Vicious

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

He glanced out the kitchen window toward the bay. He watched his kayak rocking and banging against the side of the dock—though the blue-grey water didn’t look all that choppy. There were only a few whitecapped ripples on its surface. And it was strange how the little, hollow boat made such a loud clamor against the dock pilings.

But Jordan didn’t really question it. Nor did he question that he was sitting at the dinette table in the Spice Rack–wallpapered kitchen in the cabin—and yet his view of the bay was from the sunroom in the old house on Birch Way.

“Drink up, kiddo,” his mother said, setting a tumbler of orange juice in front of him. She wore a cardigan sweater over her nightgown. She didn’t seem to notice the loud banging outside.

Jordan started to drink the orange juice, but then something clicked against his teeth, and to his horror, he saw shards of glass floating in the juice. He set the tumbler down and pushed it away—toward a wire cage on one corner of the dinette table. Inside the cage was a grey rabbit with pink eyes. It was trembling.

“You’re going to have to kill him,” he heard his mother say—over the constant banging.

Jordan leaned closer to the cage. The nervous little rabbit turned toward him, and its face morphed until it resembled some kind of mutant rat. The thing hissed and bared a mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. It leapt toward him, crashing into the cage’s thin bars.

Jordan suddenly bolted up in bed, gasping.

He heard another loud crash. It seemed to come from downstairs or outside. In a stupor, Jordan glanced around and realized he was in the master bedroom at the cabin. The digital clock on the nightstand read 7:39 PM. He’d been asleep for nearly an hour.

Jordan tried to move, but his limbs felt so heavy. He patted his pockets, but his car keys weren’t there. He vaguely remembered Leo taking them. His friend had walked off with the gun, too.

“Damn it, Leo,” Jordan muttered.

He was pretty sure Leo must have slipped something into his Vitaminwater. He’d gotten awfully punchy and sluggish immediately after drinking it. Jordan had spent enough time medicated in his younger days to know when he had some kind of drug in his system. Back at the Patrick-Hannah Clinic, the sleep aids they gave him usually knocked him out, but he’d always be wide awake an hour or two later.

The stuff Leo had slipped into his drink must have been pretty potent, because Jordan felt a bit woozy as he sat up.

He guessed his friend had gone to Rosie’s to phone the police.

There was another loud crack. Jordan could tell the sound came from the basement.

He sat in a stupor for a few moments. He had to do something—go downstairs and maybe even hit Meeker over the head to knock him out again. It sounded like Meeker was breaking up the worktable. There were plenty of tools down in the cellar the scumbag could use as a weapon once he freed himself. Overpowering him wouldn’t be easy—especially since Leo had taken the gun, damn it. Jordan contemplated making himself throw up—so he’d get the rest of the sedative out of his system.

His limbs still ached, and his head felt like a big wad of chewing gum. He wasn’t sure he could even make it to the bathroom without collapsing. But he had to try. He couldn’t just sit here and allow Mama’s Boy to escape.

He couldn’t let that thing get out of its cage.

His lungs were burning, and cold sweat flew off his forehead. Leo was exhausted and scared, but he kept running along the shoulder of the snaky road. Every time he came around another curve, he prayed he’d see the lights from the store up ahead. But all he saw was darkness and the shadows of trees looming over both sides of the winding highway.

He couldn’t believe that stupid woman had left him stranded on the roadside. Then again, he couldn’t really blame her. After all, he’d made her crash her car, and he probably sounded like a total nutcase—explaining how he and Jordan were holding her fiancé prisoner. Hell, he was lucky she didn’t back up and mow him down.

What she’d said about Moira baffled and worried him. Why had she asked if they’d tied up Moira in the basement, too? And what was that about an e-mail with Moira’s photo? He had a feeling Moira was no longer lost in those woods and that something far more terrible had happened to her.

The more he wondered about it, the faster Leo sprinted along the roadside. It seemed he’d been running forever. He thought for certain he would have reached that store by now.

