Page 70 of Whispers at Dusk
Save a few lives...
She hung up on him, already racing back to the rental house Frasier MacLean was using, running and dialing at the same time. The first call went straight to Emergency, the second to Mason.
The door was locked.
She banged on it—no answer.
She was glad she was armed; she shot the lock.
The door swung open and she burst in.
The parlor in the old house offered a grouping of chairs. Cameras were still set to record those who might be using the area as a set.
Seated together, slumped, eyes closed, were Frasier MacLean and a brunette, presumably Lydia Sanderson.
They were bleeding.
Bleeding out.
She hurried forward. As they might have suspected, this killer didn’t have to stick to his design. When someone was in the way or might provide an escape, it didn’t matter how he killed.
But while blood was seeping from the wrists of both the man and the woman, Della believed they were both alive.
Stephan Dante had been waiting, teasing Lydia Sanderson into believing something, and then entering the house as soon as they left.
And then...
“Tourniquets...four of them, fast!” She murmured the words aloud.
She couldn’t see any fabric lying around, so she ripped off her jacket and then her shirt, tearing it into strips with all the strength she could muster.
As she was tying the last of her desperate measures, rescue broke into the house—four EMTS—and she quickly moved out of the way, just as Mason and Ian Robertson returned.
“He was here, right outside, waiting for us!” she said furiously, looking at the two men. “He must have gotten her to hide under a pretext, and then go back in when we were gone, and... I don’t know how he got them both. It doesn’t look as if they fought... I...”
One of the emergency medical technicians turned and said, “No defensive wounds, but they’re both still breathing. There’s a chance!”
“He called you?” Mason asked her.
“Right before I could go in the pub. And I knew he had to be near, but... I recorded everything that he said. He, um...” She paused, wincing. “He said that either I catch him or save lives!”
“And you might have saved them,” Robertson said, turning to her, his eyes torn with emotion as well. “And we might never have caught him, anyway. There are scores of policemen and women out there now, looking for him!”
“He was here, and he’s gone,” Della said, shaking her head. “I don’t know how he does it, but I know he’s headed out of Kirkwall, and he’s gone.”
“I’ve alerted the airport, and they will be looking for him,” Robertson assured her.
She nodded. “I know everyone is looking for him, but they’ve been given a description of a bald man. He’ll have changed by now!” she said.
“The recording you made. We all need to hear it,” Mason told her. “He relishes taunting law enforcement. He has said something in that recording about where he’s going next.”
“But maybeweshould all be out there—” she began, but broke off thoughtfully. “He has a camera rigged up somewhere. He said things about already being gone—and then seeing me with his great eyes in the sky.”
Robertson nodded, indicating they should step back out into the street.
“There!” Mason said.
Della looked up. There was an obvious camera attached to the eaves of the rental house that Frasier MacLean was using to film his movie.
