Catch Me

by Lisa Gardner

  Moaning now. I discovered my landlady, Frances, on the floor beside me. She was clutching her shoulder, curled into a ball. I could feel blood, though it was hard to see in the dark.

  “Help me,” she moaned again. “Charlie, Charlie, help me…”

  “I will, I will. Shhhh, easy.”

  More dark shadows, moving around me. One, towering up. Abigail, still holding the gun, but no longer looking steady.

  “Where are you?” she cried out. She was leading with her weapon, taking aim at all shadows. I froze, holding very still next to Frances, as I wasn’t sure anymore that my own sister wouldn’t shoot me.

  “Are you okay?” I spoke up as steadily as I could. “Abby?”

  “Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up! I know you’re in it with her. Dumped me and mom for her. Well, if that’s the way you want to play it!”

  Suddenly, she turned toward me, trigger finger moving.

  I had a split second of shock, then rolled reflexively, away from Frances, toward the now empty wingback chair. I was still moving as Abigail started firing, desperately seeking cover while my aunt cried out from across the room, behind the trio of chairs closest to the bay windows.

  “It’s not her fault!” my aunt exclaimed shakily. “She didn’t know. I never told her.”

  “Told me what?” I called back, though I had the sinking feeling I knew.

  Abigail stopped shooting long enough to hear my aunt’s answer. I used the opportunity to peer out from behind the wingback chair and assess my options.

  Frances was seriously hurt and needed immediate medical attention. Abigail was still armed and dangerous. My aunt…I had no idea. But I needed to do something fast.

  “I found your mother in Colorado,” my aunt replied. Her voice seemed to be moving, probably as she sought better cover. “I’d hired a private investigator who finally managed to track her down. I made the trip out to see her in person when you were ten.”

  “Why?” I was dumbfounded enough to stop watching Abigail and turn toward the sound of my aunt’s voice. I must have popped up slightly, because Abigail squeezed off another round and I quickly dropped as the arm of the wingback chair exploded beside me. I inhaled more frosting.

  “I wanted to talk to her, sister to sister,” my aunt said. “She’d hurt you, not to mention what she’d done to the babies.…I don’t know what I was thinking. I was angry. I wanted to talk to her, have my say, before calling the police.”

  Abigail was moving. Not toward me, but toward the sound of my aunt’s voice. I went back to hastily debating my options. Phone? Too far to safely reach. Weapons? She had taken my sock stuffed with batteries, which had been in my coat pocket, but I still had a small knife taped to my ankle, not to mention the ballpoint pen. I wasn’t sure I could stomach drawing down a blade on my baby sister, no matter how deranged. The ballpoint pen would have to do.

  “You came to our apartment,” Abigail said now, her voice sounding almost little girlish as she stalked our aunt in the dark.

  “I didn’t know you were there. I didn’t know you existed.” Aunt Nancy’s voice softer, more distant. “The police report…There was no sign of a second child.”

  “Everything I owned I kept in a backpack…” Abigail said the words, just as they appeared in my head. I mouthed the rest of the sentence, so that we finished in silent unison, “like a good soldier.”

  “When I saw you,” my aunt continued, “I didn’t know what to do. I’d had a plan. I was going to yell at my sister, give her a piece of my mind, then call the police, who would cart her away to be locked up for the rest of her life. The least she deserved! But she knew. Chrissy actually knew what I was going to do and she was already ahead of me.”

  Moaning. From behind me. Frances again, gasping with the pain. The sound goaded me. We couldn’t stay here, pinned down in the dark while Abigail stalked us with a gun.

  “But then I saw you,” my aunt was trying to explain to Abigail, her voice carrying through the dark. “And I didn’t know what to do. I told Chrissy she was sick. Demanded that she turn herself in. I offered to take you, Abigail, raise you just as I’d been doing with Charlene. Except Chrissy wouldn’t hear it. She told me I was wrong, had gotten everything confused. There’d been a boyfriend in New York. That’s who had stabbed Charlie, who’d murdered the babies. She’d been on the run from him ever since that night, which is why she’d grabbed you, Abigail, and fled from the police. So this ‘boyfriend’ wouldn’t find her.”

