Evil at Heart

by Chelsea Cain

  C H A P T E R 43

  When Archie woke up he was floating. He could see the floor a few feet below, parallel to his body. His neck was stiff, his head hurt, and his back and legs felt like they were on fire. His arms were extended, his fingertips just above the floor. He lifted them. The effort made his head swim. The floor moved. Only it wasn’t, he realized, the floor that was moving—it was him. He was swinging. The motion ripped at his body, and fierce flesh-opening pain washed over him a moment before he settled back into blackness.

  When he woke up again, the pain had settled into a dull burn. He was still suspended over the floor. He slowly moved an arm up, and reached over his shoulder blade. The skin over his scapula was taut like a drum, stretched three or four inches straight up in a tent. Archie moved his hand to the top of his stretched flesh and found something metal and curved piercing his skin. A hook. He tried to roll over, to turn his head back to see if he could wrench it out, but he couldn’t move without more brutal pain.

  The masked man put his face next to Archie’s. He was squatting

  next to him, wearing a ratty gray robe, nylon still pulled over his face. Who knows how long he’d been there. Archie was barely aware of the room around him. The light was low. The floor was concrete. He’d been moved. Archie lifted his head to look around, but he didn’t see anyone else, just a large empty room. Ducts ran overhead and rusty fittings for long-gone equipment were still affixed to the ceiling.

  “Don’t make such a funeral face,” the masked man said.

  “What have you done to me?” Archie asked.

  “Body suspension,” the masked man said. He stood up and walked slowly around Archie, bending over to touch the spots where hooks pierced Archie’s flesh. “Six hooks in your back, two on each leg.” He gave Archie a little push and he swung, and Archie fought the urge to vomit. “The trick is to distribute the weight evenly,” the masked man went on. “Or your skin will split open.”

  Archie could feel him checking the rigging. His body burned with every touch.

  “The hooks are attached to nylon ropes,” the masked man said. He came around the front again. Archie could see his bare feet. “The ropes are attached to a pulley system, which I control.” Archie was lifted a few more inches off the floor. The pain of gravity fighting the hooks for his body was startling. It overwhelmed him. “I had to take your clothes off,” the masked man said. “For the hooks. Sorry.”

  Archie grimaced through the pain. “You’re starting to piss me off,” he said.

  The masked man reached out and put a hand on Archie’s shoulder and steadied him. “Exhale,” he said gently. “If you relax, I think you’ll like it.”

  “You didn’t get this from Gretchen’s playbook,” Archie said.

  “I’m improvising.”

  “Let me see Jeremy,” Archie said.

  The masked man squatted down next to Archie’s head again. “He understands you,” he said, his nylon-smashed features nodding thoughtfully. “I think he can help you if you let him.”

  “I was thinking more the other way around,” Archie said.

  He fiddled with some of the rigging above Archie’s head. “You have a lot in common.”

  “Let me see him,” Archie said. Archie had always liked Jeremy. He was a weird kid. A quiet kid. He’d been kidnapped by Gretchen Lowell. He’d most likely witnessed his sister’s torture and murder. Archie had always believed Jeremy’s claims that he didn’t remember what had happened, because Archie had hoped Jeremy didn’t remember, because remembering something like that, remembering Gretchen, that would fuck you up epically. “Take off your mask and let me see you, Jeremy.”

  Jeremy peeled off the nylon stocking and dropped it on the concrete floor.

  “You’re in a shitload of trouble, kiddo,” Archie said.

  C H A P T E R 44

  Susan took a gulp of lukewarm coffee out of a cracked Ziggy mug and clicked through another set of booking shots on the computer.

  “Anything?” Claire asked.

  “Do you have any pictures of just their teeth?” Susan said.

  “Believe me, if that guy’s in the system, the teeth will pop up as an identifying characteristic.”

  The Beauty Killer Task Force offices were in an old bank that the city had provided when Archie Sheridan had come off medical leave to hunt the After-School Strangler. The last time Susan had been there, it was because Gretchen had escaped from prison, taking Archie with her.

  It was two in the morning, but you’d never know it from the activity level. They were all there, every detective on the force, even the front-desk receptionist. International maps papered the walls, with pushpins marking every sighting, every crime that could possibly be related to Gretchen.

  The task force at the Herald may have grown bored and

  dark-witted over the last few months; but the real Beauty Killer Task Force was hard at work.

  There were three photographs tacked on top of the maps. All three appeared to be booking photos—one was of a young woman, two were of middle-aged men.

  “Who are they?” Susan asked.

  “Our victims,” Claire said. “All three were homeless. The man on the left was named Abe Farley.” She stood up and walked over to the photographs. Abe Farley had a long salt-and-pepper beard and a weathered, haggard face. “Fifty-six,” she said. “Last seen December 2004. That was his head rolling around at Pittock Mansion.” She touched the middle photograph. This man had shoulder-length light-colored hair and a long regal face. “Jackson Beathe,” she said. “Last seen March 2005. Sort of handsome, huh?” Claire took a step to her right. “The woman with him on the Rose Garden bench was named Braids Williams.” Slender and dark-skinned, she smiled from her photo. “She disappeared in 2006. Cause of death is still pending, but it looks like the two on the bench were stabbed.”

