The Last Victim

by Karen Robards

  “The killer was his dad,” Garland supplied.

  “Holly’s telling me. She says it was your father who killed her.”

  “What the fuck?” He wet his lips as he shot a fearful glance in Garland’s direction. Charlie guessed he’d been able to tell that whatever she was purportedly talking to was about right there. Then his eyes fixed on Charlie again. They brimmed with rage and fear. “You’re not doing this to me. I’m not buying it, you bitch,” he snarled, and Charlie saw in the flash of his eyes that time was up: he meant to spring at her.

  “Goddamn it.” Garland made an abortive movement that brought him closer to her as Charlie’s heart leaped into her throat and Kingston seemed to gather himself.

  Bayley screamed out, “No!”

  With a loud thud, someone kicked open the van’s door. The flimsy-looking metal panel crashed back on its hinges.

  “What the fuck?” Kingston whirled, still holding the knife.

  A gun blasted, just as quick as that. Charlie screamed like a steam whistle as the sound of the explosion blasted her eardrums and the back of Kingston’s head blew off. Blood sprayed the small compartment. She felt the warmth of the splatter hitting her as Kingston’s body dropped like a felled tree. The impact as it hit the floor shook the van.

  “Is everybody all right in here?” Haney asked. Never in her life had Charlie expected to be glad to see him, but she absolutely was.

  “Jesus H. Christ,” Garland growled as he dropped down into a crouch beside her. She could feel the intensity of his relief. “You ever think that messing with serial killers might not be the smartest move, Doc?”

  “F-fine.” She ignored Garland in favor of replying to Haney, only to discover that her teeth were chattering and it was an effort to get even that one word out. Bayley was gone. Charlie could only suppose it was because her killer was now dead. Hannah’s body was tense and her eyes were screwed tightly shut. Charlie experienced a quiver of fellow feeling for what she knew must be the terror the girl was experiencing. Her own body was shaking with fright and reaction, and she would have turned into Garland’s arms except, oh, wait, that wasn’t possible. As the realization that it was over—that she and Hannah were safe—started to sink in, she took a deep breath and sagged a bit, still trapped by that damned chain. Haney filled the little area between the counter and closet, looking from Charlie to Hannah, a pistol in his hand, a grim expression on his face.

  Then he tucked his pistol away in his shoulder holster, stepped over Kingston’s corpse, bent, and picked up his knife.

  “Should’ve killed that little pissant long ago,” Haney said. “Just like I should have come after you fifteen years ago once I found out you were there in the Palmers’ house that night.” Then he lunged at Charlie with the knife.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Charlie shrieked and threw herself back against the wall.

  “Son of a bitch,” Garland roared, flinging himself between her and Haney. She could feel him, she realized, feel his weight and the heat of his body and the solid steely strength of him just as if he were alive, and she guessed that the extremity of her need must have triggered him to materialize physically. His hands wrapped around the chain holding her, and he yanked the ring it was fastened to right out of the wall.

  “Who the hell?” Haney yelled as Garland grabbed him and threw him down on the bed.

  “Run,” Garland bellowed at Charlie, who did, leaping over the pair of them like a gazelle and darting for the door because she realized that she only had seconds before Garland was mist again and Haney was free to come after her. Leaving Hannah was wrenching, but her escape was the only hope either of them had. As she burst out into what she saw in that first instantaneous glance was a clearing in the midst of a piney woods, the image that was busy branding itself into her mind was what she had seen as she had jumped over Garland and Haney entwined: the handle of that wicked-looking knife sticking out of Garland’s broad back.

  He’d taken the killing blow that had been meant for her.

  You can’t kill a dead man, Charlie reminded herself savagely, and ran like her life depended on it, which it did. Hannah’s, too. Charlie had no doubt whatsoever that once he had finished with her, Haney would turn back and slaughter the girl.

  A string of curses made Charlie glance behind her. Haney leaped from the van, looked around for her. He no longer had Kingston’s knife in his hand. He had his gun instead.

