Pitch Black

14

Even though he’d needed to make some adjustments this evening after a highly unexpected development, the ambush had gone exactly as he had expected it to. As usual, his plan had been flawlessly designed and easy to carry out. Glancing at his watch, Darwin realized he was right on schedule. A few hours, at least, until he’d need to dump her, leaving him with sufficient time to get her ready for her night on the town, as it was.

Once he’d had her in his hands and knew he’d gotten away clean, he had posted his message on Samantha’s Web site. She had probably already read it; the FBI almost certainly had. All of them were, right now, in a blind panic, racing to save the stupid cow behind him.

That cow had been so stupid, she’d never even been the least bit suspicious. She hadn’t checked him out, had never questioned him. She had not even second-guessed the location for their get-together when he’d called her a couple of hours ago. She’d walked blindly into her fate, as so many had before her.

But she wasn’t like all those who had gone before her. This one was special, if only because of how much losing her would hurt Samantha Dalton.

“Silly, impulsive, reckless woman,” he murmured, though, of course, she was unconscious and couldn’t hear him. “You really don’t value yourself very highly, do you, my dear?”

Fortunately, he had known this moment would come, so he’d been paving the way for weeks. Reaching out to her through e-mail, he’d let her get to know him, or think she did. He’d called himself Randolph Gertz, a wealthy widower dabbling in various investments. And her greedy little soul had been unable to resist him.

His companion had entered their arranged meeting place right on schedule and had never even seen him come at her with the chloroform. Not being sure he would be able to get her to drink something right away, he’d had to resort to the slightly riskier means of taking her down.

He’d kept her down with a few sharp blows to her face and head.

Regrettable, his losing his temper like that; he so seldom did. But something about seeing her lying there, helpless and vulnerable, when she should have been Samantha, had enraged him.

“A few hits won’t kill you,” he said, speaking casually over his shoulder to the woman sprawled in the back of the van. A trickle of blood from her nose smeared one cheek, her lip was swollen, and a bruise was forming beneath one eye. He imagined she would have a terrible headache if she ever woke up. Still, she didn’t look too much the worse for wear.

In fact, she should fit right in where he intended to take her.

“You’re lucky, you know. There’s a very good chance tonight’s ordeal won’t kill you, either. You could be lucky, or you could be unlucky. You could play it smart, or you could panic and get yourself killed.” He smiled, thinking about the way he most wanted it to turn out. “I rather hope you live through it.”

Live through it enough to talk about it. To tell Samantha about it. To reveal her pain and her agony and ask why something so awful had happened.

Because it would be awful. Of that he had no doubt.

In fact, he might be able to assure it. Because as he’d beaten her, he’d been quite surprised to find himself growing erect. No, her prone body was not the one he wanted… but violating it was almost as good. Something to keep in mind, if he had the time.

Reaching the storage facility where he’d rented a garage, he quickly got out and pulled the van inside, needing privacy. The stupid bitch probably wouldn’t wake up, but just in case she did, and made a fuss, he did not want to have to answer any questions. The facility would more than likely remain deserted at this time of the evening, but it didn’t pay to be careless.

Once within, he quickly closed the rolling door and flipped on the portable lights he always left here. He positioned them toward the sliding panel door of the van, wanting plenty of illumination while he got her ready, then opened it.

“In the spotlight,” he said. “Believe me-you’re soon going to look like someone who likes it that way.”

Eyeing her-bloody and bruised, unconscious-without pity, he reached for his knife. And began to remove her clothes.

Sam vacillated between terror and utter rage as she and Alec tore through the night, heading for Baltimore. At first, he’d told her he wouldn’t take her to her mother’s place. He’d wanted to stay in D.C., to let the others handle it.

Yeah. Right.

She’d told him she was going, and the only way he would stop her was if he threw her out the window, and then he’d better hope she broke both her legs.

“Try her cell phone again,” Alec snapped, as if knowing she was on the verge of letting out a high, keening wail.

She did as he asked, even though she’d been calling every minute since reading that awful message on her site. Just like with every other call, she got her mom’s voice mail on the second ring. “It’s still turned off.” She dialed the house number, got the answering machine again, and left what was probably her tenth message.

“Do you have any idea where she was going, or who she was with?”

