Again he saw her surprise and reveled in it. It seemed as if she had always underestimated him, despite all she knew.
“Oh yes, dear one, I was there. I was in the closet, watching you through the cracked door, just waiting for you to find my marker, to understand and to know. But that damn sheriff showed up and spoiled our reunion. And then again, you ran. Always running, Maddie. What kind of life is that? You cannot run from your true destiny. Don’t you know that by now? Do you finally understand the Lord’s plan for you?”
He studied her, trying to read her thoughts. Her intent. Her surprise, and her pain, had disappeared, replaced by a steely calm. He noticed her eyes darting over the room, to the table and the gun that lay on top. She lunged for it. She was fast, but he was faster.
“Ah, ah, ah,” he clucked, his own gun pointed at her forehead. “Is that any way to treat your father?”
He waved the gun at her, indicating for her to come around the table. She didn’t budge.
“Do not make me tell you again.” He’d said that to her once before, when she was thirteen. She had done as she was told then. She wasn’t doing it now. She had changed. He found her resolve surprising, especially now that he had forced her to confront the pain of her failure, of her culpability. The pain of old wounds did not seem to cripple her as he had thought it would, and the threat of force no longer appeared to inspire her. He would have to change tactics. Freshen her pain.
“I would have been here sooner, but this isn’t the easiest place to find,” he said, rounding the kitchen table slowly. She moved around the far side of the table, as he anticipated she would, trying to keep distance between them. He picked up Salinger’s gun as he passed, shoving it into the back of his jeans. “The roads were pretty bad coming up here, made me miss a few turns. I finally found that little store, but then I had to waste hours tearing it apart.”
He saw her surprise. It made him laugh. “I figured you were wondering how I found you. Lieutenant Wayne pointed me in the right direction.”
He delighted in the fear that flashed across his daughter’s face. Not fear for herself, but for a dead man. “He was quite surprised to find me in his home, that’s for sure.”
He saw tears begin to form. His instincts had been right. These detectives meant something to her. “Don’t worry, it didn’t last long. He’s been reunited with his dearly departed wife.”
Billy returned to the cabin’s entryway. Maddie was now in the center of the large room, trapped between the couch and the kitchen table.
“For a while there, I almost lost hope. But then I found Wayne’s notepad, and it led me to Mel’s General Store. I came up empty, but you should be proud of your old man. I didn’t give up. I eventually found the notebook where all the local customers’ names are logged. And that led me here.”
Maddie began shifting again, looking for some means of escape. He was growing tired of her not paying attention to him.
“Sit. Down.” He pointed at the sofa. This time, she obeyed. He was getting to her, breaking her down. It pleased him.
“Once I found this place, I took some time to scope it out. The storm made it hard to see, but it also provided me with excellent cover. I almost came in a couple of times, but I knew that damn dog was in here with you. Then I saw the lights come on just as the snow picked up, and I knew. God was giving me my chance. As it has always been. As it ever shall be.”
“You know nothing about God,” Maddie said evenly, enraging him.
“Don’t you dare question the Lord!” he boomed, his voice echoing around the small space. “Twelve years, Maddie! For twelve years, the Lord tested me! But He showed me the way. He never let you get too far. And just when I thought I had lost you, there you were! He led me straight to you, so I could finish my work.”
He freed the knife from its sheath, holding it up for her to see.
*
Devon suppressed a gasp at the sight of the long obsidian blade and the dark red coating that smeared its handle and Billy’s gloved hand. The blood glistened in the lamplight, still fresh. It made her gag, for she knew what it meant.
“That’s right, honey,” Billy said gleefully. “No one’s coming to save you.”
She felt herself coming apart. This couldn’t be happening. All these deaths. Jessica. Mrs. Brindle. Chuck and Sally. And now Henry and…
She couldn’t think it. She’d only just found her. She couldn’t lose Jordan, not like this. Not when—
“Oh, don’t worry, your detective friend is still alive.”
The words stunned her. What kind of game was he playing?
“I mean, she’s dying, for sure,” he said, smirking cruelly. “But I wasn’t ready for her to die yet. I want her to see how she failed you first.”
Jordan was alive? Jordan was alive. Thank you, God.
The thinnest sliver of hope ignited within her. She pictured her lover lying in the snow, bleeding and alone. She swallowed a sob. How long could she survive? Devon had to get to her.
Hope burned into anger. Anger at the monster before her. Anger at what he had done. Anger burst into bright fury.
She thought of the knife Jordan had given her. It was in their bedroom, in the pocket of her jeans. Her mind raced. She’d never get to it in time, not with Billy holding a gun on her. She noticed his limp for the first time, saw the blood dripping from his torn pants leg. Max. She had to force her fear aside. This might be her opening, but she had to distract him somehow. She had to break his focus.
She raised her chin to him with as much defiance as she could muster.
“She didn’t fail me. She never could.”
Billy blinked at her slowly, realization dawning. “You love her.”
“Yes.”
Billy cocked his head. “And what does that feel like? To know you’ve killed someone you love?”
