She knew that Maggie wanted a mammoth police presence to spook the killer. Let him see cops on every road. Let him know that the risk of another assault was too big to take. If it was a waiting game, though, he was bound to win. There were too many long miles of rural land to watch them all.
Kasey radioed in her position. The dispatcher routed her on a reverse course south and east toward Highway 44. More travels through no-man's-land.
She retraced her path and headed across the open stretch of lake again, where the wind was worst. As she cleared the bridge, she spied a black van parked on the shoulder, its lights and engine off. She didn't think the van had been there as she headed north, but she'd been distracted. As she passed, she studied the driver's window but didn't see anyone inside. There was no steam gathered on the glass.
She pulled on to the side of the road twenty yards ahead of the van. Watching for movement behind her, she opened her door and climbed out next to the patrol car. She unhooked a flashlight from her belt and aimed it at the van's license plate, but the surface of the plate was caked with mud. She couldn't read the numbers. When she shot the beam at the windshield, she realized that the van's windows were smoked. She couldn't see through them.
She didn't like it.
At that moment, inside her patrol car, the radio crackled to life.
'All units in vicinity respond to a nine one one emergency call, felony assault in progress.' The dispatcher gave the address, which was on Highway 12 in the heart of the north farmlands. Kasey was fifteen minutes away at high speed. It had to be him.
She hesitated, studying the black van. Had it been there the whole time? Was it abandoned? She didn't have time to worry about it. She got back in her patrol car, slammed the door, and shot southward along the highway between the dark columns of pines.
Less than a mile later, her eyes flicked to her mirror, drawn to a sudden beam of light like a moth.
'Shit,' she said aloud.
The single headlight was back. Following her.
Kasey had a split second in which to decide whether to join the units responding to the assault call or find out who was in the van behind her. She chose the van. At the next intersection, she spun the patrol car into a hard U-turn. She pushed the accelerator to the floor, and the car leaped forward with a growl. Ahead of her, she heard the squeal of brakes, and the van lurched into an awkward turn in the middle of the highway. Its engine was no match for Kasey's patrol car.
'I've got you,' she whispered, taking one hand off the wheel to unsnap the thumb break on her holster.
She closed the gap quickly, but when she was a quarter-mile behind the van, its lights vanished. She switched on her high beams, but the black stretch of asphalt was empty. The vehicle had disappeared. Too late, she spotted a dirt road winding eastward off the highway toward the lake. She braked hard, but as she turned the wheel over, the rear of her car skidded on the snow piled on the shoulder, and her tires spun. She jammed the accelerator, but the wet slush gave her no traction. Frustrated, she feathered the pedal, and the car inched forward in fits and starts until it cleared the shoulder, where the tires grabbed the road and shrieked as she bolted forward.
The dirt road was barely a crease in the forest on her left. Nearly a dozen mailboxes leaned out toward the highway. When she turned, she realized she was on a private road that dead-ended at the water. There was no way out. The van was trapped somewhere ahead of her, between her car and the lake.
She slowed to a crawl, studying the maze of driveways that split from the main trail toward the lake homes, which were dark squares nestled among the trees. Snow-covered spruce branches dangled over the road, hanging low enough to brush the roof of the car. Gravel scraped under her tires. She drove for a mile until the road ended at a concrete boat launch that sloped downward, disappearing into the dark water.
The van was in the lake.
It floated away from the ramp into the open water like an off-balance toy. Its driver's door was open. As she watched, the vehicle sank lower, water spilling inside. The frame wobbled and dove awkwardly on to its side with a splash. Its tires broke through the surface. The van made a slow circle, spinning lazily from the shore before the heavy engine drove it downward front first. With hissing and ripples, the entire vehicle settled to the muddy bottom.
Kasey withdrew her gun from its holster. She squinted through the windows and did a careful scan of the area around her car before she opened her door and slid out, staying behind it. Her eyes moved from tree to tree, watching for movement. She listened. Dried leaves clapped as the wind blew. Snow sprinkled from the evergreens and made a cold landing on her face. A chorus of crows erupted nearby, and she jumped.
Where was he?
Behind her, something hard and loud rustled in the brush. Kasey spun, lifting her gun. She saw a driveway, overgrown with shooting vines. The silhouette of a large house hugged the beach. She followed the noise and took slow, soundless steps down the driveway. Every few seconds, she glanced nervously behind her. She was scared and blind. The driveway lasted for forty yards, and then she broke into the open grass around the house. Snow covered the steps leading to the door, and there were no footsteps in the blanket of white.
From the other side of the road, back where she had parked her patrol car, Kasey heard another noise. An engine fired. Through the web of trees, she saw headlights and heard tires grinding on the dirt. She ran back along the driveway, but she spilled head first over a tree root breaching like a whale out of the earth. Her gun dropped from her hand and skidded into the brush, and she wasted almost a minute feeling for it with her bare hands. When she finally found it, she ran again, following the driveway to the trail where her car was parked. She stopped and listened, but the sound of the engine was distant. She heard the squeal of its tires as it swung on to the main highway and headed north. Escaping.
Kasey swore. She went to her patrol car to call for back-up. As she leaned inside, she saw a rectangle of glossy white paper on the seat. She picked it up and turned it over. 'Oh, my God,' Kasey murmured.
She stared at her own face. It was a photograph that Bruce had taken of her and Jack a year ago. She felt the breath leave her chest as if it had been sucked away.
There it was again. The same message he had written on her mirror. Two words scrawled in red marker across the front of the photograph in block letters. BAD GIRL.
Chapter Twenty-three
Valerie Glenn turned off Highway 2 into the empty church parking lot at midnight. She parked her white Mercedes and got out and shoved her hands into the pockets of her suede jacket. Ahead of her, the one-story church was surrounded by tall pines whose branches spread outward like a priest's outstretched arms. She crossed the lawn, her boots stamping down the thin layer of snow. At the front of the church, she sat on the concrete steps, and the cold stone felt icy through her jeans.
I know what happened to your daughter.
The woman on the phone had told her to come alone and keep the call a secret from the police and her husband. Despite everything Serena had told her, Valerie had done exactly as the woman wanted. She was here, miles outside the city, on her own. Waiting.
Deer tracks criss-crossed the snow. Overhead, the moon was a faint glow through the shroud of dark clouds. Twenty minutes passed as she sat on the steps, and she felt the bitter cold numbing her face. No one arrived. She began to think the call had been a hoax and that no one would show up to tell her about Callie. She told herself that she would wait ten more minutes and then go home, but the truth was, she wasn't going to leave. She would stay all night if there was even the slightest chance that it would bring her daughter home.