“Smart boy. Nine o’clock, time to rock. Time for the third. What takes you there but takes you nowhere?You have sixty minutes. It’ll be worse this time, Kevin.”
The phone on the counter rang shrilly. He had to keep Slater on the phone.
“Can I ask a question?” he asked.
“No. But you may answer the room phone. Maybe it will be Sam. Wouldn’t that be cozy? Answer the phone.”
Kevin slowly lifted the room phone off the hook.
“Kevin?” Sam’s familiar voice filled his ear, and despite the impossible situation, he felt a bucket of relief wash over him. He wasn’t sure what to say. He held the cell phone against his right ear and the room phone against his other ear.
“Tell her hello from Slater,” Slater said.
Kevin hesitated. “Slater says hello,” he said.
“He called?” she asked.
“He’s on the other line.”
“Too bad Jennifer left so early,” Slater said. “The four of us could throw a little party. Time’s running out. Fifty-nine minutes and fifty-one seconds. Your move.” The cell phone clicked.
Sam spoke again. “Kevin, listen to me! Is he still on—”
“He’s gone.”
“Don’t move. I’m turning up your street now. I’ll be there in ten seconds.” She disconnected.
Kevin stood, immobile, a phone in each hand. Play the game. Play the game. It was the boy; it had to be the boy.
The door flew open. “Kevin?” Sam ran in.
He spun. “I have sixty minutes.”
“Or what?”
“Another bomb?”
She stepped up to him and cradled her hands under his wrists. “Okay. Listen to me, we have to think this through clearly.” She eased the phones out of his hands and then took him by the shoulders. “Listen to me—”
“We have to call the FBI.”
“We will. But I want you to tell me first. Tell me exactly what he said.”
“I know who the Riddle Killer is.”
She stared, stunned. “Who?”
Kevin sat heavily in a chair. “The boy.”
“I thought he told you he wasn’tthe boy.”
Kevin’s mind began to work faster. “He said, ‘What boy?’ He didn’t say he wasn’tthe boy.” He ran to the refrigerator, opened the door, pulled out the milk jug, and slammed it on the counter.
She stared at the thick-stroked letters. Her eyes shifted to him and then back. “When was—”
“He was in here last night.”
“ It’s so dark.What’s so dark?”
Kevin paced and rubbed his head.
“Tell me, Kevin. Just tell me. We’re running out of time here.”
“Your dad made the boy leave, but he came back.”
“What do you mean? We never saw him again!”
“I did! He caught me on my way to your house two weeks later. He said he was going to hurt you. And me. I ran and somehow . . .” Emotions clogged his head. He glanced at the clock. 9:02. “Somehow we ended up in a storage basement in one of the warehouses. I don’t even remember which one anymore. I locked him in and ran away.”
She blinked. “What happened?”
“I had to do it, Sam!” He spoke desperately now. “He was going to kill you! And me!”
“It’s okay. It’s okay, Kevin. We can talk about it later, okay? Right now—”
“That’s the sin he wants me to confess. I left him to die in the dark.”
“But he didn’tdie, did he? Obviously he’s alive. You didn’t kill anyone.”
He paused. Of course! The dark night flashed through his mind. Unless Slater wasn’t the boy, but someone who knew about the incident, a psychopath who’d discovered the truth somehow and had decided that Kevin should pay.
“Either way, I locked a boy in a basement and left him to die. That’s intent. That’s as good as murder.”
“You don’t know that this has anything to do with the boy. We have to think this through, Kevin.”
“We don’t have time to think this through! It’s the only thing that makes any sense. If I confess, this crazy game stops.” He paced and rubbed his head, suppressing a sudden urge to cry over the thought of actually confessing after all that he’d done to rid himself of his past. “Oh God, what have I done? This can’t be happening. Not after everything else.”
She stared at him, digesting the new information, her eyes wrinkled with empathy. “So then confess, Kevin. That was almost twenty years ago.”
“Come on, Sam!” He whirled to her, angry. “This will blow sky-high. Every American who watches the news will know about the seminary student who buried another kid alive and left him to die. This will ruin me!”
“Better ruined than dead. Besides, you had reason to lock up the boy. I’ll come to your defense.”
“None of that matters. If I am capable of attempted murder, I am capable of anything. That’s the reputation that will follow me.” He gritted his teeth. “This is nuts. We’re running out of time. I have to call the newspaper and tell them. It’s the only way to stop that maniac before he kills me.”
“Maybe, but he’s also demanding that you solve the riddle. We may be dealing with the same killer from Sacramento—”
“I know. Jennifer told me. Still, the only way to stop him is to confess. The riddle is supposed to tell me what to confess.” Kevin headed for the phone. He had to call the newspaper. Slater was listening—he’d know. This was insane.
“What was the riddle?”
He stopped. “ What takes you there but takes you nowhere?He said it would be worse this time.”
“How does thattie in to the boy?” she asked.
The question hadn’t occurred to him. What takes you there but takes you nowhere?“I don’t know.” What if Sam was right? What if his confession about the boy wasn’t what Slater was looking for?
“What connection is there between the boy and the three riddles he’s given?” She grabbed a piece of paper. “Sixty minutes. Yesterday it was three minutes and then thirty minutes. Today it’s sixty minutes. What time did he call?”
“Nine o’clock. Three times three. That’s what he said.”
Her eyes studied the riddles she’d jotted down.
“Call Agent Peters. Tell her about Slater’s call and the confession. Ask her to call the newspaper and tell her to get over here as fast as she can. We have to crack these riddles.”
Kevin punched in the number Jennifer had left him. The clock read 9:07. They still had fifty-three minutes. Jennifer picked up.
“He called,” Kevin said.
Silence.
“He called—”
“Another riddle?”
“Yes. But I think I might know who he is and what he wants.”
“Tell me!”
Kevin told her the rest in a halting run-on that ate up several minutes. An urgency he hadn’t expected crowded her voice. She was impatient and demanding. But her intensity reassured him.
“So you think you know who he is, and you neglect to tell me about his demand that you confess. What are you trying to do to me? This is a killer we’re dealing with!”
“I’m sorry, I was scared. I’m telling you now.”
“Any other secrets?”
“No. Please, I’m sorry.”
“Samantha’s there?”
“Yes. You have to get this confession out,” Kevin said. “That’s what this is about.”
“We don’t know that. I don’t see the relationship between the riddles and the boy.”
“He was here, last night, and he wrote on my milk jug,” Kevin said. “It has to be him! You wanted motivation; now you have it. I tried to kill someone. He’s mad. How’s that? You have to get this confession on the air.”
Silence stretched on the line.
“Jennifer?”
“We need more time!” she said and then took a breath. “Okay, I’ll put the confession on the wire. Stay put. Do not set foot outside that house, you hear me? Work the riddles.”
“Sam—”