Watcher in the Woods: A Rockton Novel

by Kelley Armstrong

  The station door opens. Sam walks in.

  “Sam,” I say. “Do you know who was assigned to Petra earlier today? Around the time of the shooting?”

  “Jen, I think. She went home an hour ago. She might still be up but . . .” He looks at the window, and I realize it’s dark. I check my watch. 2:10 A.M.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow. Shouldn’t you be done, too?”

  “That’s what I came to talk to you about. Paul was supposed to take over for me at one-thirty. I figured he was just running late, but when I went by his apartment, no one answered. Do you know if he’s been reassigned? I can’t find Will to ask.”

  Anders is in charge of the militia scheduling. With so much going on, that schedule exists only in his head, subject to constant juggling as he makes sure everyone gets enough time off.

  “I saw Paul heading home earlier this evening,” I say. “I was busy gathering alibis, but I think he was grabbing a few hours of shut-eye before his next shift. Given how much you guys have been working, he’s probably just overslept. Go on in and check.”

  “I would, but his door’s locked.”

  I curse under my breath. “Right. Because I told everyone to keep them locked. Let me find Eric and grab the master key. You can call it a night. I’ll get Paul up and on duty.”

  * * *

  I get the skeleton key from Dalton. Paul lives on the second floor of a four-unit building. I climb the external staircase and head along the balcony to his apartment. His windows are dark. Everyone’s are—blackout blinds must be pulled at sundown to minimize our glow to passing aircraft. Some light still seeps out at the edges when the occupant has a light on. At this time of night, they’re all dark, including Paul’s.

  I knock twice. Then I unlock the door and crack it open.

  “Paul?”

  No answer. As I slip inside, I do see a faint glow from the bedroom at the back. The door’s shut, and I walk in, calling Paul as I go. I rap on the bedroom door. Still no answer.

  “Paul?”

  Knock. Call. Knock again. A light definitely shines from beneath the door. A wavering one. Has he fallen asleep with a candle going? I’d hate to report one of our key militia for what seems like a minor infraction. But it’s not minor. Fire is our greatest threat, and while we allow candles, they’re meant for winter, when it’s dark by four in the afternoon. They aren’t even supposed to be taken into a bedroom.

  I’m tempted to leave. I know that’s wrong. But it’s two-thirty in the morning, and I’m tired, and I do not want to chew out an over-worked militia guy.

  I try one last knock and call, in hopes he’ll wake up and put out the candle himself.

  He’s not responding though, so I take a deep breath and decide, if it is a candle, I’ll let him off with a warning. I’ll also tell Dalton. I have to be careful with that. As the detective sharing the sheriff’s bed, I need to tell him when I issue warnings for serious infractions. Otherwise, it’ll look like I consider my authority equal to Dalton’s.

  I ease open the door. The first thing I see is that damn candle, flickering beside the bed. And then Paul himself, sound asleep in bed.

  All the simmering frustration of the day ignites. I slam open the door and march in with, “Get your ass out of bed. Sam’s been waiting for you to take his shift, and you’re sleeping with a goddamn candle on.”

  Paul doesn’t move. I pull short, heart pounding. But then I see his chest, rising and falling. I catch the faint wheeze of his breathing. I set my lantern on his nightstand and pinch out the candle. As I do, I spot the bottle. It’s a glass pill bottle with a mailing label neatly affixed. On that label is Beth Lowry’s careful script.

  I lift the bottle. It’s a prescription for a midlevel sleep aid. The date is two years ago, around the time Paul arrived. He must have had trouble sleeping then—not surprising given that he came at this time of year, when the sun only naps. He must have saved the pills to use as needed. That explains his deep slumber. I sigh. There’s no point waking him. If he’s this deeply asleep, he’ll be in no shape to work.

  I’m taking my lantern as I set down the pill bottle. As I do, I realize nothing jangles inside. The bottle is empty. The hairs on my neck rise, but I tell myself I’m overreacting. He used up his last ones. That’s all. Still, I glance at Paul’s sleeping form, and when I do, I spot two pills on the sheets . . . and a bubble of foam in one corner of his mouth.

