“Okay, Lily,” said Jane. “Now you’re going to tell me the truth.”
“You won’t believe the truth.”
“Try me.”
Lily sat motionless, tangled hair spilling across her face. It didn’t matter anymore. She was so tired of running. I give up.
“Where is Dominic?” asked Jane.
“He’s dead,” said Lily.
A moment passed as the detective processed that information, as she reached her own conclusions. Through the closed window came the wail of a passing fire truck, but inside this car, there was only the hiss of the heater.
Jane said, “You killed him?”
Lily swallowed. “Yes.”
“So his mother never came for him, did she? She never took him abroad. That’s why you wrote that letter to the school.”
Lily’s head drooped lower. There was no point in denying anything. This woman had already put it all together. “The school called. They kept calling, wanting to know if he was coming back. I had to write the letter so they’d stop asking me where he was.”
“How did you kill him?”
Lily took in a shuddering breath. “It was the week after my father’s funeral. Dominic was in our garage looking at my mother’s car. He said she wouldn’t need it anymore, so maybe he could have it.” Lily’s voice dropped to a tight whisper. “That’s when I told him I knew. I knew he killed them.”
“How did you know?”
“Because I found his notebook. He kept it under his mattress.”
“What was in the notebook?”
“It was all about us. Pages and pages about the boring Saul family. What we did every day, the things we said to each other. He had notes about which path Teddy always took to the lake. About which pills we kept in the bathroom cabinet. What we ate for breakfast, how we said good night.” She paused. Swallowed. “And he knew where my father kept the key to his gun cabinet.” She looked at Jane. “He was like a scientist, studying us. And we were nothing but lab rats.”
“Did he actually write in his notebook that he’d killed your family?”
She hesitated. “No. His last entry was August eighth, the day that Teddy…” She stopped. “He knew better than to actually write about it.”
“Where is that notebook now? Do you still have it?”
“I burned it. Along with all his other books. I couldn’t stand the sight of them.”
Lily could read the look in Jane’s eyes. You destroyed the evidence. Why should I believe you?
“Okay,” said Jane. “You said you found Dominic in the garage, that you confronted him there.”
“I was so upset, I didn’t think about what would happen next.”
“What did happen?”
“When I told him I knew what he’d done, he just stared right back at me. No fear, no guilt. ‘You can’t prove it,’ ” he said. She took a breath and slowly released it. “Even if I could have proved it, he was only fifteen. He wouldn’t have gone to jail. In a few years, he would have been free. But my family would still be dead.”
“Then what happened?”
“I asked him why. Why he’d do something so terrible. And you know what he said?”
“What?”
“‘You should have been nicer to me.’ That was his answer. That’s all he said. Then he smiled and walked out of the barn, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.” She paused. “That’s when I did it.”
“How?”
“I picked up a shovel. It was leaning up against the wall. I don’t even remember reaching for it. I didn’t even feel the weight of it. It was like—like my arms were someone else’s. He fell, but he was still conscious, and he started to crawl away.” She released a deep sigh and said softly, “So I hit him again.”
Outside the night had fallen quiet. The bitter weather had driven pedestrians off the street, and only an occasional car glided past.
“And then?” asked Jane.
“All I could think of was how to get rid of the body. I got him into my mother’s car. I thought, maybe I could make it look like an accident. It was nighttime, so no one would see anything. I drove the car over to this quarry a few miles out of town. I rolled it over the edge, into the water. I assumed that someone would eventually spot it. Someone would report that a car was down there.” Lily gave a disbelieving laugh. “But nobody did. Can you imagine that?” She looked at Jane. “Nobody ever found it.”
“So then you went on with your life.”
“I graduated from high school. And I left town, for good. I didn’t want to be there if they ever found his body.”
They stared at each other for a moment. Jane said, “You realize you’ve just confessed to murdering Dominic Saul. I’ll have to place you under arrest.”
Lily didn’t flinch. “I’d do it again. He deserved it.”
“Who knew about this? Who knew you killed him?”
Lily paused. Outside, a couple walked past, heads bent against the wind, shoulders hunched inside winter coats.
“Did Sarah and Lori-Ann know?”
“They were my best friends. I had to tell them. They understood why I did it. They swore to keep it secret.”
“And now your friends are dead.”
“Yes.” Lily shuddered and hugged herself. “It’s my fault.”
“Who else knows?”
“I never told anyone else. I thought it was over with.” She took a breath. “Then Sarah received that postcard.”
“With the reference to Revelation?”
“Yes.”
“Someone else must know what you did. Someone who saw you that night, or heard about it. Someone who’s now having fun tormenting you.”
Lily shook her head. “Only Dominic would have sent that postcard.”
“But he’s dead. How could he?”
Lily fell silent for a moment, knowing that what she was about to say would surely sound absurd to this coldly logical woman. “Do you believe in an afterlife, Detective?” she asked.
As Lily could have predicted, Jane gave a snort. “I believe we get one shot at life. So you can’t afford to screw it up.”
