“What are you getting at?”
Lynch stared at the map for another long moment. “I have an idea where he’s taking her. Griffin, get your helicopter in the air. Quick.” He muttered a curse. “I’m close, but I may not be close enough.”
* * *
“YOU’RE NOT MOVING FAST ENOUGH.” Chatsworth pushed her down the path. Kendra stumbled, her hands still bound behind her. She’d managed to whittle at the ropes while in the SUV, but it had been slow going, and she’d only managed a partial cut. She was tempted to try to break the ropes now and make a move, but the timing had to be right, or it could be disaster. If the ropes didn’t break, she might not have a second chance.
“Tell me something, Kendra. Back there at the hospital … Something tipped you off to me. It was like a light went on. You suddenly knew with whom you were dealing. What was it?”
“Your fingers.”
Chatsworth held up his hand. “My fingers?”
“Yes. You have small, dark bruises on the fingers of your right hand. I knew that your victim at the club, Danica Beale, bit her attacker on his right, gloved hand. There were brown leather slivers between some of her front teeth. Not many men wear any kind of gloves around here, nor have them readily available if needed. Much less brown leather ones. But I guess they’re more common where you’re from. I saw part of a brown leather glove poking up from your jacket pocket.”
He smiled. “Very good.”
“Also, there were only four cars in the hospital lot. Three had condensation on the windows, meaning they had been there for a while. The one that didn’t was obviously yours. It was an Infiniti SUV. That’s the engine I heard starting and driving away the other night at Corrine Harvey’s house.”
“You never disappoint, Kendra.” He stopped and grabbed her arm. “Here we are.” He gestured to the bottom of the hill at an abandoned, water-filled quarry, its sides cut in straight, vertical sheaths. “Now do you remember?”
She inhaled sharply. “Jurupa Quarry. Mary Delgado.” She turned. “And those trees…”
“It’s where Burton McNair tried to hang his final victim. He murdered and hung three others in the forests around here: equidistant north, south, and east of the spot where the sheriff’s deputies killed his father a year before. Here, due west, you kept him from completing his work and killing Mary Delgado.” He smiled. “Tonight, you’re going to help me complete it for him in a much more satisfying way.”
“You’re going to kill me and hang me from one of those trees.”
“By George, I believe she’s got it.”
“Oh, yes, I’ve definitely got it.” Keep him talking; she had the ropes frayed and was pulling gently on them.
“As you saw each of your cases re-created, you had to know this was how it would end. My final re-creation must feature you as the victim. It’s the final movement of my symphony.”
And he was getting ready for that symphony to end with a giant crescendo.
Time was running out for her. She had to make her move.
He took a step closer, his knife ready. “I’m almost sorry, Kendra. I know there will be others, but none I’ll enjoy as much as you. You are unique.”
She looked down, and her shoulders tensed as she prepared to jerk with all her strength on the ropes.
He nodded. “Unfortunately for you, sometimes history can be rewritten.”
“And sometimes it can be repeated.”
The ropes flew from her wrists!
She leaped forward and jabbed her carved-bone blade into Chatsworth’s stomach.
He swung with his own knife. Kendra ducked, and jammed her blade into the middle of his back. But he was moving, and it was a glancing blow.
Not deep enough. Not deep enough.
But it was deep enough for agony. He howled in pain and tried in vain to reach the protruding blade.
Kendra ran a few yards away before turning. “Not a large blade but sufficiently lethal.”
Chatsworth felt his stomach and stared incredulously at his bloody hand in the moonlight. He glared at Kendra. “You think you’ve won?”
She backed away. “It’s not a game.”
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a handgun.
Shit.
She dashed into the forest as he fired two shots at her.
She ran deep into the dense foliage, trying to avoid anything that resembled an actual path. His footsteps pounded behind her, crunching leaves and snapping branches.
Another gunshot. A tree branch exploded near her head. She turned sharply, threw herself to the ground, and rolled a few yards down a gentle slope. Hell, that blade in his back had barely slowed him down.