by Stacy Green
“All right. I’m just glad you’re back safe.” She didn’t buy it. That was fine. We had plenty of time on the road.
Sleep pulled me down within minutes, as powerful as an ocean wave. I didn’t dream for once, seeing nothing but pure blackness. I wasn’t even sure the phone was actually ringing until Kelly’s voice answered, and she started nudging me.
“There’s a call for you at the front desk.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I took the receiver, my mouth dry as a cotton ball. If that freaking reporter was calling, she wouldn’t get another free pass from me.
“This is Lucy Kendall.”
“Hello, dear.” A woman’s voice, soft and controlled. Every nerve ending in my body fired at once. My legs jerked, my arms spasmed, my throat locked up. She could have been any relative, anyone off the street. But she was the devil incarnate, standing less than fifty feet away, at the shabby motel’s front counter while the barely legal and completely clueless night shift worker tried to stay awake. “You and I have a lot of things to talk about. Why don’t you meet me outside?”
I reached for my cellphone. “What about in the morning? Can we talk then?”
“That will be too late. For everyone.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I prefer Mr. Sig Saur to the Glock. How about you?”
How many people would she take out before she killed herself? Surely she knew I’d call Lennox.
But he was back in Pennsylvania, believing that Mary couldn’t have gotten past the state line in the Jeep. Maybe she hadn’t. She could have stolen a car or taken the bus. It didn’t matter. She had a gun, and I didn’t have a choice.
“I’ll meet you outside in five minutes.”
“Make it two, dear. Beth Ried is waiting for us. She can’t wait to say hello. You know how the sirens scare her.”
The call ended.
I should call the local police. To hell with Beth Ried.
But this is your chance. If you can save this bitch and take Mary down, maybe that wickedness in you will die too.
“Lucy, don’t.” Kelly’s face had gone white. She must have read my expression, caught the scent of fear and adrenaline revving in my system. “Just call the police.”
“She’s got that reporter. She’ll kill her.”
“She might be lying. It’s a pretty big coincidence to have run into her.”
Lennox’s words from this afternoon came back to me. “No. She was snooping around Oxford today. Lennox thinks someone from here is giving her the information. Mary probably recognized her.”
“She’s going to kill you.” Kelly’s voice pitched high, her thin fingers digging into my arms.
Possibly. But I no longer feared death. I didn’t know when or why that had changed, but a peace settled over me–an eerie calm that must be similar to what people experience when they know their end is imminent. “I want you to call Agent Lennox. Tell him exactly what’s going on. Let him know we need help, and the locals probably aren’t able to pull it off without getting Beth Ried killed.”
“He’s too far away,” Kelly said.
“He’ll know how to handle it. He’ll choose the right people to call, and help will come. I just need to stall her.” I put my coat back on, laced up my boots. “Give me the Glock.”
39
I couldn’t trust the locals. Chief Deputy Frost might be on duty, and she’d no doubt try one final time to save her career. Lennox would be able to reach Major Crimes and bypass her much more quickly than I could.
What a liar you are. You’re doing this for you, and you only.
With the gun hidden in the pocket of my coat, I tread down the hallway on tiptoes, feeling light. Weightless. Unburdened.
As I’d suspected, the desk clerk didn’t have a clue. She reclined in the chair, eyes closed and her headphones blocking out the world. She didn’t even notice me as I slipped out the front door.
Instinct led the way to the same hiding spot Beth Ried used the night she accosted me about an exclusive, beneath the burnt-out security light. Mary Weston leaned against a white, four-door sedan–the same one Beth had been driving.
“You caught up with her in Oxford.” I stopped about ten feet away.
Mary was shorter than me and at least fifty pounds heavier. Her black hair, streaked with gray, hung to her chin. A knit cap covered it, making her look as normal as any middle-aged woman. She watched me with glittering eyes as black as the long, wool coat she wore. Her skin seemed unperturbed by the cold, perhaps from the nerve damage. It remained paler than the snow piled around the parking lot.
“She shouldn’t have been snooping for a story.” Mary’s voice sounded much less sweeter than it had a few minutes ago and more like the cold woman I’d remembered as Justin’s mother.
“Agreed.”
She regarded me for a moment, and I realized something that had always bothered me: her eyes were truly black, without any color. Maybe it was nature’s way of warning a person Mary had no soul. “You took both of my sons away from me.”
“You sent Justin to prison. I guess that was easier than caring for him. Why did you hate him so much?”
“Because he wasn’t Christopher.” She spoke as if we were old friends, with no need for preamble or pleasantries.
“I had nothing to do with you losing Chris. That happened long before my time.”
“I don’t mean then. I mean this time. I thought he’d come back to me.”
“You weren’t afraid he’d call the police?”
A lunatic’s smile lifted the left side of her mouth. “I know how to avoid them. My father and I watched from the woods for a long time. He didn’t make any calls. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He came for answers, just like he said.”
Like mother, like son. “And you thought that by giving them, you could somehow bring him into the family fold? Give yourself a new killing partner?”