“The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife. They believed that everyone has a Ba, which they depicted as a bird with a human face. The Ba is your soul. After you die, it’s released, and can fly back to the world of the living.”
“What’s this Egyptian stuff have to do with your cousin?”
“Egypt is where he was born. He had books and books from his mother, some of them quite old, with incantations from Egyptian coffin texts, magical spells to shepherd the Ba back to life. I think he found a way.”
“Are you talking about resurrection?”
“No. Possession.”
The silence lasted for what seemed like forever.
“You mean demonic possession?” Jane finally asked.
“Yes,” said Lily softly. “The Ba finds another home.”
“It takes over some other guy’s body? Makes him do the killing?”
“The soul has no physical form. It needs to command real flesh and blood. The concept of demonic possession isn’t new. The Catholic Church has always known about it, and they have documented cases. They have rites of exorcism.”
“You’re saying that your cousin’s Ba has hijacked a body, and that’s how he’s managed to come after you, how he’s managed to kill your two friends?”
Lily heard the skepticism in Jane’s voice, and she sighed. “There’s no point in talking about this. You don’t believe any of it.”
“Do you? I mean, really?”
“Twelve years ago, I didn’t,” said Lily softly. She looked at Jane. “But I do now.”
Twelve years underwater, thought Jane. She stood shivering at the edge of the quarry as engines rumbled and the cable groaned taut, tugging against the weight of the long-submerged car. What happens to flesh that’s been steeped in water through the algal blooms of twelve summers, through the freeze and thaw of twelve winters? The othe
r people standing beside her were grimly silent, no doubt dreading, as she did, their first glimpse of Dominic Saul’s body. The county medical examiner, Dr. Kibbie, lifted his collar and pulled his scarf over his face, as though he wanted to disappear into his coat, wanted to be anywhere else but here. In the trees above, a trio of crows cawed, as though eager for a glimpse, a taste, of carrion. Let there not be any flesh left, thought Jane. Clean bones she could deal with. Skeletons were merely Halloween decorations, like clattering plastic. Not human at all.
She glanced at Lily, who stood beside her. It must be even worse for you. You knew him. You killed him. But Lily did not turn away; she remained at Jane’s side, her gaze fixed on the quarry below.
The cable strained, lifting its burden from the black waters, where chunks of fractured ice bobbed. Already a diver had been down to confirm the car was there, but the water had been too murky, the swirling sediment too thick to clearly view the interior. Now the water seemed to boil, and the vehicle surfaced. The air in the tires had caused it to flip upside down when it had fallen in, and the underside emerged first, water streaming off rusted metal. Like a whale breaching, the rear bumper broke the surface, the license plate obscured by a decade’s worth of algae and sediment. The crane’s engine revved harder, the piercing whine of machinery drilling straight into Jane’s skull. She felt Lily cringe against her and thought that the young woman would now surely turn and retreat to Jane’s car. But Lily managed to hold her ground as the crane swung its burden away from the quarry and gently lowered it onto the snow.
A workman released the cable. Another rev of the engines, a nudge from the crane, and the car rolled right side up. Water streamed from the vehicle, staining the snow a dirty brown.
For a moment, no one approached it. They let it sit there, draining water. Then Dr. Kibbie pulled on gloves and trudged across the now-muddy snow to the driver’s door. He gave it a tug, but it would not open. He circled to the passenger side and yanked on the handle. He jumped back as the door swung open, releasing a sudden rush of water that drenched his boots and trousers.
He glanced at the others, then focused again on the open door, which continued to drip. He took a breath, steeling himself against the view, and leaned inside the car. For a long moment he held that pose, his body bent at the waist, his rump poking out of the vehicle. Abruptly he straightened and turned to the others.
“There’s nothing in here,” he said.
“What?” asked Jane.
“It’s empty.”
“You don’t see any remains?”
Dr. Kibbie shook his head. “There’s no body in this car.”
“The divers came up with nothing, Lily. No body, no skeleton. No evidence at all that your cousin was ever in that water.”
They sat in Jane’s parked car as flakes of falling snow gently settled on the windshield in an ever-thickening veil of lace.
“I didn’t dream it,” Lily said. “I know it happened.” She looked at Jane with haunted eyes. “Why would I make it up? Why would I confess to killing him if it wasn’t true?”
“We have confirmed it’s your mother’s car. The registration hasn’t been renewed in twelve years. The keys are still in the ignition.”
“I told you they would be. I told you exactly where you’d find the car.”
“Yes, everything you said has checked out, except for that one small detail. There’s no body.”
“It could have rotted away.”
“There should still be a skeleton. But there’s nothing. No clothing, no bones.” Jane paused. “You know what that means.”
Lily swallowed and stared at the windshield, now blanketed in snow. “He’s alive.”
“You haven’t been running from a ghost or an evil spirit. He’s still living flesh and blood, and I’d guess he’s pretty damn pissed at you for trying to kill him. That’s what this is all about, Lily. Revenge. Twelve years ago, he was only a kid. But now he’s a man, and he can finally get his payback. Last August, he lost your trail in Italy and had no idea how to find you. So he went after Sarah and Lori-Ann for information. But they didn’t know where you were, either; they were useless to him. He had to figure out another way to locate you.”
