by Karen Rose
But his satisfaction was short-lived. Vartanian had come alone.
He never dreamed Vartanian would come alone. He’d just assumed Alex Fallon would be permanently attached to him as she had been for the last five days. He was finally ready for them and Vartanian had come alone.
If he wanted Alex Fallon to be the icing on his cake, he’d have to find a way to get her to come to him. Otherwise his coup de grâce would fall miserably flat and that would be a real shame. And speaking of his coup de grâce, he had invitations to mail.
He’d started up his van when he saw Vartanian walking across Main Street way up by the bank. Interesting. Daniel was finally visiting the bank. Mack thought finding keys tied to the toes of four dead women would have had the man visiting the bank sooner, but at last he was there.
Mack smiled when he thought about the pictures he knew Vartanian would find inside “Charles Wayne Bundy’s” safe-deposit box. Soon the pillars of the community would be humiliated, and at a minimum they’d all be sent to jail.
Of course, if over the next few hours Mack was successful, they’d all be dead.
Atlanta, Friday, February 2, 12:45 p.m.
Alex hung up the phone on Daniel’s desk and let her shoulders sag.
“Anything wrong?”
She turned to find Luke Papadopoulos watching her in that thoughtful way he had. “I have this feeling that Bailey’s still alive. I’m so . . . frustrated.”
“And you wish somebody would just do something.”
“Yeah. And I know Daniel’s right and that he has all these other people to worry about, but . . . Bailey’s mine. It makes me feel whiny and selfish.”
“You’re not being selfish or whiny. Come on. I’m taking a break for lunch. Usually I eat food from home, but it seems someone has appropriated my lunch.” He narrowed his eyes in the direction of Chase’s office. “He will pay.”
Alex had to smile. “Chase is quite a character. Leigh said the cafeteria has pizza on Fridays.” And she realized she was hungry. She’d left Daniel’s house in such a hurry that morning, she’d skipped breakfast. “Let’s go.” She looked up at him as they left Daniel’s office. He was a breathtakingly handsome man, she thought. Meredith’s type, actually. “So . . . you got a girlfriend?”
His smile flashed bright against his tanned skin. “Why, you tired of Danny already?”
She thought of that morning in Daniel’s bed and felt her cheeks heat. “No. I’m talking about Meredith. You’d like her. She’s fun.”
“Does she like to fish?”
“I really couldn’t say, but I could ask . . .” Her words drained away and she and Luke stopped in the same moment. Standing at the counter talking to Leigh was a woman with a face she recognized. From the tensing of Luke’s body, he recognized her, too.
She was small with sleek dark hair and sad, sad eyes. Her clothes said New York and her body language said she’d rather be anyplace other than where she now stood.
“Susannah,” Alex murmured, and the woman met her eyes.
“You know me?”
“I’m Alex Fallon.”
Susannah nodded. “I’ve read about you.” She turned to Luke. “And you’re Daniel’s friend. I met you at the funeral last week. Agent Papadopoulos, right?”
“Right,” Luke said. “Why are you here, Susannah?”
Susannah Vartanian’s lips curved humorlessly. “I’m not entirely sure. But I think I came to get my life back. And maybe my self-respect.”
Dutton, Friday, February 2, 12:55 p.m.
Such a lure could not be resisted. He watched Frank Loomis stop on the police department steps, open his phone, and check the text message. Loomis narrowed his eyes at the darkened windows of the newspaper office, closed today due to a death in the family. Mack had to smile. The Woolfs were grieving and he was the reason. It took a long time to pay a debt sometimes. When enough time had passed, the interest was huge.
He thought killing Woolf’s sister was a good start toward making good on that debt. He’d used the Woolfs this week and he’d use them a few more times before this was over. But for now, Frank Loomis was getting into his car and driving in the right direction.
The text message had been concise: Got anon tip. Know where Bailey C is. Go 2 old O’B mill by river. Find BC + *many* others. Can’t follow up—at funl home. Wanted you 2 have 411 before Var beat you 2 it. Good luck. Signed, Marianne Woolf.
