“Do you know what you did wrong?” Bridget asked.
Everything.
“It was too perfect,” Alice said instead.
“The sand was genius,” Bridget said. “The enemy of evidence.”
Alice just waited. She knew this.
Bridget laughed without humor. “Fuck you.”
There must have been sound—the scuffle of feet against loose stone, the chatter of a busy crime scene, the sirens even though the emergency was long over. But the silence stretched and twisted and bent between them so that it pulled tight the fibers of Alice’s muscles.
Bridget finally ran a hand through her shorn bleached-blonde hair.
“Why, Alice?”
The question was so inherently human. Why? Everyone always wanted to know.
“I thought you didn’t want ‘why,’” Alice reminded her.
Bridget sighed. “You’re right. I liked ya, Garner.”
She’d liked Bridget. As much as she could like someone. That wasn’t much these days, though. “What gave it away?”
“You wanted to be known.”
Alice smiled at that, just a little bit. “Thought that was my arena. Did your science fail you, then?”
Bridget shook her head. “It told me a cop did it. You told me you did it.”
“A cop or a pro, you mean?” Alice clarified, thinking back to their conversation the night before.
“No,” Bridget said. “Or maybe. There should have been something. All that blood.”
It was a poke, a finger pressing against the tender rim of an open wound. Bridget was watching her face, perhaps for a reaction. But Alice couldn’t give her one. She was hollow. Her chest, her heart, her belly—everything was hollow.
There had been blood, and she’d cleaned it up.
“It could have been a pro, I guess,” Bridget continued when Alice didn’t react. “But I saw you in her room, Alice.”
In Ruby’s room with the porcelain elephant that had reminded Alice of Lila. It had been only a second that she’d let herself feel what she’d been keeping so tightly locked up, let herself think of Ruby as a little girl who liked the circus and elephants and hadn’t deserved to die. So different from Lila, but still the same.
Bridget wrinkled up her nose. “I didn’t think much of it. Or if I did, I chalked it up to your daughter. But every time I worked on the evidence, it was there. That memory of you. I started wondering, you know?”
Of course she knew. That’s how the best cops worked. A small moment stuck, niggled at the brain until you finally gave in to it.
“So I dug a little bit,” Bridget said. “I told myself it was to rule you out.”
It was easy to tell yourself things you wanted to hear.
“You know what struck me?” Bridget said. “The sheets.”
Alice blinked slowly. “My area again.”
“Rubbed off on me, haven’t you?” Bridget smiled without humor. “Why was she wrapped in sheets? Your lot says it’s because the guy feels remorse and guilt. Which usually rules out a serial killer.”
A seed planted, a distraction.
“But your daughter was wrapped in sheets, wasn’t she?” Bridget asked. “Found that out last night. It was an anomaly in the case. Made the cops investigating look at you. Probably for too long.”
“They wasted so much time,” Alice murmured. What had been a source of deep frustration then had become inspiration.
“Weird coincidence, huh?” Bridget ignored Alice’s interruption. “Then you called back last night.”
If the woman had already suspected her, Alice might as well have confessed during that conversation. A part of her wondered if she’d wanted this.
The sheets. The email name. Sending Ricky to Jacksonville to leave breadcrumbs that could so easily be followed. There was that need to be known, one that wooed and entrapped even the savviest killer. But it was more than that. All she’d wanted was justice. And something in her knew that she wasn’t exempt from that.
Alice scratched at the fleck of blood that was no longer really there. “What now?”
The woman’s eyes traced down to Alice’s holster, then back to her face. “You still have your gun.”
“Why didn’t you turn me in first? Why give me a warning?” Alice realized that’s what this was. A warning. A head start. Bridget knew she wasn’t going to run. She also knew Alice wasn’t going to let herself be arrested. The woman was letting her end it on her terms. It was a kindness Alice hadn’t been expecting.
Long enough for what?
“I liked ya, Garner,” Bridget said once more, and it was goodbye. It was Leave. It was You have five minutes before I tell Nakamura everything.
Alice nodded once and stood up. She was at the door before she stopped and looked back. “You’re one of the good ones.”
Bridget shook her head. “Clearly not.”
And that was it. Alice was in the alley in the next heartbeat, leaving the chaos of the crime scene behind her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHARLOTTE
August 5, 2018
Seven days after the kidnapping
There was a lightness to the sky, a suggestion that the night was breaking and giving way to the day. Goose bumps covered Charlotte’s skin, and her body protested when she shifted. There were other hints that she hadn’t moved in hours—the ache in her fingers where they wrapped around her arms, the stiffness in her neck as if the vertebrae had locked together, the dryness in her mouth as her tongue dragged along her palate.
She ignored the trivial discomforts and pushed up until she was standing. The sand tugged at her feet as she made her way back to the stairs, as if begging her to stay and sink into oblivion. But she’d made her decision.
So she walked on.
The car door was still ajar, just as she’d left it, and the battery had to be dead. That didn’t matter, though, as she had no plans to drive out of there herself. Her fingers crawled along the driver’s side floor, the fabric scratchy against the tips of them. She stopped when she felt the cool metal, then slid her hand farther underneath the seat until her palm closed around the grip.