Devon didn’t take the bait. She might have once, but not now. Jordan had shown her the truth. This was his doing, not hers. “You tell me. You killed Mom. And your parents.”
Billy’s lips twitched. “I delivered them.”
“Delivered them from what?” She could feel precious seconds ticking by, but she had to keep him talking. She needed to enrage him again if she had any chance of catching him by surprise.
“Not from—to,” Billy corrected. “I delivered them to God.”
“Why?”
Billy seemed confused by the question. “Because I loved them. Suffering is the only way to salvation.”
“But I saw your face that night,” Devon said. “You hadn’t planned to kill Mom. You lost control.”
“I did not,” Billy said through gritted teeth, but Devon could see his conflict playing across his features. She was on to something.
“Was it because she stood up to you?” she demanded. “Because she finally saw you for the monster you are?”
Instead of rage, a sickening grin curled his lips. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? That she didn’t know. But she knew.”
Devon felt as though she’d been punched in the gut.
It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.
“Oh yes, dear one. She knew. She had to have known. Why do you think she was so afraid of me?”
Devon realized then that Billy was lying. Her mother hadn’t known, not for certain, anyway. She never would have let Devon go with Billy on that trip if she had. But even if she had known—and maybe that was why she had stood up to Billy in the end—how would that have made her any different from Devon? Devon had known, had witnessed it, had—God help her—taken part in burying the body. But Devon had been afraid for her mother, for herself, and so she had stayed silent. With Jordan’s help, she had forgiven herself for that. And if she could forgive herself, then didn’t she owe her mother the same kindness?
“Plus, there was the body.” Billy yanked Devon back to the present.
“What body?”
“The body I had stashed in the basement.”
Devon felt her face drain
of color. She had never been able to figure out that part. At last she understood. Billy lit up with delight.
“Who do you think they found in the ashes?” he asked smugly. “A few weeks before the fire, I stumbled across a woman on my way home from work. Flat tire, out in the middle of nowhere. I felt God telling me to deliver her. So I did.”
Billy shifted with nervous excitement. He was getting distracted, lost in his memory and pride. Devon tried to keep her expression neutral.
“There hadn’t been anyone on that road for miles. But just as I was loading the body into my trunk, I saw headlights. The car pulled over. A man came up, thinking I had broken down. I hadn’t gotten the trunk completely closed, and he saw the body. He turned to run but I chased him down. I cracked him in the back of the head with my flashlight. I guess I broke his skull, because he fell down, dead. Suddenly I had two bodies to deal with. And two cars.
“I hauled his body into my trunk with the woman’s. There was a small pond nearby so I sank both their cars into it. Then I drove off. I came to an old abandoned barn a few miles down in the woods. I was going to keep going, but then I saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“The eagle,” he said simply, as if that explained everything. Devon didn’t ask. Billy explained anyway. “It was circling overhead in the tree canopy. Then it swooped into the barn. I knew that’s where I needed to bury them. I put her in the ground first, but when I went to drag him out of the trunk, the eagle returned. It landed on my car and just…stared at me. I stared back for a while, and then looked down at the man again. He was roughly my build, same color hair. His face even looked a bit like mine. We could have been brothers.
“God was trying to tell me something. He had stopped me for a reason that night, had brought that man to me. I thought about you. You were getting older, and soon enough you’d be leaving our house, and I wouldn’t be able to control you anymore. The time to deliver you and your mother was growing near. And I would need a way out.
“So I brought the man back to the house. I wrapped him in plastic and put him in a trunk in my workroom in the basement. I put a couple gas cans inside, too, and sealed it up tight. A few days later, when you and your mother were at the market, I stashed some more gas cans and plastic bags stuffed with soaked rags in the walls around the house.”
Devon remembered coming home one day to find her father patching holes around the house. She hadn’t remembered the holes being there before that day. He’d said something about rats. Now she understood.
“It was so the house would burn up completely,” she said, astonished.
“Propane in the garage took care of the rest,” he said in confirmation. “I just never figured you’d be the one to start the fire.”
Chapter Thirty
Billy felt good telling Maddie this story. He wanted her to know, wanted her to understand. Maddie was right. He hadn’t planned to kill Marie that night. But when she’d said no to him, he knew it was time. What he’d feared with Maddie had come true with Marie. So he’d killed her. And looking into Maddie’s eyes that night, he’d known he would have to kill her, too. And he would have, if it hadn’t been for that fire. And the rolling pin she’d slammed against his head.
“I have to admit, I was actually proud of you that night,” he said. Maddie looked at him in surprise. “Taking me on like that. I didn’t think you had it in you, not after Wisconsin.”
He watched her face darken at the mention of it. “You were supposed to follow in my footsteps. But you chickened out. You weren’t strong enough. You were such a disappointment.”
“If my not being capable of sadistically murdering someone disappointed you,” she said hotly, “then I’m glad.”
Her righteousness infuriated him. She had no right to act so superior, so saintly. He was God’s messenger. She had rejected Him. He edged closer to her.
“You’re just like me. It’s in your blood. Only you were too much of a coward to see it through.”
