I'm Watching You (29 page)

She fisted her fingers. "Leave my mother
alone!"

Her father grabbed her and twisted her arm so
hard she felt flesh and bone tear and break. She dropped to her knees. Anger
collided with a deep feeling of helplessness that seared her soul.

Lindsay awoke with a start. Her body was covered in sweat and she could
barely breathe. She glanced around the dark room trying to get her bearings.
For several seconds she didn't know where she was. And then she saw the
sewing machine in the corner, the flowered wallpaper, and the chair with her
purse slung across it. She was at the Kiers' house.

"I can't hide. I've got to get out of here."

Zack walked into Warwick's office just after seven. Warwick gently
set the telephone down in its cradle. He wore a deep, pensive frown.

"What's happening?" Zack asked.

"That was a Detective Rio from the San Francisco Police
Department. I was returning a call in response to a teletype he sent me late
last night."

"About?"

"Your wife."

Zack tensed. "What does San Francisco PD have to do with
Lindsay?"

"Rio is investigating the death of a Claire Carmichael. She was
killed two days ago in San Francisco. She owned a New Age bookstore. The murder
was grisly and the killer burned her place to the ground."

"I don't see the connection."

"Claire placed a phone call from her store to Lindsay the night
she was murdered. The call was logged in at eleven
P.M
.
pacific coast time, or two
A.M
. eastern
standard."

Zack's mind turned. "Lindsay knows a lot of women in
high-risk relationships."

"Claire wasn't involved with anyone. And witnesses report
that she closed her shop early on Tuesday.
Around lunch.
Friends say Claire never closed early. And she also volunteered at a local
women's shelter from time to time."

Zack's stomach clenched. "Richard Braxton is from San
Francisco."

"Yeah."

Warwick's phone rang and he snapped up the receiver. Immediately
he cradled the phone under his chin and started to write notes on a pad.
"We'll be right there. And keep a tight clamp on the entire area. I
don't want the media to even get a whiff of this."

"What is it?"

Warwick hung up and grabbed his coat off the back of his chair.
"Marcus Greenland's body was found in Deep Run Park. He was at the
top of that list Lindsay reviewed with C.C. He's one violent SOB."

"Lindsay was at my folks' place last night."

"There's no pinning this one on her."

"Why?"

"Two teenagers came upon the killer as he was dumping the body. He
shot them both."

Zack felt sick. Damn it. "How are they?"

"One is dead and the other is in critical condition at Mercy
Hospital. He's the one who called in the shooting from his cell
phone."

"Can he give us a description?"

Warwick shook his head. "He's in surgery right now.
It'll be a couple of hours."

Tension tightened the muscles in Zack's back. "I'll
drive us to the park."

"Fine."

Zack tried to call Lindsay several times on her cell but she
didn't pick up. He called his parents' house and got Eleanor, who
told him Lindsay had just left in a cab. "Damn it. Can't the woman
listen just once?" he muttered.

He covered the ten-plus miles to Deep Run Park in rush-hour traffic in
less than twenty minutes. He wove in and out of traffic, one hand on the
steering wheel and a cell under his ear as he called Ayden.

He pulled into the park entrance and rolled down the hill to the back
parking lot near the soccer fields, where ten police cruisers were parked.

Zack got out of the car. He shrugged off his jacket and tossed it on the
front seat. Rolling up his sleeves, he moved toward Sara, who was squatting by
Greenland's body as she photographed it. She stood and moved to the edge
of the yellow crime scene tape.

Sara looked pale and grim. Any death involving a kid shook everyone to
the core. She pulled rubber gloves and booties from the pocket of her white
jumpsuit and handed them to Zack and Warwick. They put them on and ducked under
the yellow tape.

Zack yanked off his sunglasses and squatted by Greenland's body.
Greenland's dark skin had turned a pasty gray and his lips blue. His eyes
were half open. The tarp had been partially removed and he could see that
Greenland's right hand had been chopped off.

"He didn't finish his job," Zack said.

"The boys interrupted him." Warwick muttered an oath as he
glanced at the covered body of the teenager. "Sara, did he leave anything
else behind?"

Sara pointed to an orange flag sticking from the ground. "A
forty-five shell casing. And I found traces of blood on the tip of a stick the
dead boy was holding. I've already bagged it and sent it to the
lab."

Zack rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. "Let's hope
he's in our DNA database."

"Any sign of the hand?" Zack said.

"None."

Zack glanced at Warwick. "The last two hands were delivered to
Lindsay. We need to find her."

Warwick nodded.
"Right."

Dressed in yoga pants and a tank top, Kendall had been up half the night
listening to the police scanners. There'd been nothing out of the
ordinary. The piece she'd done on the killer had been priceless. The fact
that he was mutilating his victims and sending the hands to Lindsay was more
than she could have hoped for.

She'd received five times the usual number of e-mails from
viewers. But there'd been no response from the killer or the network
producers to whom she'd overnighted tapes.

Exhausted and hungry, she'd reached her limit of listening to the
routine police calls: loud music,
drunk
teenagers, an
overdose in a convenience store parking lot, and a speeder on the interstate.

She rose from the varnished kitchen table and opened the refrigerator.
Eggs, a half carton of
milk,
and a salad left over
from the salad bar at the grocery store. When she'd been a kid, her
mother had kept this refrigerator stocked.

Crap.
She needed to get out of this house and start
fresh away from Richmond.

