by Nora Roberts
She laid her hands on her knees, a casual gesture, but he saw the way her fingers dug in.
“He shot Greg first, and maybe that was his mistake. He put two bullets in Kong, but Kong kept coming. That’s what they reconstructed, and that’s what Perry said happened, trading confessions, information, details against the threat of the death penalty when he knew he’d lose the trial. Kong tore Perry up pretty good before he died. Perry was strong, and he managed to get back to his car, even drove a few miles before he passed out, wrecked. Anyway, they got him. Greg, he was strong, too. He lived two days. That was in September. September twelfth. We were going to be married the following June.”
Useless words, Simon thought, but they had to be said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. He staked Greg out for months, maybe longer. Meticulous, patient. He killed him to pay me back. See, I was supposed to be his number thirteen, but I got away.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “I want a drink. Do you want a drink?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
When she rose and went in, he debated going with her, and decided maybe she needed a little time to pull it together.
He remembered bits and pieces of the story. Remembered now there’d been a girl who escaped, and who gave the FBI a description of the man who abducted her.
Years ago, he thought now, and tried to think what he’d been doing when the story had been hot.
He just hadn’t paid that much attention, he thought now. He’d been, what, about twenty-five? He’d just moved to Seattle and had been trying to build a reputation, make a living. And his father had that cancer scare about that time. That had eclipsed everything else.
She came out with a couple glasses of white wine.
“It’s an Aussie chardonnay. All I’ve got, apparently.”
“It’s fine.” He took the glass, and they sat in silence, watching the heap of dogs who’d decided to take a nap. “Do you want to tell me how you got away?”
“Luck, on the heels of stupidity. I shouldn’t have been out alone that morning on that jogging path. I should’ve known better. My uncle’s a cop, and I was already seeing Greg, and they’d both made a point of telling me not to run without a partner. But I couldn’t get one who’d keep up with me. Track star,” she added with a ghost of a smile.
“You’ve got the legs for it.”
“Yeah. Lucky me. I didn’t listen to them. Perry hadn’t crossed over to Washington at that point, and there hadn’t been an abduction for months. You never think it’s going to be you. You especially never think that when you’re twenty. I went out for my run. I liked to go early, then hit the coffee shop. It was a crappy day, gloomy, rainy, but I loved running in the rain. This was early November, the year before Greg died. I had a second, just a second when I saw him. So ordinary-looking, so pleasant, but I had that click. I had a panic button on my key chain. I even reached for it, but it was too late. I felt that shock of pain, then nothing works.”
She had to stop a moment, had to breathe. “Nothing works,” she repeated. “Pain, shock, then numb, useless. I felt sick when I came to in the trunk. It was dark, and I felt the movement, the sound of the tires on the road. Can’t scream, can’t kick, can hardly move.”
She stopped, breathed it out, took a slow sip of wine. “I cried awhile because he was going to kill me and I couldn’t stop him. He was going to kill me because I wanted to take a morning run by myself. I thought about my family, and Greg, my friends, my life. I stopped crying and got mad. I hadn’t done anything to deserve this.”
She stopped again, drank again while the breeze whispered through the pines. “And I had to pee. That was humiliating, and as stupid as it is, the thought that I’d pee my pants before he killed me just revved me up. So I’m fighting that, sort of squirming around, and I felt the lump in my pocket. I had a hidden pocket in my jogging pants—one of those inside-the-back deals. Greg had given me this little Swiss Army knife.” She reached in the pocket of her jeans, pulled it out.
“Tiny little knife, cute little scissors, mini nail file. A girl knife.” She closed her hand around it. “It saved my life. He’d taken my keys, the coffee money I had zipped in my jacket pocket, but he hadn’t thought of the inner pocket in the pants. Couldn’t know it was there, I guess. My hands were tied behind my back. I could just reach it. I think I was most scared then, when I managed to get the knife, when I started to think maybe, maybe there was a way out.”
