by Rachel Caine
“Where the fuck is here?”
“Sorry. His house. He never made it out of his car last night.”
I don’t reply. I hang up and turn to Javier, but I’m not really looking at him. Or anything. I’m seeing Prester’s face the way it was last night. The way he looked last time I saw him. “Prester’s house,” I say. “Now. Go. Go.”
He drives like a madman, and it’s still not fast enough for me.
When I see the shadow of my partner’s body still in the car, I feel my knees go weak. Javier catches my arm and steadies me, and I press against him for a few seconds until I can get myself right.
The chief is standing off to the side, talking to Sergeant Porter, but he breaks off when he sees me come up to the tape line separating crime scene from lookie-loos . . . only there aren’t any, not yet. Prester’s house is isolated, an old farmstead, plain and well kept. Been in his family a hundred years, give or take. I’ve eaten at his table. There’s no one waiting inside, no grieving widow. His wife passed a few years back. He’s been alone awhile. “Kez,” he says. “You shouldn’t be here. Go on home.”
“What happened?” I ignore the rest of it. I let go of Javi and duck under the tape before anyone can stop me, and even though part of my brain is screaming at me to stop, I walk toward the car. They’ve already marked footprints in the dirt, and I’m careful to stop outside that perimeter. A forensic tech—Lewis, I think, can’t really tell because I can’t focus—murmurs at me to stay back.
I couldn’t go closer if I tried. But I force myself to look at Prester.
The body is a mannequin made of flesh. The face is ashy and relaxed and calm. It’s wearing Prester’s suit, the same one he had on when he left my room. His second-best. I can see the small fray at the left-hand tip of his lapel.
“Somebody killed him,” I say.
“No, Detective, we don’t think so. There’s no sign of violence on the body, no blood, no sign of strangulation, nothing like that. It looks like he drove in here and just . . . died,” the chief says. He’s very gentle about it. “We both know he hasn’t been well, Kez. I’m sorry.”
“Prester tried to call me at three this morning. What time did he die?”
The coroner—Winston, my God, again—says, “I can’t tell you that exactly. Somewhere between two and five, that’s my best guess right now. If you say he called at three, then from three to five. That helps narrow it down.”
I remember the cases. Sheryl Lansdowne’s go-to methods of murder. All indirect. Accidental. Natural causes. “Check him,” I whisper. “This isn’t right. It can’t be right. He was going to look into who sent me flowers—”
“Kez, you’re just out of a hospital bed,” the chief says. “Please. Let us do what we’ve got to do for Prester. He wouldn’t want you out here right now.”
Prester would want me to find his killer. I’m the reason this happened. I have to be. It can’t just happen.
Except it could. I know it could, I’ve been worrying about him, we’ve all seen how bad he’s gotten these past few weeks . . .
I look down. There are footprints in the dirt here, but they’re all large, old-fashioned men’s dress shoes.
No. Not all of them. There are smaller prints. Some kind of sneaker. I wordlessly point to them, and the chief nods. “We marked them,” he says. “But Kez—they’re about your size. You come up here sometimes, don’t you?”
I feel sick, hot, drifting. I force myself to think. “About three days ago. I brought him—” My voice fails. I try again. “I brought him out a case file.”
“Were you wearing the same shoes you have on now?”
I just shake my head. I can’t remember. I don’t know. I don’t know. What size are Sheryl Lansdowne’s shoes? No sign of violence on him—they just said so. “Look for an injection mark, something like that,” I say. “In case.”
“In case what?”
They’re all looking at me with concern. “In case somebody killed him, damn, what do you think?” I feel raw. I just want to sit down and cry right now. Those aren’t my footprints. Can’t be. I look again, and it hits me like a brick to the face that Prester has walked the last step in those stupid Florsheim dress shoes he must still have on. The ones I mocked him about just last week. Come on, old man; treat yourself to something new.
The chief pauses, face pale and older than it was the last I saw him, and then nods. “I’ll get it done. Kezia—go home. Please.” He’s humoring me. He doesn’t believe me. And there’s no damn reason he should; even I know I’m not thinking straight right now.