  Across the room, I saw Abigail pause. She’d been moving steadily closer to the sound of my aunt’s voice, seeking a target. Now, however, I saw her hesitate. I used the opportunity to ease off my first heavy winter boot.

  “For a moment, I almost believed her,” my aunt whispered. “Then Chrissy started to laugh. She looked me in the eye and told me that’s exactly what she’d explain to the police. They, of course, would start looking for the boyfriend, and in the meantime, she’d demand full custody of Charlie again. She’d take both of you and disappear. I couldn’t believe she’d do such a thing, but of course she would. Drama and intrigue. Everything she liked best. Who cared if it hurt you, Abigail, or you, Charlie, or me. All that mattered was that it served Christine.

  “I asked her what she wanted and she offered me a deal. If I never told the police I’d found her, then I could keep Charlie. She’d never contact me, I’d never contact her. We’d go our separate ways, each one of us with one child. She made it sound generous, as if she was doing me a favor. And I…

  “I couldn’t let her have you again, Charlie. You were doing so well. You had friends and you were happy, and I…I loved you too much to send you back to her. So I made the devil’s bargain. I agreed to her terms, Abigail. I sacrificed you, so I could save your sister. And I hoped, in my heart of hearts, that one day, you would forgive me for that.”

  My aunt’s voice changed, became resolute. Too late, I realized what she was going to do. Too late, I stood up behind the wingback chair, all the way at the other end of the long, shadowed family room.

  As my aunt rose up from behind the sofa and peered straight at Abigail.

  “I hoped,” my aunt whispered bravely, “that as a sister, you’d be grateful that at least one of you got away.”

  Abigail stared my aunt in the eye. For one second, I thought we just might make it. I thought Abigail—

  She pulled the trigger. Her Sig Sauer exploded. My aunt made a funny hissing sound, spun slightly left, reaching out a hand as if for balance. Abigail took aim a second time and I hurtled my boot at her head.

  It connected just as she squeezed the trigger. Another gasping sound from my aunt, then Abigail spun around, pointing her gun toward me. I flipped off my second heavy-soled boot and hurtled that one as well.

  I caught her shoulder. Not hard enough to hurt her. But it threw her off balance. She had to take a second to adjust her stance, during which time I grabbed three sofa pillows and started winging them through the air.

  She ducked reflexively. Left. Right. Left. I used the opportunity to spring across the room.

  Not away from her.

  But toward her. Bounding over the coffee table, pivoting around the camelback sofa. Ducking and weaving straight into the firing zone.

  Her eyes opened. Her face shone, pale and shocked in the dark, and I suffered a fresh fissure of memory. Another time, another pale face. Another person I loved and just wanted to make happy.

  But it wouldn’t be enough. It was never enough. She would hurt me instead.

  I drew to a halt twelve inches in front of my baby sister and stood stock-still as Abigail leveled her Sig Sauer at my chest, hot barrel touching my sternum, point-blank range.

  “You should’ve saved me,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “I did. I sacrificed myself for you. Time and time again. It just wasn’t enough. I loved you, Abby. And if you loved me, then you should’ve been happy for me, just like Aunt Nancy said.”

  “I fucking hate—” />
  “Shhh…”

  My little sister’s hand shook. Then her finger moved on the trigger. Just as I whipped the plastic ballpoint pen from the back of my ponytail, and, holding it horizontally between my two hands, brought it down like a steel bar against the top of her forearm, right below her wrist.

  An old bartender’s trick. Sounds like nothing. Looks like nothing. Hurts like hell, right before the hard pen cuts off blood flow to the forearm and the entire hand goes numb, rendering your opponent’s fist slack and unresponsive.

  Abigail’s right hand opened reflexively. She couldn’t help herself, her mouth forming a silent O of pain as her Sig Sauer clattered to the floor. I kicked it away. She caught me in the side of the head with her left fist.

  Then she was battering at me, and I was doing my best to defend as the back door burst open and a dog came racing into the house, barking frantically, while a female voice rang out, “Boston PD, hands where I can see them!”

