TEENAGER BELIEVED VICTIM OF
HIT AND RUN
The search for missing teenager Alison Garner came to a tragic end late yesterday, when two migrant workers found the girl’s body hidden in a gully off the shoulder of Highway 60.
Police have concluded that the girl was struck by a vehicle on the highway while she was riding her bicycle, which was also found hidden near the body. The coroner reported that Garner was apparently alive for some time after the accident and might well have been saved if emergency personnel had been alerted.
‘That’s the terrible thing about this case,’ said Lake Wales Police Chief Thomas Cappelman in yesterday’s press conference. ‘Whoever hit this girl simply dragged her off the road and let her die. He hit her, and then he hid her body and didn’t tell a soul. This wasn’t just an accident. This was murder. When we find the driver, that individual is going to prison for the rest of his life. I promise you that.’
‘See the little white cross?’ Peach told Justin. ‘You have to be careful when you drive here.’
51
Frank Macy looked surprised.
That was what Cab thought as he studied the dead man’s eyes. Surprised that he had been conned. Surprised that a man who was smart, cool, and lethal could be played for a fool. Surprised that anyone would try to make him famous for a series of murders he didn’t commit.
‘Someone wants Macy to take the fall. That was the plan all along.’ Cab pointed at the empty pistol case. ‘Macy’s prints are going to be on the gun and the clip,’ he said.
He stared at the article pinned to the bulletin board and the message scrawled across it. All fake. This was never about revenge. It was all about misdirection. They’d been led down the garden path, led toward Frank Macy from day one. Someone wanted them to believe that history was about to repeat itself.
And it was. It was.
‘Macy would have taken the blame for the Labor Day murders, too,’ Lala said. ‘No one would ever have found his body. Biggest manhunt since Booth, and all the while he would have been sitting inside some alligator’s stomach.’
‘He’s in the house right now,’ Cab said. ‘He’s going to kill Diane. That’s the final play.’
He thought: My mother’s in there, too.
The rain washed inside the open garage door like a wavy curtain. The wind was a loud, incessant whistle. He turned toward the door, but whatever was going to happen had already begun. Not even a block away, he heard the first bang, and then in rapid succession, he heard four more bangs, muffled but sharp. Gunshots.
Cab sprinted. The storm hit him in the face, as if he’d struck a wall. It nearly knocked him backwards off his feet. Lala ran, too, but he didn’t wait for her. His feet punched through the standing water, down the driveway, onto the street. It was like running through molasses, the water grabbing his ankles, the slick mud making him slip. He was in slow motion, battling the wind.
He could barely see, not in the daytime darkness, not with his eyes slitted against the downpour. He couldn’t hear anything except the storm roaring in his ears, as fierce and loud as a lion. He ran by feel, his fist clenched around his gun.
Fifty yards from Diane’s estate, he spotted a lump in the water, like a whale breaching. When he knelt down, he saw a body facedown near the sidewalk. Cab felt the man’s neck, but there was no pulse. He grabbed his shoulder and turned him over, and he recognized the face of the estate’s security guard, with a bullet hole like a third eye squarely in his forehead.
Whoever had pulled the trigger was already on his way, heading for Diane. And Tarla.
Lala caught up to him. She tugged on his sleeve, pulling him to his feet. ‘Come on,’ she shouted. ‘Cab, come on!’
They left the dead guard where he was. They kept running.
Cab charged toward the vine-covered walls surrounding Diane’s house. The mop heads of the palm trees shot spikes through the air, forcing him to duck. The bay seemed to be coming for them, like an entire ocean slouching down the street. He reached the iron gates of the estate, which swung wildly, bouncing open and then snapping shut like the jaws of a giant turtle. He and Lala waited. When the wind split the gates apart, Cab grabbed Lala’s hand and dragged her through the gap just before the heavy wing reversed course and took aim at them with the speed of a train.
They bolted up the cobblestoned driveway, but someone was in their path, blocking their way. A man waited for them on his knees. His arms drooped at his side, and when the man’s fist emerged from the water, it held a gun. He didn’t point it at them. Instead, the man’s torso swayed, and the gun fell from his hand. His whole body sank sideways, and he went limp.
