Three threes combined with the date. That had to be the reason for Molly, though how he knew her birthday remained to be seen.
“Do you know of anyone in the congregation who is”—Jenna stopped and thought was—“well acquainted with Mr. Gray? Someone who might know more specifics about why the date September eleventh or these numbers upset him so?” She left off the “because that person could be our other killer” part. September 11, 2001, troubled nearly everyone in the country, as did its subsequent anniversaries, and for good reason. But had the date bothered the Triple Shooter because he’d lost someone that day or been traumatized himself in the attacks, or was he already obsessed with those numbers for some other reason, like he was threes and sevens, and the tragedy that Tuesday morning only gave him more evidence that the numbers could surround nothing good?
Brother Ozzie nodded slowly. “If anyone would know, it’d be another minister who worked here for about a year and a half, and was here while Tobias was attending. Really took him under his wing, worked to keep him involved, give him someone to talk to. Funny really, since the minister was somewhat new to our church himself. Superintendent had just brought him to us from Raleigh, but before that, the conference had sent him to North Carolina from Kentucky. I think he was actually in Illinois and Indiana prior to that. Sheesh. So is the way of the council, though. You must go where you’re needed and sent. Anyway, that minister left to take on another church a few towns over about six months ago, but he definitely knew Tobias better than anyone. Haven’t seen Tobias since he left, either. I guess after he was gone, Tobias didn’t feel like he fit anymore. Liam was like a security blanket to him here in a lot of ways.”
The hair on Jenna’s neck stood on end, her breathing fast and shallow as the unthinkable swarmed her mind. “Did you say Liam?”
Brother Ozzie nodded. “Uh-huh. Liam Tyler. Great fellow, for sure. Can I get you his contact information? Maybe he can help.”
But now Brother Ozzie’s voice was nothing but white noise in the background, Jenna’s pulse thundering in her own ears. “Oh my God,” she muttered.
The olive color she’d seen when looking at the book in the foyer flashed in. Images flew through her head at a rapid pace: Liam Tyler, his office, Molly Keegan in his office, showing her the painting of The Last Supper. The symbol from the foyer . . . it leapt out at her from her memory of the painting. The symbol was the same design repeated over and over on the wall tapestries in the painting, the restored-color version in Liam’s office. The tapestry, an olive green.
That symbol . . . in the painting, the foyer . . . Jenna had seen it somewhere else, too. The curious charm hanging from the necklace Molly’s mother, Raine, always fiddled with at the base of her throat. As the symbol glowed in Jenna’s mind, the tiny diamond inside the curlicues of it seemed to radiate off of the green background.
Liam’s discomfort the day he found Molly with Jenna in his office at their home. It hadn’t been protectiveness of Molly. It was defensiveness because of their proximity to the painting. As Molly had counted items in the painting, Liam had become increasingly agitated, particularly when Molly had counted the feet shown in the painting. She’d pointed out that there were only fourteen feet visible in the picture, but there were thirteen people, so there should’ve been twenty-six feet.
Molly had pointed out that there were twelve people other than Jesus in the painting. Heck, just the other day . . . “Twelve knights in King Arthur’s Court, but it was thirteen if you counted King Arthur, kinda like Jesus in the Last Supper painting . . .”
Sixteen feet in The Last Supper, and two of those were Jesus’s. So the twelve apostles should’ve had twenty-four feet between them. But they didn’t. If you didn’t count Jesus’s feet, there were only fourteen feet for all twelve apostles. Ten feet were missing.
The Cobbler hadn’t always cut off the victims’ feet. It had seemed at random. Depending on the victim, he’d removed one, none, or both.
The Cobbler had been caught and imprisoned after an anonymous tip sent police straight to his door. They’d found ten feet in the mentally ill man’s freezer. Ten.
For twelve victims.
And that mentally ill man, as they’d just realized, had been framed.
Liam Tyler had known the Triple Shooter, and he’d known his buttons. He wanted Molly out of the way, because she knew his secret, even if she hadn’t realized she did.
At any moment, she could figure out all by herself that her stepfather was the Cobbler, and he was going to make for damned sure she didn’t and no one else did.
“We have to get to Molly and Raine fast. We have to warn everyone there,” Jenna sputtered. Yancy was at the house, too. And CiCi. It was Liam’s house. He could’ve known Eldred was there even if they thought he had no way to or even if they thought Liam was gone. Unlike Tobias, Liam was exactly the person who would surprise someone like Brother Ozzie with what he was capable of. A cold-blooded psychopath who could act like someone he wasn’t, be a different person if it served his ends . . .
“Oh, God help us,” Jenna said, running toward the door without explaining anything more. “We have to get to them now!”
56
Liam had moved toward the stairs. Molly could only guess he was headed to his office. He probably wanted to be alone.
Which was why she had no idea why she decided to sneak away from the living room while her mother had gone to the bathroom to blow her nose, and follow him.