I don’t argue the point. There’s nothing here for me. Nothing but what I’ve already noticed. I walk with Javier back to the rental car, and before I get in, I check my phone, which is halfway recharged now.
There’s a voice mail from Prester. My heart lurches. I look wordlessly across at Javier, and he pauses in the act of opening his door. “What?”
I hold up a shaking finger to ask him to wait, and I hit the button to play the message.
Prester’s voice takes my breath away. “Claremont, I finally got hold of some-damn-body at the flower shop that made the bouquet, but they don’t have . . . it was an order off the . . . off the internet like I . . .” I gasp and put my hand over my mouth, because he’s struggling. He’s gasping. I have a recording of him dying. I can’t listen to it, I can’t.
Javier is by me in a second, taking the phone from me; I’m crying too hard to speak, and the weight of anguish inside me feels like it might take me to the ground. He listens to the recording, and I watch the grim shock settle on his face. He finally stops it and says, “Get in the car, Kez. Let me talk to the chief for you, okay?”
I can’t do anything else. I collapse into the seat, and I feel a rush of rage come over me, bad enough I want to punch the dashboard and scream the pressure out.
Prester died trying to help me.
Why?
God, why?
Javier wraps me in a warm blanket once I get home, but I can’t sit still; I need to get out of these stiff, bloody clothes. I need a shower. He’s busy in the kitchen making eggs, so I slip away, strip, and stand in the hot water and cry out my frustration and grief. I need you, partner.
I never got to say goodbye.
When I get out of the shower at last, dry off, get dressed, I see that I have a text message on my phone. When I open it up, it’s a video. In the still shot, I see that it’s Prester. Prester, in his car.
I sit down on the toilet, fast, and I breathe through the panic and pain.
Then I hit play.
Prester. Having a heart attack. And someone standing there filming him. I force myself to watch, tearing apart my heart in big, wet pieces, and then . . . then he closes his eyes and goes still.
Gone.
“At least he wasn’t alone,” a woman’s voice says. “Poor old guy.”
Then it goes dark.
Another text comes in. This didn’t need to happen. You could have let it go. Let it go this time.
Another video pops up. I hit play. It’s Javier getting out of the rental car last night in the hospital parking lot.
Another video after that. Pop, in his cabin, washing dishes. Someone filming through his window.
The storm inside me is so violent I don’t know how to feel. Terrified. Enraged. Agonized. Horrified. All at the same time, like an explosion under my skin.
And another text. Stay home, Kezia. This isn’t about you.
Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be. Maybe in his mind, it isn’t.
I am not letting go.
I feel my hunter’s blood, rushing hot and fast with every heartbeat.
This isn’t about you.
Oh, it is, you coldhearted bastard. It is.
20
GWEN
I sleep only because I know I must. My family is here. They’re safe. It feels like things are resolving, like our normal lives may be just within reach again.
I’m the only one who
knows it’s a lie.
Four hours later, I open my eyes and slip out of bed, waking without any transition at all. No sense of peace. I silently get dressed in jeans, a comfortable shirt, sturdy boots. I can’t risk unlocking my gun safe next to the bed; it will beep, and Sam will wake up immediately. But that’s okay. While he was at the station, I moved my favorite gun, the Sig, to the small living room safe we keep under the couch. Extra mags and another box of ammunition as well.
I pause in the doorway and look back at Sam. He’s fast asleep. I convinced him to take a rare over-the-counter sleep aid last night, and he’s down for the count. Good. He’ll need this. His battle is going to be hard too. In some ways, as hard as mine.
I take in the sight of him and try to etch it on my heart, embed it in my brain. I want to remember this moment of quiet. How he looks. How it feels.
I look in at Lanny, curled on her side, pink-and-purple hair spread out in a colorful fan across her pillow. My beautiful, strong, volatile girl, inches away from being someone the world will have to reckon with on her own terms. I am so proud of her it hurts. Tears roll silently down my cheeks, cool against my hot skin, and I wipe them carefully away before I turn to my son.
