Even now he must think he had her trapped. She couldn’t escape the office park, couldn’t enter any buildings without setting off an alarm, couldn’t hide outside because there was too little cover.
Couldn’t run. Couldn’t hide.
But she could fight. That was the one thing he hadn’t counted on.
She knelt and pried off the lid of the one-gallon can she’d swiped, using a sharp stick for leverage. Slowly she swirled the can’s contents.
“I’m going to win this game, Adam,” she whispered. “And you-you son of a bitch-you’re going down.”
53
The distance from Brentwood to the Santa Monica Municipal Airport was two miles, a trip that normally took about fifteen minutes in the congested streets. The police convoy made it in five, with Tanner in the lead, flashing the light bar of his squad car and blaring the siren.
He pulled into the airport parking lot just as the big Sikorsky helicopter was setting down on the helipad. The Sikorsky was one of four U.S. Navy SH-3H Sea Kings recently purchased by the Sheriff’s Department, three of which had been adapted for search and rescue operations. Most of the time, this meant carrying paramedics to remote locations, but occasionally it was a Sheriff’s SWAT team that took the ride.
Tonight was one of those times. A SWAT squad led by Deputy Garrett Pardon was already forming up. The Sikorsky, which had flown north from the department’s Aero Bureau station in Long Beach, would head to a county airfield east of downtown LA, which would serve as the rendezvous point.
Tanner wasn’t part of Pardon’s squad, but he figured Pardon wouldn’t object to another man on the job. And if he did, to hell with him. Tanner had come this far, and he wasn’t bugging out now.
He waved the LAPD detectives-Walsh and Cellini, and the two others whose names he hadn’t caught-out of their unmarked cars and led them across the asphalt to the chopper. The air crew hailed him when he climbed aboard.
“Hear we’re lookin’ for a bad guy,” the pilot yelled over the thrum of the motor.
Tanner nodded. “Near San Dimas. Got a cell site and that’s all.”
“Cell tower in that part of the county could cover a lot of territory.”
“That’s why we need to be airborne. For the bird’s-eye view.” And for speed, Tanner added silently. There was no faster way to cover the thirty-seven miles from the Westside to San Dimas than by air.
The chopper’s interior had been stripped down for medevac use, and the only seats were benches along the walls. Walsh and the others took their seats, and instantly the Sikorsky was under way, floating upward as the land diminished to a checkerboard of lights. Tanner saw that the Sea King was equipped with a video display screen that showed its current location, tracked via GPS, superimposed over a moving topological map. Heading and distance were displayed on the screen in digital readouts. There would be a FLIR display as well-Forward Looking Infrared, which picked up the heat signatures of vehicles and even persons, showing them on the video screen.
If Adam Nolan was there, they would spot him. And C.J. too-if she was alive.
Tanner shifted restlessly. The Sikorsky was flying fast, but maybe not fast enough.
He thought of the slick blond man in the lobby of the Newton station house, the guy who dressed like a young lawyer and conveyed a lawyer’s phony charm, and he wondered if the fucker was murdering C.J. right now, at this minute.
“Hang on, Killer,” he breathed, talking to her across the miles. “Cavalry’s coming.”
54
Adam had to admit that he was now seriously ticked off.
He’d thought for sure the exhaust fumes would get her. Instead she was still on the loose, and time was passing. It was already 11:35-much too late. His only consolation was that his cell phone hadn’t buzzed. The police hadn’t tried calling him yet.
His luck couldn’t hold much longer. He had to find her, kill her. Had to win.
“Nobody fucks with me. Nobody makes me their bitch…”
He steered the BMW past the padlocked gate, circling the front of the complex. His car windows were down to let in the cool night air and the sound of a new alarm, if one should ring. When the office park was finished, the security system would be linked to a monitoring station in San Dimas, but either the telephone hookup had never been established or it had been disconnected when the project fell into limbo. Roger Eastman hadn’t been clear on the details when Adam quizzed him over drinks, but he had been lucid enough on the one point that mattered-the alarm would not draw a crowd.
At the time Adam had been worried that he himself might inadvertently trip the system. It hadn’t even occurred to him that C.J. could get loose.
The BMW motored along the south side of the office complex, its high beams searching the night. He stared through the web of fractures in his windshield, looking for any hint of a human figure.
He had underestimated her, he supposed. Probably he should have killed her right away, while she was chloroformed and unconscious. Would have been simpler that way. Nothing would have gone wrong.
But he’d wanted to let the full four hours pass. Wanted to match the Hourglass Killer’s MO.
And there had been more to it, hadn’t there?
He reached the rear of the office park and guided the coupe among a checkerboard of poured foundations. The only building back here was a warehouse occupying the northeast corner.
Yes, there had been more than simple practicality. Even leaving aside the serial killer’s MO, he’d wanted to see her squirm and sweat as long as possible, wanted her to feel the bottomless fear of true helplessness, and most of all, he’d wanted her to be awake and alert when he caressed her neck and the caress became a strangling squeeze…
He still wanted it, all of it. Still wanted to choke off her last breath while staring into her frightened green eyes.
Except somehow that no longer seemed good enough, satisfying enough, did it? She had injured him, humiliated him, outmaneuvered him. She had put him through hell, and now he wanted her to find out what hell felt like.
He cruised past the big front doors and the alley on the side, still looking into every shadow.
The Hourglass Killer didn’t torture his victims. But maybe it was time to risk playing a little fast and loose with the MO. Make her suffer a little more…
He’d picked up some ideas from those S amp; M Web sites he’d visited. He might put some of them into practice There.
In the alley. Movement.
He spun the wheel, the BMW’s high beams cutting through the shadows, and yes, there she was, retreating at a run down the strip of grass between the warehouse and the fence.
She’d taken cover there. Wrong move, C.J.
He gunned the motor. The tires kicked up a spray of dirt as the coupe accelerated, barreling into the alley, closing in on his prey. C.J.’s lithe figure came into focus in the halogen glare, blond hair bobbing on her shoulders, arms and legs pumping. She still had a nice tight ass, he noticed, with a distant memory of cupping his hands over her buttocks and feeling their lean muscular strength.
He stamped harder on the gas pedal, and then C.J. sprinted to her right and picked up something that looked like a paint can, flinging it with both hands.
He hit the brakes, expecting the can to shatter the windshield.
But it wasn’t aimed at the car. It flew through the side window of the warehouse, setting off a new alarm. C.J. scrambled through the window frame and disappeared into the darkness within.
Adam parked the BMW near the window. He left the lights on, engine idling, as he prepared for the endgame.
She was finished now. The warehouse, as he’d noted on his reconnaissance missions to the office park, had only this one window. Its remaining means of access were two huge doors and two smaller ones, all securely padlocked.