Frank was on his way. Soon, Vartanian would join him. Mansfield should already be there along with Harvard, the last pillar to fall. It had taken Mack a while to figure out who he was and when he had, even he’d been stunned.
As for Alex Fallon, he had a few ideas for drawing her out. Alex’s entire focus in the last week had been on finding Bailey. And I know where Bailey is. Once the dust from the coming events of the afternoon settled, Alex would want to believe Bailey lived. Now that Delia was dead, Mack had no more plans to leave any more bodies in ditches, until Alex, that was. Perhaps the inactivity would lure her into a false sense of security.
Then again, she’d be grieving Daniel Vartanian’s death, and grief did make people do some very unwise things. Sooner or later, she’d let her guard down, and then he’d have his final victim. His closed circle.
Friday, February 2, 1:25 p.m.
Mansfield stopped next to his desk. “Okay, Harvard, here I am.”
He looked up, eyes widening, then narrowing in a fraction of a second. “Why?”
Mansfield frowned. “Because you sent for me.”
“I did no such thing.”
Mansfield’s heart begin to pound. “I got a text on the disposable. Nobody has that number but you.”
“Obviously someone else does,” Harvard said coldly. “Let me see it.”
Mansfield handed over the phone.
“ ‘Come ASAP. DVar knows about the goods. Moving out today.’ ” His face darkened. “Somebody knows, even if Vartanian doesn’t. You were followed, you fuck-up.”
“No, I wasn’t. I’m sure of it. Initially I was, but I lost the tail.” Technically he’d killed the tail, but Mansfield saw no need to make things worse for himself. “What do we do?”
He was dangerously quiet for a moment. “We’ll take them on the boat.”
“We can only fit half a dozen on the boat.”
Harvard stood, rage coming off him in waves. “When you have something to say that I don’t already know, then speak. Otherwise keep your mouth shut. You get the healthy ones on the boat. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Dutton, Friday, February 2, 1:30 p.m.
Daniel waited until he was outside the Dutton city limits before slamming his fist onto his steering wheel. Swallowing back his temper, he dialed Chase on his cell. “The safe-deposit box was empty,” he snarled without preamble.
“You’re kidding,” Chase said. “Completely empty?”
“Not entirely. There was one little scrap of paper. It said ‘Ha ha.’ ”
“Fuck,” Chase muttered. “Did Rob Davis have a record of who last touched it?”
“Somebody with an ID that said Charles Wayne Bundy. The last time somebody was in the box was about six months after Simon died the first time. I really doubt it was Simon. He wouldn’t have dared appear in public like that, and had Davis known he was really alive, it wouldn’t have stayed a secret long.”
“But I thought Jared’s journal said that Simon had the main key.”
“Either Annette remembered wrong or Jared was mistaken, because somebody else used a copy of Simon’s key to get into the box.”
“Could Rob Davis have had a master?”
“Of course, but he seemed pretty stunned when the box was empty.”
“What did Davis say when you opened the box?”
“Before we opened it he was sweating bullets. Afterward he was relieved . . . and smug.”
“Well, relax. Um, I mean, really relax, because someone here wants to talk to you.”
“Tell Alex I’ll call her back. I�
��m too—”
“Hello, Daniel.”
Daniel’s mouth dropped open and immediately he slowed his car and pulled to the shoulder. His hands were shaking. “Susannah? You’re here? In Atlanta?”
“I’m here. Your friend Luke told me about the pictures you hoped to get from the safe-deposit box. I take it they weren’t there.”
“No, they weren’t. I’m sorry, Suze. We could’ve nailed those bastards.”
She was quiet. “I know where the pictures might be.”
“Where?” But he thought he knew and his stomach got all tight.
“The house, Daniel. I’ll meet you there.”
“Wait.” He clenched his jaw. “Not alone. Put Luke on the phone.”
“I’ll bring her,” Luke said when he took the phone. “I’ll meet you at your parents’ house. Daniel, Alex is standing here. She wants to come.”
