“It’s Saint George,” Rein said. “The dragon slayer.”
“That’s probably similar to the vow you both took when you became police officers,” Adam said. “In the olden times, knights enforced the chivalric code. Honor. Protection of the innocent. In fact, that’s the reason police badges are designed to look like shields. You shield the rest of us from harm. Pretty interesting, isn’t it?”
Jacob set his glass down on the table, cupping it with both hands. “Actually, I can’t stay tonight, either. I have to meet my son in Harrisburg first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Is everything all right?” Carrie asked.
Rein glanced at her with uncertainty. “I didn’t want to say anything at the diner, because I hadn’t decided to go through with it yet. Jacob Junior has been hounding me since law school to take on my case. He’s convinced he can clear my name. I’m meeting with him to get the paperwork started.”
Carrie was stunned. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Do you think it will work?”
Rein swirled the last remaining drops around the bottom of his glass. “I suppose it’s time we found out.”
CHAPTER 30
“I’m not letting you walk all the way to the bus depot,” Carrie said, tossing Rein’s bag into the backseat of her car. It was so worn out that it’s zipper came loose when it landed, sending paperwork flying. Carrie collected a large, folded piece of paper from the car’s floor and saw it was a map of Vieira County. There were circles drawn in the deeply wooded sections. “What is this?” Carrie asked, holding up the map.
“Nothing,” Rein said, reaching to take it from her.
Carrie moved out of his reach, examining the markings. One of them was labeled Monica Gere and the date of her rape. He’d highlighted main roads leading in and out of each targeted area, which the suspect would need to escape. Rein had drawn lines between other circled locations, forming wide-ranging vectors, showing the suspect’s most likely path of travel and what areas he might potentially concentrate on next. “Rein, this is incredible. Can I hold on to it?”
“It’s not done yet. I will work on it and let you know,” he said.
“You should have shown it to Harv Bender and let him know where to start looking.”
“Harv helped me draw it,” Rein said. “We’ve been working on the case together.”
“You’re kidding me,” Carrie said.
“Sometimes, detective work is all about getting people to do what they want to do, even if they don’t think they want to do it.”
“If you’re going to get all Zen on me, you need to grow the beard back,” Carrie said.
* * *
It was dark by the time they arrived at the bus depot. It was crowded with confused-looking travelers hauling suitcases, trying to make sense of the station’s terminals and where they were supposed to be. Homeless people picked through the trash cans, or sat slumped against the depot’s wall, muttering to themselves.
“I can drive you to Harrisburg,” Carrie said. “This place looks disgusting.”
“It’s fine,” Rein said, reaching into the rear of the car to grab his bag. He clutched the top part, trying to keep everything contained as he set it on his lap. “I’ll call you in a few days, once I get settled at my son’s house,” he said.
“Rein,” she said, touching his wrist before he could get out. “What changed your mind? Why are you letting him work on your case?”
“I’ve been thinking a lot about the people who died to make me what I am,” he said. “I still owe.”
Rein let himself out of the car, and Carrie sat watching him for as long as she could before he vanished into the sea of people. As she went to leave, she saw the folded map lying on the floor where it had fallen from his bag.
She picked it up and unfolded it, studying the circles and where they were set against the rest of the map. There was one only a few miles away, she saw.
What the hell, she thought. It couldn’t hurt to take a look.
* * *
The woods felt strange and lonely as she drove. The sky was covered with clouds, only letting the moon emerge briefly to reveal its pale, full roundness, before being enveloped in mist once more. At least she could see the road, Carrie thought. A long empty stretch of backwoods with nothing but trees all around it. But it was straight, and flat, and she was traveling within the circle Rein had marked on his map. She needed music, if only to fill the emptiness of the land around her. She wished, more than anything, that Rein had stayed.
She checked the road to make sure no other cars were coming and picked up her phone and scrolled with one hand as she steered with the other, eyes glancing at the road and back, searching for something to listen to. It was a strange night that called for strange music, she thought. Something spooky to drive to.
