Graham glanced at Gallagher seated to his right at the head of the table. Gallagher looked up.
"Can you just start paying a visit to the men on this list?"
"All of them?" Gallagher asked. "What, send patrol cars around? Knock on doors, wake people up and ask if they happen to have the town's police chief held prisoner?"
Graham didn't appreciate the cop's sarcasm, but he got the point. And as much as he hated to admit, Gallagher was right. For right now, this was the best they could do. He hesitated and then lowered his head over the pad of paper in front of him again. "Come on, Claire," he said under his breath. "Talk to me."
* * *
Claire screamed as she threw herself almost into Alan's arms, taking him completely by surprise. Her arms felt like lead. Nothing seemed real as she struggled with him, trying to prevent him from reaching the scalpel that was just to the side of her left knee.
"No," Alan cried. "It's not supposed to be this way."
Her bare chest pressed against his, her head almost on his shoulders, locked with him in a bizarre lover's embrace, Claire managed to get her right hand up. She shoved the heel of her hand against his face and her fingernail snagged on the lower rim of his eye socket. Alan howled in pain as she tried to gouge out the eye, still holding him just out of reach of the scalpel on the table.
Her left wrist was bleeding profusely and the arm seemed almost lifeless, but there... right there next to her knee was the scalpel.
With every last bit of strength and determination she possessed, she shoved her right arm down and across her body, grabbed the scalpel and wheeled it upward. She meant to hit his chest, but he drew back at the last instant, her arm continued to travel upward, her wrist turned, and the tip of the razor-sharp scalpel found soft flesh at the base of his neck. Instinctively, Claire drew the instrument sideways, and slit his throat.
Alan's eyes went wide as he tumbled backward off the table, pulling Claire down with him.
There was blood everywhere, and she drew back in repulsion as his head hit the dirt floor and gave a little bounce. Still clutching the bloody scalpel, she had landed straddling him and she now scrambled to get off him.
She fell to his left and frantically tried to push away from him, her left arm hanging at her side.
Alan made no attempt to come after her. In fact, he didn't move and after a moment, she pulled herself up on her knees, passing the scalpel to her right hand. If he came after her, she'd cut him again.
Alan lay on his back, staring up.
For a second, Claire thought he was dead. Then she saw his chest rise slowly. Fall. He never moved a muscle, but shifted his gaze to meet hers. His eyes filled with tears. "I'm bleeding," he gurgled.
Bleeding out was the truth of the matter. Blood was gushing from his neck. She'd hit his jugular.
"I'm bleeding," he repeated in horror as he lifted his hand to cover the gaping wound on his throat. "Please don't let me bleed to death. Anything but that."
Claire stared down at him, her eyes filling with tears.
She knew she needed to run. Out of the barn. To the house. To the car she knew must be parked just outside.
Instead, still clutching the scalpel, she rose and grabbed the white towel off the picnic table and dropped to her knees again beside Alan. The pool of dark, wet blood beneath him was growing wider by the moment.
"I'm bleeding," he moaned, tears running down his cheeks. "Please don't let her do it." He was rocking his body. "Please don't let her kill me this way."
He was so weak he could barely move, yet he continued to rock like a child.
She set the scalpel down, knowing she had nothing further to fear from Alan Bradford, and she pressed the towel to his neck. "Don't let who?" she asked.
"Granny." He fixed his gaze on her. He had such a frightened look on his face that she had to choke back a sob. "She cut me. Here." He raised his arm, then let it fall.
She looked down at the awful red and white lumpy scars running the length of his forearm that she had revealed when she cut his sleeve. "She did this to you?" Claire whispered.
He nodded.
She bit back her tears. "Why?" she breathed.
"Blood has ill humors."
"What?" She leaned forward, needing for some reason, to hear. To understand.
"She always said that blood had ill humors. Bleeding was a way to rid the body of evil spirits, of sickness." His breathing had turned ragged. His eyelids were beginning to flutter. "Of evil."
