by Kaylea Cross
Jack nodded, only because he hoped it’d make Lenny more talkative.
The old man reached under the counter, pulled out a shovel still in its plastic wrapping, and handed it over. “No charge.” Then he picked a black bead rosary with a silver cross from a small cardboard box on the counter and held it out. “Gift for you.”
But Jack barely heard him. He held the shovel, balanced in his hand, his fingers tightening on the folded-up tool until his knuckles went white.
For a second, he could feel the freezing dirt on his face, and everything inside him went dark. His lungs constricted. Then someone squeezing through the throng of people bumped into him from behind, jarring him back to the present. He relaxed his fingers with an effort, drew a full breath, and looked up at Lenny, who was still holding out the rosary.
He reached out his other hand and accepted it. “I’d like to talk to you, if you have a minute.”
“Wish I could remember better.” The man touched the side of his head. “But too many people come every Sunday. Lots of strangers. I only know the regulars. They good people.”
He’d be the judge of that, Jack thought, but the twenty-minute chat that followed didn’t net any new information. Lenny did brisk enough business that he couldn’t possibly remember every single customer.
He did give a list of his regulars, although all he had were first names and descriptions. Still, a start. Jack could give the list to Leila, who’d grown up in town and knew pretty much everybody. She might be able to add last names to some of the people on the list.
The only person he recognized on the list was Eddie Gannon. Lenny knew him. Apparently, everybody knew Eddie. He had bought a shovel a few months back.
Time to catch up with the town handyman, Jack thought as he thanked Lenny. He left the man his phone number in case he remembered more, then took his shovel and rosary and walked back through the market.
Other than Ashley Price, the only clues they had were the shovel, the shoe print, and the shower curtain. He passed by another store like Lenny’s that had shower curtains hanging up front, and he dug through the particleboard bin under the display. He didn’t see one exactly like the see-through one he’d snuck in to see in the evidence room but found one that was pretty close, except with some polka dots.
He picked that up. He could compare size, material, and brand later. He also grabbed a flyer that listed three other stores the owner had in the area, shoved the slip of paper into his pocket, then stepped inside.
The store was packed. He looked for boots. If Blackwell had bought his shovel at the flea market, which was still a big if, who was to say his shower curtain and his boots didn’t come from here too. Jack scanned the merchandise, didn’t find what he was looking for, so he stepped to the end of the line in front of the counter with his shower curtain.
Everyone he saw paid cash, and so did he. He didn’t even ask if they kept customer records.
If the shower curtain was a match, he’d come back. If not, there was no point in wasting his time here.
Shovel and shower curtain under his arm, rosary in his pocket, he walked through every single store, and found half a dozen that did sell footwear. He checked the treads of every boot the flea market had, wasting the rest of his morning. Not one of them was a match to the footprint cast on his cell phone.
Didn’t look like Blackwell had done his one-stop shopping here after all. Would have been too easy. But easy or hard, he would catch the bastard.
He stopped in front of a booth that sold nothing but snow gear, including a variety of shovels. He picked up a sturdy one for Ashley. Only because she couldn’t lead him to Blackwell if she broke her pretty neck, he tried to tell himself, then gave up pretending. Truth was, he liked Ashley. Not that it meant anything. Like or not, he wasn’t going to start anything with her. He was definitely not the right man for her, and he was too far gone to change.
On his way out of the place, he grabbed a sorry-looking hot dog and a soft drink, forcing his thoughts from her. A normal life was out of his reach, but revenge wasn’t. That was where he had to focus his energies.
He ate as he drove, spending the rest of the day checking out over a dozen mom-and-pop stores in Broslin and the surrounding small towns. He didn’t find any other places that sold army-surplus shovels, which didn’t mean Blackwell had gotten his from Lenny. Could have ordered it online or could have picked one up far away from here, on a trip.
He also stopped by every place that sold boots, hoping he’d luck out with that, but found none with the kind of tread he was looking for.
Since he didn’t consider shopping fun under the best of circumstances, his mood was pretty sour by the time he finished. Another day wasted without progress. And all this time, Blackwell was out there, laughing his ass off at him, possibly stalking his next victims.
When he spotted Bing’s SUV in front of Main Street’s most popular watering hole, he pulled over. Maybe they had trouble. He could have used a good bar fight, gotten his frustration out. He walked in with all kinds of hope for a need to restore order, into the din of a drunk crowd. A horribly terrible band played loud enough to raise the dead and make them run for a place that did have some of that eternal peace.
Instead of being engaged in some satisfying police work—like, say, knocking drunk heads together—Bing was quietly nursing a beer in the back.
For a moment, Jack considered turning around, if nothing else, to save his hearing. But Bing looked just as pissed as he felt, which appealed to him at the moment, the whole “misery loves company” thing. So he strode through the gyrating, sweaty crowd and joined the man. What the hell.
Bing’s eyes narrowed as he looked up. “You better not be here investigating something.” Even in the back, he had to shout to be heard over the din.
Jack lowered himself onto a chair across from him. “No.” He was pretty much done for the day.