  Susan looked at the three faces, lives reduced to snapshots. “How did you identify them?”

  “They were missed,” Claire said. “Family. Friends. Social workers. Missing-person reports were filed. We had dental records.” She turned back to face the photographs and raised a hand to tenderly brush against the face of Braids Williams. “Someone stabbed them, removed their eyes, buried them for a few years, and then dug them up. The eyes they kept in a jar of formaldehyde.” She lowered her hand and turned back to Susan. “Braids Williams’s eyes went into Fintan English. The others were dumped in the rest-stop toilet.”

  Henry stood in the doorway. His sleeves were rolled up and he carried a stack of papers in his hands. “Gretchen didn’t kill the homeless,” he said. “It wasn’t near scary enough.”

  “So it wasn’t Gretchen,” Susan said.

  “I’m not ready to rule out anything yet,” Henry said.

  “We’re going through his computer records now to see if Hay—the orderly—was visiting any Gretchen-related sites,” Claire said. “Could be he’s involved in this group.”

  Susan’s face ached. The EMTs had irrigated the hole in her cheek and bandaged it up, but no one had offered her any painkillers. She reached up and gingerly touched the white gauze.

  “Try

  www.iheartgretchenlowell.com,” Susan said. “That’s the site the freaks at the warehouse were using.”

  Claire exhaled. “Good,” she said. “Thank you.” She turned to Henry. “I’m going to get that to Martin,” she said. She glanced back at Susan. “Take care of yourself,” she said, and she left the room.

  Henry fanned the papers out on the table in front of Susan. “Here are photos of runaways that have been reported in the last year,” he said.

  Susan knew her instantly. She laid her hand on one of the pictures. “That’s her.”

  “You sure?” Henry asked.

  Susan took a closer look at the picture. The name over the image was Margaux Clinton. “They called her ‘Pearl,’ ” Susan said.

  Henry turned the picture around and looked at it. “Maybe it’s a street name,” he said. “She’s from Eu
gene. I’ll have someone down there go talk to the mother. And I’ll put out a broadcast for her.”

  “How old is she?” Susan asked.

  Henry glanced back down at the report. “Sixteen.”

  There was a knock on the door and a uniformed cop came in, followed by Leo Reynolds. He was wearing a beautifully cut suit, no tie, crisp white shirt open at the neck, and his dark hair was still wet from a shower. Four in the morning, and he’d taken the time to put on cuff links.

  Henry’s upper lip tightened, and he looked from Susan to Leo and back again. “What’s this?” Henry said, between gritted teeth.

  “I called him,” Susan said. “He’s my lawyer.”

  Henry raised an eyebrow at Susan. He was even better at issuing disapproving gazes than her mother.

  Susan shrank down in her chair a little.

  “Where’s your crazy little brother?” Henry asked Leo.

  “I don’t know,” Leo said. “I want him out of this. Believe me, if I knew where he was, I’d tell you.”

  Henry took a step toward Leo. “We need to talk to Jeremy,” he said. “He knows who these people are.” He waited a beat. “I also need to talk to your father.”

  Leo’s voice was soft and reasonable, but firm. “My father is dedicating his considerable community organization to locating Jeremy right now,” he said. “It might be better to delay an interview.”

  “Archie trusts Jack,” Susan piped in. She wasn’t sure that was true. But she needed Jack and Leo Reynolds right now. And Archie needed them, too.

  Henry rubbed his face with a meaty hand. When he brought it down the skin had reddened. He put both his palms on the table and leaned in close to Susan. “Archie feels bad for Jack because Gretchen carved up and murdered his daughter,” he said. “Archie operates on guilt.” His blue eyes were hard and threaded with red veins. “If you haven’t figured that out yet, then you haven’t figured out anything.”

  “We’ll find them,” Leo said. “All of them.”

  He said it with such casual confidence that Susan almost believed him.

  Leo reached into his suit pocket, withdrew a neatly folded piece of paper and held it out to Henry. “It’s a hotel downtown,” Leo said. “Jeremy was staying there up until three days ago. I paid the bill through tonight, so if you want to go look around his room, you have until noon tomorrow before they clean out his personal possessions.”

  Henry took the piece of paper and looked at it. He blinked a few times. “Okay,” he said.

  Susan looked up at the three faces on the wall. “You don’t actually think Archie would go off with these people?” she said.

  “You don’t know what he went through,” Henry said.

  She didn’t. But Jeremy Reynolds did.

  “You could waste time getting a warrant, or I, as the person who has paid the bill, could let you in Jeremy’s hotel room.”

  “What’s the catch?” Henry said.

  Leo smiled. “Company,” he said.

