Luce, let me know you’re okay.
“Sean, talk to me,” Kate said.
He couldn’t explain it to Kate, so he didn’t try.
“I have to go,” he said. “I need to get to the church.”
“Sean—”
Kate’s comment was interrupted when the florist returned with a DVD. “This is everything for the last week. It’s set to record over every Sunday night.”
Sean took the disk before Kate could grab it. “Thanks,” he said and walked out to his car. He tossed Kate his keys. “I’ll look at this while you drive to the church.”
As soon as he sat in the passenger seat, he pulled out his laptop and popped in the DVD. The quality of the black-and-white image wasn’t stellar, and the image was slightly distorted because of the wide lens, but he could see enough.
Kate said, “Talk to me, Sean.”
“Bad feeling,” he said.
“If it helps, she said the guy came in between eight-thirty and nine.”
“Thanks.” Sean pulled down the search window and typed 8:25 for the time stamp on Monday morning. He fast-forwarded, looking for a short white guy.
At 8:39, he walked in.
The stalker admired a display near the front of the store. He had dark hair, cut conservatively, and was pleasant-looking—neither attractive nor unattractive. Average. Normal. He had a nice-guy appearance, and Sean would peg him in his mid- to late thirties.
He paused in front of the refrigerator unit, and Sean gauged him in comparison as being five foot eight. He chatted with the owner, pointed to the vase of roses—which Sean presumed were red—and walked over to the counter.
It was at the counter that they had the clearest shot. He wrote out a card and handed it to the woman.
Sean clipped the image, sharpened it in a photo-editing program, and sent it directly to both Noah Armstrong and Jayne Morgan at RCK West.I need a name and address for this person ASAP. Noah, this is Lucy’s stalker. Kate and I are going to the church now.
Sean slammed his laptop shut and tossed it on the backseat. He itched to take over the driving; Kate was moving too slow.
“Come on, Kate!”
“It’s snowing, if you haven’t noticed,” she snapped. Her fingers were wrapped tight around the steering wheel.
“Just—” He bit off his verbal criticism. It wouldn’t help the situation. He tried calling Lucy again. No answer. He stared out the window and watched the snow falling harder. He feared they were too late.
Sean was about to call Noah to make sure he’d got the image and message, when Kate’s phone rang. He heard only her end of the conversation, but his heart froze.
“Are you sure? Did you check the bathrooms? Other rooms? … We’re two, three minutes away. I’ll call Noah.”
Sean swerved. “What happened?”
“Dillon is at the church. Lucy isn’t there.” Kate bit her lower lip.
“And?”
“Her coat is. She stepped outside to get air twenty minutes ago and no one has seen her since.”
I am pleased.
Lucy Kincaid sleeps in the back. I laugh out loud. Lucy Kincaid is unconscious on the backseat. Her wrists and ankles are bound with duct tape. She wasn’t unconscious when I tied her up. She almost knew what was happening. But the GHB-isopropanol combination I hand-crafted did the job it is supposed to do. By the time she exited the church, she was already disoriented. When she fell in the snow, I knew she would put up little fight.
I may have given her too much, but I was unsure how quickly skin absorption would work. This was the only time I’d found her alone or in a place where I could grab her. She has wasted so much of my time with her games, I couldn’t allow her to waste another minute. In case her boyfriend had been at the church, I had an alternate plan.
I’m glad I didn’t have to resort to killing another man, pussy-whipped though he is. But if necessary, I would do it, just like out of necessity, I had to kill that cop.
Lucy Kincaid must be trained. I must break her. She is the problem. I am the solution.
I do not believe she’ll be a good student. But she cannot be allowed to get away with her pathetic attempt to send me back to prison.
I have great plans for her. I already have her first lesson ready. The lesson that will teach her that I am in charge, that her life is mine and I can take it when I want. The lesson will show her that she has no power, no hope. It’s the first step but always my favorite. Endings, and beginnings.
As I drive, I keep looking in my mirror at her. Her eyes are open, but glassy. I hope she is not dead.
I worry a bit. Dead girls are no fun—and I have not had my time with Lucy. I pull over to the side of the road and turn halfway around in my seat. I pick up the whip next to me and lash out at the female.
She convulses, a cry coming from her gagged mouth. I smile. She’s alive. Of course she is. I am too good to make a mistake with dosage, even when trying something new.
I merge back into traffic. Normally, I do not like driving so slowly, even in such weather, but tonight?
Tonight, I am very pleased.
THIRTY-EIGHT
When Kate parked illegally in front of Holy Trinity Church, Sean saw a lot of police activity but few police cars. Three dozen officers, some in uniform and some in street clothes, filled the vestibule. More were outside looking for signs of Lucy and what might have happened to her. They had all been in the church when Lucy went missing.
Dillon spotted them as they trudged up the stairs. A section had been cordoned off and Sean frowned. “We may have a witness,” Dillon told Sean and Kate as soon as they were within earshot.
“What happened?” Sean demanded. He hadn’t let himself think that Lucy had been abducted. But Mallory hadn’t sent Lucy the roses. He hadn’t killed Cody Lorenzo. And he hadn’t taken Lucy.
Yet she was gone.
“Cody’s partner, Officer April Dunnigan, noticed that Lucy was feeling poorly and walked her to the vestibule. Lucy said she needed some air and stepped outside. After a couple of minutes, April and another officer went to check on her but she wasn’t outside or anywhere in the church,” Dillon explained. “But a detective thinks he might have seen her getting into a car with a man.”
Dillon led them into the church where a detective was talking on the phone. When he spotted Dillon, he hung up. “I spoke to the chief of police. He’s notifying all state troopers in Maryland and Virginia. We have every cop in D.C. on alert.”
“Thank you. Detective John DeMarco, my wife, FBI Agent Kate Donovan, and Sean Rogan, with Rogan-Caruso-Kincaid.”
DeMarco said, “I saw a woman with long black hair wearing black slacks and a black and white sweater, walking as if intoxicated with a man toward a parked car right where that patrol car is now parked out front. I was coming up the stairs, and I thought if she wasn’t drunk she was extremely upset. It looked like she’d fallen—there was snow covering her clothing. And because she looked a bit Hispanic, I thought she might be one of Officer Lorenzo’s relatives. She didn’t show signs of being in distress, other than needing help to walk.”
“And the man with her?”
“Approximately five foot eight to five foot ten. Lean. He wore black as well—trench coat and hat. Caucasian. No distinguishing marks, but I only glanced at them as I was coming up the stairs.”