She hurried back to the living room, where Sophie sat on the edge of the sofa—her hands still tied behind her. It hurt just to look at her daughter, so battered—with her bruised eye swollen shut. Sophie squirmed and restlessly tapped her feet. “Mom, I’m going a little crazy here,” she murmured.
“I’m sorry,” she said, heading for the door. “I know where there’s a knife.”
“Did you call the police on your way here? I thought I heard a car in the driveway earlier . . .”
Laura hesitated at the door. “No, I haven’t called them yet.”
“Well, maybe it was your car I heard.” Wide-eyed, Sophie looked at her. “Wait a minute. Where are you going? You can’t just leave me here . . .”
“I’m just getting a knife,” Laura said. She took a deep breath and opened the door.
She’d probably seen too many horror movies, because a part of her had almost expected to find the porch empty—with Vic gone. But he was still there—and quite dead. A large puddle of blood bloomed on the porch beneath his head. His eyes were half-open in a lifeless stare.
Grimacing, Laura crouched down and hovered over him. She was careful not to step in the blood. With apprehension, she reached into the pocket of his cargo pants.
“Oh, God, Mom, I’m sorry,” Sophie called.
Laura glanced over her shoulder and caught Sophie’s reflection in the living room mirror. Her daughter could see what she was doing. “He—he’s got our phones on him, too,” Sophie called.
Laura found the switchblade in one of his lower pockets, but he didn’t have any phones on him. With the knife in hand, she ducked back inside and shut the door again.
Both she and Sophie were trembling as she tried to cut away at the cloth restraints around Sophie’s wrists. “I couldn’t find a phone,” Laura said, careful not to nick her.
“I think he was loading stuff in the pickup earlier,” Sophie said. “Maybe that’s where they are.”
Past the noise from the television, Laura heard James crying softly upstairs.
“Just hold still, honey,” she whispered to Sophie, struggling to sever the cloth restraints. “I’ve almost got it . . .”
At last, she cut through the knotted cloth.
Sophie let out a grateful moan as her hands were freed. Her wrists were red and raw-looking. “Thanks, Mom,” she gasped. “I can get my ankles. I’m okay now. Go to James . . .”
Laura handed her the knife. She kissed Sophie’s forehead. “Remind me later to tell you how proud I am of you.”
She turned and started for the stairway but balked.
She saw James—with Joe—sitting at the top of the stairs. Both of them were sort of curled up on the landing. Joe had his arm around her son, holding him like a frightened child might clutch a stuffed animal. Joe looked tired, scared, and disoriented.
As Laura hurried up the steps, James reached out to her.
Joe lifted him up and handed him to her. Standing on the steps, she held James close. “It’s okay, sweetie,” she whispered, kissing James’s soft, wet cheek. “I’m here . . .”
He whimpered and tried to talk, but it came out as gibberish. For a few moments, he squirmed restlessly in her arms, but then his sturdy little body seemed to relax. His blond head found that familiar spot on her shoulder.
Laura turned to Joe. “Stay here, will you, Joe?”
With a dazed look, he nodded at her.
She retreated down the stairs. Her daughter was no longer in the living room. “Sophie?” she called, looking at the pile of rag restraints on the sofa—along with the switchblade knife.
“In here, Mom.”
Laura found her in the kitchen, going through Vic’s backpack.
“I already tried that,” she said. “The phones aren’t in there . . .”
“Yeah, but your pearl necklace is here—along with some other pieces.” She pulled out an expensive brooch from the bottom of the backpack and set it on the counter with some of the jewelry.
“Listen, I want you to put on your coat and whatever shoes are down here in the closet,” Laura said. “Take James to the cottage and call the police from there, okay?”
Sophie numbly gazed at her.
“Honey, do you understand? You remember where the keys are, don’t you?”
Sophie nodded.
Laura hurried to the front hall closet and got out a coat and boots for James. She sat him down on the sofa to put the jacket on him. He was half asleep. “Don’t come back to the house,” she told Sophie, who was by the closet. She’d already put on her ski jacket, and was now lacing up a pair of tennis shoes.
