Hunted (Reeve Leclaire 2) Read online

  His exercise regimen has melted away the pounds he packed on after dropping out of college. He’s never been so fit. And sometimes he finds useful objects. Just yesterday, he spied a plastic bag wrestling with the fence. He snatched it up and tucked it inside his underwear. Last night, he pulled it out to inspect it and found it beautiful. He secretly carries it with him now.

  Flint turns west, heading directly toward the cafeteria. Sunny days can cause a glare on the glass, but most days are cloudy, like today. The individuals inside are lit up like actors on a stage.

  People stream past with their trays of food, and he wonders about those who occupy the other, less secure sections of the institution. What are their afflictions? What are their routines? What happens in those realms that clink and moan just beyond the forensic unit’s locked doors?

  He imagines focusing a camera lens on the men in the cafeteria and spots a new face: A pudgy man in a beret. He smiles. The new barber is getting coffee.

  Three times, Daryl Wayne Flint strokes his wooly beard, recalling that the last time he let a barber touch him was the day before his trial.

  TWO

  San Francisco, California

  Six cyclists come pumping up the hill, turn, and then glide in single file onto the wide expanse of the Golden Gate Bridge. It stretches before them with picture-postcard splendor, its famous tangerine towers rising into a sapphire sky, and the cyclists whoop and shout as they wheel onto the wide promenade that runs the length of the span.

  One by one they maneuver past clusters of tourists, coast over to the railing, and dismount to marvel at the view. Yachts and sailboats, tankers and tugboats cut across the jade-green bay, while to the right, San Francisco’s distinctive skyline crowns the scene.

  The cyclist in the lead removes her helmet and the brisk autumn breeze ruffles her flame-colored hair. She gazes around, then peers over the railing, where the dark water is pushing seaward so fast and so far below that it brings a flash of vertigo.

  Just then, a sturdy blonde with an animated smile angles up beside her, grips her arm, and says, “Oh my lord, Reeve, thank you for making this happen. This is the most gorgeous trip yet.”

  “It is amazing, isn’t it?” Reeve grins, pleased that her first attempt at organizing the group’s monthly bike ride is going so well. They cluster around as she points out the Berkeley hills, Angel Island, and then Alcatraz, which glows like a pearl, belying its dark past.

  “How crazy is it that I’ve been in California for over three years,” the blonde says, waving at the view, “and this is the first time I’ve actually stood on the Golden Gate Bridge.”

  Reeve gives her friend a nudge. “Lana, you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  Lana’s boyfriend joins them. Toned as a whippet, David is the most serious cyclist of the bunch. “Just look at this,” he says. “It’s spectacular!”

  “We need pictures,” someone shouts, and the group jostles together, holding up their phones, snapping selfies. Then a passerby offers to serve as photographer and the six of them grin while striking poses. After a few moments, the group unknots and continues walking their bicycles along the span, gawking.

  Reeve notices that a baby in a stroller has lost his shoe. She hurriedly scoops it up and hands it to the distracted mother, who says something in a foreign language while beaming gratitude. Reeve smiles in answer and continues weaving past joggers, couples, and families.

  As she walks her bike along, enjoying the sunshine and breathing in the fresh, crisp air, she fully appreciates that a day like this brings the kind of healing that even years of psychotherapy can’t.

  At the far end of the bridge, the cyclists mount their bikes and follow Reeve through the last knots of foot traffic. She leads them away from the bridge, the tour buses, and the busy highway, onto a two-lane road that winds downhill. The glittering views of the bay diminish, turn after turn, as they sweep through green hillsides and quickly descend into Sausalito, a scenic bayside community with expensive homes climbing the hills to their left, the waterfront stretching to their right, and plenty of upscale shops, restaurants, and galleries in between.

  As the road begins to flatten, Reeve stands on her bike pedals, exhilarated by how mysterious and strange and wonderful life is. How marvelous that she has fit in with this tribe. How completely her life has changed.