  Charlie’s heart exploded with terror. Every tiny hair on her body catapulted upright. She wanted to scream her lungs out. But she swallowed the urge, knowing it would only serve to pinpoint her location for him, and instead ran like a rabbit with the hounds after it.

  You really think you can outrun a gun?

  Kingston had driven up a dirt track, which he’d clearly turned onto from the road. Keeping to the track would be suicide, no cover there. Charlie had realized that in an instant, as soon as she’d escaped the van, so she was already plunging through the woods. The scent of pine filled her nostrils as she barreled past low-hanging limbs. Even this early in the morning, the heat was intense. Luckily it was summer, though, and the mulch underfoot was green and didn’t crack and snap with her every desperate footfall. The sounds of birds and insects and rustling branches would mask the noise of her flight to some degree, she hoped. The pines were thick with needles, which might keep Haney from spotting her right away. But there was no point in trying to fool herself: it wouldn’t take him long.

  Charlie fled, racing through the woods parallel to the track, knowing that her only hope was to get to the road, flag down a car, get to some other human being who could help her before Haney got a clear shot at her.

  He means to make it look like Kingston killed Hannah and me.

  That much was clear. Horror took over at the realization, clouding her thought processes, causing her to go all light-headed and fuzzy-brained. Haney was the man who’d slit Diane Palmer’s throat, the man who’d murdered Holly, the original Boardwalk Killer. It had been him whom she’d sensed at Jockey’s Ridge. She hadn’t recognized him—just like she’d been afraid all along she wouldn’t recognize him when he came.

  And he had come. It was her worst nightmare: He’s come back for me.

  Garland must have been kicked back into Spookville, or he would be with her now. It was doubly terrifying to know she was completely on her own.

  Please, God, help.…

  “There you are,” Haney called with satisfaction, and knowing that she was close enough that she could hear him sent a fresh jolt of terror through her. Glancing fearfully back as she ran, she saw that he’d plunged into the woods about a hundred yards behind her, and that he could indeed see her, just as she could see him.

  It took maybe another split second for her to realize he wasn’t chasing her.

  He was standing still and snapping up his gun.

  To shoot her.

  Terror sent goose bumps racing over her skin. Dread slid like ice down her spine.

  With all need for subterfuge past, Charlie screamed like a siren and threw herself to the left and kept running. A bullet smacked into a tree trunk just a few feet in front of where she had been.

  Please, God, please …

  Now Haney was chasing her. She could hear him, cursing and crashing through the branches behind her. How long would it be before he had the chance at another clear shot?

  Her skin tingled. She could almost feel a bullet burying itself in her back. Oh, God, would it hurt?

  Please …

  Then she saw it, through the trees. The black SUV. It was bumping up the dirt track, traveling fast.

  Screaming, she bolted toward it. They must have spotted her, because it jerked to a halt.

  Charlie burst through the trees just as all three of them leaped from the van, running toward her, guns out and aimed at something behind her.

  “Haney, freeze!” Tony yelled. “Drop your weapon.”

  Then Charlie reached them, or they reach
ed her. Kaminsky and Crane ran on past, and a single glance over her shoulder told her that Haney was just yards behind her. He stood still, no longer holding his gun, and she guessed he must have dropped it on Tony’s command. His hands were in the air.

  Her strength gave out, and she would have fallen to her knees if Tony hadn’t wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against his side.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

  “Hannah Beckett’s up there in an RV. She’s alive,” Charlie gasped. Then, panting, resting against him, finally allowing herself to believe it was over, Charlie closed her eyes.

  A little later, after Hannah was freed and whisked off to a hospital and Haney had been taken away and an obliging cop had removed the dangling handcuff from her wrist, Charlie sat on a fallen log not too far away from the van. Police and FBI were already swarming around, and the medical examiner was said to be on the way. She knew the media wouldn’t be far behind.

