No help.
Across the parking lot, Paige remained still, deathly so. I went back and stood over her. “Paige?” I whispered. Her eyelids didn’t flicker. And then a little louder, I said, “Paige?”
It was like talking to a dead person. I squatted down and looked closer. In the trickle of light coming off the bridge, her skin had a bluish cast that was as pale as her hair that had fallen across her face. There was a stain on the collar of her jacket. It was blood.
I killed her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I RAN ACROSS the bridge. I kept running until the adrenaline seeped away and my lungs were on fire and all I knew was injury. Aching forearm. Tender throat. Head throbbing. The dirt trail along Canal Road, the trees, and the streetlamps were all curiously distant, and the trek back to the city much farther than I remembered.
Yet the night itself was close, intimate, as if it had welcomed me and shown me its secret, and I was a part of it now, and its breath was my own. I never noticed how the night breathed, how patient it was, content now that I joined it. Nor had I noticed the terrible beauty of its variant shades—the midnight-blue sky beaded with stars, the ebony of trees, and the charcoal of space between the trees—and far below, the darkest place of all, the river.
The night had a song that was low and somber, punctuated by the sharp note of the owl as it hunted, its piercing shriek followed by the anguished cry of its prey. Paige had been like the owl, but then she became prey, and that, too, had been revealed by the night.
The blood from the knife had dried on my fist, the knife an extension of my hand, and it was true, I had wanted her to die by it. I could remember the intention distinctly. What did that make me? Was I a killer?
At Arizona Avenue, I went up the hill, feeling weightless, without any size or heft, as if the slightest breeze might carry me away. A Citibank sign told the time and temperature—3:26, fifty-four degrees. Good to know, I thought vaguely. Better yet if I could find my way home. The maze of city streets disoriented me.
There were brownstones on the corner, one with a porch light on. I should bang on its door and ask to use the phone to call the police and tell them—what? That Paige had tracked and killed Evelyn and Brad and had tried to kill me.
Evie let herself be a pawn.
For whom?
Paige had said, What else could I do?
So I killed Paige. What else could I have done?
My thoughts were dark, incoherent, speeding without any control. If I told the police, I’d sound crazy, just like Paige Linden was obviously crazy but also smart. Would they believe me? What would they do to me?
I turned from the brownstones and made my way up the hill. At the crest, there was a wide field, and in the field, a children’s park. I’d never noticed this park before. An empty swing set was a shadow against the sky, and above that shadow, a full moon hovered.
It was the moon of Diana, lunar virgin, goddess of the hunt, protector of young girls and woodland creatures, a moon so beautiful it hurt. Much like those stories told by my father had hurt, his stories of Mama. How she’d flung herself into motherhood as she had into the marriage and the move north to an industrial world she could scarcely comprehend. How she would never put her child down, though he’d warned her: you’re going to spoil that child, Diana. But she’d wrap me in blankets and carry me into the night and point to a sky bright with constellations, a sky much like tonight’s, and she’d whisper her star stories of heroes challenging their gods.
Before she died, she told me the story of the moon. How a woman was like the moon, always there, watchful over sleeping children, luminous against the darkness. See how the moon appears differently tonight, more shadowed than in nights previous? But her essence never changes. Her eye never wavers. She’s only moving through her phases as if changing a beautiful dress, following the rhythms of a life that is good because all of life is good, even when the darkness threatens. So it is with women.
With a deep sigh I tucked the bloody knife into my hip pocket and set my shoulders against the night. Under that moon, I made my way home.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
I WENT INSIDE and called Michael with the idea of turning myself in. He laughed. When I explained, he stopped laughing. Within the half hour he was banging on my front door.
He took Ben’s knife and bagged it as evidence. His gaze kept flitting to my neck. “Those bruises look bad,” he said. “How about we get you checked out at a hospital? All right, love?”
No way was I going to any hospital, but he was being nice, and it made me feel terrible. “You weren’t by Chain Bridge the night Brad Hartnett was killed, were you?”
“Nope, I was at headquarters all night,” he said with a sad smile. “When the call came in requesting the homicide unit, I was at my desk. Promise.”
I winced. “Sorry I mistook you for a killer.”
He picked up his camera and pointed it playfully at my expression, laughing as he photographed it. Click.
“That was my guy at your house,” he said. “The one you made.”
His guy. The one who scared me witless? “The brown sedan? That was yours?”
He took my hand gingerly, extending my arm, the one that’d been bashed by the Maglite, and took pictures of the bruising. Click. “Good. Now hold your hair up and slide your collar down so I can—yes, that’s fine.” He whistled softly as he took the picture. “So my guy camped out in front of your house? He was looking out for you. Needless to say, he was pretty upset to see you hobbling home at 4 a.m.—three sheets to the wind, he reported—when you were supposed to be tucked in. How is it you never do what’s expected?” He was being playful, trying to keep it light, but I just wasn’t feeling it.
“I killed someone,” I said in a rough voice.
“Stick to the story. You did what you had to do to come home.”
Just then, his phone rang. He turned away from me and talked in a low voice to an official from the scene, I presumed.