  It had all started last spring. Just as Reeve was re-enrolling in college, her apartment building was sold, and the new management announced a nosebleed increase in rent prices. The next day, she met Lana on the beach during a coastal cleanup event. They started talking while picking up trash, and it turned out that Lana’s house was in need of one more roommate. Serendipity, pure and simple. Reeve was soon unpacking boxes in a noisy household not far from the UC Berkeley campus.

  Shortly thereafter, she was invited to join this cycling club, and now she owns her first bike since that ill-fated summer when she was just an average twelve-year-old kid. She doesn’t need her psychiatrist to tell her that this marks another milestone in her recovery.

  Now, at twenty-three, Reeve feels that her life as an adult has finally bloomed and ripened. Each day seems to drop into her palm like sweet, plump fruit.

  The group wheels through town to the ferry terminal, where they lock up their bikes and buy tickets for the ferry ride back across the bay. Then they stroll around the picturesque waterfront, their cycling shoes clacking loudly while they eat snacks and drink smoothies.

  Right on time, the ferry appears in the distance. It grows steadily larger, pulling a white wake as the cyclists retrieve their bicycles and prepare for boarding.

  Megan, the tallest woman of the group, maneuvers up beside Reeve and asks about their route home. “The Ferry Building is near the BART station, right?”

  “That’s right, we’ll take the train back to Berkeley,” Reeve replies, watching as the ferry slows, reverses engines, and nudges into place. “Sorry this is kind of a short bike for you hard-core riders.”

  “Don’t be sorry. There’s no way I’d be able to keep up,” Lana says. “Good lord, David is doing sixty miles tomorrow, can you imagine?”

  “The ferry will be going right by Alcatraz, won’t it?” Megan asks.

  Reeve nods but says nothing. She watches deckhands scramble out to secure the ferry to the dock with rope as thick as her arm.

  “Alcatraz must be cool,” Megan continues. “There are guided tours of the old prison, right? I’d love to see the old cells, hear all the stories.”

  “Reeve, you’re the San Franciscan,” David says. “What do you think of Alcatraz? Is it worth doing a tour?”

  “For you, maybe.” She gives a tight smile. “But I have zero interest in prisons.”

  Lana—who is Reeve’s sole confidante and the only one aware of her old name and her tragic, headline-grabbing past—quickly changes the subject. “This trip was a great idea,” she says, looping her arm through Reeve’s. “And I love the Ferry Building. Let’s run in and get some sourdough bread before heading home.”

  Reeve feels a rush of gratitude for Lana, for her new life in Berkeley, and for every single minute that adds distance between ever-loving now and those wretched years spent locked in her kidnapper’s basement.

  THREE

  Olshaker Psychiatric Hospital

  Daryl Wayne Flint wanders down the corridor to the lavatory, checking out the line of inmates waiting for a chance to sit in the barber’s chair. It has diminished to two guys now, but they look like they don’t even need haircuts. Like this is some sort of entertainment, a diversion.

  Okay, after all these years, he can certainly understand that.

  A short time later, Flint returns to stand behind the one guy remaining in line, a guy with a cap of blond curls. Then the door opens and a huge guy with a shaved head shuffles out.

  “How was it?” the blond guy asks.

  “Quick,” the bald guy replies.

  They both lock eyes on Flint for half a second, smirk, and t
urn away.

  The blond guy disappears inside, the bald one ambles away, and Flint leans against the wall, unhappy about this moment of scrutiny. He would have preferred to remain unobserved at this particular juncture, but his thick mane and wild whiskers make him conspicuous.

  He waits. He fidgets. He starts to pace. When a guard walks by and looks toward him, Flint pretends he’s simply walking past the door, as though returning from the lavatory. This would draw less notice, he reasons, so he begins pacing the entire length of the corridor, purposefully heading in one direction and then the other. Out of habit, he does this three times.

  Still, no one opens the door.

  Flint considers another set of three but, disconcerted by the prospect of an interrupted sequence, stops to wait beside the door. He taps his toes in sets of three. At last the door creaks open and the blond comes out with his curls shortened to a row of waves.

  “You’re up,” the blond says, jerking a thumb at the door.