  TWENTY

  I’m in the clinic. We’ve brought Paul there, which means we had to put Garcia’s body on the floor so we’d have a bed for Paul. Dalton can’t even fit in the damn examination room with us—there’s no room with a corpse on the floor. In the closet, Kenny’s awake and asking what’s going on, and I want to throw up my hands and walk out and clear my head. I haven’t had more than a few hours’ sleep in three days, and my brain is about to shut down from overload.

  It doesn’t, of course. We have a man who just attempted suicide. That’s a problem that cannot wait until I get my shit together.

  We pump Paul’s stomach, and even that makes me feel like I’ve slid into some twilight zone nightmare. A few months ago, we had to pump Diana’s stomach when she’d been drugged. We also did it with Brady, who poisoned himself. And before that, Anders had never even assisted in a stomach pumping in Rockton. It seems impossible that we’d be doing it for the third time in six months. The truth is that situations like this are contagious. Someone drugs Diana with sleeping pills . . . and then Val remembers that when she needs to get Brady out of the jail cell. And then, I suspect, Paul recalls both those cases when he decides to take his own life.

  I remember standing at his bedside, ready to walk away. If I hadn’t realized the bottle was empty? If I hadn’t spotted the foam on his lips? I don’t want to think about that. I’m just glad that I did.

  I’m by Paul’s bedside when he wakes. Dalton tried to get me to go home and sleep. I refused. That’s not just guilt. It’s the very real possibility—likelihood even—that guilt is what drove Paul to take those pills. Guilt over what he’d done. There’s no other reason for him to decide this is the time to commit suicide. He tried to kill Garcia, and when he failed, instead of making a second attempt, he tried to take his own life before Garcia woke and named him.

  I’m dozing there, in a chair. Dalton’s asleep in the one beside me. We’ve moved Garcia’s body into the front room. I know how callous that sounds, stashing his corpse here and there, but we’ve had no time to do anything else.

  “C-Casey?”

  Paul’s groggy voice wakes me. I get to my feet and move to his bed. He’s trying to prop himself up. He accidentally tugs against the IV line and follows it, blinking at the drip bag in confusion.

  “Wh—where—what—?”

  “Paul, I need to ask you a question.”

  I don’t ask whether he feels up to answering. Down south, I’d have to do that. I’d need to read him his rights. I’d need to give him the option of not speaking without a lawyer present. None of that counts here. He’s still dopey from the drugs, and he could very well say something that incriminates himself, and I am okay with that.

  “Do you remember what happened?” I ask. “Do you remember taking the sleeping pills?”

  His eyes half shut, shame darkening his face, telling me there’s no chance someone force fed those pills to him.

  “You were attempting to take your own life, yes?” I say.

  He nods.

  “Because of something you’d done.”

  Another nod.

  “Do you want to tell me about that?”

  “He—the marshal. He’s here for me. For what I did. It was a Federal offense, and he’s a Federal agent.”

  “So you shot him.”

  Paul’s eyes round. “What?”

  “You’re the one who answered the radio. You knew we were bringing him in, and he’d tell us it was you, so you shot him.”

  “N-no. No.” He pushes up onto his elbow
s. “At that time, I figured he’d already told you it was me. There was no point doing anything. Not that I would have anyway. When you called, I ran and got Will. Then I heard the marshal got shot and . . .” Paul swallows. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad. But when you said he’d pull through, that gave me time to think about it. Really think about it. I realized I couldn’t go back. I committed a Federal offense, and then I fled the country. I was going to jail for a very long time. I . . . I couldn’t do that. So I took the pills.”

  He goes quiet. I’m ready to ask something else when he blurts, “Can I speak to him?”

  “Hmm?” I say, my mind elsewhere.

  “The marshal. May I speak to him? Maybe if I do that—if I talk to him, if I explain—we can work something out. I know, I should have thought of that before I swallowed a bottle of pills, but I panicked. I didn’t see any other option.”

