“I got that.” He nodded, his jaw tight and his expression guarded.
“So what do you know,” she asked, “about a guy named Leroy Coffer? Or maybe you’d know him by his nickname, Coffin.”
Sam shook his head. “Never heard of him. Who is he?”
“Someone else my sister called, supposedly quite a few times. Might’ve been that guy we saw. The one with the tattoos.”
“I don’t think I ever saw him before last night,” Sam said. “I was hoping the son of a bitch was one of those killed in the explosion. Are they thinking maybe he was Balderach’s shooter?”
She nodded. “He has a history of drug-dealing. And a history of violence toward women, too.”
“Your sister didn’t seem the type to put up with that sort of thing,” Sam said. “I’ve seen her deflect troublemakers over at Hammett’s more than once. She has a real talent for insisting on good manners, making sure folks treat her with respect without pissing them off. Even the guys in the Play Room, from what I’ve heard. And everybody seems to like her for it.”
Ruby felt a rush of gratitude to hear this reminder of the sister she believed in, the sister she had trusted with her only child. “Misty has plans for her life,” Ruby agreed, “and they don’t include hooking up with losers. But even smart women get fooled sometimes, and if this really was the guy…”
Fear strangled the thought, fear of what a man like Coffin could have done to Misty—or especially to Zoe, who was too young to defend herself.
“I have to go now,” Ruby said. “Elysse is expecting me.”
“Are you okay to drive there?” he asked. “You look pretty shaken up.”
“I’ll be fine, but what about you? You want me to drive your boat over to the dock? You’re really not in any condition—”
To her astonishment, he took her hand and squeezed it as he held her gaze. “You just worry about yourself and your family, Ruby. I’ve been in charge of looking after Sam McCoy a good long while.”
As he headed toward the dock, Ruby stood watching, astonished at the chasm of need that had opened with his touch. She’d been four years without a man in her life; would the ache have been so deep with any male contact, no matter how innocent?
Or did something about Sam McCoy leave her vulnerable to the same charms that had already hurt Elysse—and maybe Misty, too?
C HAPTER E LEVEN
A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” I suppose we all thought that one way or another.
—J. Robert Oppenheimer,
speaking of the detonation of his invention,
the first atomic bomb
Of course he’d waited for her, even as night fell all around him.
Once committed to a plan, a project, or a promise, he could wait tirelessly, heedless of the hunger, fatigue, and impatience that would compel any of the hollow men, the shadows, to give up.
It was one of his gifts, and one that caused others to seek him out and offer contracts, for he was the one factor upon which his employer might rely, the single constant in a world inconstant.
As well, it was a point of pride, and so the boatman waited in a spot where the boughs bent near the sunken dock, a place where silvery green moss hung like a crone’s hair, its tips grazing the surface of the water. It formed a shroud of sorts, made acrid but more bearable by the familiar reek of burning tobacco. Thus hidden, he sat watching through field glasses for a silhouette, watching for the woman to pass before the outside light.
Watching and waiting for the moment he would rain fresh hell upon her head.
Ruby tried calling several times on her way back, but Elysse’s line kept kicking over to voice mail. Ruby hoped like hell that didn’t mean her friend was busy calling out the National Guard to hunt her down.
But that didn’t make sense, since Elysse hadn’t tried her cell phone. More than likely, she was simply caught up recruiting more volunteers for the search effort. Elysse might stink at romantic relationships, but she had always had a talent for organizing people in efforts ranging from their ten-year class reunion to a blood drive put together for a girl badly injured by a hit-and-run driver.
By the time Ruby reached Elysse’s neighborhood, she’d long since turned on the headlights against the deepening gloom. With no street illumination, she relied on an occasional outside security light to mark her progress. Some of the houses were lit from the inside, too, but at least half remained dark, more evidence that many of the canal properties were vacation homes or rentals more often occupied during summer vacations.
She was glad to see Elysse’s place lit and an outdoor light left burning at the corner of the house. After parking the Corolla underneath it, Ruby climbed out and headed toward the wooden staircase.
On the second step, she paused, hearing a bubbling thrum so familiar it shouldn’t trouble her; it did anyway. Boat motor, she decided, but very near. She turned her head toward the canal but saw nothing in the moonless darkness, unless…oh God. Was that tiny orange glow a burning cigarette?
The motor suddenly cut off, and a warning skittered cockroach-quick up her back. Though it might be nothing, just a neighbor out for a last smoke and a cold brew, raw instinct sent her pounding up the steps.
Bolting through the screen door—thanking God Elysse had unlocked it for her—Ruby whipped around and flipped the latch behind her. Though she saw no one in the circle of light below, heard no sound to alarm her, she let herself inside the sliding glass and locked that door behind her, too.
So it was that the first blood she saw came as a splash of crimson in her peripheral vision, a sidelong glimpse as she turned. Before her mind could frame what she’d seen with any semblance of meaning, she saw Elysse’s black cat huddled in a corner, its fur bristling and its whiskers dangling with fat, red globules weighing down its ends.
Still uncomprehending, Ruby stared at the Persian, who flattened its ears and hissed, its orange eyes huge.
