by Josh Lanyon
Maybe John wasn’t the best detective in the world, but he had the makings of the best boyfriend ever. And after all, how often was I going to need a great detective?
The rain was coming harder now. I smiled up at him and gave his hand another squeeze. “Is that the truth?”
“That’s the truth.”
“You’re a very romantic guy, I have to say.”
He said quite seriously, “I’m a very practical guy. I’ve had lousy, lousy luck in relationships, so when I finally meet a guy I really like, I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave him to be murdered by a Scottish psychopath.”
“It turns out to have been an Anglo-American effort.” I eyed Yvonne and Daya. Daya had stopped crying. She sat watching us, shivering miserably. Yvonne was unblinking and absolutely still.
“I know,” John said. “Daya left a seven-page letter for Roddy. We’ve all read it.”
“A... That was helpful.”
“Yes.”
Yvonne began to laugh. The sound bounced off the tunnel walls and echoed eerily back.
John’s face tightened. “I was afraid. When we arrived, we found Ben in the library burning a stack of books and a bunch of notes in your handwriting. He had your cell phone.”
“I don’t think he was part of it until the cover-up.”
There wasn’t time for more. Reinforcements had arrived and in short order the grate had been dug up and a ladder was lowered. The police swarmed down and Yvonne and Daya were lifted out of the tunnel and escorted back to the castle.
At last I was able to climb out into the fresh air and sun—well, no. This being Scotland I had to make do with fresh air and sweet autumn rain. It didn’t matter. John’s strong arms wrapped around me, and his warm mouth found mine.
* * *
I spent several hours that long afternoon talking to the Area Commander for Orkney, Chief Inspector Dean Gordon. Mostly because Gordon was a methodical man who liked his Is dotted and his Ts crossed. The truth was, Daya’s confession to Roddy—which he had voluntarily handed over to the police in his terror for her safety—answered most of the chief inspector’s questions.
Yvonne also made a sort of confession to the police. She insisted she had only intended to speak to Vanessa that evening, but Vanessa had laughed at her, mocked her, insulted her. When Chief Inspector Gordon asked why she had brought a hypodermic full of poison to her meeting with Vanessa, Yvonne claimed it was for self-defense.
Daya, on the other hand, had not stopped crying since she’d been hauled out of the tunnel. The police surgeon declared her temporarily unfit for questioning. Roddy continued to cooperate with the police though. According to him, Daya had only told him what was really going on the night she and Yvonne had tried to make their escape. He insisted he had not even known that Daya was Donald Kresley’s sister. The police found this difficult to believe, but having spent nearly a week with Roddy, I believed him. Beyond that—and the letter—Roddy had little to offer.
Ben had even less to offer. After being taken into custody he asked for a lawyer and that was that. I saw him being led downstairs to board the boat that would take him, Roddy, Yvonne and Daya to Orkney and the police station in Kirkwall. He met my eyes, nodded politely, and walked past me. I didn’t know if he would have killed me that morning in the library or not. Maybe it had just been one of those terrible moments of violent impulse that Vanessa had spent so much of her life writing about. I couldn’t help remembering the afternoon at John o’Groats when he had stood, eyes shining and wind ruffling his hair, beneath the iconic signpost with all its possibilities.
The last we saw of the gang of four, Yvonne was demanding a full refund for the trip from Tours to Die For.
* * *
It was the end of the tour of course.
The Poes, the Matsukados and the Kramers left that afternoon for the mainland, with the rest of us making plans to leave the island the next day. It was unexpectedly difficult to say goodbye, and there were hugs all around and promises to stay in touch.
Trevor and Vance left as well, but there were no pledges to stay in contact and no fond farewells. To my relief they seemed to be back to behaving like honeymooners, so maybe they’d worked through their rough patch. I honestly hoped so.
Toward evening, the drizzle stopped and the sun made a brief appearance. John and I walked down to the beach again, sitting on the steps of one of the small holiday cottages and talking.
“What did happen with the Scherfs and the Rices?” I asked him curiously.
John tossed a pebble at one of the weathered wooden stakes in the dead flower garden. The pebble knocked the stake down. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“They were stopped and searched in Orkney and the police found nothing. They were released and sailed back to the mainland.” He shrugged. “We had nothing to hold them on.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’ll get them next time.” He tossed another pebble. It flew past the second stake and clacked against the sagging picket fence, nearly taking that down too.
“What if there isn’t a next time? What if they’ve decided to give up their life of crime?”
John made a derisive sound. “They’ve already rented a car for a week’s tour of the Highlands.”
“Is that so?”
John nodded.
Neither of us said anything for a time. I was wondering whether John would be returning to the States. It would be nice to fly home together. But maybe he would continue to pursue the Rices and Scherfs all over Scotland. Maybe the Rices and Scherfs were going to turn into his Maltese Falcon.
He threw a final pebble and sat up straight. “You’ve still got a week of vacation, right?”
“Yes.”
When he didn’t reply, I glanced at his profile. His lashes veiled his eyes, but there was a tinge of pink in his face. “I’ve been thinking,” he said.