Now she stood with her back pressed to the wall outside Liam’s office, her breaths catching nervously. Her stepfather didn’t like her here when she wasn’t supposed to be, and if he found her right now when he was already angry with Mommy, he wouldn’t be happy. But now that she’d seen him doing something strange, her curiosity had gotten the better of her. She had to know.
After all, when Liam went into his office, he always sat down behind his desk. He never went into the closet.
She could hear her stepfather cursing under his breath. Then nothing.
Was he still in there? Of course he is. He can’t come out without me seeing him.
Still, Molly couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t. The movement and the muttering inside the closet had stopped. Dare she glance inside?
Stupid, she knew, but she couldn’t stop herself. She peeked around the corner carefully, ready to jerk back to attention beside the door at the first hint she’d made a mistake. Maybe run up the stairs.
But she didn’t have to. The office was empty.
Except . . .
A weird glow was coming from behind The Last Supper. The skin on Molly’s neck tickled, and suddenly, her forearms were covered with goosebumps. Something about the eyes in the pictures looked almost like the figures had cats’ eyes. That eerie glow behind them made her feel nervous. More nervous than that day at the grocery store when she knew something might really hurt her.
Don’t be silly. You’re in your own house.
Molly glanced toward the double doors of the closet where Liam had disappeared. How had he gotten out of this room? In the whole time she’d lived here, she’d never known there was any other way except through the door she’d just used to come inside. Her mom had shown her all of the exits, she’d thought, in case of things like fires or a burglary.
But now, here she was, and somehow her stepfather had left the office without her seeing.
And that light . . .
She pushed the closet doors open, half expecting Liam to be hiding in there and to jump out and scare her. He’d want to teach her a lesson about not being nosy. But he didn’t.
Molly’s eyes were drawn to the corner of the closet, where another light peeked from an opening near the floor, a little door that had been covering it set aside on the closet carpet. The same kind of light, in fact. Eerie, glowing. It came from somewhere beyond the portion of the open hole she could see.
&
nbsp; Molly looked back toward the office. She should tell Mommy about this. Maybe they could go in together . . .
But Molly knew how upset Mommy had been since G-Ma, and maybe she should check it out and know what it was for sure before she brought her mom.
With a deep breath, Molly crawled into the little hole.
• • •
Yancy stood right outside the closet in Liam Tyler’s weird-ass office.
After Jenna left, he should’ve walked out the door behind her and rejoined the search for Eldred. Jenna might hate him, but going home wouldn’t help anything. In fact, it’d just evoke more misery, trying to think of what to do or whether or not he should do anything in case Jenna might turn him in to the cops for Denny’s murder. Besides, at some point, he’d have to break the news to CiCi that their secret wasn’t so secret anymore. But he couldn’t do it until her father was found. He didn’t have the heart.
So he’d been at the Tyler place when Victor had come looking for him. The cop had demanded a lot of things from him, and the worst part was Victor had known about Denny. He’d also told Yancy not to say a word about any of it to another person. The cop had been a complete asshole, but in the end, he’d said he was going to make the whole thing go away . . . however the hell he thought he could manage that.
Mad as hell after their conversation, Yancy had come inside for a breather, maybe a glass of water, and to see if CiCi was in the house, when he’d noticed Molly sneaking off after her mother stepped away. Liam had come home, but Yancy saw no sign of him, either. This wasn’t a good time for a six-year-old to be alone, so he’d gone after Molly.
Now she had stepped into the closet in this creepy, glowing place, and she hadn’t come back out. Something didn’t feel right. Not at all. Yancy crouched next to the glowing hole in the wall that led to some kind of crawl space.
Voices.
“What’s going on?”
Eldred.
Yancy whipped out his cell phone, his stomach turning nervous flips. He texted Jenna as fast as he could, their fight forgotten. God, he hoped she’d open the text even when she saw it was him.
I know where they are. Inside. Liam Tyler’s office. In a closet . . . a crawl space. I’m outside it now.
“Shut up, old geezer,” a man’s voice Yancy recognized as Liam Tyler’s said. “I need to figure out what to do.”
A text pinged back, the phone silently blinking the red light to Yancy.
He opened it.
Who is they?
Yancy plucked out the letters:
Eldred, Liam Tyler, and Molly, that I know of . . .
He took a deep breath in and held it, trying to catch the muttering at the other end of the crawl space, but the sound was muffled by distance. If he wanted to hear better, he’d have to go inside.
The red light flashed again, and Yancy opened the text.
God. Yancy, Liam’s dangerous. He’s the Cobbler. Get Molly away. He wants her dead.
What the hell?
“Oh my. What have we here?” Liam Tyler said. “Oh, Molly, you really shouldn’t have come. You’d have been just fine if you hadn’t.”
Oh, shit. It was too late. Liam had noticed her . . .
Yancy’s pulse pounded. He’d go upstairs, get Victor and the other cops. They could storm the place.
On instinct, though, his hand moved toward his leg, took out his gun. If he waited, Molly could be a goner by the time he brought them all back with him.
