But she didn’t say anything at all.

  Instead, she visibly shivered.

  Is she cold? he wondered.

  That couldn’t be it. His propane heater kept the motor home quite warm. If anything, the man was afraid it might get too hot and stuffy.

  Careful not to show his insecurity, the man poured wine into the two glasses.

  Then he lifted his glass and said, “Here’s to new acquaintances.”

  The woman smiled a little and raised her glass and clicked it against his. They both sipped the wine.

  Still sounding nervous, Sally said, “The last time we talked, I … I went on and on about myself. I don’t feel like I know anything at all about you.”

  She sounded worried about that.

  He reached his hand over the table, hoping she’d offer him her own hand.

  She didn’t.

  With a soft, reassuring chuckle, he said, “Oh, I’ll be glad to tell you everything. Once I get started, you’ll hear much more about me than you could possibly want to hear. But first I want to hear much, much more about you.”

  Her eyes darted about for a moment.

  Then she sat staring at her own glass of wine with a troubled expression.

  The candle nearest her on the tabletop flickered and almost went out, and it was harder to see the woman’s face clearly. The effect upon the man was unsettling. He wanted to be able to study that face in detail.

  But now, in the wavering light and shadow, her face seemed changed somehow, but also more familiar.

  He gulped hard as he realized …

  Aunt Florence.

  He’d picked this woman out in the first place because of her resemblance to his childhood tormentor—the same ruddy skin, the same curly brown hair, the same piercing blue eyes. Earlier today, the resemblance had pleased him to no end.

  But now, here in the flickering candlelight, the resemblance was too uncanny.

  He struggled to remind himself that she wasn’t a ghost or an apparition. Even so, he was seized by an irrational spasm of that old childhood terror.

  He could imagine her smiling and saying those dreaded words …

  “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  And if she did, would his strength fail him utterly?

  The razor-sharp knife lay on the tray directly between them.

  If she picked it up right now, would he have the will to wrest it from her grasp?

  Might she smile that glittering smile of hers and take his hand and lead him to the kill room that he had prepared for her? Might he surrender to her passively, as he always had back then? Might he wind up in the dark again, feeling his life ebbing away into the floor—only this time forever?

  Nonsense, he thought.

  He reminded himself that this was all about power. She had no power over him unless he granted it to her. To do so would defeat his treasured purpose.

  Slowly she turned her eyes toward him again. A strange expression crossed her dimly lit face and she said, “There are a few things I ought to tell you.”

  She fell silent again, and the man swallowed hard in anticipation of what she might say next.

  Then she said …

  “I’m not exactly who you think I am.”

  The man gasped aloud. It was purely a reflexive response, and he couldn’t help it.

  The woman even sounded like Aunt Florence now.

  That voice from his childhood echoed cruelly through his head.

  “Out of sight, out of mind.”

  Then the woman said, “When we met before … earlier today … I told you some things …”

  Her voice trailed off. The man struggled to control his breathing.

  Then the woman said in a faltering voice …

  “I think I should go.”

  As she started to scoot her way from behind the table, the man was completely overcome by panic.

  I can’t let her get away, he thought.

  He was on his feet in a flash,

  He snatched the knife from off the tray. Before the woman could get up, he had the knife at her throat.

  She stared at him wide-eyed. Her mouth fell open, but she couldn’t seem to force any words out.

  The candlelight was falling on her face differently now. She didn’t look so much like Aunt Florence anymore. She looked like just another terrified victim …

  Which is exactly what she’s going to be.

  His own terror vanished in an instant, replaced by fierce anger at how she’d thwarted his self-control. His hope of savoring a long and exquisite killing had fled, and he felt bitterly cheated.

  He was shaking all over with fury.

  He yanked the woman to her feet. Holding her from behind with the knife at her throat, he dragged her toward the kill room.

  It was ready for her. He’d already wheeled out the fake interior shelves and put them into the alternate space he’d designed for them.

  He pushed down the latch with his free hand and pulled the door open. Then he tried to shove the woman inside the narrow space. But he hadn’t reckoned on her being stronger than the others. She seemed suddenly to sprout extra arms as she thrashed away at him.

  He finally managed to give her a violent push that sent her hurtling back into the closet. But as the heavy door swung shut, she thrust one arm out and blocked it from closing. He slammed the door against the crook of her elbow. Then he slashed back and forth across her wrist with his knife, drawing blood.

  The woman let out a screech of pain, then pulled her hand back inside.

  At last he was able to shut the door and lock it.

  She was screaming wildly now, sounding as angry as she was terrified, demanding that he let her go. He stood standing there panting from exertion as he stared at the door trying to reassure himself …

  I cut her good.

  I saw the blood.

  He hadn’t delivered his usual multiple wounds, and she might be able to stanch the flow from that one wrist. Even so, she was sure to bleed out. It would just take longer.

  But even through the well-insulated closet walls, her screams were loud.