An hour ago, a day ago, a month ago, she would never have believed herself strong enough to do what needed to be done. But she was no longer that girl.
She pulled the gun from its hiding place.
Just before she shut the door, she ducked back into the car to grab her sweater and the little white card she’d dropped into the cup holder earlier in the night. It had Detective Nakamura’s number scrawled across the back in broken and fading black ink.
Then she started toward the quiet side of the house, keeping to the shadows once she hit the stairs leading up to the porch that overlooked the ocean.
The door was locked, but she’d expected it. She wrapped her hand into the softness of the sweater and then drew her arm back.
The glass shattered beneath her fist.
CHAPTER FORTY
ALICE
August 5, 2018
Seven days after the kidnapping
Alice had a gun but no plan. She stopped at the end of the alley and looked left, looked right. The animal in her, the one whose sole focus was survival, howled at her that it wasn’t too late to escape. Here was her chance.
But escape to what? What kind of life would that be?
She’d always known it was going to end this way. Back, back, back when she was just a broken figure curled on the rug of her living room, watching as Lila’s killer escaped the death he’d so deserved. Back when she’d gone a week without food, hunched over a computer, beady eyes devouring every website and article that filled in the blanks to a story that she should never have known. Back when Sterling Burke had just been random letters arranged in a certain way on the page.
She had known there was no surviving this.
It was relief instead of surprise that crept into the soft spaces of her body when her phone buzzed and she saw who it was.
Charl
otte.
The text was just an address, one Alice knew well.
Here. Here was her plan.
“My father took me to the bank one time when I was younger.”
Charlotte stood at the windows overlooking the ocean. She must have heard Alice come in, but she hadn’t turned around.
Her slim frame was a dark silhouette against the brightness from the windows. Her arms were wrapped around her thin waist, long hair tumbled over narrow shoulders, and Alice thought back to the day on the beach. A painting, this woman was. All soft strokes and pastel colors.
But something about the straightness of her spine told Alice she was no longer made up of just gossamer and clouds.
“I was about nine at the time,” Charlotte continued. “He’d always liked the treatment he got when he went. The cashiers all dropped what they were doing and rushed over. The manager brought him coffee. I think he wanted me to see it, to be impressed, even though I was so young. He liked those small things that made him feel big. I liked the lemon candy Mr. Josten kept on his desk.”
It was then that Alice noticed the blood dripping on the white carpet beneath Charlotte’s feet. She couldn’t take her eyes off the small copper spots.
“The thing was? When he stepped out of the room and everyone relaxed? It was all gone. The respect, the admiration. It was just a front,” Charlotte said. “I could tell, even then. They all hated him. Because everyone hates Sterling Burke.”
They were both quiet, still, except for that slow trickle of blood running down Charlotte’s hand.
“He knew it, too,” the woman continued. “That’s what he wanted me to see. Not the fawning. He wanted me to see that they did it even though they couldn’t stand him.”
Charlotte finally turned toward her. There was a deep gash on her forearm, and Alice realized she must have broken a window to get into the house. That jagged wound had been made from glass.
“Do you know why I remember that day?” Charlotte asked, cradling her injured arm. “Because I had never realized before that anyone was allowed to hate my father. It was a foreign concept to me. I thought the only reality was loving him. That day I knew, though. And he did, too. He was showing me that hating him was a possibility. But not playing his game wasn’t one.”
“Did you hate him?” Alice asked. But once it was out, she realized the question had been silly, childish. Hate was simple and easy to understand. Whatever Charlotte felt wasn’t that straightforward.
“No,” Charlotte said.
“He’s dead now.” It was cold and unkind and without any softness to cushion the blow. Alice didn’t recognize who she was anymore. Had she lost so much of the person she’d once been? The person who would never say He’s dead now to a daughter whose hand was bleeding onto the carpet, who should hate her father but still didn’t.
But Charlotte just blinked at her. “Good.”
The moment passed without any flash of grief. Maybe Charlotte was just as numb as Alice.
“You hated him,” Charlotte said.
Alice nodded. “Yes.” For her, it was just that simple.
Charlotte’s eyes were gaping holes in the shadows that caressed her face. Alice waited for the inevitable, that question that no one could resist.
It came with a shuddered breath and a half step forward and a flutter of eyelashes against cheeks. But it was not the why Alice had been expecting.
“You didn’t mean to kill her.”
The words were surprising enough that the confirmation slipped past Alice’s lips before she could swallow it.
“No.”
She wished she could pull it back, but it hung there between them anyway. There was no justification for Ruby’s death; Alice deserved no redemption arc in this story. And she was once again reminded of why she hadn’t let Sterling talk. Because nothing came from it except frayed lifelines thrown to someone who was drowning in grief, who could barely keep their head above water. It was a false sense of hope, though, because the explanations would do nothing to bring them to safety. At most, they’d provide the briefest moment of air before the waves took them under again.
“Tell me.”
Tell me a story. Make me understand. This was Charlotte’s why.
“I didn’t know about you,” Alice said, because she had to start somewhere. “I didn’t realize . . . not at first.”
