“And how do you know that?”
“Because he tried to kill me, too.”
No, God, that had come out wrong. It sounded paranoid, delusional.
“Tried to kill you?” the man asked with the faintest lilt of skepticism.
“I’ve been watching him, following him.” Still all wrong. She could hear the desperate craziness in her words. “No, look, forget about that. It doesn’t matter how I know. All right? It doesn’t matter….”
She was screwing up, blowing it. If she got this wrong, she might never have another chance. Cray would go on killing, and she couldn’t stop him, couldn’t do anything.
There was too much at stake, and she was too scared. After what she’d been through last night, she wouldn’t have thought she could ever be scared again, but here she was, in a state of stupid panic over a phone call.
Eyes shut, she fought for calm.
“I’m sorry to sound so flustered,” she said softly. “This is hard for me.”
“Of course it is.”
There it was again, that psychiatrist’s voice of his. She hated that voice. It mocked her, and without thinking she snapped, “Damn it, I’m not crazy.”
Shit.
That was exactly the sort of thing a crazy person would say.
She was messing up so badly. She’d had no idea she could be such a fool.
“No one’s suggesting—” the man began, but she cut him off.
“Cray drives a black Lexus sport-utility vehicle. If you look at it, you’ll see it’s pretty banged up. I drove it through the desert to escape from him.”
“You were in the desert?”
“Yes, he took me there. He always takes his victims into the wilderness. Mountains, desert — he hunts them. It’s a sport for him. He lets them go, and he tracks them, hunts them down like animals. It’s what he was going to do to me, but… but I got away.”
This sounded rather unlikely even to her.
“I have proof,” she added.
“What sort of proof?” The voice sounded almost bored now.
Had he already dismissed her as a nut? Maybe she shouldn’t have called 911. Maybe it would have been smarter to try talking to one of the detectives. Or a desk officer. Maybe…
“A bag,” she said. “A satchel. Cray’s satchel — I took it from him. It’s got all his stuff, the stuff he uses to break into places and kidnap women. There’s some ammunition in it, and a knife. The knife he used on Sharon Andrews and the others. And the ignition key to the Lexus. It’s all in here, the proof you need, and all you have to do is come and get it.”
“Perhaps you could bring it in.”
“I’m leaving it for you. Here, at this phone. You already know where I’m calling from. You do an instant trace on nine-one-one calls.”
“Actually, our trace equipment is malfunctioning at the moment. If you could tell me your location…”
This had to be a lie, and why would he lie to her, if not to buy time?
The squad car had already been dispatched. It was coming.
Coming right now.
“Ma’am?”
Elizabeth slammed down the handset, and then she was running to her car.
*
Cray was cruising west on Grant Road in heavy traffic, scanning the roadside for a parked Chevette, when the call came over the transceiver.
“Mary Twelve”—the dispatcher was calling for a patrol unit—“requesting a ten-twenty.”
“Uh, we’re at Oracle and Prince,” the unit answered.
“Okay, we need you to make contact with a female RP at a pay phone. Circle K store. Grant and Fifteenth Avenue. This is a code two incident, code two.”
“Ten-four.”
An RP was a reporting person.
It was Kaylie. Had to be.
Cray locked in that channel on the radio, then accelerated, weaving between two cars into a clear stretch of road. Fifteenth Avenue was twenty blocks away. Near the interstate.
She was calling from a phone at a convenience store, and she meant to make a quick escape and leave the satchel for the cops to find.
The plan might work. He wasn’t sure he could beat the squad car to the scene.
“Mary Twelve, we got some additional information on that RP. She’s not expecting to be contacted. Nine-one’s holding her on the line. It’s a — sounds like it could be a disturbed individual.”
“Ten-four.”
Disturbed individual. Cray smiled at that diagnosis as he maneuvered from lane to lane, blowing past slower traffic.
Ahead, the stoplight at First Avenue cycled to red, stopping a logjam of cars. He couldn’t afford to be stuck at the light. With a spin of the wheel, he whipped into the right lane and cut north on First, then veered west on the first side street.
He sped through a residential neighborhood, past rows of one-story homes with dirt yards and RVs in the driveways.
“ETA, Mary Twelve?” the dispatcher asked.
“ETA in two minutes.”