"Yes to?"
"Yes to all of it." She thrust a hand into her hair, taken briefly by surprise, as always, that most of it was gone. "Trying to get back to any kind of normal life after what happened to my family hadn't been working out so well. I was floundering, even way back then, long before the attack on me, long before Friday, when I admitted it to you that I was treading water, staying alive, though not really living."
"And then you no longer had to even try to keep treading. You could just sink, hide away, stop trying to be part of the world that had moved past you."
"Exactly," she whispered.
Until he made her by doing things like staring at her with heat in his eyes from the doorway to her bedroom one hot summer night. Showing up and treating her like a woman rather than a fragile doll. Challenging her, arguing with her. Holding her in his arms and wanting her. Dragging her out here and forcing her to admit the truth.
Over the past few days, she'd begun to acknowledge the changes within herself. She actually thought about leaving here. Being free. Being alive again.
Because of him.
He was making her come to life whether she liked it or not. And now that it had started to happen, she sensed he was not going to give up until she became the woman he expected her to be.
Wyatt had taken Lily out to dinner specifically so she could escape her worries for a little while. So why he'd felt the need to segue into the role of amateur shrink and try to analyze her, he didn't know. Having started, though, he couldn't deny he wanted to know more. He wanted her to admit more. Perhaps exposing more of herself, letting the dark, unhappy thoughts out into the open, would keep her from dwelling on them so incessantly in her daytime hours and her nighttime ones.
But it wasn't to be. He had no sooner opened his mouth to ask her to continue talking about her feelings about her sister, her past, than a large man appeared by their table, and intruded in a loud voice. "Hey, you're him, right? You're the kid from that house up Dead Man's Beach? The murder house?"
Wyatt froze, his spine snapping hard against the back of his chair. Across from him, Lily's eyes had widened in shock, her mouth falling open on a tiny gasp.
Damn it. The span of years might have been long, but memories in small New England towns ran longer. He'd avoided going to Keating, driving out of the way to come up here to an even smaller town farther from the old beach house. Putting distance between himself and anyone who might recognize him had been an instinctive move.
He hadn't gone far enough.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he finally replied.
"I remember that story," the stranger said, as if Wyatt hadn't even spoken. "I was a teenager and read every one of the newspaper articles. Damn, you look just like your dad. That black hair and those blue eyes-you don't forget a combination like that. Good-looking fella, ayuh. And your mother, what a beauty."
Wyatt didn't even look up to acknowledge the man, whose slur outed him as drunk. The alcohol had obviously stripped the stranger of his inhibitions. Not to mention his common sense, considering he continued to shoot off his mouth, despite the deepening scowl Wyatt couldn't keep off his face.
"The whole town talked about nothing else that whole summer. Tragic."
"You're mistaken," he managed to say, forcing the words through clenched teeth.
"No, no, I remember like it was yesterday!"
Wyatt's entire body remained rigid, tense, and ready to spring into action, even though his mind cautioned against doing anything impulsive, anything he might regret. Laying out a stupid drunk who shot off his mouth regarding things he had no business asking about was definitely something he would regret.
"Let's go," he said to Lily, immediately rising, pushing his chair back hard against the wall. He tossed several bills on the table, then turned to fully face the stranger, a red-nosed guy with weathered, lobsterman's skin and milky eyes. "Excuse me, I think you've mistaken me for someone else. We were just leaving."
The stranger didn't budge. Still oblivious, blind to Wyatt's mood, he also missed the tension that had fallen over the entire restaurant. "Come on, at least admit it's you.
They found you in the lighthouse, right? Or was it in the house? Either way you were covered with blood. I mean, you are the kid who survived after that insane-"
Wyatt didn't think: he merely reacted, losing himself to some primal drive that his own intellect hadn't been able to completely subdue. He grabbed the man's beefy upper arm, clenched his fingers tightly around it, and spun him toward the wall, twisting the arm around until the shoulder had to be screaming. Leaning close, their backs to every other person in the place, who probably watched wide-eyed, he snarled, "Don't say another word. Not one word. Do you understand?''
The drunk grunted. Wyatt tugged farther.
"I repeat. Do you understand?"
With a wince, the man nodded quickly, at last recognizing the explosive situation he'd been about to kindle. "Sorry," he whispered. "Hey, I'm sorry. Obviously I mistook you for someone else."
As instantly as it had arisen, Wyatt's anger dissipated. His fingers jerked open and he let the man go, already regretting that lapse, that loss of control.
If Lily hadn't been here, an audience to the truth about the dark past Wyatt had tried so hard to put behind him, would he have been so quick to try to shut up a loud drunk? Maybe. But maybe not.
Of course, if Lily hadn't been here, nothing on heaven or earth would have induced him to come to within a hundred miles of this place. Ever.
"Wyatt?" she said, her voice subdued. She watched from a few feet away, no fear on her face, no flashback of a man's voice raised in anger, thank God. Just concern. "Are you ready to go?"
He nodded once. As the waitress hurried over, finally noticing the situation, he waved toward the cash on the table. "Thank you very much; we'll be leaving now," he said. "I trust that will take care of everything."
