James Patterson - Second Honeymoon

Then, immediately after he was read his Miranda warnings, he started to laugh. It was the kind of twisted and demented laugh that Sarah had heard too many times in her career chasing serial killers.

Kingslip’s laugh may have been the worst of them all.

“There’s one more out there, and you’ll never find her,” he had said. “That poor, poor little girl, she won’t last much longer. She’ll be dead and gone like all the others. She’s probably dead already.”

Police chief Trout reappeared with two rubber bands and a puzzled look on his face. “Here,” he said.

Sarah took the rubber bands and quickly used them to tie her hair into two pigtails behind her ears. Trout watched her and nodded. He got it now.

“I’m not going in there with you, am I?” he asked.

Only he wasn’t really asking. It was a rhetorical question. He’d gotten to know Sarah a little bit since she’d arrived from Quantico—enough to be sure of one thing. Two things, actually.

Sarah Brubaker was as determined as anyone he’d ever met.

And Travis Kingslip was all hers.

Chapter 27

SARAH CLOSED THE door behind her and grabbed one of the conference room chairs. She wheeled it right up in front of Kingslip and sat down. Their knees were almost touching. She didn’t want to be this close to him, but it was necessary. Actually, it could be a matter of life and death.

He was wearing a blue jumpsuit two sizes too big and reeked of cigarettes, sweat, and jet fuel. His hair fell from beneath his trucker hat like strands of black string that had been dipped in grease. His teeth looked like rotted pieces of candy corn.

Immediately, his eyes went to her chest. It was no sneak peek; it was a full-on gawk. He didn’t have to say what he wanted to do to her at that very moment. His dark, cold, soulless stare left little doubt.

So far so good, thought Sarah.

There was no time for small talk or breaking the ice. No time to gain his trust. She needed him to like her, and this was the quickest way, down and dirty. Sorry, Ms. Steinem.

Kingslip rattled his hands and feet. “Why don’t you take these handcuffs off, honey? I promise I won’t bite,” he said. “C’mon, take ’em off.”

“Maybe I will,” said Sarah. “But you have to do something for me first.”

Kingslip’s words on the tarmac were echoing in Sarah’s head, one line in particular. That poor, poor little girl, she won’t last much longer.

He was hiding her somewhere, he had to be. Was she already dying? Had he hurt her? Killed her?

Sarah could hear the clock ticking louder, but she knew she couldn’t race through this. She figured she had only one shot; she had to get it exactly right.

“Where is she, Travis?” she asked, her voice calm but firm. “Tell me. Just tell me the truth.”

“I’ll never te-ell,” he came back in a singsongy voice, creepy as hell.

“Is she near where you live?”

He kept staring at her breasts. “You’re pretty, do you know that?”

Sarah did know that. It had been both a blessing and a curse in her life, especially in her career. Right now, though, she needed it to be a blessing.

“Is she near where you live, Travis?” she repeated.

Every inch of his house in Lamont had already been searched. There were no secret rooms, no hidden attics or basement wells, nothing in the freezer. This wasn’t Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs.

Kingslip didn’t answer. Not that Sarah needed him to. She was watching more than listening. A flinch, a twitch, a blink from him—something would tip her about what he was thinking.

She kept going. No choice. “Is she close by?” she asked. “Somewhere near the airport?”

Bingo.

It was his eyebrow. Right on the word airport, the left one curled. For a split second and by a fraction of an inch, but she saw the “tell” clear as day.

Sarah leaned in even closer to him, his stench so repugnant she wanted to vomit. “She’s near the airport, isn’t she, Travis? Is she within walking distance, or do I need to take a car?”

He chirped again. “I’ll never te-ell.”

He already had, though. It was the eyebrow again, this time on the word car .

But she’d already searched his car in the parking lot, and there was only one vehicle registration on file for him with the Jefferson County DMV.

Unless it wasn’t his car.

“Is she in a car, Travis? Do you have her in someone’s car? Whose car is she in?”

He suddenly looked like the pigeon at the poker table who couldn’t figure out why everyone was calling his bluffs. How does she know? How much does she know?

“You’ll never find her,” he said, turning angry on a dime. He suddenly didn’t like her so much, but that was okay. Sarah had another hunch to play.

“Why won’t I find her?” she asked.

“You just won’t, that’s why.”

“That’s not a good enough reason. What makes you so sure?”

“Nothing.”

“C’mon, Travis. You’re a lot smarter than that.”

“You’re right, I am,” he said with a defiant nod.

Sarah’s smile disappeared. It was her turn to play a mind game on him. “No, you’re not smart at all. You were dumb enough to get caught, weren’t you?”

“Fuck you.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Travis?” She glanced down at her chest. “Do you want to take my picture? Get real nice and close to these?”

Kingslip began to squirm in his seat, the handcuffs around his wrists and ankles rattling the chair and table like a one-man earthquake. His sudden anger toward Sarah was colliding with his sick and perverted attraction to her.

“Fuck you!” he said again, shouting it now.

“Why can’t I find her, Travis?”

“FUCK YOU!”

“Why? Tell me why!”

“BECAUSE THERE’S TOO MANY OF THEM, BITCH! THINK YOU’RE SMART! YOU AIN’T SO SMART!”

Sarah sprang up from her chair, bolting out of the room.

Her hunch was right.

Chapter 28

“FOLLOW ME! LET’S go, let’s go!”

Sarah yelled it to every cop she raced past, from the hallway of the operations department down the stairs to the baggage claim area and out the double doors into the stifling heat. Not even police chief Trout knew where she was going.

But he was following just the same, weaving his way through the crowd, composed mostly of tourists, as fast as his former-Florida-State-linebacker frame would allow.

Nine, maybe ten cops had fallen in behind Sarah as they crossed the taxi and limo pickup lane outside the terminal.

Cars skidded to a halt, the drivers pounding on their horns. People nearby were either staring or scattering to get out of the way.

“Holy shit,” mouthed the guy working on the Avis lot, who barely looked old enough to drive. His booth was being invaded. Leading the way was a pretty woman who, well, looked like she wasn’t wearing a bra.

“The trunks!” said Sarah, flashing her badge. “Open every car trunk on the lot!”

“What?” the guy said. He was more stunned than anything else. “I can’t do that.”

Sarah pushed right past him and grabbed a large bulletin board off the wall, which held all the rental car keys. With a flip and a few shakes, they all went spilling onto the floor in front of the counter.

Trout was right in step now.

“You two, stay here!” he barked, pointing at two of his officers. “Check every trunk. The rest of you, come with me!”

Sarah had already moved on to the Hertz lot. She grabbed some keys herself and started popping trunks all around her.

“What are we looking for?” one of the attendants asked.

She didn’t stick around to answer. It was the classic “You’ll know it when you see it.” A girl trapped in the trunk, probably bound and gagged.