She set a pan on the stove, clicked the burner dial to medium high, and
cracked a couple of eggs in the pan.
Eat first and then
catch an hour or two of sleep.
She and Mike needed to be at the station
by noon.

"Dispatch, this is 8021."

Kendall was only half listening now. "Dispatch, over."

"Dispatch, the mutilated body found in Deep Run Park--"

"8021, Homicide has requested this communication be handled on a
secure channel. Switch to..."

"Shit." Kendall's mind reeled.
Mutilated
body.
The eighties were the western end of the county, which was near
her and the shelter. She ran to the avocado green wall phone and dialed her
cameraman's phone number.

On the fourth ring, a gravelly voice heavy with sleep answered.
"What?"

"How soon can you pick me up?" She paced the kitchen,
frustrated that a phone cord tethered her to the wall.

"Kendall?" He swore. "Why?"

"Body at Deep Run Park.
I think it's our guy."

He cleared his throat. "Give me twenty minutes."

"Make it fifteen and I'll be out front waiting."

"Right."

Fourteen minutes later, she stood outside, briefcase in hand. She
didn't have the time to shower, so she'd swept her hair up with a
French twist comb, quickly applied her makeup, and slipped on a simple blue
sheath and heeled sandals.

"So where we going?"
Mike said when he pulled up. Thick
stubble covered his square jaw, and his thinning shoulder-length black hair was
loosely bound at the nape of his neck. His Hawaiian shirt flapped in the air
from the AC vent.

She flipped through her notes.
"To Lindsay
O'Neil's house."

Mike sipped the last of yesterday's Big Gulp as he put the van in
reverse and backed out of the driveway. The faint smell of cigarette smoke hung
in the air. "I thought the body was at some park. I know the other news teams
will be there."

"And I know the cops are going to have the area locked up
tight."

"So why Lindsay's again?"

"Because after the last two murders,
there was a disturbance just a few hours later near Lindsay.
If our friend Steve is correct, the
killer is sending hands to Lindsay. My guess is, the killer is going to send
her something now and I want to be there when he does."

"Why send her a hand?"

"Who knows? Who cares really? He's like a cat that dumps a
mouse at its master's feet."

He considered what she'd said. "The killer thinks of Lindsay
as his master?"

"Maybe.
Or maybe he's fixated on her. Whatever
his motivations, we've got three murders now. Richmond has a serial
killer." She tapped her foot. "If I could find a way to draw this
guy out, I could write my own ticket."

Mike looked at Kendall as if she'd lost her mind. "You want
to draw out a serial killer."

"I sure do."

"How are you going to do that?"

"Go after Lindsay. If I can make her miserable enough, hound her
with the cameras, I'm willing to bet our guy gets pissed and shows
himself
."

"Or he just kills you."

The thought didn't frighten her enough to change her mind.
"I'll be fine."

This story was going to take her places. She dug her cell out of her
purse and punched in her news director's number. She relayed the
information and told him to call the network. This was the stuff of national
news.

Mike drove by Lindsay's town house. "I don't see her
Jeep."

"Park the van down the street out of sight."

"And?"

"Get your camera and come with me. We'll wait out of sight.
Five'll get you ten the fireworks explode sooner than later."

Lindsay wasn't going to hide anymore, from anyone. She needed to
reclaim her home, her life, and she needed to prove that she was in control.

It had been easy to be brave on the cab ride over. But now as she stood
alone and stared at the yellow crime scene tape by her front door, she found
herself searching the bushes and the surrounding terrain. He could be out there
watching her.

No one lurked nearby and there were no grisly packages waiting for her.
And still her nerves danced with tension. She had hoped the worry that had kept
her up most of the night would vanish once she was back at her own place. But
it didn't.

Digging her keys out of her purse, she moved up the sidewalk, careful to
step around the spot where she'd dropped the bloody hand wrapped in the
newspaper. Sucking in a breath, she moved toward the front door. As she shoved
her key in the lock, she realized the door wasn't locked.

Immediately, she backed away, leaving her keys to dangle in the lock.
Heart hammering, she dug in her purse for her cell phone.

Her hands trembled as she punched in Zack's cell phone number. Her
front door opened.

Steve, her maintenance man, came out. He was frowning.

Her thumb on the "send" buttons, she paused
.
"Steve, what's going on?"

He held a screwdriver in his hand. "I thought I'd check the
place out for you. After what that creep left you yesterday, I wanted to make
sure your place was secure. And then I figured I'd go ahead and fix your
AC."

She noticed his white van across the street and felt foolish. She closed
her phone and dropped it in her purse. "Oh. Sorry, I'm just a
little on edge."

"Understandable." He smiled. "I was just on my way to
the van to get a different screwdriver."

"Right."
Lindsay waited as he retrieved a
large flathead screwdriver. "What do you think caused the AC to
go?"

He shrugged. "Part blew. Looked like an overload. And the power
outage the other day sure couldn't have helped."

She followed him inside to the living room. The house was quiet and the
drawn shades blocked out almost all of the morning sun. She moved into the
kitchen to brew a pot of coffee. She'd left so early from the
Kiers' that she'd not had any. And now she felt so exhausted. She
needed something to get her moving.

Steve went to the AC utility closet sandwiched between the living room
and the kitchen. "Sorry it's taken me so long to get to
this."

"Believe
me,
I've got bigger
problems than no AC."