Bone Cold (33 page)

“I'm here, Jaye,” he said, voice a girlish whisper. “I'm here. He hasn't hurt me.”

Anna froze. Jaye scooted backward, her expression horrified. “Mi—Minnie?”

Adam held his hand out, gun dangling from it. His eyes filled with tears. “You'd be so proud of me, Jaye. I was so afraid, but I did it. I called Detective Malone, the one Ben told me about. He's coming with the police, he—”

Another shudder racked Adam's body. With it, he transformed again. His face and stance altered. The softness and insecurity disappeared, replaced by fury. Fury fueled by hatred.

Anna struggled to make sense of what she had just seen. She glanced at Jaye. Her friend sat on the floor, back pressed to the wall, eyes wide with terror. With disbelief.

Adam and Minnie were the same person. But how could that be? How—

“You like boating, Harlow? Or are you afraid of the water? You used to be, a long time ago. Remember? You were afraid of all the slimy, slithery things hiding in the dark.”

She had been afraid of the water, a long time ago. But how did he know that?

She shook her head. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

He grinned. Something about the way his lips stretched over his teeth made her shudder. “Liar.” He glanced at Jaye. “Get to your feet. We're going for a little ride, the three of us.”

“No!” Anna took a step toward him, hand out. “Please, let her go. She has nothing to do with this.”

“The way we had nothing to do with you? She comes.”

“Please, you promised.” Desperation crept into her tone. “You said if I followed your instructions, you'd let her go.”

“That's the thing about promises, princess. They're only as good as the person who makes them. You of all people should understand that.”

“No, I don't understand. Why are you doing this? Why—”

“Would you prefer I shoot her now?” He cocked the weapon. “I don't have a problem with that.”

“No!” Anna threw herself in front of Jaye. He pulled the trigger. The gunshot reverberated through the cabin. The bullet whizzed by her head, hitting the wall, splintering it.

“Now then,” he murmured, “it's time to go.”

Wednesday, February 7
3:45 p.m.

M
innie's call had come from a marina named Smiley's, located just off the old Manchac Bridge, only a couple of minutes up ahead. Quentin flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. He had made great time, just under thirty minutes.

It had felt like an eternity.

His captain had called him with directions to the marina while en route. She had contacted the local police; they would be waiting for him when he arrived. Johnson had returned from the computer imaging center before they had hung up: the photo of Ben and Anna was a work of fiction. It had been generated by computer, using several different images.

Quentin swore. Ben had created the image to divert suspicion from himself. Why hadn't he checked the photo's authenticity before?

Quentin reached Smiley's. As his aunt had promised, the local boys were waiting for him. Quentin slammed
out of his vehicle and strode toward the ranking officer. “Detective Quentin Malone, NOPD.”

“Davy Pierce, sheriff's deputy.” They shook hands. “Your captain filled us in. We're ready to help in any way we can.”

“Thanks, Deputy Pierce. I appreciate that.”

The man smiled. “Call me Davy. We're pretty informal around here.”

Quentin returned his tense smile. “I'll do that. What do you have so far?”

“Not much. We found Anna North's car a mile up the road. No sign of her. Keys were in it.”

“Shit,” Quentin muttered. “The attendant see—”

“Negative. Didn't even see her drive by.”

“Where is he?”

“Come on. I'll introduce you.” They started across the parking lot, the shell gravel crunching under their feet and coating the toes of their shoes with a fine white dust. “His name's Sal St. Augustine. He's lived here all his life. If anybody can help you, he can.”

Sal turned out to be a wizened old man with sun-browned skin the texture of alligator hide. His deeply set blue eyes seemed to miss nothing as he studied Quentin. “What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Looking for a woman, red hair, real attractive. She was driving a white Toyota Camry—”

“The one Davy and his boys found parked up the road.” He shook his head. “Didn't see her. I must have been servicing a boat.” He indicated the dock behind the building. “I'm the only station around these parts. I stay pretty busy.”

Quentin couldn't quite hide his frustration. “How about a young girl, eleven or twelve years old? She made a call from your pay phone. About an hour ago.”

