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“Okay… so I’ll take you home.”
“Ah, don’t do that to me! We’ve only got one more on the list. And if my hunchisright, he’s the guy—he’s the one.”
“Yeah, unless he’s been shipped of somewhere else,” Jack said, frustrated.
“Well, let’s go see.”
“But you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Yes. Keep in mind, I’ve done nothing but sit on my ass for the past four or five weeks. All of this excitement is a little too much for me, apparently.”
“And you’ll tell me if something changes?” he asked as they got into the car.
“You have my word.”
She meant it. And something about that made her feel just as free as stepping out of the Adams residence and into the yard. More than that, it made her even more excited about getting back into the car to go after the killer.
CHAPTERTWENTYTWO
He was coming to the end of it. Not just his life but this particular set of tasks he'd set out for himself. He'd killed three already, and it had been easier than he'd ever imagined. He'd had reservations about the third woman—a nurse named Donna Newsom that had brought him back from a suicide attempt where he’d nearly stopped his heart with prescribed medicines he’d stolen from his ex-wife several months ago. His reservations had not come from the fact that she had only been barely linked to his situation. No, he'd had second thoughts about killing her because of where she lived. But on the two different occasions he had staked out her home, he'd been shocked to find that the house had not possessed one of those newfangled camera-equipped doorbells.
After that, his decisionwas easy. He'd gotten the idea of posing as a UPS driver from an old move he’d seen somewhere. The empty Amazon box had been the icing on the cake. It was such a familiar logo, and people ordered from them all the time that he assumed it would be just enough for her to answer the door without any hesitation. And he'd been right.
Part of him was starting to insist that Donna Newsom might very well be the last target. But the anger he was feeling and had been feeling for nearly four months now—came from a source beyond his doctors. Maybe… honestly, he wasn’t sure. But after killing three people, he was beginning to understand how natural it felt. More than that, the anger and the act of murder made him feel more alive than he had in years.
It made the headaches go away. It made the last several years of his life fade away into an obscure blur in the back of his mind. He was even starting to think that the anger and the murder might be serving as a cure. It was easy to assume this when sitting in the clutches of one of his God-awful headaches.
He was experiencing one right now, once again sitting on the floor in the dark. Amazingly, it didn't hurt as bad as his body seemed to think it should. He was all but certain that this was because he knew he had one more person to kill. And the knowledge that it was on the horizon, probably before the day was over, in fact, seemed to create a strange sort of comfort within him. Having once struggled with alcoholism, he could easily compare it to needing that first drink of the afternoon desperately and the craving being somewhat curbed because he’d known it was waiting in the fridge at home.
One more person, and then he'd be done. There was a sense of satisfaction to this but also a subtle sort of defeat. Would he be able to stop killing after this one? He knew he didn't have much time left to live, and if this was the only thing that gave him any form of comfort, what sense did it make to stop?
These were all very good questions. But they were questions that he could handle once headache to compete with it. He smiled in the darkness, waiting. Just like the other three victims, he had scouted her out as well. To attack her now while she was at work would make no sense. There were far too many people around, and there was no way he would get away with it. All he had to do was wait. He didn't have many more days left, so any wasted moment was a precious one. But for what he had in store for her, he thought it would be absolutely worth sacrificing a few hours of his final days.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Rachel was sitting forward in her seat, her adrenaline starting to truly kick in now. As she watched the interstate ramp come into view, she also listened to the phone call Jack had placed to the local police department. Because he was driving and Rachel was only part of the case in an unofficial capacity, he had the call on speakerso as not to distract from his driving.
Jack had been patched through to a deputy and was doing his best to convey his message without being too dramatic. While both Rachel and Jack did feel that there was a strong possibility that the last name on their list was the killer, there was no solid proof yet. And do tell the police that he was certain they were currently en route to a serial killer’s house without any hard, tangible proof would be a mistake.
“The subject’s name is James Dickerson, and he lives at 147 River’s Gate Street,” Jack was saying. “For right now, I don’t need feet on the ground, but I’d like to know that I can have backup within minutes if necessary.”
“River’s Gate Street,” the deputy said. “Yeah, we’ve got at least two unites over in that vicinity right now. When do you expect to be there?”
“I’m about ten minutes out.”
“Sounds good. I’ll make sure we’ve got at least one car within a minute or so of that address.”
Jack ended the call and turnedhis full attention back to the exit ramp. Once they were on the interstate, Dickerson’s address was just a few ramps further ahead. Rachel started to feel a familiar sense of finality, a stirring she often felt in her guts whenever they were closing in on the final act of a case. Of course, it would be their luck that the killer would turn out to be the last name on the list. But with nothing but a scant medical history and a string of doctors to go on, there was no way they could have definitively selected one. They could have run background checks, but that would have added a few hours to the process. And because all of the suspects were in the city of Richmond, they’d be done with looking into each suspect in the time it took to get those reports.
In other words, they were saving time by remaining active. And tired or not, Rachel fully intended to see the case through.
They got off the interstate, taking the ramp into a part of the city Rachel wasn’t very familiar with. Had they remained on the interstate for another few miles, they would have passed by the city limits. The neighborhood they found themselves in was bland and featureless, the sort of place that hadn’t quite felt the effects of the nearby businesses going down over the years. It was the kind of neighborhood no one ever expected to be of great importance, the sort of place you would find a route around on your way to get somewhere more important.
As Jack closed in on River’s Gate Street, Rachel noted the two police cars they passed. One was parked along the side of a gas station, and the second was parked at the curb at the end of the opposite block. The deputy had acted fast, and the sight of the waiting cars kicked Rachel’s anticipation into an even higher gear.
When they pulled up in front of James Dickerson’s address, Rachel noted at once that there was no vehicle on the premises. There was no driveway or garage, so the absence of a car parked anywhere near the house was a clear indication of that.
“Looks like he’s not home,” Rachel said.
