“I’m going,” she said for the hundredth time. “I have to go, you know that.”
“Then I’m going with you,” Val said stubbornly. “We’ll send the kids to my parents—”
She scoffed. “Are you kidding me? If he can’t get to me, the first thing he’ll do is come after Riley.” She didn’t know how she knew it, but she did. “Your parents can’t protect her. He didn’t just kill that girl in the park. You didn’t see what he did to her. He destroyed her.”
Val aimed a look of hurt disbelief straight at her. “I did see. I saw what he did to you—I was there when they … ” Her voice hitched in her chest and she looked away.
Her shoulders sagged. “He’ll kill you. He killed Lucy to punish me—”
“You don’t know that for sure.” Val flicked a glare at Michael. “She’s missing, no one knows for sure. She might be okay.” It made sense that Val would refuse to accept the inevitable. She was the one who’d insisted that they keep contact with her. If Lucy were dead, she’d blame herself.
“Val. Please.”
“I can’t,” Val whispered. Her dark eyes flooded with tears. “I let you leave once. When you left, you disappeared and never came back.”
She met Val’s gaze, saw the sorrow she was usually so deft at hiding. “Is that what you think happened? That you did this?” she said. Val looked away.
She leaned forward to grab her hand. “You had no way of knowing what was going to happen. He would’ve come for me no matter where I was or who I was with. I’m glad I was alone because you wouldn’t have stopped him. He would’ve killed you and if you were gone, I’d be totally lost. And what about Riley and Jason? Where would they be now if you had been with me that night?”
They were quiet for a moment. Michael stared at the floor. Val stared at her hands. Sabrina stared at Val. Finally Val looked up to meet her eyes.
“You have to let me go.”
Val took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “Okay. But if you get yourself killed, I’m going to be pissed.”
Forty-two
Sabrina lay in the dark and stared at the ceiling. The red, ribbon-wrapped box sat on her nightstand unopened. A grenade, just waiting for her to pull the pin.
“You need to open it,” Michael said. She turned her head to look at him.
He’d stayed. Hadn’t asked, hadn’t insisted—just stayed. Like it was a given. He was sitting in the chair in the corner. The wash of moonlight that fell through the window illuminated his legs. Everything else was cast in shadow. She wanted to tell him to shut up and mind his own business.
She looked back toward the ceiling. “I know.”
“Scared?”
The word jerked her upright. She looked at him again. “Careful. The last time you tossed that word at me I kicked your ass.”
He laughed and leaned into the pale slice of light that streamed through the window. “Don’t remind me, I’m still pissing blood.”
She was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry.”
Leaning back, he disappeared into the dark again. “Not the worst beating I ever took.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.” She was sorry for Frankie. Sorry for the trail of dead girls that led back to her. Sorry for a lot of things.
He didn’t answer her. Didn’t say it was okay, didn’t say he forgave her, that it wasn’t her fault. Silence swallowed silence, growing bigger and heavier second by second, until the weight of it pushed her flat on the mattress. Finally, he spoke.
“I fought them. Sophia and Sean, I mean. They took me in, loved me, and all I did was throw shit at them. I couldn’t stop it. Every time I broke their hearts, I told myself that it was the last time, that I was going to change, be the kind of kid they deserved. Let them love me or whatever, but I couldn’t. I was too scared.
“Then Frankie was born. She looked just like Sophia, but with Sean’s eyes. She was everything I could never be. She was theirs, belonged to them. I hated her.” He said nothing for a moment, just slow, heavy breathing. “But then Sophia made me hold her. Practically dropped her in my arms. I wouldn’t even look at her. I told Sophia to take her back. I didn’t want her there—I was going to hurt her if she didn’t take her back. But she just said, no, you won’t. Then she said, she needs you Michael. She’s your sister—she belongs to you too. I finally looked down and she was staring up at me with these … beautiful blue eyes.” More slow, heavy breathing. “She saved me.”
She didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry wasn’t enough. There was nothing she could say that would make it better. But there was something she could do to make it right.
“I’m going to kill him,” she said quietly.
He laughed—a small, watery sound—and then leaned into the light. He looked at her, and she could see something in his face had changed. “I appreciate the sentiment, but why don’t we start with opening the box.”
She sat up, turned on the light. “Okay … okay.” She pulled on the pair of latex gloves that were just waiting for her to find her courage, then she grabbed the evidence bag before she changed her mind. “Strickland and I dusted it for prints. He took a sample of the ribbon to run a comparison against what he used on the vic.” She was all cop now; she knew it was because she wanted to distance herself from the thing waiting for her inside the box, but she couldn’t help herself.
He seemed to understand. “And?”
“No prints. No particulates—nothing. The color and cut marks on the ribbon are a match to what was found in the park. The gift tags are identical.” She turned it over. This one had Sabrina Vaughn carefully printed across the back. She took a deep breath and tugged on the tail of ribbon, pulling the bow loose. Took the paper off, careful to preserve as much of it as possible. She put it back in the evidence bag, along with the ribbon and tag.
