by Debra Webb
Rowan handed the pen back to Charlotte. “Thanks. I guess we might make it back to Winchester ahead of the storm, after all.”
By the time they reached the main road, Highway 64, big fat drops of rain splatted on the windshield. Rowan’s cell rattled on the console and she allowed the call to come through the car’s speaker so she didn’t have to take her hands from the wheel.
“Hey, Billy, you’re on speaker. Charlotte and I are en route back to Winchester. What’s up?”
“Hey, Chief,” Charlotte said, her tone teasing.
“Hey, Charlotte, Ro.”
His deep voice had a calming effect on her. She was glad he’d called. Though she suspected the reason for the call would be anything but calming.
“Did Pryor arrive?” she asked. It was almost five o’clock. He should be in Winchester by now. “Or is there some other news?”
It was possible there was something new on the victim found in the cemetery this morning. Crash Layton. Even as the idea entered her mind she couldn’t help recalling that night when he’d burst into the shack out in the middle of nowhere.
“He’ll be here in half an hour. I can put him off until tomorrow if you’d prefer or you can go ahead and get this meeting over with.”
“Why put it off? I’d rather do it and be done with him.” She had met Pryor only once but already she didn’t like him. “I’ll take Charlotte back to the funeral home and then I’ll be there.”
“Drive safe. It’s coming down here.”
Even as he said the words the bottom dropped out and seeing through the downpour was a task.
Rowan ended the call and focused on staying between the lines. Thankfully traffic was light. Driving in a heavy downpour was one of her least favorite things to do.
When the roar of the downpour had lessened, Charlotte spoke. “Are you and Chief Brannigan serious? As in planning to make your arrangement permanent?”
Rowan had known there would be more questions like that one eventually. Burt had been the first to start nudging her. An ache swelled inside her. It was hard to grasp the idea that he was really gone.
“We’re taking things one day at a time,” Rowan said without saying too much. She still worried about ruining the friendship she and Billy had shared since they were kids. Whatever happened from here needed to occur naturally and without any unnecessary prodding.
“That’s smart,” Charlotte agreed. “The two of you are perfect together. I’m certain there will be a wedding before we know it.”
Charlotte sounded like Dottie.
A wedding. Oddly enough, the idea was growing on Rowan.
* * *
Special Agent in Charge Luke Pryor was in his midfifties. He was short and thick in stature but fit-looking. Round, gold-rimmed glasses sat atop his broad nose. His suit was as fresh and unwrinkled as if he’d just put it on. Classic leather shoes were polished to a high shine despite the rainy weather. This was a man who liked making an impression. He wanted to stand out in the room.
For Rowan, he was basically a pain in the neck.
While Billy made the introductions, Cindy Farris, his secretary, brought bottled water to his office and the three of them—Billy, Rowan and Pryor—settled around his small conference table. Rowan had dropped Charlotte off at the funeral home where she would finish up with Ms. Donelson and then go home for the day. There were no viewings tonight. Ms. Donelson’s would be tomorrow evening, then Burt’s on Thursday.
First thing tomorrow morning Rowan intended to pay another visit to Ms. Alcott. A shiver crept through her at the thought of that odd note. Maybe the elderly lady had some way of knowing who had turned down her long driveway and had time to prepare the note. A reasonable explanation.
At least it was one Rowan could swallow.
With the pleasantries out of the way, Billy started the conversation with, “I take it there’s still nothing new on Agent Dressler.”
Pryor pursed his lips for a moment. “Unfortunately that is the case. We still have nothing. If he’s able, he’s made no attempt to contact us. Until your call this morning, I was convinced he was a hostage or...worse. Now I’m not so certain. Your witness saw him and he appeared to be moving about of his own volition. I stopped by Ms. Dixon’s shop when I first arrived in Winchester and she was happy to answer my questions.”
Whatever hers and Josh’s differences in the past, Rowan wasn’t ready to write him off as a turncoat so easily. “It’s possible Agent Dressler is caught up in a situation where his restraints are not readily visible.”
Pryor considered Rowan for a time. “A plausible explanation. We are, by the way, still attempting to determine how someone used your cell phone without your knowledge.”
Rowan had checked her phone. There was no call to Josh or any unknown number in her history. “I’m afraid that one is above my pay grade since I can assure you the phone was never out of my possession and I’m no expert on the available technology that might fool your experts.”
Pryor’s gaze narrowed. He didn’t like Rowan. That much was obvious.
As if to confirm her assessment, the agent tossed out an accusation. “Detective Jones tells me that Agent Dressler was quite taken with you when the two of you worked together in Nashville.”
Now he was really reaching. “First,” Rowan said, “there was nothing remotely personal about my and Agent Dressler’s relationship then or now. Second, whatever Detective Jones said, I’m confident the statement was not in the same context that you’re suggesting.”
Billy glared at the man but kept whatever he was thinking to himself. Most likely a good thing.
“Why do you suppose he came back to Winchester without telling anyone? Do you believe he’s onto something? Perhaps following a lead he doesn’t feel comfortable sharing at this time?”
