She took photos and notes for more than an hour before she admitted something was wrong. Before she accepted that something was preventing her from fully concentrating on the doll in front of her.
“Damn it,” she said to herself.
To just about everyone who came across her, Rory Moore was a mystery. To the doctors who had tried to treat her through childhood and adolescence, to her boss inside the Chicago Police Department, and to the detectives who watched with some combination of confusion, awe, and aversion as Rory solved the cases that had baffled them. With the deaths of her father and great-aunt the previous year, only one person remained in Rory’s life who understood the nuts and bolts of her existence. She remembered Lane’s words again.
Come with me.
Standing from her workbench, she lifted her Armand Marseille and laid it back in the travel box. Upstairs, she packed a suitcase. On the way out of the house, she stopped in the kitchen and pulled the yellow sticky note Lane had left on the front of the fridge. It held the address of the cottage in Peppermill.
CHAPTER 20
A LIGHT BEER RESTED ON THE COASTER IN FRONT OF HIM, AND A FILE folder lay next to it with pages spilling onto the mahogany bar. Peppermill was a small town filled with corner taverns. Lane’s first meeting with Mack Carter had been arranged for seven P.M. at an establishment named Tokens, which was made up of a long bar with a line of stools in front of it and a row of chest-high cocktail tables separating the bar from the booths that studded the opposite wall. The beer was cold, the food was greasy, and it was dark enough for no one to recognize Mack Carter.
Lane was halfway through his beer when Mack walked into the bar. He wore a T-shirt and a Notre Dame hat, and he looked nothing like his television persona. When he approached, the two shook hands. Lane guessed Mack was in his early thirties, with a huge smile that, again, looked different in person than when Lane watched him on television.
“Lane Phillips.”
“Mack Carter. Great to meet you. I was thrilled to hear the network landed you. Your name will go a long way toward lending credibility to the podcast, and I have to tell you”—Mack looked around the bar as if someone might be listening—“I’m going to need a shrink by the time I’m done with this story.”
“I heard you had an interesting couple of weeks.”
“Interesting is one way to describe it. Batshit crazy is another. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t say that to a shrink.”
“I’m not your typical shrink.”
“So I’ve heard.” Mack pointed at Lane’s beer and called over to the bartender to order his own. “Let’s talk.”
They sat on adjacent stools. Mack’s beer was delivered in a pub glass with foam slipping down one side, beer commercial style.
“There’s so much going on psychologically with this story, you’re going to be busy. The plan will be to introduce you in episode five. We’ll do a formal interview to give listeners your credentials. Then we’ll do an overview of the case with you offering your expertise on the psychology of both the killer and the survivors—what they went through during the night of the slaughter and what they’ve been going through since. We can do that all from the studio at my rental house.”
Lane pointed to the file in front of him. “I did some homework and started a profile on the killer.”
“A profile on Charles Gorman?”
“Well, possibly, but that’s not how profiling works. You don’t start with a suspect and work backward. That would defeat the purpose. I start with the crime—the victims, the methods used to kill them, the scene—and create a list of characteristics the killer would likely possess in order to commit such a crime. In this particular case, I’ve started to map out the mind-set needed to produce this level of violence. What I’ve done so far is just a start. I’ll add to it as I learn more about the crime. I’ve also started a second, separate profile of Charles Gorman. Once I’m finished with each profile, we’ll see where they overlap, if they do at all, or if they are exact duplicates.”
“Fascinating,” Mack said. “What do you have so far?”
“Some early notes on Gorman, just from public records, tells me that he was a chemistry teacher at Westmont Prep. A bit of a loner. Socially reserved and awkward. Brilliant mind as far as chemistry is concerned but lacking in social graces. He was straight as an arrow for eight years at the school.”
“What made him snap?” Mack asked.
“There’s a lot more I’ll have to uncover to answer that question, if it can be answered at all. We’ll need to speak with the students and faculty who knew him. His friends and family. His parents, specifically, to see what sort of home life he had growing up. From what I’ve learned so far, he had a normal childhood. But digging into his past will help me see what was going on in his life from childhood, through his adult life, and leading up to the night of the killings. Unfortunately, speaking with Gorman directly is out of the question, from what I’ve heard.”
