When consciousness returned, Olivia's eyes fluttered open to complete darkness. She sensed rather than saw a cramped interior and felt the claustrophobic confinement around her. She lay on her right side, her arms clasped around her knees and her knees pushed up against her chest.
When she tried to stretch her legs, her feet banged against a hard surface. She groped over her head to feel cool, smooth metal. Beneath her, she touched what felt like coarse woven fibers – carpet, she guessed. She inhaled the distinct odor of gasoline and exhaust fumes. She was lying in the trunk of a car. Not her car, she surmised. Not Howard's little sports car either. The smooth, quiet murmur of the engine belonged to a larger automobile.
A surge of adrenaline shot through her body and drove out reason. Too many movies about kidnapped women stuffed into car trunks where they couldn't move or breathe. Where they died. She had to get out of here!
Breathe. Stay calm. Don't panic.
Obeying her own commands, she inhaled deeply through her nose and slowly blew the breaths out of her mouth until she gradually relaxed. Contrary to what she imagined, the air in her tiny prison, though redolent of oil and gasoline, was clean. No noxious fumes wafted up to choke off the oxygen. She felt cramped, but otherwise, seemed unharmed.
The car suddenly lurched. Then the steady thrumming of the wheels beneath her. For about five minutes – though she had little sense of time in her dark box – the car traveled steadily on smooth pavement. She tried to identify passing landmarks. At intervals, a tiny stream of light signaled the passing of lighted areas, a gas station or restaurant. She peered through the darkness at her wristwatch, but there wasn't enough light inside the trunk for her to see the non-luminous dial.
What seemed like an hour later, the terrain changed and she felt the rougher bump of a different road, the frequent start-and-stop jerks of the vehicle. Stop signs? Had they left the city? Were they driving through a residential area? Or were they traveling on county roads, notoriously less well paved?
In a little while, she noticed a gradual climb, the automatic shifting of the gears as the car made its way up an incline or a sloping mountain. Howard drove steadily upward, the speed moderate, the road rough. Not freeway, she thought although their speed seemed fairly fast, over fifty miles per hour.
Where was he taking her?
The bastard had drugged her, she thought, in a rush of fury. She recalled the needle prick high on her leg. How did Howard know about drugs and syringes? Her naivety emphasized how little she knew about her kidnapper.
He must've followed her or someone at the jail had leaked the information. But why had he chosen her for his sick games? What part did she play in his crazy religious scheme?
Did he count on her staying asleep during the entire journey? Or would he be expecting her to pounce from the trunk and fight back once he released the lid? He'd have to open the trunk at some point. Else, why kidnap her? Jack said the DLK was organized, planned. She was sure Howard would have a plan for her. But what?
Cramped, sticky, and exhausted, she listened to the relentless drumming of the engine's motor and the rum-rum-rumming of the wheels on asphalt. Hours must have passed by now. She dozed at one point, and was finally roused from her stupor by the slowing of the car and the distinct crunching of tires on gravel.
He was stopping! Suddenly alert, she strained to listen. The sound of the engine dying, the faint clank of metal, the gurgle of liquid, like water being poured from a jug. He was filling the gas tank.
She forced herself to think logically. Distance. He'd driven far enough to require another tank of gasoline. What was that? Two hundred miles in a big sedan? Less, if he'd started without a full tank. No, Howard was far too methodical not to have planned for this.
Without thinking of the consequences, propelled only by the need to survive, she twisted from her side to her back and thumped her bare feet against the trunk top as hard as she could. If they were in a public place, someone had to hear the noise. But her leverage and angle were all wrong, and in the small space, she couldn't put enough power into the kicks.
She yelled as loudly as she could. "Help, someone help me! I'm in here!"
"Shut up, Olivia." Howard's voice was close and so deadly calm that she instantly closed her mouth and abandoned all hope of attracting attention.
"No one can hear you," he continued in the same speciously controlled voice, "and if you continue with such unseemly behavior, I will open the trunk and slit your throat."
Howard's words, spoken with such aplomb, such cheery declaration, chilled her far more than any ranting or screaming could have done. She froze. She hardly breathed. Sweat dripped from her hairline and pooled in the creases of her neck. Her hands were clammy and her stomach roiled in the first waves of nausea. She felt hopeless for the first time since Howard had burst through Isabella's front door.
