by Anne Frasier
“Was he interested in tattooing at that time?” David asked.
“I had a fairly famous tattoo artist staying here that summer. He was offering classes. Totally forgot about that until you mentioned it. Tremain was one of his better students. Tremain ran off that night, the night Scott was killed. I never saw him again.”
David suspected some historical revision was going on, but at the same time her story made sense. In fact, it fit like a puzzle piece.
“An hour ago I was convinced Tremain and Elise might still be here, but I’ve gone through the house top to bottom,” David told her. “Did I miss something? Any place he could be hiding?”
“I’ve been told this plantation was once part of the Underground Railroad because there’s a tunnel to the river. Others say it was used for rum running or trafficking of women for prostitution. I prefer to believe the Underground Railroad story, plus the house itself supports that theory.
“Over the years I’ve done a lot of restoration and remodeling, and during reconstruction we found false walls and false floors and secret passageways with stairs. Much of the house has double walls, which made it a great place for musicians to record.”
“Would Tremain have known about the passageways?” David asked.
“It’s possible. We remodeled the living room the summer he was here, and I’m pretty sure he helped with it. And whenever a wall was torn out, we always uncovered something interesting. It’s like there’s a whole other house living in the shadow of this place.”
The storm intensified. Thunder crashed, and lightning lit up the sky. “Show me these passageways,” David said.
CHAPTER 47
Elise was pretty sure she had a fever. Maybe that was a good thing because nothing seemed real. The pain of the body art removal was a burning memory, but the bullets still lodged in her arm and leg hurt with every breath.
Tables had turned, and Tremain was the one trying to engage her in conversation. It was like he wanted her in his head. He wanted to live and breathe her. But occasionally something he said would stir her curiosity, pull her from her stupor.
“Why did you choose the name Atticus Tremain?” Her words were slurred and slow, and her tongue was thick. Neither name seemed sinister. Not until he’d made them that way.
“To Kill a Mockingbird was one of my favorite books growing up,” he said. “And Atticus Finch was a strong man. A good man.”
“And Tremain?”
“From Johnny Tremain.”
“You read a lot.”
“Not really, but I liked those books.”
Interesting that Tremain had gone so far as to name himself after fictional heroes.
“I saved you years ago so you could grow up to realize your full potential,” Tremain said, turning the conversation back to her the way he’d been doing for the past several hours. “But you squandered your life. You took what was a gift, from me and from your father, and you turned your back on it. I shouldn’t have saved you that night. I should have let that guy rape and kill you. And now I have to take what you won’t willingly give. The mantle has to be passed.”
Her biggest fear was that he’d remove the tattoo from her back while she was still alive. After that, he’d kill her and harvest her organs. She hoped he killed her first, but knowing Tremain it didn’t seem likely.
“You try to make yourself sound so noble,” she said, “but you’re nothing but a criminal trafficking in body parts. What about the people you’ve killed? What do they have to do with any of this?”
“A guy has to make a living.”
She may have drifted off; she may have lost consciousness. When she came back, she was still thinking about what he’d said. And the thing was, he made sense. Was the abyss looking back at her? Or had he touched on the very heart of her own self-doubt?
“I’ve questioned the choices I’ve made,” she said. And wasn’t it strange that a man who’d saved the child was going to kill the adult? It seemed right. Or was that the fever talking? No, she’d had similar thoughts. Not about Tremain killing her, but the wrong turns she’d taken. And now she suddenly saw him as her confidant, her savior, protector, killer. All of those things.
“Will it be fast?” she asked. “When you kill me?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Will you cut my throat? And where will you do it? Here? Or maybe the grave where I was left as a baby.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? If I took you someplace that’s probably crawling with cops.”
It had been worth a try. “When I’m gone,” she said, “what will you do? When I’m no longer around? I’ve been your obsession. I think you might miss me.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” he said slowly, with a disturbed tone entering his previously smooth voice. “I don’t want to think about that.”
“You have to think about it. Dead is dead. You’ll miss me when I’m gone. You’ll have no direction.”
“No. I’ll have what you’ve given me.”
They both heard a far-off noise, maybe a slamming door, maybe just the wind. Tremain clamped his hand tightly over her mouth. “Shhh. Make a sound, and I’ll cut your throat right now. You’ll be dead, and I won’t miss you.”
CHAPTER 48
Anastasia produced two lanterns and handed one to David. Then she led him down the hall to a closet. Inside, she pushed at the back wall, and a secret door opened.
She paused to whisper over her shoulder, brushing cobwebs from her hair. “I’ve only been this way a couple of times, and that was years ago. But I want to show you this one place if I can find it.”
The space was tight and smothering and claustrophobic. They wound around, up and down, until David lost all sense of direction, until he began to wonder if the whole thing was a trap, set by this crazy broad and Tremain. Think about it. The way Elise had been lured there to begin with.
She stopped, and he stopped. They seemed to have at least reached their goal. In the distance, he saw a wooden door that stood ajar. Anastasia pressed against the wall so he could squeeze by.
