by Lisa Gardner
“You squealed on me, didn’t you, Danny? Didn’t I tell you that smart boys don’t squeal? Smart boys stay quiet, if they want to keep their families safe.”
Danny remained wordless.
“Well, there’s only one thing to do now,” Richard said with a sigh. “We’re going to have to kill your sister. Rules, Danny. Just ask my old man. You gotta live by the rules.”
Quincy’s flight didn’t touch down in Portland until nine P.M. Luke met him at the gate and started briefing him as they both half-walked, half-jogged to his illegally parked car.
“Her neighbor reported hearing a gunshot a little after eight P.M.,” Luke was saying. “Frankly, we didn’t get that call until nearly nine P.M.”
“Why so late?”
“Because we had our hands full with another shooting, and dispatch got confused. Daniel Avalon had disappeared as of yesterday afternoon. Today he surfaced in Bakersville, trying to blow off Steven VanderZanden’s head.”
“Casualties?”
“Not yet. VanderZanden ended up bruised and battered, but fortunately Avalon’s a lousy shot. On the other hand, VanderZanden’s wife figured out what it was about from all the cursing and swearing. I don’t know yet how VanderZanden will fare with her.”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Quincy murmured. Someone came barreling toward them with a cart filled with luggage. They both swerved wildly and kept running. “When did officers arrive at Rainie’s house?”
“Fifteen minutes ago. So far there’s no sign of Rainie, but there are blood splatters on the deck. Sanders thinks he got her.”
“Any phone calls, any gloating? He loves games. This whole thing has been one giant adventure for him.”
“Yeah, well, we’re trying to cut off his amusement ride. In the good-news department, Sanders opened up the personnel file for Richard Mann around six-thirty. First thing he saw was a black-and-white photo of the real Richard Mann, which certainly didn’t match our favorite counselor. He’d already called for a couple of uniforms to descend upon Mann’s house when the shooting started at the VanderZanden residence.”
They arrived at Luke’s patrol car. Quincy threw his bags on the floor and climbed in. Luke flipped on the sirens. Off they went.
“What did they find at Mann’s house?” Quincy asked, gripping the dashboard as Luke took a corner hard.
“We found one computer. A cop hit the space bar. The monitor came up with a screen that said: Love you too, Baby. Then the whole thing blew up. Luckily, it was a small charge and no one was hurt.”
“Fuck!” Quincy slapped the dashboard. “We’ve spent this whole dance two steps behind.”
“Yeah, and now the dance floor is getting crowded. In other news, Danny disappeared at five-thirty this evening. Two Cabot County cops were transporting Danny to a mental facility when they ran off the road. Supposedly when they regained consciousness, he’d already stolen the keys to his shackles and disappeared into the mist.”
Quincy looked at Luke. He said, “Shep.”
Luke said nothing, which coming from him was a yes.
“Is he in custody?”
“They’re still questioning him. But there’s no sign of Danny, and I know Shep. He’d do anything for his son, probably even this. But something’s gone wrong. He looks like a giant bowl of jelly. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s scared out of his mind.”
“You think Danny ran off on his own?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think he went to Rainie’s house?”
“We’re dusting for prints. Ask me when the reports come back.”
“How well does Danny know the area?”
“He’s hunted here all his life. He’d do all right.”
“Get your hands on Shep. Have him meet us at Rainie’s place.”
Luke didn’t bat an eye. “Okay.”
“Ask Sanders to send two state troopers to the O’Grady house. I want Sandy and Becky under full police protection. According to the preliminary information, Richard Mann—or whoever he is—has done this three times. On each occasion it’s been a mass shooting. And on each occasion there have been no witnesses. I don’t think he’s going to start now.”
Luke paled but nodded soberly.
“Luke, do you have a vest?”
“Yes.”
“Put it on. Make sure everyone puts theirs on.”
“You don’t think he’s left town.”
“I know he hasn’t left town. It’s the nature of the beast. Each time, he has to raise the stakes in order to get the same thrill. And, heaven help us, he’s tired of being bored.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Saturday, May 19, 10:05 P.M.