“What’s wrong, Bubba? Are you hurt?” Ruby asked. Turning, she called, “Elysse, there’s something wrong with your—”
First, Ruby spotted the telephone, left off its hook atop a counter. Behind the kitchen island, the line of one bare leg caught her eye. A bare leg lying in an impossibly huge puddle, a dark slick bordered by two sets of smeary footprints: the small, red tracks left by the black cat and two larger ones from what appeared to be the sole of a man’s boot.
She jumped when the phone tucked inside her purse began to ring.
C HAPTER T WELVE
We are battling fanatics who kidnap and behead civilians and shoot fleeing children in the back. There can be no dialogue with such people….
—U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas
Ignoring the phone, Ruby thought: This can’t be. It can’t be right.
She peered around the corner of the kitchen island, then sank into a squat, her legs trembling too violently to hold her, her eyes closing against a sight too unspeakable to absorb in one glimpse. She wrapped her arms around her knees and whispered to herself that this had to be some kind of flashback, some remnant of the war lodged in her mind like shrapnel.
Kidnappings weren’t a daily fact of life in Texas.
Friends weren’t butchered like cattle—no, executed—in their kitchens.
Regroup, Ruby. Take a deep breath.
But the heavy stench of blood tainted the air filling her lungs, and when she opened her eyes, the same carnage filled her vision.
Like Carrie Ann, Ruby’s mind screamed, though Elysse had not been decapitated. Quite.
Ruby turned aside and gagged, ignoring her cell phone, which had once more begun ringing. And then, abruptly, she remembered the glowing cigarette outside, the muted throb of an idling boat motor.
“You son of a bitch,” she shrieked, rage propelling her to her feet, giving her strength to reach the kitchen island. Averting her gaze from her friend and avoiding the puddle, she grabbed the wooden knife block, from which she drew the second largest blade.
The largest slot, she saw, lay empty. Call the sheriff, the voice of wisdom—or possibly self-preservation—whispered. If he’s out there, he’s waiting for you. He’s waiting and he’s capable of… Grief tore through her at the thought of Elysse….of anything.
As she reached inside the shoulder bag to find her cell phone, it started ringing for the third time. Blinking away tears, she flipped it open and cried, “Please—please, you have to help me. I need help here fast, at Elysse Steele’s house. Call 9-1-1 and tell them it’s—it’s on—”
While she stammered, trying to pull the street name from her shocked brain, the caller interrupted.
“Now that I have your attention,” an unfamiliar male voice said, “let’s talk about something I have that you want. And something you have that I’m as eager to procure.”
“Wh—what?” she asked, unable to believe what she was hearing.
“Don’t play stupid with me,” he ordered. “We know you have the files, and we want them returned. And if we find they’ve been opened or copied or tampered with in any manner, I promise you, I will take out my disappointment on your loved ones. In the same manner—”
“No!” Her head spun with the realization that she truly had drawn home the violence of the war zone, that by foolishly taking the risk of smuggling back the flash drive with a dead woman’s insurance against DeserTek—documents detailing the names of “problem” employees, dates of transfers to high-risk assignments, and mysterious payments made after their deaths—she had endangered her daughter, her sister—and had gotten her best friend in the world killed.
And thanks to a petty thief inside the Dallas/Ft. Worth terminal, Ruby didn’t even have the item this man had gone to such lengths to reclaim. But no way was she admitting that, no way would she risk provoking him into killing Zoe and Misty.
“Let them go. I’ll give you anything. Please.” If she could set up some kind of exchange, she would think of something—find some way to get her family clear. If she had to kill the bastard, she would. She would find a way, and she would shoot or slash or blow him all to pieces and then dance on his damned entrails.
“You will give me everything. No arguments, no tricks, and don’t even think of telling the authorities or anyone from the media about this call. Defy me, and I promise you I’ll be the first to know,” he hissed. “And the next body you find is going to be your daughter’s.”
“Let me talk to her,” Ruby blurted, thinking that something in his voice, something buried in his malice, was familiar. “Please, she must be so scared, and I—I need to hear her voice. I have to, you know, to—uh, to assure myself that they’re both really okay. That you have them and they’re still safe.”
“But they aren’t safe. And they won’t ever be safe unless you follow my instructions to the letter. Can you do that, Ruby? Can you follow them exactly?”
“I swear I will. Just don’t hurt—”
“Then wait for my next call. And remember, whatever you say to the authorities, any authorities, will come back to my ears, so have a care….You don’t want to go and lose your head. Or theirs.”
“Please.” She didn’t want to beg, but with Elysse’s body offering the evidence that this bastard had no qualms about committing such atrocities, the dam of Ruby’s self-control gave way. “Please let me hear her voice. Let me talk to Zoe.”
When no response came, she looked down at the phone and realized the caller had already disconnected. From outside, she heard an emergency siren fast approaching. Glancing toward a window, she made out a flashing red light.
Pleading, praying, cursing, she fumbled with her cell phone until she hit the call-back button. She had to hear her child’s voice, had to make the kidnapper understand that.
