Oh. “All right. Then what did Hunter find?”
He just shook his head and clutched her like she was his lifeline. In that moment, maybe she was. And, in that moment, she was grateful to her father for distracting her out of an impending panic attack earlier. She would have been no good to Gideon that way.
She pulled back enough to see his face. “Are you coming in or are we going out?”
“Out,” he said. “Tom’s got the SUV in the garage.” He backed up and straightened, his green eyes looking dull and pained.
“When did you last have one of your pain pills?” Daisy asked.
Gideon gestured to Frederick and Mercy. “Let’s go. We’ll check on Zandra and then we’ll get you back to the Sokolovs. It’ll be safer there. Especially since he knows where you live, Daisy.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice you totally ignored me about the pain pill,” Daisy said tartly. “But we can talk about that later. For now, understand that he has to know where Karl and Irina live, too. He followed you Saturday, Gideon. Remember what the reporter said yesterday? He was at Trish’s apartment building asking where you’d gone. That’s how he knew to follow us to Redding.”
He rubbed his forehead. “You’re right. I’ll get you a safe house.”
She put Brutus in her bag and shouldered it. Gideon wasn’t thinking straight, which was why she wasn’t panicking at the thought of a safe house. “Fine. But if I go, you go.”
He blew out a breath. “We can talk about that later.”
Behind them, her father coughed, but she was pretty sure he was covering up a laugh. Daisy was okay with that. She’d finally heard him really laugh again, after far too many years. She couldn’t wait to hear it again. “That’s fine. Let’s go.”
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1:05 A.M.
Finally. He’d been sitting in the hospital’s parking lot, waiting for a doctor or a nurse or a PA of the right size to come outside wearing scrubs. And a badge. Especially a badge.
He tapped his pocket, making sure he still carried the syringe he’d filled with sedative on arrival. It had been in the emergency duffel bag he’d grabbed from the Jeep. He’d last used the bag in Vail, the sedative on Zandra. There was still enough left to take out an average-sized man for at least an hour. He eyed the man and figured the scrubs would be a good fit. Maybe a little loose in the front, but all the better to hide his gun.
The man was standing alone in the shadows, smoking a cigarette. Even better, he wore earbuds in his ears, leaning with one shoulder against the wall, gently bobbing to whatever music he was listening to.
He won’t see me coming. And he didn’t.
He walked up behind the man and brought the grip of his gun down hard on his skull. When the man stumbled, he sprang, using his weight to drag him to the ground and injecting the sedative into his neck. It was clumsy using his right hand, but he didn’t need perfect aim.
He continued to press the man into the ground, a knee in his back, his good arm across his back, until his struggles slowed and he slumped, down for the count.
Quickly he undressed the guy, shoved the scrubs in his duffel, took his badge, and dragged him behind some shrubs. Not the best hiding place but the guy was heavy.
And I’m in a hurry. He took a peek at the badge. For the next little bit he was Nabil Halif, RN. Well, shit. His disguise didn’t exactly go with that name, but he wasn’t planning to stop and talk to anyone, either. Using the badge, he entered through the employee door and calmly found the nearest family restroom. There would be plenty of room there to change his clothes and apply the disguise he had with him. Then he’d find Zandra’s room.
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1:30 A.M.
“What took you so long?” Agent Molina demanded as their party of five exited the elevator on Zandra’s floor. She frowned. “I asked only for Miss Dawson and Agent Hunter.”
Because Zandra had been calling for Daisy and Daisy only.
Gideon frowned back. “My sister was at Daisy’s house when we got there. I wasn’t going to leave her there. And Daisy’s father insisted on coming as a condition of her being here at all. I told you this.”
Molina sighed. “Yes, you did. My apologies. We’re all tired. But only Miss Dawson and Agent Hunter are to approach Miss Jones in her room.”
Gideon was tired and his head hurt. His arm was throbbing. He should have taken the pain pill Daisy tried to force on him on the way to the hospital, but those pills made him too groggy. He was no good to anyone that way. Especially Daisy.
