by Kate White
He leveled his gaze at me and held my eyes with his.
“That’s right,” he said. “Dirk. He was from around these parts.”
“What a coincidence. Then you met Shannon.”
“I guess you could call it that. I heard her mention Lake George at work one day, so I struck up a conversation.”
“Do you and Dirk still stay in touch?”
“Nope, sad to say, but he didn’t make it out of there. He ended up dying a few feet away from me.”
My gut was now flashing a yellow caution light. Cody had met a guy from this area. Had he described places here? Told him stories from here? Stories about two missing girls?
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. My voice sounded stupidly squeaky to me, stress playing havoc with my vocal cords. “It must have been hard for you.”
“Very.”
His eyes left mine, and I watched as they scanned the area behind me. Oh shit, he was checking to see if anyone was still hanging around the office.
Adrenaline pumped through my body. There was something wrong about Cody and the army pal, and I needed to get the hell out. I faked a check of my watch.
“Well, you need to head home to your kids,” I said. “And I’m due to meet another reporter for a drink at the hotel. I’m probably pushing off for the city tomorrow.”
Lies, of course. But I had to make him think someone was waiting for me, and that I’d soon be long gone from these parts.
“Sorry to see you go. Again, I appreciate what you did—finding Shannon.”
“Thanks, Cody. Good luck with everything. Do I go out the way I came in?”
“Yes. Out the front.”
I hitched my bag up on my shoulder and shot him a smile that I hoped didn’t seem as phony as it was. I pivoted and began to walk past the deserted gray workstations toward the hall that led to reception. My heart was hammering hard enough for me to hear it in my ears.
He was letting me leave, though. Maybe he hadn’t managed to read my mind, or if he had, he realized I had no proof of anything. Or maybe I was worried for nothing. But something about this whole thing scared me. I would call Killian the second I was out of there.
It was when I reached the turn in the hallway that I heard him behind me.
“Bailey, wait a minute.”
Panic gripped me. Don’t look scared, I warned myself. I slowed my gait and turned to face him.
“There’s one other thing,” he said. He’d caught up with me and moved a little ahead, his eyes nearly black and shiny. He took one more step, now fully blocking my path to the door.
“Yes?”
“It was a mistake, wasn’t it?” He flashed a small, rueful smile.
“What was?”
“Mentioning Dirk in that article. I knew it the second I saw it online. I should have kept that to myself.”
He had killed Shannon, I realized. I knew it now in my bones.
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” I said stupidly. I could feel the fear in my legs, dissolving them into jelly.
He shot out his arm and tried to grab me, but I jerked back fast, and he caught the strap of my purse instead, dragging it to the floor with a thud. I backed up, and without even thinking, reached for a rolling desk chair in the workstation to my right, then frantically shoved it toward him. The force wasn’t much but it caught him just right, pitching him forward against the arm.
My only way out was through the factory, I realized. There would be exits inside, there had to be.
I swung around and bolted toward the back wall, practically flinging myself at the door and yanking it open. The lights were still blazing in the cavernous space, though it seemed empty of people. I took off down the middle, between two motionless conveyor belts. I desperately scanned the room for exits, but the belts blocked my view of the sides of the building.
I couldn’t hear Blaine behind me. Had he raced outside, I wondered, planning to cut me off in the parking lot? But then seconds later he exploded through the door behind me.
I ran harder and faster, straight ahead, the effort searing my lungs. If he caught me, he would kill me, just as he’d surely killed Alice.
I reached a wide passageway at the end of the factory and barreled through it. I was now in the warehouse, loaded with rack after rack of sodas and beer. I flew by them, cartons and bottles all in a blur. At last, up ahead, on the left, I spotted an emergency door. Blaine was directly behind me now, and I felt the whoosh as his arm shot out again, trying to snatch me. I dodged to the right. He missed, and as I glanced back I saw him stumble a little. I darted toward the racks again, where I grabbed one of the liters of soda, throwing it hard at his head. He took the bottle in the face, yelped, and staggered back.
“You bitch,” he yelled.
I grabbed another and hurled that, too, but this one simply glanced off the side of his skull.
I spun around and ran, my lungs on fire. Finally I reached the door and lunged for the crash bar. It flew open, and I spilled into the parking lot, with the alarm blaring behind me.
I’d exited at the very rear of the building onto a tarmac illuminated by security floodlights. My freaking car key, I realized, was in my bag, which was lying on the floor of the office. I would have to make for the road and flag down a passing vehicle. I gasped for air and took off past the loading docks toward the front of the building.
The sound of a car engine cut through the night, coming from the other side of the building and drowning out the alarm. Was it him? Before I could decide what to do, a dark car rounded the back of the building. I moved even faster, a stitch stabbing at my side. I could hear the car coming up behind me. If it was Cody, I was sure he’d plow right into me.
But the car slowed, and I turned to see Riley sitting in the front seat, her window half down. Relief flooded through me like water gushing through a hose.
“What’s going on?” she called out, bringing the car to a stop.
