by Andrew Grant
“Good plan.” Devereaux swept up the rest of the licenses, then gestured toward the curtained-off alcove at the foot of the bed. “And then there’s one more place we need to check before we get the hell out of this dump.”
Chapter Eighty-eight
Thursday. Morning.
Diane McKinzie straightened her pajamas and slid onto the worn leather chair behind the giant mahogany desk in her father’s study. She leaned back. Closed her eyes. And tried to persuade herself that she could still pick up a faint whiff of the countless Marlboros he’d greedily smoked for so many years. Next she looked up at the ceiling and smiled at the broad orange stain he’d always blamed on the cedar and sage candles her mother had insisted on burning to neutralize the odor. Then she dragged herself back to the present and lifted the lid off the dented cardboard file box she’d hauled out of the closet.
She’d had access to everything in her father’s research archive ever since the day he died. There was some fascinating material in there. All kinds of details he’d uncovered in the course of his investigations but hadn’t included in the published articles. Stories are like recipes, he used to tell her. And facts are like spices. Add too many, and you’ll spoil the dish.
Diane didn’t have enough experience of cooking to know if that was true, and she didn’t really care. She just knew there were plenty of juicy secrets in those files. Maybe she should change direction. Start writing a book. An explosive exposé. There was plenty of mileage left in the Jefferson County sewer construction scandal, for example, according to what her father had found. Plus a few executives who hadn’t been brought to book for their parts in the HealthSouth affair. And that was before she even started on the sports or political stuff. All in all, there was a ton of scope for her to get out of journalism before the listing, leaky ship sank the rest of the way.
Or, alternatively, she could put the information to another, more personal use. She’d only had the chance to dip into the files a couple of times recently, what with all the stress over Daniel sapping her energy. Now she could put that right. Take the box in front of her, for example. It held the papers relating to Detective Devereaux and Raymond Kerr. She could revisit the whole sordid story. Take it slowly this time. Dig deep. Who knew what other nuggets she might find in there? And what else she could do with them?
Chapter Eighty-nine
Thursday. Morning.
Devereaux yanked open the curtain that covered the alcove at the foot of Tyler Shaw’s bed and found himself staring directly into the empty, lifeless eye sockets of a human skull.
The skull was one of seven. Each was positioned at the center of its own separate shelf, one above the other in a perfectly aligned vertical column. Each shelf was painted a different color of the rainbow. Red at the top, through to violet at the bottom. The sides and back of the alcove were matte black. Tiny crystals were sprinkled everywhere, and the ones on the side nearer the window were gently twinkling in the morning sun. Small tea-lights were set on both sides of each skull, resting on what Devereaux realized were upturned human kneecaps. The candles had all burned out, as had the sticks of incense that protruded from the vertebrae that were stacked up in threes at the outside edge of each shelf.
“Are these real?” Garretty stretched out a hand toward the highest skull, but stopped short of touching it. “They’re so shiny. They look like they’re made of plastic.”
“He’s coated them with something.” Devereaux gazed at the porous, sponge-like bones that dangled down at the rear of the skull’s nasal cavity. He peered through the narrow, angled apertures that would have carried the optical nerves to the brain. He recoiled from the gleaming triangular teeth that clung to the jawbones, their roots seeming long and exaggerated without any gums to bed themselves down in. He traced the meandering stitch-like joins between the curving plates of the skull itself. Then he turned away and fought to recover his train of thought. “Something to preserve them. Like varnish, maybe. Remember that one skull he dumped at the school? The lab said it had been damaged by heat. I bet that was his first one. I bet he tried to bake it, but that didn’t work. So he changed tack.”
“You might be right, Cooper. That might be what he did to them.” Garretty’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “But answer me this. Why? And what kind of guy are we dealing with here?”
Chapter Ninety
Thursday. Morning.
Tyler Shaw could feel the power. Already. It was a day early. He was ahead of schedule. It was a miracle. Only it was real! He could feel it.
