“We’ll be okay. It seems scary chasing him at night,” I said. It did feel as if we were alone with him. Where the hell was he going? Was he hunting? If his pattern held, he was due for another killing soon. He had to be in heat.
It turned out to be a very long ride. We watched the stars brighten the coastal California night. Six hours later, we were still tacking on Highway 1. The Range Rover finally pulled off at a quaint, wooden signpost that read Big Sur State Park, among other things.
As if to validate that we were really in Big Sur, we passed an antique van with a bumper sticker: VISUALIZE INDUSTRIAL COLLAPSE.
“Visualize Dr. Will Rudolph having a massive stroke,” Kate growled softly.
I checked my watch as we left the main highway. “It’s past three. Getting late for him to get into any serious trouble tonight.” I hoped that was the case.
“If there was ever any doubt, this may prove he’s a bloodsucking vampire,” Kate muttered. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest and had been for most of the long ride. “He’s going off to sleep in his favorite coffin.”
“Right. That’s when we drive a wooden stake through his heart,” I told her. We were both a little groggy. I had taken a pill during the ride. Kate declined. She said she knew too much about drugs and was leery of most of them.
We passed a complex of directional signs: Point Sur, Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur Lodge, Ventana, the Esalen Institute. Will Rudolph headed in the direction of Big Sur Lodge, Sycamore Canyon, Bottchers Gap Campgrounds.
“I was hoping he would go to Esalen,” Kate quipped. “Learn to meditate, deal with his inner turmoil.”
“What in hell is he up to tonight?” I wondered out loud. What were he and Casanova doing? So far it was impossible to figure out. “His hideaway might be up here in the woods, Kate,” I offered a thought. “Maybe he has a house of horror just like Casanova’s.”
Twinning, I thought again. It made a lot of sense. They would be providing support systems for each other. Parallel tracks for the two monsters. Where did they meet, though? Did the two of them ever hunt together? I suspected that they had.
The white Range Rover was winding along a hilly and rather rambunctious side road that branched east from the ocean. Ancient, somber redwoods flashed on either side of the narrow ribbon of highway. A pale full moon seemed to be moving directly above the Rover, following it.
I let him get a safe distance ahead—so that he was actually out of our sight. The huge fir trees seemed to float past our car on either road shoulder. Dark shadows in real life. A bright yellow sign in the headlights read: Impassable in wet weather.
“He’s right there, Alex.” Kate’s warning came a little too late. “He’s stopped!”
The Gentleman’s hooded eyes glared at our car as we passed him and the Range Rover.
He had seen us.
CHAPTER 66
DR. WILL RUDOLPH had turned into a rutted, dirt-and-gravel driveway hidden from the main road. He was stooped down inside the Rover, and was gathering an armful of who-knew-what from the backseat. He stared up at our passing car with a cold, questioning look in his eyes.
I kept speeding along on the blacktop road that was accentuated by overhanging, gnarled black branches. A few hundred yards farther, just around a curve, I eased over onto the narrow shoulder. I stopped in front of a dented metal road sign that promised more dangerous twists and turns in the road up ahead.
“He’s stopped at a cabin,” I said into the FBI car’s two-way radio. “He’s on foot, out of the Rover.”
“We saw that. We’ve got him, Alex.” John Asaro’s voice came back over the two-way radio. “We’re on the other side of the cabin now. Looks dark inside. He’s turning on lights. El pais grande del sur. That’s what the Spanish called this place way back when. Beautiful spot to catch this fucker.”
Kate and I got out of the car. She looked a little pale, understandably so. The temperature was probably in the forties, maybe even the thirties, and the mountain air was bracing. But Kate wasn’t shivering just from the damp cold.
“We’re going to get him soon,” I said to her. “He’s starting to make mistakes.”
“It could be another house of horror. You were right,” she said in a low voice. Her eyes stared straight ahead. I hadn’t seen her this unsettled since I’d first met her in the hospital. “It feels like it, Alex… feels almost the same. Feels creepy. I’m not being very brave, am I?”
“Believe me, Kate, I’m not feeling particularly brave right now, either.”
The thick coastal fog seemed to roll on forever. My stomach felt icy and sour. We had to get moving.
Kate and I went into the dark screen of woods, heading toward the cabin. The north wind whistled and howled loudly through the towering redwood and fir trees. I had no idea what to expect from here on.
“Shit,” Kate whispered her summation of the night’s experience. “I’m not kidding, Alex.”
“
You’ve got that right.”