Cab and Lala ran forward. It was Garth.
The masseur’s tanned face looked pale for the first time in his life, and watery blood pulsed from a scorched bullet hole near his shoulder. His brow and bulbous nose were contorted in pain, but he relaxed when he saw Cab.
‘I chased him back here,’ Garth mumbled. ‘Bastard killed the guard. He got me, but I think I got him, too.’
‘I’ll stay with you,’ Lala said.
‘Forget me. He’s heading inside.’
‘Just one?’ Cab asked.
‘Just one guy. One guy with a big gun. Déjà vu, huh?’
*
The storm raged. The house shook.
Tarla and Diane sat on opposite sides of the sofa on the north wall. Caprice stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, staring out at the garden. ‘You’d think the eye of the storm would be coming across soon,’ she said.
Tarla hoped that was true. They needed a break where the wind died and the rain stopped. Chayla seemed to become more violent as the hours passed. They felt as if they were in a cage, with zoo animals roaming free just beyond the black glass.
The room smelled of cranberry, like Christmas, an oddly comforting aroma in the hot summer. A fat scented candle burned unevenly on the table near the patio doors, and its liquid pool of wax glistened. A tapered white candle flickered in front of them, casting a shimmery glow on Diane’s face. Otherwise, they were in the dark. With the power off, the air had grown hot and heavy.
‘What’s happening?’ Diane asked. ‘And where’s Garth? How long has he been gone?’
‘Do you want me to go look for him?’ Tarla asked.
Near the doors, Caprice shook her head. ‘I don’t think we should go anywhere alone.’
Tarla wondered where Cab was. She told herself that soon enough, he would be here. Everything would be fine. He would stroll in, wet, smiling, hair spiky, and he would make a joke. There was nothing to worry about.
‘Damn the phones,’ she said when she tried to call him. No signal. She wanted to hear her son’s reassuring voice.
Blown sand rapped on the glass, as if it were knocking, asking to come in. Tap tap tap, like a Morse code. Leaves slapped on the doors and stuck there. Water squeezed its way onto the tile floor in tiny puddles. Wind got inside the walls and wailed like a ghost pining for a lost love. Tarla experienced a strange sensation, and she didn’t know what it was. It had been such a long time she’d felt anything like it, but something nameless wrapped itself around her body like a damp fog. And then she understood. It was fear. She was scared to death.
Tap tap tap, said the sand.
Slap slap slap, said the leaves.
My love, my love, my love, said the ghost in the attic.
Bang bang bang.
Tarla stood up immediately, her body tense. ‘What was that? Did you hear that?’
Diane stared at her. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’
‘That wasn’t the storm,’ Tarla said.
Caprice eyed the invisible garden. She went and got a candle from the table and held it near the glass, its light like a beacon. The storm assaulted the window, inches from her face. ‘I don’t see anything,’ she said.
She turned around to face them. She still held the candle.
Tarla looked over Caprice’s shoulder, past the dancing
light, which reflected in the glass. One moment, nothing was there, and the next moment, something took shape outside the doors.
A man. A man in a hood.
Tarla screamed.
52
Peach drove.
She didn’t care about the storm. She didn’t care that everyone else had closeted themselves inside their homes to steer clear of the worst, furious hours. The wind threw her heavy car like a toy around the highway, but she drove and drove, past the beaches, across the bridge, into the desolate heart of Tampa. She wasn’t aware of time passing or of debris pounding her windows or of her engine coughing out warnings as the water threatened to flood it. The bay could have swallowed her whole, and she wouldn’t have flinched; she would have stared sightlessly ahead as she vanished under the waves.
She drove.
Her mind was a child again. Chayla was in the future. Her past rose out of the bay like a sea monster, winding its fingers around her throat. She remembered.
She remembered everything she’d buried for ten years.
The accident threw her body forward.
