It was a Tarzan arrangement of sorts, a crude cabin on stilts within the branches of a tree. I crept close and peered through the wood-latticed screening.
The lower level contained a very basic kitchen whose centerpiece was a wooden table with two blue plastic chairs. In one corner, an open door revealed a bath with stone-covered walls. In another, slatted stairs angled steeply to an upper floor. The wan illumination was seeping from above.
I stood a moment, breath frozen. What if I was wrong? What if the man wasn’t Ryan?
It was Ryan.
Moving gingerly, I eased open the screen door, tiptoed across the tile and up the stairs. I was on the second tread from the top when he spoke. “What do you want?”
The voice sounded hoarse, weary. Angry? I couldn’t tell.
“It’s Tempe,” I said.
There was no response. I swallowed. Tried to recall the words I’d practiced in my head.
“Why are you following me?”
“I located you through your email.”
“Congratulations.”
“It wasn’t hard.”
Shit. Was I trying to make him feel bad?
“Actually, I had help.”
“So I have been found. Now leave me alone.”
“May I come up?”
Silence.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”
“No. I don’t.”
I stepped onto the top riser.
Ryan was sitting on an unmade bed, knees raised, back to the wall. A single bulb oozed light through a paper-covered fixture above his left shoulder. A fan rotated slowly overhead. A book lay spread on his chest.
An open bottle of Scotch sat on a table made of sticks to the right of the bed. An empty bottle rested at the base of one wall, abandoned where it had rolled to a stop. The smells of old booze and soiled clothing overrode the jungle bouquet coming through the screening that formed the upper half of the walls.
“You look good,” I said.
Partially true. Ryan’s skin was tanned, his hair bleached by hours in the sun. But he’d lost weight. His cheeks were gaunt below the stubble of beard. The shadowing of ribs and hollow spaces rippled his T-shirt.
“I look like shit,” he said.
I launched into the speech I’d practiced. “You’re needed. It’s time to come home.”
Nothing.
Screw it. I cut to the quick. “Anique Pomerleau.”
Ryan’s eyes flicked in my direction. He seemed about to speak, instead reopened the book.
“It’s her, Ryan. She’s killing again. A girl was murdered in Vermont in 2007. Her body was posed. The cold case detective—”
“Past life.” His eyes returned to the book.
“Pomerleau’s DNA was found on the kid.”
Ryan’s gaze remained fixed on the page. But a changed tension in his neck and shoulders told me he was listening.
“You tracked Pomerleau. You caught her. You know how she thinks.”
“I’m no longer in the show.” Still not looking up.
“She’s resurfaced, Ryan. She got away from us on rue de Sébastopol, and now she’s back at it.”
Finally, his eyes rolled up to mine. A spiderweb of red surrounded each neon-blue iris.
“A girl was murdered in Charlotte in 2009. The victimology and crime scene signature parallel the case in Vermont.”
“Including Pomerleau’s DNA?”
“That’s being confirmed.”
“Sounds weak.”
“It’s her.”
Ryan’s eyes held mine for a very long moment, then dropped back to the page he wasn’t reading.
“Another girl has now gone missing. Same physical type. Same MO.”
“No.”
“Undoubtedly, there were others in between.”
“Leave me alone.”
“We need you. We have to shut her down.”
“Do you know the way back to your hotel?”
“This isn’t you, Ryan. You can’t turn your back on these kids, knowing there will likely be more. More murders of young girls.”
Ryan reached up and killed the light.
Above the whine of insects and the gentle ticking of wind-tossed leaves, I heard him turn away from me.
Back at Villas Katerina, my iPhone picked up a signal, and messages pinged in.
Slidell had called three times.