Leaning forward in her seat, as if urging the car to go even faster, Sam shook her head. “She played it so close to the vest. I had really given her hell about even considering online dating, so she obviously wasn’t going to talk to me about it.”

“But you’re certain she was planning to go out tonight with someone she had met online?”

“Like I said, she wasn’t confiding in me, but I knew she had a date, and was being incredibly secretive about it.”

“Because she knew you were against it.”

“Exactly.” Tension making her quiver, she added, “Plus, if she is meeting with Darwin, do you think he might have told her to keep the details hush-hush?”

“Yes, he probably would have.”

She hadn’t really wanted the confirmation. “Damn it, Alec, why is this happening? Is it really possible one blog post brought the wrath of this monster down on my mother’s head?”

“I don’t know,” he said, sounding frustrated and weary. “It seems so out of character for the Professor. He’s always been methodical and organized, cautious, taking weeks, months, once even a year between his crimes. For him to spin as wildly out of control as he seems to be this week-not only how frequently he’s attacking, but also taunting you the way he has-it seems like something else is at play here.”

“Like what?”

Alec didn’t say anything at first, merely staring out into the headlight-broken darkness, weaving the car in and out of traffic without ever slowing. She didn’t know if he was thinking about her question, or already knew the answer and didn’t want to say it out loud.

“Sam,” he finally said, “have you met anyone who’s made you uncomfortable or shown you particular attention in the past few weeks or months?”

She understood him immediately. “You think there’s more to this than Wednesday night’s rant. That he actually knows me.”

His slight nod acknowledged her suspicion.

Sam’s blood gushing hard in her veins, she still managed to keep her cool and think about his question, rather than come out with a quick, instinctive reply. “I’ve been a hermit,” she said, “as I think you already know. Honestly, Alec, I’ve met almost no new people since my divorce.”

He didn’t give up. “Okay, what about before that? It’s possible the Professor has been watching you for a long time, since before he came out to you on your site.”

That question was a whole lot easier to answer, though it certainly wouldn’t help them narrow things down. “My ex-husband and his family are socialites, running with the horse-breeding set up in Hunt Valley. I met hundreds of people in their circle, though I probably couldn’t recall the names of more than a dozen of them.”

Not even thinking about it, Sam flipped her phone open. Dialed. Heard her mother’s chipper message. Hung up.

“Rich, huh?”

“Filthy,” she replied, knowing he was asking about Samuel. “And as spoiled and selfish as you’d expect someone raised that way to be.”

He shrugged.

“What?”

“My family’s rich.”

She stared at him from across the car. Somehow, she’d already known the man came from money; he carried himself like it, and wore clothes that one wouldn’t expect on a federal employee’s salary. But he was about as different from her ex as any man could be, and she knew better than to judge him based on that one bad experience. “Point taken.”

Getting back to their conversation, he said, “So nobody stands out. Nobody condescending, for the most part, but a little too friendly toward you?”

“Not that I can remember,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay, so let’s say he knows me, and has known me for a while; why would he suddenly become so murderous toward me and people I care about? Why this… what did you call it? Acceleration?”

Even in the dimly lit car, she saw the way his hands tightened on the wheel. “We already assumed he was trying to scare you because he figured out you were working with us.”

“Going from scaring to slaughtering is a pretty big leap.”

“Not for someone like the Professor.”

Sam let out a slow, shaky breath, leaning back in her seat. It seemed too crazy to be believed, that one person’s very normal reaction-trying to help the authorities solve a murder-could be construed as some sort of betrayal of someone she didn’t even know.

But maybe you do know him. Alec’s idea wouldn’t leave her mind. As upsetting as it was to think she might have already had personal contact with a psychopath, it almost seemed better than thinking all of this had been caused by such a random thing, just some bastard cruising the Net, seeing her site, and getting angry about her blog.

“Okay, tell me which way to go,” Alec said, which was when she realized they had already reached Baltimore and were close to her mother’s place.

Sam gave him the directions, craning to see through the windshield. As they rounded the corner, her mother’s house became easy to spot. It was the one with all the cars parked outside. Including police vehicles with emergency lights spinning.

“Oh, no.”

He grabbed her hand. “Don’t. They’re here because Wyatt asked them to come check on her; it doesn’t mean anything.”