Abe Sanders ran up to meet Quincy the minute he arrived at Rainie’s house. The CSU was tearing up floorboards, dissecting the deck in search of trace evidence. Giant floodlights illuminated the grounds, while men in navy blue windbreakers swept the premises inch by inch with bobbing flashlights. Quincy had seen this scene hundreds of times by now, and it still struck him as surreal.
He’d never even been to Rainie’s home. There should be nothing here to connect to her in his mind. But when he saw the back deck framed by soaring trees, he could picture her at once, and pain socked him in the gut. Her vulnerable eyes, her stubborn chin. So much unfinished business.
He had to reach out a hand to steady himself. Then he got on with the matters at hand.
“What have they found?” he asked Sanders.
“It’s under the deck.”
Quincy followed Sanders around. Shep was back there as well, hunched with his chin tucked in the top of his coat against the night’s chill. Luke was right. Shep looked on the verge of being ill. If he’d been behind the jailbreak, things had not gone as planned.
Then Quincy noticed that men were furiously working the dirt beneath the deck like a promising archaeological site. They dusted, fluoresced, and categorized. They carted away piles of dirt.
“It looks like a fresh grave,” Sanders was saying. “Right under the deck. But all we’ve found so far are some old threads and gravel. They’re still working on it.”
Quincy looked at Shep. The sheriff had thinned his lips. Quincy understood. They were looking at the final resting place of the man who had killed Rainie’s mother. And Quincy also understood who had put him there.
“Anything else?” Quincy asked.
“We found an old shotgun,” Sanders said. “Shep already identified it as the gun that was used to kill Molly Conner fourteen years ago. In theory, it’s an open case, so all evidence has been held in the state police’s storage locker in Portland. Then two days ago a young man claiming to be from the Bakersville sheriff’s department checked out the evidence. He gave Rainie’s badge number, which the doofus officer in charge never followed up on. And gee, Bakersville’s newest police officer just happens to match Richard Mann’s description.”
“He gave this some thought.”
“No kidding. We got a ton of fingerprints from his house, but it’s going to take a while to work through the system. We’ve been calling him Mann, though apparently the real Mann is teaching in some remote village in Alaska and has no idea someone stole his identity. When he gets back to civilization, he’s in for a little surprise.”
“Mann’s still around here,” Quincy said.
“He’d be an idiot to remain in the area. We got guys everywhere.”
“He’s an adrenaline junkie. He’s taken it this far. He’ll see it all the way through.”
“What do you think he’s doing?”
“I’m not sure anymore. In the beginning, I think he was planning on business as usual. He identified a kid who was troubled. He found an identity he could use as a ruse. It’s not rushed. He’s executed three complicated crimes in the space of ten years. He takes his time. He’s cautious. Think of what we talked about earlier: He operates with a double contingency plan. So even if you penetrate the first wall, you simply encounter the
next layer of defense.
“My guess is that he was too good. Two spectacular crimes and no one came close to figuring them out. Where’s the thrill in that? Where’s the rush? So this time he started to take more chances. He lingered after the shooting. He gave us more hints, but I just didn’t see them. His whole little diatribe on what makes a good father. He was referring to his own issues with his father, of course. Then that little speech at the funeral on how he’d decided Danny couldn’t be the shooter. Danny was too smart, too sophisticated to use blatant force. He wasn’t talking about Danny. He was talking about himself.
“And then we get to Rainie. He brought her the shotgun, the gun most of the town believes she personally used to kill her own mother. That must have captivated him. Here’s a woman who is rumored to have done exactly what he fantasized about every day of his childhood. She probably seemed glorious to him.”
“You think he wanted her to run away with him? Become his partner?” Sanders asked incredulously.
Quincy shook his head. “No. I think he made the same mistake everyone else in this town has made. She didn’t shoot her mother. And that deeply, deeply disappointed him.”
