CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Faith pulled her cruiser in front of the theater six minutes later. The extra minute hung in the air like a billboard, flashing in her mind like neon.

You're late! You're late! You're late!

There was one other car parked in front of the burned-out building: an old minivan with faded paint and a rear bumper that hung dangerously off of the car. Faith wondered how many officers had seen that vehicle and decided that it wasn't worth their time to give the owner a ticket. How many people could have caught their killer and stopped him before it was too late?

No, that wasn't right. He took public transportation for every crime before now. Looking at the van, Faith guessed that was why. She was letting her thoughts run away from her. She needed to stay in control. A woman's life depended on it.

She reached a chainlink fence and quickly scaled it. Turk whined, unable to climb the fence himself.

"Hold on," Faith said. "I'll get you through here, just don't bark, please."

In most situations, Faith would want Turk to bark and announce their presence, but in this case, she feared that would only frighten the desperate killer into acting more quickly.

If he hadn't acted already.

She dropped to the other side and tried to lift the chainlink. It lifted only slightly. She cursed and bent down, grabbing handfuls of the fence and grunting with effort as she pulled it upward. It lifted an inch or two, but not nearly enough for Turk to get through. She looked around for a gate, and with a sinking feeling, she saw that it was locked with a thick chain and an even thicker padlock.

Why the hell did they lock abandoned buildings? Why not just bulldoze them the moment they were condemned? For God's sake.

Turk whined and stuck his nose through the bottom of the fence in a futile attempt to push himself through.

"It's no use, Turk," Faith said. "You won't fit."

She looked behind her at the building. Maybe she should continue on her own and have Turk wait here. Every second mattered.

But she'd gotten herself nearly killed that way more than once. Going by herself was how Trammell caught her. Other killers had hurt her, bound her, nearly murdered her. Other victims had almost died because she wasn't careful.

With a sinking heart, she turned back to the fence. She'd have to either figure out a way to get Turk inside or she'd have to climb back over the fence and find another way in.

She thought a moment, then pulled her multitool from her pocket. The wire cutter in the pliers wasn't designed to cut through the thicker links of the fence, but the steel used for these fences was the cheapest metal you could buy. It probably wasn't even steel, just some inexpensive aluminum alloy.

She closed the wire cutters over a link and squeezed. The fence held. She gritted her teeth, and the link slowly, slowly bent.

Then snapped. She pumped her fist in victory, but then it occurred to her how many of the links she'd have to cut to get Turk inside.

Don't waste time being daunted , she thought. Just keep working .

She moved on to the next link. After an unbearable moment, it snapped. She moved on to a third, and this one took a touch longer than the second. She pulled on the fence and found the links barely moved. She'd made very little real progress.

Images flashed through her mind of the victims, the ones she couldn't save. She struggled with the fence, each link seeming to take forever to cut.

Lorraine Hayes lay with her legs spread and her arms pointed above her head. Her eyes were open, and her sightless eyes stared up into the night.

SNAP. She moved on to another link.

The woman had been tossed into the dumpster after death. Her body was stiff with rigor, and her eyes wide with terror.

SNAP. Another link.

Grimes had been cut open, and the word Vengeance was written above him in his own blood.

SNAP

The kid looked like he'd been torn apart by a wild animal. His nearly exsanguinated body sat slumped in the chair, and cuts covered him from head to toe.

SNAP

The woman had clearly been left in the well for a while. Her body was bloated and covered in green and blue splotches where gangrene had set into her flesh.

SNAP

Gordon lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. His service weapon lay a few yards away. He had tried hard to defend himself, but he had come up just short.

SNAP. Faith snarled in frustration and grabbed the fence. With a grunt of effort, she pulled. The severed metal bit into her hands, but she ignored the pain and pulled back hard, stretching the hole wider and wider until—

With a soft yelp of excitement, Turk jumped through. Faith released the fence and leaned over, putting her hands on her knees. Her shoulders and arms burned, and her breath came in gasps, but she forced the exhaustion down.

"Come on, boy. Let's go find our killer."

The outside of the theater was charred in an uneven pattern. Faith could see exactly where the flames had traveled, scorching parts of the structure and leaving others relatively untouched. One of the untouched portions of the fa?ade proudly announced ALLOWAY, all that remained of the building's name.

She jogged to the entrance, but it was completely blocked. The exterior of the building seemed mostly intact, but inside, much of the structure had collapsed. The front doors were blocked by piles of burnt wood, shattered drywall and twisted metal.

She jogged around the side of the building, gun drawn. Turk followed, his nose to the ground, but he didn't smell anything yet. Or, like Faith, all he could smell was the acrid, acidic tang of ash and charcoal.

