Johanna Apollo was startled to hear her own voice on the radio. She had not expected Zachary to play that interview tape on the air. How could she have guessed wrong about that? If he thought he was impervious to an investigation, he might not come tonight.
Or was he already here?
She turned off the radio and held her breath, standing very still in the dead quiet of the front room. Had she actually heard a noise in the hall? Or had she intuited a presence out there – sensed it in the fashion of Mugs or Timothy Kidd? Tonight there would be no buffer of FBI agents downstairs in the hotel lobby. The federal bodyguards were looking for her elsewhere.
No interruptions, no witnesses.
Gun in hand, Johanna settled into an armchair and braced her elbows on the upholstery. The recoil of Riker's revolver would be stronger than Victor's smaller gun, and she would not risk it falling from her trembling hands, for one bullet might not do the job. After turning off the table lamp, all that illuminated the hotel room, she could see the shadows of two shoes in a crack of yellow light below the door. The narrow foyer's walls seemed like an extension of the gun's barrel.
A knock. How polite – and unexpected. Johanna called out, "It's not locked!"
The door opened slowly, and this was something she should have anticipated. She could see that now – her error. Ian Zachary would pride himself on theatrics. His dark silhouette filled the door frame, backlit by the lamps in the hall.
She had rehearsed this moment inside her head so many times. It had always begun with immediate violence, a body barreling through the door, rushing in with a view to unbalancing her with cold, paralyzing terror. That had been Timothy Kidd's imagined recreation of the juror murders, but that was not to be – not here and now. And what else might she get wrong before this night was over?
The room suddenly flooded with light from the ceiling fixture. Her eyes were still adapting to the brightness when she saw his hand on the wall switch and heard him say, "I should come inside." His voice was in the range of seduction, and this was another surprise. "If you shoot me in the hall," he said, "the police might not buy the idea of self-defense."
During her training days as a crime-scene cleaner, Riker had told her that hesitation should be listed as the cause of death for most homicide victims. Educable Johanna raised the gun. She must kill Ian Zachary now.
He closed the door behind him – and locked it.
The gun was so heavy.
"There, that's better," he said. "Now you have privacy for a murder – and a better story for the police." Zachary strolled toward her, smiling, all but laughing at the gun in her hands, only sparing it one glance. He stopped a few paces from her chair, then raised his arms to show her the spread of his empty hands. "I don't have a weapon, but here's a thought – maybe you could plant one on my dead body." He lowered his arms. "You might have time to run to the store, some all-night bodega where the clerk won't remember a distraught hunchback buying a penknife."
The gun barrel wavered. Her finger touched lightly on the trigger, and he became an easier target as he closed the gap between them. She fancied Timothy inside her head, screaming to the rhythm of a banging heart, Kill him, kill him, kill him!
Her script for this event was already in shambles. It should not have surprised her so when Zachary leaned down and simply plucked the gun from her shaking hands, saying, "Not quite the scenario you had in mind? Too civilized for a cold-blooded killing? You don't know what you're missing, Dr. Apollo." He pressed the gun to her forehead an inch above her eyes. "What a rush. Better than sex."
She looked down at her hands, limp useless things, and waited for the shot.
Riker sailed through another red light, avoiding collisions by the grace of providence, for his eyes kept wandering to the rearview mirror, expecting Mallory to climb up his taillights at any moment. She would have discovered by now that Jo's interview was on tape, and it would only take her six seconds to steal another car.
A fire engine beat him into the intersection, stringing its long body across the entire width of the street. He slammed on the brakes, but not before he had done some damage to the other vehicle and crumpled a fender of Mallory's car. He reversed gears and backed up by ten feet as an angry fireman climbed down from the driver's seat and walked toward him. Now the driver was joined by other men dropping down to the pavement like combat troops parachuting in for a battle. They were all moving in tandem, and the strategy was clear: they were planning to surround Riker and take a little satisfaction out of his hide – slow torture by paperwork and forms filled out in triplicate. Flashing his badge would not save him, and he could not spare the time to do even that much.
Taking a tip from the Mallory School of Bad Driving, Riker aimed the car at the walking wall of firemen. Brave bastards, they waited until the last possible moment to jump aside. And now the small tan sedan was running round the long red truck, using all of the sidewalk to do it, and civilians were diving into the street. Move or die – that was the message.
Mallory would have been proud.
If I wanted you dead," said Ian Zachary, "I could have killed you months ago. You were the easiest one to keep track of." He ran the gun barrel lightly along the deformity of her spine. "Such a distinctive profile. Tell you what. Let's do a trade – your life for Victor Patchock's." He reached out to a small table, picked up the telephone and carried it to her chair. "Call him over here."
"You'll kill us both."
"No, no, no." Zachary wore a condescending smile as he knelt down before her. "The last juror standing takes all the blame. I thought you understood that, Doctor. That's why people keep dying in your vicinity. First Timothy Kidd, then poor Bunny. When the police find Victor bleeding all over your rug, I think they'll have enough to close out the case."
"And no witness to back up the charge of jury tampering." Johanna nodded her understanding. One of the surviving jurors must die tonight. "But if I'm supposed to be the Reaper – if I die, you have no show left."
"You do understand." He rewarded her with his widest smile, then patted her hand. "Good girl. Yes, ideally there would be another trial – yours. A long, drawn-out affair. You're wealthy, Dr. Apollo. You can hire the best legal team in the country. I promise you'll never do a day in prison for all those murders. You'll buy your way out with legal talent. It's the American way."
"And then we start over?"
"Right. A fresh jury. And, next time, all twelve of them die."
"And then another trial? Do you get all your plans from comic books?" Ah, she had disappointed him. This was not the response he had expected. But she knew he would not kill her – not yet. First, he must make her into a believer – a fan of sorts. She was all the audience that he would ever have. He wanted – applause.
He set the telephone in her lap. "You see? I do have an interest in keeping you alive. So you know I'll keep my word." He pressed the receiver into her hand. "Call Victor Patchock."
"You have a famous face," she said. "How many people spotted you downstairs in the lobby? How many of them saw you get on the elevator?"
"Oh, I don't need an alibi tonight. This time, I'll be the one who discovers the Reaper's next victim." He held up her old business card and flipped it over to show her a personal note. "Recognize your own handwriting? I took this off the corpse of Agent Kidd. The wording is ambiguous, no names or dates, just a reminder that the appointment's been changed from ten to eleven o'clock. I'll say you invited me over, lured me here with the prospect of interviewing Victor. But then – what a shock – you killed him right before my eyes." He looked down at his watch. "It's close to eleven o'clock."