Sanders could fill in the rest. “And if he’s disappointed …”
“If we don’t find them soon,” Quincy said quietly, “I doubt she’ll live through the night.”
A voice suddenly came from deep in the woods. “Over here, over here,” a technician cried. “I got something!”
They ran. There on the ground, a tiny piece of white cotton, as if torn from a T-shirt.
“They went into the woods,” Sanders said triumphantly. “Quick, somebody get some dogs.”
“Adjoining roads,” Quincy said immediately. “Logging roads, rural routes, dirt roads, anything. Get your men on them, because he didn’t come all this way on foot.”
Abe excitedly began making the calls, and then they were plunging into the underbrush, desperate to find a trail, desperate to find Rainie.
“Shit!” Richard Mann said for the fifth time in about as many minutes. He staggered to a halt, wiping the heavy sweat from his brow and giving Rainie a look that was rapidly growing ragged.
She pretended to ignore his hatred while lowering herself gingerly to the ground, not the easiest thing to do with her hands tied behind her back. Her head hurt. She had regained consciousness quickly, but that hadn’t done her any favors. When Richard had smacked her with the shotgun, he’d done a good job of it. Her jaw throbbed; she suspected it was broken. Her eye had swelled shut; she thought the socket might be fractured. She was starting to see double with what vision she had left, and the pain was becoming less constant but more acute. Hemorrhage, maybe? Blood clot? The possibilities were endless.
At least she was having the last laugh. Her wild shot had caught Richard Mann in his right buttock as he’d swiveled around to swing the shotgun. He’d dismissed it as a mere flesh wound, but after hiking up the steep mountain for a bit, he’d taken to favoring his right leg. His walking was no longer steady; his face had become flushed. They were taking more and more breaks and stopping for longer periods of time. It was hard to tell in the dark, but she suspected he was bleeding heavily. He’d stuffed his windbreaker down his pants to bandage the wound, but he must have begun to doubt that system, for he kept pausing now to check the ground for signs of blood.
Mess with me, get shot in the ass, Rainie thought. She smiled at her own dark humor, then promptly winced in pain.
Danny was still with them, now sitting quietly beside Rainie. He had yet to say a word. He simply walked, his head ducked low and his hands stuck in the pants pockets of his blue surgical scrubs. The night was cold. He kept fidgeting with his white cotton undershirt as if trying to get warm. Rainie wished there was more she could do for him.
Hell, at this point, with the trees swaying sickeningly in front of her eyes, she wished there was more she could do for herself.
How had Danny gotten out of the detention center? And why had he come to her back porch? Had he suspected Richard Mann might show up there? Had he wanted to help her?
Or was he still Richard’s accomplice? She thought of what Quincy had said yesterday. Once the dominant partner got the other to kill, it became too difficult for the weaker one to walk away. And Danny had killed. He had told her about it today in a thin, high voice that sounded as fragile as a reed.
She didn’t know anymore. She was trying to hold the thoughts together in her mind, sort through them, come up with a plan. Her face was on fire, and the pain was becoming more intense.
Mann staggered back to his feet. His flashlight swung wildly. It illuminated two dark spots on the dusty trail and made him curse. The man was bleeding quite nicely. He kicked up dirt over the blood, grabbed a tree limb to rake over their trail, and gave Rainie a look that was downright feral.
“Up,” he snarled.
“I think I’m going to vomit,” Rainie murmured.
“Up!”
“Okay,” she said. She leaned forward and threw up on his shoes.
“Fuck me!” Mann leapt back two feet, kicking furiously at bushes and needles in a vain attempt to get the puke off his shoes. His arms flailed. His face had gone purple. Rainie didn’t hesitate. Maybe it wasn’t a pretty plan, but it was as good as it was going to get.
“Run,” she yelled at Danny. “Run!”
And then she hurled herself at Mann.
