One step. Two. Three.
Then she was inside the trailer, struggling to flip the light switch with her elbow. Even when she hit the switch, the light was dim. Allie stumbled through the bedroom door and dropped Mira on the bed. She was so utterly exhausted, so spent, that she sagged against the wall, sucking in air, shaking the tension from her arms.
What now?
Cuff her.
She rubbed her hands over her face, forcing herself to think, and felt the warm stickiness of her own blood. The sight of it shocked her. It was her blood, not someone else’s. Cuff her now, demanded an inner voice.
Allie pulled a pair of handcuffs out of her jacket pocket, cuffed Mira’s right hand to the bed frame, then weaved through the doorway, slamming the door behind her. She grabbed her med kit from the counter and made a beeline for the bathroom.
Lights.
She flicked the switch and another dim light came on. Why aren’t the lights brighter? Is there a short? She felt dizzy, winded, disoriented, and her thinking was fuzzy. She needed a hit of speed.
No, first she needed to stop the bleeding.
She yanked a towel off the rack, pressed it to her bleeding chin, and sat back on the toilet seat. She tried not to think about the truck outside, its single headlight still burning, or about Nick’s body in the middle of the road, or about the blasted dog that had nearly attacked her or the fact that anyone who happened along Riverside right now would see all this. She would have to kill that person, he or she wouldn’t leave her any other choice, just as Nick and the people at the farm hadn’t left her any other choice.
Allie finally stood, moved to the sink, turned on the faucet. She splashed water on her face, washing away the blood, then pressed the towel to her chin. With her other hand, she rifled through the med kit. What do I need? Every day in ER, she dealt with emergencies worse than this, but she couldn’t seem to remember what she needed to treat her own injury.
Betadine.
Right. Cleanse, stitch, cleanse, stitch.
No time for stitches.
She brought out the Betadine, gauze, a butterfly bandage.
Then she took the towel away from her chin and looked at herself in the mirror. In the seconds before blood started pouring from her chin again, she nearly passed out from the sight. A small flap of skin hung loosely, the whiteness of bone glimmering in the meager light. “Fuckfuckfuck,” she murmured, and pressed the towel against her chin again, covering it, hiding it.
Deal with it.
Yes, okay, she could deal with it. She needed stitches, but there wasn’t time. Gauze and a butterfly bandage would have to work until she got out of here, put some distance between herself and Riverside Drive.
But her hands shook, her chin kept bleeding, the stupid light kept fading in and out. She would need to hold an ice pack against her chin while she drove to reduce bleeding and swelling. Or is it heat that I need? My God, my God, this was basic, why couldn’t she remember what to do?
Ice.
Sometime later, she moved out of the bathroom with her med kit tucked under her arm and her chin bandaged, a new towel pressed against it. She changed into clean clothes, turned off the lights, let herself out of the trailer. She padlocked the door from the outside and hurried over to the Rover. The cooler was on the backseat and she opened the lid and scooped out a handful of ice that she wrapped in the towel.
By the time she finally sped away from her brother’s house, from Nick’s truck and his pathetic body sprawled in the road, the sky was turning a dove gray. Even once the sun rose, it might be hours before anyone happened along this road and found Nick’s truck or his body. In five or six hours, she would be out of Georgia and bound for her destination in Plan B.
Events had forced her to make the switch to Plan B. High Springs, then get out of the country.
As she drove, she kept the ice pack pressed to her chin and her window down. The cold air revived her, her mind chugged along again. A hit of speed. She dug her hand into her purse, brought out her beautiful bottle of amphetamines, popped two. Just enough to take the edge off. Just enough to keep her going. Just enough to keep her awake for the next eight to twelve hours.
And once the speed kicked in, she began to play back everything that had happened, letting the movie run in her head. The big question was why Nick had been here at all, at this hour of the morning. Had he been spying on the house? On her? Or had he just been some insomniac out for a drive at precisely the right moment?
