The Voice Inside

12

Frost turned into the parking garage across from Pier 39.

It was late, and most of the tourists were back in their hotels, except for a few couples wandering hand in hand past the fairy lights of the Wharf. The garage itself was largely empty of cars. He drove to the third floor and parked near the elevated walkway that led over the Embarcadero to the shops and restaurants. He got out and wandered into the midnight air. From the far side of the pier, he heard the 24/7 barking of the sea lions who made a home there. The smell of fish wafted in the air.

In the shadows, no more than twenty yards away, Jess waited for him. Her spiky bangs looked longer and messier than usual. She wore a heavy jacket against the wind that emphasized her bulky physique. A cigarette hung from her mouth, as it usually did.

He joined her at the railing. “This is sort of like Deep Throat, isn’t it? A parking garage at midnight?”

“I’ve got spies at my place,” Jess told him through a cloud of smoke. Her apartment building was only a few blocks away on Kearny Street. “I had to lose somebody when I left.”

“You think it’s the press?”

“Maybe. Or maybe Hayden is making sure you and I don’t talk. I’m radioactive. Nobody is supposed to have any contact with me.”

Captain Hayden was the top cop in the major-crimes unit. He was also Jess’s ex-husband, and their marriage hadn’t ended well. The captain had probably heard the rumors about his wife’s short-lived relationship with Frost, but Frost wasn’t sure if Hayden thought the affair had begun before or after their separation. Either way, he and the captain were colleagues but not friends.

“I don’t care about Hayden,” Frost said.

“Well, you should. This isn’t your case. You should stay out of it.”

“I am out of it. Officially, at least. But we’re talking about the man who killed Katie. If Hayden doesn’t like me getting involved, he can fire me, too.”

Jess gave a disgusted little sigh. “Don’t be stupid, Frost. You don’t need to go down in flames like me. This was my mistake. I was wrong to say any of this is your fault. This is on me, not you. I knew what I was doing. I knew there’d be a hell of a price to pay if it ever came out.”

They were silent for a while.

Then Frost said, “They already lost Cutter. The alert came over the radio this evening.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. He and his brother were at a bar. Cutter switched clothes with some guy in the men’s room. By the time the cops following him figured it out, he was long gone.”

“What did Cutter’s brother say?”

“That he has no idea where Rudy went. Which is probably true. He says he told him to leave town and start over somewhere else.”

“You think that’s what Cutter did?” Jess asked.

“No.”

“Me neither,” she agreed. She lowered her voice, even though no one was around to hear them. “Listen, I need to tell you something. After we talked last time, I printed out everything about the investigation from my computer. I copied as much as I could from the murder boxes, too. I didn’t know how long I’d have access to any of it. I know the judge said we have to throw out my research, but if you want it, it’s yours. No one has to know.”

Frost frowned. It was tempting. Jess had built an encyclopedia of information about the Golden Gate Murders over five years, and without her legwork, they had nothing. Even so, the risk was too great.

“If I find something because of notes you give me, people will ask how I got it, and I’ll have to tell them. We’ll be right back where we are now. The judge will toss it. I have to start over.”

Jess shrugged. “Okay. So how can I help?”

“Point me in a direction. Tell me where to start looking.”

“I wish I could,” Jess replied. “I worked this case for years and got nowhere. There was almost no hard evidence. No DNA, no fingerprints, no witnesses. Cutter was too smart. Everything other than the watch was circumstantial. We could place him near some of the vics and crime scenes. That’s all.”

“There must be something else.”

“I’m just saying that you won’t nail him with forensics. If there was something to find, I would have found it. The only way you’ll get Cutter now is if you can tie him directly to the victims.”

He waited for her to explain. Jess finished one cigarette and immediately lit another.

“The thing is, Cutter makes plans,” she went on. “You should have seen the files he wrote up when he was an underwriter. Unbelievable detail. Page after page of analysis about the pros and cons.”

“What am I supposed to take away from that?” Frost asked.

“A methodical guy like Cutter doesn’t pick random women off the street. And it wasn’t sexual. He’s not your typical pervy serial killer. There was no rape, no molestation, on any of them. So why did he pick these particular women as victims? My original theory was that it had something to do with Wren — that he was taking some kind of twisted revenge for his daughter’s murder — but I’m not convinced I was right about that.”

“He met Nina Flores on her twenty-first birthday,” Frost reminded her. “Wren would have turned twenty-one the same year. That seems like more than a coincidence.”

“Maybe, but after Nina, age didn’t seem to be a factor. The other victims had nothing in common with each other or with Wren. We had seven different women, and none of them knew each other. None of them lived near each other. They didn’t share a physical type. I didn’t find any overlap in places they’d gone or people they knew. I couldn’t find any intersection between their lives and Cutter’s life. And yet I knew there had to be a connection that ties these women together. I simply missed what it was.”

“I’m not likely to catch something you didn’t, Jess.”

“Well, you have one advantage,” she replied.

“What’s that?”

“Katie. You know her life backward and forward. If anyone can figure out why Cutter picked her, you can.”

“I didn’t figure it out back then,” Frost said.

“You weren’t a cop back then. And this was my case, not yours.”

Frost knew she was right. That was the worst part of what lay ahead. He was going to have to dive back into Katie’s life. More than that, he was going to have to dive back into Katie’s death, which was something he wished he could forget. He’d been starting to make the tiniest peace with the past, and now it was in his face again.

“I have one more question for you,” he said.

“Sure.”

“Do you know Eden Shay?”

“The writer? Yeah, I know her.”

“She’s doing a book about the Golden Gate Murders. She’s amassed a lot of research, and she offered to share it with me, in case it helps with the investigation.”

“What’s the catch?” Jess asked.