A few minutes later, the car eased across gravel and began its steadily increasing speed toward what would surely be Olivia's slow and painful death. Her brain worked feverishly. Where would he take her? Someplace private, isolated. She shivered in the cooling trunk interior.
Howard would want to be alone for whatever he had in mind.
The Judge and Myron Higgins were the only passengers on the plane besides the pilot and copilot. Warren wasn't happy making this unplanned trip to California. He'd given up field assignments years ago, and he was too damn old to start up again, he thought, as he patted the shoulder holster under his arm. But he was still a crack shot and he'd do whatever needed to be done. He scowled and puffed on his cigar.
The Learjet 29 had been specially modified by expanding the long-range fuel tank. The alterations diminished the passenger capacity, but Warren wasn't taking a crew anyway. With a strong tail wind, the plane landed in record time – four hours after leaving Baltimore.
Dr. Davis' recent findings alarmed the Judge. If, as he suspected, Jack was taking mega-doses of the lysergic acid compound, he could be in serious trouble. Damn fool probably wasn't taking the Phens either, which would intensify the problem.
Fortunately, the mad scientist had developed an antidote. Trouble was, Jack needed to take the serum within twelve hours of his last stepped-up dosage of the red pills.
Holt was the best agent Warren had ever recruited, and he had no intention of losing such a valuable commodity.
As soon as they landed at the Sacramento International Airport, he put a call through to the Bigler County Sheriff. When the connection went through, a deep voice barked into the phone. "Slater."
"Sheriff Slater, this is Warren Linders."
A pause during which Warren imagined the Sheriff was putting the name with the position. "What can I do for you, Judge Linders?"
Warren liked the calm, easy-going tone of the Sheriff and the fact that he knew him. It'd make cooperation easier. "I think we can help each other. I need to find Jackson Holt ASAP."
"And that would be because…?"
"I'm gonna save the damn fool's life."
An hour later four of them, including a pretty young ADA, were in a patrol car headed for a reclusive spot where Slater speculated the killer had property. Sheriff had better be right because Warren had no idea where Jack was.
He wanted this ended today. The DLK assignment had gone too damn long.
The sudden absence of noise – the thrum, thrum of the tires on asphalt followed by the crunching of gravel and jarring of wheels dipping in ruts – ceased. The silence was deafening.
Olivia strained to listen, taking in shallow puffs of breath, alert for the tiniest sound, but heard only the smooth, gentle hum of the engine. Nothing else, not even the opening of a door or the crunching of footsteps on gravel or the rustle of leaves in the wind. The anticipation of impending doom held her fixed like a deer caught in headlights.
She tensed her muscles and waited.
Suddenly the engine turned off. She thought she heard the slick whisper of cloth against leather. Slacks sliding across the car seat? Then the slamming of a car door. She tightened her body, gauging how quickly she could lash out at Howard with a strong, swift kick. She curled her hands into themselves, tightened her legs, and readied herself for battle.
Nothing.
She strained again to hear his footsteps. What was he doing standing there? Waiting for something? Someone? Did Howard have an accomplice? Ted Burrows! Was that pervert Ted part of her abduction? She remembered the ugly anger of his threat at the jail house. Was this her payback?
No, couldn't be. No matter what, Slater wouldn't let Ted go free.
After what seemed like endless minutes, she heard the quiet tread of soles on hard ground, the sound diminishing by the moment. He was walking away from the car, away from her. She heard the altered noise of the steps, a crunch and rustling as if he'd walked from packed dirt into leaves or underbrush. The sounds grew fainter and fainter until she couldn't hear anything at all.
Then silence descended like the weight of a boulder on her chest.
The scent assailed Jack's nostrils like a steaming layer of freshly dropped dung. The odor of the killer's blood lust gagged him. Jack had never experienced fear on a mission. Never once since his initial training had he been afraid, not for himself, not for anyone else.
