Lily turned slowly at that syrupy voice and stared up at Charlotte Frasier, who was pointing a long-barreled gun at her. “You’ve given us too much trouble. If I hadn’t decided to oversee this myself, you would have escaped yet again. I always believed three times was a charm, and so it is. Get out of the car, Lily. Now.”
Lily wasn’t surprised, not really. Not Elcott, but Charlotte. Then she almost smiled. Charlotte didn’t know she had a gun, too. Would Charlotte take the chance of killing them here, in the cemetery parking lot? She believed all the way to her gut that Charlotte was capable of anything. She was still free, and Mr. Monk had been dead for three days now.
Then she saw the men running toward them. She had to hurry, had to do something. She opened the door, lifting one arm, hiding the other hand slightly behind her.
“Where’s Elcott?” she said, wanting to distract Charlotte, just for an instant. “And that marvelous son of yours? Who loves me so much he’d like nothing more than to bury me? Aren’t they hanging back there, waiting for you to tell them what to do?”
“Don’t you dare speak of my husband and my son like that-”
Lily was clear. She raised the gun and fired.
Washington, D.C.
FBI Headquarters
Ollie Hamish came running into Savich’s office. “We got him! We got Anthony Carpelli, a. k. a. Wilbur Wright. He was right there in Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks. He was kneeling in front of the monument at Kitty Hawk and we came up on him and he just folded down like a tent and gave it all up.”
For an instant, Savich was so distracted he didn’t know what Ollie was talking about. Then he remembered, the guru from Texas who’d had his followers murder the two deputies and the sheriff, the Sicilian Canadian who’d attended McGill University and had an advanced degree in cellular biology. Savich said slowly, “Sit down, Ollie. You said he was kneeling at the monument? As in worshiping?”
“Maybe so. All the agents were so relieved at how easily it went down, they were celebrating, drinking beers at eleven o’clock in the morning. We got him, Savich. He’ll go back to Texas and fry, probably.”
“Probably not,” Savich said. “Remember that he isn’t tied directly to those killings, just hearsay from a woman who was pissed off.”
“Yes, Lureen. Evidently they’re holding her as a material witness. They’ve also picked up two more of Wilbur’s people who were in the cult. Everyone thinks his own people will finally nail his ass. At least we got him and he’s not going to be killing anybody else.
“Hey, Savich, you should be really pleased. After all, it was you and MAX who predicted he’d probably go back to Kitty Hawk.”
Savich realized he was so caught up with Tammy Tuttle that he didn’t feel much of anything about Wilbur Wright. And it was a victory, a very clean win. Everyone would be very pleased. He smiled at Ollie. “I am pleased. MAX discovered sixteen more killings throughout the Southwestern U.S. that sound like the work of Wilbur. So there’s lots of other crimes to tie in to this one; local law enforcement should be brought up to speed and get with the program. Dane Carver is heading that up. Now that you’ve got Wilbur Wright, you can get our doctors on him and see what makes him tick.”
“I really don’t want to know.”
“Unfortunately a jury will demand to know. Meet with Dane and go over all the other cases, then head down to interview Wilbur.”
“When we caught him, I looked at him, Savich. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such dead eyes, and I’ve seen lots of bad folk up close and personal; but Wilber, he was just flat-out scary. You wonder what exactly he’s seeing with those dead eyes. It won’t be long before they extradite him back to Texas with more than enough evidence to fry his butt.”
“You can bet the lawyers will fight extradition.”
“Yeah, they’d prefer a state where there’s no death penalty, but if we get enough evidence, it won’t matter.”
“We done good, Ollie. Now you and Dane sew it up, okay?”
“You got it.” Agent Ollie Hamish leaned forward in his chair, clasping his hands between his legs. “I’ve heard all sorts of things, Savich, about what happened in Antigua. How’s that going?”
Savich told him all of it. “We’ve got people working on where she learned her illusion skills so we can get a better handle on what she’s capable of. There are more people scouring the airport in Antigua trying to find out how she managed to get away, questioning everyone in the area, searching all boats, all private charters.”
Ollie said, “She’s still got only one arm and, physically, she’s in bad shape, right?”
“I don’t know how bad it still is. Her surgeon said if she has an infection, she could be dead within a week without antibiotics. But if she doesn’t have an infection, she could make it through just fine. He said she responded superbly to the surgery. I asked the doctor if anyone had ever reported seeing someone other than Tammy Tuttle or seeing her where she shouldn’t be.”
“Did he even understand what you meant?”
“Yes,” Savich said slowly, “he did. He said that an orderly told him he’d just seen Tammy up and walking to the bathroom the day after surgery. When he went to check her, she was lying strapped down to the bed. Nobody believed the orderly. Then she escaped and no one could figure that out, either. Anyway, Ollie, how are Maria and Josh? He just turned two, right?”
“Yeah. He’s running all over the house, opening every drawer, banging every pot. He yells ‘no’ at least fifty times a day, and he’s cuter than the new puppy we just got, who peed on the shirt I was going to wear this morning.”
Savich laughed. It felt good. He nodded Ollie out, then turned back to MAX.
A call came in an hour later. Tammy Tuttle had been spotted in Bar Harbor, Maine, where agents had showed her photo all over town, along with Marilyn’s, and left phone numbers. A local photo shop owner had called the Bar Harbor police department to say she’d left film and was going to come back.
“I’ve got to get close to her,” Savich said to Sherlock. He kissed her nose and left the unit, nearly on a run, shouting over his shoulder, “I’ve got to see Tammy with one arm, and not something she wants me to see.”
“Please, not too close,” Sherlock called out, but she didn’t think he heard her.
It took very little time for Savich and six other agents to board a Sabreliner at Andrews Air Force Base for a flight to Bar Harbor.
He spent the entire flight telling the agents everything he could think of. It was time, Savich decided, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders, to let everyone know exactly what they were dealing with.
A psychopathic killer who is an illusionist, possibly a telepath. He had never seen anything like it, and he hoped he never would again.
He’d just finished telling all the agents about the Ghouls, detailing what Marilyn had told him and what he himself had seen. If they didn’t believe him, they were cool enough to keep it to themselves.
One agent, a friend of Virginia Cosgrove’s, didn’t doubt a single word. As they were debarking from the jet in Bar Harbor, she said, “Virginia told me some things Marilyn Warluski had told her. It was terrifying, Mr. Savich.”
“Just Savich, Ms. Rodriguez. I’m very sorry about Agent Cosgrove.”
“We all are, sir.” Then she managed a grin. “Just Lois, Savich.”
“You got it.”
“The thing is, guys,” he said to all of them, “if you see her or him again”-he waved the artist’s drawing under all their noses-“don’t play any games. Don’t even think about trying to take her alive. Don’t trust anything you see happen, fire without hesitation, and shoot to kill. Now, I’m going to the photo shop, make sure there’s no confusion. Then we’ll get together at the local police department and get everything set up.”
He wondered if the Ghouls would be with her, with Tammy as their head acolyte, their priestess of death.