A song began playing through her phone, and she tapped the screen with her thumb until it stopped. She shut down the app, scrolled to her settings, made sure the Bluetooth was connected, scrolled back to the app, and restarted the song. It played through her phone again. When she looked up, her car had drifted into the oncoming lane. She cursed, righted the car, and tossed the phone into the passenger seat. It was a good thing the road was empty in front of her. She’d have plowed into someone for certain. Stupid technology. The more complicated they make things, the less they work.
Red and blue lights flared to life in the mirror behind her, filling the dark woods all around with their brilliance. The police car on her tail toggled its high-pitched siren.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Carrie said. Okay, think, she told herself. Her heart was hammering in her chest. She was out in the woods looking for a would-be rapist who used a police car. Now there was a police car behind her.
I was swerving, she thought. Maybe it’s a real cop. If it’s a real cop, I’ll just show him my badge and explain what I’m doing out here. If it’s not, I’ll show him my badge and stomp the shit out of him.
The car zoomed forward, nearly crashing into her rear bumper, jamming on the air horn on top of the siren now.
“I’m pulling over, all right?” Carrie shouted. She yanked the wheel to the right, trying to get a look at the man sitting in the car behind her. It was too dark. She rolled down her windows, wanting to hear if he was using a police radio or not. “Come on,” she whispered, wrapping her fingers around the handle of the pistol strapped to her waist.
Won’t this be something if it really is a ticket, she wondered. If it’s a cop, he saw me swerving, and will probably give me a field sobriety test, whether I badge him or not. It occurred to her that she’d had wine with dinner that night. Holy shit, how much did I drink? It hadn’t even been a full glass. She wasn’t tipsy. Was she?
Either way, she was going to have to call Harv Bender as soon as it was over. She’d rather be the one to tell him she got pulled over than for him to hear it some other way.
The car’s spotlight switched on, filling Carrie’s sideview mirror with light, aimed directly at her face. She raised her hand to shield her eyes.
She heard him approaching, and as she turned in her seat to look, another light appeared in her eyes. He was holding a flashlight, pointing it straight at her so she couldn’t see him.
Totally standard procedure, she thought. She’d done the same exact thing to everyone she pulled over at night.
She squinted into the light, able to see a silver badge pinned above the man’s left breast pocket. That looks real, she thought. She unbuckled her seat belt and sat up, reaching around to pull her police ID out.
“You were swerving, ma’am,” the man said.
“I know that, hang on a second,” Carrie said, her right hand stuffed in her back pocket, still digging for the ID.
He thrust his hand through the open window and snatched Carrie by the throat. His gloved fingers clenched around her larynx so quickly that the oxygen seized inside her chest with no way to escape, threatening to burst her lungs.
In that instant,
he had her door open and was ripping her out of the car, hurling her onto the road at his feet. Carrie hit the loose asphalt stones and gasped, feeling it cut into her palms and knees. She’d caught herself in time to keep from cracking her skull, but even as she tried to roll away, the man reared back his heavy boot and kicked her in the side. “You dirty fucking whore!” he shouted. “Out here swerving all over, trying to kill somebody!”
Carrie rolled with the kick and tried to scramble to her feet, but the world was spinning. He ran up and kicked her again.
He dropped down on top of her, pinning her arms to the road and lowered his face over hers. “I’m going to teach you what happens to cunts that break the law.”
He grabbed her by the throat again, cutting off her air. Carrie watched him raise a clenched fist high in the air, ready to cave her teeth in. With his body blocking the light of his car, she could make out the words printed on the badge—SECURITY GUARD.
He was about to swing when he felt the hard imprint of Carrie’s gun barrel pressed against his sternum. He looked down at the gun in wide-eyed surprise, still choking her. Carrie was trying to pull the trigger, as if from a thousand miles away. Her fingers were going numb. She could feel tears streaming down the sides of her face. Her entire left side was on fire from being struck, but she was pulling with all her might. Even as her life slipped away she was pulling it as hard as she could. He let go of her and spun away just as the gun fired.