It had been almost an hour since he’d left Jordan asleep in the house—with that man who could be a murderer. Even if the guy was tied up and locked in the basement, Leo couldn’t help worrying. He also wondered if he’d given his buddy too many pills. Would the police have to pump Jordan’s stomach when they got to the cabin—or would they be too late by then?

Up ahead, Leo saw a pinpoint of light on the bleak, dark horizon. He thought it might be the store in the distance. But then the light disappeared. He pushed on, though his throat was dry and his chest hurt.

Then he saw the light again, peeking through the trees, closer now. Leo realized it was a pair of headlights. The vehicle came around a curve in the road, and the twin lights became brighter.

Leo slowed down and waved his arms over his head. He told himself not to run in front of the car like an idiot. Please, please, stop, he prayed.

Directly above those approaching headlights, a red strobe went on. It was a cop car. Its siren briefly wailed as the vehicle veered onto the shoulder. Leo heard gravel crunching under the tires as he staggered forward a few more paces. The squad car stopped directly in front of him.

Leo let his arms drop to his sides, and he managed to smile and nod at the patrolman. He couldn’t quite get his breath yet. His vision was a little blurred, but he could see the cop stepping out of the driver’s side. “Thank you!” he managed to gasp. “Thank you for stopping!”

“So what’s going on here, hotshot?” the cop asked, swaggering toward him.

Leo recognized the deputy. “I was—I was trying to get to the store to call you guys,” he explained. It hurt to talk because his throat was so dry. He still couldn’t get his breath. He leaned forward and put his hands on his knees. “My car got a flat a few miles back. Listen, I wanted to—I wanted to tell you earlier when you came by the house, but I couldn’t….”

“Tell me what?” the deputy asked.

At last, Leo got a few good breaths. “My friend Jordan and I—we have that guy you were looking for. He’s tied up in the basement of the cabin.” Hands still on his knees, he glanced up at the cop to see his reaction.

Stone-faced, the deputy stared back at him and said nothing.

“Jordan thinks he’s the one who killed his mother,” Leo said, straightening up. “And I have to tell you, I think he’s right.” Leo took a few more breaths. He explained to the cop everything he’d just told Susan Blanchette a few minutes ago. He said how he didn’t want anyone to get hurt, so he’d drugged his friend. “Jordan conked out pretty quickly,” he said. “I was just so worried he’d use that gun. Anyway, I put him to bed upstairs. In fact, I’m wondering if maybe I gave him too many pills….”

“What about the gun?” the deputy asked.

“I hid it,” Leo said. “That was almost an hour ago. I—”

“So let me get this straight,” the cop interrupted. “You have Allen Meeker bound and gagged in the basement of the cabin, and your friend’s upstairs—unconscious and unarmed.”

Leo nodded. “I wanted to make sure when the police arrive there, nobody gets hurt.”

The deputy cracked a tiny smile. “Well, you did a good job, kid. You’ve made it really easy for me.”

Leo smiled back at him, then leaned forward and set his hands on his knees once again. He drew a few more breaths—and started to feel normal.

“What did you say your name was?” the cop asked.

“Leo,” he said, still bent over.

“Well, thanks a bunch, Leo,” he heard the cop say.

Leo looked up in time to see the cop reaching for his nightstick.

“What are you doing?” Leo asked. “Wait—”

But he didn’t get another word out.

After that, everything turned dark again.

She saw the turnoff for Cedar Crest Way up ahead.

Susan squirmed restlessly behind the wheel. Something in the car had been rattling ever since she’d plowed into that tree. But all her dashboard indicator lights—fuel, battery, and temperature—looked okay, and she didn’t see any smoke wafting from under the hood, so she tried to ignore the rattling noise. Similarly, she’d been trying to ignore the notion that Jordan’s friend had been on the level with her a few miles back.

She’d passed his abandoned car—with its emergency flashers going—on the shoulder of the road a few minutes ago.

