Catch Me

by Lisa Gardner

  “Maybe she didn’t wait eight years. Maybe there are other dead sex offenders in other jurisdictions. We just know the three on our watch. Not to mention, stress is a major trigger for killers, and you can tell just by looking that Charlene Grant’s a little stressed out right now.”

  “She’s a good girl, until her stress level rises too high, then she loads a gun and lets off a little steam?”

  “Why not? Worse reasons to kill sex predators.”

  “More big assumptions.”

  “Which is why,” Detective O replied curtly, “I followed her tonight, got my hands on her twenty-two, and delivered it to the lab. Tomorrow, fuck assumptions. We’ll have a ballistics report.”

  “Hope so,” D.D. murmured, “seeing as we just seized a potential murder victim’s legally registered means of self-defense, on the eve of the big day.”

  “Forget the other murders,” O shot back, sounding almost irritated. “This is all about Charlene. What happened when she was a kid, to her and her siblings. I doubt she’s even a target tomorrow. I bet she’s the instigator. I mean lots of people are abused as kids, and they still manage to grow up remembering such a minor detail as being stabbed by their own mother. Then there’s Charlene, who claims she forgot it all. I think that’s her first lie.”

  “I thought you said she was Sybil, which accounts for her lack of memory; Charlie wasn’t stabbed by her mother but her ‘victim personality’…Rosalind…was, meaning Charlie really didn’t know any such thing. And Charlene’s not really running around shooting sex offenders, some ‘protector personality’ Abigail is.”

  “Bunch of hooey.”

  “You started it.”

  “Just to argue with you. Most fun part of the job, right?”

  D.D. shook her head at the detective’s quick change of heart. “Fine. At least we agree on one thing—we need the ballistics report. Good work seizing the gun and making arrangements at the lab, Detective.”

  For a moment, D.D. could almost feel O’s discomfort over the line, and she couldn’t help but think of another detective she knew that was always more comfortable with criticism than praise—herself.

  “Detective,” D.D. said briskly.

  “Yes?”

  “Go home. Get some sleep. We have approximately seven hours until Charlene gets off work and Jon Cassir has results from the ballistics test. Meaning, most likely, tomorrow will be a big day. And…” D.D. hesitated, “being the anniversary date of two murders, maybe even a longer night.”

  “Not a problem,” O said immediately. “We’ll have Charlene arrested by eleven, processed by one, and tucked safely in jail by three. Meaning, if any killer wants her, he’ll have to tunnel through cinder blocks to get her.”

  Chapter 33

  HELLO. My name is Abigail.

  Don’t worry, we’ve met.

  Are you afraid of me? Or are you afraid for me?

  Trust me, and I will take care of you.

  Don’t you trust me?

  Hello. My name is Abigail.

  Chapter 34

  SATURDAY. 7 A.M. Thirteen hours and counting.

  Maybe less? Maybe more?

  What did I know? My shift was due to end, but my replacement hadn’t appeared, leaving me trapped at a desk, comm lines still ringing with various Boston citizens in various states of panic.

  I’d arrived to a slew of motor vehicle incidents. Car versus cat. Motorcycle versus telephone pole. Drunk teenager A versus drunk teenager B.

  By 2 A.M., the bars had closed and the phone lines heated up. Tina Limmer from 375 Markham Street called to report that her boyfriend was an asshole. Guess she caught him balling her best friend. Sadly, being an asshole was not yet a prosecutable offense, so I’d been forced to end the call. Just in time for Cherry Weiss from 896 Concord Avenue to report the smell of smoke in the stairwell of her apartment building. Two officers were dispatched, not to mention the fire department. Officers arrested two drunken seventy-year-old men who were trying valiantly to prove that you could light a fart on fire. Fire department laughed, took in the show.

  Which brought me to Vinnie Pearl of 95 Wentworth Way. He wanted to report that he’d lost his nose. With a bit of searching (I managed to direct him to the bathroom of his own apartment), he located said nose in the mirror. Turned out, Vinnie had spent most of Friday brewing homemade limoncello. Which explained his call back ten minutes later to report he’d lost his lips, couldn’t feel them anymore, his entire mouth was gone.

