by Lisa Gardner
Then he trotted back to D.D. and the garage, armed with new information as well as their final target.
40
People were brought down here to die.
I knew that from the smell alone. The deep, rusty scent of blood, so deeply soaked into the concrete floor, no amount of bleach or lime would ever make it go away. Some people had workshops in the basements of their homes. Apparently, John Stephen Purcell had a torture chamber.
I needed overhead light. It would destroy my night vision, but also disorient any gangsters waiting to pounce.
Standing on the top step, my hand on the left-hand wall switch, I hesitated. I didn’t know if I wanted light in the basement. I didn’t know if I wanted to see.
After hours of blessed numbness, my composure was starting to crack. The smell. My daughter. The smell. Sophie.
They wouldn’t torture a little girl. What would they have to gain? What could Sophie possibly tell them?
I closed my eyes. Flipped up the switch. Then, I stood in the deep quiet that falls after midnight, and waited to hear the first whimper of my daughter waiting to be saved, or the rush of an attacker about to ambush.
I heard nothing at all.
I unpeeled my right eye, counted to five, then opened the left. The glare from the bare bulb didn’t hurt as much as I’d feared. I kept the shotgun cradled in my arms, and dripping blood from my wounded right shoulder, I started to descend.
Purcell maintained a clutter-free basement. No stored lawn furniture or miscellaneous boxes of junk or bins of Christmas decorations for a man in his line of work.
The open space held a washer, dryer, utility sink, and massive stainless steel table. The table was rimmed with a trough, just like the ones found in morgues. The trough led to a tray at the bottom of the table, where one could attach a hose to drain the contents into the nearby utility sink.
Apparently, when breaking kneecaps and slicing off fingertips, Purcell liked to be tidy. Judging by the large pink blush staining the floor, however, it was impossible to be totally spill-proof about these things.
Next to the stainless steel table was a battered TV tray bearing various instruments, laid out like a doctor’s operating station. Each stainless steel piece was freshly cleaned, with an overhead light winking off the freshly sharpened blades.
I bet Purcell spent a lot of time staging his equipment just so. I bet he enjoyed letting his subjects take in the full array of instruments, their terrified minds already leaping ahead and doing half of his work for him. Then he would strap them to the table.
I imagined most of them started babbling before he picked up the first pair of pliers. And I bet talking didn’t save them.
I passed the table, the sink, the washer and dryer. Behind the stairs I found a door leading to the utility room. I stood to one side, reaching around with my hand to pop the door open, with my back still pressed to the wall.
No one burst out. No child cried a greeting.
Still jittery from nerves, fatigue, and a low throbbing sense of dread, I crouched down, bringing up the shotgun to shoulder level, then darting into the gloom.
I encountered an oil tank, a water heater, the utility box, and a couple of plastic shelves weighed down with various cleaning products, zip ties, and coiled rope. And a thick coiled hose, perfect for spraying down the last of the mess.
I rose slowly to my feet, then surprised myself by swaying and nearly passing out.
The floor was wet. I looked down, vaguely surprised to see a pool of my own blood. Pouring down my arm now.
Needed help. Should go to the ER. Should …
What, call the cavalry?
The bitterness of my thoughts pulled me back together. I left the basement, returning to the gloom upstairs, except this time I snapped on every light in the house.
As I suspected, I found a small battery of first-aid supplies in Purcell’s bathroom. Guy in his line of work no doubt expected injuries he couldn’t report, and had outfitted his medicine cabinet accordingly.
I couldn’t pull my black turtleneck over my head. Instead, I used surgical shears to cut it off. Then, leaning over the sink, I poured the hydrogen peroxide straight into the bloody hole.
I gasped in shocked pain, then bit down hard on my lower lip.
If I were a true tough guy—say, Rambo—I would dig out the bullet with chopsticks, then stitch up the hole with dental floss. I didn’t know how to do any of those things, so I shoved white gauze into the wound, then taped the bloody bundle with white strips of medical adhesive.