“The Mephisto Foundation,” Lily murmured.
“If Mephisto’s as well regarded as Sansone claims, then its reputation has probably spread beyond law enforcement. Clearly, Dominic’s heard about them, too. He certainly knew how to entice them. That phone call to Joyce O’Donnell. The Latin words, the seashell, the satanic symbols—it made Mephisto think they were finally tracking Satan. But I think they were being played.”
“Dominic used them to find me.”
“And they did a good job, didn’t they? In just ten days, Mephisto found you.”
Lily thought about this for a moment. She said, “There’s no body. You can’t charge me with any crime now. You can’t hold me any longer.”
Jane stared into eyes glittering with fear and thought: She wants to run.
“I’m free to go, right?”
“Free?” Jane laughed. “You call it freedom, to live like a scared rabbit?”
“I’ve survived, haven’t I?”
“And when are you going to fight back? When are you going to take a stand? This isn’t the Devil we’re talking about, this is a man. He can be brought down.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one he’s hunting!”
“No, but I’m hunting him, and I need your help. Work with me, Lily. You know him better than anyone.”
“That’s why he can’t afford to let me live.”
“I promise, you’ll be safe.”
“You can’t keep that promise. You think he doesn’t already know where I am? You don’t know how meticulous he is. He misses no detail, no opportunity. He may be alive and breathing. But you’ll never convince me he’s human.”
Jane’s cell phone rang, startling them both. As she answered the call, she could feel Lily’s gaze, tense and questioning. She assumes the worst.
It was Barry Frost on the phone. “Where are you right now?”
“We’re still in Norwich. It’s late, so we’ll probably check into a motel tonight and get back to the city tomorrow.”
“I think it’d be better if you don’t bring her back here.”
“Why not?”
“Because we have a big problem. Oliver Stark is dead.”
“What?”
“Someone used Stark’s phone to call nine-one-one, then left the receiver off the hook. That’s how we found out about it. I’m in his house right now. Christ, it’s a bloody mess in here. He’s still tied to his wheelchair, but you can’t even recognize him. The poor kid never had a chance.” There was a silence as he waited for her to speak. “Rizzoli?”
“We have to warn the others. Sansone and Mrs. Felway.”
“I’ve already called them, and Dr. Isles as well. Mephisto also has members in Europe, and they’re all taking precautions.”
Jane thought of what Lily had just said. You’ll never convince me he’s human. What precautions could anyone take against a killer who seemed able to walk through walls?
She said, “He’s hunting them all down.”
“That’s what it looks like. This has grown way bigger than we thought. It’s not just about Lily Saul. It’s about the whole foundation.”
“Why the hell is he doing this? Why’s he going after all of them?”
“You know what Sansone called it?” said Frost. “An extermination. Maybe we’re wrong about Lily Saul. Maybe she’s not the real target.”
“Either way, I can’t bring her back now.”
“Lieutenant Marquette thinks she’ll be safer outside Boston, and I agree. We’re working on a long-term arrangement, but it’ll take a day or two.”
“Until then, what do I do with her?”
“Sansone suggested New Hampshire. A house up in the White Mountains. He says it’s secure.”
“Whose house is it?”
“And we’re going to trust Sansone’s judgment on this?”
“Marquette okayed it. He says the brass doesn’t have any doubts about him.”
Then they know more about Sansone than I do.
“Okay,” she said. “How do I find this house?”
“Mrs. Felway will call you with directions.”
“What about Sansone and Maura? What are they going to do?”
“They’re all heading to the same place. They’ll meet you there.”
THIRTY-SIX
It was one in the afternoon when they crossed the Massachusetts state line, into New Hampshire. Lily had hardly said a word since they’d checked out of the motel that morning in Oneonta. Now, as they drove north into the White Mountains, the only sound was the squeak of the wipers scraping snowflakes off the windshield. She’s too nervous for chitchat, thought Jane, glancing at her silent companion. Last night, in their shared motel room, Jane had heard all the tossing and turning in the next bed, and today Lily’s eyes were sunken, her face gaunt enough almost to reveal the whiteness of bones through that pale skin. With a few extra pounds on her, Lily Saul might be pretty. But now, when Jane looked at her, what she saw was a walking corpse.
That may be exactly what she is.
“Are you going to stay with me tonight?” The question was so soft, it was almost lost in the sweep of the wipers.
“I’m going to check out the situation,” said Jane. “See what I think about it.”
“So you might not stay.”
“You won’t be alone up there.”
“I suppose you want to go home, don’t you?” Lily sighed. “Do you have a husband?”
“Yeah, I’m married.”
“And kids?”
Jane hesitated. “I have a daughter.”
“You don’t want to tell me about yourself. You don’t really trust me.”
“I don’t know you well enough.”
Lily looked out the window. “Everyone who really knew me is dead”—she paused—“except Dominic.”
The Rizzoli & Isles 8-Book Bundle Page 184
