by Chelsea Cain
Henry raised his eyebrows questioningly at Susan.
She was being an idiot. It was only a few miles. And there were cops at the other end. “I’m fine,” Susan said. She gave Henry a small salute. “Straight home. Promise.”
“Okay,” Henry said. He looked up, over her car, at Archie’s building for a moment, and then he tapped the hood of her car with his hand. “Go,” he said.
Susan nodded and pulled away from the curb, turning the radio up as she did. Sam Cooke’s husky croon came over the speakers. As she drove away she watched in the rearview mirror as Henry climbed into Claire’s Fiesta and the taillights disappeared into the night.
Archie had warned Henry about Sanchez, right?
Susan bobbed her head along to the Sam Cooke song.
Something glinted on the dashboard as she passed a streetlight. Susan swiped her finger along the spot and then brought it close to her face and peered at it. Her finger was dark with dust —she really had to buy some Armor All—and in the middle of the dirt was a single speck of gold glitter. That was the thing with glitter; it got everywhere. But she still couldn’t figure out where this bit had come from. She rubbed the dust and the glitter off on her pants and sucked in her breath as she glanced up.
Susan slammed on her brakes and the car jolted to a stop, jerking Susan against her seat belt. She heard a mountain of crap from her backseat slide onto the floor behind her.
Princess Leia was pulling a Star Wars stormtrooper across Water Avenue. Susan had nearly hit them, but neither was acknowledging that fact. The stormtrooper was drunk. He was carrying a can of beer. Princess Leia had a cigarette in one hand. It was Halloween Eve, Susan reminded herself. They were probably on their way to a party. Her pounding heart was slowing now. The businesses along that stretch—industrial buildings housing microbrew tasting rooms and restaurants and kayak shops—were closed, and the streetlights were placed far apart and left much of the street darkened. But there could be a party in one of the warehouses.
Princess Leia and the stormtrooper continued stumbling up a side street and Susan continued along Water Avenue, white-knuckling the wheel, keeping her eye out for costumed revelers who might decide to dart in front of traffic.
Susan could just make out the giant red neon OMSI sign up ahead, and the sight of it made her relax a bit. The Oregon Museum of Science and Industry was closed, but its brick façade was a reassuring landmark. The road home was just past it.
She had never really noticed before how empty this route was at night. A sea of empty museum parking lots stretched alongside the street. You could never find parking at OMSI when you needed it. Now Susan wished the parking lots weren’t so big. Sam Cooke was still singing. It was a long song.
Frankie reached down in her pocketbook
and up with a long forty-four
she shot once, twice, three times and
Johnny fell to the hard wood floor
Aw, he was a man alright
but Frankie shot him because
he was doing her wrong.
Something else slid off the backseat onto the floor.
Susan was used to that. When you kept as much crap in your car as she did, you got accustomed to some shifting. Half-empty Snapple bottles rolled under the seat. Books and glossy magazines slid around. Plastic water bottles knocked together. She had rubber boots in her car, extra jackets, two canvas camp chairs, about twenty reusable grocery store bags, old notebooks, pens and pencils, used paper coffee cups, tubes of lipstick in a rainbow of colors, and probably a hundred dollars in change.
But the last thing he told her was
Frankie, you know I love you
Why? Honey why did you —
The music stopped.
“Breaking news,” an announcer cut in briskly. “The Oregon Herald is reporting that escaped serial killer Gretchen Lowell was spotted in Lake Oswego late last night. Police officials say they are investigating but do not have any public comment at this time.”
The car jerked and then let out a slow, mournful whine.
“No,” Susan said out loud. “No, no, no.”
A red light was blinking on the dash readout. That light had never come on before. She didn’t know what it meant. What did it mean?
The car was coughing to a stop, the radio announcer’s voice coming in and out. “Dangerous.” “Escaped.” “Precautions.” Susan steered it to the side of the street, just as the Saab’s engine gave one last death rattle and died. As it did, all the lights—dash lights, headlights—went off, too, and the radio went deathly silent. It was suddenly very dark and very quiet.