  “What’s he want you for?” Dalton’s voice comes from behind me, and I turn to see him awake, straightening in his chair.

  “Tell us about this federal offense you committed,” Dalton says.

  Dalton knows Paul’s official story. He doesn’t say that, though—he wants to hear it from Paul.

  “It was a really stupid mistake,” Paul says. “And it’s a long story.”

  “From the beginning,” Dalton says.

  Paul swallows and nods. “Okay. It began on my lunch hour. I worked in Manhattan. Sales. Boring as hell, but it paid the bills. I was thirty-four. Divorced for a year. No kids. So I was just kind of plodding along in life. Waiting for things to get better but not doing anything to make them better. I was coming back from lunch, alone, with my headphones on, when this girl falls right in front of me. I look up and see a guy coming at her. A scrawny kid, looked like he just crawled from an alley. I used to play quarterback in high school, kept it up with a few hours in the gym each week. So I fend him off. Turns out I was so lost in my music that I walked straight into the middle of a protest. It was Manhattan. Honestly, you learn to ignore them. Anyway, she was a protester, and that’s why this Neo-Nazi creep went after her. I stayed to make sure she got help. The next day, she called to thank me and asked me out for coffee. I said yes. Hell, yes.”

  He pauses and looks up at me. “Did I mention it’s a long story?”

  “Keep going,” Dalton says.

  “So, fast forward a year. We’ve been dating, and I’m crazy about her. Sure, Cindy’s too young for me—twenty-four—but I’m still smarting from my divorce, and this is the ego boost I need. She’s cute and smart and sweet, and I’m smitten. She’s also into social activism. Really into it. So I’m right in there with her. It’s like when I met my wife, and she was a dog trainer, and all of a sudden, I was the biggest dog lover ever. And it wasn’t like Cindy and I had different political views in general. So I was right in there with her, protesting so much shit I had to set reminders for myself. Tuesday is animal rights, Saturday is pro-choice, and make sure I grab the right sign for each, ‘cause screwing that up is really embarrassing.”

  He offers a weak smile. “I was an activist poseur. Stupid as hell, but it made her happy, and when Cindy was happy, I was happy.”

  “So what happened?” I ask.

  “Deja vu all over again, to quote . . .” He squeezes his eyes shut. “I don’t even remember who said that. Sorry, I’m trying to play this cool, so maybe we can all forget I tried to kill myself tonight. That’s just not . . .” He looks at me. “Does anyone else know about the overdose?”

  “Will and my sister assisted us. Anyone else only knows it was a medical emergency.”

  “Could we not tell people? It’s just . . . It’s not the image . . .” He shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m supposed to be defending myself against attempted murder, not worrying what people will think of me.”

  “Paul?” Daltons says.

  “Sorry, boss. So, deja vu. A year later. Another protest. Another attack on Cindy. We’re in there, shouting and whatever, and it’s chaos. I look over to see her go flying, just like that first day. I go off on the guy who did it, even more than I did the first time, because now this is my girlfriend he’s attacking. I beat him until Cindy’s friends pull me off. That’s when I discover she wasn’t attacked by another neo-Nazi asshole. It was a federal cop, who pushed her by accident. He got hit, and he stumbled into her. That’s it. He had the jacket on, the one that said he was a cop, and I never noticed it. I just saw Cindy go flying. I beat the shit out of a federal officer. The moment I realized what I did, I made the next biggest possible mistake. I bolted.”

  “You fled the scene,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah. Ran like the devil himself was on my heels. I walked five miles to our hotel room—we were in DC for the protest—and when I arrived, there were cops waiting. They grabbed Cindy and her friends, and someone gave me up. I saw the cops, and I got out of there. The group helped me. I don’t know if that was the right move. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. But it’s not like they were experts. I should have gotten a lawyer. Instead I panicked and ran. Someone connected to Cindy’s group knew about Rockton, as a place for political asylum, and they figured I qualified. That’s how I ended up here.”

  “And the officer?” I ask.