He pulled his gun and motioned for her to stay back.
David approached the door with caution, then pivoted into the room, doing a quick scan with lantern and gun. The space was empty except for a wooden pallet that had probably served as a bed.
“Can you imagine?” Anastasia said from behind him. “Staying down here?” He could feel her breath on his neck, and he half expected her to crack him over the head with the lantern.
“The passageways look like something used by the Underground Railroad,” David said. “They would have hidden and rested in here.”
But right now David didn’t care about the Underground Railroad; he was looking at the stains on the floor near the pallet. He brought the light closer, and Anastasia let out a gasp.
“Is that blood?”
“Yes.”
“There’s so much.”
She was right. Some dried, some thick and coagulated, and some fresh. “Fresh blood means the person is still alive.” What he didn’t say was that they had no idea who that person was. It could very well be Tremain’s blood. Maybe Elise injured him. Then again, maybe Tremain killed her, dumped her body. Maybe he came back here to hide.
“Why didn’t we hear anything?” Anastasia asked.
“The storm would have covered up any noise, plus with the false walls and the sprawling nature of this place . . .” David spotted something else and bent down to pick it up, bringing it close to the lantern.
A bloody piece of Teflon with skin hanging from it. It was the Black Tupelo design, which could only mean one thing: Elise had been there.
“Did you say there’s a tunnel leading to the river?” David asked.
“Yes, but it’s sealed.”
“I’ll bet it’s not.”
&n
bsp; And now he saw what he’d missed when concentrating on storming the room: a faint trail of blood.
He pulled out his phone. No signal. “Go back upstairs,” he told Anastasia.
“I’m coming with you.”
He didn’t have time to argue.
They followed the trail down a sloped passageway that eventually turned from wood to stone, until they saw light in the distance and could hear the sound of rain and rushing water. A minute later they were at the mouth of the tunnel. The metal gate across the opening had been cut and bent, and they were able to slip through the rebar. Once outside, David regained his bearings when he spotted the plantation house looming above them through the trees.
The blood trail ended where the rain began, but there were footprints in the mud around the riverbank.
“Look!” Anastasia pointed.
They were buffeted from every direction: rain from the sky and water from the river. Through the gale, he could just make out a small blue boat at the edge of an island. While he watched, the rope holding the bobbing boat to the tree snapped and the craft broke free, spun in a circle, and was swept downstream.
“On that island”—Anastasia shouted against the wind while holding her hair away from her face—“on that island is a little cabin. We used to have picnics there. And parties.”
David pulled out his phone. Now that they were no longer in the tunnel he had one bar that came and went. He typed a message to Meg Cook and hit “Send,” hoping it would go through. Then he slapped the phone into Anastasia’s hand. “The landline at the plantation has been cut. Get in your car and drive until you get a signal, then call this person, Meg Cook. Fill her in on the details, then go back to the house and wait for the police so you can bring them here.” He didn’t say he might be dead by the time they arrived, and she might be the only person who could tell them what had transpired over the past two days.
She nodded, turned, and ran up the hill in the direction of the plantation.
CHAPTER 49
David stared at the island. And he stared at the river churning between him and the island.
Jesus.
The current was moving fast, and he wasn’t a great swimmer even under normal conditions—and he’d just witnessed what had happened to the boat.
He ran along the shore, shrugging out of his jacket as he headed upstream where he kicked off his shoes. Then, before he could think about all of the reasons this was a bad idea, he dove in, the cold taking his breath away. He both fought and used the current, striking out with strong strokes as the wind beat the water into whitecaps and waves washed over his head, obliterating his vision.
Progress seemed impossible, and for a long span of time he thought he’d failed, that he physically couldn’t make it. But ten minutes after diving into the water, when it looked like he’d overshoot the island and be swept downstream, his legs made contact with shallow shoreline.
On hands and knees, he took a moment to stabilize, then dragged himself from the water, his breathing coming in tight bursts, his body shaking from the cold, his saturated pants hanging on his hip bones, falling over his bare feet, socks lost. Moving stiffly, his wet clothes making slapping noises, he slipped through dense shrubbery to finally locate the cabin Anastasia had told him about.
Windows were broken, the wooden door hung on one hinge, and the ever-tenacious kudzu vines made the structure look more like a product of nature than of man.
With numb fingers, David unsnapped his leather holster and drew his gun as he scanned the surroundings, cold rain beating down. He could call Tremain out, which seemed like a bad idea, or he could take him by surprise.
There was no decent cover near the shack. Crouching, David ran straight for the building.
Tremain was waiting. Shots rang out, and bullets sprayed. White-hot pain ripped through David’s shoulder, knocking him back. He staggered; he caught himself.
He didn’t dare return fire for fear of hitting Elise if she was inside. Head down, he continued his charge while bullets chewed the ground around him until he reached cover. He stood, breathing hard, back pressed to the building, door to his left.
