SUSPENSE THRILLERS-A Boxed Set (29 page)

"Don’t let the bastard do it," Jack shouted. "I know he’s the one! I know that motherfucker!"

It had been awhile since Sam Bartholomew had participated in a high-speed chase. Before he had driven a mile he knew that they would have been better off with Patty or Jack behind the wheel. Their first mistake had been changing places. Their second had been staying so close to the house during surveillance. He should have known that Nick, a trained reconnaissance man, could pick up a stakeout within ten miles of him.

The taillights far ahead of them blinked out.

"He turned left," Patty yelled.

“He turned right, goddammit!" Jack argued.

Sam grabbed the mike and called for help. Their beeper was emitting a very reduced signal. They would have to call in a helicopter search to pick up the bird-dog signals. With a hundred-mile range, the helicopter crew would not lose Nick altogether, but it might take a long time to narrow down the signal on the city map and know exactly where he was. They had been outmaneuvered.

"Well, I’ll be a horse’s ass," Patty said from the backseat.

Jack was on the edge of the seat, gripping the dashboard to stay in place as the Fury sped along the street.

“He’s going to kill someone." He turned to look at Sam to confirm it. "Isn’t he, Sam? He’s going to kill tonight."

"If he’s the Wireman, he is."

"I fucking knew it, knew it, knew it!" Jack beat on the dashboard before throwing himself back in the seat.

"And the motherfucker got away slick as goose shit," Patty said.

"Not yet," Sam answered, slowing the car, looking down each side street he passed. "He hasn’t gotten away yet."

#

At 10:45 Cal Duncan and Lori Giroux both looked up at the sky over Hermann Park.

"That sucker’s flying low," Cal remarked.

The helicopter swung over the trees and circled back like a toy on a string in a giant’s hand.

"What are they looking for?" Lori asked, craning her neck to follow the copter’s route.

"Who knows what the Spy in the Sky is after? Maybe you, my little sugar dumpling," he teased, grabbing his date and tickling her.

"Oh, Cal, please don’t grab me like that!" She giggled hysterically, broke free. and ran through the trees across soft, wet lawn.

The helicopter zoomed away, its sound finally fading entirely. The two teenagers forgot about it.

Cal, encumbered by the heavy blanket draped over one arm, could not catch up with Lori. He halted, searched the areas around the trees for her shadow.

"Lori, come on out now. I’m going to spread the blanket for us."

He waited impatiently, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. There was no one in the park at this time of night, and if the truth be known, Cal thought the place was a little eerie. The streetlights from nearby streets cast long, skeletal shadows from the trees. Black barbecue pits erupted from the ground in the oddest places, looking like dwarf soldiers in the night. Cement picnic tables shone in the pools of streetlight like marble altars for primitive sacrificial rites.

Cal shivered and adjusted the blanket on his arm where it was putting his wrist to sleep. "Lori? Come on, baby. I don’t wanna play hide-and-seek, okay? I’d rather play something more fun. Wouldn’t you?"

Cal smiled, thinking that would bring her from hiding. After what seemed like hours, the anxious Cal started walking and looking for his girl. The night air was rain-washed clean, and he could smell crushed grass. He heard the distant monotonous drone of the helicopter once again. Cars swished past not far away.

Cal began to worry. Something was not right. "Lori? Lori, honey, this isn’t funny anymore. I’ve got to get you home by midnight and you haven’t even given me a kiss. Lori?"

He walked on, slowing at each tree to peek behind it. She was nowhere. How could she have disappeared?

"All right, that’s enough! If you don’t come out right this minute, I’m going back to the car and leave you here. See how you like that, huh? All alone in this big, empty, scary park?" Cal said sternly.

He thought he heard a movement behind him and turned quickly, relieved Lori had tired of her game. But no one was there. He sighed and turned a full circle, trying to spot a human shadow among all the shadows around him. He had the craziest sensation that some of the shadows were creeping toward him, snaking across the damp grass toward his feet.

"I’m getting outta here, Lori. You better listen to me! I’m going to start counting and when I get to ten, I’m heading for the car. One--two--three..."

He turned and began walking in the direction of the parking lot.

"Four--five--six...Lori!"