She pressed her lips together, fighting her own emotions. He was pathetic. "She bled you, Alan?"
He closed his eyes, then opened them in affirmation. "She didn't understand blood, but I do. I understand the power of it."
He bled women for their power?
"She... she never wanted me." He was rambling now, his eyes drifting shut again.
Claire couldn't stop the bleeding. The towel was soaked. Useless. She was covered in his blood.
"I was a burden to her. A bloodsucker who lived off the goodwill of others. Who lived off her. That's what she called me. The Bloodsucker. Stupid. Worthless," he muttered as if still hearing her accusations in his head.
Claire closed her eyes for a moment. "Alan, I have to ask you something." She took a breath, not knowing why she had to know, but she did. "Their blood. Did you ever do anything with their blood? Save it?" She hesitated. "Drink it?"
He managed to make a face of repulsion. "No. Of course not. What kind of monster do you think I am?"
She was afraid to answer. Instead, she rubbed his shoulder. "Alan, what your grandmother did was wrong. It was criminal."
"Lousy, worthless bloodsucker," he mouthed.
"Alan, you were just a little boy," Claire argued, pushing his hair away from his eyes. "It wasn't your fault your mother left you there. It wasn't your fault your grandmother had to take care of you."
"Not my fault," he murmured.
He was going fast now. Claire knew she couldn't just sit here and watch him die. She glanced up at the barn around her, then looked down at him. "Alan, I need to get to a phone so I can call an ambulance. So someone can help you. Is there a phone in the house?"
"No!" His eyes flew open and one hand flopped as he tried to reach up to her. They were on the very edge of the circle of lamplight and his face was partly in shadows. "Please don't leave me," he begged, sobbing. "Don't let me lie here and bleed to death, alone. She left me to bleed to death alone in my room." He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the sob that wracked his body.
Claire didn't know what to do. She hated to leave someone in such psychological agony, but if there was any chance at saving his life, she had to get help. She left the soaked towel on his neck and picked up his hand as she rose to a crouch. "I'll just run into your house, call 911, and then come right back to you. I swear I will. I'll stay right here with you until the ambulance comes."
He rolled his head from side to side, his eyes closing, tears running down his face. "Don't let me bleed to death," he mumbled. "Just kill me now. Kill me now."
"You know I can't do that." She let go of his hand and stood up.
Claire walked out of the circle of light toward the far wall where she found a door. She lifted the latch and stepped out into the warm, humid night. To her left, less than a hundred yards away, was a ramshackle white farmhouse, a light burning on the back porch. The grass tickled her bare feet as she hurried toward the light. She was too weak to run.
Halfway there, a brown mutt, asleep on the porch, lifted his head. Spotting her, he got up, went down the wooden stairs and trotted toward her.
"Hey, boy," she said, trying to judge if he was friendly or not. Wouldn't that be a hell of a thing, she thought. To survive being kidnapped by a serial killer only to be mauled to death by Fido...
But the dog just circled her and then fell into place at her side, her own personal escort.
Claire used the rail to pull herself up the stairs. She was dizzy and light-headed and dangerously
close to fainting, but she pushed ahead. She entered the house through a small laundry room. It was pin-neat and smelled of damp plaster and fabric softener. The room emptied into the kitchen which was also neat and looked like something you would see in a movie set in the thirties or forties. Faded, patterned wallpaper, cracked yellowed linoleum. A wooden table with four wooden chairs. The phone was an old dial wall unit on the far side of the room.
Claire lifted the receiver, punched the three digits, ignoring the fact that everything she touched turned bloody. Waiting for the call to go through, she leaned against the wall and slid down until she was seated on the old floor.
"Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?" came a clear, professional voice.
It was Katie Duchet. She'd worked for the county for years as a 911 dispatcher. Claire could hear the New Orleans accent in her perfect diction.
"This is Chief Claire Drummond of the Albany police," she said. It took every bit of energy she could muster to talk loud enough for Katie to hear her.