“I heard the same thing,” Mack said. “He doesn’t know what day of the week it is, let alone what happened in those woods a year ago. I guess if you jump in front of a train, you better make sure you finish the job.”
“I’ve got some connection at Grantville, the psychiatric hospital where Gorman’s at. I’ll put in a few calls and see if I can get more details about his condition.” Lane took a sip of beer. “Tell me about the suicides.”
Mack drained his beer and ordered another. “This is where a strange story gets stranger. The night of the murders, two kids were killed. The rest of the students ran from the house and escaped through the woods, but not before many of them saw the carnage of one of their classmates impaled on the wrought iron gate. So I’m sure it was quite traumatic. A couple of months after the killing, just as school was starting in the fall, one of the kids went back to the woods and jumped in front of the freight train that runs next to the boarding house. She was the first. A couple of months later, it happened again.”
“Another suicide?”
“Yeah,” Mack said. “Same way. Man versus train. Well, girl versus train, to be specific. It was another female student. And just a couple of weeks ago, as I’m sure you’ve seen if you’re one of the twenty-some million people to have viewed the video, Theo Compton was the latest.”
“It’s bizarre. We’ll have to find a way to talk with the students and try to understand what’s pulling so many of them back to that house. Talk with their parents and siblings. Talk with the teachers and faculty.”
“The school has been quite receptive to my inquiries. I can’t tell if they are being openly transparent or trying to appease me because they think it’s the path of least resistance. At any rate, they allowed me a tour of the campus, and I’ve interviewed the dean of students, Dr. Gabriella Hanover.”
“There was something Theo Compton said to you about Charles Gorman. That he believed Gorman didn’t kill his classmates. Any progress on that front?”
“No, I’m still working on that,” Mack said. “And still confused by it. Theo decided to end his life before I had the chance to speak with him again.”
“It appears that the young man was quite tortured by whatever it was he was keeping quiet about. I’d like to hear the full audio from your meeting with him. And also from the night you went out to the boarding house and found him. Maybe I can pick up on something he said.”
Mack nodded. “What played on the podcast was heavily edited because it took a while to get him talking. The unedited conversation is on my laptop back at the house. But to listen to it all again, I’m going to need something stronger than beer.”
“I’ll pick up a bottle on the way over. Bourbon?” Lane asked.
“Perfect,” Mack said as he dropped money next to their half-empty beers.
CHAPTER 21
RORYTURNED OFF 1-94 AND TOOK THE PEPPERMILL EXIT. SHE PULLED through town as night fell and lampposts blinked to life. Her GPS led her onto Champion Boulevard until she came to twin brick pillar
s joined by a tall wrought iron gate. WESTMONT PREPARATORY HIGH SCHOOL was chiseled into the concrete that arced above the gate and joined the two brick pillars. Beyond the gate, a tree-lined path led to campus, where the school’s buildings were shadowed against the darkening night sky. To Rory, the majesty of the campus and the school, the historic buildings and the locked gate, it was all a mockery. It was all meant to demonstrate protection and sanctity. Inside such a fortress, the kids would be sheltered from the dangers of the outside world. Parents had sent their children here believing that myth. They sent their children here to straighten them out, or to teach them discipline, or truly believing that this institution was the best place to prepare their children for the challenges of life. What a sham. Had Rory not fallen under her great-aunt Greta’s watchful eye, she might have ended up at a similar place.
Rory lifted the sticky note she had pulled off the refrigerator and read the address for Lane’s cottage. She pulled away from Westmont Prep and headed to the north side of town. It took ten minutes for Rory to find the bank of rental cottages. They were spaced far apart and ran to the end of a long road that twisted into a cul-de-sac. The cottages were spread around a small lake. She slowed her car as she moved from house to house and read each address. When she found Lane’s cottage, she pulled into the driveway but noticed the windows were dark.