I washed down three ibuprofen with water, then helped myself to a dark blue flannel shirt from Purcell’s closet. The shirt was two sizes too big and smelled of fabric softener and male cologne. The hem fell to midthigh and I had to roll up the cuffs awkwardly to free my hands.
I’d never worn the shirt of a man I was going to kill. It struck me as oddly intimate, like sprawling in bed in your lover’s button-up Oxford after the first time you’d had sex.
I have gone too far, I thought, lost some piece of myself. I was looking for my daughter, but discovering an abyss I’d never known existed inside of me. Would finding Sophie ease the pain? Would the light of her love chase the darkness back again?
Did it even matter? From the moment she was born, I would’ve given my life for my child. What’s a little sanity instead?
I picked up the shotgun, and retreated outside, where Purcell remained slumped against the house, eyes closed. I thought he’d passed out, but when my feet crunched through the snow, his eyes opened.
His face was pale. Sweat dotted his upper lip, despite the freezing temperature. He’d lost a lot of blood. He was probably dying and seemed to know it, though it didn’t appear to surprise him.
Purcell was old school. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
That would make my next job tougher.
I squatted down beside him.
“I could take you down to the basement,” I said.
He shrugged.
“Let you sample a taste of your own medicine.”
He shrugged again.
“You’re right: I’ll bring the equipment up here. Save me the trouble of lugging your sorry ass around.”
Another shrug. I wished suddenly that Purcell had a wife and kid. What would I do if he did? I didn’t know, but I wanted to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me.
I placed the shotgun behind me, out of Purcell’s reach. Then I slid out the KA-BAR knife, hefting it lightly in the palm of my left hand.
Purcell’s gaze flickered to the blade. Still, he said nothing.
“You’re going to die by a woman’s hand,” I told him, and finally had the satisfaction of seeing his nostrils flare. Ego. Of course. Nothing hurt a man quite as much as being one-upped by a woman.
“Do you remember what you told me that morning in the kitchen?” I whispered. “You told me as long as I cooperated no one would get hurt. You told me as long as I handed over my service weapon, you’d let my family go. Then you turned and murdered my husband.”
I ran the knife down the front of his shirt. The blade popped off the first button, the second, the third. Purcell wore a dark T-shirt underneath, topped by the requisite gold chain.
I planted the tip of the knife at the top of the thin cotton fabric and began to tear.
Purcell stared at the blade in rapt fascination. I could see his imagination kicking into gear, starting to realize everything such a large, well-honed blade could do to him. While he sat with his hands tied on his very own property. Helpless. Vulnerable.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I said, slicing down the black T-shirt.
Purcell’s eyes widened. He stared at me uncertainly.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it? Dying in the line of duty. A suitable end to an honorable gangster.”
Last shirt button. Pop. Last inch of T-shirt. Shred.
I used the blade to peel back his shirts. His stomach was unexpectedly pale, a little thicker around the waist, but def
ined. He trained. Not a big guy. Maybe a boxer. He understood fitness mattered in his line of work. Got to have some muscle to lug unconscious bodies down to the basement and strap them to the table.
Gotta have some size to snatch a struggling six-year-old girl.
The knife eased back his shirts, exposing his left side. I stared at his bare shoulder in fascination. The goose pimples that rippled across his flesh in the cold. The way his nipple formed a round bud right over his heart.
“You shot my husband here,” I murmured, and I used the blade to mark the spot. Blood welled up, forming a perfect red X against Purcell’s skin. The razor-sharp blade made for a nice, clean cut. Shane had always taken his equipment seriously.
“Next shot was right here.” I moved the blade again. Maybe I cut deeper this time, because Purcell hissed low, quivering beneath me.
“Third shot, right here.” This time, I definitely went deep. When I raised the KA-BAR knife, the blood welled at the edge of the blade and dripped down onto Purcell’s stomach.
Blood in the clean white snow.
Brian dying in the clean bright kitchen.
The mobster was shaking now. I gazed into his face. I let him see the death in my eyes. I let him see the killer he helped make.