The previous night, it had hit him. Out of the blue. He was heading for the door, still planning on going home and grabbing a little rest before starting on his final day’s work. But before he could step outside, he felt something change. Inside himself. At last. And it made him realize, he didn’t need his job anymore. It didn’t matter if he got fired. Let Mr. Quinlan do whatever he wanted. Very soon, employment would no longer be important. So in the short term, wouldn’t it be better to stay at the source? Let the power continue to build until the next evening, when it would be time to put the final piece in place?
Shaw had prepared himself and settled down to sleep. But before he allowed himself to drift away he took some time to reflect on all the people who’d led him to the brink of this transformation. The people who’d given their lives for it. And he gave thanks for what they’d done. He swore to always remember them. To honor their sacrifice. To live his new life as a tribute to them, and never return to the pitiful way he’d been before.
Chapter Ninety-one
Thursday. Late morning.
Hawkins & Leach—where Tyler Shaw worked—was not far from Avondale Park, on the opposite side of downtown from his house. Taking Sixth Avenue South would have given Devereaux and Garretty a straight shot after they’d cleared Elmwood Cemetery, but Devereaux didn’t like their chances with the traffic so he kept going straight on Green Springs and then merged north onto I-65. It meant going around three sides of a square, adding three miles to the journey, but it avoided the whole area around the university and the hospital and saved them a good five minutes, which is all that the detectives cared about.
Devereaux worked his way from the highway down Fifth Avenue as far as 38th Street South, then turned off into a long, roughly paved cul-de-sac. He rolled the Porsche past a succession of small businesses—a wholesale florist, a typewriter repair shop, a recording studio, a dog grooming parlor—until they reached Hawkins & Leach’s wide, rectangular building at the far end of the strip. Devereux thought it looked like someone had actually taken two unrelated buildings and jammed them together. The left-hand half was built of brick, neatly pointed, with shrubs lined up in wooden barrels at the base of the walls. Inside was a reception area with a shiny, blond wood counter, two upholstered couches for visitors to use while they waited, a couple of offices for admin staff, and a large, bright presentation room for making pitches to potential new clients. The other half was like an old-school workshop. There was a stock section with floor-to-ceiling metal shelves full of all kinds of electrical components. An area for assembling the bespoke systems the company specialized in designing. A test rig, used by the maintenance team. And in the back corner, with a full-width Plexiglas window to ensure a clear view of everything that was happening, was Cam Quinlan’s office.
Quinlan slammed his phone back into its cradle, veins bulging in both temples, and turned to face Devereaux and Garretty.
“The stupid…” Quinlan’s hands balled into fists as he battled the urge to pound on the already-dented metal surface of his desk. “OK. All right. Here’s the deal. Tyler Shaw—the obnoxious little shit, I knew there was something seriously wrong with him—didn’t show up for work this morning. Again. But Melinda, my moron assistant, for some reason I’ll never understand, has a soft spot for him. She knows he’s on his final warning and didn’t want him to get fired, so she didn’t tell me he was AWOL right away. She figured she’d give it till lunchtime, and try to track him do
wn herself.”
“Did she have any luck?” Devereaux took out his notebook.
“No.” Quinlan crossed his arms. “She has no idea where he is. Nor do I, I’m ashamed to say.”
“Was he supposed to be here?” Devereaux pointed to the observation window. “I don’t see many people around the place.”
“The engineers are all out visiting clients.” Quinlan scowled. “Shaw was supposed to be, as well. He’s costing the company money.”
“We’ll need his client’s address.” Devereaux flipped open his book.
“There’s no point.” Quinlan shook his head. “Shaw didn’t show up. Melinda said the client already called and complained. This kind of thing sucks. It really hurts our reputation.”
“Is there anywhere else Shaw could be?” Garretty took a step closer to the desk. “Visiting a supplier? Picking up spare parts? At a doctor’s office? We need you to think, Mr. Quinlan. Forget about your business for a minute. A man’s life could be at stake.”