  I ordered Vinny to take four aspirin, drink three glasses of water, and good luck in the morning.

  That call ended just in time for the first of three bar brawls, followed by two calls of domestic violence and yet another motor vehicle incident, Hummer versus three parked cars.

  Parked cars lost. Hummer didn’t fare so well either, and completely drunk-as-a-skunk Hummer driver was arrested, as they say, without incident.

  Sometime around 3 A.M., I ate my cold chicken breast and half grapefruit while still sitting at my desk. At four thirty, the call volume lulled enough I could actually pee. Five thirty, I attempted to log onto Facebook from the PD’s computer; I wanted to check the page honoring Randi and Jackie.

  I got eight minutes to marvel at the long list of friends, the outpouring of shared memories and bittersweet tears, then the monitor lit up again, this time car versus pedestrian. The pedestrian was injured, but still able to make the nine-one-one report, as the offending vehicle sped away.

  Randi hadn’t suspected a thing on the twenty-first. That was my best guess. The police had never uncovered any sign of threatening notes, suspicious behavior. She’d lived a small, self-contained life, her closest friend probably her yoga instructor, who said Randi hadn’t commented on anything out of the ordinary. Meaning the twenty-first had dawned as just another day. Get up. Go through the motions. No idea, no inkling, this would be her last day on earth.

  Is it better that way? To never see death coming, or to spend the past year as I have, counting down every minute, planning out every second toward looming demise?

  Jackie had cried the morning of the twenty-first. I’m sure of it. She would’ve woken up with the same heavy feeling I had. This was it. The one-year anniversary of Randi’s death, and still the police had no leads, no major breaks in the investigation. Our childhood friend had been senselessly murdered and we remained with more questions than answers.

  Jackie would’ve started off the day quiet, reserved. Maybe she would’ve donned a string of pearls in memory of Randi. Or bought fresh flowers, or listened to Randi’s favorite band, Journey, during her drive to work.

  Being in New Hampshire, I’d driven to Randi’s grave that morning, bearing a grocery store bouquet of yellow roses. I’d been nervous I’d meet her parents and not know what to say. But the cemetery was empty, and I’d stood alone on the hard-packed snow, shivering in the single-digit chill, while feeling the tears fall, then freeze on my cheeks.

  Jackie had probably been preoccupied on the twenty-first. But still probably hadn’t thought about herself, felt a lingering tension, a fissure of fear. Maybe that’s why she’d gone out to a bar. She’d been sad, not afraid, and maybe figured a night out would cheer her up.

  The police said she met a woman that night. A stranger made the most sense, as no friend or known acquaintance had stepped forward to say that she’d been with Jackie those final hours. So she’d gone to a bar, met someone she liked, someone who seemed nice enough, decent enough to welcome into her home.

  No struggle.

  That’s the part I kept coming back to. To not just die, but to die without putting up a fight.

  I couldn’t imagine it. When J.T.’s hands had closed around my throat, I’d been shocked, momentarily paralyzed. But then came the instinct to breathe, the desire to strike back, struggle furiously for air.

  Randi had been sweet, but Jackie had always been hard-edged. A woman who could battle her way to being vice president of a major corporation by the time she w
as twenty-six wasn’t a quitter.

  So what had happened that night? Who could she have met, what could have transpired, for her to submit so passively to her own death?

  I churned the matter over, as I’d been churning it for the past year. Finding no answers, just a fresh case of nerves.

  The phone lines rang. My hands trembled. And I worked and I worked and I worked, my teeth clenched, my body jumpy, and my hands desperate for the feel of my Taurus.

  Seven A.M. to eight A.M. to nine A.M.

  Nine fifteen, Sergeant Collins appeared in the doorway to announce that my replacement had come down sick. They were working on finding a sub now; in the meantime, they needed me to continue to hold down the fort.

  It was a statement, not a question. Such is the nature of the job. Nine-one-one phone lines had to be covered, meaning you couldn’t leave until the next person had arrived and planted butt in chair. No replacement meant no going home for me.