“Here’s the deal,” I informed him. “Tell me where my daughter is, and in return, I’ll remove your restraints. I’m not giving you a knife or anything that crazy, but you can take a shot at me. Maybe you can overpower me, in which case, my bad. Maybe you can’t. In which case, at least you go down swinging instead of dying trussed up like a pig in your own front yard. You have until the count of five to decide. One.”
“I don’t snitch,” Purcell snarled.
I shrugged, reached up, and mostly because I felt like it, lopped off a giant piece of his thick brown hair. “Two.”
He flinched, didn’t back down. “Gonna fucking kill me anyway.”
Another section of hair, maybe even a bit of ear. “Three.”
“Fucking cunt.”
“Stick and stones may break my bones …” I wadded up a big fistful of dark hair at the top of his forehead. Getting into the spirit of things now, I pulled up hard, so I could see his scalp lift. “Four.”
“I don’t have your daughter!” Purcell exploded. “Don’t do kids. Told them in the beginning, don’t do kids.”
“Then where is she?”
“You’re the fucking cop. Don’t you think you should know?”
I whacked with the blade. I got a lot of hair and definitely some scalp. Blood bubbled up red. Dripped onto the icy ground, turned pink against the snow.
I wondered if I would ever make it through another winter, where fresh snowfall wouldn’t make me want to vomit.
Purcell howled, shuddering against his restraints. “You trusted all the wrong people. Now you hurt me? I did you a favor! Your husband was no good. Your police officer friend even worse. How’d I even get into your house, you stupid cunt? Think your old man would just let me in?”
I stopped. I stared at him. And I realized, in that instant, the one piece of the puzzle I’d been missing. I’d been so overwhelmed by the trauma of Saturday morning, I’d never contemplated the logistics. I’d never analyzed the scene as a cop.
For example, Brian already knew he was in trouble. His weight lifting, the recent purchase of the Glock .40. His own jumpy mood and short temper. He knew he’d waded in too deep. And yeah, he’d never open the door to a man like John Stephen Purcell, especially with Sophie in the house.
Except Sophie hadn’t been in the house when I’d returned home.
She was already gone. Purcell had been standing in the kitchen alone, holding Brian at gunpoint. Sophie had already been taken, by a second person who must’ve come with Purcell. Someone Brian would feel safe greeting at the door. Someone who had access to the troopers’ pension. Who knew Shane. Who felt powerful enough to control all the parties involved.
My face must have paled, because Purcell started to laugh. The sound rattled in his chest.
“See? I tell the truth,” he growled. “I’m not the problem. The men in your life are.”
Purcell laughed again, the blood dripping down his face and making him look as crazy as I felt. We were two peas in a pod, I realized abruptly. Soldiers in the war, to be used, abused, and betrayed by the generals involved.
Others made the decisions. We just paid the price.
I set the knife down behind me, beside the shotgun. My right arm throbbed. Using it so much had caused the gunshot wound to bleed again. I could feel fresh moisture trickling down my arm. More pink stains in the snow.
Not much longer now, I knew. And like Purcell, I was not afraid. I was resigned to my fate.
“Trooper Lyons is dead,” I said.
Purcell stopped laughing.
“Turns out, you killed him two hours ago.”
Purcell thinned his lips. He was no fool.
From the back waistband of my pants, I pulled out a .22 semiauto I’d found taped to the back of the toilet tank in Purcell’s bathroom. Strictly a backup weapon for a guy like him, but it would still get the job done.
“I’m guessing this is a black market weapon,” I stated. “Serial number filed off. Untraceable.”
“You promised a fair fight,” Purcell said suddenly.
“And you promised to let my husband go. Guess we’re both liars.”
I leaned close. “Who do you love?” I whispered in the bloody snow.
“No one,” he replied tiredly. “Never did.”
I nodded, unsurprised. Then I shot him. Double tap to the left temple, classic gangland hit. Next, I picked up the KA-BAR knife and matter-of-factly carved the word “snitch” into the dead man’s skin. Had to obliterate the three Xs I’d formed earlier in his chest, which would’ve led a savvy detective such as D. D. Warren straight to my doorstep.