Part of her still felt horrible for leaving him stranded. But it would have been incredibly foolish to give him a ride. How could she trust him? He’d admitted he and his friend had abducted Allen. What was to keep him from attacking her?

He’d said Allen was tied up in the basement, and Jordan was asleep. She might have turned around and gone back to Rosie’s and phoned the police once more. But why—so she could talk to the operator again? And she was no longer sure how reliable the deputy was. She had to see for herself if Allen was really at that cabin.

Susan switched off her headlights as she turned into the driveway. Then she slowed down to a crawl. White-knuckled, she clutched the steering wheel and kept looking for a little break in the trees and bushes on either side of the drive. Up ahead, she could see the cabin. There weren’t any other cars in the driveway.

Susan noticed a clearing on her right. She veered off the drive and wound around some bushes and trees until she figured the car couldn’t be seen from the driveway. The motor made a weird wheezing sound as she switched off the ignition. She hoped it wasn’t an indication that the car might not restart.

Fishing the pellet gun from her sweater pocket, Susan climbed out of the car and quietly closed the door behind her. She glanced at the front of her Toyota—and the dented bumper. The license plate was mangled and precariously hanging to one side. Otherwise, the car really didn’t look too bad. Jordan’s friend had been telling the truth about that.

She shivered in the cold night air. Clutching together the front of her cardigan, she crept to the edge of the wooded area lining the driveway. She studied the quaint, two-story brown-shingle cabin. A light shone in the second floor window—and it looked like some outside lights were on in the backyard, too. One side of the house stood in the shadow of a towering elm tree. Some tall, wild bushes nestled against the other side. Their branches swayed in the breeze. Susan noticed a light in the basement window behind those shrubs.

She wondered if it was true. Was Allen really tied up in that cellar? Could it be that all this time he’d been their prisoner? Meanwhile, she’d convinced herself that he’d had a secret, sordid agenda for this trip, that he was devious and untrustworthy. She’d even let herself get interested in another man—a stranger, practically. What the hell was wrong with her?

Susan imagined how awful the last few hours had been for him, held captive by two teenagers—maybe three, if the girl was in on it. And one of those teens suffered under the insane delusion that Allen had killed his mother. Susan remembered what Tom had said—how Jordan had actually hurt one of those innocent men he’d attacked, and he’d only been a little boy at the time. Jordan’s friend had mentioned they’d tried to get a confession from Allen. He hadn’t explained exactly how they’d gone about that.

All at once, a loud crash came from inside the Prewitt cabin. It gave her a start.

Susan looked for some movement inside the house, but saw nothing.

Weaving around trees and shrubs, she silently made her way toward the side yard. She raced across the driveway, hoping no one spotted her for those few fleeting moments she was out in the open. But she stumbled across something on the gravel. It rolled across the driveway and clattered against a rock. Susan quickly regained her footing and ducked amid the bushes alongside the house. Catching her breath, she reached for the metal object she’d kicked. It looked like the head of a rake—with thick pointed prongs.

Jordan’s friend had said he’d gotten a flat. Had he run over this thing with his car?

Another loud crack reverberated from inside the house.

Susan dropped the hunk of metal and crawled toward the basement window.

“My God,” she murmured. Past the dirt-streaked pane, she spotted Allen in the cellar. He was shirtless, and his trousers were all torn. Sweaty and panting, he looked like a wild man. He held a hammer in his hands. A rope hung from his wrists, which were bound with duct tape. The same tape had been wound around his ankles. One ankle had a splintered piece of wood still taped to it. It looked like he’d smashed up a table. The wood pieces were scattered around him. Allen kicked aside the tabletop and reached for something on the floor.

Susan was about to knock on the window, but she heard a car approaching. She turned and saw the headlight beams sweep across the trees bordering the driveway. She retreated from the window and hid behind a shrub. Then the headlights suddenly went out. But she could still hear the motor running. It sounded like the car had stopped halfway down the driveway. Had someone discovered where she’d hidden her car?