She pulled her purse onto her lap and started digging for her phone. Her hand found a box of gum, a compact, a notebook. Why did she have so much stuff that was the same size as a cell phone? Then her hand tightened around her iPhone. She pulled it out. It lit up under her touch, and she wanted to cry at the sight of that comforting retina display glow. She touched the telephone icon and the number keys appeared. She touched one key.
There was a knock on her window.
Susan looked up, and a paralyzing terror gripped her by the throat.
CHAPTER
34
Henry stood in Jack Reynolds’s front yard, his weight mostly on his good leg. The other leg bothered him more than he let on most days, but he thought he did a pretty good job of hiding it. He squinted as the police choppers overhead sent another blizzard of fall leaves swirling up in their searchlight beams. He’d already gotten leaf debris in his eye. The air settled and the noise and light passed. Two choppers were circling the little island; a third searched the perimeter of the lake. Judging by the residential lights on around the lake, no one was asleep. Once the news got out about Gretchen, cops from every surrounding county had started showing up. Flashing lights stretched along the island’s private road as far as Henry could see. State cops. City cops. FBI vehicles. Henry lifted a hand to shield his eyes from another passing chopper. The searchlight blazed around him for a moment, and a gust of wind flattened the grass at his feet. Then the chopper continued onward, passing over four crime scene investigators who were hauling equipment across the grounds in the direction of the boathouse. The churned-up air from the chopper blades made their white Tyvek suits flap like plastic bags in the wind. The grass rippled. Then it fell dark again. The earsplitting chug of the chopper engine faded. Henry glanced back at the Tudor manse, which was lit up like Christmas. Patrol cops ran in and out of the house, one hand on their hats every time a chopper passed overhead. Henry shook his head. It looked like the invasion of Grenada.
Jack Reynolds chuckled.
Henry looked over at him. Jack was still in the Thurston Howell getup, but had added a plaid wool scarf that made him look even more ridiculous. He had come out of the house a few minutes before, drinking something fancy out of a crystal lowball glass and smoking a cigar.
“What’s so funny?” Henry asked. Landscape lighting peppered the grounds, but the part of the yard they were in was dark except for a light planted in the grass at their feet that lit Jack from below, so that he was all cheekbones and jaw. Henry knew he was probably similarly lit, but he was pretty sure he looked less like Dracula.
“She’s not here,” Jack said. “I’m not sure what they think they’re going to find.”
“You sent Leo to Archie with the footage,” Henry said. He knew it was a reckless play, saying it outright. But Henry wanted to see how Jack would react. “You had to know this was coming,” Henry added.
Jack’s grin spread. “I had my people review all the security footage after the two of you left this afternoon,” he said. He lifted his glass to his lips. “Being the responsible citizen that I am.” He savored the alcohol in his mouth and then swallowed it. It was whiskey, Henry could smell it. “I didn’t want to be harboring evidence of a murder,” Jack said with a shrug. “Plus, I can’t have someone slaughtering my party guests—even the ones who aren’t officially invited. It doesn’t look good. I don’t w
ant to get a reputation as a bad host.” He bent his head and looked down into his glass, swirling it absentmindedly. “Plus, I wanted to see what Archie would do.”
It was Henry’s turn to chuckle. Of course Jack wouldn’t turn over any sort of evidence to the cops unless there was something in it for him. “You thought he’d bury it,” Henry said.
“Shit, yes,” Jack said with a sharp laugh. “I thought he’d throw that flash drive in the river. That’s what I would have done. How about you? Most people wouldn’t want that kind of thing getting out. You see the video? I got a hard-on just watching it.”
Jack was goading him, but Henry wasn’t going to take the bait. “So Archie was supposed to destroy the footage,” Henry said, “and then you’d have had a nice piece of blackmail material in your back pocket.”
Jack put his hand over his heart. “Of course I would hope I’d never need to use it,” he said.
“Of course,” Henry said.
