She figured that she’d better move that photo before it caught on fire, and was bending down and reaching toward it when she noticed the blood.
There was a small red smear, about the size of a man’s shoe, on the floor to the left of the stool. Could have been anything, ketchup or maybe raspberry jam, but it was enough to turn Miranda’s own blood to ice.
She backpedalled, heart racing and thinking that she ought to try to call the police or something, but the nearest pay phone was two blocks back on 16 th’ and she was only a few feet away from her car.
The lot looked empty. No one was passing by on the street.
She should get in her car and get away, right away. Then she could maybe stop at a gas station and call the police. That was the sensible thing to do, and despite her fantasies to the contrary, Miranda had been raised to be a sensible girl.
Rooting through her overstuffed purse for her car keys, she walked around her little white Honda to the driver’s side.
There she found Dio.
He was dead, that much was clear, slumped up against her car as if propped there like a rag doll, ready for a tea party. His neat white shirt and navy blue uniform jacket were soaked with blood, but that wasn’t the worst thing about him. The worst thing about it was his face.
He didn’t have one.
Where his face should have been was a charred red crater lit from within by a strange pale glow emanating from a network of fissures in the red ruin that used to be his features.
Then she quickly realized that it wasn’t the worst thing after all. The real worst thing was the note.
A handwritten note, stuck to the center of his chest with a small folding pocket knife.
HELLO MIRANDA
Her purse fell from her numb, shaking hands, spilling its contents across the asphalt as she stood, frozen in horror. That’s when she started to notice her lips tingling unpleasantly, a weird itchy feeling that spread deep into her gums and tongue. There was a sensation sort of like heat radiating from the faceless corpse, causing her skin to tighten and pulse all along the front of her body.
That’s when a hand clamped down over her mouth. A large, calloused hand crawling with sparks. The sparks leapt from his fingers and burrowed like hungry maggots into her tingling skin, burning trails of excruciating agony deep into the meat of her cheeks.
She screamed against the muffing hand, but the sound was reduced to an impotent squeak. Then the fat blade of a large hunting knife appeared before her tear-blurred eyes. The terrible sparks flashed and reflected in the blade, then the knife buried itself in her vulnerable throat.
* * *
When Nina turned into the parking lot, she slammed on the breaks so hard that Walter banged into the back of Bell’s seat.
“Look,” she said.
In the pool of yellow cast by their headlights, Walter could see a pair of thin female legs in tan pantyhose, sticking out from behind a white Honda CVCC. One shoe was off, lying a few feet away.
Walter had one hand on the door handle and was about to jump out of the car and rush over to the fallen girl when Bell grabbed a fist full of his shirtfront and shook his head.
“We’re too late,” he said.
“Maybe she’s just hurt and needs help,” Walter said.
Nina ignored him, swiftly reversing and squealing backward out of the lot.
“Hey!” Walter shouted, wrenching himself free from Bell’s grasp and looking back at the receding parking lot through the rear window. “What the hell is the matter with you two?”
“What the hell’s the matter with you, Walter?” Nina asked. “Have you forgotten about the gamma radiation the Zodiac leaves behind?”
“We’re clearly too late to save her,” Bell said, “but not more than three hours late. Remember, Iverson said that the radiation lingers for approximately three hours. We can’t afford to jeopardize our own lives, especially when there’s clearly nothing we can do.”
Walter slumped down in the back seat, feeling utterly defeated.
What’s the point of all of this? he thought morosely. The killer was clearly way ahead of them at every turn. They just weren’t cut out for this kind of thing. We might as well just admit defeat.
* * *
When they arrived back at Nina’s, they parked several blocks away and cased her house from a distance, on the lookout for feds, the killer, or both. There was no one. The feds may have had Walter and Bell’s personal info, but they clearly hadn’t traced them back to Nina. Not yet, anyway.
The weary trio stumbled in through the door and found Abby in the hallway.
“Oh, hey,” she said with a big stoned smile. “You just missed your friend.”
Walter didn’t think he had any more adrenaline left in his glands, but they somehow managed to pump out just enough to make him feel sick and light-headed.
“What friend?” Nina asked, scowling.
“He didn’t say his name,” Abby replied. “But he was very polite. He just stopped by to pick up his notebook. He left a note for you.”
She reached into a large decorative pocket in her dress and handed a folded piece of paper to Nina.
35
Nina opened the note, revealing several lines of code and the familiar cross hair symbol instead of a signature.
“Abby,” Nina said, not taking her eyes off the page. “Your parents are in Santa Cruz, right?”
“Yeah,” Abby said. “Why?”
Nina handed her the keys to the rental car.
“Do me a favor,” Nina said. “Take my rented LeSabre and go visit them. Stay for a few days. A week maybe.”
“Gee, that’s awfully nice of you,” Abby said. “Roscoe and I will head down first thing in the morning.”
“Abby,” Nina said. “Go now.”
“Now?” A cute little frown creased Abby’s brow. “But it’s after midnight, and my folks go to bed real early. Besides, I can’t leave without Roscoe. Where is he, anyway? I though he was with you guys?”
“He can take the train down and meet you tomorrow,” Nina said. “Please, no more questions. Just go.”
The frown deepened, not so cute anymore.
“Hold on a minute,” Abby said. “I think maybe something funny is going on around here. Where’s Roscoe?”
“You’re right, Abby,” Walter said. “Something funny is going on around here. Something dangerous. So please, if you value your life and the life of your baby, you’ll do as Nina says.”
Abby looked from Walter to Nina and back again, still unsure.
“Is Roscoe okay?” she asked in a small child’s voice.
“Of course he is,” Nina answered without batting an eye. “Now please, go.”
Walter looked away, unable to meet Abby’s pleading gaze. Reluctantly, she took the offered key and pulled her shearling coat down off a peg by the door.
“Okay,” she said. “But you’ll tell Roscoe to call me as soon as he can. He knows my parents’ number.”
“I will,” Nina said, opening the door for her.
“Well, all right then...” Abby said, trailing off. She turned and walked away.
Walter, Nina, and Bell just stood in the doorway, watching her make her slow and steady way down the slanted street, waiting until she got into the car and drove off.
They were all thinking it, but Bell was the one who said it.
“Now what?”
* * *
The coded note was almost insultingly simple, based off the same keyword as the final section of the last page in the notebook. Walter felt no sense of accomplishment as he dutifully translated it for Nina and Bell to read.
It would have been so easy to kill the pregnant cow. She is so trusting and so open. Almost too easy. Here’s what I will do instead.
I will shoot everyone on the Golden Gate carousel at noon on September 25th.