The box was white, unremarkable. Inside was a nest of blood-red tissue paper. She pulled the top layer aside, looked into the box. Her heart snapped in two. “Oh … ” she breathed out and slowly reached into the box.
The blown glass angel was fragile—beautiful. She recognized it instantly.
No matter what she said to Val about Lucy being dead, she’d had hope. It’d clung to her like a burr, its stubborn thorns dug deep. She’d hoped they were wrong. That somehow, Lucy was still alive. She now knew for sure that her grandmother was dead. She looked up at Michael and showed him the figurine.
“Lucy gave it to me for my eleventh birthday,” she said.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and cupped his hands around hers, pulling them closer. He looked down and his face fell. “I’ve seen it before. She kept it up high on a bookshelf in her living room. Whoever took it had to have known what they were looking for.” He looked at her. “It means something to him.” He dropped his hands away and stood. Began to pace. “You were eleven?”
She watched him walk the length of the bed, back and forth—hands wrapped around the back of his neck. She nodded. “Yes. I remember because I started helping her with alterations that year.” She smiled. “I saw it in some gift shop and saved every dime I made to buy it. I wanted it so bad. It’s a hand-blown original—some artist out of New Orleans—expensive. I didn’t care about that. I just thought it was pretty, hoping I’d be able to save enough before someone bought it. One day I went in to see if was still there, and it was gone. I was crushed. A few weeks later it was my birthday and she handed me this little box wrapped in … red paper.” Her eyes snapped up to his face. “Lucy wrapped it in red paper. With a red ribbon—it used to be my favorite color.”
He’d stopped pacing and looked at her. “How would he know that?”
She remembered it like it was yesterday. “My birthday fell on a Sunday that year. She gave it to me after church. There was a picnic … half of Jessup must’ve been there. Anyone could’ve seen her give it to me.”
“Does an
yone stand out? Did anyone say anything to you?”
She shook her head. “A lot of people said a lot of things. It was my birthday.”
He started to pace again—back and forth along the length of the bed. He stopped after a few turns and looked at her. “What about Jed Carson. Was he there?”
The sudden memory stalled her heart for just a moment before it doubled its pace. She stared up and him and nodded. “Yes.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“That was the year he started following me around. He was older and I didn’t really understand at first but—he told me a bunch of kids were playing hide-and-seek in the woods behind the church … I was just happy that the other kids wanted to play with me. None of them ever did before.” She laughed at the memory. “I was so stupid.”
He shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “You weren’t stupid. You were a little girl. What happened next?”
“He took me into the woods, but when we got there, it was just him and me. He tried to kiss me, but I wouldn’t let him. He got mad. Really mad. He pushed me down.” That’d been the beginning. After that, there was nowhere she could go in Jessup without looking over her shoulder and seeing Jed Carson, especially after she moved back there with Kelly. Still … she couldn’t believe it. “He was just a kid. No more than twelve or thirteen.”
He dropped his hands and looked at her. “Yeah, well, he’s grown now.” He scrubbed his hands over his face before shoving them into his front pockets. She noticed it was something he did when he was trying to keep himself under control. There was something he wasn’t telling her.
“What? Tell me what’s going on?”
More pacing. She let him go, let him figure out how to say whatever it was he wanted to tell her. She counted nine turns before he stopped and looked at her.
“Billy Bauer was killed in the line of duty about five years ago,” he said plainly. He watched her face closely, so she figured that he knew; he knew Billy Bauer was her father.
She was careful to keep her expression neutral, but the truth was the news hurt more than she thought it would. She looked down at her hands for a moment. “Oh.” She nodded and met his gaze. She could see he wasn’t finished.
“He was killed during a routine traffic stop—stabbed to death on Route 80,” he said. He took his hands out of his pockets and sat down in the chair. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees, letting his head hang between his shoulders. He looked up as her. “He was killed on October first.”
“You think the man who killed Frankie and took those girls—took me—is responsible. You think he killed my—Bauer. You think he killed Bauer.” It wasn’t a question but he nodded anyway.
“I don’t think Bauer knew who he was pulling over that night. I do think that when he saw who was behind the wheel, he got suspicious. Something happened to force his hand,” he said before standing. More pacing, hands jammed into his pockets. He still wasn’t finished.
Michael was quiet for a moment, choosing his words carefully. “I don’t think it was his plan to kill Bauer that night, but I think he took the opportunity to gain control of the town.”
“What? You’re not making sense—”
“Five years ago, Jed Carson was just one of the two deputies. When Bauer was killed, the town council held a special session. Carson’s been police chief in Jessup ever since.”
As police chief, Carson would be able to steer an investigation in any direction he wanted. He’d be able to kill with impunity.
She thought of the young boy who’d tried to kiss her, the way he’d shoved her to the ground when she refused. She remembered him glaring down at her, eyes narrowed, fists clenched. Suddenly, she remembered what he said to her while he stood over where she lay, sprawled in the dirt.
