KASH WAS IN the living room, looking at the diary, the book pressed flat on the tabletop in front of him. On the left-hand page was a sketch of a body fitted out for a massacre, a faceless dummy strapped with guns and knives. It was a lot like the sketches Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris had made in their own diaries as they planned their assault. They’d envisioned body harnesses in which they could house handheld pipe bombs, holsters with easy access to knives for hand-to-hand combat should they run out of ammo. The diarist had copied excerpts from Eric’s diary into their own.
I must not be sidetracked by my feelings of sympathy, mercy.
I want to burn the world.
In reality, the boys had become bored midway through their killing spree and hadn’t used most of the weaponry they’d strapped to themselves. It was the same with Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech killer. He seemed to burn out his rage much faster than he went through his ammunition. It was all about build-up with these guys. Anticipation of the terror of their victims.
Maybe that was why the killer had left the note for Zac on the steering wheel, warning him that he was going to die. Otherwise, why not just let the thing activate itself the moment he shifted position? Why give him a chance? Why give him time to escape?
So he could think about it.
So he could know death was coming and be afraid.
‘Yow!’ Kash yelped, drew a finger to his lips.
‘What?’
‘I scraped it on the staple.’ He sucked blood from the tiny cut, examined the injury in the light.
I went to the book, sat down next to him. Indeed, there were two staples in the centre of the notebook, holding the pages in place. The bottom fold of one staple was crooked, sticking up slightly, a trap that would catch a careless hand sweeping over it.
I pushed the fold of the staple down. It sprang back up.
Something rushed over me, an electric sensation that made all my injuries come alive at once, my muscles hardening. I snatched the book up and examined it in the light of the living room, tilted it to get the right angle.
‘Oh my God,’ I whispered. ‘There’s a page missing.’
Chapter 81
‘HOW DO YOU know that?’ Snale took the diary from me, examined it, squinting.
‘The staples are crooked. Someone’s bent them outwards to slide the middle page out of the notebook without tearing the paper. They’ve folded the staples back but they’re not completely flat.’ I took the book from her hands. ‘Look. Here. I can see the shape of a square indented in the next page. It isn’t on the previous page. The missing page has left indentations.’
Snale shifted away, her face taut with concentration. She began pulling open drawers and shuffling through them. She found a pencil and a blank sheet of paper and came back to the dining-room table. She flattened the book and began gently shading the pages with the side of the pencil.
‘Shouldn’t we wait for Forensics?’ Kash asked. ‘Get a carbon scan?’
‘We don’t have time,’ I said. ‘It could easily tell us what’s happening next. There was a reason it was removed so carefully.’ My heart was hammering. Watching Snale shading every millimetre of the paper was painful. She experimented, shading lighter and harder, trying to find the best pressure to reveal the pattern underneath. Lines, squares, arrows pointing and labels. A map was emerging before us. Two rows of blocks, some longer, some short, the same distance apart as they were wide.
‘It’s the main street,’ I said. ‘It’s Last Chance Valley.’
Chapter 82
WHITT SLAMMED THE piece of paper against the prison plexiglas and pointed at it.
‘Who the fuck is this?’
He wasn’t usually the type to curse, but his resolve had worn thin. Sitting with Caitlyn McBeal in a room full of people who had all but given up on the idea of ever seeing her again had pushed him over the edge. Whitt’s instinct was to bundle her up, feed her, care for her like a newborn babe.
Sam examined the paper Whitt was holding against the glass of the visitors’ centre, the EFIT image of the man who had almost killed Caitlyn. Sam glanced at Whitt, shrugged.
‘I have no idea.’
‘Enough bullshit.’ Whitt leaned forwards so that his nose was centimetres from the glass. ‘This is the guy. We’ve got him on CCTV purchasing the camera that was found in your apartment.’ He shuffled through his papers and extracted the image from the hock shop. ‘We’ve got Caitlyn saying he was desperately upset at your arrest. He’s around your age. Slim. Long arms. This guy could be your twin. Who the fuck is he?’
‘I don’t know!’ Sam pleaded. ‘I’ve been watching it all morning on the news. I’m telling you, I don’t know the guy! I have never seen him before in my life!’
Whitt let the paper slide from the glass, slumped back in his chair.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he sighed. ‘I can’t anymore. It’s not as though he would tell her you were partners for the benefit of framing you. He didn’t expect her to survive.’
‘He told her we were partners?’
‘In a roundabout way.’
Sam scratched at his neck then shook his head violently, like he was trying to clear water from his ears.
‘How did she survive?’ Sam asked.
‘She got away.’
‘Maybe he planned that.’
‘I doubt it. She killed a homeless man. She fought for her life to get out of that place. When Tox found her, she was crawling on the ground. The experts reckon she had mere days left.’
‘Look.’ Sam shifted closer to the glass. ‘I need you to keep believing in me or I’ll never get out of here.’
‘If you want to get out of here, you better keep looking at this damned picture and figure out who the hell he is.’ Whitt left the image resting face-up on the counter. He said nothing as he headed past the security guards and into the hall.
Whitt hated to admit it, but he was beginning to wonder if Sam Blue was exactly where he belonged.
Chapter 83
IT WAS A massacre plan. As the missing page emerged, my heart sank lower and lower. Before, when the diary had been mainly praise for spree killers, research into bombs and weaponry, I could underestimate the diarist’s plans for the people of Last Chance Valley. But I could see now this killer planned to make sure no one survived.
The buildings of the main street made two identical columns down the centre of the page, on the right the post office, a hardware store, a tiny cafe and a supermarket, among others. On the left, across the street from the post office, lay Snale’s tiny police station, a single-storey square with a single interrogation room, a single cell, desk space for two and the armoury. Next came the pub with its rear car park, a farming supply store and a mechanic’s, also with a wide asphalt parking lot.
Four main buildings, shoulder to shoulder, forming two identical blocks.
Around the buildings, the diarist had marked a dotted line, the path of his plan.
Step one: Kill Officer Snale in police station. Acquire weapons.
Step two: Plant device #1 in the car park behind pub. Set timer.
Step three: Take the semitrailer from the mechanic car park and use it to block off bottom of the main street, creating a U-shape to trap victims.
Step five: Plant devices #2 and #3 in semitrailer. Set timers.
Step four: Get John Destro and secure upper balcony of the post office.
Kash, Snale and I looked over the faint map, following the steps.
‘This is terrifying,’ Snale murmured. A thin sheen of sweat glistened at her hairline.
‘You’re the tactics guy,’ I told Kash. ‘What do you think?’