“Scene secure?” he said. “Uh-huh . . . no . . . well, that’s a problem . . . yeah, be there soon as I can.” He turned back, saying, “Your car is gone. We’ve put out an APB.”
“My car?”
The lines between his eyebrows deepened. “There was no body, either.”
“What?”
He tilted his head and studied me for a moment, and then: “Did you touch her, check her pulse?”
“I—no.” I felt my face flush with embarrassment. “It was dark. There was blood on her collar, a lot of it, and my head—it hurt to think.” What I couldn’t admit: I had panicked and ran. “So what are you saying?”
“Her body was not at the scene.”
“No body?” I repeated dumbly.
“It means she got away.”
“She’s alive.” It was unbelievable, and then, hopefully: “I didn’t kill her?”
His cool gray eyes narrowed wickedly. “That would’ve been too lucky.”
————
We crossed the bridge in Michael’s cruiser. At the entrance to the pullover lot, a uniformed officer stood guard. Michael flipped his identification, and the officer waved us in and showed Michael where to park. He got out to chat with the supervisor at the scene.
I stayed in the car and waited for my nerves to settle. In the thin light of the early morning, crime scene techs were searching for evidence. A trail of yellow flags marked where I assumed blood had been found, the largest cluster of flags where I’d fought Paige. The trail thinned to the stone barrier where my car had been parked.
Slowly, painfully, I climbed out of the cruiser, my shoulder and arm screaming where it was bruised, and walked away from the techs to the other end of the lot where I found the break in the brambles that led back to the woods. It was wider than it’d seemed last night, but deep. My stomach trembled, and the trembling radiated outward.
Michael came up behind me. “Ready to show me?”
I hesitated, staring into the woods, remem
bering.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Take your time.”
“She lured me back there to kill me.”
“Yes.”
“Can you believe I gave her my flashlight?” I laughed without humor, and then: “I handed her a weapon to kill me, like she killed Evelyn with her husband’s blackjack.” The path back into the woods was shadowy even in the morning light. “What if she’d brought the gun she used to shoot Brad?”
“She probably tossed the gun,” he said in a soft voice, surprisingly gentle. “I’d say she prefers to get someone’s weapon away from them and use it against them—until you put up a fight. That must have surprised her. Or maybe she enjoyed the fight.”
She enjoyed it. Hurting me.
It had been a game to her.
“Paige had been monitoring Evelyn’s calls,” I said. “She heard Evelyn ask Ian for a meeting. That’s how she got the time and place and was able to track Evelyn’s route.”
He nodded. “Sounds about right.”
What to make of the Triumph? She had one like Michael’s, which suggested she’d planned to set up Michael for Evelyn’s murder, right?
I thought about the spreadsheets Evelyn had given to Brad Hartnett. For safekeeping, Evelyn had told him, and he was going to give them to me, but Paige killed him.
“What did Paige tell you about the audit?” I said.
“What audit?”
“Rumors of money missing from a client account? I guess she lied about that, too.”
“Sure you’re okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing my temple. “Let’s get this over with.”
We followed the path into the clearing. At the far edge was the Triumph, that big, beautiful bike, and near it, the Canon where I’d dropped it. I picked up the camera and swept pine needles off. The batteries were dead, but otherwise, it seemed in working order. No dents or busted switches or buttons.
Michael had gone straight for the bike, circling it as I had last night. He was scratching the stubble along his jaw, perplexed. After a long silence, he muttered, “Same as mine.”
I glanced up. “Not exactly. Handlebars are different.”
He tilted his head. “You’re right. They are.” There was curiosity in his voice. He put his hand on his hip and turned to me. “How do you know that?”
He wouldn’t believe it, so I shrugged. “It’s a gift.”
“A . . . gift?”
“It’s also my job to observe. I’m very good at my job.”
His eyes narrowed. “What’s that in your hand?”
“This is called a video camera, as you must know, since every time you see one, you go all Detective Hollywood. But these batteries are in fact dead. There’ll be no glamour-boy photo ops today.”
“Smart-ass. How’d it get here?”
I explained how I’d brought it to shoot the motorcycle, but dropped it before the fight. “It must have recorded until it ran out of power.”
“So you have video of Paige attacking you?”
“Nah, we beat each other up in the parking lot, not here,” I said. “Besides, the lens was face down in leaves, so no pictures.”
His jaw tightened, giving him a sleek, aggressive look. “Give it to me.”
“Why?”
“It could be evidence.”
“I’d have to run that past the company lawyers first.” As he well knew, the camera was property of the station, not mine to give, and he couldn’t make me. Any video was protected under the First Amendment as working notes of the press and protected legally. “If you really want it, I’ll take it to the attorneys. Tell them it’s a rush job.”
Just then, an official came to the edge of the clearing. “We found a flashlight,” the captain told Michael, glancing warily at me. “And the second team is ready to get started back here.”
Michael nodded once, his jaw stubbornly set. “We need a few minutes. Keep the others away for now.” When the official left, Michael turned back to me. “Give me the camera.”
“What? No.”