Susan scurried out from the shadowy bushes and darted behind one tree, and then another. Finally, she dashed into the wooded area by the drive. Catching her breath, she tried to get a glimpse of the car that had stopped just short of the Prewitts’ driveway. She couldn’t see it through the bushes and trees. But she heard a voice on a static-laced radio. Susan couldn’t make out what the woman was saying, though it sounded like the police operator.

Then she heard Deputy Shaffer talking in a whisper: “Well, hell, Nancy, I don’t know anything about that. Ms. Blanchette never said anything to me about a missing teenage girl. She must be confused. If you ask me, that woman is N-U-T-Z, nuts. She’s got me running around in circles looking for her missing fiancé. I tell ya, these damn tourists are going to be the death of me….”

Susan hid behind a tree and tried to fathom what she was hearing.

Now she understood why the police operator didn’t know anything about the girl. It all started to make sense in a weird, frightening way. Earlier, when she’d heard Shaffer on his police radio reporting a possible kidnapping or hostage situation, he must have faked the call. Susan hadn’t heard any response when he’d made that second radio report.

She listened to the static-marred reply from the operator now. The woman said something about Rosie’s store. Susan couldn’t make out the rest of it.

“Well, I’m way out here by the winery,” the deputy lied. “I was chasing down a potential DUI, but the guy got away. So call Rosie’s and tell Ms. Blanchette I can meet her at the house at Birch Way in about forty-five minutes. That’s the soonest I can get out there, okay? Let’s keep her happy, and tell her I’m looking into this thing with the teenage girl. We’ll figure out what she’s talking about later. Okay?”

There was a garbled response on the other end. But Shaffer must have understood it, because he chuckled a bit and then said, “No kidding, over and out.”

From the wooded area, Susan watched the patrol car—with its lights still off—slowly round a curve in the driveway. She threaded through the trees and bushes and followed the vehicle toward the front of the cabin.

Shaffer shut off his motor and then climbed out from behind the wheel. The car’s interior light went on, and from what Susan could tell, nobody was in the backseat. He must not have run into Jordan’s friend on Carroll Creek Road; otherwise, he would have picked him up.

Shaffer wasn’t wearing his police hat, and the front of his uniform shirt hung over his pants. He looked as if he’d recently been in a tussle or something. Pausing outside his patrol car, he tucked in his shirt and smoothed back his short blond hair. He took out his gun and crept toward the front door.

A hammering noise erupted from the basement.

Stopping in his tracks, Shaffer glanced over toward the side of the house. He seemed to notice the light in the basement window. He skulked along the side of the house, then bent down and peered into the window.

The pounding from inside the house continued. Shaffer gazed into the basement for another minute. When he finally turned away from the window, Susan saw he was grinning.

He moved over to the front door and tried the knob. He put an ear to the door and then shoved the gun back in his holster. From a side pocket of his trousers, he took out something that looked like a ruler. He slid it in the door hinge a few times and then quietly opened the door. Putting the rulerlike device away, Shaffer took out his gun and stepped inside the cabin.

Susan sprinted across the driveway to the bushes at the side of the house. She crawled back to the basement window.

The pounding noise had been replaced by a creaking, splintering sound. She couldn’t see Allen in the basement anymore. She had to put her face close to the ground before she finally saw him near the top of the rickety-looking cellar stairway. He had a crowbar in his hands. He must have found a knife or some shears to cut the duct tape because his hands were free now. She guessed he’d also found some clothes in the basement, as he now wore a too-tight white T-shirt and white painter pants. With the crowbar, Allen alternated between hammering at the door and trying to pry it open. She couldn’t see his face, but she heard him cursing.

Susan gently tapped on the window, trying to get his attention. But he obviously couldn’t hear her past all of the racket he was making. She wasn’t sure about Shaffer’s intentions. Whatever they were, the guy couldn’t be trusted, and she had to warn Allen. She knocked on the glass again.

Then directly above her, a light went on in the living room window. Susan ducked and rolled against the side of the house. Sweeping across the bushes was the shadow of someone in the living room. He was at the window, looking out.

