The Last Time I Saw Her

by Karen Robards

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Tabitha Grunwald was curled in a fetal position in the aisle near the front of the bus. Seen by the white glow of the lantern that had been placed on the seat nearest her, her short gray hair was shiny red with blood. Her flowered dress was soaked with it. The paper bag Charlie had given her was still clutched in her hand.

  Her face had been blown away.

  Hintz identified the victim for the man in the barn, who repeated her name to someone who was out of camera range.

  As the camera panned Tabitha Grunwald’s body, Charlie dropped her head and closed her eyes. Her chest felt tight. It required an effort to breathe. Remembering the chaperone’s helpless terror, she shuddered.

  A strong masculine arm came around her shoulders; she knew immediately that it belonged to Tony rather than Michael. She also knew that she must be looking bad if Tony was offering her that kind of comfort and support in such a public setting, because, like her, he always tried to keep it professional when he was on the job. When she opened her eyes, though, she couldn’t even look at him or at Michael, who stood silently on her other side, or anyone else, because the computer screen instantly caught her attention again. Her throat closed up as she saw that the kid with the carroty hair, Josh Watkins, was on there now. He was sprawled on his stomach in the dirt on the barn floor and it was obvious that he was dead. His back was a bloody mess. He looked like he’d been shot while trying to run away.

  As Hintz identified Watkins to the man in the barn, Charlie’s knees wobbled. She felt as if every ounce of strength she had left in her had just drained away.

  Tony’s arm tightened and he pulled her close against his side.

  Leaning against him because she really did need the support to keep from folding like an accordion, she dropped her head forward again and concentrated on regulating her breathing.

  As many times as she had seen death, it never got easier. And she’d known these victims, had been a hostage along with them. She had shared their terror.

  She felt responsible for them.

  Yet she had lived and they had died.

  I failed those kids.

  Guilt mixed with sorrow mixed with outrage that such terrible things could even happen.

  “That’s Larry Carter,” Hintz said. From that, Charlie knew that the third victim was the driver. She didn’t look at the screen again. She had just officially reached her limit: she’d seen too much death for one day.

  “The rest of them are still up there on the mountain somewhere, Major,” a man said, and Charlie opened her eyes to find that a National Guard officer was talking to Hintz, not via computer but there in the tent. The police contingent was still in front of the computer, but was looking at the guardsman rather than the screen now.

  “I want them found,” Hintz said. His voice was calmly authoritative, but his one hand that still rested on the table was clenched into a fist and there was fire in his eyes. “I want the rest of those hostages brought out of there alive.”

  The guardsman nodded. “We’ve got the mountain surrounded. Every road blocked. A fly couldn’t get off there without us spotting it. Give us some daylight and—”

  “We can’t wait for daylight.” Hintz’s face was grim. “Physically search every inch of that mountain now. Start at the bottom and sweep upward. Grid by grid, everybody no more than arm’s length apart. Continue the high-tech stuff: Use every piece of equipment you have. Use everything you have. We’ve got six murderers up there, and five kids, and we need to find ’em. Let’s go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The crowd around the computer scattered, with everyone moving purposefully to do their jobs. A uniformed state trooper walked up to the little group consisting of Charlie, Michael, Tony, Lena, and Buzz, and said, “Excuse me, Dr. Stone?”

  “Yes?” Charlie replied. She’d straightened away from Tony’s side the second she’d felt recovered enough, as much for the sake of his professional reputation as her own. His arm was no longer around her, but they were still close. His face impassive, Michael had been watching her and Tony, but he glanced toward the trooper as the man spoke. Lena and Buzz, who’d been talking, broke off.

  “I’m Eddie Plank. Major Hintz sent me to drive you and Mr. Hughes back to Big Stone Gap if you’re ready to go.”

  “I am,” Michael said, and looked at her. His eyes said You are, too. “Dr. Stone?”

  Charlie frowned at him. “I can’t leave.”

  “Yes, you can,” Tony said, and Charlie switched her attention to him. “There’s nothing more you can contribute to this tonight. The situation is contained to the mountain, and there’s a search-and-rescue operation in progress. You’re not needed for that. You go home, get some sleep, and by tomorrow hopefully everything will be resolved here and we’ll be back in Big Stone Gap ourselves trying to determine how the hell this happened. We’ve got rooms in the Best Western there, so you can expect to see us at some point.” He looked at Lena. “Kaminsky, go with her.”

  Charlie and Lena both stiffened and said “No!” simultaneously.

  “I don’t need her.”

  “I’m not a babysitter!”

  The women’s gazes clashed. For an instant, they glared at each other. Then recognition of the mutual enemy struck, and they transferred those glares to Tony.

  “No,” Charlie said again. Quietly but firmly. Tony was right, there was nothing more she could contribute to the situation here. All her knowledge of serial killers in general and three of the search subjects in particular could add nothing to the efforts already under way. If the situation changed, her files and notes on Abell, Torres, and Ware were on her laptop, which (thank goodness!) she’d left in her office at home and in her file cabinet in her office at the prison. She was so exhausted and emotionally and physically wrung out that she was becoming more of a liability than an asset with every passing moment. Plus there was Michael. He had only a short time in Hughes’s body. If she could help save even one life she wouldn’t let that weigh with her, but the truth was her expertise was of no help to anyone now. And she needed—not wanted but needed—to be with him. “I’ll go, but I’m not taking Lena.”

