‘Thanks.’ The guy dropped his hand from Evan’s arm. Dismissed him by turning all his interest to his beer. ‘Enjoy your day.’
Chapter 41
‘ARRANGING A DATE WITH your new friend?’ Guillory said when Evan joined her outside. He showed her a hand gesture.
‘The guy had a tattoo like Dixie’s.’
Her eyebrows lifted.
‘Maybe it’s a gang thing. Perhaps he had to do it when he went undercover.’
‘I’m not so sure—’
‘Anyway, we can think about that later. We need to get over to the house where Sarah doesn’t live. Then maybe you can start to think straight again.’
They drove to the address Carly had given him without saying much. There wasn’t anything that hadn’t already been said. But it made for an uncomfortable journey. She parked a couple of doors down from number twenty-three, switched off the engine. They sat there a long time staring at the house. Neither of them made any move to get out.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ he said. He didn’t move.
She heard the stress in his voice, the attempt to hide it. She got out first. He followed her. Stood a couple of paces behind her as she knocked on the door. Whoever opened the door would see her first, then a little face peering around from behind her like a small boy watching a scary movie from behind the sofa.
She stepped backwards to look up at the house when nobody answered. As she moved to the side he noticed something on the front door.
‘What’s that?’
She looked where he was pointing. Stiffened.
‘What is it?’
‘Looks like bloody fingerprints.’
They both knew then it wasn’t going to end well. It was just a question of how badly. Her years on the job had prepared her for most things. His imagination was at this very moment preparing him. She was very glad she wasn’t him.
She pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves. Thought about giving him a pair to stop him becoming suspicious. Any minute now he was going to pull her out of the way, kick down the door. She went to work on the lock with a set of picks. It only took a minute before she had the door open.
‘Let me go first.’
He nodded as she opened the door slowly. Stepped carefully inside. The smell told her everything she needed to know. Once experienced, never forgotten.
Without warning she kicked the door shut in his face.
He hammered on it with his fists. Yelled at her through it, words she didn’t think she deserved even in the circumstances. They’d probably laugh about it later.
Ha!
Depending on what she found in this house they might never laugh again, either of them.
She turned away from the front door. Set off down the hallway to where the smell was coming from. A trail of bloody footprints started out faint, increasing in definition towards the closed kitchen door in front of her.
She didn’t want to open that door.
Behind her the hammering grew louder, more persistent. At least he wasn’t shouting now.
She stood in front of the door, her hand on the knob. Inside the latex gloves her palms were slick with sweat. Evan stopped banging abruptly, somehow sensing the point at which she stood. She held her breath, the rushing of her blood in her ears the only sound.
She pushed the door open. Stared into the charnel house that used to be somebody’s kitchen.
Jesus Christ.
Her stomach lurched. Salty bile hot in the back of her throat. She held it down somehow.
The horror in front of her eyes should have wiped her mind clean of any and everything. But it didn’t. She was suddenly back in the bar Evan insisted on going to. The photograph of Carly in her hand. Looking up and down the bar. Playing games. Pretending she was looking for an arm with a bracelet on it.
Stupid.
She deserved to be suspended. If it was her call she’d fire her own sorry ass.
So, so stupid.
She’d been looking in the wrong place.
Not so stupid now.
She was looking in the right place now.
There it was. Sitting right there. On the dead woman’s arm.
It was a nice bracelet. Just like she’d said. Even with all the blood on it.
Then she discovered something else, something about herself. Despite what she’d told Evan, she realized she didn’t actually know what Sarah looked like. A vague recollection of a face in a missing persons file loitered at the edges of her memory, taunting her.
Is it or isn’t it?
There was no way to tell. Not with the dead woman’s hair hanging down over her face the way it was.
She still had the latex gloves on. She collected the woman’s hair together carefully. Pulled it away from her face. Tilted the head backwards.
The young woman tied to the chair looked up at her with her dead eyes, eyes that begged for deliverance or help or proof that something, anything, waited for her beyond this kitchen.
She gently lowered the woman’s head. Closed her own eyes wishing they too were beyond seeing.
An explosion of noise behind her snapped them open as Evan started hammering on the front door again, the doorframe creaking in protest. She stepped carefully out of the kitchen, closed the door gently behind her.
Only Evan could tell her if the dead woman was Sarah. But she couldn’t shout at him through the front door. It didn’t seem right somehow, a final disrespectful indignity for the woman in the kitchen, to be discussed in raised voices through a locked door.
She stood staring at the front door a long moment, the second door in under five minutes she wished she didn’t have to open. She swallowed thickly, tried to get rid of the lump in her throat, maybe take her heart back down with it. Because this time it was so much worse. Knowing that what waited patiently in the kitchen might well be Evan’s worst nightmare come true, a climax to his years of searching so horrific she couldn’t begin to imagine what it would do to him.
Except she could.
It would tear him apart.
And she didn’t know if she’d be able to put the pieces back together in a form that would in any way resemble the man who was becoming an increasingly important part of her life. Despite all his faults.