Lying on the cold, damp ground, Susan pressed against the side of the house. She held her breath—until finally, that figure moved away.

From the basement she could hear wood splintering. Susan scooted over and peeked down into the cellar again. But she didn’t see Allen anywhere.

Getting to her feet, she glanced over the ledge of the living room window. The deputy stood in the front hallway with his gun drawn. Then Allen staggered out of what looked like the kitchen area. He saw the deputy and stopped dead.

The deputy smiled at him. “Hello, Mama’s Boy,” he said. “We meet at last.”

Gasping for air, Allen looked exhausted and stunned. “So—the kid called you, huh?” Slump-shouldered, he leaned against the newel post at the bottom of the stairs. “Well, they’re both crazy. I’m no serial killer. I came here with my fiancée and her son for the weekend. These two teenagers, they’ve had me tied up in the basement here for—”

“Shut up,” Shaffer said firmly. He shook his head. “No one called me.”

Allen stopped talking. Susan could see he was still breathing heavily.

“You have to take my word for it, Allen,” the cop said. “When I made you come here, I didn’t think this was going to happen.”

Allen stared at him. “You? My God,” he whispered. “You’re the one who’s been sending me all those e-mails and letters….”

The deputy nodded. “That’s right, Mama’s Boy. I’m your number-one fan.”

Clutching a fireplace poker in his fist, Jordan stood in the bedroom doorway and listened to the two men. He still had an awful taste in his mouth from forcing himself to throw up ten minutes before. His throat felt raw, too. He’d swallowed down some cold water and gargled with Listerine, but it just hadn’t done the trick. He’d been in the bathroom when he’d heard the car pull up outside.

He’d figured Meeker must not have heard. The son of a bitch had been too busy wrecking the basement or whatever the hell he’d been doing. Jordan had grabbed a poker from the fireplace set and been about to go downstairs when he’d heard the car. He’d gone to the window and seen the cop doing something odd. The guy had snuck up to the house with his gun drawn, and then he’d let himself in. Jordan held on to the poker and waited in the bedroom. He’d been tired and punchy before, but he was wide awake now.

“You know, I thought you were dead,” the deputy was saying. “Earlier today, I ran into Jordan Prewitt at the abandoned chemical plant off Coupland Ridge Trail. I went back an hour ago and figured he must have sunk that sweet little BMW of yours into a swamp. I thought maybe you were in the trunk.”

“Was that your plan?” Meeker asked edgily. “Is that why you wanted me to come here to Cullen? Did you set something up with that lunatic and his friend?”

Jordan tightened his grip on the poker. He was starting to shake.

“Hey, I already told you, Allen. I didn’t expect anything like this to happen. See, I’ve always wanted to get you to come back here. And well, I’ve been banging a woman at Orcas Property Realtors, which gives me a chance to check out who’s leasing the different properties and where there are rental openings. I’m always on the lookout for a woman vacationing here by herself. Anyway, I knew Jordan Prewitt would be staying here this weekend, and I knew his old house on the bay was available. I thought it might liven things up if you were here the same time as him—and in the same house where you abducted his mother. Honest to Pete, I had no idea you’d actually run into him, and he’d remember you….”

“Listen, we don’t have much time,” Meeker interrupted. “The skinny one, Leo, he drugged his pal. I think he might have dumped him in the car. They’re headed off to the store to call the state police. They left about an hour ago. We can’t stay here.”

“Relax, we have plenty of time,” the cop said.

Jordan strained to hear as Meeker’s voice dropped to a whisper: “What the hell do you want from me?”

“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” the deputy said. “I want to work with you, Allen. I saw you kill her. I was living here when you helped put Cullen on the map. I was seventeen years old, perpetually horny, bored, and tired of just killing dogs and torturing cats for a cheap thrill.” He chuckled. “You know what I mean. You know what that’s like. I had a little crush on Stella. I used to sneak up to the house on Birch and watch her undress at night. Then one evening in August, while she was here with her kid, I realized I wasn’t alone outside. I was already a big fan of your work, Allen. But I had no idea I was in the company of the maestro. I still didn’t know the next day—when I watched you from the woods by the house. It was like I had a front-row seat to your performance. You showed up in the backyard, knocked her out, and carried her away. I can still hear little Jordan screaming and crying. It was beautiful. That’s when I knew who you were….”