“Stay in the cottage,” Laura continued. “And tell the police you’ll be there. Tell them I don’t think Joe will give them any trouble.”
She finished putting James’s boots on his feet, then looked up at Sophie, waiting by the front door. Laura shook her head. “No, the back way,” she whispered. “I don’t want him seeing . . .”
Sophie nodded and followed her to the kitchen door.
“You better carry him,” Laura said. “He always trips in these boots. Can you manage?”
“Yeah,” Sophie said, taking James into her arms. “Are you going to be okay with Joe? Why don’t you come with us?”
Laura opened the kitchen door and shook her head. “I don’t want to leave him alone,” she said. Then she took the keys from her coat pocket and handed them to her. “It might be warmer in the car—if you want to wait there. Just let the police know where you are . . .”
With James in her arms, Sophie stepped out the door, but then she turned to her. “Mom? I’m pretty proud of you, too.”
Laura kissed her and James, then gave them a gentle push. She watched them hurry off in the direction of the cabin until they disappeared in the darkness. With a tiny lump in her throat, Laura closed the kitchen door and headed toward the front of the house. She passed the half-table in the hallway where she’d left the gun earlier. She told herself she wouldn’t need it.
At the same time, she hadn’t wanted Sophie or James in the house while she tried to talk Joe into surrendering to the police. Despite everything Courtney had told her—and everything else she’d learned today that pointed toward Joe’s innocence—Laura still didn’t want to take any chances with her children.
She left the gun where it was and started up the stairs.
Joe was still sitting on the top step, hunched over, with his arms folded in front of him.
Laura paused on the fourth step from the landing—so that they were almost eye to eye. Catching her breath, she held onto the banister. “The police will be here soon,” she said quietly.
“I know,” he murmured. “What happened? I heard gunshots . . .”
Laura swallowed hard. “Yes. Vic—he’s dead.”
Joe’s tired, stupefied expression didn’t change. He just nodded. “Is everybody else okay?”
“Yes, we’re all okay. I talked to that Courtney woman who knew Scott Singleton and Eric Vetter. She said you couldn’t have killed the Singletons, Joe. I think I can get her to come around and talk to the police for us. She said the man you sketched was a hired killer. I’ll ask the police to send your sketch to the hospital in Anacortes, where they’ve got that college student who was shot. You know, the one whose life you saved? I’ll bet he identifies the man in your drawing as the one who shot him.”
Joe’s expression didn’t change. “Vic gave me a beer that was drugged, but I—I didn’t drink much of it. Still, it knocked me out for a while. The gunshots woke me up. This time, the gunshots woke me up. I’m still a little loopy though.” He blinked at her. “I’m so sorry about everything, Mrs. Gretchell. Are you sure the kids are okay?”
She nodded, then reached over and touched his arm. “Yes—”
A sound from downstairs silenced her. Then she heard the screen door slam.
Laura knew the police couldn’t be here already. It didn’t sound like the TV. She wondered if Sophie had trouble getting into the
cottage. She turned and started down the steps. “Sophie? Honey?”
With Joe trailing after her, Laura headed through the front hall and passed the empty living room. She could hear shuffling. There was definitely someone in the house. For a crazy moment, she wondered if it was Vic—if he was somehow still alive.
“Sophie?” Laura stepped into the family room and gasped.
Holding James in her arms, Sophie stood trembling in the middle of the room. Little James looked utterly terrified—too scared to scream or cry. His lower lip quivering, he clutched at the front of Sophie’s jacket and gaped at the man who stood on the other side of her. The stranger had her by the arm. He held a gun in his gloved hand and pressed the barrel against Sophie’s jaw.
“We—we didn’t make it to the cottage,” Sophie said in a shaky voice. A tear slid down from her swollen eye. “We didn’t get to call the police. I’m sorry, Mom . . .”
Paralyzed with fear, Laura stared at the man—and her two children.
The stranger wore a black tracksuit. In addition to the gloves, he had on a pair of plastic shoe coverings. It was obvious he didn’t want to leave behind any evidence of having been there.