“I have to let her shadow me.”

“Yeah, she approached me a long time ago with the same proposal,” Jess told him. “We had just found Natasha Lubin, the third victim. Shay wanted to ‘embed’ with me. Be a silent observer of the whole investigation. A fly on the wall. In return, she’d give me copies of her research and interviews.”

“What did you say?”

“I said no. I didn’t need a writer slowing me down or second-guessing me. Besides, she was a crime victim herself, and victims usually bring baggage and agendas. Of course, in retrospect, maybe I should have agreed. She might have spotted something that I missed.”

“Do you think I should do a deal with her?” Frost asked.

“That depends. If you do this, she’ll make your whole life an open book. You may not like what she writes.”

“I know that.”

“Well, if you’re prepared for what it means, then go for it. She may be able to help you more than I can.”

“Thanks.”

A sarcastic smile played across Jess’s lips. “By the way, I’ve seen what Eden Shay looks like. Remember, Frost, the term is ‘embed.’ Not ‘in bed.’”

Jess walked alone on Kearny Street from the Embarcadero, leaving the bay and the piers behind her. She kept her head down into the wind and used an impatient stride. Her hands were buried in the pockets of her heavy coat. It was after midnight, and she had the neighborhood to herself. Her building was two blocks away, where the street ended at a sharp wooded cliff below Chestnut Street.

When she reached the park next to her building, she stopped for a last cigarette. The park was a square of green space, with leafy trees quaking in the wind and neatly trimmed hedges crowding the sides of the adjacent buildings. She stood on the sidewalk, not hurrying. Moments of freedom like this were going to disappear for her soon, and she needed to savor them. Everything was about to change in her life. The DA would be coming after her.

She pinched the cigarette between her fingers and exhaled through pursed lips. The smoke vanished into the gloom of the park. It was a strangely dark night. Too dark, in fact. Four lampposts typically glowed in the square, but tonight the park wasn’t lit at all, which aroused her suspicions. She ground out her cigarette, put her hands back in her pockets, and wandered toward the nearest park light.

Broken fragments of white glass littered the sidewalk. The dome had been shattered.

She knew what that meant, because she’d been expecting it. He was here. And he was hunting her.

Jess made a slow, cautious circle. She heard something nearby. Breathing. A footstep. Or maybe the wind was playing a game with her brain. She followed the hedgerow beside her building, looking behind her with every step. She traced the entire square and then made her way into the center of the muddy grass. Her eyes adjusted, and she could see into the shadows. The trees loomed in front of her, with wide, empty arms and thick trunks. She could smell the remnants of her own cigarette.

Something rustled in the bushes behind her, and Jess spun around. A small animal streaked across the square, making her jump. It was a rabbit. She laughed at herself and realized that her nerves were frayed. She was alone in the park. The broken lights were the work of kids.

Jess turned around again.

Rudy Cutter stood in front of her.

A gasp of surprise spilled from her lips, but she was ready for him. Her hand slashed from the deep pocket of her coat, and in an instant, she jumped forward with an eight-inch kitchen knife at the end of her arm, the tip of the blade poised near the bulge in Cutter’s throat.

“Do you think I didn’t figure you’d come for me?” Jess hissed.

Calmly, he put up his hands, palms outward, and took a step backward from her. “Easy,” he said.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to get at me, Cutter. I’ll cut your throat and not think twice about it.”

His face was as dead as a zombie’s in the darkness. His eyes receded into his skull, and his mouth was a grim line. “No, I don’t think you will. That’s not who you are.”

“Yeah? Don’t test me.”

“If you wanted to kill me, I’d already be on the ground,” Cutter said.

Jess didn’t lower the knife. “So what do you want? To gloat about beating me?”

“Actually, I feel bad for you, Jess. You’ve lost your job. You’ll probably be heading to prison. Trust me, you won’t like it there. Was it really worth it?”

“Yes, it was,” Jess said.

Cutter shrugged. “And yet here I am. Right back where we started. I’m free again.”

“We got four years with you nowhere near a woman.”

“At the price of your whole life,” Cutter said.

“I don’t care.”

“You must be disappointed in Frost Easton. He could have saved you, and he didn’t.”

“Frost does what’s right, even when he’s wrong.”

“So I hear. That’s why I picked him.”

“Watch out for Frost. He’s a better cop than me.”

“Really?”

“That’s right. You’re smart, but he’s smarter.”

“Then this should be interesting. Will he cheat like you did to win?”

“I hope you don’t expect me to apologize for not playing by the rules.”

“I don’t. The question is how far you’re willing to go to stop me.”

Cutter stepped closer again. His hands were still in the air, and she still had the knife poised at the end of her fingers. He bent down until the point of the blade pushed into the cartilage of his own windpipe. Any harder, and blood would flow. His black eyes locked with hers across the darkness.

“Do it,” he whispered. “You said you wouldn’t even think twice.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, here I am, Jess. Kill me. This will be your only chance.”

She felt sweat on her palm, and she was dizzy. Each of the faces of the seven victims flashed in her brain, echoing what he said: Do it. If he stayed free, there would be more bodies. All she had to do was jab the knife, thrust and rip. Sever his throat, watch him slowly succumb to death, exactly as he’d done to so many others. She didn’t care about the consequences for herself.

Do it.

Instead, Jess drew back the knife and secured it in her pocket again.

She’d finally found one line that she couldn’t cross.

Cutter didn’t say a word, but she felt his smug satisfaction, as if he knew her better than she knew herself. Even giving her the chance to kill him, he knew she wouldn’t take it. Just like he must have known that Frost would never throw that watch off the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Good-bye for now, Jess.”

Cutter backed away from her until he was at the fringe of the park. Then he turned without a word and melted into the night.