The Guilty

by David Baldacci

  Robie pushed the door open and looked around.

  It was set up as a study, with a desk, bookshelves, and comfortable chairs.

  “Dad!” cried out Robie.

  His father was lying on the floor next to his desk. His head had a bloody gash in the back and Dan Robie was struggling to get up.

  Robie and Reel rushed over to him.

  “Dad, just stay where you are. What happened?”

  “Some…somebody hit me. From behind.”

  “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

  “N-no. Just m-my head.”

  “Did you see who hit you?”

  His father shook his head and then slumped back down.

  Reel was already calling 911. She ordered an ambulance and then phoned the police.

  “They’re on their way,” she said.

  Robie was holding his father’s head.

  “Get me a wet towel.”

  Reel ran out to do this.

  Robie said, “Just take it easy, Dad. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Vic-Victoria. T-Ty?”

  “It’s okay, just keep still. The ambulance is on its way.”

  While Robie was waiting for Reel he glanced around the office looking for any clues that might lead them to whoever had done this.

  One shelf was devoted to sports memorabilia. As he saw this, he gaped.

  When Reel came back in with the wet towel, Robie had her apply it to his father’s head wound, then he bolted out of the room and down the stairs.

  He hurtled onto the front porch, hung a left, and rushed around to the rear of the house. He reached the garage and went inside.

  The Volvo was gone.

  The Range Rover was there.

  Robie raced over to it and stared for a moment at the New Orleans sticker on the back of the SUV. He used his knife to peel it off.

  Underneath was what he thought he’d find.

  A bullet hole.

  The bullet hole caused by my gun when I fired it at the vehicle driving away from Sara Chisum’s murder.

  The bullet hole in the Range Rover in Sherman Clancy’s garage had been created later. So it would be found and concluded that that vehicle was involved and not this one.

  The ambulance arrived at the same time the police did. Taggert had phoned and let Robie know that she and Sheriff Monda were on their way. A BOLO had been put out on the Volvo and Victoria and Tyler Robie.

  Robie led Reel back to the garage and showed her the bullet hole.

  “How’d you find that?” she asked.

  “The shelf full of Dallas Cowboy memorabilia in my dad’s study. Why would a Cowboys fan have a Saints sticker?”

  “But who put it there?”

  “Whoever shot Sara Chisum. The same person who took Victoria and Ty.”

  “But why the hell kill Priscilla?”

  “I don’t know.”

  They raced back around to the front of the house.

  “Where do you think they’ve taken Victoria and Ty?” asked Reel.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why even kidnap them?’

  “I don’t know, okay?” barked Robie.

  “Okay,” said Reel calmly. “Okay. It could be Henry Barksdale.”

  “Why would he come here and do this?”

  “It’s his old homestead. If he’s crazy enough to kill all these people, then he might have come here and attacked your father, killed Priscilla, and then taken Victoria and Ty. Maybe he saw them as interlopers.”

  “If it was Barksdale he could be anywhere,” noted Robie.

  “Not anywhere. Like you said, Priscilla’s body was still warm. This did not happen that long ago. He couldn’t have gone far.”

  Robie’s expression cleared and he said, “Maybe he went to—”

  At that moment his father came out on a gurney and Robie and Reel helped load his father into the ambulance.

  “How is he?” Robie asked one of the paramedics.

  “Concussion and a nasty gash, but he seems okay otherwise. Vitals are strong. He’s a tough guy.”

  Robie said, “Give me a minute.” He climbed up into the ambulance and sat next to his father.

  “You’re going to be okay,” said Robie. “Lucky they hit you in the head. It’s unbreakable.”

  His father stared at him grimly. “Where are they? They told me Victoria and Tyler are missin’.”

  “We don’t know. We believe Henry Barksdale is behind this.”

  “Barksdale! Why the hell would he take Victoria and my son, damn it?”

  Robie put a calming hand on the older man’s shoulder. “We’ll find them. I have an idea of where they might have gone. Somewhere on the old Clancy farm. And Dad, whoever killed Sara Chisum was driving your Range Rover.”