It took Laura another moment to recognize the man from Joe’s sketches. She realized it must have been his car that she and Sophie had heard earlier. Had he followed her from the bar in Wenatchee—or did he and his partner already have her address?
“Well, isn’t this perfect?” he said, grinning. He nodded at Joe, standing behind her. “The psycho-case is here. The police are looking all over for you, friend. Isn’t that your partner, lying outside on the front porch? Well, that’s everything all wrapped up with a nice, pretty bow on it. The police will find you here with the bodies—all of them shot with the same gun I used on that kid in the Singletons’ driveway . . .”
He brandished the gun for a moment and then jabbed it under Sophie’s chin again. She gasped. James let out a little cry and seemed to hold his sister tighter.
“But it’s going to be your prints on the gun, friend,” he said. “It’ll confirm everything the cops suspected. You and your buddy holed up here and took some hostages . . .”
Laura heard Joe behind her, whimpering anxiously.
The man nodded at her. “You bought a gun tonight at an ammo shop in Monroe. Did you use it to shoot the guy outside?”
Laura stared at him. “How did you know about the gun?”
“An associate of mine was tailing you. He’s kept me informed of your every move. So—you shot his friend with your new gun. They’ll say he saw what you did, and he went nuts again. He shot you and the kids. Then he killed himself. That’s how it’ll look to the cops. Like I told you, one pretty package—all wrapped up.”
“No,” Laura heard herself say. “There are too many loose ends, Ted.”
The smile faded from his thin face. “How do you know my name?”
“Your partner,” she said steadily, “the other Ted, does he drive a black BMW?”
“We both do. How do you know about us? Who told you?”
Past a loud commercial on TV, Laura heard sirens in the distance. They seemed to be getting closer. Since moving out here, they almost never heard sirens anymore. It wasn’t like living in the city. She wondered if her mother had phoned the police already. And she wondered if Ted noticed.
Laura took a couple of deep breaths, but her heart was still racing. “Your associate killed Martha, that waitress on Lopez Island, didn’t he?”
“No, you killed her,” he said. “She was dead the minute my partner heard you talking to her in the café. You said she knew things about the Singletons. And you wrote your own death sentence when you showed him those sketches of me.”
Laura realized the Pecan Waffle man was the other Ted. “Did Marilee and Lawrence Cronin decree these death sentences?” she asked.
“Very smart, lady,” Ted chuckled. “Let’s just say we got the nod of approval from someone above.” His smile faded again. “So—tell me, how did you get so smart? Who else knows about us?”
“Your partner’s dead,” Laura said—over the sound of the sirens getting closer. “His BMW was in a head-on collision with a semi on Stevens Pass.”
Shaking his head, the hit man looked bewildered. “No . . .”
Laura wasn’t sure if he was distressed over the news of his associate’s death or the sound of the approaching squad cars.
With the gun, he gave Sophie’s chin another jab.
She let out a frightened gasp. Squirming in her arms, James started to cry.
“I thought I heard this little bitch say she didn’t get a chance to call the cops . . .”
Laura was terrified. This was just what she’d been hoping to avoid all day—some kind of standoff with the police, and her children as hostages. She reached out to her daughter.
“My friend left the phones with me,” Joe said quietly. “I called the police fifteen minutes ago and turned myself in.”
His voice was almost drowned out by the sirens blaring and tires screeching.
Laura turned to gaze at him.
“Goddamn it!” Ted muttered.
Laura heard murmuring outside—and someone talking over a static-laced police radio. Behind Ted, through the sliding glass door, she saw a pair of policemen with their weapons drawn, creeping toward the house.
“I still have one of the guns, too,” Joe said. His voice was a little foggy. “And I can still be Zared . . .”
Ted must have heard the policemen in the backyard, because he glanced over his shoulder for a second.
Sophie slammed against him, wrenched away, and dropped to the floor with James.
Before Laura realized what was happening, Joe shoved her out of the way. He fired the gun three times.