“Sorry.” Quinlan stared at the ground for a moment, then reached for the phone. “OK. Here’s an idea. Shaw has a company truck. It has a GPS tracker in it. I can’t promise you he’ll be with it, but I can at least find out where it’s at.”
Chapter Ninety-two
Thursday. Early afternoon.
Tyler Shaw’s truck was in a clearing in the forest about six miles southeast of Devereaux’s cabin. When he was given the location, Cam Quinlan was afraid the security tracker had malfunctioned. He thought that the middle of nowhere was a strange place for a wanted man to go. Devereaux wasn’t worried, though. Taking refuge in the woods made perfect sense to him.
Devereaux left the Porsche next to Shaw’s truck, and he and Garretty continued on foot along the narrowing track as it skirted a dense stand of cottonwood trees. After they’d walked a quarter mile beyond that they caught sight of a wooden structure at the far side of another clearing, nestling at the edge of a deep expanse of tall pines and screened on three sides by clumps of thick gorse bushes. They crept closer and saw it was a cabin, much like Devereaux’s only in far better shape. A galvanized steel chimney protruded through its solid new roof. The walls had recently been stained a deep brown color. And a constant, unwavering blue light was shining through the single window to the side of the door, suggesting a source of electricity had been installed.
Keeping low, moving slowly, and with their weapons drawn, the detectives eased forward until they reached the rough wooden wall of the cabin at the opposite end from the door. They then crabbed sideways until Devereaux was directly below the window. He pulled out his cellphone, selected its front-facing camera, and raised it like a periscope until he could safely see into the room on its screen. Then he gave the OK signal to Garretty, pivoted around, stood up, and slammed his shoulder into the door.
Tyler Shaw opened his eyes as the door broke off its flimsy new hinges and Devereaux and Garretty came storming into the cabin. He was lying on his back, naked, on a blue satin sheet that was draped across the four-foot-high stone-topped platform he’d built in the center of the room. On a slab below it Devereaux could see a mass of human bones—femurs, tibias, clavicles, vertebrae, ribs, plus a bunch of smaller ones he couldn’t name—all laid out in intricate shapes and patterns. Shaw had mounted blue lamps on stands in each corner of the room. He’d painted strange blue symbols on the walls and the ceiling. At each corner of the platform he’d attached a six-foot pole. And on the top of three of these poles, angled downward as if focused on Shaw himself, he’d mounted a gleaming, freshly-varnished human skull.
Chapter Ninety-three
Thursday. Early afternoon.
Alexandra took her favorite aluminum Rimowa suitcase from the closet and threw it onto the bed. She opened it. Unfastened the straps. Then stepped back. What should she pack? She looked around the room and thought about her clothes. Her jewelry. The family photographs on the dresser in their silver frames. The ornaments she’d inherited from her mother. The mementoes from the foreign trips she’d taken, after college. She had a lot of stuff. And she couldn’t take all of it. So how did she narrow it down? Which things held the true value?
She was still wrestling with the problem five minutes later when Nicole scampered into the room, needing an extra pair of hands to help fix a broken Barbie. That was it, Alexandra realized. She had her answer. Being with her daughter was the only thing that mattered. But there was a problem with that. Her daughter was also Devereaux’s daughter. Half of Nicole’s DNA came from his side of the family.
Alexandra had been able to ignore that fact before. She’d named Nicole for her own mother, and Devereaux had been absent for the first seven years of the little girl’s life. But now Alexandra had seen the photographs of Devereaux’s relatives. And she’d seen the bond that had grown between him and Nicole. A bond she feared might be even stronger than the one she shared with the kid. So with that in mind, what would be the point of going anywhere? She couldn’t leave Nicole. Which meant she couldn’t leave the part of Devereaux that existed within Nicole.
Running away would be futile.
And besides, why should she be the one who had to leave? It was her house!
Chapter Ninety-four
Thursday. Early afternoon.