“Good. You should be at home resting.”
“I was just getting to that.” He grabbed a handful of peanuts and tossed them into his mouth that still tasted like mystery-meat hot dog.
The waitress came by, smiled at Jack, tilted her head, and gave him a flirty look. “Hey there, handsome.” Her body language held all kinds of invitation.
At another time, even a few weeks ago, he would have taken her up on that. He wasn’t relationship material, but he wasn’t a monk either. On the occasions when he ran into someone who didn’t want more than he could offer…
“I’ll have what he’s having,” he said simply and turned back to Bing.
“I’ll be right back.” She gave some extra swish to her hips as she sashayed away.
The captain arched an eyebrow but didn’t comment.
Jack pulled the basket of peanuts closer. “Rough day?”
The captain drank from his bottle. “Freaking FBI.”
He leaned closer, instantly alert. “They got something?”
Bing shrugged. “They can’t catch the bastard soon enough.”
Amen to that. “He needs to be taken down,” Jack agreed as the beer came, cold and perfect.
“Listen, I know your sister—”
“It goes beyond Shannon. Fifteen women.” He shot his captain a hard look. “All young, pretty, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five. They were abducted in batches. Three in one week, then nothing for another year. Then two women. Then a three-year pause. Then another three victims, within days of each other.”
Normally, they wouldn’t have discussed a case in public, but the music was loud enough so that nobody could have heard them unless he or she sat on the table between them.
“So he takes his victims in groups. Why?” Bing asked, getting into it. He was too much of a cop to ignore a good mystery. But he did shake his head after a minute. “Forget it. He almost killed you once. Let the FBI figure it out.”
“To hell with the FBI.” Jack fisted his hand on the table. “The women in each batch were taken on different days. But what rema
ins were found indicate that each batch was killed at the same time. Why?”
Bing couldn’t resist a guess. “Efficiency?”
“They were found in pieces, together, with various body parts missing. As if he took what he wanted and disposed of the leftovers. What did he do with the rest?”
The captain’s face darkened. “Some sick ritual.”
“Then there’s me. I don’t fit the victim profile. He had just me. Nobody else. And he didn’t kill me and take me apart.”
“He meant to kill you. You would have been dead if Ashley Price hadn’t found you.”
He stared at the bottle as he remembered, cold sweat breaking out on his back. “I was in the tunnel,” he admitted for the first time. “I was walking toward the light.”
Bing swore and took a swig. “Leave the evil son of a bitch alone.”
“Wouldn’t matter. He won’t leave me alone now. I’m the one that got away. His ego can’t take that. He wanted me, and I slipped away. He’d been waiting for me. He had a trap all set up.”
“You got too close.”
“Not close enough.”
“Be grateful he changed his SOP.”
He’d given that some thought in the last couple of weeks. “The women were his victims. I’m different, because I’m something else. I’m his opponent, like in a chess game. That’s why he did things differently with me. Whatever he needed those women for, with me, he just wanted to prove that he’d beaten me, both intellectually and physically. And he buried me alive so I’d have a little extra time to think about that defeat.”
“A stupid move. You survived.”
He thought about that for a few seconds. “Yes. He was too cocky. He thinks he has hometown advantage here. He got overconfident.” He shrugged. “Not unreasonably. If Ashley Price hadn’t dug me up, I would be dead. He didn’t count on that.”
Bing swore. “How did you know he was here, in Broslin?”
He explained about the spores.
“You saw the mushroom company? Talked to the workers?”
“As soon as I got here. Nothing popped.” He drank some.
“You told the FBI about this?”
He nodded. When they’d first interviewed him after he’d gotten out of the hospital. They were here now anyway. Agent Hunter didn’t seem impressed by Jack’s theory. He didn’t think the spores meant anything. “The workers alibied out. One or two might have been on vacation when the murders had been committed, but not one has been missing on all the dates.”
He was going to check on the artist next who’d done those mushroom paintings. The timing lined up nicely. He wasn’t going to tell the FBI about that, not yet. “Hunter thinks Blackwell caught on that I was hunting him and came here to make me stop.”
“I like that theory. I don’t want to think that the bastard has something to do with Broslin.”
“I feel it in my bones, Bing. This is his lair, right here.”
Bing gave a dark scowl. “They’ll get him. Let it go.”
Because Bing was as close as he had to a friend in a long time, he told him the truth. “I can’t.”
“You’re a good detective. Don’t throw everything away on this.”
“I have nothing but this.”
“You could have more. Guy with your looks and your brain. You could have anything you wanted. Take the waitress home. She wants you to. She’s a decent gal. Give yourself a break.”
But he shook his head, even as raised voices at the bar drew his attention. Some slick guy seemed to be harassing one of the other waitresses.
He had his hand on her waist, a few inches too low, and seemed to be holding on when she was trying to pull away. Jack drained his beer and pushed to standing, slapping some money on the table in the process. “Better get going.”
By the time he cut through the crowd, the asshole had jostled the waitress enough to spill some of the drinks on her tray.
