There was no hero racing through the front door to save her.
Draven knew that he should feel remorse, or excitement, or something. But if he felt anything, it was curiosity-seeing what it looked like to be on the ragged edge of death with absolutely no way out.
Her life wasn’t passing before her eyes. She wasn’t remembering loved ones, or good times, or any shit like that. The horror on her face clearly said otherwise. No, she’d fallen into a first-rate adrenaline panic.
Draven recognized the look.
He knew the feeling.
He’d been there a few times himself, although not to this extreme of course, fighting for his life in the cold waters of Clear Creek after getting thrown out of a tube and being bashed in rocky rapids. At times like that, you don’t think about anything but survival, pure and simple.
He positioned the nail on her forehead, with the tip against her skin, as if he was about to drive it into a two-by-four. He raised the hammer, looked in her eyes, and said, “See you in hell.”
At that moment his cell phone rang.
He almost drove the nail into her skull but instead got off and answered the phone. Swofford’s voice came through.
“Is that tattooed woman still alive?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Good,” Swofford said. “Keep her that way. The client’s going to come back into town and finish the job.”
“He is?”
“Yeah. He called me, just to be sure everything was being taken care of, and I told him what happened.”
Draven paced.
“That’s going to screw everything up,” he said. “I already got plans to bury her and the stripper today.”
“So the stripper’s dead-”
“Right. No problems there.”
“Okay, do this,” Swofford said. “Bury the stripper somewhere today so we have her wrapped up. Leave the tattooed woman tied up in the cabin. The client should be there by nightfall. Just be absolutely sure she can’t get away. I’ll call you tomorrow when the coast is clear.”
Draven felt his voice rising.
“Look,” he said. “I need to get out of town, today. I’m too hot right now. Yesterday I had a complication.”
“What kind of complication?”
“The car I was using broke down,” he said. “I had to call a tow truck. The tattoo woman was in the back and apparently woke up during the tow. The driver-a female-saw her and stopped. She said she couldn’t have a passenger in a car that was being towed. I had no choice but to kill her.”
Swofford breathed into the phone, thinking.
“Is that the case all over the news?”
“I don’t know,” Draven said. “I haven’t been watching the news. But here’s the problem. When I was broken down, lots of people saw me, including a couple of cops. I’m going to get tied to the tow truck real quick. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a composite sketch of me on the news before the day’s over.”
Swofford said nothing, thinking it through.
“Where are you staying?”
Draven explained and then added, “Luckily, a woman I’ve been seeing is the one who rented the place. The owner never saw me.”
“Good,” Swofford said. “Just lie low there, it’s as good a place as any for right now. We have to let the client finish up with the tattoo woman, so you need to stay in town at least that long. Just keep your eyes open.”
Draven said, “Fine,” hung up, and kicked a chair.
An hour later Swofford called again. “We have another client. He wants a specific person. Have you still got enough balls to hang around and make some more money?”
Money.
Right.
There was nothing wrong with money.
“Who’s the person?” he asked.
“Someone by the name of Davica Holland, apparently some rich bitch. So are you up for it, or should I get someone else to do it?”
Someone else?
Screw that.
Someone else this time might turn into someone else every time.
“I’m always up for it,” he said.
“Good. I’m going to do a little research on the woman this afternoon and will call you later with more details.”
A newly found crime scene always comes with a sense of exuberance. If you don’t contaminate it to death, it usually turns out to be the trailhead of the critical path to justice. The clues are always there. More importantly, the forensic ties are there-small, obscure, and hidden at first; then the size of mountains by the time they get paraded before the jury.
Fingerprints.
Fibers.
DNA.
But today Teffinger was looking for bigger things. “I’m not leaving this place until we find the eyes,” he said.
Sydney studied him, as if contemplating a question.
“What?” he asked.
She shrugged. “I just don’t understand this obsession with the eyes. That’s all.”
Teffinger kicked a rock, sending it skipping thirty feet down the asphalt driveway.
“I keep getting an image of the guy eating them,” he said. “I need to know that didn’t happen.”
She laughed.
“Teffinger, no more pizza before bed for you.”
He grunted.
“I didn’t say a dream, I said an image.”
But he had to admit she was right.
The concept was stupid.
“The guy probably didn’t like the way she was looking at him, after she was dead,” Sydney said. “So he took them out. I doubt there’s anything more to it than that.”