Touching Evil (25 page)

It was only then that she realized she was rubbing the nape of her neck. She stopped, aware now of the tingling, uneasy sensation. Moving her head no more than necessary, she shifted her gaze to sweep the area, trying to see whatever it was that had put her instincts on alert.

There weren't many people about, and those were grouped near the mission, unthreatening as far as she could tell. A damp, chilly breeze had sprung up, and
she could hear it stirring trash in the gutter on the other side of the street and rattling a loose street sign nearby.

But as far as she could determine, there was nothing else. Nothing to make her feel so uneasy.

"Jumping at shadows, Seaton," she muttered.

She got into her car, locking the doors immediately, and sat there for a moment. She was tired and more than a little bit unnerved to find her thoughts drifting toward Terry. She glanced at her watch, wavered for just a bit, then swore under her breath and started the car to head back to the station.

Later, she thought. There'd be time later for Terry.

"It sounds like Tara Jameson," Andy reported. "According to descriptions and the photo we have, she's very delicate, almost childlike. Dark hair, long and straight; almond-shaped dark eyes; high cheekbones; sensitive mouth."

"You're still at the apartment?" John had called Andy on his cell phone.

"Yeah."

"And?"

"Forensics turned up a few human hairs in the laundry chute, so you two were probably right about that being the way he got her down to the basement. From there, it looks like he took her out of the building through a service door that was
supposed
to be securely locked; it wasn't forced but picked by somebody who knew what he was doing. We still don't know how the bastard managed to avoid getting his picture taken by the security cameras, but I've got my people looking at all the tapes and checking out the
computer that runs this place's electronics system. Her door wasn't forced, the apartment's security system was deactivated with her own code—all par for the course for this guy."

"Have you had any luck trying to find whoever sent the ransom note to Mitchell?"

"Not so far." Andy lowered his voice. "So if your FBI buddy finds anything, let me know pronto."

"I will."

When he closed his phone and dropped it into a pocket, Maggie said steadily, "It's her, isn't it? The painting is of Tara Jameson?"

John half turned on the couch to look at her where she sat curled up at the opposite end. "From the description Andy gave me, yes."

She drew a breath and leaned her head back against the couch, looking at him. "I thought it was Samantha."

"No, it definitely isn't her. And knowing that, do you still believe Samantha's dead?"

"Yes." Maggie didn't hesitate.

John was trying his best to understand this but couldn't help wondering if at least some of what he was hearing now was nothing more than symptoms of a mental deterioration Quentin and Kendra had hinted was possible. What if Maggie had simply suffered too much?

"I'm not losing it, John." Her voice was very quiet, and she smiled faintly when he gave her a startled look. "No, I can't read your mind. But I do have a sense of how you're feeling, and I know you're worried about me. Don't be, at least not about this. I'm okay."

"Are you?"

"Yeah. Tired and unnerved, I won't deny that, but otherwise okay."

"And the painting? How were you able to paint something that didn't yet exist?"

She drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I don't know. I mean, I don't understand it myself. All I know is that if he hasn't done that to her yet—he will. Unless we stop him."

"But you can't see the future?"

"No. I can't see the future." She managed a faint smile. "I did ask if you were ready to accept the extraordinary and look for the unexpected."

"Yeah, but . . . this? You talk about an evil that won't die, about balance that has to be restored, and then show me a painting of a tortured dead woman you say you painted even before she was abducted? I don't know, Maggie. I just don't know how to make sense of this."

Maggie couldn't really blame him.

"And what about your connection to it all? If you can't see the future, and your psychic ability is ... limited ... to feelings, then how can you be so certain this bastard we're after is some kind of eternal evil? Because you feel it?"

"Yes. And because I've felt it before."

"When?"

She hesitated, wondering if there was any chance at all he could accept this. "In 1934."

After a long moment of silence, John said, "I really wish you had something stronger than coffee in the house."

"Yeah. Me too."

He drew a breath and let it out slowly. "You're saying you lived then? That you were another person— living another life?"

"That's what I'm saying."

"And you knew this . . . eternal evil then?"

"He was attacking women then the way he is now, I know that. When Andy and the others showed us those pictures of women killed back then, I knew it was him. Not a copycat killer borrowing somebody else's rituals, but him."

"Because you felt it."

She nodded. "I don't know anything that could help the investigation, nothing that could help us find him, catch him. I don't know what he looks like, what his name is. I don't even know why he's picking women who look like the ones he killed back then. All I know is that the evil inside him has been alive a long, long time. And I know it's my fault."

"What?"

"Balance, remember? A positive force intended to oppose a negative one? Somehow, I was supposed to stop him. Back in the beginning, before his evil grew too strong, I was somehow in a position to change whatever happened then. To stop him, destroy him. Or maybe just turn him in a different direction. I don't know for sure. I don't remember. I just feel."

"And if what you feel is wrong?"

"It isn't."

"How can you be so damned sure? Maggie, what you're talking about is ... incredible. To say the least. You failed to stop a killer a lifetime ago, and because of that he became some kind of unstoppable evil?"

"He isn't unstoppable. He just hasn't been stopped—up to now."

"And you have to stop him—now?"

She nodded. "I have to stop him. Because I didn't before. I can't. . . move on until I do what I'm supposed to do. And I have a very strong feeling this is my
last chance to correct that mistake. Maybe we only get so many chances, I don't know. Maybe if I fail this time, someone else gets a shot at restoring the balance and I get sent back to learn the lesson a different way. I just ... I just know that it's my responsibility this time around. I have to stop him."

