Since Kristen was unable to answer for her actions, it was anyone’s guess what had driven her to insert herself in Dana’s life again. If Maggie were to hazard a guess, she’d opt for jealousy. Pure and simple.
With no idea that Kristen was the Kristen of her youth, Dana had gone to the mobile home in Kissimmee, intending only to scare her off. But then she’d met the other woman face-to-face, discovering the true depth of her husband’s betrayal, and it had tipped her over the edge, sparking a fiery wrath.
Over the next few days, she’d devised a plan to make her husband and Kristen pay for their adultery. Dana had canceled her life insurance—so that her husband wouldn’t benefit financially from her death—and she’d withdrawn most of her savings, intending to use them to start her life again elsewhere using Kristen’s ID.
Rita had already switched identities once. She’d morphed from Rita into Dana, changing the habits of a lifetime to play the role. A simple haircut and a bottle of peroxide, and—at a glance—Dana wasn’t a million miles away from the image of Kristen on Kristen’s driver’s license.
Dana would disappear, ostensibly dead, but secretly transformed into Kristen.
And so on Halloween, Dana had paid Kristen another visit at her home in Kissimmee, this time to murder her with the revolver that Dana had stolen from Maggie’s house the afternoon of Nora’s birthday party.
Dana, not Kristen.
It transpired that Maggie’s initial thought on the gun thief’s identity had been right.
In her interview, Dana had explained that she had accompanied Kristen to the bathroom that day, and that she’d shown Kristen the revolver to impress her, right before making sexual advances toward her, only for Kristen to push her away in the same way that Maggie had rebuffed Rita’s advances at the lake. Rejected, Dana had taken the gun, mainly to be a “bad ass,” she said, burying it wrapped in an oil cloth in a safe place near her home on Oak Street.
The revolver had remained hidden there for twenty years.
Meanwhile, in her role as school guidance counselor, Dana had come to know the intimate inner workings of Lindy Munson and Tyler Pruitt. In confidence, she’d learned of Lindy’s deep hatred of Tyler and of his infatuation with killing her. But it was only in the wake of Dana confronting Kristen that Dana spied an opportunity to use the teenagers’ antipathies for each other to her own advantage.
The cold sell was, if Tyler helped Dana rid the world of her philandering husband and his mistress, she would help him realize his fantasy of killing the most popular girl in school. To sweeten the deal, Dana had paid the $3,000 deposit on Tyler’s beloved Charger and agreed to stand as guarantor on the car loan. Tyler had been putty in her hands.
The plan had two parts, beginning with Tyler bringing Lindy to the clearing at the lake early Saturday evening, together with a kill kit. Dana had held back from telling Tyler how she was going to persuade Lindy to meet up with him, only that she would. Lindy, meanwhile, had listened to Dana’s story of her own embarrassing experience at Devil’s Landing twenty years earlier, and how Lindy could ruin Tyler the same way if she followed Dana’s lead.
That afternoon, Dana had spiked her husband’s drink with sleeping pills, then driven to Kristen’s home, forcing her to the lake at gunpoint. She’d killed Kristen in cold blood, putting her wedding band on Kristen’s finger and snipping off her pinky with gardening shears taken from Cullen’s toolshed. Then, wearing her husband’s work boots, Dana had tossed her own purse out onto the mud mound before setting Kristen on fire.
Dana hadn’t told either of the teenagers anything in advance about what they would find in the clearing that night.
She banked on them panicking and calling the police, knowing that this was Maggie’s patch and that she would mistakenly identify the burned corpse as that of her childhood friend Rita Grigoryan.
Cullen would be found guilty of his wife’s murder, and Dana would walk away scot-free.
A foolproof plan, if not for the loose ends.
To keep Tyler leashed in and Lindy from talking, Dana had abducted Lindy later the same evening, locking her up in the trunk of her car so that she could present the girl as a gift to Tyler the next day. Dana had told how they’d listened to Lindy screaming and choking as the trunk had filled with noxious smoke and unbearable heat.