  Nine A.M. to ten A.M. to eleven A.M.

  My last hours, winding down as I sat in a darkened comm center, dealing with other people’s crises, solving other people’s problems.

  So this is how the world ends, I thought, remembering the T. S. Eliot poem from high school. Not with a bang but a whimper.

  I wanted to fight. Whatever happened tonight, I wanted to be the one who finally inflicted damage, caused bodily harm. Win or lose, Detective D. D. Warren and her team would get some fresh evidence from my crime scene. That was my resolution.

  Eleven thirty. Shirlee Wertz appeared, black curly hair held back by a red bandana, overflowing book bag slung over her shoulder. We ran through the call log, I caught her up on drunk Vinnie and his disappearing body parts. Then I transferred my headset to her, stepped away from the desk, and took one look back.

  Would I miss this?

  I’d be taking a two-week vacation, that’s all I’d told the higher-ups. No drama over my departure this way. No burning questions about my future, life after the twenty-first.

  It’s funny, but my throat felt tight. I stared at the ANI ALI monitor and I was choked up.

  I’d liked this job. I cared about my officers, felt the burden and honor of watching their backs. I felt that, in a small, feeble way, in this dark room, manning these lines, I’d spent the past year making a difference.

  Eleven forty-five A.M. Eight hours fifteen minutes.

  I found my messenger bag. I exited the Grovesnor PD. And I forced myself not to look back.

  I went straight for my gun. Far edge of the parking lot, beneath the prickly bush. I looked right, looked left. Coast clear, so I bent down to retrieve it.

  Except it wasn’t there. I dug around. Little more to the left, little more to the right, then abandoning all pretense and frantically unearthing the snow mound with two hands, like a terrier pawing away the earth.

  Nothing.

  Gun was gone. All that remained was an icy hole, topped with plow sand and city dirt.

  In the distance, sirens sounded. One, two, three patrol cars.

  Who could’ve taken it?

  I’d told no one. Hidden it only at the last moment, when no one was watching. How could someone foresee something I hadn’t even known I would do?

  The hairs prickled to life on the back of my neck. I finally understood.

  The killer was in Boston.

  He/she was watching me.

  And he/she was already one step ahead.

  This was it. No more countdown.

  My own murder had officially begun.

  I couldn’t help myself. I staggered away from the dirty, grimy snowbank. Then, unarmed and genuinely panicked, I began to run.

  Chapter 35

  JESSE WOKE UP Saturday morning in his mother’s queen-sized bed. She was rolled away from him, facing the far wall, her arm flung out, snoring softly. Jesse didn’t know what time it was. Probably later than usual, because the room was bright, the sun pushing and shoving at the corners of the drawn shades.

  There was a time Jesse would’ve gotten up on his own. Padded into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. Then he would’ve turned on Saturday morning cartoons. Maybe, if he felt like pushing things, logged onto the Internet and entered the world of AthleteAnimalz.

  Now he pressed up against his mother’s sleeping form. He liked the feel of her body, warm and soft, against his back. He smoothed the red-flowered comforter with one hand and peered at the far gray-washed wall.

  He was too old to sleep with his mommy. Other kids in his class, they would tease him if they ever found out. On the other hand, maybe he’d stay one more night. Or the night after that. Then it would be the school week, and school would help. His mother said so. The counselor lady, too. Routine would be good for him. They both said that, though when his mother uttered the words, she’d had two small lines pinching her brow, right between her eyes. He didn’t like those lines. He wanted to reach up and brush them away.

  He’d hurt his mom. Worse, he’d scared her, and now, just like he couldn’t stop jumping at loud noises, she couldn’t let him out of her sight. So they’d spent all day yesterday huddled together on the sofa, watching stupid TV shows and eating junk food until even Jesse started worrying that he was rotting his brain. He could actually feel it, growing warts and holes and lesions, like a zombie brain, right there inside his skull.

  He’d set aside his half-eaten Twinkie and requested an apple.

  His mother had burst into tears. He’d immediately picked up the Twinkie, but she’d taken it from him, so apparently the Twinkie hadn’t been the problem.