“You’re gonna be my girl, Melissa. Mine.”
Her hand pressed against her stomach, felt the thin, raised scars scattered across it. Time and more surgeries than she wanted to remember erased the majority of them, but the original scars were still there. She could still feel them.
She traced them with her fingertip. Followed the smattering of bumps and ridges across her skin, read by touch what’d been stabbed into her. Fourteen straight-line wounds, grouped together to form a single word.
MINE
Forty-three
She woke to the sound of her shower running. Sabrina cracked a lid and peeked at the clock. It was six a.m. She’d actually slept through the night—again. She’d take an armed guard over Ambien any day. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling. After opening the box and deciding that Jed Carson was their number one suspect, she and Michael had made plans.
They were leaving for Jessup first thing tomorrow. That gave her one day to gather any information she could and ask Strickland for help. She was meeting him at the coroner’s office in a few hours for the autopsy. She’d keep her promise, explain everything to him. He’d want to go with her, be pissed when he found out she wasn’t going to let him. Sabrina hoped he understood that staying behind and looking out for her family was the most important thing he could do for her.
The shower shut off, and Michael walked out a few minutes later, wearing the same jeans he had on the day before, hair sticking up from being rubbed dry. He crossed the room to sit in the chair he’d spent the night in. He picked up one of his boots but didn’t put it on. He looked tired.
“Rough night?” she said.
He shook his head, gave her a half-smile. “This past year has made me soft. A couple nights in a chair, I’m ready to call my massage therapist.” He laughed. “The fact that I have a massage therapist to call is even worse.”
She wanted to ask what he meant, wanted to know more about him, but she kept her questions to herself. She understood the need for secrets. Instead, she propped her herself up on her elbow and smiled back. “You could’ve slept here.” She gestured to the bed. He looked down and began pulling on his boots.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
It took her a second to get his meaning. When she did, she flopped onto her back and laughed out loud. “Don’t worry, O’Shea—your virtue is safe with me,” she said, even though she wasn’t entirely sure that was true. Before he could answer, she rolled over and looked at him again. His boots were on and laced up, but he still hadn’t put on his shirt. “Where’re you going?”
He looked at her. “With you.”
She shook her head. “You can’t. Strickland is wound so tight his head’s about to pop off. If he sees you there, he’ll probably shoot us both. Just wait here—”
“I’ll stay in the car.”
“What about Val and the kids?”
“He won’t go after them unless he can’t get to you. They’ll be fine as long as we keep dangling the carrot.”
He was right. She nodded and looked away. She understood that in order to catch him, they’d have to take risks. She hated to admit it, but the thought of him being only a few seconds away was comforting. “Okay.”
She rolled out of bed and looked at the clock again. No time for a run. She ducked into the closet and pulled a dark blue T-shirt off its hanger. It had SFPD stenciled in bright yellow across the front. She tossed it to him. “It’ll help you blend.” She headed for the bathroom. “There better be hot water left.”
Sabrina’s cell rang. It was Mathews. Again. She let it go to voicemail. He’d called her four times in the past hour and a half. Probably to give her a direct order to stay away from the Sawyer girl’s autopsy.
Michael rode shotgun, not saying much. He just scrolled through what she thought might be text messages with a slight frown on his face. She wanted to ask what was wrong but didn’t. She pulled into the parking lot, backed into a spot that gave him a clear view of the door.
She dropped the keys into his hand and climbed out of the jeep. Crossing the lot quic
kly, she hurried into the building, down a hall that smelled faintly of floor wax under the heavier, cloying aroma of formaldehyde.
Her cell rang: Mathews again. She ignored it and hurried down the hall. She rounded the corner and stopped short. Strickland sat in a folding chair outside the autopsy room with his head in his hands. Two uniforms stood on either side.
One of them turned, saw her standing at the end of the hall. He motioned for his partner to look sharp. Strickland’s head came up. He saw her and stood before saying something to the two officers. The two men didn’t look happy, but when he came forward, they stayed put.
The closer Strickland got, the clearer she could see the expression on his face. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
“What’s going on?” She looked over his shoulder at his armed escort. He didn’t answer right away, just looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Like she was a total stranger. “Answer me, Strickland. What’s happening?”
“Mathews wants you back at the station.” He cleared his throat. “Sanford was found dead in his truck, early this morning. These officers are here to take you in for questioning.”
Forty-four
A week ago, Michael’s plan had been simple. Take Sabrina back to Jessup—by force if necessary—expose her for who she really was, and wait.
She’d changed everything with two little words.
I’m sorry.
He’d have to be quick; he only had four days left. Not nearly enough time, but he’d worked in tight spaces before. If he couldn’t get the job done within those time constraints, he’d have to get her out of there—hide her. She’d fight him, but he didn’t care. For once, he was going to think of someone beside himself, and he was going to do it before it was too late to save them. He’d failed Frankie—he wouldn’t fail Sabrina.
Carved in Darkness Page 18