His back against the bedroom wall, Jordan couldn’t stop shaking. A tear slid down his cheek.

“I thought for sure you might have noticed my old, beat-up Ford following you and Stella,” the deputy continued. “I followed you all the way to your dumpy little shack in North Seattle. It served you well for a while—isolated as it was. There was no one around to hear the women screaming. I saw you take Stella in there. And the next day, I saw you deposit her naked body in the woods by her house on Birch Way. I could have turned you in, but I didn’t. That’s when I became your number-one fan, Allen.”

“And that’s when the letters and e-mails started,” Meeker muttered.

Jordan could barely hear him. But it was the confirmation he needed. Meeker was admitting it. He was Mama’s Boy.

“Didn’t slow you down any, and I’m glad,” Shaffer said. “I’d like to think it kind of excited you to know someone else was in on it. I used to take weekend trips down to Seattle and sleep in my car. I’d check out your house at night. I missed a couple of murders. But seven months after Stella, I saw you take Rhoda Mundy out of the trunk of your car and then carry her into that house, Allen. She was a real step down from Stella, though. In fact, from her photo in the newspapers, I’d say she was kind of a skank. You must have thought so, too, because just six hours later, you were carrying her in a Hefty back to the trunk of your car. Something about her must have gotten under your skin, because one of the newspapers reported that you’d beaten her so badly, it looked like she’d been trampled by a horse. I don’t know how they figured it out, but they said it appeared as if she’d been strangled up to a point and revived several times—until you finished her off. I wish I’d seen that. But you were always so careful about closing the shades. Was that repeated-strangulation thing something you did with any of the others? I imagine it was like watching them die several times….”

Jordan heard Meeker mutter something, but he couldn’t make out the words. It tore him up inside to imagine that might have happened to his mother.

“Were my letters the reason you moved in 2000—after you killed that woman with the twins?” Shaffer asked. There was a hint of melancholy in the deputy’s tone.

“Partly,” Meeker replied.

“That wasn’t what I wanted,” Shaffer said. “I just wanted to be in on it, Allen, be a part of it. I didn’t mean for you to move away. Hell, you’re the reason I became a cop. I realized it gave me access to all sorts of things that helped me keep track of you. When those women were killed down in Oakland, I knew it was you. I knew exactly where you were living at the time. Then there were the murders in Fairfax and Alexandria in 2003. I’ve visited all the spots where you’ve abducted woman—and the places where you deposited their bodies when you were finished with them. I know you and your work better than anyone else. You may have tried to go straight and set up house with Susan and her kid. But I wasn’t buying that cover. Maybe you figured you’d lose me if you laid low for a while. But I never lost track of where you were, Allen…never.”

Jordan didn’t move for fear they’d hear the floorboards creaking. He kept his back to the bedroom wall. But he could see the clock on the nightstand: 8:09 PM. Leo had been gone for over an hour. It only took ten minutes to drive to Rosie’s from here. Why had Deputy Shaffer been so confident that they had plenty of time? Had he spotted Leo on his way to Rosie’s and pulled him over?

Jordan imagined his Honda Civic parked along a dirt trail off Carroll Creek Road, a birthday cake in the backseat, and behind the wheel, Leo with a bullet in his head. Jordan prayed it wasn’t true. He felt sick to his stomach again.

For the last several hours, he’d desperately wanted some kind of confirmation that Allen Meeker was indeed Mama’s Boy. Now he had it—thanks to Deputy Shaffer. But the person downstairs confronting Meeker wasn’t an accuser.

He was an admirer.

And it sounded like he planned on helping this mother-killer get away.