He followed at a distance, not getting close enough for her to kick out at him. She didn’t look at him again until she had the terry-cloth robe belted tightly around her waist.
“Take the turban off your head and comb out your hair. I want to see it.”
She pulled off the towel and began combing her fingers through her hair. Had he moved closer? Could she get him with her foot? It would require speed, and she’d have to be accurate or he’d kill her. “Use that brush.”
She shook her head, picked up the brush, and brushed her hair until he finally said, “That’s enough.” He reached out his hand and touched the damp hair. He grunted.
Keep calm, she had to keep herself calm, but it was hard to do, really hard. She wanted to see his face, to make him human, and real, to look hard at his eyes. The black ski mask made him a monster, faceless, terrifying. He was dressed in black too, down to the black running shoes on his feet. Big feet. He was a big man, big arms, long, but his belly was flabby. He wasn’t all that young, then. His voice was low, sort of raspy, as if he’d smoked too much for a long time. Keep thinking like this, she told herself over and over as she walked into the kitchen. Just keep calm.
She watched him from the corner of her eye. He was leaning against the counter, the gun-a small .22-still pointed at her, as if someone had told him that she’d had some training, that he shouldn’t just assume that because she was a woman she had no chance against him. “Who are you?”
He laughed. “Call me Sam. You like that? Yeah, that’s me-Sam. My pa was named Sam too. Hey, I’m the son of
Sam.”
“Someone hired you. Who?”
“Too many questions, little girl. Get that coffee on. Now start talking to me about this Marlin Jones. Tell me why you’re so important to this case.”
Nothing she told him about Marlin Jones would make any difference that she could see, and it would buy her time. “I was the one who was the bait to catch him in Boston. FBI agents do this sort of thing. There was nothing unusual about
it. I was the bait because he’d killed my sister seven years ago in San Francisco. He was called the String Killer. I begged the cops to let me bring him down. They let me and I did bring him down, but it’s not over yet. I can’t go back home yet.”
He pushed off the counter, walked to her, and very calmly, very slowly, pulled back his arm and brought the gun sharply against the side of her head. Not hard enough to knock her unconscious, but hard enough to knock her silly. Pain flooded through her. She cried out, grabbed her head, and lurched against the stove.
“I know a lie when I hear it,” he said in that low, soft voice of his and quickly stepped back out of her reach. “This guy butcher your sister? Yeah, sure. Hey, you’re bleeding. Scalp wounds bleed like stink, but you’ll be okay. Tell me the truth, tell me why you really want to stay here or I’ll hit you again.”
She suddenly heard an accent. No, her brains were scrambled, she was imagining it. No, wait, the way he’d said “bleed like stink.” It was faintly southern; yes, that was it. And wasn’t that phrase southern as well?
He raised his arm. She said quickly, “I’m not lying. Belinda Madigan, the fourth victim of the San Francisco String Killer, was my sister.”
He didn’t say anything, but she saw the gun waver. Hadn’t he known? No, if he didn’t know, why else would he be here? He said finally, “Keep going.”
“Marlin Jones said he didn’t kill her. That’s why I’ve got to stay. I’ve got to find out the truth. Then I can go home.”
“But he did kill her, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. I wondered and wondered, then I even had some tests done on the wooden props used in all the murders in San Francisco, the hammering and screwing techniques, stuff like that. There’s an expert in Los Angeles who’s really good at that sort of thing. But his results were inconclusive. Marlin Jones killed her. He must have realized who I was and lied to me, to torture me. Who are you? Why do you care?”