Insidious (FBI Thriller 20)

Daniel said, “So he won’t commit himself. Here’s a question for you. The killer took Deborah Connelly’s computer and cell phone. If it’s a copycat, how did he know to do that?”

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* * *

THE HORSESHOE MOTEL

RENO

WEDNESDAY

Marty Sallas felt like crap. He’d doubled up on the pain meds the clinic had given him because his hand hurt so bad, and he’d run out last night. He’d been popping aspirin like candy ever since, but it didn’t touch the pain. He remembered his last girlfriend, Lila, calling him a baby for taking four aspirin for a headache, but what did she know?

Marty moaned and cursed the stitches that dug through his hand. It itched and burned, felt like it was on fire. But there were no red lines running up his arm, no particular swelling, so that was good. Still, he cursed as he pulled himself out of bed, cursed again as he stood there, cupping his bandaged hand, and staggered to the bathroom to brush his teeth. The pain pills had made his mouth taste like a bad hangover, and even after twelve hours, it still tasted like a toilet, go figure that.

He stood under the shower, his arm stuck outside the curtain to keep the bandage dry, and did the best he could with the stingy sliver of soap left stuck in the rusted soap holder. The stream of hot water splashing on his face helped, took his mind off the pain. But not off his fear. He’d about lost it when he saw his name and face all over the local news that morning. The cops were calling him an eyewitness to a murder by a serial killer and asking him to contact them. Did the cops think he was stupid? That he would walk in there and admit to breaking and entering into Molly’s house, let them charge him and put him away again? Not without an arrest warrant they wouldn’t, and they’d have to catch him first. But thanks to those cops on TV the killer could be after him already. Maybe he was standing across the street, watching and plotting how to kill him when he came out of the motel.

He was losing it. How could that lunatic know where he was? He wasn’t smarter than the cops, didn’t have their resources. Besides, Marty was always careful. He’d learned long ago not to make it too easy to find him. He moved around, never gave his real name when he booked a room. The cops hadn’t gotten near him since his two-year stay at Pilson. He was safe, for another day at least.

His biggest problem was he was nearly broke, and that meant he had to leave this room, put himself out in the world. Staying anywhere near Las Vegas wasn’t an option, not with the cops and maybe the killer looking for him.

What had happened to the bracelet—his bracelet—the one Moneybags had bought for his beautiful princess? One of the cops probably had slipped it off her wrist or snatched it out of her jewelry box to give to his girlfriend. It wasn’t fair; it wasn’t right. The pain in his hand spiked again, and nausea swam in his throat. He knew it was because he was afraid.

Marty got out of the shower, managed to get himself dry with one good hand and one mangy towel. The small bathroom was steaming hot, making him sweat again, but he knew it wasn’t any hotter than it was outside. It didn’t matter where you set your feet in Nevada, it was always hot. Maybe there was no humidity like they told the tourists who complained, but to Marty, hot was hot.

He brushed his teeth again, looked in the mirror, and his belly twisted. He saw not his own reflection, but Molly’s, looking out at him from the steamed-up glass, her eyes wide and dead, her neck sliced open, her blood everywhere, on the walls, on the covers, on the floor, and on that lunatic. He remembered the man jerking around toward him, that knife raised, still dripping blood. Marty’s heart drummed in his chest. He wiped off the glass with the damp towel, to wipe Molly’s face away, until only his own pale face now stared back at him.

Sure, he was a criminal and he was good at it, but there was a big difference between him and the crazy who’d murdered his princess. Marty had never killed someone for the sport of it, not like the man he’d surprised standing over Molly. That man was sick or evil, Marty didn’t know which was worse. Evil, probably, no rhyme or reason with evil, that’s what his pa would say when his head was in a bourbon bottle.

His fingers went to his throat. He had to get away from here today. He wouldn’t be on TV outside of Nevada. He’d drive up to Seattle, lots of rich folk up there. He had a few contacts there, but nothing like the network he’d built in Las Vegas. He’d have to start over, and that would mean small jobs with quick and easy payoffs, enough to keep body and soul together.

Didn’t matter, he knew his business. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to start over.

It was better than being dead. He would stop on the way at a Walmart, buy whatever he needed, maybe change into something nicer in the men’s room. It wouldn’t be a problem.

As he slowly pulled on his seedy clothes, he turned on the television again. They were talking about another actress the lunatic had killed, in Los Angeles. Her name was Deborah Connelly and she’d lived in Santa Monica, this followed by another plea for him to come forward. He was safe, then—the lunatic had gone back to his old hunting grounds. They even gave the name of the lead agent in L.A.—Special Agent Cam Wittier. Should he call her, get the FBI off his back? Talk about a bad joke, as if that would ever happen.

When he walked out of his motel room, he saw a man getting off a motorcycle, like the one he’d seen that night at Molly’s house. He flattened himself against the dirty stucco wall. Even though his brain knew it couldn’t be the killer, he was still, breath held, and watched until the man walked into the Coyote Diner. His breath whooshed out. He had to get a grip, that lunatic was nowhere close. He was safe. Soon he’d be driving across the border into California and get himself lost in the Sierras by nightfall, maybe in Tahoe City.

Again, he saw Molly front and center in his mind’s eye, first smiling, then dancing in her outrageous costume, and then as she looked when she was dead, gone, the slash in her throat open wide, like a bloody mouth.

His hand throbbed. He dry-swallowed two more aspirin, cursed and held his stitched hand close to his chest, worried it, and found he simply couldn’t let it go. Then he knew what he was going to do. Maybe he could help avenge Molly, help get that lunatic who killed her without ending up in jail. Get the FBI off his back, too.

He pulled out his cell and punched in Reggie Nash’s number. Reggie owed him a favor.

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