Another chopper went by overhead, and the air was briefly full of shredded leaves. Jack’s scarf whipped in the wind.
“But it turns out that Archie Sheridan is actually the Boy Scout everyone says he is,” Jack said. He had to shout to be heard over the chopper engine.
“We both know that’s not true, don’t we, Jack?” Henry shouted back.
“I find that I hear conflicting reports on that topic,” Jack said.
The chopper passed and the wind stopped. Jack picked a piece of dead leaf out of his glass and flicked it away.
“You’re a ball of contradictions yourself,” Henry said. “This afternoon you refused to turn over the security footage we politely asked for without a warrant. Now look at us. You’ve turned over the tapes. You’ve got half the cops in the county crawling all over your property. And as far as I can tell, you don’t seem that unnerved by it.”
Jack leaned slightly forward and the yellow light from the landscaping fixture carved deeper into his face. His eyes, though, were still shadowed in black. “She murdered my daughter,” he said. “I want her caught.”
“Not half as bad as I do,” Henry said.
Jack lifted his cigar to his face and his mouth turned up into a sinister smile. “He means something to her,” Jack said. “Doesn’t he?”
Henry flinched, and then quickly composed his face into what he hoped looked like dismissive disbelief. “Because of the tape?” he asked. “She wanted to humiliate him.”
“You see it, too,” Jack said with a certainty that raised the hackles on Henry’s neck. Jack puffed on his cigar, and the air filled with the woody smell of it. “This business I’m in, it’s not just sales,” Jack said. “It’s politics. It’s manipulation. It’s dogs pissing on each other.” He puffed on the cigar again. A patrol cop jogged by, holding his hat on. “Everyone has a weakness,” Jack said. He looked down toward Henry’s bad leg as if to demonstrate. Henry shifted his weight uncomfortably. “When you can find what that is, you can exploit it,” Jack continued. “That’s power. You think you know what I do? You don’t know half of it. This island?” He waved the cigar in front of them. “I could buy ten of these. I could pay cash for them tomorrow. I am very good at this. I see people’s vulnerabilities. And Archie Sheridan means something to her. And it’s going to get her caught.” Jack lowered the cigar and his face shadowed. “I wonder what he’ll do then,” he said.
Henry waved his hand in front of his face, clearing away the cigar smoke. “What do you want him to do, Jack?” Henry asked.
“Same as you, my friend,” Jack said. “I want him to kill her.” He lifted his cigar to his mouth again and his eyes sparkled. “Think he will?”
Henry didn’t like the direction this conversation was heading. “I don’t know,” he said. He scanned the grounds, looking for Claire, and was pleased to see her silhouette coming across the yard from the direction of the boathouse, a flashlight bouncing in her hand. The pregnancy had changed her walk, but Henry would still know her anywhere.
“I can help,” Jack said, stepping close to Henry. “I can get you an unmarked weapon. Clean things up.”
Henry turned slowly and looked at Jack. He was perfectly still, the cigar burning in one hand, the drink in the other. Henry rubbed his eyes. “Where’s your lawyer, Jack?”
Jack shrugged, but Henry could tell the gesture was forced. “Leo? He’s at the club,” Jack said.
“Well, you might want to get advice from counsel before you conspire to commit murder,” Henry said. “You know, for next time.”
Claire had almost reached them.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jack said.
Claire angled the flashlight to Henry’s right, and he stepped away from Jack and walked over so that they could speak privately.
“You make a new friend?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Henry said. “Terrific guy. I’ve asked him to be the godfather.”
Claire sniffed the air. “You smell like a cigar bar,” she said.
“It’s all right,” Henry said. “It’s Cuban. What’s the story?”
“There’s nothing,” Claire said. “Landscapers worked all day, cleaning up after the party. They used a leaf blower on the beach. If there was any evidence, it’s gone now. And of course there’s no sign of Gretchen.”
“What about in the house?”
The warrant specified that they were looking for Gretchen Lowell. That meant they could only look for Gretchen Lowell. Anything hinky in plain sight was fair game, but they couldn’t open any drawers that Gretchen couldn’t fit in.
