The Impaler

Chapter 66

In his bedroom, Markham had just finished downloading a song onto his laptop. An agent from the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime had entered it into Sentinel as being on the CD Jose Rodriguez used for his Leona Bonita act. “Dark in the Day,” a remake of a popular tune from the eighties. Markham remembered the song from high school, but couldn’t place the name of the band.

“How could you think I ’d let you get away?

When I came out of the darkness and told you who you are?”

Markham looped the song on his computer’s media player and listened to it over and over again. The lyrics. He couldn’t shake the connection, couldn’t help but see the totality of the message through the Impaler’s eyes, and felt a chill run up his spine when he imagined himself sitting in the audience, watching Rodriguez prowl about the stage in his lion drag.

“I thought I heard you calling. You thought you heardme speak.

Tell me how could you think I ’d let you get away?”

Markham let the song cycle through one more time, then rolled over and saw his BlackBerry blinking on the night-stand. He checked it—a couple of e-mails and a text message from Andy Schaap. Finally.

Your voice mail was cracking up, the message read. Didn’t get all of it. What’s up?

Markham texted back: Any progress?

A moment later: Where r u?

Still in ct.

Ct?

Odd, Markham thought, and typed: ct = Connecticut.

Then an entire two minutes went by before Schaap replied: Duh sorry. Tired. Nothing new. Still getting names. What’s your eta?

Tomorrow @ 4pm.

Another long pause before Schaap texted back: Need ride?

No. Car @ airport.

K. Have a safe trip. C u @ RA when u get back.

Markham stared at his BlackBerry for a long time. The texting with Schaap bothered him for some reason. He couldn’t place it. No, he’d never communicated with him this way before—Schaap always called him—but the questions, the lingo—

“Christ,” Markham said. Now he was overanalyzing things—looking for something to worry about in this limbo of waiting to get back to Raleigh.

Schaap was tired, too, that’s all. But maybe that’s what worried him. Could he depend on Schaap not to miss anything?

Fuck it, he heard Andy Schaap say in his mind. Yes, he’d figure it all out when he got back to Raleigh. He shut down his computer and turned off his bedside lamp—stared up at the fully charged stars on his ceiling and wondered how after all these years they could still glow so brightly.

And soon, despite his having slept nearly the entire day, Sam Markham was again dead to the world.

The General smiled and plugged in his cell phone charger next to the one he’d taken from the TrailBlazer. He hardly ever used his own cell phone anymore, but for what he was planning next, the General would need it just as much as he still needed Andrew J. Schaap’s BlackBerry.