Ted cried out as the bullets ripped through him. The gun flew out of his hand and he keeled over, crashing into one of the TV tables.
Laura looked up in time to see Joe standing there with the gun still in his hand. All at once, she realized how it must look to the policemen in the backyard.
“No!” she screamed. “Joe, drop the gun!”
But she was too late. A series of blasts resounded, and the glass in the sliding door shattered. Joe was hit—at least two or three times, from the way his thin body recoiled. Then he collapsed onto the floor.
In a panic, Laura crawled through bits of glass to Sophie and James to make sure they weren’t hurt. She wrapped her arms around them. She heard doors slamming open. The cold November night air swept into the room as a swarm of policemen invaded the house.
“I’m all right, Mom,” Sophie said, talking loudly over all the noise. Still crouched down on the floor, she rocked James in her arms. He was crying, but he didn’t look injured—just scared. Laura patted his head and gazed at her daughter.
“We’re okay,” Sophie said, catching her breath. “How’s Joe? You should go to him, Mom . . .”
Lying on the floor, he was surrounded by police. One of the cops was calling for medical assistance. Still on her hands and knees, Laura scurried over to Joe. She could see he’d been hit in the shoulder and stomach. The shirt he’d borrowed from Sean’s closet was spotted with blood.
He saw her and smiled.
“Hang on, Joey,” she said.
She was barely aware of the policeman standing over her—until he took hold of her arm and gently pulled her up.
“You saved my life, remember?” Joe whispered.
Laura nodded.
“I owed you,” he said.
The policeman started to lead her away. Another cop stepped between her and Joe. Laura noticed a couple of paramedics came in from the front hallway with a stretcher. They hovered around Joe. Sirens were still blaring outside as more emergency vehicles seemed to be arriving. She heard someone upstairs, running around from room to room. There must have been at least a dozen cops in the house, maybe more. One of them started shouting questions at her—about Joe, Vic, and the other man.
Amid
all the chaos, Laura broke away from the cop.
Then she rushed back to her children.
EPILOGUE
Wednesday, November 29—1:47 A.M.
Anacortes
In a preliminary search, investigators couldn’t find any photographs of Ted Houser or Ted Flint in the police files. So they faxed Joe’s detailed sketch to Island Hospital in Anacortes. There, Wes Banyan, the nineteen-year-old survivor of the Singleton murders, was woken out of a sound sleep and shown the sketch.
In the last few days, Wes had viewed hundreds of mug shots. Into each batch, the investigators had slipped photos of Joe Mulroney and Victor Moles. It got so Wes was expecting to see those same two guys every time he looked at a new series of mug shots. He had a TV in his room at the hospital. He knew those two were the main suspects in the murders. He knew the cops were frustrated he hadn’t yet labeled either one as the man who had shot him. The police were especially keen on getting him to identify Mulroney as the shooter: “From zero to one hundred, what are the chances that this is the man who shot you?”
Wes had met Mulroney over Thanksgiving and felt the chances were no more than fifteen percent that he was the shooter. But the cops kept showing him Mulroney’s photo anyway.
When the night nurse had woken him, Wes had thought she was going to give him another pill or change his IV. They always had one reason or another for ruining his sleep—and wrecking some perfectly wonderful dream in which he wasn’t stuck in this hospital bed. But this time, the nurse had a policeman with her, and the cop had a sketch he wanted Wes to look at.
As the nurse raised the hospital bed and adjusted the nightstand light, Wes half-expected to see a drawing of Joe Mulroney.
Instead, they showed him a sketch of the bastard who had shot him.
Monday, December 4—10:40 A.M.
Spokane International Airport
His crutches were wedged between his carry-on bag and the seat he occupied in the boarding area. Except for some idiot who stood directly in front of him, talking on his phone for a few minutes, Jason Eichhorn had an unimpaired view of the gate—and the TV bracketed high on a structural post. He had another half hour before his flight started boarding. It was one of those “puddle jumpers.” He’d taken a lot of them lately. This time, he was on his way to Bozeman to interview some former True Divine Light Messengers at Montana State University.
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