Oh, Connor, my complicated, wonderful boy. I love you more than I can ever say. I fear for you most of all, but you always surprise me. Always. I drink in the sight of him tangled in a restless pile of sheets, caught between boy and man, and I think, You will grow up to be like no one else in this world. Not his sadistic, hateful father. Not like me either. Unique and beautiful and mended strong. It’s all I can do not to go in, wake him up, curl him into my arms, and rock him like the baby he used to be.
Closing that last door feels like cutting off pieces of myself.
I collect my holster, my jacket, the Sig, the magazines, the ammo. I add the small ankle holster and .38 revolver, a cop’s emergency gun.
Then I look at the clock.
It’s eight forty-five in the morning. Outside the windows, the sun is up and warm, generous on the grass. Leaves flutter. Cars move on the street as neighbors leave for work. Everything is normal, everywhere but here in the small space of hell I am in.
I don’t have to go. We can face this together. All of us.
I sit down and put my head in my hands, and as I do, my phone alert goes off. I look at it.
Unknown-number text.
A photo of Sam, leaning over the cowling of an airplane.
One of Lanny, taken through her bedroom window as she’s sleeping.
One of Connor, sitting cross-legged on his bed, typing on his computer with his headphones on.
And there’s Vee, in her ridiculous house shoes and pajamas, standing in her doorway talking to a neighbor.
A shot of Kezia collapsed and bloody by the wreck of her car.
You can stop all of them from suffering, the next text says. The choice is yours. But you have to leave it all behind and come to me. You have fifteen minutes to decide. If you don’t leave your house at nine o’clock, I will assume your choice is to save yourself. If you come, leave your phone and any electronics. If your SUV has a GPS tracker, disable it. I’m monitoring you. I’ll know if you try to cheat.
“You son of a bitch,” I whisper. “At least let me tell them why.” But I don’t respond. I know he won’t care. There’s no bargaining here. No mercy.
I call Kez. I’m doing it to say a kind of goodbye, to ask her to look after my family, but the second she picks up the call, I know something is wrong. Very wrong. I’ve never heard her sound like this. “Kez? What is it?”
“He’s dead,” Kez says. “Prester’s dead. He tried to call me and I was asleep, my phone ran down—” Her voice is shaking. “I got video, they just—they just let him die, Gwen. Right there in his car. It’s Sheryl and the man in the SUV. I know it is. And I’m fucking going to get them.”
My lips feel numb. I feel numb. I know how much Kezia thought of Detective Prester. This has to be a living nightmare for her. “Don’t,” I say. I swallow hard. “He doesn’t want you, Kez. He wants me. I’m the reason this is happening. Not you. He thinks . . . he thinks I’m like Sheryl. A killer.”
“Sheryl’s with him,” she says. “He didn’t hunt her. He’s using her.”
“For now,” I agree. “But whatever story he spun for her, he intends to exact some kind of vengeance. On me too. I can’t let him take the people I love, Kez. So I’m going. You stay.”
“Motherfucker sent me a video of Prester while he was dying in that car. Sheryl took it. It was her voice on the recording, had to be. So whether they killed him or not, they let him die. And I’m not staying. They are going. And I don’t mean out of town, out of mind. We find them, and we end this.”
I feel the numbness subside. What’s left is a pure, cold anger. “He told me to leave my house at nine o’clock.” It’s ten minutes to nine. I stare at my clock until my eyes hurt enough to force me to blink. “Not to tell anybody. That must include you too.”
“Hell, he already knows I’ll be coming. If he knows me at all—”
“You’ve got a baby to protect, Kez.”
“And you’ve got kids. You need somebody. I’m going, and he’s going to pay. But we need to make sure the boys don’t follow.”
“How?” I know Javier. I know Sam. They’re not going to let us go without a fight. Not just the two of us, alone.
“Up to you how you do Sam,” she says. “I can take care of Javi.”
She’s right. He wants me. Everyone else is just . . . collateral damage.