  She had just watched the Meads come for Bayley. Julie, Tom, and Trevor had all appeared together, not too far from where she sat. Bayley had come running from the direction of the van, and gone right into Julie’s outstretched arms. Then the four of them had done the group-hug thing and gone walking off together, arm in arm, before disappearing.

  Charlie liked to think they’d gone into the white light.

  Tony had been in the van for a while. Now he came out to join her, sitting down on the log next to her, offering her a bottle of water.

  Charlie accepted it with a nod of thanks, unscrewed the lid, and took a long drink. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized just how dry her throat was.

  “I have a question for you,” he said. “Haney and Hannah both said something about an instant appearance and disappearance of a big blond guy.”

  Charlie shrugged. She wasn’t about to try to explain Garland to him.

  The merest suggestion of a smile touched Tony’s mouth. “I don’t want to know, huh?”

  Charlie shook her head.

  “Fair enough.”

  “I have a question for you,” she said. “How did you find me?”

  “We were looking for you everywhere when I got a call from the lab. It was the damned ChapStick. In that bundle of stuff you gave me, seems there were two of them. One was still in the pocket of your jeans. The other one had Haney’s DNA on it. Apparently it was his. All we can figure is that he dropped it the night he killed the Palmers, and it somehow got caught up in your clothes. Soon as I heard that, I had the Bureau put a trace on his cell phone. It didn’t take them long to find him, but it seemed like a lifetime to me.”

  The way he was looking at her, Charlie could see that her disappearance had scared him. She appreciated that. It was actually something she could build on.

  Maybe.

  One day.

  Depending on how things went.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Four days later, Tony was taking Charlie home. It was around ten p.m., and twilight had just turned the corner into full dark. They were in Big Stone Gap, driving up her street in a dark blue Lincoln sedan that had been waiting for them when the plane had touched down at Lonesome Pine Airport some three hours before. They’d had dinner at the Mountain Laurel Restaurant—that dinner he’d owed her. After he dropped her off he would be returning to the airport and winging away to Quantico, where Kaminsky and Crane awaited him. Until another serial killer hit their radar, they were working at headquarters.

  Charlie had already told Tony that she wouldn’t be taking him up on his offer to join their team.

  “I’ll consult,” she had promised. “Call whenever you need me.”

  But her home, and her work, were in Big Stone Gap.

  To say nothing of a certain lonely grave.

  She hadn’t seen Garland since he’d saved her from Haney.

  She was hideously afraid that she might never see him again.

  Either he’d been kicked into eternity and was unable to get out, or he was around and she just couldn’t see him.

  What both scenarios left her with was a raw and aching heart. She’d let herself get too close to him, and now she was paying the price. She already could tell that it was going to take her some time to heal.

  “So Haney’s claiming total innocence?” Charlie said, continuing the conversation she and Tony had been having. “How can he do that? To begin with, he tried to kill me.”

  “He’s lawyered up, and he’s twisting the facts. He’s saying that he only realized that his son was the killer we were looking for when he found the three of you in that travel van. That he shot his own son to save you and Hannah Beckett. That you freaked out and ran when the shooting started, and imagined the rest.”

  “The liar,” Charlie said indignantly.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Aside from everything else, he shot Kingston the moment he stepped inside that van. He never even saw Hannah and me until after Kingston was dead. He must have known all along his son was the killer.”

  “Not all along.” Tony shook his head. “We don’t think Haney knew the copycat was his son until a convenience store owner drew his attention to a surveillance shot of a gray Dodge Charger at the right time and place to be involved in the attack at the Meads’. Kingston has a gray Dodge Charger. When he saw the car, Haney must have recognized it and instantly started to suspect Kingston. We know this because he substituted surveillance footage of another gray car—remember the DVD of the gray Avalon he had Officer Price give me?—for the footage of the Charger. He must have made the substitution in case the convenience store owner mentioned the surveillance shot to anyone else. Anyway, we’ve got both shots now: the original of the Charger, and the substitute one of the Avalon Haney passed on to me, trying to throw the investigation off track. It’s actually a pretty damning piece of evidence against him.”

