At least he’d stripped Amarok of one of his female admirers and left him another dead body to deal with. The count was rising, which had to be making him crazy. Imagining his anger was Jasper’s only solace.
He slowed at the next road to see if that was his turn. He’d charted his course before leaving for work and printed it out, since he didn’t have a cell phone he could use to navigate. He’d stuffed the map into his coat pocket in case he couldn’t get back home, and now he was damn glad. He was going to stay as far away from that side of town as possible—circle wide and go an hour north, where there was a municipal airport. He’d chartered a small plane there to take him to Vancouver. He’d fly to Mexico from Canada. He’d also booked a flight from Anchorage, however, just to throw off Amarok and anyone else who might come looking for him, since they’d probably expect him to fly out of Ted Stevens International. As much as he’d hated to waste the money, it never hurt to add a little subterfuge. Hopefully the cops would be so intent on catching him at the airport, they wouldn’t even look at his laptop, which was now going to fall into their hands, until after he reached Mexico.
He fiddled with the radio, trying to get something to come on. The Subaru was relatively new—maybe three years old. It had navigation, he belatedly realized, but he didn’t know how to use it and he wasn’t about to take the time to figure it out. He wanted to get to Butte as soon as possible. He had to find a place to ditch the Subaru where it wouldn’t be found for several days. He’d only taken it because he’d wanted to erase any immediate sign that the body in Amarok’s bed wasn’t Evelyn in hopes that it would cause him a scare. He’d wanted to make what he’d done in Amarok’s house as traumatic as he could, a reminder to Evelyn of what he’d eventually do to her—once he had a chance to recover and regroup.
Finally, he found some music he liked and settled back for the drive. He’d arrive in Butte soon. He’d be early, but he wanted to get off the road. He was assuming Amarok had sent out a BOLO, or Be On the Look Out, for Samantha’s car and didn’t want to pass a police officer.
Once he got to the airport, he could just lie low and wait for his flight.
Soon he’d be gone—well out of Amarok’s and Evelyn’s reach.
30
“He hasn’t shown up yet,” Amarok said.
Evelyn drew a deep breath. Amarok had left Phil at their house to await the coroner, who was coming out from Anchorage, and had driven her, Makita and Sigmund to his trooper post. Amarok needed to return and take charge of the scene, but catching Jasper before he could leave the state or the country came before everything else. If they didn’t catch him, there’d just be more dead bodies.
“He’s not going back to wherever he was staying,” she said dully. It was too much to hope that he’d fall right into their hands.
“The detective at the house he’s been renting told me there’s a suitcase filled with clothes in his bedroom, so they think he was planning on returning. But the place has been burglarized—I know, terrible timing—so it’s a mess. They’ve been searching for a computer or something else that might give some indication of where he might be, or where he might be going, but so far, they have no clue.” He pulled over a chair and sat down next to her. “And there’s something else.…”
She rubbed her arms as she braced for more bad news. She could tell by his tone and his manner that she wasn’t going to like what he had to say. “Tell me.…”
“He’s tricked out his basement.”
“In what way?”
“Turned it into a torture chamber.”
“If he had a torture chamber, why did he kill Katherine at the Barrymore cabin?”
“It appears to be brand-new. And your pictures are all over one wall.”
“He was saving it for me,” she said as the realization dawned. “That’s what he’s been doing with his time—besides building our trust and the trust of everyone else who lives in Hilltop.” She let her breath seep out. “From a clinical perspective, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“And from a personal one?”
“It’s terrifying. If we don’t catch him, he’ll come back for me.”
Amarok stretched his neck. It was getting late and the strain of what had started with Sierra Yerbowitz going missing was beginning to wear him down. It’d been a rough two weeks, with a lot of stress and very little sleep. Evelyn felt bad for him, but she was too anxious, too worried, to offer him any comfort.
“I’m sure you’re right,” he said. “He heard me talking to Phil about the manifests earlier. He knows we have them. I’m assuming that’s why he killed Samantha. He no longer had to worry that we’d figure out who he was. He knew we were about to do that. So when you didn’t come home as expected—thank God for Brianne’s call—he got angry, killed her instead of you and is now on the run.”
“What was she doing at our house, Amarok?”
He didn’t look particularly comfortable with the question. “I can only imagine. You heard her voicemail the other day.”
“She was almost as obsessed with you as Jasper is with me.”
“I guess.”
As much as she’d disliked Sam, as much as it’d bothered her that Sam was always coming on to Amarok, Jasper had no right to take her life. “Has Anchorage PD alerted airport security?”
“They have. He’ll be arrested as soon as he tries to board a plane. They’re waiting for him at Ted Stevens. So there’s still hope.”
She nibbled nervously on her bottom lip. This thing between her and Jasper had to come to an end. He couldn’t continue to terrorize her forever.
Except he could—there was nothing to ensure against that—and chances were better that he’d escape than that he’d be caught. He knew how to avoid capture. He’d done it for twenty-two years.
“What if he isn’t going to Ted Stevens International?” she asked. “What if he’s going into hiding? He could reappear at the earliest opportunity. And maybe he’ll settle for a quick kill instead of some elaborate scheme to build another torture chamber. No matter how careful I am, I could never be careful enough to avoid a hit that comes out of nowhere.”
Amarok took her hands. “We know what he looks like these days.”
“He changed his appearance once before. He could do it again. I didn’t even recognize him. He’s had plastic surgery, looks nothing like the boy I knew.”
“Quit beating yourself up for not seeing this coming. It’s been more than twenty years. And that kind of surgery isn’t cheap. He no longer has his rich parents to pay for stuff like that, remember?”
“Because he killed them.”
“Yes, but think about what that means. He’s slowly cutting off one avenue after another, which limits his ability to do certain things. It’s only a matter of time before the odds swing in our favor.”
The phone rang. He got up and crossed to his desk. “It’s Anchorage PD,” he said as he picked up the handset.
She listened to his side of the conversation, but when he hung up he repeated most of what she’d already heard. “They’ve found a record for him. He’s flying out of Anchorage.”
Amarok sounded cautiously optimistic, more optimistic than she could be. “I gathered that,” she said. “But … going where?”
“Chicago.”
She shook her head. “No. That’s too easy. He knew we’d check Anchorage right away.”
“Maybe he’s hoping to get out of the state before we can arrest him.”
“Even if he flew off before we could catch him, we’d have the police waiting for him in Chicago. That flight’s a trick, a decoy. We can’t fall for it. We have to look at other possibilities.”
Amarok frowned. “There are too many possibilities to predict them all. He could be on his way to some small Arctic community where no one even has a TV. How would we find him then?”
“I don’t think he’d do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because murder is what makes him happy, and he couldn’t function in that kind of environment. He needs people, a lot of people, in order to hide who he is and what he does.”
“Canada?”
“Or Mexico. It’s warmer, more relaxed there and has loads of tourists.”