He looked behind him, expecting to see her following. No one was in sight.

"Seven--eight--nine..."

Someone stepped from behind a tree ahead, and Cal quickened his pace. At first he thought his eyes were fooling him, that he had been looking for her too hard, and the figure ahead was not as tall or as masculine as it was. "Lori, I’m pissed at you!" he said to the shadow. "Why did you do that--"

Cal stopped. It was not Lori.

"Who are you? Have you seen my girl around here?"

He was several yards away from the man and he could not make out his features in the shadow. A streetlight behind him blocked Cal’s vision.

When the stranger did not answer, Cal turned and called loudly, his voice alarmed. "Lori!"

"She’s over here," the stranger said suddenly. An arm pointed to the tree from where he came. "She’s waiting for you. Lori’s been playing hide-and-seek."

Cal stumbled away from the figure and approached the tree from the other side. "Lori?" He jerked his head to look at the man. "What have you done? You didn’t hurt her, did you?"

He ran the last few feet and clutched the tree with one arm. He looked down.

Lori Giroux lay crumpled on the grass at the base of the tree. Her cheek rested on an exposed root and her cotton blouse was hiked up so that her ribs gleamed in the light.

Cal dropped the blanket and knelt beside her. He lifted Lori into his arms and put a hand to her pale throat.

It was such a shock to find her alive and breathing when he had been convinced she was dead that he began to cry. He looked up at the shadowy man.

"What did you do to her? What do you want?"

"You," Nick Ringer answered. "I want you."

At a disadvantage from the very beginning, Cal Duncan did not have the agility or the cunning to stop his death. Despite his youth and lean, athletic body, there was nothing he could do against the bite of the wire stretched around his throat.

He was wrenched backward and hauled along the grass, kicking and jerking. His fingers dug at the wire imbedded in his neck and with horrible inaccuracy clutched and tore bits of own flesh in his desperation to grab the garrote.

Like an animated puppet he was jerked from the blood-glazed ground once, twice. On the third powerful lurch Cal Duncan surrendered his head to his attacker.

Nick stood, gasping for air, his legs trembling. The two parts of the boy lay at his feet. Blood dripped like black, sticky raindrops from his hands. It had been so hard to kill him, so hard.

The whine of the helicopter neared the park, a shining bird of prey. It swept over the acres of trees and lifted higher toward the west to clear Houston’s skyscrapers.

From out of the shadows a form emerged. It moved silently, wraith-like, to stand before Nick. As if acting on an unspoken command, Nick obediently stretched out his arm and let the garrote be taken from him.

Daley wrapped his lingers around the garrote’s handles and turned from his brother. With precision and ease, Daley decapitated Lori Giroux as she lay on the grass.

FOR MORE THAN AN HOUR Sam Bartholomew had been in communication with the department’s helicopter. Lieutenant Garbo Kranz joined in the search and called for all available backup units.

At eleven-thirty the police were no closer to pinpointing the bird-dog beeper on the Ringers’ Chrysler, but a call came in over the radio that chilled every officer on the streets.

"Double homicide, Hermann Park. All units respond. Repeat..."

Sam was headed down Fondren in the direction of the park. Amid the curses of his companions, and despite the frenzied commands coming from Garbo on the squawk box, Sam was calm.

"He hasn’t gotten away yet," he repeated for the fourth time in five minutes.

"He killed two of them this time!" Jack was exploding like a house full of dynamite. He kept tensing muscles in his jaws as he stared through the windshield. Sam feared what action he might have to take to restrain Jack if they ever caught up with the killer. He knew the younger man was reliving the night they had found Willie in the deserted lot, and he was dangerously close to having a nervous breakdown.

"We can’t jump to conclusions," Sam advised. "The park homicides might be something else."

Sam pulled up next to two patrol cars already on the scene, their bubble lights whirling. One of the uniformed officers had the door of an old Renault open and was looking for the registration papers. Sam did not really expect to see the navy-blue Chrysler, but he was disappointed all the same not to spot it.

“What have you got?" Jack asked the nearest patrolman.

"It was the Wireman," came the answer. "Two kids, teenagers, by the looks of it. Boy and girl, both missing their heads."

