She waited, holding Cray fixed in the twin lenses of the binoculars.
He was naked now. She had seen him this way many times. It scared her, repulsed her, to be voyeuristically acquainted with his body.
He stretched, and she saw the play of his muscles, the rippling strength in his long, corded arms and crosshatched abdomen. Like a yawning tiger he seemed to luxuriate in his own boundless vitality.
She thought of Sharon Andrews, numb and dead, and she hated him so much.
Abruptly Cray turned away from the window, disappearing into another part of the bedroom. From prior observations, she knew he had gone to his closet to select his outfit for the evening.
She waited.
When she saw him again, he was all dressed in black, sleek as a panther.
Going out.
She wasn’t really surprised. After all, she was still on the loose, and she doubted he could rest until he found her. He had sent poor Walter to hunt her down, but Walter hadn’t finished the job, and now Cray meant to do it himself.
How he expected to find her, she couldn’t imagine. Perhaps he would search aimlessly. Perhaps he had some better plan.
Or perhaps he wouldn’t look for her at all. He might go in quest of some new victim, fresh prey. Another Sharon Andrews to abduct at random and chase in the cold moonlight.
She gritted her teeth against a new wave of anger. Trembling, she stood.
He would leave shortly. She knew what she had to do.
Moving fast, Elizabeth scrambled off the ridge and headed down the trail toward the fire road, where her Chevette was parked.
Cray knew she was watching him.
Naked in his bedroom window, he had sensed the pressure of her gaze. It had required all his willpower not to turn and stare into the night, seeking some sign of her.
She must have watched him on many previous evenings, but he had not been attuned to her presence. Now he was, and her proximity to him was as real and immediate as an electric shock.
Kaylie had come. Brave girl.
He’d never needed to send Walter after her. He could have waited, secure in his home, until she arrived, drawn to him like a mouse to a baited trap.
Smiling, Cray picked up his medical bag and looked inside to ascertain that its contents included two vials of sedative and several syringes. He might need the sedative to restrain Kaylie, if she became hysterical — or if she threatened to say too much.
His equipment in order, he descended the stairs to his living room, then paused before a mirror for a final check of his appearance.
He was again a man in black, just as she would expect him to be.
Throughout the day he had been fatigued. Coffee and a handful of amphetamines pilfered from the hospital supply room had kept him alert enough, but an undertow of exhaustion had threatened continually to drag him away.
Now his lethargy was gone. He was exhilarated.
The snare had been laid, the quarry was in sight, and the best part of it all was that the plan was not even his. He had Detective Shepherd to thank for it.
Shepherd — perfect name, a palatable irony. He was a poor shepherd indeed, to lead the choicest member of his flock straight into the wolf’s ravenous embrace.
Cray had met with Shepherd this evening, at the hospital. The conference had lasted thirty minutes. Shepherd had told Cray what was expected of him, the performance he was to deliver. What was particularly important, Shepherd had said, was that Cray must not leave the house until after dark.
It was dark now. Night, Cray’s friend, had visited him again.
He found it amusing that both he and the police needed the darkness. And poor Kaylie — she needed it as well, didn’t she? She needed the shadows, the concealment of the night.
Nocturnal animals, all of them. By day they hid in their burrows — Kaylie in her cheap motel, Cray in his office, the police in squad rooms and courthouses. They did safe, meaningless things. But at night they came alive.
At night the heart quickened. Danger, a night-blooming flower, opened its petals and released its subtle, enticing perfume. Risks were taken. Hunters stalked.
“ ‘Come, seeling night,’ ” Cray quoted in a whisper, “ ‘scarf up the tender eye of pitiful day….’ ”
Macbeth. A reference, as Cray recalled, to the Elizabethan sport of falconry; the bird’s eyelids were sewn shut — scarfed up — while it was in training. By metaphorical extension, day was the time for seeing and being seen, and night, blinding night, was when the unseen ruled.
Shakespeare must have loved the night. All poets did, and all killers too.
At the end of their meeting. Shepherd had given Cray a portable radio preset to a frequency used by the Graham County Sheriff’s Department. The radio was now clipped to Cray’s slacks, its dark shape nearly invisible against his clothes.
He glanced at it. The power LED was lit, but the radio was silent.
He hoped it would not be silent for long.
With his medical bag in hand, he crossed the kitchen swiftly, his black shoes clacking on Saltillo tile, and reached the door to the garage. Before opening it, he tossed a curt glance out a side window, into the small arbor that bordered his property.
What he saw pleased him, but he deferred a smile.
His Lexus waited for him in the garage. What he’d done to the vehicle had been painful — grooving deep scratches into the finish, slashing the upholstery and tires. Still, the task had been necessary, and most of the damage was superficial.
He surveyed the car in the light of the bare ceiling bulb. It was still a mess, of course, but at least it was drivable once again. After Shepherd’s phone call, Cray had sent for a mechanic, who had replaced all four tires, hammered out some minor damage to one of the wheel rims, and checked under the chassis and the hood.
The front seats remained a travesty, the leather hacked and torn, and the front window on the driver’s side was gone, leaving the vehicle’s interior open to the elements, but Cray didn’t mind.
Comfort was not a prime consideration. Tonight’s drive would be short. He expected to travel no farther than a mile or two.
Even so, he took a moment to find a relatively unscratched CD in the pile of discs on the floor of the passenger compartment. Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi. It would do.
He started the engine, then slid the disc into the player and let the rich strains of the opera’s overture fill up his world.
With the remote control, he opened the garage door. As it rose, he settled back in the tattered seat and prepared himself.
There was risk, naturally. Kaylie might be sufficiently frustrated — maddened, even — to try something desperate.
In their meeting Shepherd had raised this possibility. Of course, Shepherd believed Kaylie McMillan to be psychotic. He thought she had wrecked her motel room in a fit of rage, while Cray had already learned the truth of the matter from Walter Luntz, who had recounted the narrative in a low, shamed voice upon his return.
You weren’t supposed to attack her, Cray had said, holding his anger in check. I told you to find the car, that’s all.