by Chelsea Cain
“She forgave him.”
There was a warm breeze. It rattled the leaves overhead. Archie felt a drop of sweat snake down the side of his neck into his shirt.
“The children went in opposite directions after their father’s disappearance,” the reverend continued. “Colin became very focused on the church, very devout. Melissa strayed. They both left town after high school. A lot of young people do. I didn’t hear from Melissa for several years, until the day she called and told me that she’d been diagnosed with cancer. She asked for us to pray for her.” He tugged on one of his huge ears. “She would have been about twenty-five then. I know she was married. We got a letter from her husband telling us that she had died.”
“Do you have a copy of the letter?”
“No, I’m sorry. The return address was somewhere in Northern California.”
“What about Colin?” Archie asked.
“Gone,” the reverend said. “I know Mrs. Beaton received cash from him on an irregular basis, and the occasional postcard. She said he moved around a lot. I’m not even sure what he did for a living.”
“Did you ever see any photographs of him, as an adult?” Archie asked.
Reverend Lewis shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Mrs. Beaton left the church.”
“That’s right,” the reverend said. “She had a crisis of faith after Melissa died. We believe in a literal interpretation of the Scripture. We rely on faith healing through prayer and the laying on of hands.”
“You don’t go to doctors?”
“We do not,” the reverend said.
“Ever?”
“To do so would be to express doubt in God.”
“But you took care of Mrs. Beaton, even after she left.”
“Just because she wasn’t a congregant anymore doesn’t mean she isn’t one of God’s children.”
Archie slid the photograph out of the envelope and showed it to the reverend. “When I was at the Beaton house a few days ago, there was a photograph on the wall,” Archie said. “It was just like this, but there was a girl in it, in Colin’s place. Does that sound familiar?”
“A girl?”
“Did Melissa have a close friend or cousin?”
“This was almost twenty years ago. Have you checked with the high school? There might be some of her old teachers still on staff. They might remember someone.”
Archie kept pushing. “Were there any girls Melissa’s age in the congregation at the time?”
“It’s a small congregation.”
“Are there photographs I could look at?” Archie asked. “Church picnics or celebrations?”
“I can have Nancy look through the archives and see what we can pull together. Can’t promise anything. We were in a building up the hill until about five years ago. We lost a lot of our records in the fire.”
Archie kept his voice steady. “What caused the fire?”
The old man chuckled. “I think the insurance company called it an ‘act of God.’ You probably passed by the old foundation. It’s right up the hill. On Lowell Street.”
CHAPTER
48
Do you know how many Lowell Streets there are? There’s probably one in every town.” Huffington was sitting at her desk eating tuna fish from a plastic freezer bag. It was after five, but Huffington didn’t look like she was planning on heading home anytime soon.
“I know,” Archie said.
“And if Gretchen was from St. Helens, don’t you think someone would have recognized her by now?” Huffington asked. “Her face has been plastered all over the news for three years.”
Huffington’s light brown hair was pulled back. There were new kids’ drawings up in her office, Archie noticed. Another tour must have gone through.
“I think she’s changed her appearance,” Archie said.
“People don’t change that much,” Huffington said. She took another pinch of tuna out of the bag and put it in her mouth. “You think she was close enough to the Beatons to be included in a family photo—but only one—which has since disappeared. You think she killed Papa Beaton. Perhaps with the help of the son, Colin. And the two of them began serial killing sprees. With him sometimes using her signature. And now he’s killed Mama.”
It sounded even crazier when she said it. “I just need you to help me prove it,” Archie said.
“So Gretchen Lowell isn’t talking.”
“Not really,” Archie said.
“She got you this far,” Huffington pointed out.
“She wants Ryan Motley caught.”
“And Ryan Motley is Colin,” Huffington said.
“That’s my theory,” Archie said.
Huffington sorted through some papers on her desk. “Last anyone heard of Colin he was getting a traffic ticket in Boise eight years ago,” she said, scanning a report. “He had a Nebraska driver’s license at the time, but that’s expired, and after that he’s not in the system.”
Archie copied down the date of the speeding ticket and the address on the driver’s license. One of the children murdered with Gretchen’s signature had been killed in Boise about that time.
“What about Melissa?” he asked. “The reverend over at their old church said that she was married. Can we track down her husband? Maybe he knows where Colin is.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Huffington said. “And I’ll send someone over to the high school. In the meantime, we turned up something interesting on the Dusty Beaton case.”
“What did you find?”
“Tears,” Huffington said. “On the pillow. And they aren’t Mrs. Beaton’s.”
DNA testing required cells. Tears didn’t have cells. “I thought you couldn’t get DNA from tears,” Archie said.
“You can’t. But apparently if you have ocular herpes they can see the virus in your tears. Mrs. Beaton didn’t have ocular herpes. But her killer does.”
Colin had cried when he’d killed his mother. “Nice work, Huffington,” Archie said.
She held the freezer bag of canned fish across the desk. “Tuna?” she said.