How many shots had Tremain fired? A lot. Did he have a gun other than Elise’s? Was there any chance he was out or almost out of bullets? No way of knowing. If he was out, he could be reloading right now. Time to move.
Without hesitation, David swung into the half-open doorway, gun braced, and in a fraction of a second he processed the situation.
Elise, lying on the floor, hands tied behind her back, feet bound at the ankles. Wearing black panties and a black bra. Nothing else. Unlike him, she wasn’t shaking from the cold. She seemed beyond that. Alive, but not entirely conscious, her hair falling across her face, covering her eyes, her lips blue.
And there was Tremain, straddling her like some proud hunter standing over his trophy. That was the thing about Tremain. In his mind, he owned Elise, and he was now finally and truly claiming what was his.
David took a step inside, keeping his gun trained at Tremain’s head. “It’s over,” he said.
The wind and waves and pounding rain combined to create a roar that seemed part of the small room, but beneath it David thought he recognized the sound of a siren. And not one siren, but many. Tremain heard it too. Fewer than thirty minutes had passed since David sent the message to Meg Cook.
“See?” David said. “Over.”
It was Elise’s gun Tremain held in his hand. And it was obvious from the way he held it that he was an amateur. And amateurs tended to empty the magazine in one long adrenaline rush.
“It’s wet,” Tremain said. “Your gun is wet.”
“You think that matters? This is a forty-caliber Smith & Wesson. It’s never misfired, wet or dry.”
“You would say that.”
But David could see the hesitation in that comment. The doubt.
“You don’t know much about guns, do you?” David asked.
“You can’t kill me. You have to arrest me.”
“I know it’s weird,” David said in a conversational tone. “I’m really kind of a pacifist, but if a person hurts somebody I care about, I don’t give a shit what the law says.”
“You’re a cop.”
Tremain, trying to remind David of his sworn duty. To hell with that. “Being a cop doesn’t mean I can’t think for myself. It doesn’t mean I always follow protocol.” I’m warning you. “Move away from her.”
“How did you figure it out?” Tremain asked. “Was it my mother?”
“Your mother will always consider you an innocent victim. No, it was the tattoo. I really expected to find you in the cemetery, but when you weren’t there . . . Have to admit, the plantation was the last place I thought you’d go. Doubling back. You had me for a while. And I suspect you were in the house when I stopped the first time.”
“Hiding in a secret room. And I still plan to go to the cemetery,” Tremain said. “This is just a little delay, that’s all.” He placed his booted foot on Elise’s head while continuing to keep his weapon trained on David. “Put the gun away or I’ll crush her skull.” Another indication that he was out of ammo.
“Interesting about the cemetery,” David said. With absolutely no bluff, he stared at Tremain. He thought about how he should have smothered the guy when he was in the hospital, and he thought about how he’d intended to kill him up in northern Georgia. Now, without hesitation, David squeezed the trigger. The Smith & Wesson fired, as he knew it would, the bullet striking Tremain in the head. Blood flew and the man jerked, then he dropped like a stone.
Kill shot. Over, just like that. And yeah, Tremain was going to a cemetery, all right.
David staggered to Elise and shoved Tremain’s body aside. She was still alive, breathing shallowly, eyes closed. He began working on the rope around her wrists. How he would love to savor finding her, b
ut she wasn’t out of danger yet.
“What day is it?” Elise’s voice was thick and slurred. Her eyes, as she opened them and struggled to focus, were glassy.
With the bindings gone from her wrists and ankles, he put a hand to her forehead. She was burning up. “Today is the day we finally got Tremain. That’s what day it is.”
She tried to pull her thoughts together. “No, the execution. Did you miss it?”
She wasn’t as out of it as he thought. “That’s okay,” David said. “I can go to an execution any old time.” One of his weaker jokes, but when hypothermia was setting in and he had a gaping hole in his shoulder, it was hard to be sharp. “I didn’t need to see it.”
“No, you didn’t.” She closed her eyes, and at first he thought she’d slipped into unconsciousness. But then she spoke. “It would be kind of funny if we both died.”
“Hilarious,” he agreed.
“Audrey?”
“I picked her up from the airport and she’s in good hands.” He wouldn’t mention Strata Luna just yet.
“How did you get here?” she asked.
“I swam. Or swum. Or swimmed.”
“I thought you didn’t swim.”
“I can swim; I just don’t like it.”
Then, a few moments later: “Do you think anybody’s coming for us?”
“They’ll have to wait out the storm.”
The words had barely left his mouth when he heard something that sounded like an engine. Nah. But there it was again.
He shoved himself to his feet and stumbled to the door to see a man, head bent into the driving rain, hurrying toward the shack. Once inside, he slammed the broken door and pulled back the hood of his rain gear. Avery. David was really starting to like Avery.
“Got a call from a woman telling us you were out here on the island. Found a crazy guy named Don with a boat, and here we are.” From outside, came the sound of a laboring motor. Avery scanned the room, spotting Elise and Tremain. “Jesus.” The word was an exhale. “Is she . . .?”