He was struggling with his temper. “After all I’ve done for you.”
“I feel I’ve done a lot for you, too,” I said. “I closed your case for you, and I’m willing to testify, which is better than any dark video of leaves.” And then I stopped, realizing what he really wanted—the audio.
He was worried about what conversations the camera recorded.
“Go ahead,” I said, sighing. “Ask me if we talked about your relationship with Evelyn Carney.”
He glanced over, surprised. “Paige say I had sex with Evie?”
“Not on tape.”
“I never hooked up with Evie. I was never even alone with her. Paige Linden is a skillful liar.”
That was certainly true, but it was also true that Paige’s skill came from great confidence. The puzzle that had nagged at me on my walk home: she’d used a motorcycle like Michael’s to set him up, but how could she be so confident? It was a great risk going after the head of the investigation, Michael with the privilege all law enforcement enjoyed, that his every word would be accepted as fact, and in a court of law, his godlike testimony held above all others.
In fact, her plan to frame Michael had been so perilous that it was stupid, and Paige Linden was not stupid. The only way it could work?
“You never told me where you were the night Evelyn Carney was killed,” I said. “At the Dubliner, I asked several times. Each time you ducked it.”
His cheeks bloomed with color. “I wasn’t with Evie,” he said angrily. “I was never alone with that woman, not once, certainly not that night. But you won’t believe me, will you? You never trusted anyone, especially not me. Not in all the time I’ve known you.”
That was just bluster. He was trying to make me mad and throw me off my stride. “Actually, I believe you never had a sexual relationship with Evelyn.”
He blew out a breath. “Thank you.”
“For days I’ve had all these scenarios running through my head, making me crazy. I remembered what you admitted about Evelyn, how you ran into her at bars around Capitol Hill, and once Paige had been with her. That’s quite a roundabout way of admitting you hung out with Paige, too.”
He gave me a level look. “What are you getting at?”
“Just musing aloud about what runs through my head,” I said, shrugging. “You know how it is, all these inconsistencies, unanswered questions, how they nag.” I set the camera on the ground and straightened again. “The camera’s not recording. Why not tell me where you were the night Evelyn disappeared?”
His jaw moved slightly, but that was all.
“Know what I think? You were with Paige Linden that night,” I said, and when he remained silent, his face a blank mask, I went on: “That’s why Paige was confident pointing her finger at you. She was your alibi.” Which left me struggling with the terrible conclusion: “Did you help Paige kill Evelyn?”
His head moved vaguely, a shake no or a nod yes, it was impossible to tell.
“Helped clean up the crime scene? Dispose of the body? You’d know the best way to do that, wouldn’t you?” He’d been with Paige, but beyond that, I couldn’t see. “You know I won’t stop until I know. If need be, I’ll go above your head to find out.”
“Are you trying to ruin me?” His voice was hoarse.
“You were with the suspect the night she committed a murder. How many people have you sat across from in an interview room and pressured into a confession with a similar scenario? I haven’t ruined you. This is just how the terrible game goes.”
He glanced off into the distance, figuring how to play me. I was in no rush. He could take the time he needed because I had him and he knew it, but he also had to come to terms with it. His expression was stoic when he began his tale.
“I was hanging out at the Dubliner with friends; that’s what we do Sunday nights. We were drinking half yards of black and tans, watching the hockey game at the bar.
The Caps were winning. I was feeling good. Paige strolled in alone, looking for me. That’s the kind of relationship we had.” He hesitated for a long moment, and then: “Somehow I ended up at her house.”
“Somehow?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. I was kind of inebriated.”
I cut him a look. “If you want to help me figure how to keep you out of the story, you’d better explain how you’re not news. Right now, you’re looking like a lead—a double murderer’s alibi at best, at worst an accomplice.”
“Do you have to be so hard?”
“Do you have to insult my intelligence with bullshit?”
He lifted his hands helplessly. “Like I said, she came in. My buddies picked up the sexy vibe she was throwing down, and they left. Paige and I had a couple of shots. After that, I wasn’t feeling so good anymore. She helped me out of the bar, gave me a ride. That’s about it.”
“So drunk you can’t remember?” I scoffed.
“From the time I left the bar to the next morning when I woke up on her couch, there’s a black hole.” He was pacing now. His hands raked through his hair. He was about as worked up as I’d ever seen him.
“You’re not a blackout drunk,” I said with skepticism.
“No.”
“Yet you blacked out on two shots and a beer?”
“It was like coming out of a coma, my arms and legs numb, my brain all fogged up, and not a fucking clue what happened to me. And Paige, boy was she pissed. She complained she’d had to take care of me all night. I’d been sick and made all kinds of mess, which I couldn’t remember, either.” He ducked his head, but not before I’d seen his cheeks redden. “She mocked me for not holding my liquor. It wasn’t until much later that my head cleared enough to think it through.”
“What’s that mean?”
He went on, as if to himself. “Hindsight, with those symptoms, I could’ve gone to Washington Hospital Center for testing. Then again, most of that stuff is undetectable after a handful of hours, so the lab wouldn’t have—”
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