  “What?”

  Robie explained about the New Orleans Saints sticker covering the bullet hole.

  His father had partly risen in his anxiety. Then he slowly lowered himself back down.

  “You okay?” asked Robie anxiously.

  “I’m…I’m just very tired.” He gripped his son’s hand. “Please find them.”

  “I will, Dad. I promise. I will.”

  Robie climbed out of the ambulance, the paramedics closed the doors, and the vehicle drove off. Then he sprinted toward the car with Reel right behind him.

  “Where are we going?” she called out.

  “To where all this really started.”

  * * *

  It took them nearly an hour to get there. They drove as close as they could to the old shack on Sherman Clancy’s farm, then continued on foot from there.

  There was little moonlight, and twice they stumbled as they made their way quickly over the uneven ground.

  Even at this late hour the air was so humid that Robie’s clothes were plastered to him. They heard rustlings and the occasional rattle from the woods, but trudged on.

  They slowed as they drew closer to the old wooden structure. It was dark. They could hear nothing from inside. They circled the building and then came back around to the front.

  Then they pulled their weapons and approached the door slowly.

  “I didn’t see the Volvo anywhere,” whispered Reel.

  Robie nodded, his gaze tight on the shack. In his mind he imagined little kids trooping in there, no doubt believing they would be fed and looked after only to have something else, something horrible, happen to them.

  They reached the small porch. The wood creaked under their feet.

  Robie’s hand tightened on his gun. He slipped off the sling so he could make use of his other arm.

  Reel flitted over to the other side of the door. She leaned against the wall and looked at him. In barely a whisper she said, “No back door. This is the only way in or out.”

  He nodded, pointed at Reel, held up three fingers, and then slowly dropped them one at a time.

  When the last finger went down, Reel kicked open the door and sprang inside.

  Robie was right behind her. They started to do their sweeps and then stopped.

  In the middle of the room was Tyler, sitting in a chair.

  Robie froze for an instant when he saw the little boy. In his mind flashed the child he’d seen reaching for his father. It just came from nowhere, like the thrust of a knife into his belly.

  “Robie!”

  It was Reel. He jerked out of his paralysis. But not in time.

  The shot rang out.

  There was a grunt, then a gasp, and a body dropped to the floor.

  A light came on, blinding Robie.

  He looked down to see Reel on the floor unconscious and bleeding.

  Then the voice called out from the periphery of darkness.

  “Hello, Will, it’s been a long time.”

  Chapter

  76

  THE LIGHT WAS shifted, and Robie could see it was coming from a battery-operated camping lantern.

  Now he could see the person standing in one corner of the room.

  It was
not Henry Barksdale holding a gun pointed at Robie.

  Victoria looked back at him, the tightest of smiles playing over her lips.

  Robie stared back at her, his mind unable to process what was happening.

  She took two steps forward.

  “Please put your weapon on the floor and kick it toward me,” she said. “And I know you keep another one in the waistband at the small of your back. I saw that before. Do the same with that one.”

  When Robie didn’t move, Victoria pointed her gun at Reel. “The next one is the kill shot.”

  Robie placed his gun on the floor, then took out his backup and kicked them both toward Victoria.

  “Please do the same with your partner’s.”

  Robie did so, and Victoria, without ever taking her gaze off Robie, used her foot to move the four guns to the far back wall and behind her.

  “Who are you?” asked Robie.

  “I’m very surprised by that question, Will. I thought by now you would know.”

  He looked at Reel. “She needs medical help. Now!”

  “That won’t be happening.”

  Robie bent down to check Reel. The shot had hit her in the oblique and gone completely through. Still, the bleeding was bad. Robie used his sling to staunch the flow.

  “Get away from her, Will.”

  “She’s going to die if I don’t stop the bleeding.”

  “You’re both going to die, so it doesn’t really matter. Now stand up.”

  He glanced at her to see that her pistol was now pointed at Tyler. The little boy looked up at his mother with an expression of horror.

  “You’d…you’d shoot your own son?” said Robie slowly.