CHAPTER
49
Henry was in bed by the time Claire came over. She had worked late. Archie had the entire team following leads attempting to tie Colin Beaton with Ryan Motley and prove him responsible for the murders. Henry had left Claire at the office an hour before, sitting in front of a computer, with barely a cursory good-bye glance. Now he listened as she let herself into his house with her key. One of the cats got off the bed to go and greet her. She didn’t come in right away. She made tea. He heard the familiar sound of her fumbling around his kitchen, the water running into the kettle, the mug on the countertop, the foraging through tea boxes in the cupboard. He read through James Beaton’s missing person report while he waited for her tea water to boil. After a few minutes he heard the whistle, and a few minutes after that Claire came into the bedroom, followed by the cat.
She put the tea on the bedside table and sat down and started taking off her shoes.
Henry took off his reading glasses and waited.
When she had her shoes off she leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. She smelled like Thai food.
“I’ve barely seen you since yesterday,” she said. She tucked her legs up under her on the bed. “I missed you last night.”
They spent most nights together. It had happened organically, after he’d gotten out of the hospital. Nearly dying had a way of putting a spark in a relationship. “I didn’t get home until after one,” Henry said.
She reached for her tea and blew on it. “So you missed physical therapy?” she asked. The cat curled up next to her and started purring.
“I’ll reschedule tomorrow,” Henry said.
He liked that she didn’t ask where he’d gone. She had every right to know. Even though Henry knew she wouldn’t like it. “I went down to Salem with Archie,” he said. Salem could only mean one thing in that context. Henry didn’t have to elaborate.
He could tell by her body language that she’d figured it out already. There was no jolt of surprise. She took a sip of tea and lifted an eyebrow. “I thought he’d agreed not to see her anymore,” she said.
“I couldn’t let him go alone,” Henry said. “He thinks she’s connected to this Beaton thing somehow.” What was he supposed to say? Archie thinks he can see Gretchen’s shadow in the grass?
Claire’s face was over her tea, the mug cupped in her hands. “What’s his deal with her?” she asked.
It was a rhetorical question. There were things Henry had learned about Archie and Gretchen that he would never tell Claire, and she knew it. Maybe someday—when they were old and dying side by side in futuristic recliners—but not now, not today. “We don’t know what he went through,” Henry said.
“Yeah, we do,” Claire said. “She nearly killed him. You know the appropriate emotional response to that?” She glanced over at him, and he saw her eyes flash. “Anger.”
Henry didn’t know where this was coming from. Claire had been on the Beauty Killer Task Force. They’d all worked together for years. “What’s your problem with Archie all of a sudden?” he asked.
She set the mug back on the table and looked at him. “I love you,” she said. “And Archie does, too.” She exhaled a long, troubled-sounding breath. “But . . .”
Henry saw, then, where she was headed. “She gets in his head,” he said. “But he comes out of it when it counts.”
Claire lifted her knees in front of her stomach and wrapped her arms around them. “If he gets you killed because of her, I’ll shoot him,” she said. “I seriously will.”
Henry had been with Archie after Heil’s funeral. When it was all over and they were back at his apartment, Archie had let the mask drop.
“If he ever gets me killed,” Henry said, “he’ll do it himself.”
Claire put her hands over her face. “What is wrong with me?” she said. She peeked through her fingers. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s hormones.”
Henry held the Beaton file off the side of the bed and dropped it. It hit the wood floor with a thud. Then he opened his bedside table drawer and pulled out a folded catalogue page and handed it to Claire.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“I ordered it,” Henry said.
She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment and then slowly unfolded the paper. Her eyes widened and brightened when she saw the catalogue picture of a king-sized bed.
“You’re giving up the futon?” she asked.
Henry nodded.
She climbed on top of him, straddling his waist, and threw her arms around him. For Claire Masland, he could get used to sleeping on a mattress. He kissed her hair. “Will you be my domestic partner?” he asked.
She lifted her head and looked at him and beamed. And then she nodded, her eyes glassy with tears. “But the dream catcher has to go,” she said.
Henry looked over at the far corner of the ceiling, where his twenty-two-inch diameter authentic Native American, Alaskan birch, mink-fur-lined dream catcher hung, dripping with beads and eagle feathers. He patted her shoulder. “Baby steps,” he said.
CHAPTER
50
Archie had been the last person to leave the office. It was late, but he didn’t want to go home.
Instead, he got out of the elevator on the fifth floor and walked down the plum hallway to Rachel’s apartment. He had barely knocked when she answered the door.
“Hi,” he said. “I was wondering if I could borrow an Allen wrench.” She looked back into her apartment. “I think I might actually have an Allen wrench,” she said. “Well, that would be awkward, because I was just using that as an excuse to knock on your door.” She was wearing a short black cotton dress. She smiled at him. “Have you come to interrogate me some more?”
“No,” Archie said.
Rachel looked up at him intently. “I’m starting over,” she said. “That’s my story. That’s all I’m going to tell you. Can you handle that? Or do you need to figure me out?”
“I can handle that,” Archie said.
“Do you want to come in?” she asked.
The last woman Archie had had sex with was a serial killer. Before that, his wife. He had met Debbie in college. There hadn’t been that many women. “I think so,” he said.