The human part of him wondered what this said about the kind of man he'd become, that he was able to remain completely detached during these hunts. But as Olivia's terror melded with the killer's scent, a terrifying fist of dread choked him. The fear wasn't for himself, but for Olivia, and he knew that his worry for her meant danger to both of them. He pushed the image of Olivia at the mercy of a madman out of his mind. No good would come of going there.
He willed his animal instincts to deepen and strengthen, he beckoned the dark psychosis of the killer's mind, and he plunged into the dank evil of his appetites. Jack compelled himself to conceptualize, explore, and absorb the cabalistic drives of Howard Randolph.
Within a few minutes, the killer's aberrations became Jack's. His hungers invaded Jack's mind and body until the dark urges took over and he was one with the murderer. Now he was ready. Only a few more miles.
Howard hadn't expected such resistance from Olivia. Hadn't anticipated the strength that came out of her small body. He'd left her in the trunk and taken less than thirty minutes to wend his way through the overgrown weeds to the church. Even less time to complete the preparations inside, to gather up the robes, the holy water, and the cloths for the altar. He wanted everything to be perfect for his unblemished sacrifice.
Originally, he hadn't planned on performing the final ritual here – in the church where he'd spent so many childhood hours in the company of his mother and her God. But at some point during his drive from the university to his home in Sequoia Falls, he remembered the unused church, lying on fallow land. He now knew he'd been led here, guided back on his Path.
Another part of his brain, the linear, logical side, screamed that Olivia was not a virgin, not unblemished, but he refused to listen. The base part of his nature found her desirable, and if he succumbed to those appetites, she'd be a whore and end up like the blonde from the bar. No, Olivia was his – the perfect sacrifice.
By the time he returned to where he'd hidden the sedan in a clearing fifteen miles off Highway 70, darkness had deepened and the air had chilled. Dressed as scantily as she was, she'd be cold in the trunk of the car. The image of Olivia half-naked and at his mercy stirred him again, just as the woman from the bar had. No! He banished the lustful thought from his mind. Olivia was the offering, the final immolation that would purge him.
He listened carefully, his ear to the trunk lid and heard deadly quiet. No rustling, no shifting, no breathing. Nothing! Could she have passed out? Suffocated? If she were dead… no, he wouldn't allow himself negative expectations. He needed Olivia alive.
A dead sacrifice was unacceptable.
Carefully, he inserted the key in the lock. Panting hard with anticipation, he turned the key, expecting the slow, gentle spring of the trunk lid as it swung open.
With unexpected force, the truck blasted open.
She attacked him immediately and ferociously. Shoving at his stomach with both feet, she caught him off balance. He never imagined such power in those small feet. He stumbled backward and while he was partially down, she leapt from the truck, brandishing some kind of weapon.
When the blow glanced off his arm, he recognized the weapon as the tire iron from the trunk well. Fortunately, her aim was off and the second blow struck him high on the shoulder. He fell against the fender, blood dripping from his temple, and lashed out blindly.
He cuffed her hard on the side of the face and followed up with a half-assed blow to the stomach. She flew backward and dropped the iron. Instantly, she clambered away from him, staggered to her feet, and swirled around to flee through the wild weeds in the direction from which he'd just come.
Bitch! She shouldn't have fought him. Although his plan called for a noble sacrifice, he could just as easily butcher her. That was one execution he hadn't tried. Maybe, after all, he'd do to her what he'd done to the whore from the bar. Barefoot and half-naked, she wouldn't get far.
His nerves tightened like piano strings and he took deep, calming breaths as he staunched the blood with a rag from the back seat. He pushed the trunk lid down, leaving it slightly ajar, retrieved the tire iron from the dirt, and started after her.
Sheriff Slater drove the patrol car with lights flashing, but no siren, while the Judge sat silently in the passenger seat, feeling no need to be friendly to the natives. ADA Torres and Myron Higgins rode in the back. Slater had given him the bare facts as he knew them. Warren figured the Sheriff knew precious little, but at least he had a suspect, a warrant, and a man searching the suspect's residence.
Slater finally veered off Interstate 80 to Highway 99 south, and ten minutes later, the radio squawked. "What's up, Deputy Harris?"
A deep mellow voice broke through the static. "Just finished the search, Sheriff. At first, we found nothing, but then I checked the desk in the study. The drawers was all locked."
