‘I wouldn’t be so sure, Darby.’

‘He went to great lengths to clean up that corner of the bedroom. He made a mistake, and he’s shitting his pants that we’re going to find it – find him.’

Hoder pushed himself off the trunk and placed all his weight on his cane. Then he shuffled a few steps towards her and turned his back to the sun, so he didn’t have to squint. From behind the green tint of her sunglasses Darby could see the deep lines and grooves around his eyes and mouth. She could also see the irritation growing in his face.

‘You know what you are?’ Hoder said. ‘You’re a meddlesome whore.’

26

‘That’s how the Red Hill Ripper views you,’ Hoder said in his soft Southern drawl. ‘That’s why he called you last night and that’s why he sent out those naked pictures of you. Like all sexual sadists, he despises women. You’re a bitch and a slut, and he seeks complete control over you because you’re a woman and women are the enemy. Right now he’s planning on how he’s going to get to you and punish you. He’s rehearsing every single detail.’

Darby didn’t reply, her skin crawling with anxiety.

‘You’re an intelligent woman,’ he said. ‘You have a PhD from Harvard in criminal behaviour, and you’ve had first-hand experience with sadists. You know he’s fixated on you now. At some point he’s going to strike, and when he does he’s going to take you someplace where he can degrade you and torture you until your heart gives out. Tell me I’m wrong,’

You’re not, Darby told herself. She looked away, at the notches in the mountains, and that thing that nagged her reappeared along the edges of her mind. She tried to chase the thought or feeling or whatever it was, but it had vanished like vapour scattered in the wind.

‘Why do I feel like I’m talking to a storm drain?’

‘I hear you,’ Darby said, and turned her attention back to him. ‘You want to be my chaperone for the day? You’re hired. Give me the car keys.’

‘What would make me feel better is for you to go back to Sarasota.’

‘And what, exactly, is that going to accomplish?’

Hoder’s irritation had vanished, replaced by what appeared to be an almost paternal concern. ‘I never intended to put you in harm’s way,’ he said. ‘Maybe I should have shown better judgement before asking you to come here, I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m truly sorry for what happened to you this morning.’

Hoder wasn’t paying her lip service; she heard genuine regret and sorrow in his voice, and for some reason it triggered the image of David Downes tied to the dining-room chair, suffocating inside the bag, trying to scream at the killer to stop and then at the end trying to scream to his daughter and wife that he loved them, his last words forever lost, sealed behind the tape wrapped around his mouth.

Then the image vanished, leaving with her the cold certainty that when she found the killer she would do something horrible to him. If given the opportunity, she’d feed him into a wood chipper, slowly, inch by inch. Without regret and without remorse.

‘I’ll take care of the arrangements,’ Hoder said. ‘Go home, Darby. Please.’

‘Our guy already knows my name. If that Carlos Santos character found your unlisted home number and where you live, who’s to say the Red Hill Ripper won’t do the same with me?’

Hoder studied the scuffed tops of his loafers.

‘Besides,’ Darby said, ‘running away isn’t my style.’

Hoder swallowed, clearly pained. ‘I’m sorry.’

Darby was about to speak when the thing that had been nagging at her rose like a bubble in her mind and popped: the Ripper had called after she had hung up with Coop.

She spoke in a clear, calm voice. ‘I need to get to the hotel now.’

Hoder handed over the keys. She held the door open for him and, after a moment of deliberation, got in.

Hoder sat with the cane between his legs and stared out of the front window as they left the parking lot. She drove slowly, as if the thought she carried in her mind was a fragile, teetering thing that was about to crash into a million little pieces against the floor.

‘I went to school nights to get my master’s degree,’ he said, the tyres crunching across the gravel. ‘For my thesis, I interviewed soldiers who had survived combat. My plan was to write about the commonalities of post-traumatic stress disorder, but what I ended up writing about was something I called “second life syndrome”.’

Darby concentrated on the road, on the thoughts bouncing around in her head.

‘It refers to soldiers who, having survived combat, believed they’d been touched by God’s hand or some other divine presence,’ Hoder said. ‘Because their life had been spared under the cruellest circumstances, they thought nothing bad would ever happen to them again. They lived their lives recklessly, marching headfirst into danger because the normal rules of life no longer applied to them.’

Darby knew where he was heading. ‘I don’t share that view, Terry, and I’ve never been a soldier.’

‘But you’ve survived combat with Traveler and the others that followed him. And then there’s that cult you and Cooper investigated, what, two years back, the one that abducted Jack Casey and his daughter and turned his wife into a vegetable.’

Images of what she had seen on that remote island off the coast of Maine flashed through her mind, and she unconsciously shifted in her seat.

‘There’s another psychological component at work here,’ Hoder said.

‘All due respect, how about giving the five-and-dime psychoanalysis a rest?’

‘You’re deliberately putting yourself in harm’s way because you want the Ripper to come after you. You want to kill him.’

‘Wrong.’

Hoder made no reply.

This morning’s depression has mercifully lifted. As I near my house, I feel more in control than ever. More hopeful.

And why shouldn’t I? I’m still safely hidden inside the shadows, and I still have the power to choose. I can take Angela Blake, Tricia Lamont, even the McCormick bitch, whenever I want.

Sarah gave me Angela’s picture because she knows I like a fighter. In that regard, Darby McCormick would be the ultimate challenge. She wouldn’t submit herself willingly to the rope, the way some of the others did. She wouldn’t scream or beg or cry. She’d lash out. I did a Google search on her last night, surprised by the number of articles that came up. I only had to read a handful to know that she gets off on killing. Given the chance, she’d blow my head off or slit my throat and then sleep like a baby. The woman has no conscience.

Women are fragile, delicate things; they break easily. And, like all things that break, they don’t look or function the same way after they’re put back together. You always see the cracks. The weak and vulnerable spots.

And hers is fear. The photos and last night’s phone call have put her into full red-alert mode. She’ll be constantly looking over her shoulder and watching her rear-view mirror, terrified the Red Hill Ripper is coming for her. Every time the phone rings and every time she gets undressed her anxiety will go into overdrive. I have to stoke her fear, keep her simmering in it, so that she can’t sleep. She’ll become run down and, eventually, exhausted. She’ll be jumpy and irritable and prone to mistakes and she won’t see me coming.

The real challenge will be what to do with her. Training a woman to obey is really no different than training a dog. Some dogs take to their lessons easily. A few swift corrections and they’re in line. The more stubborn ones, you have to systematically break their spirit. Sometimes you have to drive your point home with a hand or fist. You have to be patient and find the way to deliver the message so it lives in their bones.

I pull into the driveway, as excited as a child on Christmas morning, and park. Sarah’s car isn’t here; today is Thursday, her errand day. I hit the button on the garage-door remote clipped to my visor and leave the truck running. I only need a few minutes in the basement.