The bullet struck her car, shattering the rim of her front tire, and sending sparks flying through the air. She never heard the gun go off. She’d doubled over the second he let go of her, retching as she instinctively sucked in more air than her body could hold. From the road, she could see the man running for the driver’s-side door of his car. Metal handcuffs draped around his belt at the center of his back, flapping as he ran. He was going to try to run her over, she realized, so she could never tell anyone what happened. He was reaching for the door when Carrie raised her gun again, gagging and sputtering as she tried to aim with shaking hands, and she fired. The glass window shattered above his hand and he reeled back from it.
Carrie staggered toward him, wobbling, but keeping the gun aimed steadily enough to make him raise his hands and back up. She got a better look at him then. He had the right look at first glance, but it was missing details. His black shoes were shined but his white socks were a giveaway. His cheap nylon belt with no pouches or holster was a giveaway. His polyester uniform supply shirt with American flags on both sides was a giveaway. It was all cheap imitation.
The car was an older model police vehicle, stripped of its decals and emblems. The vehicles were sold at auction all the time, and most came equipped with the door-mounted spotlight, because it was too expensive to get them removed. He’d probably bought the light bar online, she thought. The goddamn holes were likely still drilled in the roof when he went to mount it.
She leveled the gun between his eyes, gripping it with both hands. He moaned and dropped to his knees, hands held high in the air. “P-please, don’t shoot me! I didn’t do anything wrong! I was just trying to help!”
Carrie tried to speak, but needed to swallow and clear her throat, trying to force it to work right again. She wrenched her badge free and draped its chain around her neck, letting him get a good look at it. “Get down on the ground, facedown, you piece of shit. You’re under arrest.”
“I’m on your side, can’t you see?” he moaned, clenching his eyes shut. “I just wanted to help the police and show I could protect people. You don’t understand.” He lowered his head, sobbing until spit bubbles popped between his lips. “Please don’t take me to jail. You’ll destroy my entire life.”
Carrie circled to his left, going around back of him, keeping the gun aimed at the center of his head. She kicked him in the center of his back, as hard as she could, knocking him forward on his hands and face, his rear end raised high in the air.
“Now put your hands behind your back, or so help me God, I will shoot you if you move a single inch.”
Carrie kept the muzzle of her gun pressed to the base of his skull with one hand, while she checked his pockets for weapons. She found a wallet in his back pocket and flung it open. “Stewart Gates,” she said, reading his driver’s license. He was even wearing his uniform in his driver’s license photo.
I could kill you, she thought. It would be easy. Just have him roll over and shoot him in the face. Tell them how he came at you, and while you were struggling, you got on top of him and fired off a lucky shot. End this, right here, right now.
“Please, don’t arrest me,” Gates moaned. “I think I might be sick or something. I need help. I can’t control myself. Can you please help me?”
“Shut up!” Carrie shouted, grinding the front of her gun’s barrel against the base of his skull.
Kill him. It’s what he would do to you.
She could hear Ben Rein’s voice in her head, telling her how he’d systematically eliminated everyone involved in Ollie’s death when he told her the truth about war.
You don’t spare the ones who plead for mercy. In war, you kill every fucking one of them.
Even Fred Eubanks had understood his part in everything was to die. To spare the system and the public the agony of enduring his presence any longer. Was this piece of shit any different? She’d killed before. The gun shook in her hand, her finger wrapped around the trigger so tightly its serrations were biting into her flesh.
Kill him. For Monica Gere and Hope Pugh and all the countless other victims of men just like him.
“Son of a bitch!” Carrie shouted and jammed the gun back into her holster. She pulled out her handcuffs and snapped them around his right wrist and bore down on him with all her weight. She pinned his neck and arm to the street, twisting the cuffs against his wrist until he yelped. “Give me your other arm!” she said.