“With all due respect, ma’am,” he said, “that’s bullshit.”
Daisy rolled her eyes at him. “You are super cranky when you’re in pain.” She turned to his boss with a winning smile. “Agent Molina, Gideon is on medical leave, is he not?”
“Yes. That’s why he’s to stay in the waiting room.”
“Well, if he’s on leave, he’s here as my companion, is he not?”
Molina narrowed her eyes. “I suppose so.”
“Then as my companion, I’d like him to accompany me. I have a service dog in my bag. Gideon is kind of like a service . . . man. My anchor. Without my anchors, I get very bad panic attacks that threaten my sobriety. I’d like to help calm Miss Jones so that you can get her statement, but if I’m not calm, she won’t be, either. So I respectfully ask you to reconsider allowing Gideon to accompany me.”
Molina’s lips actually twitched. “You’re trouble, Miss Dawson.” Then she was back to business. “All right. I’ve lost enough time waiting for you. Come with me, the three of you. But the father and sister go to the waiting room. It’s around the corner. There’s an armed agent at Miss Jones’s door and a uniformed police officer at both of the elevators. If you need help, don’t hesitate to ask.”
Frederick and Mercy headed to the waiting room, Frederick looking like he was biting back a smile.
Gideon, however, didn’t think he’d smile again anytime soon. Thirty-one victims. They’d only found seven bodies so far, because Eileen hadn’t been found. He thought of the body in the freezer. But Kaley Martell had. So eight bodies so far.
The earliest of the victims’ driver’s licenses had been issued ten years ago. If that first victim had been taken the year her license was issued, it meant he’d averaged three murders a year. But it was clear that he’d sped up in the last year and especially in the last week. He was escalating and he was fixated on Daisy.
Which scared Gideon to the depths of his soul.
“Miss Jones disappeared from an airport in Vail,” Molina told Daisy as they walked.
“So not a truck driver,” Daisy murmured.
“No. He’s a pilot. We confirmed that he and another pilot flew a party to Vail on Friday for a ski vacation. They were there for three hours while their aircraft refueled.”
Daisy gave his boss an incredulous look. “So he abducted Zandra and brought her home with him?”
“Yes. It appears he abducted her from a bar a few miles from the airport. Let me give you a few details before you start talking to her. She’s a prosecutor in Rhode Island. She was engaged. According to her family, she was in Vail for her wedding, which was supposed to be Saturday. She left early when she found her fiancé and her best friend . . . together.”
“Poor Zandra,” Daisy murmured. “So she went to a bar?”
“Apparently so,” Molina said. “The bar had security cameras inside, but the ones outside had been disconnected.”
“By our suspect?” Tom asked.
“Not unless he did it on an earlier trip. We have him on an internal camera. He looks nothing like his driver’s license photo or the man captured on the security video in the bar where Miss Hart worked.”
“I’ve seen him twice,” Daisy said, “once at the pet store and once at the Redding bus station, and he didn’t look the same either time.”
“Which makes Miss Jones’s statement so important,” Molina said.
“She may be the only one who’s seen his real face,” Gideon said.
“Exactly,” Molina said. “Miss Dawson, I’d like you to help Agent Hunter get as full a description as you can. And a description of everything she remembers about the incident itself. Including how she came to be free.”
“I figured the body on the bed let her out,” Tom said.
“If she’s the Sydney he was carving into his victims’ skin,” Gideon added, “which is likely considering a car matching hers was in the driveway, then he was obsessed with her at the very least. That Sydney was strangled indicates a lot of rage. If he found Zandra gone and this woman in her place? That may have driven him to kill her.”
“That makes sense,” Molina said. “But why? That’s what I want to know.”
“What I’d like to know is the extent of Zandra’s injuries,” Daisy said quietly.
“Bruises on her face and lacerations at wrists and ankles,” Molina answered. “He carved letters into her torso. He actually bandaged and stitched her so that she could heal.”
“He wanted to keep her longer?” Tom supposed.