"Claire?" There was a sound on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry, Chief Drummond. It's just that—"
"I know." She smiled, "Bet you heard a few people are looking for me. Listen, I need some help, but can you tell me if my daughter is all right?"
"Ashley's with the councilman, I heard," Katie said. "Now where are you, Chief?"
"I need an paramedic bus right away. Ambulance, too. You should probably give the station a buzz. You need to check the exact location of a residence for Alan Bradford. I think it's Picket Road but you should be able to get that info with your enhanced system."
"Already got your location, Chief."
Claire paused, breathing deeply. She was beginning to see twinkling lights, but couldn't check out, not yet. "We'll be in the barn."
"Got, it, Chief. Dispatching now. You want to hold the line until someone gets there?"
It was tempting. After the night she'd had, Katie's friendly voice, any friendly voice sounded good. "No," she said. "I'll be fine until they get here. We're in the barn."
Claire released the phone and dropped it to the floor beside her, the old cord stretched to its limit. Her eyes drifted shut of their own accord.
The dog whined and pushed its wet, cool nose against her cheek, then licked her face. She laughed, opening her eyes. "What? What is it, boy?" She scratched behind his ears.
He whined again.
"I know. Can't take that catnap yet." She paused, gathered her wits as best she could, and then using the dog and the wall for support, pushed herself to her feet.
Forcing one foot in front of the other, she crossed the kitchen and on the way through the laundry room, realizing she was still topless, she grabbed a men's white T-shirt from a neat stack on the dryer. If she flashed the paramedics and ambulance squad she'd never hear the end of it.
Pulling the shirt over her head, she went out the old wooden screen door and down the porch steps. The dog stayed right beside her all the way across the dark lawn to the barn.
"Alan," she called as she walked through the open door. "There's an ambulance on its way. Paramedics, too."
She stepped into the circle of light and crouched down beside him. He was looking up at her... but his eyes were sightless.
She pulled the blood-soaked towel from his neck. The blood flow had stopped, not because the wound had coagulated, but because his heart had stopped. She tried to get a pulse at his wrist, anyway. Nothing. No rise and fall of his chest, either. She thought about starting CPR as she slumped back against the picnic table, but she knew it was pointless. She didn't have enough energy left in her to sit up again anyway.
A minute or two later—it was hard to tell how much time had passed—Claire heard the wail of a siren. Two. Tears slipped down her cheeks and when she tried to stop them, she just cried harder.
Her back against the picnic table bench, she threw one arm around the brown dog and cried for Alan. Not for the monster he was, but for the little boy he had been.
* * *
"Mom. Mom, can you hear me?"
Claire's eyelids felt too heavy to possibly move them. She could hear a siren loud now. And Ashley. Ashley was talking to her.
"Mom, please."
She felt pressure on her hand. Ashley was squeezing her hand so hard that it hurt.
"Honey, you can't do that," a gentle voice warned. She knew the voice. Kevin, the paramedic.
"Sorry," Ashley said tearfully.
"Come on, sit beside me, Ash," another voice said. "We'll be at the hospital in a minute."
It was Graham. She didn't have enough energy to smile, but she smiled inside. Graham, her Clark Kent. Graham who was pretty fine in bed, if she recalled correctly. Graham who she was in love with, or at least would be if she could find the time to go out with him. Something told her she'd have the time now.
The sound of a sniffle tugged at Claire's foggy brain. She knew that sniffle. Ashley was crying.
"Ash," she whispered.
"Mom? Mom!" Ashley was at her side again in a second.
Claire mustered up every ounce of energy she had left in her and opened her eyes. "Hey."
"Hey," Ashley breathed. Her eyes were red with tears and her nose was running. "You okay?"
"Peachy." Claire took a deep breath, willing herself to keep her eyes open just another second for her daughter's sake. She could see that she was on a stretcher, in an ambulance. Kevin was leaning over her, checking an IV he'd put in her foot, of all places. "How about you? You okay, Ash?" Claire asked.
"Peachy," she answered, smiling through her tears.