Shaw sat up with the distant, bemused look of a man coming out of a trance. Then his attention latched onto the two detectives who were suddenly in his space, crowding close to him. He registered the guns in their hands. Saw the disgust on their faces. Felt his brain explode into life. And then there was no more time to think. He just sprang down from the wooden platform. Shouldered Garretty aside while he was still reeling from the sight of all the bones and skulls, and dived through the cabin’s wrecked doorway.
Garretty jumped out after him and fired off two quick rounds, but he couldn’t get a clear shot as Shaw twisted and weaved through the thick belt of pine trees. Devereaux raced past Garretty, dodging between the tall trunks and ducking under the narrow, razor-sharp branches. Garretty followed, slipping on the layers of decaying leaves that covered the ground and stumbling over the jumble of hidden roots and semi-buried rocks. But hard as the detectives pushed themselves, Shaw—naked and barefoot—was steadily pulling away from them.
Devereaux and Garretty emerged almost simultaneously into a firebreak—a straight-sided, twenty-foot-wide channel cut into the forest—and could see that Shaw had plowed on ahead, far into the next section of trees, and was gaining further ground.
“I have an idea.” Devereaux grabbed Garretty’s shoulder. “You follow him. But stay to his left. Make as much noise as you can, so he can tell you’re there. I know this area. There’s a gorge, running crossways, straight ahead of us. It cuts all the way through the forest. It’s deep. And too wide to cross. If you’re to his left, he’ll go to his right. I’ll use the firebreaks. Get ahead of him that way. We’ll trap him in between us.”
Devereaux sprinted away, making much better progress over the smoother, open ground. He kept going until he reached a firebreak that ran at ninety degrees, then took the left-hand track and strained to move even faster. He kept up the pace until he drew level with the final patch of trees before the forest gave way to the uneven, rocky rim of the gorge. Then Devereaux crouched down and peered around a dense clump of gorse. He had a clear view along the undulating line of pines. There was no sign of Shaw. But Devereaux could hear someone crashing around to his left. Was it Garretty, having lost his prey? Or Shaw, doubling back toward his cabin? Or making a break for his truck? Devereaux cursed beneath his breath and twisted around to scan the area on the other side of the bushes.
Devereaux saw the flash of an outstretched hand through a gap between two trees. Then an arm. And a naked torso. It had to be Shaw. He must have heard Garretty but responded by veering off diagonally rather than going straight then right. He was on course to emerge from the forest twenty feet from where Devereaux was waiting. That was much closer than Devereaux had expected. And even better th
an he’d hoped for. It would give Shaw far less chance to turn back and dive for cover in the undergrowth if he sensed the ambush.
Devereaux held his breath and waited until Shaw was almost in the open before stepping out from his cover, gun raised.
“Stop right there. Police.”
Shaw glanced at Devereaux without breaking his stride. Surprise flashed across his face, followed by a hint of amusement. Then he summoned another burst of acceleration and launched himself toward the far side of the gorge. He traveled fifteen feet through the air, legs still pumping, then gravity took its toll and he plummeted down, disappearing from Devereaux’s view.
Devereaux ran forward and reached the rim just in time to see Shaw smash into the rocks at the base of the gorge, thirty feet below. Shaw’s body crumpled on impact and he ended up sprawled out on his back, his right leg folded up beneath him. His left arm was twisted the wrong way at the elbow. His head was jammed against a lichen-covered boulder, and a stream of blood was beginning to stain the velvety surface a dirty brownish-red.
Devereaux started to scramble his way down the side of the gorge. It was steep and slippery, and he struggled to keep his footing on the wide patches of scree. He frequently had to slither between the rocks and tree stumps, slashing his hands as he grappled for support, but he finally made it to the bottom without suffering any serious harm.
Shaw was still breathing when Devereaux reached him, and a look of confusion and disappointment was clouding his eyes.
“I needed all four, I guess.” Sticky red bubbles were forming in Shaw’s mouth and nostrils as he spoke. “Three wasn’t enough. I should have waited for all four…”