She kept reminding herself of that as they reached the house. She jumped out of the car before Alec had even cut the engine. When a uniformed officer stepped in front of her, she snapped, “This is my mother’s house.”

Alec, who had hurried after her, asked, “Anything?”

The officer shook his head. “No signs of life. Place is locked up tight as a drum, no lights on. Everything looks pretty normal. Do you have a key, miss?”

Sam nodded, waving her key ring at the man.

“Let the officers check it out first, Sam,” Alec said. She saw by the firm set of his mouth that this was non-negotiable.

Handing him the keys, she stood outside with Alec for what seemed to be the longest several minutes of her life. Finally, the cops who had gone in stepped back onto the front porch of the house Sam had grown up in, and beckoned to her.

“Nobody here, miss. Nothing appears out of place,” one of them said.

Good on one hand-her mother wasn’t lying murdered in her own living room.

Bad on the other-they had no idea where she was.

“Thank you,” she mumbled, telling herself no news was good news.

Alec stepped in. “The rest of my team should be showing up any minute; in the meantime, I’m going to have Ms. Dalton check her mother’s computer records to see if we can find out where she might be.”

Inside, Sam went straight to her old bedroom, now used as a small office. The desktop computer was turned off, and as she flipped the switch, she said, “Mom uses the same password, my dad’s middle name, for everything. She might have added a number on the beginning or the end, but it shouldn’t be hard to get into whatever dating program she’s gotten hooked up with.”

Alec nodded and waved her on, then grabbed his phone and called his boss again. Sam barely listened to his side of the conversation, focused only on finding out anything she could that would help them find out whom her mother had been going out with tonight, and where they were headed.

Pulling up the browser, she checked the cache and had no problem locating the dating Web site. And she didn’t even have to play a guessing game, varying her dad’s middle name with his birth date, because the ID and password were saved right on the screen.

“I’m in,” she said, not five minutes after she’d sat down.

Alec finished his call and stepped behind her, watching over her shoulder.

Quickly figuring out how the site operated, Sam found all the private communications, the profile requests, the personal Q &As her mother had received and had sent. A few of the men sounded skeevy-and judging by her lack of response, Mom had thought so, too. A few others, though, seemed to have caught Christine Harrington-aka Missy Chrissy’s-interest.

“Damn it,” she muttered, flipping through screen after screen to see if she’d missed anything.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing about a date. No mention of an in-person meeting.”

Feeling hot moisture begin to flood her eyes, Sam willed herself to remain strong and not give in to her rising panic. Just because her mother hadn’t left an easy trail to follow didn’t mean there wasn’t one. It was entirely possible the communication had gone to private e-mail.

Five minutes later, though, after she’d gone through every Outlook message for the past several weeks, she’d still found absolutely nothing.

“I don’t know whether this is good news or not,” she said, hearing her own voice shake. “Maybe they moved on to phone communication. Maybe they did it all with IMs.”

“We can trace those.”

“Not fast enough,” she snapped.

Desperate to do something, she quickly surfed over to her own site, wondering if the psychopath had left another taunting message. But there was nothing beyond those ugly words that informed her he had robbed her of someone she loved.

“Does she have other e-mail addresses? Most people would create a new one to deal with Internet-dating correspondence. Would she really give out her personal one, the one you use?”

Sam snapped her fingers and went back to work. And judging by how close to the top of the cache the mailbox site was, her mother did, indeed, have a backup address.

But it wasn’t saved to the computer. Neither was the password.

She ran through a number of variations, anything she could see her mother using, to no avail. Within ten minutes, she was ready to scream in frustration.

Alec realized it. He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing. “It’s okay. Let’s think of other options. Who else might know what she’s up to? Any close friends?”

“She has lots of casual friends, but probably the only one she talks to every day is Uncle Nate.” Would her mother really have confided in him, though, considering he was every bit as disapproving as Sam?

“He’s her brother?”

She shook her head, already digging her cell phone out of her purse. “He’s not really my uncle. He was my father’s partner many years ago.”

Alec’s head tilted in confusion.

“Dad was a Maryland state trooper. After he died, Nate quit, went to law school, ended up a judge about seven or eight years ago.”

