using it-assuming there's a back way into that barn so his neighbors don't see."

Wyatt said wryly, "And I'll bet they think he's just a regular guy but quiet, keeps to himself."

"Bound to," Jaylene agreed.

"For God's sake. Yeah, I remember the guy. Said he was looking for quiet land he could retire to in a few years. Talked about building a log cabin, hunting cabin, like he'd always wanted. Offered a good but not outrageous price, and since I was trying to sell land I didn't need, I took it."

"Which is why he never stuck around to speak to you yesterday," Samantha said. "You might have recognized his voice."

Wyatt hitched at his belt and said, "Goddammit. Let's go."

Samantha began to sit up, but Lucas pressed her back. "You're staying here," he told her.

She hesitated, not because she believed she could help him capture a killer safely but because she still felt uneasy. And because she had a strong hunch that if she tried to get off the couch she'd fall on her ass. "I could stay in the car," she offered.

"You can stay here," Lucas said. "I doubt you could even stand up without help, not right now. Just stay put, Sam. Rest for a while, at least until the bleeding stops. Wait for us to bring the bastard back."

"Dead or alive?" she murmured.

"Whichever way he wants it." He said to Wyatt, "Get everybody ready. We go in in force, and we go in prepared. Everybody wears a vest."

Caitlin said to Wyatt, "I can help with the phones or whatever while you're all gone. I mean, I know the place won't be deserted, but if I can help?"

"You can," Wyatt told her.

When they had gone, Jaylene said, "I'll go call the boss, Luke."

He nodded, and to Samantha's inquiring look said, "Standard procedure if we're about to go into a probable dangerous situation."

"Ah." She looked after his partner for a moment, then checked the handkerchief before once again pressing it to her nose. "Dammit."

"The price you pay for being reckless," he told her.

She decided not to bother arguing. "Just be careful, okay?"

"We will." He went as far as the doorway, then hesitated and looked back at her. "You are all right?"

"I will be. Go do your job."

Samantha waited there for some time, listening to the bustle in the building as the deputies and agents got ready to go out. Eventually, the building quieted, and her nose stopped bleeding. And it was only a bit longer before she tried sitting up.

On the third attempt she managed it, and about ten minutes later made it to the conference room. A desk shoved up against the wall held the room's only phone, and Samantha sat down there to use it.

Maybe Luke was right about being reckless, she thought, fighting the dizziness and nausea. It had never been this bad before, and between that and her pounding head, she was seriously considering returning to the couch in the lounge and napping for a day or three.

Because her part in this, she thought, was over. She was almost positive that she had been able to change the outcome she had originally seen.

In the vision that had brought her to Golden, Andrew Gilbert had not come close to being caught, and he had certainly not been the one to die.

She got through to Quentin on the first attempt, which was rarely possible calling a cell phone in this mountainous area. "Did you hear from Bishop?" she asked immediately.

"Yeah, just now," he replied. "So our killer is a ghost out of Luke's past, huh?" He sounded just a bit distracted.

"Looks like. Where are you guys?"

"Fairgrounds."

"Why?"

"Just a hunch."

"You don't have hunches, Quentin."

"Whoever said that is a rotten liar."

"Quentin."

He sighed. "Okay, okay. I knew something would be going on here, that's all."

She waited a beat, then asked, "What's going on?"

"Well, it's a funny thing," he said thoughtfully. "The place is practically deserted-but all the rides are going."