by B. B. Hamel
“If I recall, you were going to kill that very nice woman. Do you even know her name?”
“Her name isn’t important,” he snapped.
I looked down at Rose, and she seemed strangely calm. Her eyes were afraid, but she wasn’t panicking. Good, that was good. I wanted her calm. I didn’t want her to move when the moment came for me to take the shot, because if she moved the wrong way, knocked CGK, or threw herself into the path of my bullet, everything would be ruined.
I’d get one chance and only one. But I needed her to remain steady.
“Her name is Judy,” I said. “That detective you attacked? Her name is Starch. My name is Nick. This is Rose. All these girls you’ve attacked and killed, they had friends, family, loved ones.”
He rolled his eyes. “Boring. Boring, boring, boring. Come on, Nick. Do you think I care? About any of it? I have my Rose now, and she’ll join me with Delia. So please, keep your hands up, and stop moving or I will slice her here and now and make her mine.”
I stopped moving. He had the advantage: I didn’t have my gun ready, and he had a knife to Rose’s throat. I needed to get him rattled, to make him move away from her enough that I could get a few seconds to drop to one knee and fire a shot. I could do it, I could hit him at this distance—but I needed time.
I thought about signaling to Rose. Maybe she could throw herself away, but no, that wouldn’t work. No, I had to use something else.
The profile.
The work I’d put into this bastard from the start. Everything I knew about him came down to this moment, right here in this drainage ditch, surrounded by weeds, mosquitoes, mud and trash.
“I know you were alone a lot,” I said softly. “I understand that. I was alone a lot too.”
“I wasn’t alone,” he said, laughing.
“I saw the shed. All those girls? That place was in the middle of nowhere. I’m guessing it was an old hunting shack. You stayed there for hours, all alone, talking to your pictures, looking at your treasures. You had to steal from girls at school because they wouldn’t talk to you. Isn’t that right?”
“I had friends,” he said.
“You didn’t, or maybe you think you did, but not really. You kept yourself away from them. Your parents weren’t kind either, were they?”
“Mother was a drunk,” he said, sounding bitter and angry. “Father was gone. She had boyfriends.”
“Too many boyfriends, I bet. Some of them hit you, didn’t they? Hurt you in some way, at least. You were alone, mother too busy dating these awful men, and you couldn’t find a single person to love you. Of course, you turned out like this, desperate for attention.”
“I am not desperate,” he said, voice low. The knife quavered, but remained pointed toward Rose.
“Desperate,” I repeated. “You’re desperate for attention and for love. That was why you got into watching these girls stream, isn’t it? You wanted them to love you, so you threw money at them, learned about their hobbies, even found their addresses. It’s sad, really.”
“They loved me,” he said, stepping forward. The knife still pointed toward Rose, but off-center.
“You thought so anyway. But what did they say, when you took them? Did any of them want to be with you at all? You had to kill them to keep them, because their love was always fake. You never understood that, though.”
“You’re lying.” He clenched his jaw and I knew I had him. This was it, the truth he couldn’t handle, the fact that his life was built on a lie. In some lizard part of his brain, he truly believed that these cam girls loved him, that when he sent them money, and said kind things, that it somehow bought him true feelings. He fell for the game, for the act, and it drove him mad every day, every moment, thinking about how it wasn’t true—how each of them, all of his victims told him that he was nothing but a monster.
“I’m not lying. They never cared and never will. How could they? Look at you, unlovable. Your mother barely loved you. I bet you had to run off to that shack every day to feel alive, or else you’d sit at home in your room while your mother screwed her boyfriends.” I stepped toward him, hands steady. “I’m sorry, Gregory, but it’s true. You failed, and the girls you killed never loved you, and never will.”
“You don’t know me,” he said, stepping forward, taking the knife from Rose’s throat.
In that moment, she met my eyes, and she nodded.
I took my chance. I dropped my hands down behind me, falling to one knee. Gregory screamed something at me and started to turn back toward Rose as I drew the gun from my waistband, whipping it forward. His arm cocked back, the knife straight and razor-sharp, and I squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times.
His body jerked as the bullets ripped into his chest. He tried to stab forward, but stumbled sideways, gasping for air, and missed. Rose rolled onto the ground and scrambled away on her side as Gregory hit the mud.
I ran over to him. I’d check on Rose in a second, but first I had to make sure he was down. I stood over him as he choked on blood, the stuff pooling up from his mouth, from his nose. He coughed, gagged, spit. It hit his lungs and his heart, and the mud turned red.
I put my boot on him and pushed his shoulder, getting him flat on his back. He swiped at me with the knife, but I kicked it away.
“They won’t be waiting for you,” I said, grinding my heel into his chest. “They won’t be waiting, and you’ll be alone.”
I saw the fear flash into his eyes. I released him and turned away, letting him die alone in the mud where he belonged.
I shoved the gun back into my waistband and ran to Rose. I ripped the duct tape off her wrists and her mouth then pulled her to me, holding her tight.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she said, breathless, and pulled back to stare into my eyes. “How? How’d you save me?”