My face felt strange. Hard. Grim, even for me. I reminded myself of that tidy basement with its lingering scents of bleach and blood, of the pain Purcell would’ve happily inflicted upon me, if I’d given him the chance. It didn’t help. I was meant to be a cop, not a killer. And each act of violence took something from me that I would not get back again.
But I kept moving, because like any woman, I was good at self-inflicted pain.
Final details: I returned to the house long enough to help myself to Purcell’s cleaning supplies. Working with paper towels and bleach, I obliterated all traces of my blood inside the home. Then I traded my boots for his, tramping around in the mud and snow until my footprints were gone and only Purcell’s remained.
Lastly, I retrieved Brian’s Glock .40 from my duffel bag and wrapped Purcell’s right hand around the pistol grip to transfer his prints. Purcell’s .22 went into my duffel bag, to be tossed in the first river I passed. The Glock .40 went inside Purcell’s house, taped to the back of the toilet as he’d done with the first firearm.
Sometime after the sun rose, the police would find Purcell’s body tied to the house, obviously tortured, now deceased. They would search his house, they would discover his basement, and that would answer half their questions—a guy in Purcell’s line of work was bound to die badly.
While searching Purcell’s house, they would also discover Brian’s Glock .40. Ballistics would match the slug that killed police officer Shane Lyons to that firearm, providing a theory that Purcell had once entered my home and stolen my husband’s gun, which he later used to kill a highly respected state trooper.
Purcell’s murder would go to the back burner—just another thug meeting a violent end. Shane would be buried with full honors and his family would receive benefits.
The police would search for the weapon that shot Purcell, of course. Wonder about his murderer. But not all questions were meant to be answered.
Just like not all people were meant to be trusted.
One-seventeen a.m. I staggered to my feet, made my way back to the truck. I downed two bottles of water and ate two power bars. Right
shoulder burned. Tingling in my fingers. A hollow sensation in my gut. A curious numbness to the set of my lips.
Then I was on the road again, shotgun on my lap, bloody hands at the wheel.
Sophie, here I come.
41
It’s Hamilton,” Bobby said, pulling D.D. out of Leoni’s garage and already jogging back to their car.
“Hamilton?” D.D. narrowed her eyes. “As in State Police Lieutenant Colonel?”
“Yep. Has access, has opportunity, and knows all the players involved. Maybe Brian’s gambling problem started the ball rolling, but Hamilton was the brains of the operation—You guys need money? Hey, I happen to know where there’s a huge pot of cash, just sitting there …”
“Between him and Shane …” D.D. murmured. She nodded, feeling the first tinge of excitement A name, a suspect, a target. She climbed into the car and Bobby pulled away from the curb, already racing toward the highway.
“Yep,” he said now. “Easy enough to work out the logistics of setting up a shell company, with Hamilton pulling strings to cover their tracks from the inside. Except, of course, all good things must come to an end.”
“Once the internal investigation kicks into gear …”
“Their days are numbered,” Bobby filled in for her. “They have state investigators sniffing around, plus, thanks to Shane and Brian continuing to gamble excessively, they also have various mobsters wanting a piece of the pie. Hamilton, of course, grows concerned. And Brian and Shane go from being partners in crime to highly expendable liabilities.”
“Hamilton killed Brian, then kidnapped Sophie so Tessa would confess to shooting her own husband and be framed for defrauding the troopers’ union?” D.D. frowned, then added, “Or an enforcer did it. The kind of mobster Brian had already pissed off. The kind of guy willing to do one last piece of wet work in order to get his money back.”
“The kind of guy who’d mail photos of Shane’s family as a warning,” Bobby agreed.
“That’s the thing about the brass,” D.D. said with a shake of her head. “They’re big on ideas, but don’t like to get their own hands dirty during implementation.” She hesitated. “Following that logic, where is Sophie? Would Hamilton risk personally holding a six-year-old girl?”