She held his gaze. He could see the outline of her nipples through the cotton of the dress. She moved her hand forward and pressed it against his abdomen and then slid her fingers inside his shirt against his skin. His breath caught and she smiled and untucked his shirttails and slid her fingers deeper, moving them through his pubic hair, teasing him with her fingertips. Then she smiled. He was already hard. He had been hard since she’d come to the door. She wrapped her hand around his cock. He tried not to whimper as she pulled him inside.
Archie heard his phone and fumbled for it in the dark before he remembered where he was and that his phone was in his pants on the floor next to Rachel’s bed. He slipped out from under the sheet and felt around on the floor. He was naked on his hands and knees when Rachel turned on the bedside light.
“What are you doing?” she asked sleepily.
He saw his pants then, discarded at the foot of the bed. “Phone,” he said. He pulled his phone out of the pocket, glanced at it, and hesitated only for a second before lifting it to his ear.
“Hello, Patrick,” he said.
“What are you doing?” Patrick asked.
Archie leaned back against the side of the mattress and stretched his bare legs out on the floor. The bedside lamp sent long shadows across the room. “Just sleeping.”
“Do you want to watch TV?” Patrick asked.
Archie scratched the back of his neck. “Right now?”
“Yeah. We both turn on the same channel and watch the same thing. That way we can do it together.”
Archie turned around to Rachel. She was sitting up on her elbows, looking at him. “Do you have a TV?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Okay,” Archie said into the phone. “Give me a minute.”
“There’s a Simpsons marathon on Fox.”
“Do your parents let you watch that?”
“All the time,” Patrick said.
Archie was too tired to argue. “Okay,” he said. The kid had seen people murdered. He could handle The Simpsons. “Just a second.” He put his phone on mute and stood up. “This is hard to explain,” he said to Rachel. “But there’s this kid. He’s having a tough time. And he can’t sleep. And I need to watch TV with him.”
Rachel slid out of bed. For a moment Archie lost himself in her body. He had to take a deep breath as he followed her into the living room. The room was dark except for the moonlight coming in the paned factory windows that overlooked the city. She picked a remote off her coffee table and aimed it at a flat-screen TV that hung on an interior wall. The screen went blue, bathing her body in a watery glow. Then she picked up a second remote and looked at him.
“Fox,” Archie said.
The Simpsons sprang to life on the TV screen.
Archie took his phone off mute. “I’m here,” he said.
He sank down on her sofa, the leather buttery soft against the backs of his legs.
“I’ve seen this episode,” Patrick said.
“Do you want to watch something else?”
“No,” Patrick said. “I like knowing what happens.”
“Okay,” Archie said. “I’m here. I’ll be here as long as you need me.”
Rachel was still standing with the remote in her hand. He watched her set it down. He put his hand over the phone. “You can go back to bed,” he said. She gave him a strange, tender smile. Then she crawled onto the sofa next to him and laid her head against his chest.
Patrick laughed at something Bart Simpson said.
Archie put his arm around Rachel.
For the first time in a long time, he felt at home in his body. Holding her like that, he couldn’t
see his scars.
CHAPTER
51
Archie had the boxes from his apartment brought to the office—all of them. The Beauty Killer case files formed a floor-to-ceiling wall, three boxes deep, on one side of the break room. The personal papers from the Beaton house were unpacked and laid out on tables. The dead children they thought Gretchen had murdered were on one wall. The dead children they thought Colin had murdered were on another wall. The photograph of the Beatons standing in their front yard was attached, with a magnet, to the dry-erase board.
It was lunchtime, but no one was eating.
“You were right,” Claire said. “Colin Beaton’s traffic ticket puts him in Boise at the same time that Taylor King was murdered. He had a Nebraska driver’s license with an address in Lincoln. Hannah Fielding was killed in Lincoln, Nebraska. The first time any record of Gretchen Lowell shows up was a bad-check-writing bust in Lincoln, Nebraska, a few months after Beaton’s license was issued at a Lincoln DMV. Then Beaton falls off the face of the earth. We think this is when he started going by ‘Ryan Motley.’”
“We’re going through all U.S. licenses issued in the name of Ryan Motley that match his general age and description,” Levy said. “But nothing has turned up yet.”
Archie turned to Robbins. “You’ve reviewed the autopsies?” he asked.
“All of them,” Robbins said. “There’s a progression of violence. The killings overlap. But if we look at the children that were left with lilies and the children who were left with the heart signature and we lay them out consecutively, the pattern fits. Each murder ups the ante. Also, Gretchen never killed the same way twice. But if we remove her child victims and look at them as a group, there’s a pattern—no defense wounds, nothing under the fingernails. No signs that the kids were restrained. Our theory at the time was that Gretchen drugged them. We found traces of a paralytic in two of them. The others were all found too late. It would have worked its way through their systems. You wouldn’t find a paralytic unless you were specifically looking for it. It wouldn’t show up on a standard tox screen. The six children left with lilies fit this same pattern. No defense wounds, no signs of restraint. I think they were drugged, too.”