“Can I see it?” When she offered it, Simon opened it, studied the knife in the bright afternoon sun. Half as long as his thumb, he thought. “You cut through the nylon cord with this?”
“Cut, sawed, hacked. It took me forever just to get it open, or it seemed like it, and a lifetime to saw through the rope. I had to cut through the one around my ankles because I couldn’t loosen the knot. First I was terrified he’d stop the car before I’d finished, then I was terrified he’d never stop that fucking car. But he did. He did, and he got out whistling a tune. I’ll never forget that sound.”
He thought of it—a girl, trapped, terrified, very likely bloody where the cords had cut into her. And armed with a knife barely more lethal than a thumbtack.
“I put the duct tape back over my mouth.”
She said it so calmly now, so matter-of-factly that he turned his head to stare at her.
“And I wound the rope around my ankles, put my hands behind my back. I closed my eyes. When he opened the trunk, he kept right on whistling.
“He leaned in, tapped my cheek to bring me around. And I stuck that little knife in him. I’d hoped for the eye, but I missed and got him in the face. Still it surprised him, hurt him enough to give me a second. I rammed my fist into his face and swung my legs around and kicked. Not as hard as I wanted because the rope got tangled some, but hard enough to knock him back so I could get out. The shovel was right there, where he’d dropped it when I stabbed him. I grabbed it and I slammed it against his head—a couple of times. I got his keys. I’m still a little blurry on all of it—shock, adrenaline, they said—but I got in the car and floored it.”
“You knocked him out and drove away,” Simon murmured, stunned and fascinated.
“I didn’t know where I was, where I was going, and I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself, but I drove like a bat out of hell. There was a lodge, a hotel—I saw the lights. He’d taken me into the Olympic National Forest. They called the rangers, and the rangers called in the FBI and so on and so on. He got away, but I gave them a description. They had the car, his name, his address. Or the one he had on record. And still, he eluded them for nearly a year. Until he shot Greg and Kong, and Kong stopped him. Kong gave his life to stop him.”
She took the knife back, slipped it into her pocket.
“You seem like a fairly smart woman,” Simon commented after a few moments. “So you know that what you did saved other women. The bastard’s put away, right?”
“Multiple and consecutive life terms. They made the deal after I testified, after he realized he’d be convicted for Greg, for me, and he’d face the death penalty.”
“Why’d they deal?”
“For confessions on Greg, on me, on the other twelve victims, for the whereabouts of his notebooks, his tapes, for closure for the families of the murdered women. For answers. And the certainty he’d never get out.”
She nodded as if to a question in her head. “I always thought it was the right thing to do. It gave me, strangely enough, relief to hear him go through all of it, step by step, and to know he’d pay for it, for all of it, for a very, very long time. I wanted to put it behind me, close the door. My father died just nine weeks later. So suddenly, so unexpectedly, and the bottom dropped out again.”
She rubbed her hands over her face. “Horrible times. I came out to stay with Syl for a few weeks, a couple months, I thought, but I realized I didn’t want to go back. I needed to start over, and I wanted to start over here. So I did, and most of the time that door stays closed.”
&
nbsp; “What opened it today?”
“Davey came to tell me someone is using Perry’s pattern, including details that weren’t released to the public. There’ve been two so far. In California. It’s started again.”
Questions circled in his head, but he didn’t ask them. She was done, he thought. Purged what she’d needed to purge for now.
“Rough on you. Brings it all back, makes it now instead of then.”
Again she closed her eyes, and her whole body seemed to relax. “Yes. Yes, exactly. God, maybe it’s stupid, but it really helps to have someone say that. To have someone get that. So thanks.”
She laid a hand on his knee, a brief connection. “I have to go in, make some calls.”
“Okay.” He handed her the glass. “Thanks for the drink.”
“You earned it.”
Simon walked over to pick up the puppy, who immediately started bathing his face as if they’d been parted for a decade.
As he drove away, he glanced back to see Fiona going inside, closely followed by her dogs.