  He’d committed his other killings where nobody was within earshot and his victims had faded quickly. He’d enjoyed listening to the final scratching and moaning as they’d died.

  But now, if anybody happened to be nearby outside, they’d surely hear this. It was even possible that someone awake in the neighboring motor homes might pick up those sounds of fury and agony.

  His anger was turning inward now.

  I should have planned better.

  But now he had no choice but to make the best of a terrible situation.

  He groped his way to the driver’s seat and started the engine. A thin layer of snow now coated the windshield. He turned on the wipers, but the glass was fogged up inside from the cold. He turned on the defroster and wiped the glass hastily with his sleeve.

  Then he put the vehicle in gear and raced out of his camping space, smashing down a bush on the way.

  He had no idea where he was going next, but one thing was certain …

  I can’t stay here.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Riley craned forward in the driver’s seat as she peered through the windshield into the night. Falling snowflakes flickered brightly in her headlights. She’d expected to be completely free of snow after they left the higher elevations near Bryce Canyon. There was none on the ground here, but these light flurries had started up just moments ago,

  Fortunately she could still make out the highway pavement and its shoulder to the right of her vehicle. If she could keep her eye on that, at least she felt reasonably confident that she wouldn’t go off the highway.

  She had other worries, though.

  Did I miss my turn? she wondered.

  She hadn’t seen any signs for the Delphi RV Resort for quite a while now.

  She was annoyed with herself for not being sure she could find her way. But why wasn’t Crivaro here and helping instead of in his bed at the back of the camper, apparently fast asleep?

  She knew he was tired, and he’d seemed to be in a terrible mood. But couldn’t he at least have stayed awake awhile and been a second pair of eyes to help her find her way through this unfamiliar territory in the snow?

  She thought about giving him a sharp yell to tell him to get up.

  But right then she saw the sign with an arrow …

  DELPHI RV RESORT

  “At last!” she murmured aloud.

  She braked and tried to take the turn as cautiously as she could, but even so the vehicle fishtailed a little as she steered onto the private road that led the rest of the way to the campground.

  She growled under her breath and thought …

  At least Crivaro’s not awake to complain about my driving.

  And the road was well paved and wide enough for much wider vehicles than hers to travel comfortably. Still, her mind started to fill up with new worries. What exactly did she plan to do when she arrived at the campground? Sure, she’d had a strong hunch, but a hunch wasn’t much good if she didn’t know how to act on it.

  Would she charge into main office and start demanding answers from whoever was on duty?

  Would she even find anybody on duty?

  It was late, and for all she knew the office would be closed for the night. Then what would she do?

  At times like now, she felt sharply aware of her greenness as an agent. She simply didn’t know what to do in every instance. Maybe someday she would, but right now that time seemed like a long way off.

  She sighed as she thought …

  I’m going to have to wake up Crivaro when I get there.

  And he wasn’t going to be happy about it.

  After a short drive, she arrived at the entrance to the campground. The entryway was marked by two big white brick pillars with lights atop of them. She was on a slight hill, looking down on vast well-tended grounds with lighted walkways. She pulled through the entryway and came to a stop just beyond it to take a better look. She saw an impressive cluster of buildings off to one side, and a few large motor homes spaced well apart on the other side.

  The snow added to the strangeness of the view, making it all resemble a snow globe paperweight scene. With its trees and gardens placed between the campsites, the Delphi Campground looked like some kind of upscale neighborhood with RVs instead of houses. The campground seemed to Riley even more like a fairytale setting than the Spring View Campground back in Arizona, with all of its New Age trappings.

  She remembered again how those women back at Spring View had described this campground …

  “… a very blessed place …”

  And she had to admit, it did cast quite a charming spell as the snow danced among the streetlights.

  Then she realized that something was moving out there. A big white motor home had pulled out of its space and was turning toward the entrance where she had stopped. That struck her as odd. She wondered why someone would be pulling out of here at this late hour, especially now that it was snowing.

  But there it was—an enormous vehicle driving none too slowly in her direction. As it drew nearer, Riley could see that it was a Winnebago with a stripe along its side.

  A red stripe? she wondered, remembering Sergeant Gray’s description of the RV with the lone driver.

  She thought maybe so, but it was hard to tell the color for sure in this light and the snowfall.

  She wondered—had her hunch been right after all?

  Might this be the killer?

  If so, why would he be leaving this elegant setting? Where might he be headed? And most importantly—was he alone?

  She warned herself not to jump to conclusions. She really had no idea who might actually be behind that wheel. But how was she supposed to find out?

  She was again about to yell for Crivaro to wake up and help her but there was no time for that now. The other vehicle was speeding up.

  She flashed her headlights as a signal, hoping the driver would at least slow down.

  He didn’t.

  Riley felt a tingle all over. She knew one thing for sure—she couldn’t just let the vehicle go on its way without personally confronting the driver. She fleetingly considered rolling down her window to try to flag him down. But she felt sure that he wouldn’t stop on account of that either.

