White walls. White floor. White ceiling. A glass shower door. A toilet and a pedestal sink. It’s a bathroom. Why would he keep a bathroom locked? There’s a mirror over the sink, and Bernadette wills the killer to step in front of it. He doesn’t, of course.
He goes down beside the tub, and Bernadette’s heart sinks. Water doesn’t mix well with this guy. It’s an old claw-foot like her own; she’d recognize the sleighlike shape anywhere. Someone is reclining against the tub’s sloped back. Long brown hair. Small oval face. The bather is a woman. She’s motionless. Is she dead? Did he get another one while Bernadette was changing clothes and Garcia was eating a salami sandwich?
The bather sits up and raises her hands out of the water. He’s got her tied. The bastard has a girl locked in the bathroom, tied in the tub. Bernadette braces herself, waiting to witness a drowning. Instead, she sees the killer’s hands reaching for his prisoner’s. Something flashes, a glint of steel. A knife? Is he slashing them now before he submerges them? Why isn’t the woman fighting back? Has he drugged her?
He’s cutting her binds, hacking at them. The prisoner helps, unraveling whatever is wrapped around her wrists. The stuff is gray. Must be duct tape, endorsed by homicidal maniacs everywhere.
She rubs her wrists while he watches and then points across the room, to the toilet. He hesitates, standing frozen with the blade in his hand. Then the girl leans back against the tub while he dips the knife in the water. He’s working at slicing something at her feet. More duct tape. She raises the leg closest to him, and he unravels her binds. Drops them on the floor. She sits forward and does the other leg, extracting more gray matter from the water and dropping it on the floor.
Grabbing the edge of the tub for support, she raises herself out of the water. Wobbling, she uses a hand to steady herself against the bathroom wall. The woman is grossly thin, her milky figure lost against the white wall. Either she’s one of the anorexic chicks this psycho favors or her captor has starved her to fit the part.
The psycho stands and offers her his free hand. She takes it and steps out of the tub. He turns to take a towel off a bar, lowering his knife hand as he does so. He spins back around.
Stick Woman is standing with the blade in her hand; she’s snatched it! Bernadette fears for this girl; she’s obviously too weak and slight to take this bastard. He doesn’t move while the girl backs away from him, inching toward the door. Still facing him, she puts her hand behind her, feeling for the knob. Is the door locked? No. She pulls the door open and slips through while still holding the knife in front of her. She’s gone. He starts after her. The door slams in his face. He throws it open and runs after his loose prey.
Bernadette sees the pale figure bounding through the bedroom and escaping out the door. Down the dark hall, bony arms and legs flapping madly. An animated Halloween skeleton. As she runs, she looks behind her. Big mistake. She stumbles into a hallway table, knocks it over, and nearly goes down. Rights herself and keeps going.
He’s on her heels. Reaching out, he snags her hair. Her head snaps back. She spins around with the blade in her hand. He halts and holds his palms up in a gesture of surrender, taking a step back from her.
She turns her back to him and starts down the stairs. He goes after her. It’s a long open staircase that takes a turn at a landing. The woman makes it to the landing but stumbles into a potted plant. Falls to her knees. The knife. What happened to the knife?
He’s standing over her now. As she’s scrambling to her feet, he plants his shoe on her lower back. She pitches forward and tumbles down the steps. Landing at the bottom with arms and legs splayed, she resembles a splatter of white paint against the wooden floor.
Bastard is taking his time coming after her. She must be so badly hurt, he’s confident she can’t run off. As he makes his way down the stairs, he looks past the pale, prone figure. What he sees sickens Bernadette: his captive has almost made it to the door.
He comes up next to Stick Woman and pokes her in the hip with the tip of his shoe. She stirs. Good. She’s alive.
Slowly, she gathers her arms and legs under her and crawls to her feet. She looks him in the face. Her mouth is red, and it isn’t lipstick. As she stands before him, she starts to totter and stagger backward. He steps toward her, catches her by the shoulder. Holding her up with one hand, he cranks back the other and punches her in the stomach. As she folds, he knees her in the face. She flips onto her back and curls into a tight, white ball. He kicks her again and reaches for something on the floor.
The knife.
______
BERNADETTE INHALED sharply and instinctively opened her hand, dropping the scarf and inadvertently severing the connection. She retrieved the fabric and closed her fist around it again. “Return to me, return to me.”
Garcia hovered over her, saying nothing.
“I lost it.” She bunched the scarf in her hand and hurled it down.
“What did you see?”
The murderer’s emotions were rising inside Bernadette, and this time no passion tempered the anger. It took every ounce of self-control for her to swallow back the rage and answer Garcia civilly. “He’s got another victim. I saw him running her down.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was tied up and sitting in a tub. He cut her loose, and she bolted. He caught up with her and shoved her down the stairs.”
“Christ.”
“As if that wasn’t enough, he’s beating her. This skinny, naked chick. He’s punching the crap out of her.” Holding out her hand, she saw that she was trembling—either from the shock of what she’d witnessed or the extreme effort it was taking to rein in her emotions.
“Is she dead?”
“I don’t know. If she isn’t now, she soon will be. We have to find her.”
“Is this happening right now, or did it happen earlier?”
“I think it’s now.” She checked her watch. “I get the sense this is real time.”
“What did she look like? Can you give any kind of description?”
He knew her sight was usually too foggy for details. “She was white. Skinny as a bird. Long brown hair. The prof didn’t give me a description of this Regina Ordstruman, but it’s gotta be her.”
“So Wakefielder wasn’t lying.”
She picked up the evidence bag and dropped the scarf back inside it. She extended her hand to him. “We gotta move on this thing.”
______
BY THE TIME they got back to her loft, the killer’s anger had dissipated, but Bernadette remained dizzy. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. “Let’s go over to the house!” she yelled through the open door.
“Which one? Was he chasing her around a houseboat or a mansion?”
She thought about it and ruled out the houseboat; it didn’t have a second floor. Also, Matthew’s girlfriend would have seen it if her boy was holding another woman. “Let’s go to the doctor’s place,” Bernadette said, blotting her face with a towel. “We can look for blood.”
Garcia came up behind her and stood in the bathroom doorway. “Blood? The beating was that bad?”
“That bad.” She wobbled past him and headed to the kitchen.
“You look like hell,” he said, following her.
She took her jean jacket off the back of a chair and slipped it on. “Let’s get going.”
He put on his trench. “Should we call for backup?”
She checked her Glock. “When we’re sure we have the right house.”
“Is he alone?”
She pulled on her gloves. “I didn’t see anyone except the victim.”
“Is he armed?”
She started for the door. “Didn’t see a gun. He had a knife.”
Garcia was right behind her. “He was getting ready to cut her?”