  C H A P T E R 45

  The Joyce Hotel was a seedy joint in Downtown Portland near what used to be called “Vaseline Alley,” due to its many gay bars. It was four stories with a dirty ivory-colored brick frontage, and an aged forest-green awning.

  Henry, Claire, Leo, and Susan entered through the hotel’s metal-framed glass doors. A sign listed room rates at twenty-five to thirty-five dollars per night. A toothless man behind the check-in counter yawned as they walked by.

  “Room four-twenty-six,” Leo said to them.

  They walked through the dingy lobby area, and up the brown-carpeted staircase. The walls had once been white, but were now mottled beige. The handrails and molding were painted forest green.

  Four-twenty-six was on the fourth floor, just down the hall from the stairwell. A sticker on the door read

  KIDS NEED BOTH PARENTS! Leo inserted the key, pushed in the door, and they all went inside. There was a double bed, a small nightstand, a dresser, and an old Zenith TV, with the hotel’s name scratched on the side, in case someone got the idea of stealing it.

  “Well,” Claire said, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. “Let’s take a look.”

  “You don’t touch anything,” Henry growled to Susan and Leo, as he pulled on his own set of gloves.

  Susan wandered around the room. The bed was made, and two white towels, bleached so many times they looked like they would crack if anyone ever touched them, were folded and set on the bedspread, as were a plastic cup still encased in its clear wrapping and two matchbox-sized bars of soap.

  “He’s neat,” Susan said. No one answered. Henry was going through the dresser. Claire was going through the nightstand. Leo was staring out a window that looked like it had been reinforced with chicken wire.

  Susan walked over and opened the closet. Nothing was hung up. There were just three plastic hangers—one red, one white, and one blue. And dozens and dozens of photographs of Gretchen Lowell.

  “Guys,” Susan said.

  Henry stepped behind her.

  She recognized the collagist. The perfectly cut edges. It was the same person who’d done the Gretchen wall collage at Fintan English’s house.

  “Told you he was OCD,” Leo said, from the window.

  “You weren’t kidding,” Henry said.

  “Check this out,” Claire said.

  Susan and Henry spun around. Claire was standing at the bedside table, reading a beat-up blue spiral-bound notebook.

  “Tell me that’s a diary,” Henry said.

  Claire widened her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t know what it is,” she said. She flipped a page. “Ranting, mostly. Letters to

  Gretchen. And this.” She held up a page with pencil-written paragraphs and a childlike drawing of a woman’s face. “It’s a mockup for a Match.com page. A woman in her mid-thirties. Blond. Psychiatrist.”

  “The orderly,” Susan said. “George Hay. His friends said he’d started dating someone.”

  “Maybe he never met her,” Claire said slowly.

  “Gretchen didn’t kill Courtenay, either,” Susan said. “Jeremy manufactured an identity and used it to manipulate Hay into committing murder.” She felt light-headed. It all seemed so clear. “Jeremy was the one in the mask.”

  Henry turned slowly to Leo. “How crazy is your brother?” Henry asked.

  Leo stood at the chicken-wire window, not looking back. “Pretty crazy,” he said.

  C H A P T E R 46

  Susan sat in her car outside the Joyce Hotel and drummed her fingers on her sheepskin-covered steering wheel. She needed to find Jeremy and she needed to find him fast, before he did something terrible to Archie.

  She glanced over at her purse on the passenger seat. Inside it was the phone Gretchen had been using to text Archie. She reached over and pulled it open, so she could see the phones she’d slipped inside. The one Archie had gotten from Jack Reynolds. And the one he’d gotten, somehow, from Gretchen Lowell. The number that the texts had been sent from was stored in the call log. Which meant that Susan had a way to contact Gretchen.

  She dug into the purse, pulled out the phone, and looked at the screen. There were twenty-four missed calls and fifteen new texts.

  “

  WHERE ARE YOU, DARLING?”

  “

  WHERE ARE YOU, DARLING?”

  “

  WHERE ARE YOU, DARLING?”

  Gretchen was looking for Archie, too. Which meant that she wasn’t involved in this. These lunatics had killed five people.

  She traced her finger over the phone’s buttons. It was a stupid idea.

  But Archie had already called her. It was right there, in the log. They were already communicating.

  Susan didn’t know exactly what Archie’s relationship with Gretchen was—not the extent of it anyway. Gretchen was a psychopath. She was a killer. And she was just plain mean. But she had saved Archie’s life. Twice.

  Maybe she would do it again.

  Susan typed in a text.

>   “

  ARCHIE IS IN TROUBLE.”

  And she hit send.

  Susan looked down at the phone in her hands as the hourglass turned and then blipped out of sight. She had a nagging feeling that she’d just done exactly what Gretchen would have wanted.

  Across the street, she saw Leo Reynolds just getting into a silver Volvo. She grabbed her purse, got out of her car, ran to his window, and knocked on it.

  He looked up, startled, and rolled the window down.

  “You’re not going home, are you?” Susan said.

  “He’s my brother,” Leo said. “He’s my responsibility.”