She was already dizzy from the sickness in her chest. Her clothes were glued to her clammy skin. She’d thrown up twice in a plastic garbage bag, but where she’d missed, she’d spit up over the back seat of Lyle’s Mercedes. The car smelled like her puke, mixed with the nasty sweetness of whatever Deacon was smoking in the front seat.
She lay there, stretched out in the back, coughing, gagging, her chest hurting, wondering if she were going to die.
Then she was airborne. Metal hit metal. Tires squealed. She flew, rolling and slamming into the back of the front seat. Her head hurt. Her mouth bled. She found herself on the floor, staring at the roof of the car.
Deacon murmured something, like a curse or a prayer. ‘Oh, my God.’
He got out and left her. She heard his running footsteps on the highway. She was alone. She hacked, and phlegm caught in her throat and bubbled onto her lips. She had vomit in her hair. She was scared, and she wanted to be home.
‘Deacon?’ she called plaintively, but he didn’t answer. ‘Deacon!’
She heard strange noises on the road, like when they were camping and Lyle scraped a shovel over dirt to cover up a fire. She pushed out her tiny hands, feeling for the door handle. When she pulled the lever, the door unlatched, and she dragged herself into the humid night. Her brain spun when she stood up. She thought she would throw up again.
Peach looked for her brother. It was as if he had disappeared – but no, there he was, behind the car, twenty yards away. The moon made him look like a ghost. The highway was empty, and empty highways made her think of wolves and owls and alligators and other things that had teeth and claws.
‘Deacon? What are you doing?’
She shuffled toward him. Her feet were bare. The rocky shoulder poked at her skin. She wore only her little white nightgown, which flapped in the summer breeze.
‘What’s happening? I’m scared.’
He didn’t notice her at all. She got up really close to him, close enough to see his wild eyes and his mouth hanging open like a dog’s. He was breathing loud and sweating. He clenched and unclenched his fists. His hands were dirty.
‘Deacon?’
She looked down. Splatters of red shined near his feet, like a map broken up by lakes. A big lake and smaller lakes. They made a trail along the asphalt and the dirt shoulder and down into the thick grass of the gully.
‘Why is there so much blood?’
Her brother saw her for the first time, and his eyes widened. He sucked in his breath and bellowed at her. ‘FRUITY, GET BACK IN THE CAR!’
She shriveled in fear. ‘But Deacon, I—’
‘GET BACK IN THE CAR AND SHUT UP!’
Peach ran to the Mercedes over the rocky ground and practically dove into the back seat. She took a fleece blanket she’d used and threw it over her head. She curled into a corner, hugging herself so tightly she thought she could squeeze herself into a ball and roll away. She waited, and she had no idea how much time passed before Deacon got into the front seat again.
She could feel him looking at her, even though she couldn’t see him.
‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured. ‘I apologize for yelling at you.’
She didn’t dare say a word.
‘We hit a deer. I freaked out.’
Peach let the blanket slip off part of her face, enough to free her eyes. Her voice muffled, she spoke into the fleece. ‘Did it die?’
‘Yes, it died.’
‘Oh, no. Oh, was it a big deer or a little deer?’
‘It was a big deer. It lived a long life. Don’t be sad.’
‘But what do we do—’
‘We don’t do anything,’ Deacon told her. ‘It didn’t happen. Do you understand me? It never happened.’ He leaned way far back, until his body was almost over the seats, and he was practically in her face. ‘I mean it, Fruity. You never tell a soul about this. It’s our secret. Okay? Promise me.’
‘I promise,’ Peach told him.
It was the promise of a scared little twelve-year-old girl, but she kept her word. She never told anyone. After a while, she even stopped telling herself. The accident became a kind of odd little dream from her pneumonia, something that might have been real and might have been a fantasy. It wasn’t even until she and Justin drove to Lake Wales again, and she came upon that isolated section of Highway 60, that she even remembered that anything had happened.
Deacon hit a deer. Right there in that dangerous section of road. It had nothing to do with the little white cross.