"But you didn't let that stop you." Slater glanced at the Judge who lifted his brows in expectation.
The deputy's laugh boomed over the phone. "No, sir, wouldn't let a little thing like a lock stop me."
"What'd you find?" Slater asked.
"Looks like some kinda property book tucked away in the bottom drawer."
"A ledger?"
"Yes, a ledger that lists a lot of property the family must own. Let me read some entries."
The ledger listed what Warren guessed were the numerous properties belonging to the suspect's family estate.
"Stop," the Judge ordered when Harris named a property that lay west of Marysville about fifteen miles. "Church property?"
"Yes sir, the land belonged to the Catholic Church," Harris explained, "but shut down when the old priest died and mass attendance dropped off."
"What's important about a church?" Slater wondered aloud.
"In the late eighties," Harris continued, "the Randolph family bought up the property, the church and its adjoining grounds, but it hasn't been used for the past twenty years."
"Why would a family buy church property?" Slater asked after he'd snapped shut the cell phone.
"Run a check on Randolph's family," Warren suggested, "especially the mother. There's some religious fanaticism there. Maybe they wanted a private place of worship. An isolated church makes sense. That might be where he's taken the Gant woman."
Slater barreled off the freeway, made a complete circle back, and headed west on Interstate 80 toward Marysville.
"What most people don't understand," said the good-looking ADA leaning from the back seat, "is that almost all serial crimes are sexual in nature."
"Even though no sexual acts are committed on the victim?" asked Slater.
"The killer may not behave in a sexual manner at the crime site, but he gets aroused and has the greatest sexual release at the moment of his victim's death," Torres answered. "When it's over, he can relive the experience in his memory, or with the trophies he takes from his victim."
"Son of a bitch!" Slater struck his fist on the steering wheel.
"And this killer's changing," the Judge added. "He's becoming more aggressive."
"Rape?" Slater asked.
The Judge shrugged. "And torture. He's going to make her suffer and he'll enjoy every minute of it."
"Why change now?" Slater asked. "What happened that's different?"
"Probably a psychotic break," Torres answered. "Prior to this, he's seen himself as a kind of avenger, a disciple punishing those who've committed transgressions."
"And now?" Slater asked.
"Now he's straddling the line between being the religious center in his own morality play and being the demonic figure," Warren sneered, "and I'll bet he enjoys playing the devil.
"If he gets away with killing Olivia – " Torres began from the back seat.
"He won't get away with it," Slater said. "We'll catch the bastard."
Warren glanced over at the Sheriff. He didn't have Slater's confidence. He didn't figure saving the professor was all that important, but they'd better reach the property in Marysville in time to save Jack.
Olivia ran like the devil. Prickly weeds tugged at her legs and branches dipped low to scratch her arms. Damn it! She'd blown her chance, maybe the only one she'd get. She'd found the tire iron by sheer, dumb luck under the carpeted trunk floor and planned a well-placed blow. Lying in the trunk all those long minutes, she'd fantasized about using it on Howard.
When she'd heard the first raspy footfall through the undergrowth, she positioned herself, knees bent, feet facing outward. She clutched the tire iron tightly in both hands, her arms bent over her head. Waiting, her muscles quivering with strain, she scarcely breathed. She kicked outward as hard as she could, catching him in the gut and when he'd gone down, she swung the iron with all her might.
It had glanced off his body like a fly swatter on an elephant.
She swung again, meaning to aim a killing blow. She didn't care if that made her a murderer. Her survival instinct kicked in and she wanted Howard dead. But the blow hit his shoulder and before she could swing again, he punched her, once in the head and then again in the stomach.
The breath whooshed out of her like a balloon deflating noisily. All she could think of was to run. Run! She galloped off into the brush with no idea of where she was going. She just knew she had to get away from him.
The scrapes on her arms, legs, and face stung. She stopped a moment and bent at the waist, hands on knees as she tried to catch her breath. She heard thrashing behind her. How had he gotten so close so fast?
She took off again, pumping arms and legs as hard as she could. A stitch spasmed in her side and her bare feet felt swollen, sliced, and wet with her blood. She ran harder, adrenaline spurring her on, ignoring the cuts of face and feet, the burning in her lungs.