  “Damn right you’re not,” Lena seconded, and scowled at Tony.

  Tony slid a hand around Charlie’s arm. “Can I talk to you for just a second?” he asked.

  Michael’s face revealed precisely nothing as he said, “I’ll be at the car,” and walked away with the trooper while Tony pulled Charlie aside.

  “Hughes,” Tony said, quietly enough so that only she could hear. He didn’t have to say anything else: she knew what he meant.

  “He had plenty of time to murder me while we were stuck on that ledge if he was going to do it. I think I’ll survive a car ride with him with a state trooper as an escort.” Charlie’s reply was equally quiet, and also a little tart. “And he’ll know you and Buzz and Lena and the state trooper and no telling who else know he’s with me, so I’m betting I’m safe.”

  Tony frowned. “I’d feel better if Kaminsky went with you.”

  “Lena wouldn’t. Neither would I.” Charlie squared her shoulders. She was so tired it was hard to think straight. “This is my decision, Tony, and I’m making it.”

  His jaw hardened. Then he said, “You’re right, it is your decision. I’ll walk you to the car.” His tone was cooler and more formal than it had been previously.

  “Thank you,” she said. Then, as they started walking, Charlie flicked a sideways look at him and sighed. “You know I appreciate your concern.”

  His jaw was still set. “But you don’t want it.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want it, it’s that I don’t need it. Right now, for this. I’ll make it back to Big Stone Gap in one piece, I promise.” She flicked another look at him. “But I am so, so grateful that you grabbed Lena and Buzz and came here. I know you did it for me. You’re a really good friend, and I appreciate it.”

  They were outside now, walking through the dark. The po
lice cruiser waited a few yards away, its lights on, its motor running. Charlie couldn’t see who was inside, but she assumed it was Michael and the driver.

  Tony stopped her with a hand on her arm. She looked up at him.

  “Just so we’re clear, I don’t want to be your really good friend,” he said, and kissed her.

  The kiss was quick. Hot on Tony’s part, not on hers. Charlie had no idea if it was visible to the occupant of the cruiser’s rear seat. The thought that Michael might be watching Tony kiss her made Charlie’s pulse give a nervous flutter. Tony lifted his head before she could react in any significant way, leaving Charlie to blink up at him.

  “Don’t say anything,” Tony said, drawing her toward the front passenger door of the cruiser, which he opened for her. “Not right now. Think about it.”

  Charlie’s lips parted to say something along the lines of I don’t need to think about it, but then she closed them again. There wasn’t enough privacy, or enough time, to have the conversation they needed to have.

  The cruiser had a metal grid between the front and rear seats that was designed to protect the officers in the front from prisoners in the back. As she slid into the front passenger seat, Charlie shot a look through the grid at Michael, who was indeed in the back. His face was impossible to read in the brief flash of light she got from the open door. His body language was equally opaque.

  But there was something in the air—she thought he’d seen.

  Tony leaned across her to tell Plank, “Walk Dr. Stone to her door and make sure she gets inside safely.”

  Plank nodded and said, “I’ll do that.”

  What was it with all these alpha males? Because clearly that was the type that was attracted to her, and to whom she was attracted. More fodder for her next session of self-analysis, if ever she succumbed to one, Charlie thought. She didn’t get a chance to respond to that high-handed and totally unnecessary instruction to the driver before Tony said, “I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” and shut the door. A moment later the cruiser pulled away.

  As they exited the cordoned-off area, Charlie was startled to discover that the media was out in force: satellite trucks crowded the road beyond the barricade, and the bright lights of camera crews made it look like a movie premiere was in progress. Charlie suspected that only direct orders from some high-level authority in combination with the thickening fog kept news helicopters from strafing the mountain. On second thought, though, she wasn’t surprised: of course the kidnapping of a school bus full of people including eight teenagers by convicted murderers escaping from one of the most secure prisons in the country would be a lead story on every TV channel in existence.

  Vehicles must have been entering and exiting the protected zone fairly steadily, and word must not have leaked that two of the rescued hostages were in the state police car driving sedately through their midst, because they weren’t bothered as they nosed through the circus and escaped into the dark.

  After a few desultory attempts at conversation directed at Michael, who basically grunted in response, and a few polite remarks aimed at Plank, whose equally polite replies soon left them both at a dead end, Charlie gave up on the whole talking thing and lapsed into silence. The next thing she knew the cruiser was crunching over gravel, and she sat up to find that they were pulling up the driveway to her house. It was dark, not a light on anywhere. Except for the fuzzy glow of a couple of porch lights down the block, the entire street was dark.

  Blinking, she realized that she’d fallen asleep and had slept the whole way home. A glance at the dashboard clock told her that it was after one a.m. The nap had helped: physically at least, she felt better.

  “I’ll walk from here,” Michael said as the cruiser stopped. Charlie slewed around to frown at him through the grid. She could see no more of him than a dark shape. “The place where I’m staying isn’t far.”

