Chapter 105

No, no, no!

I hadn't expected this. It was like a knife thrust into my heart, then twisted until I screamed. Kyle had hurt me badly — and he wanted me to know something: There was worse to come. This was just the beginning.

I stood silent and transfixed in the bedroom of Zach and Liz Taylor. My eyes were blurred by tears. Two of my dearest friends were dead. I had come to their house dozens of times before — for parties, dinner, late-night talks. Zach and Liz had visited on Fifth Street many times. Zach was the godfather to little Alex.

My only consolation was that they had died quickly. Probably Kyle was nervous about getting caught. He knew he had to get in and out of their apartment in the Adams-Morgan section of Washington quickly.

Whatever his reason, he had killed the Taylors with single gunshots to the head. He hadn't bothered to mutilate the bodies. I thought that the message was clear. This wasn't about them.

Itwas about the two of us.

Zach and Liz Taylor hadn't mattered one way or the other to him. Maybe that was the worst thing of all. How easily he could kill. How much he wanted to hurt me.

This was just the start of it.

It would getworse.

There was no evidence of rage, no passion at this crime scene. I almost got the sense that once he was inside their bedroom he'd had second thoughts. Oh Kyle, Kyle. Have mercy on us.

I made mental notes — no need to write any of this down. I knew every horrifying detail by heart. I would never forget any of it until the day I died.

The gunshots had blown away the sides of their faces. I had to force myself to look. I remembered how in love they had always seemed to me. Zach had once told me that "Liz is the only person I know who I enjoy being with on a long car ride." That was the test for him. They never ran out of things to say to each other. I felt incredibly hollowed out as I stared at them. They were gone now. What a terrible waste, what a horror show.

I walked past their bodies to a large casement window that looked out on the street. I was feeling so unreal. I saw the marquee sign for Cafe Lautrec, closed now. I thought about Kyle on the run, what he must be thinking, where he might go next.

I wanted to catch him, to stop him. No, I wanted to kill Kyle. I wanted to hurt him in the worst way possible.

Someone from the crime scene unit edged up to me, a sergeant named Ed Lyle. "Sorry about your loss. What do you want from us, Detective? We're ready to get to work here."

"Sketch, video, photograph," I told Lyle. But I really didn't need any of it. I didn't need any more graven images, or even any evidence.

I knew who the killer was.

Chapter 106

I got home around one that afternoon. I needed to sleep, but I couldn't stay down for more than a couple of hours. I got up and paced all through the empty house on Fifth Street.

I kept walking from room to room. I felt the need to stop a terrible disaster from happening, but I didn't know where to start. The possible hit lists for Kyle were continually running through my head: my family, Sampson, Christine, Jamilla Hughes, Kate McTiernan, my niece Naomi, Kyle's own family.

I couldn't get the image of Zach and Liz out of my head. They had been executed in the prime of their lives — because of me. Finally, I was able to throw up, and it was the best thing that had happened to me that day. I pushed out my guts. Then I slammed the bathroom mirror with the heel of my hand and nearly broke it.

Kyle was always a fucking step ahead, right? It had been that way for so many years now. He was such an unbelievable bastard.

He had complete confidence in his abilities, including his power to elude us any time he wanted to. What would be next? Who would he kill? Who? Who?

How could he make himself disappear after the killing? How did he blend in and become invisible when so many people were looking for him?

He had money — Kyle had taken care of that when he'd played the role of the Mastermind. So what was next for him?

I worked at my computer late into the night and early morning. The computer was beside my bedroom window. Was he outside watching? I didn't think even Kyle would take that kind of chance now. But hell, how could I rule out anything?

He was capable of large-scale mass murder. If that was his plan, where would he strike? Washington? New York City? L.A.? Chicago? His old hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina? Maybe somewhere in Europe? London?

Was his family safe — his wife and his son and daughter? I had vacationed with them in Nags Head one summer. I'd stayed at their home in Virginia a few times over the years. His wife, Louise, was a dear friend. I had promised her I would try to bring Kyle in alive if I possibly could. But now I wondered — did I want to keep that promise? What would I do if I ever caught up with Kyle?

He might go after his own parents, especially since Kyle put part of the heavy blame for his behavior on his father. William Hyland Craig had been a general in the army, then chairman of the board of two Fortune 500 companies in and around Charlotte. Nowadays, he gave lectures at ten to twenty thousand a pop; he was on half a dozen boards. He had beaten Kyle as a boy, disciplined him ruthlessly, taught him to hate.

Sibling rivalry? Kyle had brought it up himself. He had been highly competitive with his younger brother until Blake's death in 1991. Had Kyle actually killed Blake? It had been ruled a hunting accident. What about the older brother, who still lived in North Carolina?

Did he think of me as a younger brother? Did Kyle see Blake in me? He was competing with me, and he'd tried to control me from the start. The women in my life might have represented a threat to him, an extreme variant of sibling rivalry. Was that why he had killed Betsey Cavalierre? What about Maureen Cooke in New Orleans? And Jamilla?

I made a note to carefully think and plot out one particular angle, a dysfunctional family triangle with both Kyle and me in it.

One step ahead.

So far, anyway.

If he went after his parents or his brother we would have him. They were being closely protected in Charlotte. The FBI was all over them.

Kyle knew that. He wouldn't do something stupid— just cruel and nasty.

One step ahead.

That seemed to be the key to Kyle's fantasy life, at least as I understood it so far. He wouldn't make the obvious move. He would go at least one move, maybe two, beyond that. But how did he stay a step ahead — especially now? A very bad thought had been running through my head lately. Maybe there was someone else in the FBI helping him — maybe Kyle had a partner.

I had finally drifted off to sleep when the phone in my bedroom woke me. It was three in the morning. God damn him. Doesn't he ever sleep?

I picked it up, clicked it off, then unplugged the phone from the wall.

No more phone tag, Kyle.Fuck you.

I was setting the rules now. This was my game, not his.