“You can’t deny our evidence is pretty compelling,” Griffin said.
“Sure it is,” Kendra said. “Which is why I have a tough time believing that someone as clever as Zachary would leave it lying around his condo.”
“It wasn’t exactly ‘lying around,’” Roscoe said quickly. “We might have missed it if you hadn’t been with us.”
Kendra shook her head. “Someone would have caught it, once your people starting popping off vent covers and waving metal detectors around. I’m delighted you give me that much credit, but my feeling is that Zachary keeps his trophy collection someplace where it can’t be easily traced back to him.”
Suber shrugged. “Throughout history, it’s always been the same. The most brilliant criminal in the world is only brilliant until the moment he makes a mistake.”
“Not this criminal, not this mistake,” Kendra said. “At least I don’t think so. And Hagstrom didn’t give up a thing, despite some fairly skilled questioning from Huston.” She glanced around the room. “By the way, where is he?”
“Back at the hotel,” Roscoe said. “He texted us this morning. He said he needed to work on some stuff and that he’d be in later.”
Griffin checked his watch. “Well, we’re meeting with San Diego PD and the DA in about an hour. Somebody call Huston and tell him that we’ll pick him up on our way.”
“I’m on it,” Trey Suber said as he picked up his phone. He looked at it for a moment. “Wait, I just got an email from him.” He frowned, puzzled. “I think he copied it. Did everybody get this?”
There was a general scramble as the rest of the team reached for their phones.
Suber suddenly gasped. “Shit!”
Kendra stiffened and then moved swiftly toward him. “What’s wrong? What is it?”
Suber’s face was ashen. He turned the phone’s screen toward her. There, written on a hotel room wall, was a message scrawled in what appeared to be blood …
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
*
GRIFFIN WAS CONTACTING hotel security and San Diego PD as they rushed toward the vans.
“Come on,” Lynch muttered as he grabbed Kendra’s arm and they bypassed the vans in favor of Lynch’s Ferrari.
“Huston,” Kendra murmured numbly. “Why Huston?”
“We don’t know anything yet,” Lynch said. “Maybe it’s a scare tactic. Huston’s one sharp operator.”
But Kendra could still see those words scrawled in blood on that wall.
Only minutes later they joined Griffin and the team at the door of Huston’s ninth-floor room, which security was still trying to access.
“What’s the story?” Lynch demanded of him. If Griffin was annoyed that he was superseding his authority, he hid it well.
The security director turned toward the group. “The card reader is shot to hell. We can’t get in.”
“Break it down,” Griffin said.
The security director raised his hands. “It’s not that easy. These locks are built to withstand a force equal to— “Screw it.” Lynch delivered two ferocious kicks to the door, then barreled into it with his right shoulder. The frame splintered apart and the door flew open. “You need to get another locksmith.”
The security director’s jaw dropped as he watched the team rush past him into the room.
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
The words were scrawled on the far wall just as in the emailed photo.
Kendra stopped, stood still, staring in dread at the words. What was she going to see if she looked behind her?
Do it.
Kendra spun around.
There, between the bed and the wall, was Arnold Huston’s horribly mutilated corpse. His blood-soaked torso was in marked contrast to his face, which was remarkably clean and serene beneath a red baseball hat.
Gina knelt beside him. “Shit.”
“He’s been gutted,” Griffin said grimly. “And Zachary took a long time with him.”
“He always does,” Kendra said. For a moment she couldn’t look away from the body. Then she forced herself to shift her gaze to that gentle face. Huston was more than the hideous example Zachary had tried to make of him. Think of the kindness and the humor. “Power. Zachary would want to extend the power trip as long as he could.”
As the other investigators gathered around Huston’s corpse, Kendra turned away.
“Okay?” Lynch murmured, his gaze on her face.
“No.” She swallowed hard. “Yes. I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe get out of here for a minute or two?”
“I said I’d be fine,” she said with sudden fierceness. “He wants me to look at Huston, stare up at his damn message, and know that he’s beaten me again. I’d never admit that.”
He nodded. “Easy. I’m here for you. Whatever you want to do.”
She didn’t know what she wanted to do yet. All she knew was that she couldn’t help Huston now, but maybe she could help get the monster who had killed him.
Put Huston’s warm, sweet, grandfatherly face out of her mind.
Detach.
Concentrate.
The firm, short carpeting wouldn’t reveal any footprints. There didn’t appear to be blood splatter anywhere else in the room, so Huston was probably attacked right where they found him.
“Anything?” Lynch said quietly to Kendra.
“Not much. Further confirmation that the killer is right handed, based on the larger number of stab wounds on the left side of Huston’s torso. And there’s a good chance that he’s about 5 foot 10.”
“How do you figure that?”
She nodded toward the grisly lettering on the wall. “When someone writes on a wall or even a chalkboard, they usually begin writing slightly above eye level. Almost even with the top of their head. The top line of that message is about 5 foot 10 inches from the floor.”
“Very good.”
“And it’s the same handwriting as on the message in Todd Wesley’s apartment.”
“Anything else?”
Her eyes went to the chest of drawers. Sitting on top was a small class ring. Kendra knelt down, her eyes narrowed on it. “Rivermont High School.”
Lynch knelt beside her. “It looks like a woman’s ring. I don’t see any engravings inside.”
“There aren’t any.”
Kendra pulled out her phone and typed furiously into the search bar. After a few seconds, she slowly stood. “This was Charlene Wheeler’s ring. She was one of Huston’s cases, killed in Arlington, Virginia.” She turned to Lynch and the other investigators who were now leaving Huston’s body. “It seems Zachary just left us another souvenir.”
“Two,” Gale said grimly. “I’m pretty sure that red hat he’s wearing belonged to David Schneer, Connecticut.”
Nothing new. How many souvenirs had Zachary taken over the years? How many deaths? But these souvenirs were at Huston’s death scene. He was mocking Huston, mocking all of them.
She couldn’t breathe; she felt suddenly ill. As the others converged around the ring, Kendra backed away. She whispered to Lynch, “Maybe … I’m not so fine right now. I’ve done all I can. I need to get out of here. Now.”