Her hand moved towards the door as if it belonged to somebody else, somebody who didn’t give a damn about the consequences. She opened the door slowly. At least it started off moving slowly. Then it accelerated hard as Evan took control, pushing it all the way open, squashing her between the door and the wall.
He strode past her without a look, a man on a mission, hell-bent on unearthing the truth whatever the cost. His face was a picture of grim determination, eyes wide, locked on the kitchen door ahead, nostrils flaring like a thoroughbred racehorse, deaf to anything and anyone beyond the voices inside his head.
‘Evan!’
The scream bounced off his back, could’ve been heard halfway down the street. She might as well have yelled at the wall, she’d have got more reaction. If she hadn’t been suspended, didn’t have a strange empty feeling on her hip where her gun should be, she’d have drawn it and shot him or at least hit him over the head with it.
As it was, she launched herself at him, an unintelligible howl in her throat. Caught him in the lower back with her shoulder, spinning him. With her arms clamped around his body they flew through the air. Slammed into the ground hard, an explosion of pain in her right hand as his full weight and hers on top of that mashed it into the floor.
It was like rassling a bull walrus.
He thrashed and bucked and roared. Couldn’t have been harder to hold onto if he’d been greased head to toe. She locked her hands, shut out the screaming pain. Clamped her arms tighter around him. Her grip was slipping.
She butted him on the lips. Split them in an instant.
He stopped thrashing for a fraction of second.
‘What color are Sarah’s eyes?’
He blinked once, started up thrashing agai
n, more insistent than before.
‘Evan! What color?’
She spat the words into his face, a string of saliva mixing with the blood on his lips.
Finally, it got through to him. She felt his body relax in her arms. He swallowed a mouthful of blood.
‘Blue.’
She dropped her head, her forehead resting against his lips. Felt the wetness of his blood on her skin. Wondered if he could feel the wetness of her tears on his chin.
‘Like yours.’
All the tension and horror that had been building inside her since she stepped into the kitchen came pouring out in one long shuddering rush.
‘It’s . . .’
Her voice cracked, her throat dry and scratchy.
‘It’s not her.’
They lay there a long time, chests heaving in time with each other. She knew as soon as the real Buckley, the one she . . . she didn’t know what, was back.
‘Jesus Christ, Kate. If you wanted a hug, all you had to do was ask.’
She punched him in the head then. Hard. It hurt her more than him.
Despite that, if it hadn’t been a crime scene with a dead body ten feet away, they’d have made love right then and there in the hallway with the front door wide open. He wanted to see what she looked like wearing nothing but those blue latex gloves.
Chapter 42
‘SPOKEN TO RACHEL LATELY?’ Evan said. He reckoned he deserved a medal. A big shiny one. It had taken everything he had to resist calling Carly from the backseat of the taxi on the way to his hotel. But even he knew it wasn’t the sort of conversation you wanted anybody to overhear. When he came to make the call, he found himself strangely calm, detached.
After he’d disentangled himself from Guillory in Rachel’s hallway, he’d persuaded her to let him look at the body. Just to make sure. She might have been wrong about the eye color, he’d said. She hadn’t been happy about it. Told him she knew the difference between blue and brown. Tried to tell him people of no official standing were finished here. Then she’d seen something in his eyes, something that told her he was going to look for himself—with or without her permission. He’d said thank-you anyway. Almost as if it was her idea.
Now, back in his hotel room, a guilty silence came down the line. In the background glasses clinking, men talking and women laughing. A jukebox playing something mellow.
Happy sounds. Normal sounds. Sounds he didn’t think would ever be a part of his life again.
That’s when he ripped into her. Like he wasn’t ever going to stop. A torrent of grisly details he didn’t know had even registered pouring through the conduit of his subconscious mind, spewing out of his mouth, unhindered by any everyday decency or inhibition. He heard a chugging sound in the back of her throat. A bang as her phone hit the floor. He realized he was talking to empty air.
Then a loud clatter in his ear. Somebody had kicked her phone.
‘This belong to anybody?’
A man’s voice. He sounded like he’d been drinking all day. Nobody said anything for a minute. Then Carly’s voice.
‘It’s mine.’
There was a dirty laugh, the same man’s voice.
‘Looks like somebody had too much to drink.’
‘Give me that,’ he heard her hiss.
A long pause. He imagined the guy puckering up. Holding the phone at arm’s length as he pushed his face towards her for his quid pro quo. He got it too. Although not what he was expecting. There was a loud slap. Evan felt it all the way down the line. The sound of men laughing. A muttered word—bitch.
You have no idea, Evan thought to himself.
‘Is she dead?’ Carly said, finally coming back on the line. Her voice sounded like she swallowed her tongue several times.
‘Why? Worried about your money?’
‘Do the words piss off mean anything to you, you bastard?’ She packed a lot of venom, a lot of hatred into those two words.
‘I’m the bastard? I didn’t set those animals on a friend of mine.’
‘I didn’t set anybody on her.’
She said it a little too fast. As if she’d practiced in the mirror in anticipation of an accusation she knew was coming. He wondered if the mirror had got sick of her lies too.
