But everything up here was sharp and clear, and he felt in control as he had told Salazar.
I’m going to destroy you once and for all, bitch.
Try and stop me.
He was at the top of the mountain, and he pulled over to the side of the road with a screech of tires. The wind tore at his hair as he jumped out of the car and went around to the trunk. He grabbed the FedEx box and stuffed it in his knapsack, trying not to look at it.
Not that he believed that skull meant anything but what it was. Proof that he had triumphed and crushed that defiant girl who had fought him and stared at him with those eyes that seemed to see right through him.
Because the dead did not return once he’d killed them.
As Eve Duncan would soon learn.
He moved to the edge of the cliff and gazed down at the glacier lake that was Tahoe. Blue and cold and over a thousand feet deep. The man he’d been hired to find and punish was still down there beneath those waters. He’d had difficulty getting that weighted body down the cliff to where he’d managed to push him into the lake. But he’d regarded it as a challenge, and he’d needed to prove himself after Jenny.
No one was ever going to find that body.
So why not just hurl that skull from the cliff? He could weight it and then—
“No.”
He stiffened. He would not believe it was her.
“You can’t destroy it. I won’t let you.”
He could feel her staring at him. He would not look over his shoulder; he kept his eyes on the water below.
His hands were suddenly burning as they had that night when he’d held the skull over the flames.
“That’s all you know,” he muttered as he started down the narrow trail toward the cliff edge. “I’ll do what I want, bitch.”
She wasn’t real.
It was his imagination.
When he killed, they stayed dead.
“Walsh.”
“I don’t hear you.” He looked straight ahead and smiled recklessly down at the ice-cold waters below. “But you can come along if you like and watch the show. It may not be what you expect…”
*
“We’ve got to stop, Eve.” Joe’s gaze was raking her face. “You’re pale as a ghost. We’ll come back to it later.”
“Just give me a few minutes,” she said wearily as she leaned back in her chair. She felt as if she had been beaten. All those eager faces in the photos. All those smiles and expressions of hope and wonder.
All those deaths.
“We’ll come back to it,” Joe repeated firmly. He stood up and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s get some air.”
She nodded jerkily and let him lead her out of the precinct. The sun was going down, but the air was clean, fresh, and still possessed a lingering warmth that felt comforting against her face. She needed that comfort.
“You should have stopped when I asked an hour ago.” Joe was leading her across the street toward the park. “I should have made you stop.”
“He didn’t stop,” she said numbly. “He just went from town to town and killed and killed again.”
“Yes, he did.”
“And nobody knew. How many were there, Joe?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You’re always sure about things like that. How many?”
“Twelve.” He pushed her down on the bench. “If there were no real accidents in the mix.”
“I doubt it. They all looked like…” She drew a shaky breath. “I don’t understand it. What kind of satisfaction did he even get out of it? Some of those boat and automobile accidents were completely without visual or physical contact. If there was any power rush for him, it was definitely remote.”