It was all bordering on madness.
Later Sunday night, Dana had sent Tyler to recover cash from her home in Paradise Heights. The cash she’d forgotten after arguing with her husband on Saturday afternoon, and also in her haste to intercept Kristen before she set out to work. Dana’s intention: to drive out west in Kristen’s car on Monday, maybe home to Arizona, and begin again.
But Cullen’s release after the weekend had thrown a wrench in the works. He’d turned up at the house while Dana and Tyler were there searching for her money, and Tyler had beaten him unconscious.
It was in that moment that Dana had realized the folly in her plan: Maggie.
She’d chosen to kill Kristen at Devil’s Landing because she knew it would bring Maggie into the picture. But what she hadn’t bargained on was Maggie pursuing every line of inquiry, including the possibility of an alternative killer. Maggie had turned out to be the fly in the ointment. And Dana had realized that if she wanted to get away with murder, then Maggie would have to die.
Maggie added more wood to the firepit, stoking the red-hot embers. Heat pressing against her face and shadows dancing around the yard.
She thought about her lucky escape from a fiery death, knowing that luck had played no part in it.
After their talk in the street, Nick had called Loomis, telling him that she was with some thuggish-looking kid called Tyler, heading out to some place called Devil’s Landing. Alerted to her imminent danger, Loomis had called for backup, dropping everything to rush to the lake in advance of Maggie getting there. Yet, despite her taking her time on the ride over, Loomis and his deputy entourage had arrived a couple of minutes after her, too late to save Cullen as they’d splashed through the lake in a pincer movement.
Not for the first time, Maggie owed Loomis her life.
Her gaze settled on the notebook she’d placed on the patio table. It was jacketed in black faux leather, identical to Dana’s, minus the Disney stickers. But this notebook was Maggie’s, given to her by Rita over twenty years ago.
She picked it up and opened it to the first page, reading the words penned by her own hand:
The Make-or-Break Year
Rita hadn’t been the only one to pour out her heart and soul on paper. Throughout the twelfth grade, Maggie had logged her own thoughts on paper, too—starting on the first day of school and ending the night of the Oak Street house fire. Dozens of life experiences and personal reflections that now seemed woefully defunct and somehow worthless. The musings of a silly seventeen-year-old girl who thought the world was hers for the taking.
Maggie flicked through the pages, glimpsing scribbled reflections on her last year before college.
It all seemed such a long while ago.
In some ways, puerile.
Someone else’s life.
Without hesitation, Maggie tossed the notebook in the firepit, watching as the flames burned up her past until all that was left was a flaky husk.
She sensed someone on the patio behind her. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Few minutes.”
Slowly, Maggie turned around to face Tyler Pruitt.
He was standing near the sliding doors, hands stuffed in his hoodie’s pockets. There was grime smeared on his cheeks, and his eyes were red raw. It looked like he’d been crying a bunch.
It seemed like every one of Maggie’s muscles tensed. “What are you doing here, Tyler?”
“Nowhere else to go.” He sounded stressed, on the verge of crying. “Dana and me, we were supposed to be in California by now. She told me she loved me.” His hand emerged from the hoodie’s pocket, holding the Luger. “She promised we’d be together. If
I did everything she said, which I did. Once her husband and Lindy were out the way. She said we could start a new life. Together. Far away from here. She lied to me.”
“If it’s any consolation, she fooled us all. She convinced us she was dead. That takes some doing. Is that why you’re upset, because she lied to you?”
He shook his head. “Not really. It’s Lindy. I can’t stop thinking about her.” His eyes welled up, and a quake ran through him. “She’s in my head. All the time. In my brain. She won’t go away.” He looked at her imploringly, tears rolling down his cheeks. “How do I make her go away?”
“You can’t. It’s called a conscience, Tyler. I’m guessing killing Lindy wasn’t the kick you thought it’d be?”
