1

His head aches, and he wants to go home, but he still waits in the cemetery under cover of the short fir tree. The damp bark smells as strong as any perfume. It is 1:57 A.M. The two San Francisco Police Department officers left an hour ago. After three days of staking out the area, they and their replacements have been recalled to follow up other leads. The police say they will return in the morning, but he knows they have lost the faith. Fourteen-year-old Tammy Lewis is missing, and they are concerned she will end up like the other three. Special Agent Luke Decker should leave too; he has only adviser status here, and other cases are piling up on his desk at Quantico.

But Decker can't go yet. He knows deep in his gut that the killer will return here at night and bring the girl with him—perhaps even alive.

The night air is cool on his face, and above him through the branches of the fir a crescent moon gazes down. Seventeen miles from San Francisco and nine miles from Oakland, the Gates of Heaven Catholic Cemetery is still. Nothing moves, and even nearby Interstate 80 is silent.

He retrieves a pair of night vision glasses from his coat and rereads the inscription on the headstone twenty yards away:

Decker grinds his jaw, remembering the crime scene photos of Sally Anne's violated body. The killer's most recent victim must also be his last.

Car tires on gravel break the silence. He turns to his right and sees a Domino's pizza van pull into the cemetery's deserted parking lot. Sweat breaks out on his forehead. Decker knows the psychological profile of the killer because he wrote it. And the pizza van fits. His heart is beating fast now, but he feels no triumph about being right again, no excitement of the chase, just weary sorrow and a vague disquiet that he should know the mind of a killer so well.

A sudden scream from the van rips through the night. It is short and quickly muffled, but Decker crumples inside, feeling her pain and terror himself. He reaches for his cell phone and calls the incident number.

He whispers urgently that the suspect is here. He needs backup.

A sleepy detective snaps awake. "Two squad cars will be there in ten minutes—max," he promises.

The van's rear doors open, and a muscular young man with red hair and a black T-shirt drags something white out of the back and drops it on the gravel. Decker realizes then that ten minutes will not be soon enough. The silent white bundle is moving, and even before he puts the night vision glasses to his eyes, Decker knows it's a naked girl. Tammy Lewis is gagged and bound, her eyes round with terror. The young man is strong because he easily lifts her over his shoulder and carries her toward the cemetery.

Decker reaches for his gun and releases the safety. He has won the FBI shooting competition at Quantico with the SIG semiautomatic every year for the last five years. But he dislikes using the gun for real. It means he's failed. But he has no choice now. If he does nothing, the man will carry Tammy Lewis to Sally Anne's grave, where he will lay her down, torture, and rape her. Then, when he is satisfied, he will kill her and defile her body. Decker knows this with a gut-wrenching certainty as absolutely as if he'd already witnessed the crime.

He waits for the man to lay Tammy down on the grave and start to untie her ankles before coming up behind him. Decker is ten feet away when he sees a knife flash in the man's hand.

"FBI," he shouts. His voice sounds alien in the stillness of the night. "Drop the knife, put your hands up, and back away from her."

Crouching over his victim, the red-haired man looks over his shoulder, his long face surprised and uncertain. He hesitates.

"Now," orders Decker. But the man doesn't drop the knife. He turns and raises it high into the air. The curved blade mirrors the white sickle of the moon as a bellow of rage cuts through the darkness. Then in one furious movement he brings it scything down toward the girl with the force of a guillotine….

"The defense calls Dr. Kathryn Kerr."

It was her name that jolted Luke Decker from the events in the graveyard nine weeks ago and back to the warm, stuffy chamber of the San Francisco Court of Appeals. Above the judge's bench the clock showed 10:07 A.M., and the calendar below it the date: Wednesday, October 29,2008. The hushed oak-paneled courtroom carried every sound, but when the woman's name was called, Decker couldn't believe he'd heard it right.

What the hell was Kathy Kerr doing here?

Reorienting himself, Decker blinked his green eyes and ran a hand through his cropped blond hair. Shifting in his chair, he looked around the paneled court. The judge, a bald man with a permanent pained frown, sat at the front of the chamber with both the prosecution and defense teams arranged facing him on either side. Decker sat with the prosecution behind the district attorney. This wasn't a full trial, and there were few people in the public gallery behind him, except some junior press. No relatives of the dead girls had come, but Decker gained some satisfaction from noting that Tammy Lewis's family wouldn't have been among them. At least she had been saved.

Turning to his right, the first person he noticed was Wayne Tice, sitting beside his defense attorney. The red-haired killer's right arm was still in a sling from where Decker had shot him in the shoulder. Tice caught his eye and flashed his crooked teeth in a cold, unrepentant smile. Decker ignored him. The man had been found guilty and condemned to death almost a month ago. This hearing was just an attempt by his defense team to gain Tice leniency and a chance for rehabilitation. As the FBI forensic psychologist responsible for catching Tice, Special Agent Decker had been asked by the DA to comment on his psychological state and ensure the man wasn't allowed back on the streets.

Copyright © 1999 by Michael Cordy.