“She’s not hiding in the house,” Claire said. “And your friend didn’t leave a pound of heroin and some cash sitting out.”
Henry looked back at Jack. Jack raised his glass in a toast. Behind him, another pair of cops exited the Tudor. No wonder Jack seemed so relaxed. There was nothing to incriminate him. Was the house always this tidy, or had Sanchez given Jack a heads-up while they were waiting for the warrant to go through?
Claire leaned forward and laid her head against Henry’s shoulder. “I actually like the smell of cigars,” she said.
Jack turned and started walking back toward the house. Henry didn’t know what Jack was up to. He didn’t know what Gretchen was up to. The one person who might be able to help wasn’t there. But if this involved Archie, Henry wasn’t going to rest until he got some answers.
“Want to go to a strip club with me?” Henry asked Claire.
Claire lifted her face to look up at him. “I thought you’d never ask,” she said.
CHAPTER
35
It was almost midnight and Archie had untucked his shirt and was sitting on the couch with Ginger, his shoes off and his socked feet on the coffee table. The remnants of his own peanut butter sandwich were on a paper towel in front of him, along with an empty beer bottle, his service revolver, and the bloodstained Band-Aid he’d recently peeled off the crook of his elbow. He was considering having another beer when he heard someone knock.
Archie reached for his gun and followed Ginger to the door.
He expected it to be a cop—maybe someone from the unit Sanchez had stationed out front, or some other member of Sanchez’s team sent to grill Archie again. He just hoped it wasn’t Gary coming back for more pubic hair.
“Who is it?” Archie called through the door.
“It’s me,” Rachel answered.
Archie looked for a place to put his gun down, settled on the mail table, and opened the door.
A smile spread across his face. Rachel stood in the hallway with a hand on her hip. Her poppy-red coat was tied tight at the waist and showed a lot of cleavage and leg. It was short enough that he could see that the black stockings she was wearing came only to her upper thighs. The black pumps she wore had four-inch heels, raising her to his height and lengthening her legs. Her long blond hair was loose and tousled. Her eyelashes looked thicker than usual. She smiled back at him and batted her eyes. She clearly hadn’t seen the news. Archie thought about telling her; she�
��d find out sooner or later and wonder why he hadn’t. But the prospect of having one last ordinary night without the albatross of Gretchen Lowell around his neck was too attractive for Archie to resist. Once Rachel knew that Gretchen was back, she would look at him the way the others did.
“Is that your costume?” Archie asked.
She stepped forward and touched one of his shirt buttons. “Part of it,” she said. “You know, it will be Halloween in a few minutes.”
Archie moved his hand to her thigh, feeling the smooth stockings give way to warm bare flesh. His detective skills were leading him to believe that whatever she was wearing under that coat, it wasn’t much. He had a feeling he was going to find out for sure. “Well, you better come in, then,” he said.
She swept past him, her hips swinging, and the red coat lifted to expose the backs of her thighs above the stockings.
Archie glanced down the hall as he closed the door, wondering if the unit Sanchez had charged with protecting Archie from a beautiful blonde had noticed this particular beautiful blonde. But if Rachel had been in all evening, and just come upstairs, there’d be no way for his protection detail to spot her. They were monitoring traffic into his building, not people already here.
When Archie turned back to the room, Rachel was standing in front of his laptop, typing something on the keyboard. Archie felt a flash of panic, before he remembered that Ngyun had taken the flash drive with the boathouse footage. Rachel’s eyes were on the screen. She typed something into an open field.
“What are you doing?” Archie asked Rachel.
Rachel looked at him and winked. “Putting some music on,” she said. She hit another button and music started playing through his laptop speakers. It was some sort of seventies-era funk, which only served to remind Archie that the song had been recorded before Rachel was born.
Ginger threw an annoyed glance at the laptop and then put her ears back and trotted over to the couch.
Rachel walked to Archie’s desk and wheeled his desk chair to the middle of the room.