  His brow furrows.

  “Did you kill the guy?” Dalton says.

  Paul’s eyes widen. “No. I broke a couple of ribs and fractured his orbital socket or something like that. He made a full recovery and was back to work in a month.” He hurries on. “Which doesn’t diminish what I did. Jostling Cindy was unintentional. He was a federal officer doing his job keeping the peace, and I put him in the hospital. I know now I should have stayed and muddled through. Running made it worse. I became a federal fugitive.”

  He pushes up straighter in bed. “I didn’t face the music three years ago, so I’m doing it now. Just let me talk to this marshal. I probably can’t convince him to let me stay—not after all this—but I want him to know exactly what happened before he takes me. I want him to know I’m not some maniac who attacked a federal agent.”

  I glance at Dalton. He shakes his head.

  “He’s dead,” I say. “The marshal . . . has succumbed to his injuries.”

  “What?”

  I repeat it. It takes at least a minute for the news to penetrate. When it does, Paul hovers there, like he’s waiting for more.

  Then, slowly, he slumps onto the bed. When he speaks again, his voice is barely above a whisper. “I should be glad, shouldn’t I? Not that he’s dead, of course. He was just like that agent I beat up. A guy doing his job. But as shitty as that is, and as guilty as I’ll feel, it means I’m safe. Except . . .”

  He swallows, and he looks up at me. “I was kind of glad. Happy I’d been caught. Part of me always wanted to be. Right from the start. When I went back to the hotel and saw those cops, I wanted to turn myself in. I kept hoping someone would talk me into it, hoping Cindy would tell me she loved me and she’d see me through this and once it was over, we’d be together.”

  He gives a short laugh. “That was my fantasy. I’d made a mistake, but I’d redeem myself and win the girl. Instead, she told me I had to run, for the sake of the cause. She wished me all the best. A kiss-off. That’s what it was. Thanks for saving me, Paul. Thanks for protecting me. Now get the hell away from me.”

  He shifts in the bed. “Now I had the chance to fix it. I panicked, like after I beat up that officer. That’s why I took the pills. But when I woke up, I was relieved. Relieved that I was alive and relieved that I could turn myself in. I know that sounds crazy. But I just wanted to be caught. And now this poor guy is dead—because of me. And I get to go free. That’s not fair. Not fair at all.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I’m behind the station with Dalton. Isabel and April came to take care of the patients, and we ended up here, on the back deck. Dalton takes my hand and sits, and he pulls me down with him. I’m sitting there, his arms around me as I lean back against his chest.

  “That’s
what you felt like, isn’t it?” he says.

  I don’t ask what he means. I know. He’s asking if I wanted to be caught for the murder of Blaine Saratori. If, while I’d been unable to turn myself in, there’d been some part of me hoping I’d be found out. Hoping I’d face justice.

  “Yes,” I say.

  Silence. I feel his heart thudding against my back.

  Then he asks, “Do you still feel like that?”

  “No.”

  He nods. I twist to face him and say it again, to be clear. He needs that. There will always be a part of Dalton who is that boy taken from his parents. The boy who lost his family and came to Rockton, to a world where he loses everyone. Every person who comes into his life leaves again. While he’s accepted that, he’s not sure how to deal with actually wanting someone to stay.

  We all learn that lesson, in our way. People enter our life, and whether or not they stay isn’t really up to us. The uncertainty is so much easier to cope with if we just inoculate ourselves to it, as Dalton has. People come, and people go, and he’s learned to enjoy what time he has with them, but he allows no one be so important that he’ll grieve their loss for long.

  Now he has me, and he had to acknowledge this fear. The fear that I might go or that I might be taken from him. If I still feel like Paul—if I’m secretly hoping to be caught—might I decide to turn myself in someday? Is this just another of the endless ways he could lose me?

  So I reassure him, and then I lean against him as his arms tighten around me.

  “I remember when I met you,” he says. “You thought you were in danger of being arrested, and how you still tried to cut a deal with me. If we took Diana, you’d stay behind.”