The Third Victim Part 81

"Right under the deck. But all we've found so far are some old threads

and gravel. They're still working on it."Quincy looked at Shep. The sheriff had thinned his lips. Quincy understood. They were looking at the final resting place of the man who had killed Rainie's mother. And Quincy also understood who had put him there.

"Anything else?" Quincy asked.

"We found an old shotgun," Sanders said.

"Shep already identified it as the gun that was used to kill Molly Conner fourteen years ago. In theory, it's an open case, so all evidence has been held in the state police's storage locker in Portland. Then two days ago a young man claiming to be from the Bakersville sheriff's department checked out the evidence. He gave Rainie's badge number, which the doofus officer in charge never followed up on. And gee, Bakersville's newest police officer just happens to match Richard Mann's description."

"He gave this some thought."

"No kidding. We got a ton of fingerprints from his house, but it's going to take a while to work through the system. We've been calling him Mann, though apparently the real Mann is teaching in some remote village in Alaska and has no idea someone stole his ident.i.ty. When he gets back to civilization, he's in for a little surprise."

"Mann's still around here," Quincy said.

"He'd be an idiot to remain in the area. We got guys everywhere."

"He's an adrenaline junkie. He's taken it this far. He'll see it all the way through."

"What do you think he's doing?"

"I'm not sure anymore. In the beginning, I think he was planning on business as usual. He identified a kid who was troubled. He found an ident.i.ty he could use as a ruse. It's not rushed. He's executed three complicated crimes in the s.p.a.ce of ten years. He takes his time. He's cautious. Think of what we talked about earlier: He operates with a double contingency plan. So even if you penetrate the first wall, you simply encounter the next layer of defense.

"My guess is that he was too good. Two spectacular crimes and no one came close to figuring them out. Where's the thrill in that? Where's the rush? So this time he started to take more chances. He lingered after the shooting. He gave us more hints, but I just didn't see them.

His whole little diatribe on what makes a good father. He was referring to his own issues with his father, of course. Then that little speech at the funeral on how he'd decided Danny couldn't be the shooter. Danny was too smart, too sophisticated to use blatant force.

He wasn't talking about Danny. He was talking about himself.

"And then we get to Rainie. He brought her the shotgun, the gun most of the town believes she personally used to kill her own mother. That must have captivated him. Here's a woman who is rumored to have done exactly what he fantasized about every day of his childhood. She probably seemed glorious to him."

"You think he wanted her to run away with him? Become his partner?"

Sanders asked incredulously.

Quincy shook his head.

"No. I think he made the same mistake everyone else in this town has made. She didn't shoot her mother. And that deeply, deeply disappointed him."

Sanders could fill in the rest.

"And if he's disappointed .. . ' "If we don't find them soon," Quincy said quietly, "I doubt she'll live through the night."

A voice suddenly came from deep in the woods.

"Over here, over here," a technician cried.

"I got something!"

They ran. There on the ground, a tiny piece of white cotton, as if torn from a T-s.h.i.+rt.

"They went into the woods," Sanders said triumphantly.

"Quick, somebody get some dogs."

"Adjoining roads," Quincy said immediately.

"Logging roads, rural routes, dirt roads, anything. Get your men on them, because he didn't come all this way on foot."

Abe excitedly began making the calls, and then they were plunging into the underbrush, desperate to find a trail, desperate to find Rainie.

"s.h.i.+t!" Richard Mann said for the fifth time in about as many minutes.

He staggered to a halt, wiping the heavysweat from his brow and giving Rainie a look that was rapidly growing ragged.

She pretended to ignore his hatred while lowering herself gingerly to the ground, not the easiest thing to do with her hands tied behind her back. Her head hurt. She had regained consciousness quickly, but that hadn't done her any favors. When Richard had smacked her with the shotgun, he'd done a good job of it. Her jaw throbbed; she suspected it was broken. Her eye had swelled shut; she thought the socket might be fractured. She was starting to see double with what vision she had left, and the pain was becoming less constant but more acute.

Hemorrhage, maybe? Blood clot? The possibilities were endless.

At least she was having the last laugh. Her wild shot had caught Richard Mann in his right b.u.t.tock as he'd swiveled around to swing the shotgun. He'd dismissed it as a mere flesh wound, but after hiking up the steep mountain for a bit, he'd taken to favoring his right leg. His walking was no longer steady; his face had become flushed. They were taking more and more breaks and stopping for longer periods of time.

It was hard to tell in the dark, but she suspected he was bleeding heavily. He'd stuffed his wind-breaker down his pants to bandage the wound, but he must have begun to doubt that system, for he kept pausing now to check the ground for signs of blood.

Mess with me, get shot in the a.s.s, Rainie thought. She smiled at her own dark humor, then promptly winced in pain.

Danny was still with them, now sitting quietly beside Rainie. He had yet to say a word. He simply walked, his head ducked low and his hands stuck in the pants pockets of his blue surgical scrubs. The night was cold. He kept fidgeting with his white cotton unders.h.i.+rt as if trying to get warm. Rainie wished there was more she could do for him.

h.e.l.l, at this point, with the trees swaying sickeningly in front of her eyes, she wished there was more she could do for herself.

How had Danny gotten out of the detention center? And why had he come to her back porch? Had he suspected Richard Mann might show up there?

Had he wanted to help her?

Or was he still Richard's accomplice? She thought of what Quincy had said yesterday. Once the dominant partner got the other to kill, it became too difficult for the weaker one to walk away. And Danny had killed. He had told her about it today in a thin, high voice that sounded as fragile as a reed.

She didn't know anymore. She was trying to hold the thoughts together in her mind, sort through them, come up with a plan. Her face was on fire, and the pain was becoming more intense.

Mann staggered back to his feet. His flashlight swung wildly. It illuminated two dark spots on the dusty trail and made him curse. The man was bleeding quite nicely. He kicked up dirt over the blood, grabbed a tree limb to rake over their trail, and gave Rainie a look that was downright feral.

"Up," he snarled.

"I think I'm going to vomit," Rainie murmured.

"Up!"

"Okay," she said. She leaned forward and threw up on his shoes.

"f.u.c.k me!" Mann leapt back two feet, kicking furiously at bushes and needles in a vain attempt to get the puke off his shoes. His arms flailed. His face had gone purple. Rainie didn't hesitate. Maybe it wasn't a pretty plan, but it was as good as it was going to get.

"Run," she yelled at Danny.

"Run!"

And then she hurled herself at Mann.