He nodded, sniffed, and rubbed a hand over his damp cheeks. “I just can’t stop thinking about what I did to her. I mean, who’d do something like that? What did I do?” He tapped the barrel of the gun against his chest. “What did I do?”
Maggie raised her hands a little. Her heart was skipping wildly in her chest, but she kept her composure cool and collected. In as much as crisis negotiation was about what words were said, it was also about what the body language didn’t give away.
She edged a step closer to him. “Tyler. Listen to me. It’s going to be okay. You’ve done the right thing coming here. It shows you want help, and that’s a brave thing to do.” She took another careful step. “How you’re feeling right now, I can make a lot of that go away. I can get you the help you need. Start to heal your pain. Why don’t you put the gun down and we’ll get you that help?”
He turned the muzzle back on her.
Maggie halted her advance.
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because you’re here, aren’t you? Talking with me. That says something. You didn’t just end up here by chance, Tyler. You came here because you know I can get you the help you need.”
“What if I’m here to kill you?”
Maggie didn’t move, not even to blink. “The reason you feel as bad as you do right now is because you took someone else’s life. And that’s hurt you. Killing me will only compound those feelings. Make you feel a hundred times worse. Believe me, Tyler, I’ve seen what happens to people who make those kinds of wrong decisions. Things go from bad to worse in a heartbeat.” She raised her hands a little more. “I know you want to do the right thing. You’ve already made a start by coming here. We can fix all of this right now. Just put the gun down.”
He looked at her as though she were crazy. “Don’t you get it? Talking isn’t going to fix this. She’s in my head and she won’t go away!” To emphasize his internal torture, he tapped the gun against his brow. “I just want her to leave me alone! I can’t take any more!” He jammed the muzzle against his temple. “Tell Lindy’s mom I’m sorry.”
Fire flashed through Maggie’s chest. “Tyler, wait! Listen to me—”
He pulled the trigger.
And Maggie froze, not even breathing. She heard the gun make a dull cracking sound as the firing mechanism engaged, expecting to see blood and brain matter hurtling from an exit wound in his skull. But he just stared at her, teary and mystified.
The Luger had misfired.
Maggie reacted, adrenaline catapulting her forward at breakneck speed, both arms outstretched. She crashed into the boy with the palms of both hands, flat on his chest, hard enough to knock him backward off his feet.
With a resounding clunk, Tyler’s head smacked against the doorframe, and he slumped to the ground, out cold.
Maggie pried the Luger from his hand and only then did she start to breathe again.
Chapter Thirty-Six
LIFE BEFORE DEATH
It wasn’t the funeral itself that reminded Maggie why she did this job. It was those in attendance, the mourners, in their raven-black attire and the stretch hearses, yearning to share one last smile, one last word, one last kiss with their loved one lost.
In her time, Maggie had attended more funeral services than she could remember. Sooner or later, every homicide victim had one, and although it wasn’t expected, a police presence was standard procedure. Not only did it demonstrate the city’s steadfast support for the family; it also formed an unspoken promise that justice would be sought and served, no matter how long it took.
“The dead can’t talk,” Smits had told Maggie at her first death scene five years ago. “You need to do it for them, Detective. They rely on you to shed light on their death, even if it takes you to some very dark places. You’ll do good never to forget that dead bodies are still people, with family and friends and lives before they died. Let them speak through you.”
Lindy Munson’s funeral service at Woodlawn Cemetery had been over and done with in the blink of an eye. A handful of teary teenagers from Crown Pointe, a few stiff teachers and Principal Ellis, a bunch of habitual funeral-goers, and Ronda Munson with mascara streaking her cheeks, every bit a wraith in her skintight black dress. When the minister had asked Ronda to say a few words about her daughter and Ronda had promptly crumbled under the pressure, Maggie had stepped in, sharing something her father had told her a long time ago. A tale of how matter could never be destroyed, only converted into energy, and how Lindy lived on in the minds and hearts of those who knew her. Her words, though, had seemed to have little impact, and Maggie had come away from the interment feeling hollow and needful.