  He’d been a bad boy. That was the issue. He’d broken the rules, followed a stranger, met a demon, and watched a boy die. And he didn’t know how to undo it. It had happened. He’d been bad. And now…And now…?

  If he could, he’d go backwards in time, like a video in rewind. Look, here’s Jesse walking backwards to the library, then up the outside stairs, then up the inside stairs, then sitting down with the stranger danger boy except now getting back up and moving away from the stranger danger boy, back downstairs to his mother. Look, here’s Jesse with his mother. Stay, Jesse, stay. Be a good boy, and your mommy won’t cry.

  The police had taken his computer. Thursday night/Friday morning, he guessed. He’d fallen asleep in the back of the police cruiser, which had taken them home from the station after all the questions, questions, questions. His mother, he guessed, had carried him upstairs to their apartment, all three flights, though he was way too big for that, too. She’d put him on the sofa, where apparently he’d been so exhausted, he’d never stirred even when she’d taken off his shoes.

  At 6 A.M., he’d bolted awake screaming the first time. Bad dream. He couldn’t remember it, but it had something to do with a scary thin demon with jagged shards of teeth and too bright blue eyes.

  Back to sleep, his mother had said. So he’d tried, only to wake up screaming an hour after that, then an hour after that.

  At nine, she’d let him get up. Good news, no school for him, no work for her. They’d have a mental health day, she told him, but that frown was back, those two little lines wrinkling her brow, and he could tell she wasn’t really happy and they weren’t really having fun.

  They went out to breakfast, at the little diner around the corner. On the way back, she broke the news. The police needed their ancient laptop to help them with their investigation. She’d handed it over to the officer who had driven them home. They might get it back when all was done, but Jesse’s mother had told them not to bother. She never wanted to see it again.

  She’d looked at Jesse as she said these words. He didn’t argue, just nodded. She’d sighed a little, her frowny forehead momentarily clearing. One burden off her shoulder, a million more to go.

  Jesse thought he understood his role now. He’d been bad. And you couldn’t go back in time, you couldn’t rewind, undo what had been done. He could only try to fix it, to balance being a bad boy with being a good boy, like in order to eat Twinkies, he had to dri
nk a glass of milk. Good behavior to offset the bad behavior.

  Last night, the police lady had said they needed his help. He was a witness. And they needed him to be brave, to tell them everything that had happened. No need to be embarrassed, nothing was his fault. He just needed to talk.

  Jesse had done his best. Except he was very embarrassed. He was embarrassed by the stranger danger boy who’d so easily lured Jesse out of the library when Jesse knew better. He was embarrassed by the stranger danger boy exposing his privates. And he was even more embarrassed by the slinky, dark-haired demon girl, who’d appeared with her gun and her too blue eyes, and the way she’d smiled right at him, which just hadn’t been right.

  The boy was evil and the woman was evil and Jesse was embarrassed by all of that, but mostly by the fact that he’d been very, very scared and so he’d closed his eyes. For most of it. For all of it. For every second of it that popped into his head.

  Once he’d left the library, he didn’t want to know what had happened next. He wanted it gone, if not rewound, then erased. A series of video frames burned from his memory. Then he wouldn’t wake up screaming anymore. Then his mother wouldn’t look over at him and wince.

  He’d resume going back to school, and they’d have their little routine again, Jenny and Jesse against the world.

  That’s what he wanted. More than anything. Him and his mother, all well again. Jenny and Jesse against the world.

  “Mommy.” He rolled over, stared at her sleeping form.

  She didn’t move.

  He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Mommy.”

  “Mmmhmm?” came a soft answer, but she still didn’t move.

  He touched her long brown hair, spilled on the pillow. Kind of like the demon’s, he thought, but his mother was nothing like her. For one thing, his mommy was real, and that girl with the gun had clearly been a monster.

  Jesse sighed softly. He hated to wake his mother. But he understood what he needed to do. He’d been a bad boy. No rewind. Now he would be a good boy. Fix the trouble, be the glass of milk.