Or maybe Keith’s suspicions had been aroused and he had called Nick and asked him to watch the house? Did Keith betray me?
As soon as she was on the highway, she punched out her brother’s cell number. She reached his voice mail. “Hey, this is Keith. Your call is important to me. Please leave me a message and a number so I can get back to you.”
Beep.
“It’s me. Call me as soon as you get this.”
Then she disconnected.
Chapter 21
1
When Sheppard’s cell phone rang at seven-thirty that morning, he’d been up for two hours already and had consumed enough coffee to take the edge off his fatigue. Goot, Nadine, even Annie, were at work on the laptops and the shrill of the phone stopped everything—talking, the tap of computer keys, even the thump of Ricki’s tail against the floor. Private came up in the cell window.
“Agent Sheppard.”
“Good morning, sir. This is Frieda Pollack at the Florida Department of Corrections. I understand you have a request for information?”
“Yes, that’s right. I do.”
“Your badge number, sir?”
Sheppard ticked it off, absurdly grateful that Frieda didn’t have a rolling Southern accent, that she sounded, in fact, like a transplanted Yankee.
“Very well, Agent Sheppard. What can I do for you?”
He grabbed his legal pad, where he’d jotted all the pertinent information on Dean Curry—date of birth, date of his arrest, and anything else the DOC might need to track him down.
“I’m trying to find a man named Dean Curry. He was arrested for vehicular homicide on 7/7/90, and was sentenced on 12/27/90.” Twelve twenty-seven. Thirteen years to the date that the perp had snatched Mira. How the hell had he missed that?
“Do you have a Social Security number, Agent Sheppard?”
He reeled it off and heard the tick of computer keys.
Then: “Okay. Curry, Dean. He was processed into the receiving station at Lake Butler on 12/28/90 to serve five years for vehicular homicide. He was sent to Indian River Correctional Institution ten days later. In June of ‘91, he escaped from Indian River. He was apprehended four days later near Orlando and received an additional fifteen years. As an escape risk, he was transferred to Raiford to serve out the remainder of his sentence. On January first of this year, he was, uh, found hanging in the prison laundry.”
Jesus. That’s it. The timeframe. Dean was sentenced thirteen years ago on December 27—the same night Mira was snatched—and January 1 would be the anniversary of his death. Sheppard suddenly heard the ticking of a very loud clock in his skull.
“He hung himself?” Sheppard asked.
“I’m checking, just a minute.” More tapping of keys. “An attorney hired by the family demanded an inquest. In March of this year, it was determined that the hanging was murder. He was, uh, skinned alive.”
Sheppard felt the air rush from his lungs. “Skinned alive? Jesus.” Images filled his head, each worse than the one before it.
“Who hired the attorney?”
“The only thing these records show, Agent Sheppard, is that the attorney represented the family.”
“What was the attorney’s name?”
“Lawrence Rendall,” she said. “With Rendall and Sons here in Tallahassee. I have a number here, sir.”
“Great.” Sheppard scribbled frantically. “What about a visitors’ list? Would you have that information?”
“Yes. Let’s see. His parents, W
illiam and Lori Curry, his siblings, Allison Curry and Keith Cunningham, and friends, Ian and Lia West.”
Sheppard took note of the brother’s different last name and wondered about the Ian West connection. He was the oddball who had testified at Curry’s trial, a medium from the village of Cassadaga, if memory served him. But who was Lia West? Ian West’s daughter? Wife?
“Do you have any personal data on these people? Addresses? Phone numbers? Social Security numbers?”
“No, sir. We just keep the lists, none of the personal data. That would be in the actual file at Raiford.”
It was a start. “Thanks very much for your time, Frieda. You have a happy new year.”
“Same to you, Agent Sheppard.”
He hung up, despair and fatigue like two warring factions in his body, and stared at what he already knew would be useless information. Just the same, he called the attorney’s office in Tallahassee and wasn’t surprised when he got a recording that the firm wouldn’t reopen until Monday, January 5. He considered calling Meltroth, but figured he needed to give the doctor time to hunt down the information Sheppard needed. He needed to get outside, to move, to feel the cold against his face. He grabbed his jacket, slipped his cell phone in the pocket, and headed for the door.