"Karma."

"If it makes more sense to you to put it that way. Fate. Destiny. We're connected, he and I. Tied together by a mistake. If there's anything I know, anything I'm absolutely certain of, it's that once you've touched evil— I mean really touched it—you're forever changed. In a way, you are bound to it, tied to it, so that it becomes a part of you."

"There's nothing evil in you," he said immediately.

"Oh, but there is. It's not my evil, but I carry it inside me. That painting proves it. His evil. I carry his evil in my own soul. . . and I have for a long, long time."

Suddenly, John understood. "That's why you do it. That's why you surround yourself with victims, suffer right along with them. It's atonement, isn't it, Maggie?"

For the first time, she avoided his steady gaze. "Consciously? No. Not at first. But I've always been drawn to people in pain. Always felt a kind of relief if I could help them in some way. Gradually, over the years, I realized there was . . . something I was trying to fix, some mistake I wanted to correct. I didn't know what it was, not then. It wasn't until Laura Hughes was attacked that I began to understand the truth."

"Truth?" Unable to be still any longer, John rose and began wandering around the room, not quite pacing. "Christ."

"I know it all sounds unbelievable."

"You could say that, yeah."

"It is the truth, John. I wish it wasn't. I wish this was all about one evil man doing evil things in a single lifetime, something we could both accept, even if not understand. But that isn't what it's about. That's never been what it's about."

"Jesus, Maggie."

"I'm sorry. But you had to know the truth about it."

He swung around to stare at her. "So is this where you also tell me the truth about Christina?"

Maggie was honestly startled. "How did you—"

"I don't have to be psychic to know there's more to her death than what you've told me. Why do you think I kept after you about it? What do you know about her death, Maggie?"

His cell phone rang before she could formulate an answer, but Maggie didn't feel much of a sense of reprieve; from the determination on his face, she doubted he would accept anything less than the truth this time.

"Yeah, hello." He listened for a moment, then went to a notepad Maggie kept by her living-room phone and quickly jotted something down. "Okay. Yeah, I've got it. I'll call Andy and tell him. You won't do anything stupid, will you?" He listened a minute longer, then said, "Well, listen to Kendra and stay put, okay? Let Andy and his people take care of it. Yeah, I will."

When he ended the call, Maggie said, "I take it Quentin and Kendra found whoever sent that ransom note?"

"They have a name and an address." He called Andy's cell phone and repeated the information, adding, "Quentin says the information is solid, and he's pretty sure this Brady Oliver either knows where Samantha Mitchell is or knows someone who does.

No information on whether she's alive or dead. Yeah. No, I'm at Maggie's. For a while probably; call me on my cell in case I'm in transit, okay?" He listened a moment longer, then said, "Yeah, I'll tell her." He closed the phone.

"Tell me what?"

"He said he just called in to check for messages and found one from Hollis Templeton. She wants to see you as soon as possible."

"He doesn't know why?"

"No, just that she needs to talk to you."

Maggie looked at her watch. "Visiting hours will be over for the night by the time I can get there."

"Andy said he's cleared it with the hospital if you want to go tonight. But if you're too tired, tomorrow is probably soon enough."

Maggie wasn't so sure. "Hollis wouldn't have called if it wasn't important. I'd better go now."

"I'll drive," he said.

CHAPTER
 
THIRTEEN

It didn't take Scott and Jennifer more than half an
hour to find Brady Oliver at the address provided and bring him in for questioning. He turned out to be a small-time crook with delusions of grandeur and crumbled almost before Andy could even begin to get hard-nosed about the probable legal consequences of passing oneself off as a kidnapper.

"I never took her, I swear! I just found her is all, and why shouldn't I try to make a few bucks on a lucky chance? Her old man would never miss it, and she don't care no more, right?"

Andy stared at him, thinking once again that it was a helluva world they lived in. And feeling a chill. From the sound of it, Samantha Mitchell was already dead. "Where is she, Brady?"

Bloodshot eyes shifted nervously. "First, we gotta
talk about this kidnapping rap. 'Cause I never took her, I just found her."

Andy leaned toward him and said gently, "Well, I'll tell you what, Brady. What say I invite Samantha Mitchell's husband in here to meet you? And you can explain it all to him."

"Oh, hell, no, don't do
that!"

"Where is she?"

"I just wanted to—"

"Where is she?"

"Alls I'm asking is—"

Andy rose to his feet.

"Okay, okay! There's a dump not too far from my place, an old abandoned building. City wants to tear it down, but there's no money to rebuild, something like that. I go there sometimes and look for stuff I can sell." He rattled off the address, looking acutely unhappy. "First floor, back room."

"She's dead, isn't she, Brady?"

"I didn't do her, I swear!"

Andy felt very tired. He said, "My people are going to go check out the address. You'll wait right here."

"I want a lawyer," Brady whined.

"You haven't been charged with anything. Yet."

"Oh. Well, then, I want a Coke."

Andy left the interview room without responding and before he gave in to the temptation to rid the human gene pool of one extremely stupid and vicious little possible breeder.

As soon as he shut the door behind him, Jennifer came out of the observation room and said, "We heard, Andy. Scott's rounding up the rest and putting forensics on alert. Do you think that piece of scum in there really just found her?"