  Flint slips inside, where the barber, still wearing his beret, is tipping a dustpan full of hair into the trash.

  “Are you my last—” The barber glances back, sees Flint, and straightens. His eyebrows shoot up as he breathes out, “Oh.”

  Flint’s hands go up to his long locks. “Guess I’m a little overdue.”

  The barber places the dustpan on the floor with an audible sigh. “Okay, well, have a seat and let’s take a look.”

  Sitting in an orange plastic chair, Flint looks around. He’s never been in this room, this makeshift barber shop, which seems to be nothing more than a small office with an attached bath. The chair faces a mirror mounted on the wall. The day’s used towels are heaped in a corner. The barber’s tools are arranged on a small table beside a stack of fresh towels the color of undercooked pancakes.

  The barber tents his last customer in a drape and begins circling—tugging at his hair and humming thoughtfully—while Flint studies the barber in the mirror: midthirties, with short brown hair and a neatly groomed goatee. A bit too young, a bit on the pudgy side, but the right height and roughly Flint’s size.

  “So,” the barber says, “what did you have in mind?”

  “I’m not sure.” Flint meets the man’s eye in the mirror. “Short, I guess.”

  “How short?”

  “Short.” Flint cocks his head and grins. “Like yours.”

  Later, when the floor is covered with hair, Flint gazes at his reflection with something close to awe. “Damn, don’t I look handsome?”

  “You sure look a lot better, but . . .” The barber puts a hand on his hip. “With that nasty beard? Seriously?”

  Flint lifts a hand from beneath the drape and strokes his beard once, then gathers it in a fist. “I’ve had this for a long time, you know.”

  The barber rolls his eyes. “Clearly.”

  “You think it’s time to get rid of it?”

  “Past time, dude. Way past time.”

  “Okay, uh, what did you say your name is?”

  “Ricky.”

  “Okay, Ricky, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that I decided to let you trim it a little. What would you suggest?”

  The barber scoffs. “Trim it? Are you kidding? Chop off six inches, just for starters.”

  “Oh, man. . . .” Flint groans, pretending reluctance, enjoying this little game. “I guess . . . yeah, it needs to go. But are you going to use those scissors?”

  The barber makes a face. “How about I use a chainsaw?”

  Flint considers the scissors and then rejects the idea. Too much blood. He sighs dramatically. “Just be careful, okay?”

  “Good.” The barber beams at him. “You won’t regret it. How short do you want it?”

  “I don’t know, what do you think?”

  “The shorter the better.” The barber stands behind Flint, grasping the beard with both hands, feeling its thickness. “I mean, this is out of control.”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Flint says, grinning into the mirror. “How about a goatee? Like yours.”

  The barber hums a note and sets to work. “When I’m done, your own mother won’t recognize you.” He smiles at Flint’s reflection. “And I mean that in a good way.”

  “Understood. And my little cricket will be impressed, too,” Flint says, rubbing his palm across his groin beneath the drape.

  “Is that your girlfriend?”

  “My dearest one.” Flint considers explaining, but why bother? People who remembered his trial always said stupid shit about pedophiles. So instead he closes his eyes, pictures the designs on her back, and inhales deeply, as though savoring her aroma.

  “Well, your girlfriend is definitely going to be impressed,” says the barber. “Why on earth didn’t you get this beard taken care of before? You didn’t like my predecessor?”

  “Never met him.”

  “But he had this gig for awhile, right? Came every month, didn’t he?”

  “Timing is important with these things,” Flint says, studying the pile of dirty towels heaped in a corner.

  The barber frowns at this non sequitur but says nothing, as though suddenly recalling that this is, after all, a mental institution. He falls silent, hands busy while whiskers drift to the floor.

  Flint watches the electric shears buzzing away the whiskers from his neck, his cheeks, beside his ears. The planes of his face emerge, familiar yet strange, like the long-forgotten neighborhoods of his youth. As the heavy beard goes, his lips seem naked and pink as areolas.

  “Today’s your first day, right? So, how do you like this new job?” Flint asks.