She’d spent the next few days at a loose end and trying Loomis’s patience, especially when news had come through that Tyler had attempted to take his own life again, this time in county jail.
Finally, she’d asked Loomis to drive to Nora’s house, stopping by Target on the way. And now here she was, at the doorstep, facing Nora and watching Whitney’s eyes light up as she cuddled the plush unicorn toy that Maggie was hoping would make amends for Halloween.
“I believe it comes with magical powers,” Maggie said. “Do you like it?”
Whitney beamed. “I love it! Thank you, Aunt Maggie!”
“My pleasure, sweet pea.”
Whitney disappeared behind her mommy, running down the hall with the unicorn galloping in the air beside her.
Nora gave Maggie a reproving look. “You shouldn’t have, sis.”
Maggie made a face. “Look, Nora, I know you’re pissed with me right now about what happened with Dad. And that’s okay. I’d be pissed, too, if it was the other way around. But this is about Whitney . . .”
“No,” Nora said. “You don’t get to switch things around so they’re more convenient for you. He could’ve been killed, sis. And it would’ve been your fault.”
Her words cut Maggie to the bone, and she made no attempt to defend herself. Nora was right. Because of Maggie, their father had been abducted and bound, psychologically tortured, believing he was seconds from being burned alive. Luckily for Maggie, he’d come through the terrifying ordeal physically unscathed. A routine checkup at the hospital, with a prescription to take things easy, and he’d gone home the same night. But the experience had left him shaken, and Maggie suspected even frailer than before.
“He could’ve been killed,” Nora repeated.
“Since when do you care either way?”
Now Nora gaped at her. And even though Maggie felt justified in saying it, she regretted her outburst instantly. A river of bad blood had flowed between her siblings and their father for years now, especially since their parents’ divorce, but it didn’t excuse her punching below the belt.
Nora looked like she was about to blow her top.
A car horn sounded.
Maggie glanced behind her at the sedan parked across the driveway. Loomis had the driver’s window rolled down and was gazing over the top of his Wayfarers. He gestured at her to hurry things up.
Maggie turned back to Nora. “I have to go.”
“No peace for the wicked,” she said coolly.
Maggie bit her tongue, accepting Nora’s retaliatory snipe for what it was. Now was not the time to get into it with her baby
sister. The time would come; the emotional tension had been building up between them for quite some time now. Insults would be hurled, and feelings would get hurt. No avoiding it.
She saw Whitney hurrying back toward them down the hallway, the unicorn tucked under her arm.
“Aunt Maggie,” she called. “Wait! You forgot your broomstick!” She pushed past her mommy, handing the toy broomstick to Maggie.
Maggie managed a smile. “Thanks, sweet pea. This will definitely help me clean up the streets.” She looked back at Nora. “Maybe you could give him a call? Just this once. Make an exception.”
“Maybe.”
“I know he’d love to hear from you.”
“I said maybe. Don’t you need to be somewhere else, sis?”
“I guess so.”
The right thing to do would be for the whole family to sit down and thrash things out. Show Bryan and Nora once and for all that underneath the gloomy picture their mother had painted of their father was a forgotten masterpiece waiting to be revealed. But Maggie feared any such engagement would only deteriorate into petty squabbles and punitive strikes, and things would end up worse than they were already.
She kissed Whitney on the head, then waved to her niece all the way back to the street.
“Nora giving you a hard time?” Loomis asked as she climbed inside the car.
“Just the usual family drama.” She let out a long breath and put on her sunglasses. “Okay. What’s the big emergency?”
“Lunchtime. My belly thinks my throat’s been cut. Luckily, I know this great little doughnut shop . . .”
Maggie couldn’t help smiling as they drove away.
There were two things in life that she could rely on with absolute certainty: her partner’s innate ability to lighten the load and the fact that no matter how many killers she helped put behind bars, there would always be another waiting in the wings.
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