Sal removed his baseball cap and scratched his balding head. “Don't recall no young girl either. Man used the phone. Weird guy. Real quiet.”

Quentin narrowed his eyes. “What did he look like?”

“Dark hair. Kind of curly.” Sal slipped the cap back on, tugging it low on his forehead to protect his eyes from the fierce sun. “Thin. Pale.”

“Pale,” Quentin repeated. “He wearing a hat?”

Sal squinted in thought. “Nope.”

That basic description fit Ben Walker and the man Louise Walker had described for the police artist. He glanced at Davy. “Get one of your guys to give my captain a call. Ask her to fax over the computer-enhanced sketch of Adam Furst and the photo of Ben Walker.”

“You got it.” While Davy did that, Quentin turned his attention back to Sal. “This guy, you ever seen him before?”

“Handful of times in the past couple of weeks, never before that. He's not from around here, that's for sure.”

“He's gone now?”

“Left the way he came. By boat.” He pointed. “I filled him up ‘fore he went.”

Quentin turned toward the water, squinting in thought. Fishermen had skin the color of Sal's and Davy's. They were a hardy breed with a healthy respect for the sun. So what was a thin, pale, hatless guy doing filling up a boat in an area used almost exclusively by fishermen?

Quentin waved the other detective over. “This is our guy. I know it.”

Sal spoke up. “There're a couple of camps close by. Owners rent them out.”

“Where?”

He pointed up the waterway. “Only two ways in or out. Boat and the road out front. It dead-ends about three miles up.”

But the water didn't dead-end. Lake Maurepas fed into dozens of bayous and other small tributaries, many navigable. Many of which snaked their way through land that could be traversed by foot.

The son-of-a-bitch planned to escape by boat.

Quentin looked at Davy. “He's going by water.”

“Boats are on their way. Just in case, let's set up a roadblock out front. I'll get a team of uniforms to check out those camps.”

“Warn your men to use extreme caution,” Quentin murmured, gaze still on the water. “This guy's a killer.”

 

Within five minutes the sheriff's department's three powerboats had arrived and two teams of deputies had been assembled to search the camps. Quentin chose to go by boat; he believed that avenue would provide the best chance of getting his hands on Adam. And of saving Anna.

As he and the Manchac deputies boarded the powerboats, a fisherman pulled up to the dock for fueling. His was a small flat-bottom boat fitted with a Yamaha outboard motor. The aluminum pirogue-style boat had been designed to navigate through the shallow, vegetation-choked waters of the swamp and bayous.

Quentin drew his eyebrows together.
If he was about to do what Ben Walker planned, he would want to do it in the deserted backwaters, away from the view of others. He would want to leave the bodies where they would never be found, where, after the alligators had finished with them, there would be little left to find.

And then he would walk away.

“Sal!” he shouted. The other man looked over and Quentin indicated the small craft. “That the kind of boat our guy had?”

With a nod, Sal indicated it was. Quentin hopped off the speedboat and back onto the dock.

“Malone,” Davy shouted over the roar of the engines, “what are you doing?”

“Change of plans. I've found another means of transportation.”

Wednesday, February 7
4:10 p.m.

A
nna held herself erectly on the pirogue's bench seat. An insect buzzed next to her ear and she swatted at it with her bound hands. Beside her, Jaye trembled and wept quietly. They didn't speak.

Adam had bound her and Jaye together by their right and left ankles, respectively. He had secured their wrists individually, palms pressed together. If they escaped him or the boat capsized, they would have a minimal chance of surviving.

He had thought through every detail of his plan carefully, Anna realized. The boat and location. The way they had been bound. How he planned to kill them. No doubt his escape route as well.

Even so, Anna refused to consider what Adam's plans for them might be or how the creatures that inhabited the swamp might be involved in those plans. She refused to give in to her fear.

Fear would strangle her, she knew. It would choke off any chance she had to outwit this monster. If she gave
in, she would be signing a death warrant not only for herself, but Jaye as well.

The outboard motor hummed as it propelled the craft down the winding, dark waterway. Little sun got through the branches of the huge cypress and live oaks trees. Anna shivered as the cold, damp air worked its way through her clothing to her flesh, chilling her to her core.