The young waitress stared goggle-eyed at the pile of bills. "Sure. You bet. Come back any old time."
Not very likely. Especially not now, when he knew that within hours, all the tiny towns up and down a sixty-mile stretch of coast would be whispering about his presence. The return of the boy who'd survived such an infamous crime.
Not glancing left or right, he put his fingers on the small of Lily's back and led her to the exit, impervious to the stares, almost hearing the whispers.
Was it really him? How old was he, five or six? Did they ever find out how much he saw? Whether he went to the lighthouse on his own, or was brought there? All that blood! I remember the pictures in the paper-they looked like such a nice couple.
It was almost as if he had a sixth sense and could hear the buzz of conversation, the words swirling around and around in his mind, present and past mixing up. The questions were all the same now as they had been then, exploding in the silence, crowding out the quiet hum of the engine and the deep, even sound of Lily's breaths in the seat beside him.
Tension filled the car throughout the drive back to the house. Whatever conversation he and Lily might have had before, now they shared only the uncomfortable memory of Wyatt losing his famed cool.
She asked no questions. Didn't pry, didn't try to tease him out of his dark mood or tell him that fair was fair- she'd done some talking, and now he should.
For all of that, he was most grateful.
But that still didn't stop him from dropping her off, escorting her to the door, then turning around, getting back in his car, and driving all the way back to Washington that very night
The murder house. Wyatt's handsome father and beautiful mother. The boy who'd survived.
Had his family really been killed in this house? God, had he really witnessed the murders of his own parents when he was just a small child?
Lily couldn't get those thoughts out of her head during the ride back to the house or in the moments after Wyatt had unceremoniously dropped her off and left. Her mind had, of course, filled in the gaping blanks left b
y the drunk man's story. She suspected finally filling in those blanks would provide a complete explanation for the varying facets of the supervisory special agent's life: his brilliance, his secretiveness, his intensity, his solitary lifestyle. His enigmatic personality.
All those answers, just waiting to be discovered.
The information was out there. She knew it. A trip to the local newspaper office or the library would provide archives. That failing, a talkative resident familiar with the history of this town would almost certainly answer any questions she cared to ask about this house.
"So many questions," she whispered, looking out her bedroom window, as she had been for several minutes, since his taillights had disappeared down the steep driveway and up the lonely beach road.
Lily didn't know that she could do it, or even that she needed to. She already knew the basics. Something awful had happened here. Something that had scarred
Wyatt for life, making him the man he was today. It had shaped him the way a piece of raw metal was hammered and formed in the punishing fires of the furnace.
"But could I do that? Intrude on his past like that, ask those intimate questions?" she added, her own breaths making misty circles against the glass, proof that autumn was indeed coming fast in this part of the world. She turned to the other window, on the eastern wall, which overlooked the ocean. Staring down at the shore, at the blackness of the water, the faint outline of the faded lighthouse up the beach-the place he seemed to hate even more than this house-she knew she could not.
No research, no digging, no questions. She couldn't do that to him. It was Wyatt's story. His secret. His history. When he wanted her to know about it, he would tell her. Until then, she could only treat him with the same kindness and respect he'd always shown her and mind her own goddamn business. That was the very least she could do, given all she owed him.
She wandered back to the bed, eyeing the room, studying the curve of the antique four-poster, the soft, honeyed oak of the dresser, and the gently billowing sheers on the window.
The murder house.
Strange that it still felt so safe to her. So comforting, even if it had a horrible history she might someday learn about.
Stranger that he'd brought her here. She'd nearly been killed and her savior had brought her to the site of his darkest, most vicious nightmares to hide her from the world. He'd set aside the seething emotions he must have for the place and installed Lily within it, coming back here, month after month, despite the memories that had to ooze from every wall, seep from each crevice in the floor.
The sacrifice was staggering.
So at the very least, to repay the man, she could be patient and wait for him to tell her the truth. Even though she knew full well that day might never come.
Chapter 8
Frank Addison wasn't as gulhble as the Pennsylvania dentist had been. Or the first two victims, who had been so caught up in their own excitement that they'd walked right into their own massacres.
Not this man. He was cautious, wary. He hadn't moved forward two steps without taking one back since the minute he'd exited his pickup, which was parked by the side of the motel. In fact, for a moment, it appeared he was going to slip away without ever entering the dark, dingy room where the scene had been so carefully laid out. The man's sixth sense had alerted him that something was off, and he'd hesitated before coming in, not driven by his insane need and anticipation of the clandestine evening awaiting him. Maybe because he was another predator, he'd smelled a trap.
Thankfully, though, the man's defenses had dropped when he heard little "Zach's" voice coming from inside the room right after he'd pushed open the unlocked door. Pitiable and soft. Vulnerable and alone. "Do you know where my mom is?"
Those small digital recorders were remarkable. They could not only distort voices in any number of ways, but they could also throw sound to make it appear that it was coming from another area of the room altogether.
"No, I don't," the man said as he stepped inside. "Did she leave you here…?"
In silence, the ax began to swing through the stale, cigarette- and skanky-sex-smelling air that lived in all rooms like this one. But the trucker was quick on his feet, alert and ready. He spun around, as if sensing someone was behind him, lurking behind the door. For one second, it appeared the blow would glance off a beefy shoulder, and then there would be serious trouble.