“No. Tell her to—”
“Daniel.” Alex had taken the phone from Luke. “You stood by me when I went into my house. Let me do the same for you. Please,” she added softly.
He closed his eyes. His house was filled with ghosts, too. Not in the same way, of course, but ghosts, just the same. And he trusted Luke with his life.
But Alex was even more important than that. And because she was, he needed her there. “All right. Stay with Luke. I’ll meet you all there.”
Friday, February 2, 2:20 p.m.
“Bailey,” Beardsley hissed.
Bailey forced her eyes to open. She had the shakes, real bad. “I’m here.”
“I’m ready for you.”
In another time, another place, those words could have meant something beautiful. Now, here, it meant they were both going to die very soon.
“Bailey?” Beardsley whispered again. “Hurry.”
Oh, God, she needed a fix. Hope needs you. She gritted her teeth. “I’m ready.”
She watched as he moved huge handfuls of the dirt he’d dug away over days until there was a hole barely big enough for Hope. “I won’t fit.”
“You have to. We don’t have time for any more digging. Get on your stomach and put your feet through.” She did and he began to pull, none too gently. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”
She almost laughed. He kept tugging, angling her this way then that. He put his hands on her hips to turn her body to pull her through, but when he came to her breasts, he stopped abruptly. Bailey rolled her eyes. She was on her stomach, half in, half out, filthy and reeking of God only knew what, and Beardsley picked now to get shy.
“Pull,” she whispered. One of his hands slid up her front, one up her back, and he maneuvered her through until he could reach her shoulders. That was even more painful.
“Turn your face to the side.”
She did, and he helped her wiggle her head through so that she didn’t get dirt up her nose. Finally she was on his side of the wall.
And seeing him for the very first time. That he was seeing her for the first time wasn’t anything she even wanted to contemplate. She stared down, ashamed of how she knew she looked. Gently he cupped her chin with a dirty hand. “Bailey. Let me see you.”
Shyly she let him lift her face and even more shyly lifted her eyelids. And she wanted to cry. Under the dirt and the grime and the blood, he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen in her life. He smiled at her, his teeth white against his filthy face. “I’m not that bad, am I?” he murmured teasingly, and the tears she fought welled and spilled.
He pulled her onto his lap and into his arms and rocked her as she’d done Hope so many times. “Sshh,” he whispered. “Don’t cry, baby. We’re almost there.” It made her cry harder, because they were going to die and she’d never get the chance to show him or anyone else what she could have been. They were going to die.
“We’re going to do this,” he whispered fiercely. “They’re moving things. Something’s happening. Close your eyes.” She did and he wiped her tears with his thumbs. “I think I made it worse,” he said lightly, then pulled her back to him for one more hard hug.
“Whatever happens,” she murmured, “thank you.”
He set her off his lap and rose, tall and strong despite his ordeal. He held out his hand. “We don’t have much time.”
She stood on shaky legs. “What are we going to do?”
He smiled again, approval in his eyes. His eyes were warm and brown. She’d remember that, whatever happened. He handed her what had been a chunk of rock, about four inches long, its edge sharpened to a razor finish. “This is yours.”
She stared at it, wide-eyed. “You made this?”
“God made the rock. I just sharpened it. You hold on to it. You may need it if we get separated.”
“What will you do?”
He went to the corner of his cell and brushed at the dirt until he pulled out a sharpened stone, easily three times bigger than hers. “Have you slept at all?” she whispered, and he smiled again.
“Catnaps.” He spent the next ten minutes showing her where and how to pierce an assailant’s body to do the most damage.
Then a door slammed open in the hall and her eyes flew up to his. He looked grim and she was suddenly more afraid than ever. “He’s coming,” she said, shaking.
Beardsley smoothed his hands over her arms. “Then he’s coming,” he said with finality. “We’re ready. Right?”
She nodded.
“Then go curl up over there in the corner. Make yourself as big as you can. You’re supposed to be me.”
“I’d need two of me,” she said, and one side of his mouth lifted fleetingly.
“Three, actually. Bailey, you can’t falter. And if I give you an order, you obey me without question. Do you understand?”
