Even before they began exploring, they had a baffling mystery on their hands, because when Marc touched the killer he was able to confirm what Dani had already sensed.
"He's not psychic."
"Maybe burned out?" Roxanne suggested. "That last attack against Dani was a fierce one. Maybe too much for him?"
Still surprisingly calm, Hollis said, "If you're talking about whatever energy blew the door in, I doubt he had anything to do with it. He was fully occupied, believe me, for at least ten or fifteen minutes before you guys got here."
"I don't think this… man… was ever psychic," Marc said, half consciously brushing his hands together after touching the killer. "I've been able to pick up latent psychic ability, but from him I get nothing at all."
They looked at one another, and Hollis said, "I say we look for whatever Becky thought would surprise us."
They found it about ten minutes later while exploring the rooms nearest his torture chamber. The now seemingly catatonic monster remained cuffed and under the watchful eyes and ready weapons of Gabriel and Roxanne.
It was a neat and scrupulously clean room, as small and unadorned as a monk's cell. Just a cot, a metal chair and desk, and an unfinished pine wardrobe, where his clothing was folded precisely.
"He kept a scrapbook of his own life," Bishop said, finding it in one of the desk drawers. He used his pen to turn several pages back. "Born… Carl Brewster, ordinarily enough. Not much about his early life here, just his birth certificate and what look like some school records. Enough to help us know where to look for more information about him. Pages of doodles the psychologists are going to have a field day with, including the word Prophecy written over and over again."
"Just that word?" Dani asked.
"Looks like. Then the newspaper clippings start. No way to tell just from this what the ultimate trigger was, but it looks like we were right about the Boston murders being his first. There are no clippings or information about earlier murders here."
"When did his mother die?" Dani asked.
Bishop continued to page through the scrapbook, finally stopping about halfway through. "Yeah, that could be it. Her obituary is here. She died last spring, after a long illness."
"Domineering she might have been," Hollis said, "but she was probably his leash and held him hack as long as she was alive. Once she was gone, there was no one to stop him."
Marc said, "What sickens me is that he'll probably live out his life in a prison cell more comfortable than this one, with psychologists, cops, and profilers lining up to try to figure out what makes him tick."
"It might help catch the next one," Bishop reminded him.
"I know, I know. Still."
Before he could say anything else, Jordan appeared in the doorway, holding a manila envelope in his gloved hand. "Guys, look at this. And please tell me it doesn't mean what I think it means." He came into the room, crossed to the bed, and emptied the envelope.
Photographs.
"Of me," Hollis said.
"Yeah." Jordan looked at her steadily. "He apparently had a little workroom across the hall where he liked to cut up the pictures. I found this lying on a table in there, all ready for him. Notice anything unusual?"
But Dani saw it first. "They're dated. All taken with a digital camera. And… some are dated more than a year ago."
"The bastard hunted me for over a year?" Hollis was too bewildered to be angry about it. For now, at least.
"I don't think so." Jordan showed them the envelope. "This was mailed to him at a post office box here in Venture. Mailed from Washington, D.C. Postmarked two days ago."
"He was here two days ago," Marc said slowly.
"Yeah. There are also several empty envelopes in there. D.C. and New York postmarks. Different dates, but all during the past month."
They looked at one another, several things and possibilities falling into place.
"A trained monster," Bishop said. "Or maybe just… a tool. A puppet. But not the puppetmaster."
"That's why it felt different," Dani said slowly. "Why I didn't feel the same energy in his-his torture chamber that I felt out in the hallway. Because he wasn't responsible for the attack. Marc was right, the killer was never psychic. His wasn't the voice in my head."
"He was bait too," Bishop said slowly.
Dani nodded. "The bait to draw us. If you want to trap the monster hunters, you have to provide a monster. Find one. Uncage one. Or create one. Every time we hit a wall in the investigation, another little fact or detail or possible lead would be dangled in front of us. To keep us asking questions, to keep us off balance. To keep us moving, always toward the trap."
"He didn't catch anything in his trap," Jordan pointed out. "Did he?"
"He didn't get Paris's ability," Dani said. "But this attack… it was different. It was stronger, more focused. He may have gained something, even if it wasn't a new ability. The experience alone could have given him something of value to him."
"You said you thought you hurt him," Marc reminded her.
"It felt like I did. A sense of pain, of frustration. But… it wasn't a crippling injury. There was still the echo of a very strong, distinct presence, a personality-especially right at the end, when I discharged all that energy. He knew he'd lost… this round."
Jordan said. "Shit. This round?"
"It isn't over," Marc said.
Epilogue
BOSTON
Senator Abe LeMott turned from the window and looked at the man in his visitor's chair. "So that's it?"
Bishop said, "The monster who killed your daughter will spend the remainder of his pathetic life screaming at the walls, babbling about some prophecy he probably created when his own acts became too evil even for him. We may never know; whatever was left of his mind got broken there at the end. Or maybe a long time before the end."
"And the monster who pulled his strings? The cold, calculating mind behind him?"
"We never saw him," Bishop said. "Even though we believe he was close enough, more than once, to watch. Close enough to affect some of us. Close enough to hunt and possibly even capture the… prey… for his pet killer."
LaMott's mouth twisted. "Like feeding a spider."
"Yes."
"So who spun the web?"
"So far we haven't found so much as a trace of evidence that he even exists. Except, of course, that we know he does."
"What else do you know?"
"I believe I know where to start looking for him."
Senator LeMott smiled. "That's good, Bishop. That's very good indeed."
About the Author
KAY HOOPER is the award-winning author of Sleeping with Fear, Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, Touching Evil, Whisper of Evil, Sense of Evil, Once a Thief, Always a Thief, the Shadows trilogy, and other novels. She lives in North Carolina, where she is at work on her next book.