They went down in a tangle of bodies, the gun flying from his grasp. She heard Mann thrashing and swearing. It seemed his legs and feet were everywhere, and she instinctively tried to protect her head. Her eye, her eye. Oh God, her cheek was exploding on her. But she couldn’t bring her hands up. They were tied behind her back, leaving her churning on the ground like a helpless worm.
Richard went after her with a vicious kick. She barely rolled out of the way; then he abruptly backed off.
Shit. He was going for the gun. She rolled back and kicked him as hard she could in the back of his knee. His legs folded beneath him. She went after his shot-up hip with her pummeling feet.
She couldn’t see any sign of Danny. Please let him have run. If she could buy time, give him a chance to get farther away …
Richard was trying to get to his feet again. She saw his gaze go to the handgun he must have snatched from Danny, which was now lying just four feet away in the dust. He gritted his teeth and lunged. She rolled to the right as quickly as she could and managed to kick him in the side of the head.
“Damn bitch,” he swore. Then he suddenly got a curious smile on his face.
He reached out and curled his hand around a big helping of pine needles and dirt. Rainie ducked her head. She closed her eyes to protect herself, but she had no hands to hide her bloody face as he flung the dust and needles at her head.
She spluttered, blinked reflexively, and buried eight tiny needles in her one good eye.
“Goddammit!”
It hurt. Hurt worse than she’d imagined pain feeling. Hurt even worse than all those years ago, when she’d been so small and helpless. Fuck that. She would not be small. She would not be helpless.
She went after Richard Mann with her pummeling legs and realized for the first time that he was laughing. He was standing now, not even going after the gun. He just stood there, watching her writhe on the ground and finding it funny.
“Going someplace, Lorraine?”
“Bastard!”
He laughed again.
She rolled toward Richard Mann with a kamikaze yell, and he calmly kicked her in the damaged side of her face.
Lights exploded. She saw blazing, fantastical colors, followed by a white-hot blur. And then the corresponding agony ripped a scream from her lips.
“Had enough yet, Lorraine? Want to taste a little more?”
She started rolling again. She couldn’t see. Just felt him coming after her and knew what kind of pain he’d like to inflict next. She wanted to be fierce and brave, but the pain was too much and now she fled in the
dirt. Rolling, rolling, rolling, seeking some desperate way out.
Her kneecap smacked into a tree trunk. She howled. Mann laughed. Footsteps coming closer. Faster, faster. She switched directions suddenly, working on memory only, and ripped her way across the earth. The gun, the gun, the gun. Somewhere around her, the gun.
“No!” Richard Mann yelled suddenly.
And then she knew she had him. She rolled on top of the 9-millimeter and grabbed it with her bloodied fingertips.
“What are you going to do, Lorraine?” Mann taunted breathlessly. “Shoot it with your kneecaps?”
She said hoarsely with her back to him, “Halt. Police.”
“Hand it over, Lorraine. Be a good girl, and I promise I’ll kill you quickly.”
Footsteps coming closer.
Her wet, slippery fingers frantically trying to orient the heavy pistol, find the trigger.
The sound of Mann’s ragged breath, bearing down on her. She couldn’t see him, had little hope of aiming. Just try to find the trigger. Pull it back. Do something, even if she only ended up winging his big toe. The gun slipped again. She was doomed.
Mann bending over her. Mann rearing back his leg to kick her in the face—
“Halt! Police!”
Flashlights suddenly flooded the area. Rainie tried to focus her dirt-filled eyes. The lights were too bright, the voices too far away. Her fingers reclaimed the gun as she turned her head and saw Richard Mann gazing toward the lights. He was breathing hard. So was she. His face was ugly and mottled with rage. And hers?
“Fuck them,” Richard Mann snarled. He reared back to wallop her in the head—
And Rainie pulled the trigger.
Richard Mann dropped to the earth, just as three other officers opened fire. Rainie rolled over. She lay three feet from Mann’s body and watched the hate slowly dim and die out in his eyes.
A moment later, Quincy came forward. Rainie knew him by his smell as he bent down and cradled her against his chest.
“I came as fast as I could,” he murmured. “I told you that I would.”