On the second ring, a man said, “Preston County Sheriff’s Department, how may we assist you?”
Her heart stuttered to a standstill and then jerked wildly back into rhythm. The speaker sounded friendly, down-home—nothing like the maniac she had talked to moments earlier. But that made no sense, unless…
Outside, the sirens swelled, and the person on the phone repeated, “Preston County Sheriff’s Department. Is someone there? Do you need help?”
Disconnecting, Ruby checked her phone’s list of received calls. And found that, to her horror, the threat had come from inside the department.
She shuddered uncontrollably, thinking of the sadistic threats—and the man’s assurances that he would be “the first to know” if she reported his call.
Sickened, Ruby snapped her phone shut and clutched the knife as footsteps hammered up the outside stairs.
C HAPTER T HIRTEEN
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate….
—T. S. Eliot,
from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
April 6
When the pounding began around dawn, Sam dreamed they were returning to arrest him. The knocking started Java barking, and he woke, head swirling with the details of the search the night before, from the humiliation he’d felt while standing helplessly, watching a pair of sheriff’s deputies paw through his possessions, to the moment an emergency cut short their visit. Sam hadn’t heard the call itself, which they had gotten via cell phone, but from what little he’d gleaned, a killing must have taken place near the lake closer to town.
A murder he prayed had no relation to anyone he knew.
Downstairs, the racket continued unabated, Java barking near the front door, the hammering insistent. Cursing, Sam pulled on a pair of jeans and grabbed a T-shirt from a pile of clean but as-yet-unfolded laundry he’d tossed into the wicker chair beside his bed.
By the time he made it to the front door, he’d at least assured himself he wouldn’t be dragged out of the house half naked. But instead of the hard looks of law enforcement he expected, Sam opened the door to Ruby Monroe, looking so pale, exhausted, and miserable that he instinctively reached for her.
“Ruby, come inside. Please. Sit before you fall down.” Forgetting his lawyer’s and his former partner’s warnings to stay out of this, Sam wrapped an arm around her shoulders and helped her to the sofa.
She slipped off her tennis shoes and drew up her knees in a near-fetal position. Gray and filmy, morning light streamed through the large window overlooking the lake, but Sam switched on a small lamp to better see her.
“She’s dead,” Ruby told him, her eyes gleaming with unshed tears. “He—he’s killed her.”
An image flashed through Sam’s mind: Zoe laughing, chasing Java, Misty watching her with a stunning smile, her hair golden in the sunshine. Dread sucker punched him, dropping Sam onto the sofa’s opposite end.
“No,” he pleaded, his throat tightening as, outside the window, a huge white egret wafted to the water’s edge. “Zoe?”
Ruby shook her head. “It’s Elysse.”
He jerked back, unable to make sense of what she was saying. “Elysse?”
“Last night—last night I found her. Just after dark, at her house. It was terrible.”
He remembered Elysse’s house on the canal, not far off the main body of the lake. A house that had been the scene of laughter and good times—and later on, some very bad ones as Elysse gradually forgot his warning that he wasn’t interested in anything serious.
“Elysse Steele? That can’t be right,” he said. Vital and passionate, Elysse was a force of nature. Needy, sure, in that kind of crazy-girlfriend way that sent men running, and with a vindictive streak once she was hurt, but so vibrant and so funny
and so…hell. “What happened?”
“He—he cut her. Killed her.” Ruby sputtered, tried to say more. Failed.
“Who cut her?” Sam demanded.
Ruby pinched the bridge of her nose with trembling fingers. As if she hadn’t heard his question, she said, “I had to tell them, Sam. I’m sorry, but I had to. They knew already, and they asked me—”
“Asked you what?”
“If you were the last man Elysse dated.”
Sam’s stomach tightened. “I was, I guess, until I ended things a couple months back. But that doesn’t mean I—”
“Of course it doesn’t.” Leaning forward, Ruby looked at him directly, conviction burning in her reddened eyes. “Because I know it wasn’t you.”
Sam opened a drawer in the lamp table and pulled out a pack of tissues. Plucking several from it, he pressed them into Ruby’s hand.
“Why, Ruby?” he asked quietly. “Why would you trust me now when the authorities clearly don’t? They were here last night, searching my place, when a call came in about—it must have been about Elysse. What is it you aren’t saying?”
Trembling visibly, Ruby wiped her face, then crumpled the tissue tightly in her fist. “At this point, they don’t trust me, either. I was questioned by deputies and Wofford half the night.”
“Surely, they can’t think you would hurt your own friend. Why would—”
“They don’t think I killed her,” Ruby told him. “For one thing, it took someone powerful to—to do what was done to Elysse. She’s—she was taller and quite a bit heavier than I am. Athletic, too, and besides, I didn’t leave those great, big, bloody boot prints in the kitchen.”
Sam wanted to ask for more specifics, but Ruby looked so close to breaking down completely that he didn’t push it. Besides, he was having enough trouble wrapping his brain around the fact of Elysse’s death. He wasn’t sure he could yet handle knowing the details, so instead he focused on the way Ruby avoided his eyes.
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