He rolled just enough for her to grab him by the other wrist, yank it behind his back, and get it cuffed. Carrie sat on top of him, knees wedged in his back and neck, catching her breath. She wiped sweat from her face and stood up. “Get to your feet,” she said.
“I can’t walk,” he sobbed.
“Walk or I’ll drag you,” she said, pulling him upward by his handcuffs until the muscles in his shoulders threatened to tear. He staggered to his feet and Carrie steered him toward her backseat. “Get in and lay facedown,” she said. “Watch out for the roof of the car. Duck your head.” She watched him lie down like he was told.
Carrie picked up her car’s radio microphone and said, “Detective Santero to County.”
The radio dispatcher answered, “Go ahead for County.”
The moon had emerged once more, bathing the woods in its full blue light, falling on the creatures who hunt and the ones who are hunted alike. “I have one in custody,” she said. “Assault on a police officer.”
Her badge’s golden shield reflected the car’s swirling lights as she leaned against the door, clutching her side and wincing. Sirens in the distance, growing louder. The road dogs were coming, and the traffic cops were coming, hell, probably even a few bosses were coming, and she would be glad to see every single one of them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Of course, first and foremost, the kids. They know that. To all my friends and family with all my love.
To Adam. I have been, and always shall be, your friend.
To Sgt. Dennis Raftery of Baltimore Homicide. In 2002, Dennis took me into his home and let me work with him at one of the most elite investigative divisions in the world. We didn’t stay in touch often, but that experience helped shape me. When I wrote “The Fuming Chamber” a few months ago, I looked him up, because that story was based on our time together. I wanted to send him a copy of the first book. Turns out, Dennis passed away in 2016. God damn it.
To US Army Technical Sgt. Bernard Samuel Schaffer Sr., whom I did not know very well during his life, but who really did capture a Nazi officer single-handedly and brought home some inter
esting trophies.
To Steve Zacharius, Lynn Cully, Lulu Martinez, Darla Freeman, Susie Russenberger, Adrianne Bonilla, the art department, and all the incredible staff at Kensington Publishing. Your hard work makes all this possible. There’s a huge Frederic Remington sculpture in Kensington’s lobby, and they’ve been dedicated publishers of Westerns for decades now, keeping the genre going. I said I was going to write Kensington a Western someday. Hope you all enjoyed it.
To John Gilstrap, for setting me straight about what writing a book series is all about. I’ve spent many an hour with him at the bars of various writer’s conferences, asking him how to make sense of all this. He’s a good sensei and a good friend.
To Lisa Scottoline, J. A. Konrath, David Morrell, and Lee Child, for their time, guidance, and kind words about The Thief of All Light. David Morrell, in particular, had a big hand in the final outcome of TOAL, and for that, I’ll always be grateful.
My writing exists because of the love and support of women I’ve known throughout my life. My mother used to take me to bookstores as a kid and encouraged my great love of literature. My aunts, Donna Laing and Paula Lipp critiqued and edited my earliest work, although it was awful and unworthy of their time. The editors who guided me during the majority of my independent career, Karen S. (The Angry Hatchet) and Laurie Laliberte, were instrumental in helping me develop as a novelist. And now, I have the pleasure of working with the two ladies I’ll mention by name below. There’s another group I haven’t mentioned, and don’t feel fully comfortable talking about, but they are present in my mind and deserve recognition. During my twenty-year police career, I’ve worked with women of every age, from little girls to elderly adults, who have been victims of crime. They’ve been brave enough to come to the station and describe the most horrific, embarrassing events of their entire lives with me. They’ve been strong enough to go to trial, and face down their abusers and molesters and rapists and attackers. They’ve been good enough people to carry on after it was all over and keep marching forward. I owe a lot to all of these women. It’s my name on the cover of the book, but it’s their spirit you feel within the pages. During the writing of this novel there has been a lot of conversation about women and the way they are treated in this world. It took a lot to get to this point where powerful abusers are afraid and being held accountable, now it’s our job to make sure it never goes back to the way it was.
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