“The boys,” I said. “The ones on the bikes. They saw him take you and came to get me.”
She laughed, like a pressure relief valve opening. I grinned a little and hugged her again as the laughter took her over, then turned to sobs, and we stayed there on our knees in the mud as distant sirens screamed, getting closer and closer and closer, and none of that mattered to me, because CGK was dead, Rose was alive, and I could finally, finally, be free.
27
Rose
Detective Starch stood on the front porch with a mug of coffee in her hand. Down on the driveway, cops and federal agents swarmed all over. She sipped it then looked back at me and nodded. “Good work today.”
I snorted. “I didn’t do anything. It was all Nick.”
She turned to face me. She looked gaunt, thinner than I remembered. Most of her injuries had healed, but she still seemed haunted somehow, like what had happened with CGK rattled her, broke her spirit in a way she’d never get back. I hoped that wasn’t true, but I was afraid for her.
“You survived.”
“You did too.”
“I’m not sure he really cared about killing me. I think I was only a message for you. But you survived.”
I shrugged, wrapping my arms around myself. “I don’t feel like I did much of anything.”
Nick was down talking to a guy from his agency, one I didn’t recognize. He glanced back at me and smiled, and I saw something in that smile I hadn’t expected.
“What’ll you do now?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Probably stay here. Fix the place up. Maybe finish college.”
“Foylestown’s a nice place to live.” Her eyes followed mine over to Nick. “I’m not sure he’ll want to stay.”
I blinked and looked at her, and she smiled. It made her look ten years younger. “I don’t— Uh, I mean—”
“Oh, come on, it’s obvious.” She waved a hand in the air. “Relax. You think I give a shit about that?”
“I guess not.” I blushed a little, feeling stupid. “You think he’ll want to go back to New York?”
“I think he’ll ask you to come wi
th him. Or maybe not, maybe he’ll stay. Would you want him to?”
“I haven’t thought about it.”
She laughed once. “Liar.” I grinned at her, but didn’t disagree. “Look, take it from me. At a certain age, you start to wonder what you’ve done, you know what I mean? And when I look back over my life, the only things I regret are people. I don’t regret the jobs I passed up, or the stuff I didn’t buy, or whatever. I regret the people. You hear me?”
“I hear you. I’m just not sure it’s all up to me.”
“Yeah, well, honey, it should be.” She patted my on the shoulder then walked into the house.
Nick came over and leaned against the railing. “What’s that old dog want?”
“Giving me some sisterly advice.”
“Yeah, what about?”
“You, mostly.”
He laughed a little, not sure if I was joking, then glanced out at all the cops. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Right now? They want to ask more questions.”
“Fuck ‘em. Come on.” He took my hand and tugged me along behind him. I followed, and he led me through the crowd of people, down the gravel driveway, and toward the road beyond. He waved off a few questions, and when we were alone, he squeezed my hand. “That’s better. It was crowded back there.”
“Too many cops. And feds.” I made a face.
He laughed and pulled me against him. I stared into his eyes and we kissed, gently, tentative—as if now that CGK was dead, he wasn’t sure if I still wanted him.
As soon as his lips touched mine, I knew the answer to that.
“Do you know what he said to me out there?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t hear.”
“He talked about you.”
“Really? Why?”
“He said he knew I was in love with you.” I felt my pulse racing so fast, it was up in my throat. “He wanted me to know that he didn’t care. That I’d be with my sister, and that I could be happy with him one day, if I learned to forget about you.” I chewed on my lip then touched his cheek. “He said I shouldn’t be alone.”
“He’s right about that one thing,” he said. “You shouldn’t be.”
“What about you?”
He touched my hand. “For a long time, I wasn’t sure. I always thought what happened to Buck might happen to me one day. I thought falling in love was opening yourself up to risk. I saw what happened to my parents after Buck was killed and I just—I didn’t want to go through that.”
“I know what you mean.”
“But I love you, Rose. None of that matters to me anymore. It’s all in the past. It’s all dead, like CGK. I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said.
He kissed me, pulling me tight against him. He held me there and we didn’t move, the only sounds were cars, wind through the trees, and birds nearby. It was perfect, and I didn’t want that kiss to end.
But soon we broke apart.
“I want you to make a decision,” he said. “And whatever you decide, I’m going to respect.”
“About what?”
“About where you want to live. If you want, you can come to New York with me. We’ll find a place to live together. I’ll keep working at the agency. Or, if you want to stay here, I’ll find somewhere to live out here.” He smiled a little, tilting his head. “Unless you’ve got a spare mattress on the floor I can borrow.”
I laughed and pressed my face against his chest. He wrapped his arms around me and held me there. “I actually do have one of those.” I looked up at him. “But can I think about it?”
“Take as long as you want.” He kissed my cheek. “I’m not in any rush.”
We stayed there for a little while, and I felt like the future was spread out before me in a way it hadn’t been since Delia was killed. I felt like I had a chance to have something good, something right, and I could wake up in the morning without fear.