“Oh?”
“What would you say to touring the Highlands together for a week?”
“Busman’s holiday?” I suggested. I mean, why not? My flight home was still five days away. I had nothing and no one to rush home for. Of course, I wanted to spend more time with John. I was always going to want to spend more time with John.
“That’s right,” John said. “Only no bus. And maybe more of a...well.” He cleared his throat.
Maybe more of a what? I was waiting curiously for the rest of it.
“Well?” he said a little sharply. He looked uncharacteristically serious, even a little self-conscious.
It dawned on me what he was trying to say. My heart floated up like a butterfly. My face warmed. “Oh.”
Not bad for a guy who had probably never even read Dorothy L. Sayers.
He continued to watch me with that mix of hope and caution.
I smiled. I felt like I would be doing a lot of smiling from now on.
“Do you like the idea?” he asked tentatively.
“Oh, yes,” I said, “I do.”
* * * * *
To purchase and read more books by Josh Lanyon, please visit Josh’s website here: www.joshlanyon.com
AUTHOR NOTE
While the itinerary of Murder Takes the High Road is based on my own 2015 tour of Scotland, a number of place names were changed to protect the innocent.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my partners in crime—and travel companions—Lisa, Pamela and Laura.
Sincere thanks to everyone at Carina Press, but especially to my dear (and long-suffering) editor Deb Nemeth. I couldn’t do this without you (and maybe you wish I wouldn’t)!
Now available from Carina Press and Josh Lanyon!
One final game of cat and mouse...
Ex-FBI agent Elliot Mills thought he was done with the most brutal case of his career. The S
culptor, the serial killer he spent years hunting, is finally in jail. But Elliot’s hope dies when he learns the murderer wasn’t acting alone. Now everyone is at risk once again—from a madman determined to finish his partner’s gruesome mission.
Read on for an excerpt from
FAIR CHANCE
Chapter One
“I knew you’d come.”
Andrew Corian, dubbed “The Sculptor” by the national press, was smiling that same old smile. Supremely confident and a little scornful. For a moment it was almost as if he were seated at his desk in his office at Puget Sound University and not in this sterile interview room at the Federal Detention Center in SeaTac.
“Sure you did,” Elliot said.
Corian’s powerful hands, thick wrists handcuffed, rested on the resin table. He spread his fingers, palms up in a “be my guest” gesture as Elliot took the plastic chair across the table.
He had been second-guessing the decision to meet with Corian from the minute he’d acceded to SAC Montgomery’s request, and Corian’s supercilious attitude just confirmed his doubts. They were not going to get anything useful out of the Sculptor.
“How could you resist?” Corian was saying. “A chance to play hero one last time. A chance to convince yourself you got the better of me.”
“Sounds like you’ve been hitting the library psych shelves pretty hard.” Elliot folded his arms on the tabletop, glanced casually around the room.
He’d been in plenty of these interview cells back when he’d been with the FBI. Neutral colors. Durable furniture. Stainless-steel mesh over the bulletproof frosted windows. A guard outside the door. Generic right down to the two-way mirror, behind which stood Detective Pine of Tacoma Homicide and FBI special agent Kelli Yamiguchi.
Just in case Pine and Yamiguchi missed anything, cameras overhead were recording the interview.
Corian’s eyes, a weird shade of hazel that looked almost yellow in the harsh institutional light, narrowed at Elliot’s gibe, but his broad smile never faltered. He seemed to be in a great mood for a guy looking at multiple life sentences.
“I don’t need to read a psychology book to understand you, Mills. There’s nothing complicated about your psyche.”
“But enough about me,” Elliot said. “Let’s talk about your favorite subject. You. Or more exactly, why you wanted to see me.”
The rough material of Corian’s prison khakis rustled as he sat back in his chair. He looked a bit like a cartoonist’s idea of the devil. Gleaming bald head and immaculately trimmed Vandyke. He was a big man and prison had made him bigger. Leaner. Harder. He looked like he ate steroids with every meal and spent all his free time bodybuilding. Maybe the bodybuilding wasn’t far from the truth. There wasn’t a hell of a lot to do while sitting around waiting for trial. Not when you’d been caught red-handed, as it were, in a series of brutal slayings and mutilations spanning more than fifteen years.
He said, “I didn’t want to see you. I gave you permission to visit. That’s all.”
“Two letters in two months? We’re practically pen pals. Come off it, Corian. You want me to sit here and listen to you explain in detail how brilliant you were. How brilliant you still are compared to the rest of us.”
Corian’s smile widened. “That wouldn’t be the only reason.”
“It’ll be the main reason. You’re sure as hell not interested in bringing closure to the families of the victims.”
It was quiet in the interview room. On the other side of the heavy soundproof door a symphony of discordant sounds were reaching crescendo level: guards yelling, televisions blasting, prisoners shouting, the incessant thunder of an industrial-strength plumbing system, the chatter and buzz of walkie-talkies, the jangle of keys and slamming of steel doors.
“You’ve never understood me, Mills.”
“You’re right about that.”