“I hoped,” she said. “I knew my father was dying. His cold injuries got worse every year, and if something didn’t kill him this year, it would have next year.”
I kept our discovery of his body to myself. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“You’re not.”
“He was a prolific killer.”
“Thank you.” She took the words and held them for a moment. “Life without him might have been bearable with Christopher.”
“Don’t blame me for that,” I said. “Agent Lennox found you.”
“No one found me. I found you. And that’s not what I’m talking about.” Her eyes narrowed, and the left side of her face twitched with normal movement, but the right stayed immobile. Looking into that semi-frozen face while you died had to be terrifying. “But Christopher was never going to join me. Because of you.”
“Is that what he said?”
“You’re all he talked about.” Jealousy deepened her already rough tone, making her sound like a lifelong smoker with throat problems. “How you took the righteous path, how he wanted to follow you. To be like you. That taking another life was only right if a person had a good reason.” She laughed now, a deep belly roll chilling me far more than the bitter night. “A fool’s lie. People kill because they like it. Because it makes them feel better about themselves. Because there’s no better high than watching another human being suffer at your hands. But you know that, don’t you?”
“How would I?” My body felt numb from the cold. Or maybe her words. Wind cut through the parking lot, bringing the putrid scent of a paper factory bordering the western edge of town. A car drove down the main highway–a mere two streets away, close enough the headlights cast a weak glow over us. Lennox must have bypassed the local deputies, or they’d have come in with sirens blaring by now.
“Don’t play coy with me,” she said. “The way Christopher talked about you, you’re some kind of patron saint of justice. And I know you killed at least one person in that garage in Philadelphia. Although my money’s on you killing them both and enjoying every bit of it. No need to pretend it was
self-defense with me.”
Chris hadn’t betrayed me. Not with enough information that could hurt me if Mary ever spoke to the police, anyway. She sensed the killer in me just like John Weston had. Which meant she also sensed my weakness.
“We’re not all that different.”
“No, we’re not.” The idea no longer ignited fear. I accepted it, just as I accepted my fate. “But you’re far more skilled than I am.”
She flashed me another twisted, half-smile. “That’s true. But practice makes perfect. Which brings me to why I’m here.”
“I would love to know the answer to that,” I said.
“I won’t be incarcerated. I’m sure you can understand.”
“Of course.”
“And the only way I know how to live is to kill. It’s my heritage. But I’m getting older, and going it alone is tough.”
The growing pit in my stomach burst open. Bile whipped up my throat; I swallowed it down. “You could always retire.”
“Killing’s in my blood. If I stop, it’s because I’m dead. I’m not quite ready for that. It’s a last resort for me.” She shook her head, real emotion in her throaty voice. “I’d hoped Christopher would be my new partner and maybe have some time with his grandfather, getting trained up.”
“Which is why you tried to break his spirit,” I said. “Bring him in close, emotionally isolate him. Tough to do with an adult, but he was ripe for it.”
“See, you understand me,” Mary said. “That’s why I think we could work together. You’re very good at what you do. You just haven’t accepted your true self yet. I can help you with that.”
“Thank you, but I’ll have to decline. I’m retiring after tonight.”
She laughed again, that hideous expression searing its way into my brain. “You’ll never be able to stop. You might go a year, maybe even five or ten. But the need will crop up again. But don’t kid yourself. It’s not about justice. It’s about taking a life to give yourself one.”
And there it was. She’d hit on the very same thing I’d told myself in the parking garage, seeing through all my excuses. I’d never felt so unclean. “You’re wrong.”
“Stop lying to yourself, girl. That’s the real travesty here. Who cares if you killed men who like babies? Who cares if you’ve killed anyone as long as you wanted to do it? Don’t be a wimp and label it to make yourself feel better. Accept who you are, and show it to the world.”
Fear rocketed through me, not at her words but because they made such pure sense. Because a part of me wanted to take her advice and forget everything else. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and then took a long breath of the cold air until my throat burned. “Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“The reporter wronged you,” she said. “First she brings your name into the public eye, and then she tries to use it to worm her way out of trouble with me.”
“Did she?” I kept my voice level, my body relaxed. My right hand still ghosted over the gun, but it no longer clutched the Glock.
“She said you’d promised her an exclusive after I was captured. That the FBI had granted you the opportunity to interview me since you’d managed to get John to tell you about my father.”
“And you believed that?”
“Of course not.” She snorted, the sound cutting through the silent night. “But it is interesting, don’t you think? Clearly, Agent Lennox has a leak. Because John didn’t know my father had served in Korea or about his cold injuries. Yet this woman does.”
My money was on Chief Deputy Frost for the leak. “I’ll pass the information on to Agent Lennox.”
“Beth Ried told me where you were staying, of course.”
“I assumed as much.”
“She’s in the trunk. We can drive away from here and have some fun. Did you knife the girl in the garage?”
Yes, even as she begged me for mercy. “Her boyfriend did it.”
“And you hit him with the shovel,” she said. “That’s what the newspapers claimed.”
“I was trying to save myself.”