“What?”
“I didn’t realize you were a victim,” Alice said, and Charlotte flinched. “I was just . . . I was learning Sterling. His flaws, his family, his successes. What could hurt him. What could bring him down.”
“But . . . didn’t . . . You were the one who helped Trudy, right?” Charlotte asked slowly.
“That came later,” Alice said, and she wanted to duck her chin, hide her face. She forced herself to meet Charlotte’s eyes instead. “I first heard about Sterling two years ago, and it took a while to get past the superficial mentions in society columns. I knew that he had two daughters, two granddaughters. I knew that you all lived with him. But that was just touching the surface.”
Charlotte watched her but didn’t prompt her to go on.
She did anyway. “About a year ago I stumbled on Trudy’s blog,” Alice said. A turning point.
“Her blog?”
Alice tipped her head. She’d guessed no one else had known about it. “She runs a site to help sexual abuse victims. She’s not as anonymous as she thinks she is.”
Charlotte paled a little at that, pressed her lips together, and then nodded.
“It was my first in. The first chink in the shining armor that Sterling presented to the world,” Alice said. “I thought, if it had happened to Trudy . . .”
“It could be happening again,” Charlotte said quietly.
Alice didn’t need to confirm it. “I’d put in for a transfer as soon as I realized how Sterling was connected to Beckett. It took about a year to go through. But being down here helped. I was able to get information from people who wouldn’t put such things down on paper. It didn’t take much. Everyone likes to talk about the Burkes in St. Petersburg.”
Charlotte’s nostrils flared at that. “I’m sure.”
“Killing Sterling would have been easy. A simple bullet to the brain. But I didn’t just want to kill him,” Alice said.
“You wanted to ruin him.”
She nodded. “If he died like that, they’d erect statues to him in every plaza in the city.”
“But you didn’t just ruin him,” Charlotte’s voice cracked. Her arms came up to wrap around her stomach. “You ruined us.”
“I didn’t . . .” I didn’t mean to. The words were so empty, so meaningless. That hadn’t been the plan. “I wasn’t getting anywhere. Not really. I wanted him exposed, stripped naked for the world to see. I wanted his name to be tainted, his reputation to be shredded. And I wanted him to know why it was happening.”
Charlotte’s barely controlled composure broke at that. “Ruby had nothing to do with any of that,” she said, her fingers balling into fists. Alice knew she wanted to land a punch, knew she wanted to do far worse.
“I know,” Alice whispered. She licked dry lips. “I needed access. I knew if it was a kidnapping, we’d be assigned the case. So I nudged Trudy. It was supposed to be a win-win. I get security codes, the family’s schedule, the lay of the house. Trudy gets Ruby out of a bad situation. But you left too early.”
A plan altered.
“What?” The word was said on an exhale.
“You were supposed to take her to the end-of-the-summer school fair Wednesday night,” Alice said. “Trudy had emailed me one last time to say thank you, to say goodbye. I’d pieced together enough to figure out her plan.”
“But then we found out that Sterling and Hollis were going to be out all day Sunday,” Charlotte said.
Alice nodded. “I know. If you had waited to report it on Sunday evening, I would have been off shift. Someone else would have gotten the case. It was supposed to be Wednesday. So I needed
you to think she was really gone so you’d report it right away. In the afternoon. It couldn’t wait until the night.”
“That’s bullshit,” Charlotte said, anger swiftly replacing confusion. “You must have known. You were prepared to walk off with her. To keep her for days.”
“It was plan B the whole time,” Alice said. They had been ready for the possibility. There had been too many variables not to plan for something to go wrong. When the original plan had fallen apart, they’d adjusted; they’d had to. But a small part of her had hoped she’d still be able to get Ruby and Trudy out, that keeping Ruby for a few days was just a hiccup, one that would be resolved after she killed Sterling. “Taking her . . . That’s not how I wanted it to happen.”
And Charlotte looked at her then as Alice had looked at Charlotte before—with a mixture of disbelief and pity. You thought you could dress in grown-ups’ clothes and do something as dramatic as seek revenge?
Shame flushed Alice’s cheeks hot, and with it came every other emotion she’d locked in a tiny space in a dark corner of her brain. Guilt, remorse, grief, fear, relief—they flooded her veins, turning her blood heavy and sticky with the weight of them.
“So then what?” Charlotte’s voice sandpaper and steel, rough but strong. “You claim you never even wanted to kidnap her, but my daughter is dead. Because of you.”
One wrong step, that’s all it had been.
This house had a garage, unlike most of the others in the neighborhood, which was one of the reasons Alice had picked it. There was also an inside set of stairs—bare, steep ones made of concrete—leading up to the kitchen to provide Alice cover if she’d needed to bring Ruby in.
Ruby had been going stir-crazy, as little girls tended to do. That day, Alice had brought french fries as a treat, but it had backfired. Ruby had started screaming, sobbing, her face pinched red as fat tears streamed down into the collar of her shirt. She’d started for the stairs, but Alice had managed to wrap an arm around her heaving chest and pull her back. It could have ended there; it should have ended there.
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