  I couldn’t put my hands where Detective D. D. Warren could see them. Abigail had given up on her gun, and now had her fingers locked tight around my throat. She was squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, the dark room going even darker. My hands on hers, clawing, grappling for purchase, trying to find her fingers, force them off, as lights began to explode inside my skull.

  She had such tremendous hand strength. She wasn’t just wringing the breath from my body. She was doing her best to crush my neck.

  Staggering back into the low coffee table. Losing my balance. Falling sideways to the floor.

  “Stop, police!”

  My little sister looming above me, still holding tight, her eyes filled with almost unholy glee. Until the lines blurred, and she wasn’t my sister anymore. Instead, I peered up into my mother’s face.

  Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave…

  I gave up on clawing her hands and started fighting in earnest. Jab, jab, jab to her kidneys. Uppercut to her chin, right punch to the side of her face, again and again. Hitting and hitting and hitting. A year’s worth of training, the fight of my life.

  The world growing dark as my insane sister absorbed blow after blow, her resolution never wavering, her fingers never falling from my throat.

  “Abigail Grant! Detective O. Step away right now. Hands where I can see them!”

  Shoot, I willed Detective Warren. Just shoot. But, of course, she couldn’t. Abigail and I were tangled into each other, her hands on my throat, my fists buried into her stomach, two desperate women, one hulking form.

  Then, out of nowhere, a white-and-tan rocket, as Tulip scrabbled down the hardwood hall and launched herself, snarling and yipping into Abigail’s exposed side.

  White fangs sinking. Abigail screaming. Finally, my sister releasing my throat, staggering back and straightening as she grabbed Tulip’s small, lunging body and hurtled her against the far wall.

  A yelp. Then silence.

  Me, rolling onto my side. Trying to get up. Trying to get away. Crawling. Kind of. Sort of. Couldn’t get my arms under me. Couldn’t draw air into my lungs.

  “Abigail Grant. Hands up. This is your last warning. Stop or I’ll shoot!”

  Everyone has to die sometime. Be brave.

  My sister turned toward D.D. There was something in her hand, something that hadn’t been there before. The knife. From my ankle sheath. It must’ve fallen out when we were fighting.

  Her gaze fell to my exposed side and I couldn’t help myself. I stilled, waited for her to strike the blow. Blood and fire. Maybe this was what we’d both been waiting for. Twenty years of unfinished business.

  I didn’t put my hands up in self-defense. I just stared at my baby sister. Willed her to look at me. Willed her to see the big sister who’d genuinely loved her.

  “Don’t.” D. D. Warren’s voice. Closer. But also softer, as if she could feel the turning point. “Put down the knife, Abigail. You’re a cop, remember? Catch Me. You wrote that in your notes, because you know better. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

  “My mother was right,” Abigail whispered, to her, to me. “The monsters are everywhere. Coming in the dark of the night to hurt small children. On the Internet, on the streets. I see them everywhere. I tried using my badge, I tried using my gun. None of it works. The monsters. Our mother. They are all inside my head.”

  “O. Put the knife down. I’ll help you. Your sister will help you. We can make this right.”

  My sister staring at D.D. My sister staring back down at me.

  One moment. Twenty years in the making.

  My sister raised the knife.

  “I just want to stop hurting, Charlie. I just want peace.”

  I screamed hoarsely from the floor. Detective Warren leapt over the coffee table.

  As Abigail plunged the blade into her gut and ripped up. A startled look on her pale face. Then she rocked forward, pitching to her knees, before collapsing down.

  Detective D. D. Warren’s voice, louder now, harsher, requesting immediate medical personnel, calling for backup. I didn’t listen to her anymore. I didn’t care about her anymore.

  I lay side by side on the floor with my baby sister. I found her hand in the dark.

  “SisSis?” she whispered roughly.

  “I love you, Abby.”

  And she made a sound that was wet and ominous and filled with pain.

  “Everyone has to die sometime,” I told my sister, in this last moment we had together. She clutched my hand tighter. I held hers right back. “Be brave, Abby. I love you. Be brave.”