“And he’s still close to your mom?”

“Very.” She found the home number and dialed it. Getting no answer, she immediately dialed his cell.

“Hello? Samantha?” he asked, answering on the second ring. He sounded distracted, a little out of breath.

“Yeah, it’s me. Listen,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm, not wanting to upset the older man, “I’m at Mom’s. I’m trying to find her.”

“Why?”

Not sure how much to say, she kept it simple. “There’s some trouble, and I really need to talk to her, to make sure she’s okay.”

“Well, of course she is, dear.”

Her heart leaping, she asked, “You mean you know where she is?”

He hesitated, then finally murmured, “Yes, I do. She’s right here with me.”

Something was wrong; Lily felt it. He hadn’t showed. It was nine thirty; Lovesprettyboys should have been here by now, and he hadn’t made an appearance.

“Damn it, why isn’t he here yet?” Lily muttered.

The agent handling the electronic surveillance of the scene, a guy named Vince Kowalski, whom Lily had met for the first time a few hours ago, shrugged, obviously not concerned. “These things are always a gamble. You think for sure the creep’s gonna show; then he gets spooked or he gets sidetracked or he even gets a conscience.”

“Not this guy,” she whispered, talking more to herself than to the other agent.

The two of them sat in an unmarked, nondescript van, parked about ten houses up from the Williamsburg home where Tiger Lily was supposedly babysitting her bratty but-cute little brother. They’d been sitting in here for hours, having arrived well before dark in case their suspect decided to scope out the neighborhood in advance.

Yet nothing had happened.

Lily honestly didn’t know what she would do if he didn’t show. Having thought about this night, pictured it, almost willed it to happen since that August day when she’d first seen that awful cartoon avatar doing unimaginable things to a cartoon boy, she needed this to happen. For him to be caught, justice to be served.

For him not to come, to have built this up until she wanted to scream with the pressure… She just wasn’t sure she could stand for it to come to absolutely nothing.

Maybe it’s for the best.

She tried to ignore that little voice in her mind, which often sounded remarkably like her mother’s, who had, along with Lily’s father, died in an accident when she was a child. Then, thinking about it, she realized that just as her mother had always seemed so wise in life, she still sounded that way in Lily’s mind.

Maybe it was for the best. Not that they didn’t catch the man from Satan’s Playground. He had to be stopped, had to be locked away where he could never destroy the innocence of any child he happened to get his hands on. But maybe, just maybe, Lily wouldn’t be the one to stop him. Because if she didn’t let it go, get her mind back where it needed to be, she was going to lose a job she’d come to love. Leave a team she worked so well with and thoroughly admired, and a boss who not only had the most integrity of any man she’d ever known, but was also one of the most exciting ones.

Don’t even think that way. Having any kind of crush on Wyatt Blackstone was not only immature and stupid; it was probably career suicide.

Just like sticking to this case would be.

But could she let it go? Could she really?

“Wait! I see something.”

Lily leaped from the seat, crouching beside Kowalski.

He pointed to the computer screen, which displayed views from the three discreet cameras a crew disguised as phone repairmen had set up in the neighborhood early this afternoon. “See him?”

Lily did. A man had moved into the top frame, rounding the closest corner, slowly shuffling up the sidewalk. Walking with his head down, he was further disguised by the raised hood of his jacket. His hands were shoved in the pockets, his shoulders hunched.

Both his appearance and his movements seemed out of place in this residential neighborhood. The hooded jacket such an obvious attempt to conceal his face, the trepidation of his walk-he was most definitely up to something.

She held her breath, watching him draw closer, step by step. When he got within two fenced yards of the target, he paused, glancing behind him, then in front, then back again. Their van was parked several houses away, and the windows were tinted to conceal the inside from the out, but Lily still almost held her breath, as though afraid he could see them.

Apparently feeling the same way, Kowalski released a low breath of his own once the man turned and began walking again. He spoke into his headset, his voice a whisper: “Tommy, we’ve got a live one out here.”

Anspaugh immediately came on the line, loud, sounding excited. “I see him. Don’t move; don’t do a thing.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Lil’s okay?”

She gritted her back teeth. Kowalski appeared to notice the grimace and chuckled. “She’s fine.” When he cut the connection, he cocked a brow. “Aren’t ya, Lil?”