“I need to get in, okay?” I said, nearly breathless.
“But what’s the matter?”
“Please,” I begged.
“All right. Yes, get in.”
I raced around the front of her car, threw open the door, and nearly dove into the passenger seat.
“We need to leave—right this second,” I told her.
“What?”
“Please, it’s an emergency. I’ll explain afterward.”
“You didn’t drive here?”
“I did, but I’m missing my key.”
I craned my neck and peered out the rear window. There was still no sign of Cody. “Hurry,” I urged.
In frustration, Riley made a tsk sound with her tongue against the roof of her mouth, but she did as I’d instructed, accelerating the Audi and aiming for the road.
“I wish you’d tell me.”
“Please, Riley, I promise to in a minute.” I worried that Blaine had reversed direction in the building and raced to the main exit, hoping to head me off. But no one burst through the front door as we neared the road.
“Which way do you usually turn to go home? Right?”
“Yes.”
“Go left instead. And then drive straight to the municipal center, to the sheriff’s office. You know where that is?”
“Um, yeah, I think so.”
Again, she followed orders, picking up speed even more after she took the turn. I was desperate to call Killian and alert him to the fact that I was coming, but my cell, with his number programmed into it, was also in my purse.
I twisted around in my seat but didn’t detect any car beams behind us. Maybe Cody hadn’t seen Riley come to my rescue and was searching for me on foot.
I still wasn’t sure what the hell was really going on. My gut told me Cody had killed his wife, but I had no clue why or how the campers figured into it. He wasn’t even in the country when they’d disappeared.
So . . . so maybe this guy Dirk had murdered Page and Amy and confessed to Cody when he lay dying. Even told him where
he’d hidden the bodies. And when Cody had decided, for reasons unknown, to murder his lovely wife, he’d left her in the same place, making it appear like the work of a deranged serial killer.
I’d been looking for connections between the lives of the victims—and so had Alice—but maybe the only connection was the dark, forlorn basement where their remains had been dumped.
“I’m so lucky you came,” I said, turning back around and looking over at Riley. “You hadn’t left yet?”
“No. My husband and I ended up in a fight on the phone while I was walking to my car, and I needed to chill for a minute. And then I heard the door alarm go off. What happened back there?”
“Cody came after me.”
“What?”
“It was because of something I asked him. About the reporter who died, Alice Hatfield.”
“Maybe he’s sick of going over the same ground again and again. No one seems to appreciate the hell he’s been through.”
“Riley, I know it sounds crazy, but I’m almost positive he murdered Shannon.”
Her mouth dropped open in disbelief.
“And Alice Hatfield, too.”
“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Why would he do that?” Her eyes were focused straight ahead and both hands gripped the wheel. This stretch of the road was far less populated than the part I’d traveled earlier, with only a few scattered houses set far back under tall, leafy trees. And no streetlamps.
“I think she figured out he’d killed Shannon. She called him and asked a couple of questions that made him see she was getting close. And then he showed up at her house.”
Riley’s eyes left the road for only a split second, but long enough for me to see the anger flashing in them.
“For starters, Cody couldn’t have killed Shannon,” she said. “I saw him before he took off to look at a piece of property and we talked on the phone a little while later. He seemed perfectly normal.”
“He’s slick, a sales guy. He knows how to put on a front. And he may have been planning it for a while, so he had plenty of time to work out all the kinks.”
“But he loved Shannon,” Riley said. “Why would he have killed her?”
I massaged my scalp, pulling my thoughts together.
“I don’t know. Could he have been having an affair?”
“No way. And what about those other women?” Her irritation seemed to be intensifying. It was going to be tough to convince her.
“I think someone else committed those murders. Someone Cody met in the army—he called him Dirk tonight.”
“You are crazy,” Riley said. For the first time I thought I heard fear in her voice. Was I finally getting through to her?
“I’m sorry, this has to be hard for you.” I swiveled again and peered through the back window. Far, far back on the road, two high beams penetrated the darkness, like disembodied torchlights.
“Shit, that may be him behind us,” I said, keeping my eyes on the lights. “Can you speed up?”
The view behind me suddenly slid out of view, and I realized Riley was hanging a sharp right. But not onto another road. As I faced forward again, I saw that she was pulling into a parking lot. The sign at the entrance read “Pine Grove Tennis and Swim Club.”
“Riley, what—?”
“I missed the turn for the municipal center. I never come this way.”
She took her foot off the gas and eased into the lot.
“But Cody might be tailing us. Look, we better call 911. Can I use your phone?”
“Are you going to turn Cody in?” she said.
God, was she so devoted to the guy she couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea of him being a killer?
“I’m going to explain to the sheriff that we might be in danger, and the police can sort it out from there. If Cody didn’t do anything wrong, he won’t be in any trouble.”
“All right.”
She shifted into park.
“Riley, we shouldn’t stop. Give me your phone and I’ll call.”
“Fine.”
She grabbed her bag from the floor by my feet and fished around inside it.
But it wasn’t a phone she pulled out. It was a gun. Small and black with wood on the handle. She pointed it directly at my torso.
