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Then, in a broken, dented locker with no lock, I found a slightly rumpled uniform and a rolled-up sleeping bag. When I knocked the bag out of the locker, a spindle of electrical wire tumbled out.
“Fuck me,” I breathed.
This was it. This was his fucking stuff.
It would explain, in part, how he managed to sneak by all the guards and search requirements outside. He slept in here. He never left the hotel, so he never had to worry about getting back in.
I crouched and unzipped the sleeping bag. In addition to the wire, there was an old Casio wristwatch, a roll of duct tape, and the gun.
The same gun he would use to blow his brains out the next day.
I popped the clip out of the magazine and slid each bullet out until only one remained in the chamber. Probably the one with his name on it. I was tempted to leave it in there, to let it fulfill its destiny, but I slid it out as well, slipping it, along with the others, into my pocket.
I replaced the gun, the wires, and everything else into the locker, and then I ducked into a nearby shower stall with an Out of Order sign on the door, and waited.
Shift change happened around three. Blessedly no one tried to wash up. They just shucked off their clothes, and either changed into or out of their uniforms, then went home or to work.
He showed up fifteen minutes later, his head ducked low to avoid attention. I saw his hair first, and my hands tightened into fists. Since it was after three now, that meant he was on his way to get what he needed to wire up the car. Or the car was already wired and he was setting himself up to watch it from a good vantage point.
He changed out of his street clothes—a pair of ill-fitting slacks and a plain green polo shirt—and put on the Luxor uniform. The material was so dark it was hard to see how wrinkled it was. He’d blend right in, even though he had probably stolen the thing out of the laundry.
I wanted to jump out and tackle him then and there.
I wanted to climb on his back and rip out his hair, smash his face repeatedly into the floor until there was nothing left but a mash of bone and teeth and ruined meat.
This man had—or would—take everything from me. He had killed twelve children, all because he felt ignored.
I wanted to destroy him.
But if the car bomb was already set up, I had to know. I needed to figure out which car it was, where it was. I cursed myself for not looking up the make and model the day before. It would have saved me so much effort.
I waited until he was dressed and had re-stashed his goods in the locker, then eased open the shower stall door. I stopped at the locker where I’d found the baseball equipment and was relieved to see it was still there. I had come totally unarmed, and in spite of my plethora of abilities, I was only human. I couldn’t exactly punch a lightning bolt into him from five floors underg
round. I eased the wooden bat out of the locker and followed his footsteps into the hall.
Now that I had him in my sights, his death was all but inevitable. He wouldn’t get away this time, and I wouldn’t let him hurt another living soul.
He took the stairs up, and I stole in after him before the door clicked closed. He jogged noisily to the next floor, and I was like a ghost trailing behind him, purposeful and quiet. The door on opened, and I caught it just before it shut.
We emerged in an underground parking lot, and my skin started to crawl as if fire ants were climbing all over me, nipping little trails wherever they went. The lights down here weren’t great, making it easy to stick to the shadows at the front end of the cars while he marched through the rows, obviously intent on a certain destination.
He paused in front of a Crown Vic, looked around, then popped open the hood.
This is it.
I had no way to know that. I hadn’t been outside when the car blew up. I hadn’t read the police reports or seen any footage of the explosion. It wasn’t like a Crown Vic grille had gone sailing past me in the lobby, telling me what I was looking for.
Yet his actions told me everything I needed to know. Up until that moment he’d been whistling off tune, but the second he opened up the car he fell silent. The sound of metal on metal told me he was tinkering with something in the engine.
A detective I was not, but I had enough common sense to draw a straight line between two points. In about two hours, this man would set off a car bomb in front of the Luxor. Right now, he was in the Luxor basement, messing around under the hood of a car.
That was math so basic a toddler could make the connection.
I tested the weight of the bat in my hands. I wanted to sneak up behind him and knock him out cold. Though to be honest if I started beating him, I’d never stop. Maybe I should have taken his gun, but I hadn’t wanted him to notice it was missing.
I took a step closer, my jeans brushing against the side of a nearby car with a soft scratch. I froze, holding my breath as tight as I was holding the bat.
He paused, looked around, then went back to work.