Rowan smiled. “I’m certain you can read Agent Dressler’s mind better than I can. Why don’t you tell me because I have no idea?”
“Agent Dressler and I,” Billy said, breaking into the thick tension, “discussed my concerns regarding a possible leak in his task force. Have you explored that possibility, Agent Pryor?”
Pryor continued to stare at Rowan for a bit before shifting his attention to Billy. “There is no leak in the task force, not on the Bureau’s end in any event. Dressler mentioned your concerns, but he and I were on the same page on the matter. We believe Julian Addington had this man, Layton, watching Rowan, which would explain how he happened upon the scene last October.”
Convenient, Rowan mused. Only Billy knew the message the bearded man, Crash Layton, had given her regarding who sent him. Of course, what he had said was impossible. Norah DuPont had been dead for going on three decades. She couldn’t have sent him to intervene on Rowan’s behalf.
“Under the circumstances,” Billy said then, “it would seem we have nothing else to talk about.”
Rowan divided her attention between the two men, curious as to who would back down first. Billy wanted this meeting over. Pryor wanted Rowan to confess to calling Josh and possibly knowing his current whereabouts.
She certainly wished she did have some idea where he was.
“Perhaps not,” Pryor agreed. He turned his attention back to Rowan. “However, I am not convinced that you’re sharing all you know with me, Dr. DuPont. If you are in contact with Addington or with our missing agent, you need to share that knowledge. Whatever situation Agent Dressler has gotten himself into, things could become deadly in an instant. We both know what Addington is capable of.”
“I can’t help you, Agent Pryor.” Rowan stood. She wasn’t going to keep going over the same questions. He had her answers. There was nothing else she could give him and none of the answers she had given were going to change.
Pryor sighed. “That’s too bad, Dr. DuPont. I had hoped you would continue to be a team player.”
Rowan ha
d no idea what that was supposed to mean.
“Fair warning,” Pryor added, “we will be watching.”
She had expected as much. She shifted her attention to Billy. “If Agent Pryor is going to have someone watching me, that saves your resources.”
She couldn’t prove Billy had someone watching her, but she knew him too well to believe he didn’t.
Billy stood. “We’ll talk later.”
She gave him a nod and left the office without another word to Pryor.
As she exited the building she noticed the officer sitting in a cruiser near her SUV. She climbed in and buckled up. When she drove away, as she expected, the officer followed.
Before she had traveled the short distance to the funeral home she’d already spotted the other vehicle following her. Probably one of Pryor’s people. The man had made his decision about her before they had this meeting. No surprise there. And Pryor was wrong about Josh’s conclusions about a leak in the task force. Perhaps he had changed his mind, but the last time he had spoken to Billy, Josh had been confident there was a leak.
It was possible Pryor was attempting to prompt reactions by tossing out misinformation. Now, apparently, he would have someone following her around.
“Lovely,” she muttered.
If Josh or Julian was here, in Winchester, and needed to contact her, they were going to have one hell of a time getting close enough to get her attention without being spotted by one law enforcement agency or the other.
Seven
Rowan picked up the next piece of the puzzle and taped it to the wall beneath the photos and lists that she had moved up to make more room. The stepladder she had used still stood in the center of the room. She might as well leave it there in case she had to move things around again. Freud was curled up next to her parents’ bed. Outside it was still raining. The occasional blast of thunder and flash of lightning reminded her that the stormy weather the meteorologists had been calling for had indeed descended.
She stood back and studied what she had so far. The tattoos she had photographed on the bodies of Santos and Layton could possibly be pieces of some sort of puzzle. At first she had thought that might not be the case but then she’d magnified the images and looked more closely. That was when she noted the patterns. She’d enlarged and printed and enlarged and printed until she had the largest size possible while maintaining the details that worked for her needs. One by one she had cut out the images and now she carefully arranged and taped them onto the wall.
The patchwork looked oddly like a freakish quilt. There were numbers. Twenty-six. Finding that number had boosted her confidence that she was on the right track. Twenty-six was the number of faces and skin books and sets of remains found—all apparently victims of the first man with the tattoo of her mother’s name on his back. Antonio Santos, aka Carlos Sanchez.
Perhaps the tattoos were nothing more than badges of proof that each serial killer had been exterminated. That appeared to be what Santos had been doing over the course of about three decades; many of the remains had dated back that far or longer. The question was how did he lure them in and what did her mother have to do with it?
Rowan picked up her glass of wine and downed a gulp. Since moving back to Winchester she most often drank beer with Billy, but tonight she had craved wine. A deep red that both she and Julian had loved. She shuddered at the memories of all the times they had talked shop over glasses of wine. Rowan had felt entirely at ease with him, trusted him completely. What a fool she had been.
He’d had his fun, showing the world what a fool she was. Stealing the life of her father. Why didn’t he just tell her whatever else it was he wanted her to know? Why didn’t he just do to her whatever it was he wanted to do?
Instead, she was left stumbling through all these pieces that meant nothing to her—or mostly nothing. She and Billy continued to burrow more deeply into their relationship no matter that the threat of whatever Julian had planned hung over them.