  He’d be on his way out of the campground in a matter of seconds if she didn’t take action immediately.

  She backed up her vehicle slightly, then turned the steering wheel hard as she pulled forward again. With her RV turned sideways on the pavement, she figured she was effectively blocking the other vehicle’s approach.

  But the oncoming Winnebago veered sharply to its left. The driver was obviously trying to make an end run around her in order to charge on through the space between her RV and the entryway pillars.

  I can’t let him do that, Riley thought.

  She backed up again, fully aware that the driver had no intention of stopping, and braced herself for impact.

  The larger motor home slammed into hers, and Riley struggled with the steering wheel to keep her vehicle from spinning around.

  But it was hopeless.

  The RV she was driving tottered violently.

  The whole world seemed to lurch around her.

  Riley’s head cracked against something hard as her vehicle rolled over on its side.

  CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

  Riley struggled to grasp what had just happened. Everything around her had been spinning, crashing … then the chaos had abruptly stopped.

  The RV engine was still running, the headlights still shone into the falling snow, and the windshield wipers were still moving monotonously back and forth.

  It all seemed perfectly surreal.

  Then she remembered. She’d just been rammed by the approaching RV, and her own vehicle was now lying on its side. She had been slammed against the driver’s side door and the blow had dazed her for a moment.

  She heard a shout behind her.

  “Riley!”

  Crivaro! She felt a jolt of panic. Had he been hurt?

  She unlatched her shoulder harness and shifted around until she could look between the front seats.

  In the back of the RV, her partner was sprawled against the side wall that was now flat on the ground. The crash had thrown him out of his bed.

  Crivaro yelled again, “Did you hear me, goddamn it? What the hell just happened?”

  “We’ve had … an accident,” Riley called back to him. “Are you all right?”

  She saw Crivaro try to pull himself upright. Then he let out a yelp of pain and sat down again, clutching his ankle.

  “Ow,” he snarled. “Hell, no, I’m not all right. I’ve sprained my ankle.”

  Riley was relieved that his injury wasn’t worse. He sounded more angry than anything else.

  She touched the side of her own head and felt a little bit of sticky blood there, but she wasn’t bleeding badly, and otherwise she thought she was all right.

  Then she wondered—where was the RV that had hit them?

  She peered out through the badly cracked front windshield.

  The Winnebago was right there, and it wasn’t even overturned. The big motor home was standing upright facing her, but its headlights were off, and its engine didn’t seem to be running. The collision must have disabled the vehicle.

  But no one was seated behind the wheel and she saw no sign of motion inside.

  Where was the driver?

  Had he already gotten away on foot? Could he still be somewhere nearby? Or could he actually still be inside his motor home?

  She knew she mustn’t let him get away.

  Trying awkwardly to find her footing in the sideways RV cab, she yelled back at Crivaro …

  “I think the killer’s out there. It was his vehicle that rammed us. I’ve got to stop him.”

  “Wait for me, goddamn it,” Crivaro roared back. Then he shouted with pain again and said, “This ankle’s hurt pretty bad. Give me a couple of minutes to get myself moving.”

  We may not have a couple of minutes, Riley thought.

  She reached for her hip holster to make sure her gun was there. She managed to get to her feet and then climbed across the cab and pushed the passenger door open. She hoisted herself up through the door and onto the high side of the camper.

  Looking around, Reilly saw that just down the hill lights had come on both in the resort clubhouse and in some of the parked motor homes. She hoped that civilians wouldn’t start showing up to get involved in a dangerous situation. But it might help of some security people would arrive.

  She jumped down to the ground and turned around slowly, checking her surroundings. She thought the killer must be on foot, but she didn’t see anyone outside. Could he have gotten completely out of the visible areas while she was still in a state of confusion? One of his options would be to go down into the campground and force the staff or campers to help him. Another would be to slip past her overturned RV and out the private road to the highway.

  Either of those was possible, but to Riley neither seemed very likely. She thought the wealthy sociopath she was tracking would hesitate to reveal himself to these people as a monster. Although he might do that as a last resort, it didn’t fit his self-image. And she really couldn’t picture him taking off across wilderness territory on foot.

  Riley thought it was just as possible that the killer was still in the Winnebago.

  As she approached the big motor home, she touched her 22-caliber Glock. She’d been given the gun just last Saturday and hadn’t expected to need it anytime soon. She hoped she wouldn’t need it now.

  After all, she’d never shot anyone before.

  *

  The man pushed a window curtain aside and peeked out at the woman who was approaching the side entrance to his vehicle.

  Who is she? he wondered.

  Everything had happened so fast, he hadn’t had time to think. All he knew was that she had deliberately used her vehicle to try to block him from leaving the campground. When he had tried to evade her, she had maneuvered to keep her RV directly in his path. Rather than slow down to prevent a collision, he had sped up, hoping to shove the smaller vehicle aside and keep right on going.

 

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