Claire closed her eyes again. "Well, I'm glad you're safe, but that doesn't mean you're off the hook with the tattoo." She could feel herself drifting again. "We'll talk about it later, okay?"
"But we'll talk about it, you and me, right?" Ashley said. "I'll stay here with you and we'll fix it. I don't have to go to Dad's to live."
"You don't have to go to your dad's," Claire murmured.
"Come on," Graham told Ashley, gently. "Your mom's going to be all right. We need to let her rest."
"I love you, Mom," Ashley said, throwing her arms around her mother, her blond hair falling across Claire's cheek.
Claire couldn't hug her daughter in return because both arms were strapped to her sides. Someone was working on a bandage on her right wrist. But she breathed in deeply, inhaling the sweet scent of her daughter's hair. Her skin. "I love you, too, Ash."
Epilogue
One year later
"Hey, sorry I'm late." Claire, dressed in her uniform, walked up to the table in the diner where Graham was already seated, leaned over the table and kissed him on the mouth. "A little problem on the boardwalk. A couple from Pennsylvania went into a fry place, left their beach chairs outside the door, and these kids thought it would be funny if they hid them in the public bathroom. The tourists wanted to file charges." She rolled her eyes, taking a seat across from him on the naugahyde bench.
"The crime in this town." Graham shook his head. "Frightening, isn't it?"
She met his gaze across the table, her thoughts tumbling back to the summer before. She still had a couple of raised red scars on her wrist from Alan's scalpel, but they had healed nicely. Others, inside, would take longer, maybe a lifetime.
Claire was just thankful to be alive, to have Ashley and Graham. Despite regrets and remorse, she was thankful she had been able to stop the poor sick son of a bitch before he had murdered any more young women. She regretted never knowing what had set Alan off on his killing spree, but sometimes you just didn't get all the answers. As for her remorse for not catching him sooner, it was just something she'd figured she lug around with her the rest of her life. Nature of the beast, the FBI psychiatrist she had seen a couple of times had explained to her. No law enforcement agent who dealt with a serial killer and survived didn't carry some guilt.
Graham reached across the table and took her hand in his. He didn't seem to notice the raised welts on her wrist. "
You talk to that guy? The one who wants to write the book?"
She glanced up, focusing on his face, pushing Alan's from her mind. "Sydney McGregor's husband? Yeah. His name's Marshall King. Nice guy. You can tell he's not from around here, but..." She lifted her shoulder, letting her sentence go unfinished.
She knew she should take her hand from Graham's. She was in uniform; public displays of affection were inappropriate for officers on the job. But she just wasn't ready to let him go. Not sure if she would ever be.
After she'd gotten out of the hospital the previous August, she'd asked Graham to move in with her and Ashley. He'd countered by asking her to marry him. They'd remained at a standoff until Christmas Eve when Ashley had accepted Graham's proposal and the antique platinum engagement ring from him for her mother.
Just thinking about Ashley made her smile. She was so proud of her and not nearly so worried as she had been the year before. Her daughter's hair had remained blond, the black eyeliner was gone, and she was still dating Chain who would start college in the fall. Ashley was on the right path.
Claire looked down at the sparkling diamonds on her finger. And so was she. The wedding was the first weekend in October—as soon as the tourists went home and work slowed down. She couldn't wait to be married, mostly because she couldn't wait to wake every morning to see Graham in bed beside her.
"You going to let him write the book?" Graham prodded gently.
"No letting him about it. The details of the murders are well-documented; no records are sealed. He's free to write whatever he likes."
Graham tightened his grip on her hand, holding her gaze. "You know what I mean. He wants to interview you, in depth. He wants to know what it was like. That would mean having to relive it all, Claire."
She sighed, pulling her hand away to make room for a pert waitress to slide her iced tea and chef's salad across the table in front of her.
"But it might be good for you, you know." He leaned back to make room for his tuna croissant.
"Anything else?" the waitress asked.
She'll Never Live Page 23