Just as the woods opened into a clearing at the edge of what looked like a parking lot and an abandoned building, a knotted tree root tripped her. She sprawled gracelessly to the ground, her arms outstretched to brace herself, her elbows taking the brunt from wrist to shoulder. Mud, dirt, and leaves covered her bruised and bleeding body.
As she jumped to her feet, poised for flight, Howard slammed her from behind and threw her to the ground. He was on her in seconds, slapping her face open handedly, grabbing her hair in his fist and pulling until tears ran down her cheeks.
His breath was hot and heavy at her temple, and even though he panted, his voice was oddly detached, even calm. "Don't ever run from me again, Olivia. You'll regret it."
She would've been less afraid had Howard raged at her.
Moments later he dragged her to the building and shoved her down three cement steps. She lost her balance and received another abrasion to her knee as she landed at the bottom. Hauling her to her feet, he pushed her toward a corner of a wide, open basement where an industrial sink took up space.
"Remove your clothes," he ordered, brandishing a small, but nasty-looking knife in one hand and the tire iron in the other.
Hysteria bubbled up in her. No shoes, boy shorts for underwear and a skimpy tank top, she could hardly be described as clothed. What was left?
He tossed away the tire iron and his fingers pinched her upper arm while the knife nipped at her ribs. He hauled her closer to the sink. His eyes dilated wildly as if he were on drugs. A nasty snarl hurled from his mouth. "You really don't want to make me ask twice, Olivia."
The fighting strategy hadn't worked against Howard. She'd have to be more cunning if she were going to outmaneuver him. If she could just reach the tire iron or get him to discard the knife.
Olivia jerked the tank top over her head and pushed the shorts down to her ankles where she stepped out of them and kicked them aside. Goose bumps rose on her body and she rubbed her crossed hands up and down her arms. What now? Howard's eyes glittered and his body tensed. Angry because she'd hit him and nearly escaped? Or crazy with lust?
He reached behind her and grabbed soap and a rag from a shelf she hadn't noticed. With the other hand he turned on the water faucet. "Wash," he commanded.
"Why?"
The madness in his eyes clambered to the surface. "Because you are filthy," he said. "Because you are unclean." Spittle spewed from his mouth and spattered her face as his voice rose to a shout. "Because I command it and you dare not disobey."
Not sexual frustration, but insanity.
When she still hesitated, he threatened, "Unless you'd rather I do it myself?"
Undressing in front of Howard and performing such an intimate act as bathing disturbed her more than if she'd done the same things before a complete stranger. She wet and soaped the rag under the icy stream. Wringing out the cloth, she wiped her arms and legs. The sting of the soap burned in the raw cuts and scratches. She bit back a wince while Howard watched her carefully.
When she finished, he tossed her a large, clean towel which she used to dry off. Her skin was red from the abrasive soap and the freezing water. She dropped the towel to the floor, put her arms down, and stood defiantly before him.
Bastard! She wouldn't show him her fear.
Grabbing her upper arm, he dragged her to the bottom of a flight of wooden stairs. After climbing to the landing, he opened the door at the top and whirled her around to face him, pressing her close against him. She felt his growing erection against her naked body.
His mouth hovered over hers. "My intention was to use you, Olivia, use that perfect little body that you've been enticing me with all semester." He ran his fingers across the top of her naked breast. "You'd be good for a quick fuck, right?"
She flinched at his crude language and he laughed. "And I may do that yet. But you're such a perfect specimen I couldn't resist offering you as the penultimate sacrifice."
Forcing calm she didn't feel, she summoned the courage to fight Howard in a way that might give her an advantage. "You'll never do it, Howard," she jeered. "You didn't rape the other victims. You don't have the balls."
He ground his mouth into hers, his teeth cutting, his tongue trying to push through her tightly-closed lips. Then he released her abruptly. "Maybe we'll do both." He smiled and pinched her cheek viciously. In a flash his manner changed from the vicious would-be rapist to the mild-manner professor. "Now, wouldn't that be fun?"
Although she didn't see the hand that held the syringe, she should've anticipated it. Right before she lost consciousness again, the prick of the needle told her what he'd done.