Assuming they knew about his connection with Jessup, assuming they even knew he’d gone to Folsom the previous day, they weren’t omniscient. They couldn’t know what Ronny Lee Jessup had said to him in the privacy of that consultation room, that he had revealed where to find the remains of the missing fourteen women.

Whether the dream was born of despair or induced with some arcane technology, it was a propellant driving David back to the Jessup house. His conscience and his subconscious demanded that he return to the labyrinth.

He would need a different car. If they had known in advance of his intention to go to Folsom, they could have hidden a GPS in his Terrain Denali while it was in the prison parking lot.

And he needed a weapon. Something better than a tire iron.

70

| 70 |

David owned a pistol. He had left it in a nightstand drawer at home. He wasn’t inclined to spend seven hours driving to and from Corona del Mar to arm himself.

He could get dog-repellent pepper spray in a pet store, but that seemed less of a weapon than a preventative. If he had to face someone who had a gun, pepper spray wouldn’t serve him well.

The best alternative to a handgun was a knife. From his book research, he knew that the number of people killed each year by knives was five times greater than the number killed by guns.

He was an obsessive researcher. To be sure the details were correct in his books, he’d undergone a five-day combat-handgun and combat-shotgun training course in Nevada, spent ten days learning wilderness survival techniques in Honduran jungles with two former Navy SEALs as tutors, had ridden as an observer on numerous police patrols in several cities, and embedded himself in other interesting and sometimes dangerous professions.

But he was a little squeamish about stabbing someone, which would be repellently intimate. He couldn’t quite see himself doing the deed.

However, this wasn’t about his fastidious sensibilities. This might be about survival. And not just his survival. Also Maddison’s.

After breakfast, he walked downtown Santa Barbara and found a high-end culinary shop with a wide variety of merchandise. The clerk was pleased to show him a selection of the finest chef’s knives. He purchased two that were made of laminate cobalt steel with maroon Micarta handles. The first featured a 6.1-inch blade, with an overall length of eleven inches. The second, with a 7.8-inch blade, measured thirteen inches end to end. He also purchased an electric blade sharpener, though the clerk advised that it was best to send the cutlery to the manufacturer every five to seven years for a professional sharpening.

When he exited the store, the scattered clouds of dawn were gradually knitting together into thin gray shawls. Although the sun hadn’t yet reached its apex and although it ruled the sky, its light had a cold, unnatural quality, as if the city were a laboratory lighted by banks of fluorescent tubes, and all life within it an experiment.