Spiders in the Grove (In the Company of Killers #7)(9)
I hear the taxi’s brakes as the driver pulls up in front of the house. One last look at Dante, and I hand him his briefcase. “You only need to remember the few things I told you; all of the information is covered on my end—just don’t forget it on yours.”
Dante nods nervously.
“And stop acting like you just shoplifted a box of condoms”—I straighten his tie—“Have a little confidence in yourself; go into this knowing you can do it; be smug, shun people, play the role of a man you’ve always dreamed of being, but never imagined you’d be—this is your chance.”
He still looks nervous. “But I always wanted to be a painter,” he says thoughtfully.
Sighing, I lead Dante to the front door.
“You’ll figure it out,” I tell him. “Ninety-nine-percent of this job is learning-as-you-go. Don’t lose your passport, or anything else in that briefcase. And remember, no matter what happens, don’t interfere. Just report everything back to me.”
“OK, boss.”
“Secure server, remember?”
Dante nods and pats the side of the briefcase where the special cell phone I gave him has been packed away.
“Hey, boss?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s the other one-percent?”
“Dying, of course.” I smile.
He swallows.
Moments later, Dante hops in the taxi and heads to catch his plane.
I go down into the basement and flip on the light, walk casually through the small space, stepping around old paint cans and dusty antique frames and bloated cans of vegetables. The filthiness combined with how small the room is makes me uncomfortable, but this place was the closest I could find to Izabel’s on such short notice. Apollo Stone had to be relocated, or his sister would have eventually come for him, and I can only deal with one crazy bitch at a time—the serial killer I’m hunting, I’m convinced, is a woman.
“You’re insane,” Apollo says. He’s strapped to a hospital bed; the only thing he’s able to move are his hands and his feet and his head. “No fucking joke, bruh, you are the sickest sonofabitch I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting.”
Pushing the tube on the syringe, two drops of liquid squirt from the end of the needle. I thump the syringe with my middle finger and then stick the needle into his arm.
Apollo struggles; his hands ball into fists; his fingers tighten and relax. And then they slacken, and he’s out.
“Perhaps.”
I set the syringe down, and then set the timer on my watch. For a moment, I get a strange feeling, the kind one feels when eyes are at their back. I look behind me, and toward the small, film-covered window, but I see nothing. Ignoring it, I head back upstairs and lock the basement door from the outside. I grab my briefcase from the kitchen bar, and leave the house to look into some new information regarding the serial killer. I don’t have much time before Apollo wakes up, and that irritates me because I have important things to do. But when Izabel contacted me about watching over him—and keeping it a secret from everyone, even Victor—I couldn’t very well tell her no. I wish I could just kill him—almost broke down and did it a few times—but Apollo is Izabel’s kill, not mine. And he’s not Victor’s, either, no matter how badly Victor wants him and his sister. If he ever discovers I kept this from him, hiding Apollo for Izabel, he might kill me. But I guess I’ll deal with that when the time comes.
“I’ll meet you there in fifteen minutes,” I tell my contact on the phone. “No feds, understood?”
My contact agrees, and I hang up, put my car into gear and drive away.
Initially, the deal was that I work closely with the United States government in helping catch this killer. I agreed to their terms, to all of their stipulations; I told them I would share all information with them regarding this case, tell them my opinions, and give them my valuable advice, because Fredrik Gustavsson, they believe, is the only way they will catch their killer. But I lied. And I’ll continue to lie. The government does value my judgement—they wouldn’t have even considered getting me involved if they didn’t need me, and had no one else to do what I can do. But they also see me as Apollo does: insane and sick. And once I lead them to this killer, I’ll be the one they go after next. So why give them anything?
I’m only working with them because of what Victor needs: information to help him smoke out the real Vonnegut. When I meet with them, I only pretend to be on their side, for Victor’s sake.
But their threat to me, and my duty to Faust, are not the biggest reasons I’ve chosen to keep everything to myself and to betray them. I do it because of my own personal interest in this killer; she is an itch under my skin I cannot scratch unless I break it. I want to know why her methods so closely resemble my own. I want to know why she does what she does, if she’s actually trying to get my attention, or if she’s just a darker version of myself and does what she does only because she needs to.
The answers will come; they will take time, but the most satisfying things in life always take time.
Kenneth Ware, government employee working for the Special Special Activities Division, and my number one fan apparently, sits across the table from me in the public library. This man, so enamored by the bloodlust of mentally disturbed criminals, is quite extraordinary. I get the feeling he’s just as demented as any serial killer he’s studied; yet he’s capable of refraining from acting upon his own urges. Of course, it bothers me to admit this, but this makes him more advanced than me; it makes him mentally stronger than me and those demented criminals he hunts and pines over like a teen-aged girl over a baby-faced musician.