Part of her understood that this was in all likelihood exactly what Julian wanted. He was waiting for her to grow complacent. To come to care more deeply about Billy. He wanted to hurt Rowan with Billy the way he had hurt her when he murdered her father. She closed her eyes and held her half-empty glass against her breast. She could not allow that to happen.
Whatever she had to do, she had to find a way to stop this insanity before Julian had a chance to make another move.
There was just one question: How did she do that?
Billy had someone watching her. Pryor had someone watching her.
Pryor’s arrogant insistence that she was somehow abetting Julian made her want to scream. The only thing she wanted from Julian was the truth and, at this point, she was almost ready to forgo that and just focus on killing him.
She and Billy would never be safe as long as Julian was breathing. That was the one undeniable, unwavering truth she understood with complete certainty.
Apparently neither would anyone else close to her. Charlotte’s name on that list Rowan found in Layton’s home was solid proof. To keep pretending otherwise would be foolish. Anna Addington, Julian’s ex-wife, was wrong. Julian was obsessed with Rowan rightly enough, but he didn’t want her to keep for himself. He wanted to torture her. To hurt everyone close to her before he ended her life. He wanted her to feel the pain, to pray for death. To want to end the pain. He had said those words to her all those months ago when this nightmare first started.
“Enough.” Rowan grabbed the bottle of wine and headed up to the third floor. She was tired and she had no idea when Billy would be home.
Before going into the bathroom, she peeked out the window overlooking the front of the funeral home and its parking lot. Rain bashed the window but she could still see the one car that sat near the entrance. This one was Pryor’s watcher. She went back into her bedroom—the one she shared with Billy—and looked out a window to the back of the house. Beyond the streams of water sliding down the glass she spotted the other vehicle—a Winchester Police Department cruiser—parked on the side street that ran along the west end of the funeral home property. That one would be Billy’s watcher.
With a sigh she moved into the bathroom and turned the tap in the tub to hot. Freud curled up on the rug in the center of the room. As the tub filled with water, she poured another glass, then placed a towel on the bench next to the tub. She downed half the glass as she stripped off her clothes. Lastly, she removed the beautiful necklace Billy had gotten her for her birthday. By the time she was ready to climb into the hot water, she had poured her third glass and was finally feeling relaxed.
She placed her glass on the bench within reach and sank into the heat and closed her eyes, leaning back against the curved back of the slipper-style tub. Her tense muscles instantly started to loosen. She reached for her glass and brought it to her lips. She sipped more of the wine and let the alcohol do its work of sending her to that place where she wouldn’t think of Julian or of death.
The glass almost slipped from her hand, but she caught it. Red wine spilled into the water. She watched it spread and dilute until the dark color pinked and then disappeared. Memories of her soaking in this very tub at thirteen and slitting her wrists because she didn’t want to live anymore filtered through her mind. She squeezed her eyes shut against the images. Her father had been devastated. He had stopped the bleeding and sutured the wounds to prevent having to take her to the hospital and reporting the incident. He didn’t want her to be humiliated later.
She had hurt him so badly with that act, but she had been severely depressed after losing her mother and her sister. She had only wanted to escape the sadness. Not even her loving father had understood the depth of her pain. The only person to whom she’d ever opened up fully was Julian. The bastard.
Besides Julian and her father, Billy was the only other person who had known about that horrifically bad decision as well as
the one when she was in college when she’d taken all those pills. At least until she published that damned tell-all book. The world had learned the ugly truth about Rowan DuPont.
She wasn’t nearly as strong as she wanted people to believe. As a teenager she had been broken and withdrawn...sad, so very sad.
Rowan downed the rest of the wine and carefully placed the glass on the floor next to the tub. She stared at the scars on the insides of her wrists. Every little detail of her sad childhood she had shared with Julian, first as his patient and later as his friend. How could she not have seen what he was? How he was using her?
She pulled her knees to her chest and lay her head there. Had her father been a fool where her mother was concerned just as she had been with Julian? As painful as learning that her friend and mentor had betrayed her, she could only imagine how badly her father suffered knowing his wife—the person with whom he shared every human intimacy—had betrayed him.
That was assuming her father hadn’t known, hadn’t been a part of whatever the hell this bizarre past of her mother’s really was.
The room started to spin a little and she closed her eyes. She’d had too much wine. She should go to bed but the water felt so good she couldn’t move.
Her worries faded and images of her sister filtered one after the other through her mind. Raven smiled at her and swam away.
Rowan was dreaming. She recognized the dream. Whenever she dreamed of Raven, her sister always came to her in the water.
Come into the water, Rowan!
Her sister would taunt her and swim away. Her pale skin and blond hair exactly as it had been the day she died. The day her bloated body was dragged from that lake.
In the dream, Rowan swam after her, though that was impossible because she never went swimming. She hadn’t been in water beyond a shower or bath or rainstorm since she was twelve years old.
Her fear of water was unreasonable; as a psychiatrist Rowan understood this. But that knowledge did not abate the suffocating fear.