FIVE
Fiona thought about dinner, and had another glass of wine instead. Talking to Greg’s parents tore off the scar tissue and opened the wound again. She knew the healthy option was to fix a meal, maybe take a long walk with the dogs. Get out of the house, get out of herself.
Instead she shooed the dogs outside and indulged in a long session of brooding so wide and deep her hackles rose at the interruption of another visitor.
Couldn’t people just let her wallow?
The chorus of happy barks translated to a friend. She wasn’t surprised to see James and his Koby exchanging greetings with her dogs.
She leaned against the porch post, idly sipping her wine and watching him. In the floodlights she’d flipped on, his hair had a sheen. But then, something about James always did. His skin, an indescribable shade she thought of as caramel dipped in gold dust, was a testament to his widely mixed heritage. His eyes, a bright, shining green, often laughed out of a forest of lashes.
He turned them on Fiona now, with a quick and easy smile as he shook a jumbo take-out bag.
“I brought provisions.”
She took another slow sip of wine. “Davey talked to you.”
“Seeing as he’s married to my sister, he often does.”
He walked to her, bringing the scent of food, then just wrapped his free arm around her to bring her close. Swayed.
“I’m okay. I’ve just been holding the first meeting of my Pity Me Club.”
“I want to join. I’ll be president.”
“I’ve already elected myself president. But since you brought provisions, you can be the second official member.”
“Do we get badges? A secret handshake?” He leaned back to press his lips to her forehead. “Let’s go inside and vote on it over burgers.”
“I talked to Greg’s mother,” Fiona told him as she led the way.
“Hard.”
“Brutal. So I’ve been sitting here drinking wine in the dark.”
“Fair enough, but I’m calling time’s-up on that. Got any Coke?”
“Pepsi. Diet.”
“Blech. I’ll take it.”
As much at home in her place as in his own, he got out plates, set a burger, loaded, on each, then divvied up the mountain of fries from an insulated box. She poured out the drinks after dumping the rest of the wine in her glass down the sink.
“We should’ve had sex before we got to be friends.”
He smiled, sat. “I think we were eleven and twelve when you started coming on island to see your dad, so we were a little young for sex when we got to be friends.”
“Still.” She plopped down in her chair. “If we’d had sex back then, we could have a revival now. It’d be a good distraction. But now it’s too late because I’d feel stupid getting naked with you.”
“It’s a problem.” He took a bite of burger. “We could do it in the dark, and use assumed names. I’d be Rock Hard and you’d be Lavender Silk.”
“Nobody can call out ‘Lavender’ while in the throes. I’ll be Misty Mars. I like the alliteration.”
“Fine. So, Misty, you want to eat first or just go jump in the sack?”
“It’s hard to resist that kind of romance, but we’ll eat.” She nibbled on a fry. “I don’t want to beat on the drum all night, James, but it’s so strange. Just the other day I was telling Syl how I could hardly get Greg’s face in my head. How he’s faded on me. Do you know?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“And the minute Davey told me about what’s happened, it was there again. I can see him, every detail of his face. He’s back. And . . . is it awful?” she managed as tears rose in her throat. “Is it? That I wish he wasn’t. A part of me wants him to fade, and I didn’t realize that until he came back.”
“So what? You should wear black and read depressing poetry for the rest of your life? You grieved, Fee. You broke, and you mourned, and you healed. You started the unit out of love and respect for him.” Reaching over, he gave her wrist a squeeze. “And it’s a hell of a tribute.”
“If you’re going to be all rational and sensible, I don’t see how you can be a member of the Pity Me Club.”
“We can’t have a club meeting while there are burgers. That requires really bad wine and stale crackers.”
“Damn you, James, you’ve screwed up a really good wallow.” She sighed, ate her burger.
EVEN THE COMFORT of a friend, the familiarity of her dogs and the nighttime routine didn’t spare her from the bad dreams. She woke every hour, struggling out of the goop of a nightmare only to sink in again the next time she drifted off.