“Don’t even go there.”

He chuckled again; then they both got back to business, focusing on the screen. The man in the jacket had finally reached the front walkway of the target house. Lily knew what he was seeing-the outside lights on, every window illuminated. She had made the suggestion, though Anspaugh hadn’t liked it, thinking the guy would be scared off by the possibility of being spotted. Lily had argued it. An eleven-year-old babysitting for the first time would do exactly that, have the place blazing with light.

Her gut told her the choice had been the correct one.

“Go; what are you waiting for?” Kowalski said as the man lingered, his gaze scurrying constantly, like a rat trying to decide whether to go for the cheese in a trap.

God, did she hope this rat went for it.

Finally, his suspicions apparently assuaged, the suspect took a single step toward the house.

“He’s on the move again!”

The man continued walking, now appearing in the second camera, which was positioned directly above the front door. He reached the porch and walked right up onto it.

“Ballsy,” Vince said.

“Very.” Lily hadn’t expected this. She’d figured the guy would skulk around to the side, slip into the backyard, where he could find some privacy to break a window.

Not that he’d rung the bell; he wasn’t that brave. Again, he just stood there, glancing back at the street, then edging closer to the front window. Close enough to peer in, cupping one hand around his face.

“He’s trying to see if there really are kids inside.”

Anspaugh’s voice crackled. “What the hell’s he doing? Why hasn’t he made his move?”

“He’s still checking things out,” Vince said.

“Ask him if he put the toys all over the living room, in full view from the windows, and has cartoons jacked up loud on the TV,” Lily murmured. Another of her suggestions: Mom and Dad were out; kids would go a little wild.

Anspaugh confirmed as much.

“Keep holding tight,” Vince advised. “The worm’s trying to grow a big enough set of balls to go through with it.”

That wasn’t difficult to believe. If this guy was Lovesprettyboys, he had already shown himself as someone ready to pay others to do his nasty work for him. Not that she truly believed that meant he hadn’t molested any children yet; something deep inside her already knew better. But his innate cowardice-the cowardice of anyone who raped small children-would leave him suspicious of any new situation, always on the lookout for a setup.

The man moved. Staying low, beneath the bottom ledge of the window, he scurried across the porch to the side of the garage. Where there was a door.

“He’s going for it,” she whispered.

Their suspect opened the door and stepped inside. They lost him from view. Then, suddenly, voices shouting, Anspaugh barking orders, screaming at someone to “Get the fuck down!”

More shouts. “No, dude, you got it all wrong!”

“Tell it to the judge, slimeball,” Vince said with a wide grin. He gave Lily a not-very-surreptitious thumbs-up.

She smiled back, liking the man a lot more than she liked his supervisor. “It’s over,” she said. “We got him.”

At least, they got someone. Lily truly hoped the man they had caught in that house was Lovesprettyboys. But something inside her had begun to suspect she wouldn’t fall apart if he turned out not to be. Because, no matter what, she’d been part of bringing down some sick bastard who’d had very dark intentions toward two young children.

She’d acted instead of reacted. Had done something strong and powerful instead of just being a victim.

“It’s enough,” she whispered. It didn’t bring Zach or Laura back, but she’d actually made a difference. She could return to Washington and tell Wyatt she was ready to get back to her real job. Back to her real life. Maybe even get back to actually enjoying living it. Though it had been so long, she wasn’t sure she remembered how.

“Let’s go enjoy the show,” Vince said, reaching for the handle on the back door.

“Let me get my jacket.”

Grabbing it from the passenger seat, she turned around to see Kowalski hop down onto the street. He appeared to be waiting for her; then suddenly his attention was drawn somewhere out of her range of vision. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

Lily didn’t know whom the other agent was talking to. She didn’t even know if he was concerned or merely curious in the final seconds of his life.

She didn’t hear the gun, didn’t anticipate any danger. She just knew, as she watched Vince Kowalski’s brains and half his head erupt against the inside of the open door, that he’d been shot in the face.

Lily grabbed for her weapon. Her fingers brushed the grip. But before she had even pulled it from its holster, she felt the first bullet strike. The force flung her back.

Then another shot. Such pain.

And her world went dark.