“Is that really it?” Luke asks.
She looks back at him, takes advantage of the connection she has with him that she can’t establish with his brother. “Not entirely, no,” she whispers. “Even if I ask him not to, he’ll probably go after them, won’t he?”
“Given his history, yeah.”
“I don’t want that. Not yet.”
“Even if he just gets information?”
“They’re expecting that. Kayla’s already run some kind of background check on Dylan, and he knows about it somehow. And there was something else he said . . .”
“What, Charley?”
“He said there was no way for me to surprise him,” she says, “now that they can see everything I’m doing.”
“Sounds about right,” Luke responds, and for the first time since she asked for silence on the drive there, she hears doubt creeping back into his voice.
“It isn’t right, though.” The words give her the confidence to lift her hands to the keyboard again. “It’s wrong. I know exactly how to surprise him.”
Still need you to find someone, she types.
Listening, comes the response.
“If they’re gonna make me do this, whoever they are,” she whispers, “I’m doing it on my terms.”
I need you to find the Mask Maker, she types.
25
“Whoa,” Luke whispers.
The serial killer in LA? Bailey answers.
“Whoa, Charley.”
She holds up a hand to silence him, then types, Yes.
She braces herself for a flood of questions about her motives, her plan.
On it, comes the response.
And that’s it.
“Wait,” she says.
“Yeah, yeah,” Luke whispers, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone is watching them. “That sounds right. Let’s wait a minute here and just—”
Again, she holds up one hand to silence him, then types, You can find him?
I can do my best. I’ll be in touch.
That’s it???
A few seconds later, Bailey’s response: I’m like the Secret Service. I don’t discuss procedure. Better for everyone that way. Take care of my brother, i.e., don’t take any of his shit.
After a minute of radio silence, she types a string of question marks, gets nothing in response. Behind her Luke’s gathering anger takes the form of heavy breathing and the occasional unnecessary throat clearing.
Bailey’s gone. For now.
“Let’s talk,” Luke says.
“You say that like we’ve haven’t been talking all day.”
“Seriously, Charley.”
“Outside.”
His footsteps are so heavy she can hear them scraping the soft carpeting behind her. Is he that pissed, or has a rush of adrenaline made her hypersensitive to his close pursuit, to the glances from the librarians they walk past at the information desk? Is it from the nagging fear that some trace of her chat with Bailey might actually be left on that computer back there, even though she closed out every screen and Bailey picked the chat room because nothing about it was permanent?
Once they’re on the sidewalk and a good distance from the library entrance, Luke grabs her by one shoulder. A mistake, he seems to realize too late. By then their eyes have locked, and he remembers everything she told him on the ride there and holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“Look, I gave you an out,” she says.
“A serial killer?” Luke hisses. “You’re actually going to go after a serial killer?”
“‘The world is full of bad men, Charlotte. Go find some. Show them what you can do.’ That’s what Dylan just said to me. Your brother locates criminals, so I’m just asking him to do what he’s good at. That’s all.”
“I’m not worried about my brother. I’m worried about you.”
“I appreciate that, but it was your advice, remember?”
“Go after a serial killer with a drug you don’t understand? When did I give that advice?”
“I made the choice in the middle.”
“How is that—I mean, what are you even talking about? Charley, you have to go to the authorities.”
“I’m sorry. What authorities? Do you have a direct line to the president I don’t know about? Twenty-five billion dollars a year. Aerial surveillance technology. Private security contractors that take out dictators. That’s what I’m up against, Luke, and the only thing that can stop people like that is a thermonuclear warhead or the threat of one. You have any lying around?”
“You’re not a killer, Charley. Trina Pierce was not a killer. Everyone knew it no matter what they said. No matter what I said. Don’t do something crazy just ’cause you think you still have to prove that to the world.”
“The world? I don’t want the world to know about any of this. I want the world to leave me alone for the first time in my life. To stop treating me like my mother being raped and murdered by those monsters makes me special. Because when the world does that, they make Abigail Banning feel special. Jesus Christ, Luke. My entire life I’ve been forced to indulge sick freaks on the Internet who want to turn that woman into their own Hannibal Lecter, and the minute I finally got free of them, Dylan Fucking Thorpe shows up and throws me headfirst into this nightmare. So if I’m really stuck here, I’m doing things my way.”
“I appreciate your anger, Charley. You—”
“Oh, don’t patronize me. You don’t—”
“Then stop talking about your damn feelings and start talking about the facts. I spend my weekends reading about this guy. For starters, they don’t know if he is just one guy. But he’s on his way to being one of the most proficient, if not the most proficient, serial killer in American history. I mean, do you even know the first thing about him? What this guy does requires months of planning on top of some sort of medical expertise. And he’s managed to abduct both his victims from public places without popping up on a single security camera.”
“That’s not true. They’ve got him in Santa Monica last week.”
“Because he wanted them to. He’s never been caught on camera when he didn’t want to be, Charley. The guy makes the Bannings look like amateurs.”
“The Bannings killed for nine years before a deliveryman recognized me from an age-progression photo. They were not amateurs, Luke.”
“His abductions are not on camera. They haven’t even pinpointed the abduction sites. Do you realize the kind of skill and patience that takes in this day and age?”
“Ten bucks says they’ve got him on tape, and we just don’t know about it because they’re holding it back so they can eliminate false confessions. The cops did the same thing with five different pieces of evidence in the Banning case.”
“Oh my God. Is that what you just sent Bailey to do? Hack LAPD and the FBI?”
“Well, you could ask your brother, but he doesn’t discuss procedure, remember?”
“This is insane,” Luke whispers.
“You’re right, and it’s been insane for forty-eight hours, and I gave you an out, and I didn’t have to tell you about any of it, so screw you for judging how I’m handling it.”
“I’m not judging you. I’m trying to keep you from destroying what life you have left.”
“I made the choice in the middle. Just like you said. And when I’m done, there’s a very good chance the Mask Maker won’t be killing women anymore.”
“You are . . .” Luke begins, shaking his head. But instead of finishing he pulls out his phone. “Nuts,” he says as he starts dialing. “You are completely nuts, Charley. And I wouldn’t be doing right by you if I let you . . . I mean, this just . . . this has to stop right now.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m calling Mona, and I’m telling her everything. We’ll figure something out. We’ll get you some kind of help. Aerial surveillance technology, my ass. Dylan Psychofuck is probably a lying psychopath who’s following us in a truck with some binoculars. He could be lying about everything.”
“Put the phone away, Luke.”