  Chapter 44

  I BURIED MY SISTER NEXT TO OUR SIBLINGS, baby Rosalind and baby Carter Grant. They don’t have large tombstones; just flat granite slabs, the best my aunt could afford for the two babies she buried twenty years ago, and the best I can afford for my sister now. But they are together, a sad trio, laid to rest with their grandparents in the two-hundred-year-old J-Town cemetery. Two plots remain. One for my aunt and one, when the time comes, for me.

  Detective Warren found a private blog in my sister’s computer. She’d titled it, “Hello, My name is Abigail,” and within its long, creepy entries, she detailed the murders of my best friends, as well as her countless hours prowling the Internet, hunting down predators, seeking to aid kids in need.

  She’d been right in the end. She saw monsters everywhere. And they overwhelmed her as a dark tide, which no amount of stalking and killing could keep at bay. It turned out, she’d shot and killed more than thirty-three suspected pedophiles, from Boston, to New York, to LA. The last three had been close together, only because the approaching January 21 anniversary date had forced her to restrict her hunting grounds to Boston. Until then, she’d been more careful to spread out the carnage. She was a cop, after all, and she used her knowledge wisely.

  My friends Randi and Jackie never saw their own deaths coming. Randi opened her door to a female cop and discussed her ex-husband’s dealings over mugs of tea before the insulin finally kicked in and she lost consciousness. Jackie met a beautiful woman at a bar. Different story, same approach.

  In the end, they probably never thought of me, had any idea that being my friend had signed their death warrants.

  Should such a thing make me feel better or worse?

  One of those questions I’ll never be able to answer.

  Detective Warren ordered a DNA test on my mother’s remains, confirming once and for all the identity of the unclaimed body in Colorado. I didn’t fly out once the results were known. Christine Grant’s body can remain in some city morgue or potter’s field for all I care. I’m not claiming her, and I’m sure as hell not burying her next to Abigail, Rosalind, and Carter. Maybe that makes me harsh. Mental illness is a disease, probably deserving of some compassion.

  Don’t know, don’t care. The police have closed their files. I don’t feel a need to open up any of my own.

  Detective Warren also found my Taurus. 22 sitting on my sister’s nightstand. As it was legally registered to me, she returned it to the appr
opriate owner. Best I can tell, she had no grounds for conducting a ballistics test, which was why no one has ever matched my. 22 to slugs recovered from the apartment of another homicide victim, Stan Miller.

  Should such a thing make me feel better or worse?

  One of those questions I’ll never be able to answer.

  My landlady, Frances, spent two weeks in the hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to the shoulder. Interestingly enough, her long-lost niece appeared during that time, and after a bit of debate, decided to move in to help Frances during her convalescence. Apparently, my landlady is an alcoholic, who’d taken up drinking to cope with the death of her husband and four-year-old son in an auto accident thirty years ago. She’d burned numerous family bridges, caused significant collateral damage. Some of the things she never told me during the conversations we never had.

  But mortality is a great wake-up call. Fran had been willing to forgive and forget for years, and now, at last, so was her niece.

  I know all about such things, having finally had that long overdue heart-to-heart with my aunt, as I spent six weeks bedside in her hospital room. My aunt took two to the shoulder. First week was touch and go. Gave me plenty of time to hold her hand, and sort through my own tangled emotions.

  My aunt saved me by sacrificing my sister. The first few days, I couldn’t move beyond that thought. I wanted to be grateful, but I was also angry. How could Aunt Nancy have left her own niece, a young girl, with a woman who’d already killed two babies, let alone tortured her other niece? It seemed too cold, too cruel.

  Then it bothered me. My aunt was practical, but never callous.

  Day five, I made a call to old friends in the Arvada dispatch center. They put me in touch with a couple of veteran officers in Boulder. Sure enough, my aunt hadn’t told the entire story. Sure, she’d tracked down her sister. Flown to Colorado, confronted Christine, been shocked to discover Abigail’s existence. And maybe, faced with my mother’s terms, she’d appeared to capitulate to her demands.

  But my aunt hadn’t just walked way. She’d gone straight from her sister’s ratty apartment to the Boulder police. Apparently, it took a few hours to arrange a face-to-face with a detective, then a bit more time as the police made arrangements with the tactical unit as well as family services. But within five or six hours, the police had raided my mother’s apartment, intent on arresting a wanted murderer and rescuing a young child.