“And you succeeded,” she said. “But you’ll slip up one day. Maybe you’ll be tired, or sick, or going without sleep. Either way, you’ll screw up. That’s when having a partner comes in handy. They can pick up the slack.”
“Is that why your father trained you to kill with him?”
She shrugged. “I was only six years old the first time he dragged a girl into the sleeper. He raped her and then cut her. I thought it was normal. He eventually explained that society didn’t agree, and we had to keep our secret.”
“And now he’s dead.” My time had to be running short. At least thirty minutes had passed since I left the motel. Harford was a small county–whoever Lennox was mobilizing had to show up soon. “The only person you’ve ever bonded with is rotting in a trunk on his farm. Or he was. He’s probably locked in an autopsy room right now.”
Pure hate rippled over the half of her face that still worked. “He wouldn’t want that.”
“I don’t think anyone cares what he wanted. I even overheard Lennox talking about donating his brain to science as part of the study of serial killers. He doesn’t think your aunt will have any trouble signing the release.”
“Stop talking about him like that.” Spittle bubbled at the corners of her mouth. “My father was a great talent. He could do things no one else even thought about. Much less had the balls to do. He didn’t care how loud a girl screamed. He kept hurting them. He never stopped until he was fully satiated.”
“Until his cold injuries caught up to him,” I said. “Is that how you got hurt? Did he make a mistake?”
“What do you mean?” Her confidence wavered for the first time, her eyes settling on me with chilling calm.
“The nerve damage to your face and arm. I don’t think it was from a car accident. I think a victim fought back and dear old dad screwed up. You paid the price.”
She glared at me, the good side of her face twitching. “I told you, having a partner is a good thing.”
“I suppose it’s good the two of you made up,” I said. “Because I don’t think you would have been caught otherwise. He’s your weakness.”
“Caught?” She said. “You consider this caught?”
“It’s going to happen,” I said. “Agent Lennox has been notified. Even if you take off with that woman still in the trunk, he’ll figure out a way to find you.”
“No, he won’t.”
I glanced east. Sunrise would come soon. Already a thin stream of light pink skimmed the horizon. “Thank you for the offer, but I’ll have to decline.”
She wavered, clearly thrown by my lack of fear. But her need for control and complete submission drove her to recover quickly, as I’d known it would. “You don’t have a choice. You took my son from me. If you won’t join me as a partner and help me to continue my father’s legacy, then you’ll die.”
“Go ahead and shoot, then.” I no longer feared the veil or what waited for me at the bottom of the pit. Again, I felt peace. And a smattering of arrogance, because I’d managed to do what Chris couldn’t: his mother would kill me, ending my suffering. No more looking over my shoulder, waiting to get caught. No more sleepless nights convincing myself I was doing the right thing. No more angst.
“You think I’m bluffing,” Mary said. “Or that someone’s coming to save you. But this is all very real, and this is your last chance. Get in this car, or die.”
I shook my head. “I know you’re serious. But you made the mistake of thinking I valued my own life.”
“I’m not going to shoot you,” Mary said. “You’ll get in the car. I’ll drug you. I’ll tie you up. I’ll take you with me and do all those terrible things you’ve read about. You’ll die of infection. Suffering more than you can possibly imagine.”
“The spoons,” I said. “The sepsis was intentional.”
She smiled. “You understand me.”
“I guess I do.” Disappointment washe
d out the brief flash of hope. Death I could handle. The torture would force me to kill Mary, and we’d end up right back here. But killing her meant Lennox would lose his chance at answers, and I wanted to give him his chance at closure. I supposed I could stall her a little longer. Once I got in the car, I would be relying on my own strength and quickness. If she drugged me, I could be in trouble. My hand closed around the Glock again.
“But not well enough.” She pulled her own gun out of her pocket with her left hand. She held it awkwardly, her fingers fumbling for the right position. “Because if you did, you’d know I do my research. Even if I have to hurt someone to get the information.”
I waited.
“I know about Kelly. Our little reporter did all the legwork for me. I bet that child’s got some demons I can have fun with. And you won’t be here to save her.”
My teeth pierced my bottom lip; I tasted blood. My fingers held the Glock so tightly my knuckles cracked. The air in my lungs tasted stale, as if I’d breathed in something acidic and contagious. How dare she threaten Kelly?
Kelly, who still believed in me and trusted me to keep her safe. The only person in this life I completely trusted. My family.
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Shadows moved around the dumpster sitting in the parking lot behind her.
I pulled the Glock out of my pocket and fired.
40
The shot pierced her left shoulder, just as I’d intended. She staggered back, dropping the gun. It fell with a thud and slid a few inches away on the ice. She tried to move for it, but I was quicker. I slammed the butt of my pistol into her head. Mary fell to her knees, screaming. I snatched her gun and pointed it at her temple.
“You could have won,” I said. “But you threatened the one person I’m willing to keep fighting for.”
“Just kill me.” She rolled to her right side, trying in vain to reach her bleeding shoulder. “I won’t make it in prison.”
At the sound of my shot, the shadows behind the dumpster turned into solid masses barreling toward me. “Harford County SRT,” a man screamed at me. “Put the weapons down.”