He was coming closer now, opening a door, then firing a single shot. She heard screams from where she’d only heard the weeping before. Horrified, Bailey met Beardsley’s eyes as more doors were opened and more shots fired. The screaming faded as the voices were silenced one by one. “He’s killing them.”
A muscle twitched in Beardsley’s jaw. “I know. Change in plan. You hide behind the door, I’ll stand on the other side. Move, Bailey.”
She obeyed and he took up position next to the door, his big dagger in one hand. A second later the door flew open and she covered her face to keep from being hit. Bailey heard a strangled cry and a gurgle and then a thump.
“Let’s go,” Beardsley said. She stepped over the body of one of the guards she’d seen one of the times he’d taken her back to the office. Beardsley wiped the dagger against his pants, cleaning off the blood, then he was running, dragging her behind him.
But her knees were weak and her legs so bruised she kept stumbling. “Just go,” she said. “You run. Leave me here.”
But he didn’t let go, dragging her past one cell, then another. Some were empty. Most were not. Bailey gagged at the sight of the girls, chained and bleeding. Dead.
“Don’t look,” he barked. “Just run.”
“I can’t.”
He picked her up and tucked her under his arm like she was a football. “You’re not dying on my watch, Bailey,” he gritted, running around the corner.
Then Beardsley stopped and she looked up. He stood in the middle of the hall and he had a gun. Beardsley tossed her and she landed on her knees. “Run,” he barked.
Then Beardsley plowed into him and knocked him against the wall. Bailey made herself get up and run while the two men grappled behind her. She heard the sickening sound of bone hitting the concrete wall, but she kept going.
Until she saw the girl. She was battered and blood oozed from a hole in her side and a second, glancing wound to her head. She’d clawed her way across her cell and had stretched out one arm into the hall. But she was still alive.
Weakly the girl lifted her hand. “Help me,” she whispered. “Please.”
Without thinking Bailey grabbed the girl’s hand and dragged her to her feet. “Move.”
Dutton, Friday, February 2,
2:35 p.m.
Daniel stood on the front porch of his family’s house, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. It was here he’d stood, nearly three weeks ago, with Frank Loomis. Frank had told him his parents “might be missing.” Of course they were already long dead. But Daniel’s search for them had led him to Philadelphia and Simon and the pictures. His search for the pictures had led him right back here.
“Déjà vu all over again?” Luke asked softly and Daniel nodded.
“Yeah.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open and found his feet wouldn’t move.
Alex slipped her arm around his waist. “Come on.” She tugged him over the threshold and he stopped in the foyer, his eyes doing a sweep of the place. He’d hated this house. Hated every brick of it. He turned to find Susannah doing a similar sweep. She was pale, but as she had during the entire ordeal in Philly, she was holding up.
“Where?” he asked.
Susannah pushed by him and started up the stairs. He followed, holding Alex’s hand as tightly as he dared. Luke brought up the rear, alert and watching.
Upstairs, Daniel frowned. Doors he’d closed the last time he was here were opened and a painting on the hall wall was askew. He pushed open the door to his parents’ bedroom. The room had been ransacked, the mattress slashed.
“They’ve been here,” he said flatly. “Looking for Simon’s key.”
“This way,” Susannah said tightly, and they followed her into what had been Simon’s room. It, too, had been ransacked, but there had been nothing in the drawers or under the bed for them to find. Daniel’s father had disposed of that a long time ago.
There was, he thought, an evilness hanging in the air. Or perhaps it was just his imagination. But Alex’s face had taken on an uncomfortable cast.
“It has kind of a presence, doesn’t it?” she whispered, and he squeezed her hand.
Susannah stood at the closet door, her hands opening and closing into fists at her sides. She was still pale, but she squared her shoulders resolutely. “I could be wrong. There might be nothing here,” she said, then opened the door. The closet was empty, but she walked inside anyway. “Did you know this house has hidey-holes, Daniel?”
Something in her voice had the hairs rising on the back of his neck. “Yes. I thought I knew them all.”