Panic flooded through me all over again.
“Riley, please, if he’s innocent, he has nothing to worry about.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
Oh wow, maybe I did. They were lovers. I’d been right to wonder about them.
“You’re—you’re having an affair with him?”
She said nothing.
“Riley, please, don’t ruin your life. If Cody killed Shannon to be with—”
“Cody’s not my lover,” she snapped. “He’s my business partner. And I’m not going to let you turn him in.”
“Your business partner? What do you mean?”
She scoffed and the gun jiggled a little in her hand. “What does it matter to you?”
“What have you got going at Baker?”
Wait. The answer had been whispering to me for days.
“It’s drugs, isn’t it? Are you moving drugs in the Baker delivery trucks?”
If she was in on it, her husband must be, too. I thought of the boat in their driveway, the big TV.
No reply. She stuffed her free hand in her purse and rooted around again. Hunting for her phone, no doubt. She was going to call Blaine and tell him where to find us. I had to keep her talking instead.
“Did Shannon find out?”
“You know what the problem with Shannon was? She had everything. A huge house and a condo in Florida and all the nice clothes she wanted, and she didn’t have to lift a finger for any of it. But she wasn’t satisfied. She had to start butting into our business.”
Riley was nearly stabbing the contents of her purse now, trying to find the damn phone without taking her eyes off me.
“What tipped her off?”
“Who the hell knows? She just announced one day that she wanted to give us a hand at Baker, and Cody had to say yes—because she was Daddy’s girl. She was real sneaky about it, going slow at first, working from home, and then the next thing you know she showed up there. She started snooping around from the moment she arrived, like she knew something was up.”
“And she found proof?”
“Oh yeah, she turned out to be a great little detective. Cody tried to reason with her. Begged her not to blow up their lives.”
“And it didn’t work?”
“At first he thought he’d managed to get through to her, but he finally realized she was actually going to tell on him. Betray her own husband. Send him to prison so he couldn’t be with his kids. She didn’t leave him any choice.”
Finally she yanked the phone from her purse. With her eyes flicking between me and the screen, she jabbed at it a couple of times and pressed it to her ear.
The call was answered instantly, and someone barked on the other end.
“It’s okay, I’ve got her,” Riley announced.
A pause as she listened. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it could burst from my chest.
“In my car,” she said. “In the parking lot of that tennis and swim place, the one— Okay.” She disconnected and let the phone fall to her lap.
Though Riley’s tone had suggested firm control of the situation, even in the dark I could make out the sheen of perspiration on her face. Could I manage to distract her, see if I could bolt out of the car fast enough so she couldn’t shoot me in the back of the head? Because I had only minutes before Cody arrived.
“So he had the perfect way to make it seem like a serial killing, didn’t he? Did he say he was going to do that—leave Shannon there and confuse everybody?”
“I didn’t know anything about the other bodies until you found them. He told me he had a plan and to insist that I’d seen him first thing that morning and that we’d talked on the phone a couple of times right after that.”
“Like you said, she called and was totally nosing around. She knew Dirk’s name. Cody could sense she was putting it together.”
“Dirk killed the women?”
“Not him. But he was drugged out of his mind one night and he was with this guy, Sean something, who did it. It was supposed to be a drug deal, but one of the women had no idea what was supposed to go down. She lost her shit, and Sean ended up strangling both of them and then slashing at their hands and feet. Sean told Dirk he’d implicate him if he didn’t help him hide the bodies and get rid of their car.”
“And Dirk told Cody in Afghanistan?”
“When he was dying. Cody never knew whether to believe him, but he went there one day finally and saw for himself.”
“He wanted me to find the bodies so that everyone would think Shannon had been murdered by a serial killer.”
“You should have been happy. You got your little scoop.” With one eye still on me, she craned her neck to peer anxiously through the back window, desperate for Cody’s arrival. “Now just shut the fuck up.”
Could I scare her, make her see what the stakes were?
“Riley, even if Cody kills me, the cops are still going to find out the truth. You have a chance right now to turn yourself in and strike a deal with the police. To protect yourself and your husband.”
“The cops don’t have a clue.”
“Oh, but they do,” I lied. “Sheriff Killian knows Cody was lying about why Alice Hatfield called him Sunday. I just beat him to the punch by coming here tonight.”
I could hear that her breathing had quickened, so I knew I’d hit a nerve. She shook her head, without speaking, as if she was telling herself no, not to buy what I was saying. My only choice was to leap out of the car and pray she didn’t have the nerve to shoot.
Riley flicked her eyes away to check the rearview mirror, and with her attention briefly diverted, I tiptoed my fingers toward the door, hunting for the handle. I willed my hand to stop trembling.
A vehicle swung into the parking lot, its high beams flooding the car. He was here. It was now or never.
I grabbed the handle and shoved open the door. In one quick move I spilled into the night, scooted around to the other side of the door, and shoved it closed. I crawled for a few feet and then sprang up, aiming for a dumpster at the edge of the lot.