Up ahead, a snake dropped from the branch of a cypress tree and slithered toward the bank of the bayou. Anna shifted her gaze to Adam. “Why are you doing this?” she asked evenly. “What have we ever done to you?”

“Why?” he repeated. “Because I want Harlow Grail to know the terror we knew. The horror. I want little princess Harlow to know what it is to be alone, to be abandoned and left for dead.”

“Left for dead?” she repeated. “I don't understand.”

“Think, Harlow. You know who we are. You abandoned us though you promised you wouldn't. You're a liar.”

A denial sprang to her lips; she never uttered it. She brought a hand to her mouth. “Timmy?” she whispered. “You can't be…you can't mean… Timmy?”

Once again his teeth stretched over his lips in an obscene attempt at a smile. “But I do, princess. Little Timmy Price.”

Anna made a sound of disbelief. Her hands began to shake. “Timmy's dead. He's been dead a long time. Kurt killed him. He killed him right in front of my eyes.”

“He would have died,” Adam murmured. “But the old bitch wanted a little boy. She wanted to be a mommy.”

“I don't believe you. You're a monster. You'd say anything to—”

“While Kurt was performing surgery on your hand, the old bitch revived him. She'd worked in a hospital, she knew CPR.” Adam leaned forward, face twisted with hate. “He was alive when you left him behind.”

Despair choked her. She struggled to understand, to make sense of what he was saying. “You're the liar!” she cried. “He was dead! He was!”

“No. You abandoned him. You promised to take care of him, but you left him behind. You left him with Kurt.”

Timmy had been alive.
She shook her head against the horror of it, tears spilling over. “I thought he was dead. I didn't…I never would have—”

“No one came for him, Harlow. Not ever. Even though he waited and prayed. He believed you'd come back. But you didn't.”

No one had come because she had told everyone Timmy was dead.

It couldn't be true. She didn't want to believe it.

But she did, and it hurt almost more than she could bear. Anna gazed at him through her tears, searching for a glimpse of the boy she had known and loved. The sweet, curly-haired cherub who had followed her around.

“Timmy?” she managed to say. “Is it really you?”

Anger seemed to explode from Adam. Beside her, Jaye whimpered and leaned closer to Anna's side. “Timmy? I'm not Timmy. That sniveling little wimp. He wanted his mommy. He wanted Harlow. He couldn't take it. So I stepped in. I'm the strong one.” He thumped his chest with the butt of his gun. “Me. I took everything Kurt dished out.”

Anna struggled to understand, to make sense of what he was telling her. Suddenly she remembered a conversation she and Ben had had, that night at the Café du
Monde. He'd talked about his work, his book. He had discussed the toll childhood trauma took on the psyche, about the ways that trauma manifested itself in adult personality.

The ultimate expression of that being the fracturing of the psyche into separate and distinct personalities.

Anna searched her memory for exactly what he had said. That such fracturing occurred as a way for the psyche to protect itself. That it was seen in adults who had experienced repeated, sadistic abuse in early childhood. He'd said that the various personalities performed specific functions for the host personality.

Adam had taken Kurt's abuse.

“You took it from Kurt,” she said softly, voice quivering. “So what about Ben? What did he…take, if you handled Kurt?”

“Ben got all the glory, the prick. He got to be mommy's good boy. He got the fancy education and the accolades.” Adam's lips twisted in a sneer. “He was so pathetic, he didn't even see that it was me paving the way for him. Making it all possible. I was the one who took the heat, the one who made everything all right. He thought he was the only one.”

Ben hadn't been aware he was a multiple. He hadn't known about Adam or his plans.
She didn't know why that made her feel so much better, but it did.

He waved the gun at her. “I was the one who finally took care of Kurt. That's right,
me.
All these years you've been afraid of him, he's been maggot food. Today I offed the old bitch. Now it's little Harlow's turn.”

“Evening the score?”