But fate decided otherwise. The newly sharpened blade, originally meant for the broad, flannel-covered back, instead kissed Frank Addison's throat, slicing across it as delicately and precisely as a scalpel. It really was surprising, a complete accident, certainly not the result of a carefully aimed blow. The blade could easily have swung across nothing but air, and then they'd be fighting to the death.
Instead, though, the sharp metal cut through layers of skin and clumps of sinew and cartilage as though they were blobs of congealed gravy. When the ax blade emerged from the other side, it took a good inch of the man's windpipe and most of his Adam's apple with it.
Blood immediately gushed out, spewing wildly. That hadn't happened before. The more typical blow, to the lower back, was neater, less messy, with a shirt or pants often sopping up the initial spurts of blood.
This was raw, violent, and explosive. Warm, viscous blood flew everywhere, hitting both their bodies, both sets of hands and feet and everywhere in between. Having taken the precaution of stripping down to bare skin, as always, and wearing only thin gloves and equally thin surgeon's booties, that wouldn't be a problem. Just a bit more to wash up in the mildew-stained bathroom when this was all over.
And it would be over soon. Addison gurgled, lifted his bloody hands to catch the larynx hanging out of his open throat. Finally, after what seemed an age but was probably less than thirty seconds, he fell to his knees, landing hard, his eyes widened in shock and pain. His mouth twisted, moved to try to form words, undoubtedly to ask the same question all of them asked.
Why? Why me?
"It's nothing personal."
Frank didn't reply. Couldn't reply, of course.
"You really should be glad it turned out this way."
"Gaaahh…"
"You see, chances are that you're going to bleed to death long before I cut your cock off and shove it into that hole in your throat."
Funny, for a nearly dead man without a voice box, Frank Addison still managed a sort of scream.
Not so funny, at least not for Frank Addison, was the fact that it took him a few minutes longer to bleed to death than he'd probably have liked.
Wyatt reached Williamsburg by two thirty on Tuesday afternoon, well in time for his three p.m. appointment with Dr. Angela Kean. He'd called the office first thing this morning, telling her it was urgent, and she'd offered to fit him in between other appointments.
The timing couldn't have worked out better. Throwing himself back into the case would help keep his mind off what had happened Sunday night, off the image of Lily, sitting up in that damned house with her computer, clicking away and reading about his past.
She wouldn't.
The thought calmed him. Because he knew it was true. She wouldn't pry. She would wait for him to tell her the truth.
"You're going to be waiting a very long time," he muttered before thrusting thoughts of that whole situation out of his head. As he always did when the memories threatened to arise.
Armed with the digital file he wanted Dr. Kean to hear, he parked outside the expansive, new-looking offices of Eastern Virginia Plastic Surgery, a few spaces down from the row of Mercedes-Benzes, BMWs, and Lexuses that filled all the Doctor Parking Only spaces. Most of them had cutesy personalized tags containing messages like drs-toy, and none appeared to be more than a year old.
Nearly every space in the lot was filled. It appeared that, despite the economy, the plastic surgery business was booming. Possibly because, from the research he'd done, this particular practice, staffed by Dr. Alfred Underwood and several members of his family, was among th
e most renowned in the state. The rich women of Virginia trusted no one else with their lifts, rhinoplasties, implants, and ever-so-discreet liposuction procedures.
Before he even exited his own government-issued sedan, he saw a man, probably around thirty, bound out of the office doors. Dressed in khaki pants and a golf shirt, he also wore an expression of lazy self-indulgence. His clothes, though casual, screamed old money. Though he might have been one of the practice's own clients, the man headed instead for the reserved lot. He hopped over the driver's-side door of a hot red convertible, parked in a space reserved for Dr. Philip Wright.
Gunning the engine, the young doctor backed out of his space as though he were launching a rocket. As he threw the car into drive, grinding the transmission, he hesitated, staring at Wyatt from across the parking lot. He grinned slyly, then pointed one index finger in Wyatt’s direction. The tires squealed as he hit the gas, but above the sound, Wyatt heard him call, "Don't let them touch the face. It's perfect."
A doctor warning away the patients. Amusing.
The car sped away. "Doctor's hours," he murmured, glancing at his watch. He couldn't help wondering if Dr. Wright would have gone zero to one hundred if he'd known an officer of the law was in the vicinity.
Probably. The wealthy didn't always acknowledge that such mundane things as laws applied to them. Having come from such old money himself, he knew that to be true, even if he disagreed with the philosophy.
Heading inside the building, he noted the obvious elegance and atmosphere of the lobby and the waiting area. The place seemed more high-end spa than doctors' office, with plush carpeting, tasteful artwork on the walls, and massive bouquets of fresh flowers. A large silver punch bowl filled with ice and stocked with bottles of Evian water stood just inside the door, and the seating areas in the waiting room were separated into distinct alcoves, offering privacy in a nonprivate setting. Even the underlying music, emerging from some hidden speakers, was soft and classical, no canned Muzak or local radio station blaring tire ads or traffic updates.
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