One side of the building dead ended in another pile of rubble. Faith felt panic creeping to the edges of her mind. She'd been outside of the building for fifteen minutes already. The killer could have finished and be on his way out of here. Her only hope was that he had been as stymied as she was.

But he was already inside. He might have been stymied, but he was already inside. Damn it, she was going to be too late.

"No!" she snapped, loudly enough that Turk's head whirled her direction. She sighed and said, "Never mind. Come with me."

She ran to the other side of the building, moving at a dead sprint. Turk followed at what for him was an easy jog. The other side wasn't blocked, but there were no entrances for the fifty yards that stretched from the entrance to the rear of the theater.

The back of the theater consisted of a dirt lot with piles of what Faith guessed used to be props and stage equipment. Now, they just looked like haphazard piles of indiscriminate rubble.

More importantly, Faith still couldn't find a damned way in. The back door only opened a few inches when she pushed it. Behind those few inches was more rubble.

Had the killer blocked the way in? Had he tried to keep Faith out because he knew someone was coming for him? He might have realized he was on camera and decided to take precautions.

She pushed hard, but the door didn't budge anymore.

"Damn it!" she hissed.

She looked around and found an open window on the second floor. It didn't seem possible that the killer could have gotten in through there.

But it didn't matter. Faith needed to get inside.

An even more horrible thought occurred to her. What if this was all a waste of time? What if the van was abandoned, too? What if there was no one here, and Faith was putting all of this effort to scout an empty building?

She had been here for twenty minutes now. Surely most of the other locations nearby were being patrolled as well. If they had found anyone, they would have told her. Could they have been wrong? Could the killer have gone somewhere else entirely? Could this kidnapping be unrelated to their murder, and now two killers were getting away with their crimes while Faith and her colleagues were chasing their tails?

Turk barked, and Faith blinked and looked at him. He looked at the second-floor window pointedly, then looked back at her.

She smiled grimly at him. "You're right, Turk. Enough second-guessing. Time to catch a bad guy."

She looked at the window. It was about ten feet off the ground, not especially high. If she stacked some debris, maybe two feet tall, she could jump and reach it and pull herself in. Then Turk could jump into her arms, and she could help him in too.

She ran to the nearest pile. This looked like old prop furniture. It also appeared recently disturbed. A couple of the couches rested on their legs in front of the pile. It seemed unlikely that it could have just been left there. Maybe the killer had moved it to get himself and his victim into the building.

She dragged the couch underneath the window and tested her weight. It splintered almost immediately, the right legs snapping cleanly through the middle. She nearly fell, only just catching herself to keep from falling.

Well, if the killer had used that one, he had used every last bit of its structural integrity. She dragged the other couch to the window.

This couch wasn't very steady, but it would hold well enough. She crouched low and jumped up. Her hands caught the edge of the window, and she quickly lifted herself up and through, grimacing against the fatigue in her upper body.

When she was inside, she turned around and called Turk. Turk hesitated for a second, then jumped up. She caught him and carefully pulled him in through the window.

"Good boy," she said. "Let's go get him."

They were in a narrow hallway with doors on either side. Faith drew her weapon again and looked through the rooms. They were all empty.

The second floor was in somewhat better shape than the first floor appeared to be, though. That seemed odd to Faith, but she wasn't going to waste time wondering what kind of fire would have done that.

The hallway ended at another hallway. Behind her were restrooms, and ahead was a door marked MEZZANINE. She checked the restrooms and found more fire damage. The stalls were all twisted, the plastic bubbled and cracked and the metal bent. The porcelain was blackened, and there were holes in the ceiling through which Faith could see the stars. The moisture those holes had allowed in had left spreading growths of black mold on the ground. The smell assaulted Faith, and her nostrils flared.

But Turk reacted oddly. He stiffened and turned back the other way. His face wore the same expression it had when he was investigating the crime scenes.

Faith's heart leapt. "Do you smell something, boy?"

He looked back at her, then looked ahead for a moment.

"What is it?" she pressed. "Go get it, Turk."

Turk looked back at her again. After a moment's more hesitation, he started forward. Then he barked and sprinted forward.

Yes!

"Go get him, Turk!" she called.

She sprinted after him. Turk pawed at the door marked MEZZANINE, and when Faith opened it, he shot through, nose to the ground.

She followed him, and despite Turk's nose, she saw the killer before he did.

He was below them on the charred main stage of the theater. He was cursing and grunting softly to himself as he dragged something onto the stage.

Not something. Someone. In his arms was the limp body of a woman in her late twenties. She was tall and slender with long, jet-black hair.

She wasn't moving. Her head lolled listlessly to one side while her killer dragged her onto the stage, grunting with effort. Faith saw a touch of red in the pocket of the jacket he wore and recognized the red mica powder he would use to complete rubedo.

She was too late.