Jack swore and turned back to the car.

"Where are you going?" Sam inquired.

"We gotta move. He’s long gone by now. I’m going to check with the chopper."

Sam stayed behind to question the officers. A park security guard had found the bodies on a routine drive-by. He did not see a suspect or any car except the victims’ Renault in the parking lot.

Sam went to the girl’s covered body and lifted her wrist. Her flesh was still warm. The smell of her blood permeated the air.

"He took the heads?" Sam asked the patrolman standing next to him. "You didn’t find them?"

"No, they’re gone. Think we’re going to catch him, Sam?"

"There’s no doubt in my mind." Sam moved away from the girl’s poor dead body.

"Sam, they’ve picked up the beeper!" Jack called.

Sam hurried to the car, motioned for Jack to take the wheel, and took the passenger seat. "Where is he?"

"On the freeway heading out of Houston. He’s about twenty miles ahead of us," Jack replied, starting the car.

"Then we’d better hurry." Sam sighed, relieved at the second chance they had been given.

"He’s going to get away again," Patty Trumbine grumbled from the backseat. "He’s leaving town."

Jack set the blinking bubble light on the dashboard and drove the Fury ninety miles an hour down the center lane of I-10. A couple of times he had to make swift lane changes in order to get around slower vehicles, but the miles ticked off, and soon they were the closest police car to the fleeing Chrysler.

The helicopter kept pace overhead, frequently interrupting on the receiver to assure them they had the bird dog tracked in the right direction. All the Fury had to do was point its nose straight ahead. They were gaining.

The tracking device in the car began to show the signal weakly, but it was an adrenaline shot to Jack DeShane. He forced the Fury to a hundred, and the speedometer needle hovered there. They overtook and passed dozens of cars. Headlights dimmed behind them like winking fireflies.

Patty buckled his seat belt. Sam merely clasped his hands together in his lap. Jack held the steering wheel loosely and concentrated on the road that was taking them ever closer to Nick Ringer.

Screaming sirens followed Jack until the freeway seemed full of patrol ears. Garbo led the pack, issuing orders to his units and the helicopter in pursuit. Every one of the policeman involved realized the seriousness of the situation. It was imperative that they find the killer. If he shook them again, he would have time to rid himself of the severed heads.

As they reached the city limits of Houston, the helicopter pilot reported his fuel was low, and Garbo ordered him back.

"We have him on the tracker," Garbo said. "We won’t lose him this time."

The killer could not drive forever.

DALEY DROVE FAST, too fast. The world spun past the windows.

For a while Nick battled demons: light, airy, horned beings that clutched him and sucked the breath from his mouth. But they went away, and he felt empty. He was no longer tormented by the people of either world. He was in a corner by himself where winged creatures, hoping to get to him, beat out their lives against the invisible barrier.

Nick reached up to touch the safety glass of the windshield and dreamed his fingers sliced through into the night. He could grasp the stars if he wanted and bring them down to earth to warm him. He could hang the moon on the Milky Way and walk in its silvery light. He could create universes and, with a puff of his breath, set them whirling forever. If he wanted to leave the earth and enter another galaxy, he had the power.

His fingers came away from the glass, retreated to the silent space where his temporal body lounged.

Daley drove too fast. He was taking them both into the past where escape would be impossible. Surely he realized his mistake? He had battered down the walls holding everything in its place, and what lay ahead were years torn from a calendar they should never witness again.

Too fast, slipping backward, snatching for telephone poles, for clouds, for the starry sky to halt the awful, sickening plunge into the hideous past.

His blond hair fell over his forehead like a veil. The blood on his hands was dried and flaky. He breathed specks into his nose.

Daley was not listening. Daley was alone. Daley had forgotten his only brother.

Nick felt a split starting at his groin and zigzagging up his abdomen, between his nipples. A line going straight up his neck, over his face, into his falling hair, and down again, like a snake swallowing its tail, back to where it began. Everything was going to fall out from inside him and lie in a wriggling heap between his legs.

He should have pocketed the stars when he had a chance. He should have chinned himself into heaven on the hook of the platinum moon. He should have taken God’s place and toppled the planets with a sigh.