“But you’re afraid of me.”
Elliot sighed. “No, Andrew. I’m not.”
They had never been on first-name terms. Corian replied, “You should be, Elliot.”
“This is bullshit.” Elliot made sure to keep his tone bored, indifferent. The last thing he wanted was for Corian to know just how tense he really was. “If the idea was to get me here so you could practice your bogeyman routine, you’re wasting both our time.” He pushed his chair back as though to rise.
Corian sat back and expelled an exasperated sigh. “Goddamn. Can’t you at least buy me a drink before you screw me over?”
The indignation was almost funny.
“Look, you wrote me. I’m not looking to continue our relationship—if you want to call it that. I don’t need closure. I got my closure when they slammed the cell door on you.”
That wasn’t completely true. Like everyone else involved in the case, Elliot wasn’t going to truly breathe a sigh of relief until Corian was tried and convicted. He wanted the reassurance of knowing Corian was locked up in a maximum facility until the end of time. The numerous court date postponements were wearing on everyone’s nerves.
Corian had the gall to look wounded. It was only partly an act. Being a psychopath, his own pain and his own frustrations were very real to him. It was the suffering of other people he was indifferent to.
“You want something from me. So be it. I’d appreciate a little courtesy. A few minutes of intelligent conversation. Or as close as you can manage.”
Elliot eyed him without emotion. “All right. But we don’t have all day. If you’ve got something to say, you’d better spit it out.”
Corian leaned back in his chair, smiling. “How’s the fall session shaping up? Have they hired someone to replace me yet?”
“Oh, no one could replace you.”
“True.” Corian merely grinned at the sarcasm. “How’s Rollie? I read his book. When you think about it, it’s pretty ironic. The only child of a celebrity sixties’ radical joining the FBI.”
“Yep. Ironic. Are we done with the chitchat?”
Corian’s smile faded. “All right. Ask your questions.”
“As of this date, sixteen bodies have been removed from the cellar of your property in Black Diamond, bringing the number of victims to twenty-three. Is that it? Is that an accurate head count? Or are there more?”
“Head count.” Corian’s smile was pure Mephistophelian. Partly he was acting. Partly he was simply...evil.
An old-fashioned concept, but what else did you call someone who was technically—well, legally—sane and yet a ruthless, remorseless predator? Maybe the problem was with the way the legal system defined insanity, but mostly the problem was how society dealt with monsters like Corian once they were identified and captured. Elliot had grown up believing the death penalty was barbaric, an anathema in a civilized society. But was warehousing monsters really a better plan?
“If you want to go there,” Elliot said. “What did you do with the heads of your victims?”
“That’s an interesting question. Why do you think some of the bodies were buried and some were used in sculptures?” Corian was equally aware that they had an audience, both human and mechanical.
“No clue. Like you said, I’ve never understood you. Why did you only target young men? You’re not gay. Why did you never target women?”
“Where’s the sport in that? Besides, I like women.” Corian didn’t wait for Elliot’s response. “My turn. Why do you think all the bodies were headless?”
A game. That’s all this was to Corian. Another game. “To make it harder to identify the victims.”
Corian tipped his head as though considering this. “I wonder. Maybe. Partly, no doubt. But you’re a student of history. You understand the possibilities and precedents.”
The theory of ritualized cannibalism had certainly occurred to Elliot before that moment, but his stomach still gave a queasy roll of revulsion.
Watc
hing him, Corian said, “You’re horrified, yes, but you’re fascinated too.”
“Mostly I’m troubled. My concern is for the families who deserve to know whether their missing child is one of your victims.”
“I don’t know that they deserve anything. After all, their children wouldn’t be missing if they hadn’t failed as parents.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Elliot said. “It’s the fault of the parents that these young men were captured and butchered for your...art. Did you have some method, some system of record-keeping that would make it possible for you at this late date to identify the remains?”
“What remains? Who says there were any remains?” Corian was grinning. “Waste not, want not.”
It wasn’t easy, but Elliot kept his gaze level, his expression emotionless. “I’m speaking now of the sixteen previously mentioned bodies recovered from your cellar. Do you have any means of identifying them?”
“This is deal-making territory,” Corian said. “We both know you’re not in a position to offer me any deals.”
“Then why am I here?” Elliot gestured at the mesh-covered window. “What’s the point of this?”
Corian pretended to give this serious thought. “Several reasons. First and foremost, your being here annoys the hell out of your boyfriend. Special Agent Tucker Lance.”
The bastard was right about that.
“Okay,” Elliot said evenly. “You’re having your laugh now. But the joke will be on you after the jury listens to all that evidence. It’ll be too late for making deals then.”
Corian’s eyes gleamed. “Don’t you want to ask me why? Why I did it? Why I killed them?”
“I know why. You’re a sick sonofabitch.”
That was the truth. As far as it went. But even Elliot, who knew there was no possibility of understanding a brain like Corian’s, sometimes found himself questioning, puzzling over why. Certainly the families wanted to know, wanted some explanation, wanted to be able to make sense of these multiple tragedies.