‘Let me rephrase that for you. Who else did you give your friend’s address to?’
‘Nobody. And stop saying that.’
‘You lying bitch.’
There was a sharp intake of breath.
‘Don’t you dare talk to me like that.’
‘Or what? You’ll set Chico’s guys on me too.’
‘I didn’t—’
‘Cut the crap, Carly. You wouldn’t tell me before why he let you go. Now I know. I’m not surprised you didn’t want to tell me. You must be really proud of yourself.’
‘It’s not like that—’
The phone creaked and flexed in his hand. He looked around the room as if he was hoping he might find somebody hiding somewhere—behind the curtains maybe—that he could punch. There wasn’t anybody of course. He kicked the nightstand. Sent it flying across the room. The lamp crashed to the floor along with the cheap radio alarm.
‘What was that?’
He ignored her.
‘Did you give Dixie the address?’
‘No, why—’
‘Did he know Rachel?’
She didn’t answer immediately. When she did he didn’t think it was possible to fake the disbelief in her voice.
‘You’re not suggesting it was him, are you?’
‘Did he know her?’
‘Yes. But he wouldn’t do that. I know he wouldn’t.’
He laughed as he realized he’d caught her out in her own lies.
‘Really? Well, seeing as you didn’t tell Chico, it must have been him. You can’t have it both ways.’
In the background somebody turned the volume up on the jukebox. The sound of Willie Nelson’s voice smothered her reply.
‘What was that?’
‘I said it might be somebody else entirely.’
He wouldn’t have wanted to bet good money on the amount of conviction in her voice.
‘Right. A random serial killer, perhaps.’ He clicked his fingers, nodded to himself. ‘Or maybe it was the same people who shot JFK. And didn’t somebody see Elvis hanging around?’
He pictured her face on the other end of the line. Sour. Twisted. He hoped the wind changed.
‘How did he know her?’
‘His brother was seeing her.’
For the second time that day it was as if someone had used a cattle prod on him.
‘Brother?’
‘Yes, brother. You know what that is, don’t you?’
‘I didn’t know he had a brother.’
‘Any reason why you should?’
‘What’s his name?’
‘What does it matter?’
He was sick of talking to her. Sick of her never answering a straight question. Always coming back with another question. He didn’t need the answer anyway—the guy had told him enjoy your day in a bar at lunchtime.
The way it turned out, he hoped nobody ever wished him that again.
He ended the call. Switched his phone off.
Chapter 43
‘WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOUR phone?’ Guillory said when Evan let her into the hotel room.
He pulled it out, checked it. He hadn’t switched it back on after hanging up on Carly.
‘Nice place.’
She looked around. Crossed the room to where the nightstand was still lying on its side. Picked it up.
‘The usual place is by the bed, but then I’m old fashioned.’
He took it out of her hands. Put it back where it belonged, set the lamp and alarm back on it.
‘Good to see you’re looking after the place.’
She fell backwards onto the bed with a thump. Bounced up and down several times. Then turned her head sideways and smelled the covers.
‘Mmm. Smells good t
oo. Not sure what all those aromas are, but if you asked me to guess—’
‘I didn’t.’
He wasn’t quick enough to stop her making a couple of unpleasant suggestions. He kicked her feet off the covers.
She grunted, swung her legs off and sat on the edge.
‘Well, that was a different day. You got a fridge in here?’
‘That’s it over there.’ He pointed at the fridge in the corner. ‘The white, boxy thing in the corner.’
‘Anything in it? And I don’t mean a stale, half-eaten cheese sandwich.’
Evan got them both a beer. They weren’t very cold.
‘It’s not very cold.’ She took a long swallow anyway. ‘Anything to eat?’
‘Sorry.’
‘Not even any potato chips?’
‘Uh-uh. So, how was your day, honey?’
‘Ryder’s pissed with me, for one.’
‘Welcome to my world.’ He saluted her with his beer bottle. ‘You get used to it.’
‘I had to tell him about my visit to the evidence room this morning. He wasn’t happy about that.’ She smiled to herself at the memory. ‘There was a lot of arm waving, finger pointing, that sort of thing. I told him it’s dangerous when your face turns that color. He wouldn’t listen.’ She took another pull on her beer. ‘Then I told him I saw the address written on a sheet of paper along with that coded gibberish. After that I told it pretty much as it was. Apart from the fact that I didn’t mention you being there, of course.
‘Naturally he wanted to know what I thought I was doing wasting my time and risking my career for a cocksucker—his word, not mine, although it’s growing on me—like you.
‘Before I forget, he said they’re trying to track down some crazy in a pickup truck. There was an incident in that bar, Dexter’s, the night before he was shot with this Vietnam vet who drives a beat-up pickup. The witness to the shooting said a pickup took off right around the time he heard the shots.’
She shrugged amiably like maybe it was nothing, maybe it’d save Evan’s bacon, it was all the same to her.
‘What’s the matter with you?’
It took him a moment to find his vocal chords. He couldn’t believe he’d forgotten about his brush with the crazy guy in the pickup.
‘Yo! Evan.’
Hunting Dixie Page 18