Peach drove. She might as well have been flying, with Chayla lifting her on its wings. She kept hearing an echo of voices, as if they were stuck in the clouds, raining from the sky. Deacon’s voice. And Lyle’s voice, too. Arguing. They always argued, but this was much worse.
‘I can’t protect you anymore,’ Lyle shouted. He didn’t know Peach could hear them from her sick bed. That she was listening to things that made no sense.
Deacon: ‘You’re supposed to be my brother. This is my whole life!’
‘Blame yourself, not me,’ Lyle told him. ‘You didn’t give me any choice. I’m sorry, but you have to face what you did. I talked to a lawyer. She says there’s no way to escape this.’
Except there was an escape.
With Lyle dead, it all went away.
Peach drove. And drove. She knew where she was going and who she had to see. She knew where Chayla was taking her, carried along by the winds at her back.
53
The patio door was locked.
The man raised his gun and fired two shots into the floor-to-ceiling window beside the door. The glass around the bullet holes became white frost, and cracks wriggled outward like lightning bolts. Wind punched loudly through the two holes, increasing the pressure on the weakened frame, and when he fired again, the window exploded inward in a hail of diamonds.
Tarla squeezed her eyes shut. Glass rained down on her hair. Her ears rang with the explosions. The air in the sunroom smelled burnt, and sheetrock dust made a cloud where the three bullets tunneled into the rear wall.
He stepped through the shattered window past jagged teeth clinging to the frame. The storm came with him, loud and uncontrolled. Curtains on both ends of the wall of glass began to dance. Ten feet away, Tarla felt spray soaking her face. With the window broken, the zoo cage had swung open, and wild animals poured inside.
The man with the gun was dressed as he had been ten years earlier, all in black. The hood covered his face, but seeing him, Tarla knew it was the same man. This time, she knew she wouldn’t walk away alive, waking up in a hospital days later. None of them would. She had a vague curiosity about what it would feel like when he shot her, how much it would hurt, how long it would take her to die. She tried to swallow her regrets, which were numerous. Cab’s smile filled her mind, as it had the first time.
Caprice stood next to her, stiff as a corpse. Her hair sparkled with fr
agments of glass. Her eyes were dark little stones, and her jaw was set, fiercely determined. She looked like a cat on the hunt, ready to pounce. Tarla wanted to catch her eye and say: You won’t win.
Diane hadn’t moved. This man had come for her, but she looked serene, as if the Chopin funeral march were playing calmly in her head, a piano serenade for the soon-to-be dead. For the first time in a long while, Tarla thought that her friend looked free. She realized it had been a terrible mistake for Diane ever to enter the election campaign. Politics changed you. It made you worse than you were. Now, with that burden lifted, she could simply be Diane again, if only for a few more moments.
Time hung in the air, the way a bubble floats, but every bubble has to pop eventually. The man took a step toward the three of them. He couldn’t miss, not at this distance. Even so, he was hurt. His free hand clutched his side. Tarla could see a tear in the fabric, drenched red with blood.
‘You don’t need to hide this time,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’
He stopped, and it was as if, finally, he wanted them to know who he was. He took his gloved hand from his wound and grabbed a fistful of nylon above his forehead and slid the hood off his face. His red hair was flat and wet. His skin flickered with dark shadows from the candles. He was handsome and rugged, the kind of man who drew second looks wherever he went. To Tarla, he was so, so young – not even thirty – which meant that ten years earlier he had truly been no more than a boy. An eighteen-year-old, slaying his brother, like Cain killing Abel. Tarla realized that it was youth she had sensed behind the hood back then. Youth, that foolish time when emotion means everything, and consequences don’t exist.
Diane said: ‘Deacon?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Deacon Piper said to her.
Tarla was close enough to see his face clearly. He wasn’t sorry. He wasn’t necessarily a killer in his heart, but he wasn’t sorry. He was a man with a mission, who wouldn’t stop until he was done.
‘Why?’ Diane murmured. As if it were nothing but idle curiosity. As if she were talking about the choice of paint on a wall. ‘Why do this?’
Season of Fear Page 34