The dogs, as restless as she, got up to pace or rearrange themselves. At three a.m., Bogart came to the side of the bed to offer her the rope as if a game of tug would set things right.
At four, Fiona gave it up. She let the dogs out, made coffee. She did a hard, sweaty workout then settled down with paperwork.
She balanced her checkbook, drafted upcoming newsletters for her classes and for the Search and Rescue subscribers. While the sky lightened she updated her Web page and spent some time surfing various blogs because she couldn’t drum up the enthusiasm to write her own.
By the time her first class began, she’d been up for over four hours and wanted a nap.
She loved her classes, Fiona reminded herself. She loved them for the work itself, the dogs, the social opportunity, the interaction. She loved being outside most of the day.
But right then she wished she’d canceled the other two classes on the schedule. Not to wallow, she told herself, but just for some alone time, just to catch up on sleep, maybe read a book.
Instead, she prepared for round two, took a call from Sylvia—word traveled—and got through it.
By the end of her workday, after she and the dogs had gathered and stowed all the toys and training tools, she realized she didn’t want to be alone after all. The house was too quiet, the woods too full of shadows.
She’d go into town, she decided. Do some shopping, maybe drop by and see Sylvia. She could walk on the beach after. Fresh air, exercise, change of scene. She’d keep at it until she was too damn tired for dreams, bad or otherwise.
She decided on Newman for company. As he leaped in the car, she turned to the other dogs.
“You know how it is. Everybody gets a chance for some one-on-one. We’ll bring you something. Be good.”
When she got in, she gave Newman a sidelong glance. “No smirking,” she ordered.
Stress eased as she drove, snaking along while the early evening sun dipped beams into the water. Fatigue lessened as she opened the windows wide and cranked up the radio while the wind tossed her hair.
“Let’s sing!”
Always ready to oblige, Newman howled in harmony with Beyoncé.
She intended to drive to Eastsound, stock up on essentials and treat herself to something she absolutely didn’t need. But as she wound along between hill and wate
r, by field and forest, she followed impulse and made the turn at the mailbox marked simply DOYLE.
Maybe he needed something from the village. She could be neighborly, save him a trip. It didn’t have anything to do with wanting to see where and how he lived. Or hardly anything.
She liked the way the trees screened, and let the sunlight shimmer and shine on rock and tall grass. And she liked the house, she thought, as it came into view. The central double peaks, the tumbling lines that followed the slope of the land.
It could use some paint, she decided. Something fresh and happy for the trim. And some chairs, some colorful pots of flowers on the porch and the sweet little second-story deck. Maybe a bench under the weeping cherry that would burst into bloom in the spring.
She parked beside Simon’s truck, noted he’d replaced the headrest he’d patched with duct tape. Then she spotted the outbuilding a few yards from the house, nearly enveloped by the trees.
Long and low, it likely held as many square feet as her house, and offered a generous covered porch on the front. A scatter of tables, chairs and what she took as parts of other pieces of furniture stood or leaned under the shade.
She heard the sound of sawing—at least she thought it was sawing—buzzing under heroically loud rock and roll.
She got out, signaled Newman to join her. He scented the air—new place, new smells—as he fell into step with her.
“Great view, huh?” she murmured, looking out over the sound to the opposing shorelines and the little nubs of green on the water. “And look, he’s got a little beach down there, and a pier. He needs a boat, but it’s nice. Water, woods, some nice stretches of ground, and not too close to the road. It’s a good home for a dog.”
She scratched Newman’s ears and wandered closer to the outbuilding.
She spotted him through the window—jeans, T-shirt, goggles, tool belt. And noted she’d been right about the saw. It was, she thought, one big, scary mother. He slid wood under its fast, toothy blade. Her stomach tightened a little at the thought of what it could do to fingers, and with that in mind, she moved carefully around to the door, standing out of range until the buzzing paused.