  Charlie considered, then frowned. “He gave that surveillance footage to you on the night before—”

  She broke off. Following the thought to its conclusion was just too horrible.

  Tony finished it for her. “Bayley Evans’ body was found. Yeah. After seeing the footage of the Charger, Haney went straight over to Kingston’s house. He found Bayley Evans there, tied up in the basement, and had it out with Kingston. During the course of what went down that night, Kingston revealed he knew that Haney was the Boardwalk Killer, and told him that he had found one of the girls Haney had kidnapped. Apparently Haney kept them out in a detached garage behind the house. After that, when little kid Kingston was visiting his dad, he’d check to see if Haney had a girl back there. If he did, Kingston would slip into a closet and watch as his father tortured and killed her.”

  “My God,” Charlie breathed. “How do you know all this?”

  “Kingston had a webcam trained on Bayley Evans—on each of the girls, when he had them. Recording everything, so that he could relive the experience later. The argument Kingston and Haney had that night took place in the basement, right where he was keeping Bayley Evans. It got picked up by the webcam, and it’s still on Kingston’s computer.”

  “Tony.” Charlie’s heart had started to thump. “Did the webcam catch Bayley’s murder?”

  Tony’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. It caught that, too.”

  For a moment Charlie could hardly breathe. “Did Kingston do it? Or …”

  “Kingston. He didn’t want to, but Haney ordered him to kill her right there and then and warned him to stop with the murders. When Kingston didn’t—well, that’s when the rest of it went down.”

  “Serial killers can’t stop,” Charlie said. “It’s a compulsion. They have to kill until they are caught or something stops them.”

  “Like Haney’s car accident stopped him,” Tony said. “No telling how many more victims there would have been in the original group if that hadn’t happened.”

  They had discovered that right after the Palmer murders, Haney’s car had been hit by a drunk driver. He’d been ejected through the windsh
ield, spent almost a year in the hospital and another year in rehab, and had extensive plastic surgery to repair his facial injuries. This knowledge made Charlie feel a little better about not recognizing him.

  “That’s why Kingston took Hannah so soon after he was forced to kill Bayley,” Charlie said. “He couldn’t stop. He had to play out his fantasy to the end.”

  “Haney must have been going out of his mind,” Tony said. “We know that as soon as he left the Becketts’ house, he went searching for his son. He expected Kingston would have taken Hannah to his house, just like he did Bayley and the others, but Kingston was too smart for that, since Haney had found him there the last time and made him get rid of Bayley. When Haney got there, the house was empty.”

  “How do you know?” Charlie asked. “Was that caught on Kingston’s webcam, too?”

  Tony shook his head. “Kingston had his computer with him in the van, up in the passenger seat. I’m guessing he meant to turn it on Hannah, but just hadn’t gotten the chance yet. What we’ve got is the GPS from Haney’s police car showing us where Haney went that night.”

  “Ah,” Charlie said. “So Haney set fire to Kingston’s house to make sure he couldn’t take Hannah back there and finish his fantasy with her?”

  Tony nodded. “Also to get rid of all the evidence. Haney knew Kingston was on our short list of suspects. He knew that there was a good chance we were going to bring him in sooner or later. I’m sure he was afraid that if we arrested Kingston, his son would spill the beans on him, too. After he set fire to Kingston’s house, he waited around nearby for him to come home.”

  “He was actually taking a big risk.” Charlie closed her eyes for a moment as she realized how differently things could have worked out. When she opened them again, it was to discover Tony watching her with concern. She gave him a small, reassuring smile: I’m fine. “Kingston could have gone anywhere in that van. Given that Haney had already surprised him in the house with Bayley, it’s a wonder that Kingston didn’t just take off with Hannah.”