She stood from the car and looked around the small community of homes. For the ride down from Chicago, Rory wore cutoff denim shorts and a tank top. Her new Madden Girl combat boots felt perfect, and she adjusted her thick-rimmed plastic glasses as she surveyed the row of cottages. Surprises and dramatic demonstrations of affection were not her strong suit, and as she stood in front of Lane’s empty cottage she suddenly wished she had called ahead.
Rory left the engine running and the driver’s side door open as she approached the cottage and knocked on the front door. When there was no answer, she pulled her phone from her pocket and called Lane. The surprise was over. The jig was up. She’d just driven two hours and was ready for a beer. When the call went to Lane’s voice mail, Rory dropped the phone into the back pocket of her shorts and stared out at the neighborhood.
Where the hell are you, Lane?
CHAPTER 22
IT WAS CLOSE TO NINE P.M. WHEN LANE PULLED UP TO MACK CARTER’S rental house. It was on the opposite side of Peppermill as his cottage. The sun was at the end of its run on a long summer day, with just enough power left to push shadows of the maple trees across the front yard. Cicadas buzzed from the foliage in a constant hum that blended into the humid night.
Mack keyed the front door, and Lane followed him inside.
“They’ve set me up nicely,” Mack said as he walked through the house and into the kitchen. “The studio is top notch, and we do all our recordings and voice-over work in here.”
Off the kitchen, French doors led to the recording studio. Lane saw a bank of computers on the table with microphones and headphones in front of them.
“Everything I record out in the field is reworked in here. I also have a tech team back in New York that handles anything we can’t. Because I’m doing the podcast in real time, the New York people jump in when we’re behind on a deadline.”
Mack pulled glasses from the cabinet and poured two fingers in each from the Maker’s Mark that Lane had purchased on the way over. They headed into Mack’s studio and placed headphones over their ears as they sat at the table. Mack cued up the soundtrack. A few seconds later, Lane was sipping bourbon and listening, enthralled, to Mack Carter’s conversation with Theo Compton. Then the audio switched to Mack’s quivering voice as he narrated his journey along Route 77, past mile marker thirteen, his discovery of the car that sat abandoned on the shoulder, his half-mile trek through the woods to the abandoned boarding house, and finally his discovery of Theo Compton’s body next to the train tracks.
Lane made notes as he listened to the raw uncut footage. On the kitchen table outside the studio, the front display of Lane’s phone lit up with Rory’s face when it rang. The volume was set to high, and the ringtone chimed through the kitchen. Despite the studio doors being open, neither Lane nor Mack heard the phone. Their noise-cancelling headphones prevented them from hearing anything but Mack’s voice as the audio played. The headphones were so effective that Lane’s first indication that something was wrong came from his other senses. The odor of gas was first to take his attention from the audio he was listening to. Then it was the vibration of the explosion. He never heard a thing.
CHAPTER 23
RORY TRIED LANE AGAIN AS SHE SAT IN HER CAR, WHICH WAS STILL parked in the driveway of the empty cottage. After several rings, the call went to voice mail. Finally, she swiped the screen of her phone until she came to the app that she and Lane shared. It allowed them to locate their phones when misplaced. She scrolled through the screen and tapped Lane’s name. A map appeared with a blinking icon that represented his location. He was in Peppermill, about three miles away on the opposite side of town. She tapped the blinking icon and pulled out of the driveway while the GPS led her to the coordinates.
All the problems with her plan began to dawn on her as she drove. First, showing up unannounced was never a good idea. Suddenly, the idea that she would surprise Lane with a romantic gesture had her palms slipping off the steering wheel as her mind processed the situation she put herself in. Second, she considered herself skilled at many things, but stalking was not one of them. She realized that the tracking app didn’t offer an exact address, only a location, and Rory wasn’t about to go door-to-door through a residential neighborhood looking for Lane. Finally, the most chest-tightening thought was what she would do if she did manage to track him down. Open her arms wide and say “Found you!”