Jack stopped next to them, his shoulders relaxed, his eyes on the guy. “You want to let her go.”
The idiot swung his way with a sneer, his mouth opening to say something. Then his face suddenly pulled straight, his hands slipping off the waitress. Cold anger came into his eyes for a second, then disappeared.
“Go home, Graham,” Bing told the guy from behind Jack. “You know you can’t hold your liquor.”
The man held his hands up and mouthed okay, okay, which was lost in the din. This close to the band, the decibels were flying in the triple digits. The waitress flashed a grateful smile at Jack, then hurried away.
“Who the hell was that?” Jack asked when both he and Bing were outside and could finally hear each other again.
“Graham Lanius. Thinks he’s a big shot because he owns a gallery. Must make good money. Gives a big donation to the police department every year.”
Jack glared back toward the door. Too bad money couldn’t buy brains. He parted ways with Bing in the parking lot, each going on his way.
He had one more thing to do tonight. He kept that to himself.
He was willing to do whatever it took to take down Blackwell. If it meant something that would end his career, or even his life, so be it.
Which meant it was better to keep Bing at a distance. He was a good captain; his career shouldn’t go down the drain.
* * *
He watched the detective through his binoculars, the landscape abandoned around them, the ice of the reservoir a shining sheet of diamonds in the moonlight, not a car on the road, as if they were the only two people on earth. They both had their quests. They both had their rituals.
Sullivan came to the grave every night.
He could almost hear the detective think across the distance. He wasn’t giving up. He wasn’t pulling back. Another thing they had in common. Neither was the type to walk away from a job until it was finished.
The FBI might have been making pests of themselves, going around town, asking questions, but Sullivan was the true threat—the only threat.
The FBI would give up after a while, move out. They had timetables and a strict budget.
Sullivan would stay and keep distracting him from his art, from his true calling. It pissed him off. Sullivan was nobody. The man had no idea what he was messing with.
Across the reservoir, the detective was staring into the dark hole of the grave.
The ground hadn’t been able to hold him.
The water would, and the ice. New plans had been made. Soon, a new trap would be waiting.
* * *
Jack stood over his grave in the gathering dusk once again, yellow police tape flitting in the wind around him. Should have stayed at the bar where it was warm, gotten another beer. But he was here once again, at a place he hated yet couldn’t walk away from.
He needed a new lead. He needed some progress, dammit. At least one step forward.
His lungs couldn’t get enough air, and it had nothing to do with the freezing temperature. He felt like that every time here. He had come every day since he’d been released from the hospital, hoping the place would jog some forgotten detail loose in his memory that could lead him to Blackwell.
And also hoping that the bastard would return. Maybe he would come to the site of his only failed project to see what had gone wrong. Maybe the grave would draw him too. No sign of him so far, though. Jack hated to think that between the two of them, he was the only obsessed lunatic.
He looked away from the grave and toward the house he knew stood somewhere behind the trees.
Ashley Price.
Every time he thought about her painting the old man in the closet, the short hairs stood straight up on the back of his neck.
Her paintings had nothing to do with Blackwell. Except his.
She painted the dead, those who died violently, in relative proximity to her—about a twenty- or thirty-mile radius. What the hell did that mean?
The dead who had unfinished business reached out to her? Why?
Because she’d come back from
the dead? She’d been dead for twenty minutes under the ice. The emergency-response crew had brought her back. Did she want to return to life? Did part of her, feeling guilty about Dylan, want to stay with the kid? Did she still have some faint link to that other world?
Had she been the presence he’d felt when he’d been dying?
He didn’t understand her, and he didn’t like what he couldn’t understand. She couldn’t be pinned down, could not be classified. Probably the very reason why she was getting under his skin every possible way.
He’d even dreamed about her. Naked dreams. Just the thought gave a tug at his groin. Hell, the only thing he knew about her for sure was that his body, very inconveniently, lusted after hers.
The lust wasn’t specific, he told himself. All it meant was that he hadn’t gotten laid in too long a time. He could go back to the bar tonight, hook up with the blonde waitress, share a night of physical release: the perfect no-mess solution.
Yet he didn’t find the prospect the least bit tempting.
So he walked out to the road and drove up to her house, even if he hadn’t intended to visit Ashley tonight. The last time had been plenty enough, watching her paint, watching her fight against her jumble of emotions that had threatened to pull him in.
Her downstairs lights were on but not the upstairs. Good. She wasn’t painting. He leaned the new shovel he’d bought next to her old one, then ran up the steps and rang the doorbell.
A few seconds passed before the key turned in the lock and the door cracked open a few inches.
“Unless you have an arrest warrant, go away.” The dark circles around her eyes said she hadn’t seen much sleep last night. She wore black slacks made of some soft material that clung to her long legs, and a long-sleeved fitted cotton shirt that showed off her curves.
Predictably, his body responded. The irony that he kept coming back to her like a lover in the night didn’t escape him. He watched her for a long minute before words he hadn’t meant to say came out of his mouth. “Let’s say I believe you.”
She still hesitated a long second before she finally stepped back to let him in.