  “It’s not a bad gig. Kind of a long drive, but it pays pretty well. No complaints so far.” Facing him, the barber takes a wet towel and wipes Flint’s forehead, cheeks, neck, then cups Flint’s chin, tilting his face back and forth, inspecting his work. Then the barber steps away and asks, “What do you think?”

  Flint grins. His trimmed whiskers appear to bracket his mouth in clever parentheses. “Better than ever.”

  “Absolutely,” the barber says with satisfaction.

  Flint notes the barber’s jacket hanging on the knob of the bathroom door. Car keys in the right pocket, he figures. Beneath the drape, he slides his hand down his stomach and pinches the plastic bag hidden in his underwear. He extracts it and clutches it in his fist just as the barber unties the strings of the drape, lifts it off.

  “Man, I’m hungry,” the barber says, shaking the trimmings to the floor. “I’m glad you’re my last customer.”

  Flint rises to his feet and moves in close. He nods toward the floor. “I’m afraid you have quite a lot of sweeping up to do.”

  The barber looks down, and in the split second before he can take in a breath to speak whatever comment he has in mind, Flint punches him hard and square in the stomach.

  The barber doubles over with a cry as Flint slips the plastic bag over the man’s head, then wrenches back in confusion, but Flint is already behind him, locking an arm tight around his neck, shoving him off his feet. The man struggles, making horrible sounds as he fights for air. The plastic clings to his face as he bucks and thrashes, knocking things to the floor. He wrenches right to left, but Flint crushes him beneath his weight, and as the barber weakens, Flint presses harder, feeling the man shudder and finally go still.

  He waits, counting to one hundred to make sure the barber is dead before releasing his iron grip and rising to his feet. Breathing hard, he surveys his work. Not an ounce of blood spilled.

  He begins stripping off the man’s clothes. The shirt comes off easily, but when he removes the barber’s trousers, he winces at the freshly soiled underwear. He lifts the khakis, sniffs, and shrugs.

  The barber’s clothes fit a bit too loosely, so Flint folds two towels across his belly, then cinches the belt. The leather shoes pinch his toes, but Flint manages to get them on. Then, with no time to waste, he drags the body across the floor into the bathroom and hides it beneath the dirty towels.

  He
snags the jacket from where it hangs on the doorknob. Lastly, he puts on the beret. A nice touch. “Hey now! Don’t we look jaunty?” he says to himself in the mirror, mimicking the dead man’s high-pitched tone.

  Noticing that his neck looks white as gooseflesh, he buttons the shirt all the way up and pulls in his chin. Better. Next, he pulls the man’s wallet from his back pocket, flips it open, and studies the ID. Richard Baker. Baker the barber. He smirks.

  Quickly, he gathers up the barber’s gear and stashes it in the large case—a two-tiered piece of luggage resembling a tackle box on wheels—takes a deep breath and shakes the tension out of his shoulders. As he rolls the case into the hallway, a gray-haired guard whom everyone calls Snake is coming toward him. Flint knows him too well. He puffs air into his cheeks to make himself look plumper.

  “It’s after five, kid. I’m supposed to take you through the gate,” Snake says. “You ready to get out of here?”

  Flint shuts the door behind him. “Am I ever,” he replies in a mild falsetto. “What a day!”

  The guard stops a few feet away, eyeing him. “Yeah, you’re looking kinda beat, kid.”

  Flint adjusts the beret, partly blocking his face, and tightens his grip on the rolling case.

  “Let’s go,” the guard says, turning on his heel and starting down the corridor.

  Flint puffs out his cheeks and follows in the tight leather shoes, careful not to wince at every step.

  FOUR

  Flint pauses at each intersection, craning his neck to look up and down the street, hoping for something that makes sense. He might have only seconds before the barber’s body is found. Then what? An alarm? Dogs? An APB will go out on this white Honda, for sure, but he can’t afford to stash it. Not yet.

  “About three miles away,” he grumbles. “April fifth, 1968. What the hell is that supposed to mean?”