“Can Ricki and I come with you?” Annie asked.
“You bet. C’mon.”
Despite the cold, brittle air, it felt good to move, to feel the hard, solid ground under his feet. He moved fast, his shoes crunching over dead twigs, leaves, branches, and Annie kept pace with him. Ricki had darted ahead, following some fresh scent in the snow.
Salvation and redemption lay in continued movement, but he wished the movement were toward Mira rather than into a dingy woods. The metaphor didn’t escape him. He knew the perp was connected to Curry, knew the perp’s time frame, but didn’t have any idea who the woman was or where she might be.
“Shep,” Annie said, grabbing his hand. “I dreamed about. . . about the Stevenses last night. About finding them... in the house.”
Sheppard paused and crouched so he was eye level with Annie. “I’m so sorry that you had to see that, Annie. I should have handled the whole situation much better than I did.”
Her face scrunched up, tears brimming in her dark eyes, and she wrapped her arms around Sheppard’s neck, hugging him. “It’s not your fault,” she whispered hoarsely.
He held her for a few moments, then Ricki bounded over and pushed her nose between them, breaking them apart. Sheppard straightened up, and as he and Annie moved forward again, she said, “What I meant to say was that I remembered something else Rose told me in that dream or whatever it was.”
“What’s that?”
“She said the woman operated on Mom.”
Everything inside of Sheppard went utterly still. Operated on her, and intended to hang her and skin her alive. The full horror hit him. Even his heart seemed to stop. Then he blinked and the world snapped back into clarity. It was there all the time, right in front of him. Mira had been shot, Allison Curry had been a medical resident and probably was a medical doctor now. The woman operated on Mom.
Before he could say anything, his cell phone rang. The peal echoed through the cold silence of the woods and Meltroth’s number appeared in the window. “Annie, let me get this call. Run back to the cabin and tell Goot and Nadine what you just told me. She’s our perp. Allison Curry.”
Her eyes widened, then she spun around and raced back through the trees.
“Agent Sheppard.”
“It’s Dr. Meltroth. I saw you on CNN last night. I figure your question is connected to the quadruple homicides in North Carolina.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Okay, you have a pencil?”
“I do.”
“William Curry is presently in an Alzheimer’s facility called Lakeview Nursing Home in Savannah, Georgia.” He gave Sheppard the address and phone number. ‘They don’t have any record of an Allison Curry as a physician. The oncologist I spoke to was shocked when I mentioned that she was supposedly a physician. That means she either isn’t one or practices under a different name. But someone must be paying Dr. Curry’s bills. My advice is to call the institution and see what you can find out.”
“You’ve been a tremendous help, Dr. Meltroth.”
“Good luck, Agent Sheppard.”
Like luck had anything to do with it, Sheppard thought, and quickly punched out information for Savannah. A few moments later, he was clear of the trees and listening to the ringing of a phone at the Lakeview Nursing Home in Savannah.
“Lakeview. How may I help you?”
“Hi. Is William Curry in?”
“He’s at breakfast right now. Could you call back in about an hour?”
My God, still there, still alive. “I’ll call back. But in the meantime, is your director in?”
“She’ll be in about nine. Would you like her voice mail?”
“No, thanks.”
Sheppard disconnected and ran back to the cabin. He didn’t need to speak to the director by phone. It was just over three hundred miles to Savannah. If King could get a plane, he could be there in about ninety minutes.
His next call was to Kyle King.
Sheppard shoved clothes into his pack, aware that Coot watched him with a certain wariness.
“You need backup,” Coot said.
“I need a ride to the airport and for you to drive Nadine and Annie back to Tango. Or you stay here with them.”
“We can fly,” Nadine said, ducking under Goot’s arm to share the doorway with him.