“No, Billy. I am nothing like you,” she spit out. The venom in her voice enraged him.
“You liked burying her.”
“No.”
“You wanted to go with me again.”
“No.”
“You would have gone with me again if your mother hadn’t interfered.”
“No!”
He saw the fire inside her, bright as the sun, and it reminded him of his own. Maybe there was hope for her after all. Maybe this had been God’s plan all along.
“It’s not too late,” Billy said, softening his tone. “You can still join me. I can teach you—”
“I’m not like you,” she said, “and I never will be, you sick fuck. I’m no killer! You killed those people, not me. I’m not afraid of you anymore. I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to you back then, but I am now. You can’t hurt me anymore.”
The last thread of his control broke in a white-hot rage. He raised the knife high, shouting to the heavens, “The light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine!”
The door crashed open behind him. He turned, eyes flashing. “No!”
*
Jordan leaned against the doorframe, adrenaline all that was keeping her upright. Time stretched and slowed, giving her an infinitesimal, endless moment to plan her attack. She hadn’t had time to strategize. She had just pulled herself up to the doorframe when she heard Billy’s shouting. She had understood instantly that she was out of time.
Throwing open the door had sapped the last of her strength. But now, in these milliseconds stretched endless, she drew on her father’s courage, on all that she had been and was or ever would be, on her grief and her joy and her infinite love for the astonishing, miraculous woman before her. And it fueled one last, desperate act.
She saw everything at once. The knife in his hand. The gun in the other. Devon’s face. The bloody, torn pants leg.
She launched herself at Billy, not caring about the raised knife or the gun. She rammed him in the chest with her shoulder, pumping her legs with all her might, driving him backward. They slammed to the ground, the knife skittering away along the wooden floor. She dug her fingers inside the ripped fabric, into the tears in his flesh. He howled in pain but she was on to her next target, battering his hand over and over on the floor until the gun finally came loose.
She lunged for it, but he slammed his meaty palm into her temple, knocking her off balance. They rolled, wrestling for supremacy. She landed a solid blow to his midsection, but she could feel her strength ebbing.
Not yet. Please, just a few more seconds.
But it was not to be. Billy seized her collar, slamming her head against the floor. Dazed, she could not fend off a devastating fist against her wounded abdomen.
Jordan curled into herself, the agony relentless. She fought to stay conscious.
Billy crawled to the gun. With a final, consuming effort, she grabbed for his bloody leg again but came up with nothing but air. Billy reached out his hand. The sound of a round being chambered stopped him cold.
Jordan followed Billy’s gaze to the barrel of the gun clutched firmly in Devon’s steady hand.
*
The fight lasted maybe twenty seconds, but it might as well have been twenty years. It was a slow-motion version of the speed of light.
It had taken Devon at least half that time to shake off the shock of what she was seeing. Time gathered and waned. Her limbs felt leaden and rubbery. She couldn’t force her legs to move. She needed to do something, anything. Jordan was fighting for her life, for their lives. Why couldn’t she move?
Then she saw Jordan’s gun. It had come loose when Jordan had knocked him to the ground. Everything clicked into place. She grabbed the weapon, flicked off the safety, and pulled back the slide, just like Jordan had shown her.
She pointed it at Billy’s forehead. His eyes were wide, disbelieving. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to check on Jordan, but she knew she couldn’t take the risk of e
ven the slightest distraction. She could hear Jordan’s weak respiration, and it was reassurance enough for now.
“Come on now, let’s talk about this,” Billy said, hands rising in submission.
“Don’t move,” Devon ordered. Her finger twitched against the trigger.
“You said it yourself, Maddie. You’re no killer.” He rose slowly, almost innocently. She wasn’t fooled.
“I said. Don’t. Move.”
“She’s going to bleed to death,” he said, changing tactics. She saw through him. She shifted her aim to his chest. “Are you going to let her die?”
She heard the shallowness of Jordan’s breathing, could almost hear her heartbeat slowing.
Don’t look at her. Don’t look at her. Jordan.
She looked.
It was only for an instant.
Billy lunged.
He was a blur.
Her finger tightened.
He was upon her.
She fired.
Billy’s arms closed around her, pulling her into his body.
Devon tried to fire again, but the gun was wedged between them now, singeing her flesh through the fabric of her robe.
Her breath caught and held.
The arms around her began to loosen.
Devon stepped back.
Billy’s face contorted in surprise. He looked down, touched the crimson stain blooming over his heart with shaking fingertips. He swayed, staring up at Devon. She stared back at him, this man who had haunted her dreams for so many years, who had brought misery and grief to everything he touched. His mouth moved, the words falling from his lips in a gasping whisper. “O remember that my life is wind: mine eye shall no more see good.”
He slumped to the floor, sightless eyes gaping up toward heaven.
Her father was dead. She would not mourn him.
A low groan pulled her back to what truly mattered.
*
“Jordan? Baby?” The words came out on a choking sob. Jordan heard her distantly. She felt Devon next to her, cradling her head. Felt like heaven.
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