Fear the Dark

I open the steamer trunk, a blast of dust hitting my nose as my eyes pore over a dozen fragmentation grenades and a sawn-off Mossberg shotgun; a bulletproof vest designed to withstand armour-piercing rounds; night-vision binoculars and goggles. I find what I’m looking for in the corner: a box holding a vial of Etorphine and a half-dozen syringes, held together with an elastic band. A small injection of that opioid and a normal, healthy adult will black out in less than a minute.

I tuck the box and syringes into my pocket, wanting to have them close by for when the time comes. I can hear the radio playing upstairs. Sarah puts it on every time she leaves the house, believing that the news and an assortment of talk-radio hosts will convince a potential burglar that someone is home.

A reporter is talking about the Downes family, the latest victims of the Red Hill Ripper. The piece ends with a mention of the FBI sending Terry Hoder to Red Hill to hunt the killer.

Has Sarah heard this? Does she know? At some point I’m going to have to tell her.

I start up the stairs but my thoughts turn back to the other items inside the trunk.

What if the police come for me when I’m not at home? The FBI? I move back to the trunk and stand over it for several minutes.

I decide against taking the Mossberg. While the shotgun has massive stopping power, it’s useless against long-distance targets. If I’m bunkered down somewhere and locked in a firefight, I’ll need the Springfield. I sling the rifle strap over my shoulder and stuff a box of ammo into an empty pocket.

At the last moment I decide to take three grenades with me. If I’m forced to leave this world, why not go out in a blaze of glory?

27

Darby entered the hotel lobby and went straight to the reception desk in search of Laurie, who had checked her in last night. Laurie wasn’t there; nor was she inside the small office behind the counter.

Darby would deal with that later. First, she needed to go to her room.

She had drawn the blackout curtains after last night’s phone call and left them that way when she locked up this morning. Now she found them still drawn, the room caged in a partial darkness.

Darby hit the wall’s light switch and the matching lamps on the nightstands came to life. She left the door open behind her and the curtains as they were. She looked around the room for the TV remote, found it on the bureau and turned on the TV.

A commercial for a new medication used to treat erectile dysfunction started to play on the screen. She increased the volume slightly, then tossed the remote on her bed and slipped out of her boots. She went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. When she stepped back into the room, she left the bathroom door open behind her and moved to the nightstand with the phone.

The cordless handset didn’t have any visible screws, but it did have a back cover. She fitted her thumb into the groove and, careful not to make any noise, gently wiggled it forward until the cover came off.

The rectangular-shaped area behind the cover housed a pair of rechargeable batteries; it was co

Tucked inside the pouch’s black mesh was a small adjustable screwdriver with a dozen different point heads. Fortunately it had the small head size she needed.

Darby sat on the edge of the bed and went to work removing the screws with the methodical care of a bomb technician tasked with defusing an improvised explosive device. If her suspicions were correct about what was inside the handset she needed to be as quiet as possible.

It took her two minutes to remove the screws and another five to dismantle the rest of the handset. She had to switch from the Phillips-head to a flathead in order to carefully prise apart the plastic shell.

She found what she was looking for in the nest of wires near the earpiece.

Darby put everything on the bed and in her stocking feet moved back into the hall of dim light and stone flooring. Hoder stood at the opposite end, waiting. She had told him to remain there to make sure no one came into the hall.

He leaned forward, both hands gripping his cane, and looked at her questioningly. She nodded and surprise lit up his face. He raised his eyebrows until they almost met his hairline.

‘Definitely an audio bug,’ Darby said after she reached him. She had explained her theory about a listening device having been installed inside her phone as they were entering the hotel. ‘Looks like an older model, battery operated, but I’m sure.’

‘You think he heard you?’ Hoder kept his voice low, as if the bug were hovering inches away from them.

‘I turned on the TV and shower so I doubt he heard me taking the phone apart, and I took my boots off so he didn’t hear me walking out of the room. I don’t have the proper equipment to know if he is, in fact, listening right now. I doubt Red Hill does – we can ask – but if they don’t I’m sure Coop can scrounge up what we need from the Denver office.’

‘How did you know?’ Hoder asked.

‘The bug in my phone? Because he called almost immediately after I hung up with Coop.’

‘That it?’

Darby nodded. Hoder visibly stiffened, as if she had betrayed him somehow. As if she had come across information and refused to share it with him.

‘It was a hunch,’ she said. ‘A lucky guess.’

Hoder looked like he had come to some sort of private conclusion about her. Or maybe she was reading too much into it. Maybe Hoder was privately admonishing or punishing himself for not having figured it all out earlier.

His smile was forced, his voice flat when he said, ‘What about the range of this thing?’

‘No idea. I’ll know more once I find out the serial number – provided I can find one.’ Darby sighed and tucked her hair behind her ears. ‘We have a bigger problem.’

‘What?’

‘The bug was placed directly behind the handset’s earpiece, so it could pick up conversations, any noise, in fact, inside my room. That means he heard me talking to Williams and Coop last night. It also means he heard me discussing the crime scene photos with Coop and Williams, how I noticed an electronic device with a camera positioned on each of the families.’

‘It’s not like that was going to do us any good. Coop said tracing the signal is a dead end.’

‘I’m more worried about our man’s state of mind. If he knows we’ve found out how he recorded the families, watched the police at the crime scenes, it’s going to ramp up his anxiety and –’

‘He may lash out,’ Hoder said, finishing her thought.

‘I’ll call Coop, have him bring some equipment that will allow us to find the bugs without having to take each phone apart. Until we know for sure, I wouldn’t use the hotel phone to make any calls – or talk about the case inside your room.’

‘Agreed.’

‘I’ll also see if the Denver office has the right equipment to allow us to lock into a bug’s frequency and trace it – which is why I left it in the handset. I don’t want him to know we’ve found it. Let me go shut down everything in the room and then we’ll go to see if that woman who worked the reception desk last night is here.’

‘She is,’ Hoder said. ‘She came into the hall while you were in your room. Her full name’s Laurie Richards. She’s waiting for us out front.’

‘Take her outside. I’ll meet you there in a couple of minutes.’

‘Outside?’

‘If the Red Hill Ripper managed to get his way into my room and bug my phone, who’s to say he didn’t place a listening device near the reception desk or somewhere else?’