“How did you find me here?” Jake asked abruptly, turning his attention to the situation at hand. Self-flagellation was really a waste of time and useless in a situation like this. He could kick himself later.
“The angels led me to you.”
Jake was aware that his eyelids flickered at this claim, but all he said was, “Oh?”
“Hmmm.” The man nodded. “My lawyer wanted to talk after he got me released. He took me to a bar downtown and sat trying to convince me to let my parents help me, which translates to locking me up,” he added bitterly and began to rant. “They don’t believe the angels talk to me through the radio and that I have a purpose in this life. They think I’m crazy, that I’ve spent too much time alone up north and it’s affected me. That I need to take those stupid pills the doctor gave me again. But I’ll show them. They’ll understand when I carry out the charge I’ve been given. You screwed up the first service I was supposed to perform to make this a better world, and for a minute my faith was shaken. How could God allow that when I was doing his work? But when I saw you coming out of that restaurant across the street with that brunette, I knew the angels had led me there. I understood that the devil would, of course, not want me to carry out my mission, and that you and everyone you associate with are in league with him.”
Crazy as a loon, Jake thought grimly, but knew the brunette that Ball-Cap Boy had seen him with was Marguerite, when they’d left the restaurant where they’d dined together.
“So you followed us,” Jake guessed. It was the only explanation.
Ball-Cap Boy nodded. “I left the lawyer with his mouth wide open and followed you. I had to hire a taxi to do it.” He smiled. “I told the taxi driver the brunette was my wife and the two of you were having an affair. He was very sympathetic. It seems his wife ‘stepped out’ on him, as he put it.” He shrugged. “We followed you to that car rental place and while she was returning her car, I rented one, and then I followed you back here.”
“And poisoned the hot tub?” Jake asked, and then said with certainty, “No, not then. You didn’t have the poison with you in the rental car.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I saw the hot tub that night. Disgusting things,” he added with a shudder. “Only whores and whoresons use those. Poisoning it was the only thing to do.”
Jake frowned. He was recalling his first night here when he’d arrived with Marguerite. The door had been unlocked when they’d arrived, he recalled. They’d locked it, and then when he’d checked later it was unlocked again.
“You followed us here, you weren’t here before us?” he asked, despite knowing he couldn’t have been.
Ball-Cap Boy looked at Jake as if he were the one who was crazy. “I told you I followed you. The angels led me to you, they don’t give out addresses.”
Jake didn’t react to that, his thoughts were on the fact that the door had been unlocked when they’d arrived. Nicole had claimed she’d locked it behind Marguerite when she’d left, but it had been unlocked when they’d arrived. The only answer was either Nicole had only thought she’d locked it, or she’d locked it and then unintentionally unlocked it when she’d turned the key back to take it out of the lock. But he knew Marguerite had locked it when they’d entered. He’d even checked it himself afterward. Yet it had been unlocked again later.
“You were in the house,” he said with certainty.
“The studio door was cracked open.”
Jake frowned. Marguerite had searched the main floor while he took the upper when their calls hadn’t drawn Nicole out. Marguerite must have just stuck her head into the studio, or maybe she even just glanced through the French doors. Whichever the case, she hadn’t noticed the sliding glass doors being open.
“I was really impressed with the girl’s paintings,” Ball-Cap Boy said now, surprise in his voice. “I expected them to be orgy scenes and such, but they were well-done portraits. Of course, I realized then that the angels had left the door open for me so I could see my next targets. Obviously, a servant of Satan would only paint other minions of hell.”
“Christ,” Jake muttered, thinking of the portrait of Christian and Caro. The man was saying they were now a target too, along with the actress and the politician.
“Don’t you dare utter Christ’s name in vain,” Ball-Cap Boy barked, suddenly on his feet, the gun Jake had been sure he had in view and pointing straight at him. Ball-Cap Boy had held it tucked between his arms and body, hidden until he was ready to reveal it, which was exactly what Jake had suspected.