“Damn right,” he said proudly. “The great Savannah Grail was easy to trick. I played on her vanity and guilt and she handed her daughter over without a second thought. Ben's mother, the addled old fool, always did
my bidding. I moved her to New Orleans, knowing Ben would follow, knowing he would think her slipping further into her disease. Ben played along, reacting just as I predicted at every turn. So did Minnie. I controlled them all.”

“Really?” Anna arched an eyebrow. “Seems to me Minnie threw you a few curves.”

“That Minnie's a real pip. Surprised the hell out of me, going to Ben the way she did. Then calling that detective. But I can't stay too angry with her, she's helped me out over the years. Especially when Kurt brought those friends of his around. They were a real friendly bunch, if you know what I mean. She helped me out by taking—”

“Don't talk about her!” Jaye said suddenly, voice high and quivering. “You don't deserve to even know her!”

He turned his flat gaze on Jaye. “You're a lot of trouble, you know that? I'd like you to shut the fuck up.”

He delivered the words in a conversational tone, as if simply commenting on the weather. Frightened for her friend, Anna brought his attention back to her.

“So, Ben didn't know about you. Or Minnie. Or…me.”

He adjusted the boat's prop as they eased into shallower water. “Give the lady a gold star.”

Anna felt ill. She imagined the horrors Timmy had been forced to endure, abuse horrific enough to cause his psyche to fracture in an attempt at self-preservation.

“What about Timmy?” she asked. “Where is he now?”

Adam's lips lifted into a thin smile. “Gone.”

“Gone,” she repeated. “I don't understand.”

He snorted, impatient. “We're almost there, I don't want to talk anymore.”

Anna ignored him. “He can't be gone. Because you're part of him.”

“Shut up.”

“Timmy,” she said. “It's Harlow. Are you there?”

“Shut up,” he said again, voice rising.

“I'm so sorry, I didn't know. They told me you were dead.” She leaned forward, voice quivering with emotion, tears choking her. “I would have come for you, we all would have. I loved you.” The tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision. “Your mother…your real mother loved you, too. She died a few years back, but she mourned your loss until that day. She missed you…so much.”

Adam shuddered and twitched. His rage seemed to slip away, his features became soft, childlike, his body language that of one who was small and lost. In that split second, Anna glimpsed the boy she had known. She saw Timmy.

As quickly as he had appeared, he was gone. Replaced again by Adam.

Anna fought grief and focused instead on what she had just witnessed. On how it had happened.

The switch from one personality to another occurred in the blink of an eye. They were proceeded by a twitch or a shudder, but one that was natural, nearly seamless. Unless one looked for it.

She could get the gun away during one of the switches. If she could move quickly enough.

Adam seemed to be tiring. She wondered at the cost in mental energy to keep the other two suppressed. Because if they existed in a state of coconsciousness, which she vaguely remembered having read about, then Minnie and Ben were aware of what was happening.

And if they were, they would try to stop Adam. She believed that.

He cut the motor. Instead of silence, she heard the sound of another boat in the distance. Adam glanced over his shoulder, then back at them. “That's nothing. A fisherman.”

“How can you be so sure?”

He ignored her and motioned with the gun. “Stand up.”

Jaye began to cry. Anna stiffened her spine. “No.”

“Stand up or I'll shoot you where you sit.”

He meant what he said and Anna stood, bringing Jaye up with her. The boat rocked, and Anna tried to steady Jaye. The sound of the other boat drew grew louder.

“I chose this little spot because it's a favorite with the alligators. Lots of nests in the spring and summer.” He chuckled and motioned with his revolver. “See that big boy over there? Handsome devil, isn't he? I bet he's twenty feet. Looks hungry, too.”

Anna fought falling apart. “Let Jaye go. I don't care what you do to me, but she's the innocent—”

“An…na…” The voice ebbed and retreated on the chill, damp air. “Ja…ye…”

Quentin.
Anna almost sobbed with relief. “We're here!” she shouted. “We're here!”

“Shut your mouth! Shut—”

“Quentin!” she screamed again. “Come quick! Come qui—”

Adam laughed suddenly, the sound high and wild. He cocked the gun. “Go ahead, shout. Scream your fucking head off. It's too late, Harlow Grail. You're already dead.”