“You really should learn to leave things be, you know,” Liam said. His voice came from a distinct direction inside the crawl space. “I’ll deal with you, but they’ll all know. They’ll be here soon. You, I’ll hang onto for when I need you . . . I could lie, but it might not be the best course . . .”
Now Liam seemed to be muttering more to himself than to the others. Was this nutjob saying what Yancy thought he was?
Yancy glanced in the direction of where the weird, glowing painting of The Last Supper would be in Liam’s office if he could see through the closet wall, then back toward the crawl space. He pulled his phone back out and shot a text back to Jenna.
Don’t take his word for Molly being okay until you see her or talk to her yourself. Trust me.
His breathing quickened as he readied himself to dart into the crawl space. Jesus. How did he always get himself into these positions?
I love you, Jenna.
He pushed through the doorway right as he heard the gunshot.
57
“Oh, God! Yancy, no . . .”
Jenna’s fingers flew over her phone, typing, begging him not to go in after Molly, to notify the cops at the house. But even as she pressed send, she knew it would be too late. Yancy wasn’t one to sit by while someone was in danger, be it his loved one or a person he barely knew. And she’d told him to get Molly away from Liam.
“ETA five minutes,” Saleda called over the whir of the helicopter’s blades. “The head officers there are on their way down to the office now. They’ll control the situation.”
The hell they will. Somehow, they hadn’t even thought to look inside the Tyler home, yet Eldred was in there. How could that be? Not that she could blame the search teams. She hadn’t taken a thorough look through the house, either. The blood on the doorjamb, the open door . . . she’d been so sure Eldred had been taken or had wandered outside . . .
And Liam had walked right past them all without them knowing. The guy was smart. He’d framed a mentally ill person for his previous crime spree almost without flaw, and then he’d persuaded another mentally ill person to do his dirty work for him, even though the latter didn’t finish the job. Liam Tyler had controlled them all with such ease, weaved seamlessly in and out of a police investigation without so much as a thought drawn to him other than the consensus that he was a protective stepfather who loved his family. And right under the nose of the man who’d investigated the case that happened to be his own serial murders. No wonder he’d hated Dodd so much at their first interview with Molly at the house.
“Have you called Dodd?” Jenna yelled back.
Saleda nodded. “He didn’t pick up. The office he was at earlier said he was already en route back, so he must be in a dead zone.”
Shit. “What about the state cops? They’re still here, right?”
“On the ground, briefed, and waiting for instruction,” Saleda said.
She opened a new text and composed one to Victor. Liam wasn’t stupid. If they stormed that room or wherever they were inside the crawl space, Liam would be an animal backed into a corner. For the moment, the evil stepfather needed to think he had the upper hand, or else everyone in there—including Yancy—would be in big trouble.
If they weren’t already.
She reread her message:
Stand down and negotiate. He’ll know you know where they are. He’ll know you’re coming. You don’t have the element of surprise, even if it feels that way.
She hit send.
A moment later, his reply.
He couldn’t know anyone saw him down there. We can find a way in. They pulled the house plans. It’s an unfinished storage space. Like an attic, but instead of above, it’s behind a basement office. The office closet in the basement has one corner giving access to an unfinished crawl space. That crawl space leads to a large unfinished storage room directly behind the office. We can end this with minimal damage.
Then, a long few seconds later, another text from Victor:
Gunshots fired. Regrouping.
Jenna held back tears, tried not to imagine the worst. She typed furiously, her heart beating faster as the message grew so long it might be sent in multiple parts. He had to listen!
She sent her next message.
He knows others are in the house who would’ve heard the gunshot. He’s got two choices: kill everyone down there then try to frame one as the gu
nman and explain why he lived, or be smart and realize his jig is up. Even if he could frame one of the people in there, which he can’t because of who they are, for all he knows others followed them and were just smart enough to stay outside and listen to the dirty laundry air. He’s been a step ahead the whole time. You can bet that won’t change. He thought like us the whole time. It’s how he almost got away with it.
She squeezed her phone tighter, willing the spirit behind her pleas to transmit through to Victor. He couldn’t try to overtake Liam. She had no idea what that bastard would do, but he wouldn’t go quietly. He was down there now, having been followed and found out, and he was plotting his way out.
Claudia flashed in, images from last year bright in Jenna’s mind.
If she knew one thing about psychopaths, it was that they wouldn’t do what the cops expected. They were wise to the cops, could anticipate their next moves. Heck, they could anticipate most people’s next moves, cop or not. It was why they could blend.
The phone vibrated, and Jenna opened the text.
What do you suggest then?
Jenna exhaled, but her relief lasted only seconds before she was panicking again. She’d told him to stand down and not do what Liam would see coming, but it didn’t mean she had a plan to get Eldred, Molly, and Yancy out of that space alive.
Yet.
She turned her phone over in her flat palm, thinking. There had to be a way . . .
The jungle green of masterful plotting, the puzzle piece of calculation, flashed in. Liam was calculated. He plotted every move. To catch him off guard, they needed the opposite.
Double Vision Page 31