There’d still be sadness. I knew that wouldn’t go away, just like Nick would never forget his brother. Delia would always be there, my ghost sister. She’d live with me, inside of me.
But with that sadness, there’d be some happiness. And there’d be life, and a future, and a world beyond my own misery. I’d have that with Nick.
I didn’t know what I’d be if I’d never met him, or if I’d gone into protective custody, or if I’d done a thousand things different.
And I’m glad I didn’t.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten this moment—this perfect moment.
Someone called Nick’s name from back at the house and we broke apart. He held my hand on the way back, and although we got some looks, he didn’t care, and I didn’t either.
I saw Starch standing on the front porch steps, smiling at me, and she nodded once. I smiled back.
Maybe we’d be friends. Who knew, crazier things have happened.
I leaned my head against Nick’s shoulder, and when the other fed guy started asking me questions about what happened, pushing me to go over the story again, I didn’t mind so much anymore.
I told them every detail, and left nothing out.
I was a blank slate. A happy, blank slate.
28
Rose
Two Years Later
Nick pushed the lawnmower over the grass, back and forth, while I sat on the hammock and drank iced tea. Sweat dripped down his muscular chest and he stopped to look at me, wiping sweat from his brow with one work glove.
“What?” I shouted, shading my eyes.
He killed the lawnmower engine. “I said, you look comfy. Why don’t you help out?”
“I’m working.” I tapped my temple. “Got something brewing up.”
“Of course. You always do.” He laughed a little and stretched his arms. “Place looks good, you know.”
“Yeah, it really does. I’ve got to hand it to you.”
He stood with his hands on his hips, looking at my gramma’s house.
Our house now.
The siding had been redone in a nice, slate gray. The windows were all new, and the back porch had been completely rebuilt and refinished. He did most of the work himself, hiring guys to help when he needed it. He’d put in landscaping, planted flowers, even had a raised vegetable patch, though deer came and ate it, causing him to curse and stalk around with a BB gun, just begging for them to show up again.
We rehabbed the interior one room at a time, starting with the kitchen. He built my dream home, and though the last two years had been a blur of work, power tools, dust, disorder, more work, and lots of late nights, it was nearly finished, and I was in love.
The place was totally different. When we decided to stay in Foylestown and put down roots, we wanted to make this place our home. My Gramma lived here for a long time and was happy here, and I knew she’d love it if we made this place our own.
He walked over and took a sip from my iced tea. He grinned at me and snatched up my hand, admiring the big diamond ring on my finger. “You know, whoever put this here is a lucky man.”
“Lucky, but stupid for stealing my drink.” I took my glass back.
“Ah, come on. You get to watch me out here sweating my ass off while you dream up another story.”
“True, and my story’s going to make us millions.”
He rolled his eyes and kissed me. “I know it, and you won’t let me forget it.”
I held him down and kissed him harder. He walked off when I was finished with him, started the mower, and got back to it.
I relaxed on the hammock, staring up at the sky.
About three months after the CGK case was over, I wrote my story. I decided to write it like fiction, but kept it as close to the truth as I could. The story flowed out of me, and a few months later, I found an agent, sold the book, and now that’s my job. I lounge around most of the day, and write crime novels at night.
Nick was still a Hunter. He didn’t do field work anymore—I made him promise he wouldn’t, and he didn’t seem to mi
nd. They sent him huge folders of material, and he went through it all, bit by bit, cataloguing, reading, marking, and writing up a profile. He must’ve been good at it, because they kept sending him cases, folder after folder. His office looked like a horror show, crammed with crime scene photographs.
I tried not to think about how many serial killers there are wandering around.
That wasn’t my world anymore. Okay, well, sometimes I peeked at his stuff to get some ideas for my books, but still, it wasn’t not my world. I wanted to be a wife and a writer, and that was all.
I was happy. Stupidly, ridiculously happy.
He finished mowing and joined me on the hammock. I didn’t mind when he crammed his sweaty body in next to mine. I kissed him and let him wrap his arms around me—and didn’t even complain when he drank my iced tea.
“What about next month?” he asked, out of nowhere.
“What about what?”
“For the wedding.” He kissed my cheek.
“That’s not a lot of time to plan, you know. You only proposed a few weeks ago.”
“I know, but I don’t want to wait.”
“How about three months from now? We’ll have the ceremony and the party out here.”
“I could cut back some of the woods and make more room.”
“How much of this do we own, anyway?”
He frowned at me. “You don’t know? Your Gramma left your sister, and I guess you now, like half the damn forest.”
I stared at him, eyes wide. “You’re joking?”
“Hell, no. You didn’t look at all that paperwork? She’s owned all this land for a long time. It’s why the place isn’t developed.”
“Holy shit.” I sat up, gaping at him. “I had no clue.”
“Your Gramma was something special.”
“She really was.” I leaned my head against him and kissed his chest. “All right, if you can make me a bigger backyard, I’ll marry you here.”
“That’s a goddamn deal. I love you, Rose.”
“I love you too. Now go away, you smell bad.”