I just sit. Silent. Thinking about what I’m about to do, and why. About how hard it’s going to be. About why it’s also going to be the easiest thing I’ve ever done, in a strange sort of way; I’ve always known that I needed to protect my kids from whatever threats came at them. I’ve done it over and over again until it’s a well-worn groove in my soul. But they’re growing up.
This may be the last thing they need from me. The last protection I can offer them. They may never understand that, and I can’t leave a record of why I’m doing it . . . but I have to believe that they’ll know. They’ll understand.
Sam . . . Sam will take it so hard that, in the end, I left him behind. I wish he could know I’m doing that only because of all the people in the world, I trust him—only him—to shelter, love, and protect those precious children we both love so much.
But I can’t leave him not knowing. I can’t. So I turn on the video on my phone, and I take a deep breath, and I tell him. I tell him how much I love him, how much I value him, how much I trust him. I tell him to protect our kids. I tell him that I will come back if I can, and if I don’t, if I fail this time, that I did it for all of us.
I don’t tell him where I’m going because I just don’t know.
I save the video, lock the phone, and leave it on the coffee table.
Then I leave the house. I shut off the built-in GPS. I back out of the garage onto the street and pause there, making sure the garage closes, making sure the house is safe and warm and protected to the best of my ability. I idle in the street, waiting.
It’s nine o’clock in the morning on Thursday. I don’t know how he’s going to contact me until I hear a musical tone. It’s coming from the glove compartment, and a million thoughts run through my mind. He got in, he could have left a bomb, he could have been inside our house. I swallow my rage and fear and open the glove compartment. There’s a small phone inside, screen glowing. I answer it.
“Hello, Gina,” the voice on the other end says. “I’ve sent you a map of where to go. I’ll expect you tomorrow. Then we can get started.”
It’s that short, that calm, and then he ends the call. The number’s blocked, no way to call it back. I check, and there’s a text message with a link. It leads to a map. To the coast of North Carolina.
He didn’t tell me to go straight there. Just that I have to get there by tomorrow.
I go to Kez.
I drive to Javier’s cabin. It
’s a long way, and by the time I park outside his gate, next to his rental, I’m not calm but at least I’m not screaming. I see Boot lying on the front steps; he gets up, panting, watching me. Boot knows me; he knows I’m a friend. But I also know that he’s not my dog, and he can sense the change in me.
He barks, and Javier opens the front door. He’s got his phone in his hand, and he looks exhausted and worried, and he stares at me like I’m a ghost he’s conjured up, then blinks and says, “Come on inside.”
Boot recognizes that I’m allowed, and sits politely as I open the gate and walk up the path. I pat his warm head but get only an appraising look, no friendly lick, and he’s already stretched out again on guard duty when the door closes behind me.
Javier puts his phone down. “You didn’t say you were coming.”
“I need to talk to Kez.”
“She’s—”
“Not resting,” I say. “Not if I know Kez.”
He accepts that without comment, except to ask, “Want some coffee?”
“Sure,” I say. Coffee is the last thing I need, but if he offered moonshine, I’d probably drink a jug right now. The old Gwen, the sensible one, is conspicuously absent. He fetches a mug and hands it to me.
He’s got his own morning potion, and we sit together and drink for a moment before he says, “She’s okay. The baby’s okay. Thank God.”
I hate this. I hate that I’m about to put all that at risk, but I know Kezia Claremont. I know she won’t back off, and at least if she’s with me in this terrible, dangerous course, I can try to protect her. But I can’t tell him. That’s clear. “I’m so glad, Javi,” I say. “I’m so glad you’re here too. They’re not expecting you back?”
“Nah. I can make it up.” He gives me a long look. “You heard about Prester?”
“Kez told me,” I say. It’s hard to swallow the next mouthful of coffee. “I’m so sorry. He was a good man.”
“He was,” Javi agrees, and it sounds hollowed out with real grief. “His wife passed. They didn’t have any kids. I’ve been helping Kez get in touch with some of his nieces and nephews. Pretty grim. She told him to see the doctor. But he just . . . wouldn’t. It’s really hurting her.”