  “Stand up,” she said once more, the absolute calm in her voice more unnerving than if she had been screaming at him.

  Robie slowly rose.

  “Who are you?” he asked again.

  “How was your trip to the east coast, Will? Was it fun going solo? Did you not miss me the least little bit when you left Cantrell?”

  Robie stiffened like he’d received an electric shock.

  “You can’t be…” He couldn’t finish the thought.

  “I can be. And I am.”

  “Laura Barksdale is dead. Back at the mental facility.”

  “Well, in a great many ways, you’re right, Laura is dead. But in one important facet she’s not.” She ran a hand over herself. “The proof is literally standing in front of you, Will.”

  Robie swayed a bit on his feet. Then he shook his head stubbornly. “You don’t look anything like her. You’re taller. You’re blonde. Your face. Your voice. You’re not her.”

  “I grew two inches when I was nineteen. Barksdale trait, apparently. Really changed my body. The face? Plastic surgery. The hair? Dyed. The voice? You don’t sound anything like you used to, either. You leave Mississippi you start pronouncing your g’s again. And my brown eyes turned to baby blues by the miracle of laser surgery.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  “How many people do you think recognize their high school classmates at their twenty-fifth reunion, Will? Between eighteen and their forties, people change. They get fat or thin, bald or bottle blond. We remember them as taller or shorter.” She paused. “But I must admit, I changed more than most.”

  “Why? Why do all that?”

  “Because I didn’t want anything left of the old Laura. I really didn’t like her very much, Will. Or rather I didn’t like what had happened to her. What others had done to her.”

  “This is not possible,” said Robie. “You can’t be Laura.”

  “The last thing you said to me twenty-two years ago? Do you want me to tell you? I remember it like you said it twenty-two seconds ago. Do you want to hear it, Will?”

  When Robie said nothing she continued. “You told me, ‘I will always be there for you, Laura.’ That’s what you said to me by the rock wall next to my dear mother’s fabulous Barksdale garden.”

  Now Robie took a step back, his glistening eyes widening in shock as the truth swept over him.

  “But you weren’t always there for me, Will. In fact, you were never there for me, were you? Not when I really needed you.”

  When Reel moaned, Robie looked down at her and then back to Victoria. “Please let me get her help. Then you can do what you want with me.”

  Victoria shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way. This plays out on my terms, not yours.”

  Robie knelt next to Reel and put a comforting hand on her shoulder while he tightened the sling around her wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

  “I told you not to do that. I won’t say it again.”

  Robie rose. “Why did you kill all those people?”

  “It wasn’t madness, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not all people who kill are mad, Will. You’ve killed, right? You’ve killed people here. And Dan told me that you serve your country somehow which also involves killing people. So are you deranged? Are you mad? I doubt you think you are.”

  Robie said nothing, but his breathing accelerated and he felt as if a giant hand were smashing down on his chest.

  Victoria leaned against the wall but kept the gun pointed at him. “If you want explanations, here they are. Janet Chisum was a slut. She sold herself to Sherman Clancy. So did her sister. For money. I befriended both of them. And then killed them.”

  “Emma Chisum said Janet was going to make money off some secrets of important people in town.”

  Victoria snorted. “Janet Chisum was a liar. But she told her kid sister a little of the truth. I was the important person who was going to give Janet money. After Janet was dead I told Sara that maybe her father was the killer. That maybe all that religion had made him nuts. I told her she needed to get out of town. That I would help her. That I felt sorry for her. Wanted her to have a better life.” She added in a scoffing tone, “As if. Old horny men and stupid, greedy young women, just doesn’t work out. I didn’t like it. So I stopped it. But I have to admit, I didn’t know you two would be there when I killed Sara. That was a bit of a complication. It was lucky I saw her in town that day and told her to meet just off the road instead of in the clearing. Otherwise, we might have had this confronation earlier.”

  “I put a round in the Rover. You covered the hole with a New Orleans Saints sticker. And then you fired a round into the Rover in Clancy’s garage to make it seem as though that Rover was used. Only you apparently didn’t remember that Dad is a Cowboys fan.”