  “Where are you staying?” Impossible to keep the surprise out of her voice, because of course Michael was staying with her.

  “The Pioneer Inn.”

  It was a small place on the edge of the town square. Trying to figure out how he was even aware of its existence, much less where it was, she was flummoxed. As far as she knew, he’d never been there.

  “You’re staying at the Pioneer Inn?” Okay, she had to quit talking. She was sounding way too interested in his plans, given their audience.

  By way of an answer, Michael silently held up what, when she squinted at it, she perceived to be a plastic key card. Then she got it. Of course Hughes was staying at the Pioneer Inn. He must have found the key card in his pocket. But—

  “I’ll be glad to give you a ride as soon as I see Dr. Stone to her door,” Plank replied, getting out. By the interior light that flashed on as the door opened, Charlie met Michael’s eyes.

  “You aren’t really—” There was a touch of panic in her voice at the idea that he was going somewhere else. The door closed, and the visual she had on him was largely lost as he was swallowed up once again by shadows.

  “I’ll be back in ten minutes,” he said. “You barely know me, remember? I can’t just go inside with you. Word got back to Dudley Do-Right back there, he’d drop dead.”

  From the tone of that, she knew Michael had indeed seen the kiss.

  She sighed.

  Plank opened the door for Michael, who got out. By the time Plank reached her door, Michael was walking away into the night. Having lost her purse, along with her cell phone and keys, Charlie was only glad she had a means of letting herself into her house. Plank escorted her to her front porch and followed her up the shallow steps. Except for the creak of the wood beneath their feet and the brief, distant tinkling of a neighbor’s wind chimes, everything was quiet. Hers was the kind of street where even on the weekends people were in bed by one a.m.

  “You want me to check your house for you?” Plank asked as she walked down the porch and felt along the ledge over the living room window to find the spare key she kept there.

  “Thanks,” she replied, locating the key and heading back toward him. Michael would be there in a few minutes, but given the events of the day it was difficult to imagine being too cautious. “And thanks for driving me home.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, waiting for her to get the door open. It was so dark that she had a little trouble fitting the key into the lock, and as she stepped inside she had to slide a hand along the wall to find the switch for the entry hall light. When she found the light switch, she hit it and stood back as Plank entered. Ordinarily she would have turned the porch light on if she was coming home so late, but of course when she’d left the house she’d had no idea that it would be the early hours of the next day before she made it home again.

  As she accompanied Plank on a quick walk-through of her house, Charlie felt cold all over. Tabitha Grunwald, Ben Snider, Josh Watkins, the rest of the dead—their faces flashed unbidden into her mind’s eye. They’d had no idea when they’d left home the previous morning what their day would hold, either. That yesterday would be the last day of their lives.

  The thought brought a lump to her throat. She muttered a quick prayer for them, and for the teens still out there on the mountain.

  But as she’d learned over the course of most of a lifetime spent in the close proximity of violent death, making herself sick over the things she couldn’t change did nothing but make her sick.

  With the house inspection complete, she walked Plank back to the door and said goodbye to him.

  When Plank left, she locked the door and shed Hughes’s jacket, which she hung up in the closet that was right there. Then she went into the small bathroom off the hall to down two more ibuprofen before her scrapes and bruises could start making themselves felt again. The nap must have given her a second wind, because she felt reasonably rested. A glance in the mirror shocked her by how pale and nervy her reflection looked. Quickly she washed her face, splashing it with icy water in hopes that it would wake her up further as well as put some color
back in her cheeks, then brushed her teeth, brushed her hair, and used the cosmetics she kept in the cabinet to apply a vitally necessary little bit of makeup.

  Michael’s quiet tap on the door came just as she was eyeing the new and deeper neckline of her shirt. As long as she didn’t move suddenly, the gap created by the two missing buttons stayed closed, not that it really mattered at this point: there was no one to see but Michael, and he’d already seen that and far more. A final glance in the mirror reassured her that she was looking almost normal, and for that she thanked the miracle of blush. Restoring her things to the cabinet, she hurried to let him in.

  “Hey,” he said as she opened the door. It was only as she saw him standing there on her porch in the spill of light from the hall that she realized that he had never before been to her house in human form. Tall as he was, he cast a long shadow back down the steps.

  Wordlessly, she stood back to let him in.

  Having him step through the front door did something to the atmosphere inside the house. Before, it had felt cold and empty. As she shut the door behind him, locked it, and turned to look at him, the place crackled to life.

  Now that he was back she was able to inhale inside her own house without the air feeling so thick it threatened to choke her.

  He wasn’t looking at her. Before him, she’d lived alone for a long time, and she’d decorated the house the way she liked: with pretty furniture and airy fabrics and light, feminine colors. He was entirely too masculine for it. He was glancing around, at the slice of living room he could see through the doorway with its pale linen couch that he’d stretched out on countless times, at the old-fashioned staircase, down the hall toward the kitchen. In that brief moment in which he didn’t realize she was watching him, his expression was unguarded.

  In it she could read what he was thinking as clearly as if he’d said it out loud.