Rory wiped each palm on her cutoff shorts as she drove, her gaze alternating back and forth between her phone and the road, watching her progress on the screen. She turned down a long road and drove slowly until the two blinking icons—hers and Lane’s—grew closer together. But something else caught her attention and pulled her attention away from the map on her phone.
Up ahead she saw a lone house at the end of the cul-de-sac. Smoke billowed from the roof, and flames spat from the windows as they reached up the side of the house and lit up the dark sky.
CHAPTER 24
RORY SKIDDED TO A STOP AT THE CURB. THERE WERE TWO CARS IN the driveway, and one was Lane’s. She kicked open the driver’s side door and ran up the driveway, her combat boots jangling with her steps. The front door was locked. She cupped her hands against the side window and squinted inside. She saw smoke and flames toward the back of the house. She attempted a half-hearted kick to the front door, but it didn’t budge, and at 110 pounds she wasn’t delusional enough to believe another attempt would end differently. She ran around to the back of the house.
Thick black smoke tinged with yellow billowed from the windows on the first floor, rolling up the side of the house and drifting into the dark night. Rory reached the back door and tried the handle. As it opened, a giant plume of smoke nearly swallowed her. She crouched below the curl of ash as it spun over her like a creature slithering to the outside. She stared into the house. The door led into the kitchen.
“Lane!”
She waited for a response, but all she heard were the strange sounds of fire—crackling and hissing and groaning. Turning her head toward the fresh air behind her, she took a deep breath and then ran into the burning house. Once past the initial cloud of smoke that filled the doorway, Rory realized that most of the flames and smoke were at ceiling level and she had decent visibility if she stayed low to the ground. The stinging in her throat and lungs told her she could spend only a minute inside the house. She took a quick trip through the first floor, past the kitchen and into the front foyer before she turned around. The open back door and the freedom it promised was a life raft from which she didn’t want to stray too far.
On her way back toward the kitchen, she saw the French doors off to her right. Throu
gh the smoke and haze, she imagined a shape on the floor. Her lungs burned and her eyes streamed tears. She lifted her shirt and placed the fabric over her mouth. The smoke grew thicker, and she fell onto her hands and knees to continue her approach. She recognized Lane immediately as he lay unconscious on the floor. She checked his neck for a pulse, but her own heart was racing and it prevented her from registering the subtle feelings from her fingertips. She reached down and grabbed him under the armpits, dragging him across the hardwood floor as she backed out of the room and through the kitchen. She pulled him across the threshold of the back doorway and out into the hot summer night, moving as if the curl of smoke had spat her out of the house. Despite August’s heat and humidity, the air outside was cool. Rory sucked in the fresh air as if gulping from a water fountain.
She continued her backward trek, her legs fatigued and her quads burning by the time she had Lane in the grass of the backyard and at a safe distance from the house. She knelt by his side and touched his face, feeling the tacky stick of coagulating blood. The flames from the burning house offered enough light to see that the source of the blood was a wound somewhere in his hairline.
She finally confirmed that he was breathing. Then she looked back to the house. Someone else was inside, and she thought briefly of attempting to enter again, but the flames had grown stronger now. The back door was like the mouth of a dragon breathing flame and smoke into the night.
CHAPTER 25
IT WAS JUST BEFORE SUNRISE WHEN RORY STOOD FROM THE CHAIR AND stretched the stiffness from her muscles. She looked down at Lane. A mask engulfed his nose and mouth and forced oxygen into his lungs. A few minutes longer, the doctors had told her, and he’d have succumbed to smoke inhalation. As it was now, the time in the burning house had simply smeared his lungs with soot and inflamed his trachea—rather minor concerns when compared with his head injury. Whatever piece of shrapnel the explosion shot through the house had resulted in a hairline fracture of the skull and a brain hemorrhage that required close monitoring. The doctors were watching to make sure the swelling subsided and the blood resorbed before they would consider him out of the woods. A couple of days, likely. A week at most, depending on how he responded to the steroids and diuretics.
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