“It’s nearly New Year’s. You won’t get a flight.” Sheppard had checked. There wasn’t a commercial flight to be had anywhere on the east coast. “Besides, we can’t leave Ricki here. She needs a home.”
The dog, hearing her name, nosed in between Goot and Nadine, who looked down at her and laughed. “Well, I think she likes the idea. But Annie and I can make it back on our own.”
Nadine had many admirable qualities, but driving wasn’t among them. And this wasn’t a trip to the grocery store. With pit stops and gas, it was fifteen hours, and at the rate Nadine drove, they would be lucky to make the drive in twenty-five. “Not in holiday traffic.”
“Right,” Goot agreed. “You two should stay here.”
“You stay with them,” Sheppard said to Goot.
“We should do what Shep says,” Annie chimed in. “He’s right.”
Sheppard winked at her. “Thanks for the support, kiddo.” He zipped his bag shut, slung it over his shoulder. “I’m leaving now.”
Nadine and Goot looked at each other and Goot rolled his eyes as if to say that argument was futile. But Nadine, who never hesitated to say what she thought, let loose with a stream of Spanish that amounted to a single salient opinion: Sheppard was the gringo bastard son, not related by blood, and what right did he have to decide who was going where? Mira was her granddaughter, Annie’s mother....
Sheppard, fighting back a rising tide of fury that he knew would completely sever his relationship with one of the two people Mira loved the most, cut her off. “I do this alone, Nadine. If I need Goot, I’ll call him. King will be staying here too, trying to track down the doctor’s brother.”
The color bled out of Nadine’s face. Her shoulders sagged. He had won this round, but at what cost? “Then listen to me closely, gringo. You have to think as this woman thinks, plan as she plans, and then you have to beat her at her own game. Mira isn’t the point. You are. Remember that.”
It was her way of telling him that all of this was his fault, that she blamed him, that it wasn’t Sheppard the man with whom she had issues, but Sheppard the cop. He wondered, suddenly, whether she would like him any better if he sold insurance. “I know,” he said, nodding, then bussed her quickly on the cheek, gave Annie a hug, and swept past them, Goot hurrying along after him.
2
“Keith?”
He didn’t want to open his eyes, didn’t want t
o talk to Faye, but it was just them and two other people on the plane, friends of the pilot, and he would have to say something to her soon anyway because they would be landing shortly. He opened his eyes and gazed into her lovely face.
“I really don’t have much to say, Faye.”
“You don’t have to say anything.” She set her large straw purse on her lap and reached inside. “I’ve been carrying these around for a long time.” She brought out a thick legal-size envelope and set it on his lap. “I think it will help you understand some things.”
“I don’t need to understand anything.”
“About your brother. About Dean.”
“Dean? You knew Dean?”
She nodded.
He opened the envelope and took out a thick packet of letter-size envelopes. He recognized the ones on top, letters he had mailed to his brother’s girlfriend, Lia, in care of a post office box in Lake Helen, Florida. “How did you get...” He stopped, looked up at her. “You’re. . . . Lia? The Lia? Dean’s Lia?”
“Lia Phoenix. Then after I ran away, I was Lia Davis. And then on Dean’s eighteenth birthday, I became Lia Davis Curry.”
And suddenly he was on that sidewalk outside Dean’s apartment in DeLand so many years ago. We got married… Curry felt as if he’d stumbled into some strange upsidedown world where paths in time rushed together and converged in a single, explosive moment of understanding. The walls around his heart collapsed, a rift opened in the center of his being, and for moments he couldn’t speak around the lump in his throat. He groped for her hand and she gripped it tightly and brought it to her cheek and pressed his knuckles against her exquisitely soft skin.
“He wanted us to meet,” she said. “But time ran out. So I had to make good on that promise.”
Curry wished he knew what to say. But all he could think of was the many times Dean had seemed on the verge of confessing something, of telling him the name of his mysterious girlfriend, and Curry had discouraged the intimacy, claimed he was better off not knowing. It’s not my business had become not only his litany, but a way of life.
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