Doyle suddenly materialized at her side. A broken leaf jutted from his mustache and his cheeks were streaked with dirt. “Lost the son of a bitch,” he said, shaking his head and avoiding her eyes. “Your boy’s still on him, though.”
“Who, Jake?”
Doyle nodded. “The other Vermont cops went in after him, but they had to stop at the border, too. A park ranger just showed up—he’s helping them organize a sweep of the park.”
“I doubt he’s still here, apparently it’s only a half mile or so to the border. My boss got in touch with the Canadian authorities. Mounties and border patrol will be on the lookout for him,” Kelly said.
Doyle didn’t answer, just shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “How’s the kid?”
“Not good,” Kelly said. “They think maybe internal bleeding.”
“Bastard,” Doyle snorted. “Goddamn Sam Morgan. I’d never have believed it.”
Static burst from the radio, followed by chatter. They both tilted their heads to the side, ears cocked to listen. When it turned out to be nothing, Kelly sighed and dropped the radio back into her lap. “I think we might have lost him.” A wave of exhaustion nearly overwhelmed her, and she dropped her head into one hand, rubbing her eyes. She felt something on her arm and looked up.
Doyle was awkwardly tapping her arm. “Not your fault,” he said gruffly. “If I was on my game, he’d never have got away.”
Kelly opened her mouth, intending to point out that if Doyle had come clean from the get-go it would have saved her a lot of time and they might not be in this situation, but she was too tired to argue.
He kicked at a stone near his foot. “You gotta understand, back then the homicide unit was short-staffed. When that first skeleton turned up, we figured it was probably just a lost hiker—no need to add another body to our workload. He was long dead, and it looked like no one was missing him. Then, when another body was found, if we’d admitted being wrong about the first one, it would’ve meant a black eye for the department. We were already facing budget cuts. It’s not like we intentionally buried cases. Hell, we didn’t even know they were gay.”
Kelly regarded him coolly. “So, what you’re saying is you don’t think I should bother reporting this to IAD.”
“I’m just saying, now that we know, does it matter?” Doyle shifted uneasily.
Another crackle of static, and she lifted the receiver back to her ear. It was Canadian border patrol. They’d found tracks that led to the main road, Route 243. They figured Morgan might have hitched a ride from someone.
“Shit!” she said, clenching her jaw.
Doyle spat on the ground. “Well, looks like Morgan is Canada’s problem now. What about the other one?” he asked, voice overly casual.
Kelly shook her head. “No sign of Dwight Sullivan. They’ve still got roadblocks set up, but he might have hunkered down in the woods somewhere between here and the border. Or maybe he slipped across earlier.”
“Yeah? I’ve been meaning to go camping myself,” Doyle said, working his jaw. “Maybe I’ll take some personal time, check out the great white north.”
Kelly eyed him. She’d never been a fan of vigilante justice, though she understood the impulse behind it. Hell, if she’d been given ten minutes alone in a room with the man who killed her brother, it’s hard to say what she would have done. She liked to think she would have turned him over to the authorities unharmed, but far too frequently the worst offenders got off on a technicality. Kelly shrugged. “Suit yourself. Honestly, at this point it’s not up to me. Unless something changes, all that’s left is the paperwork.”
“And we got Peters for that,” Doyle said with a grin. “Anyhow, about the IAD…”
Kelly gazed at him levelly. “I’m a lot of things, Doyle, but I’ve never been a rat. You should know, though, that the way this has gone down, they’re going to be going over the files with a fine-tooth comb. Your name is bound to come up. And you were captured by a man who you were tracking without backup, after not reporting in for hours.”
“Yeah, I know. My captain said he’ll back me on that.”
In his eyes Kelly read the subtext, that his captain wanted the whole thing swept under the carpet in the hopes of keeping his department’s name clean. She chewed her lip, agitated, thinking about all those boys whose deaths weren’t investigated in the name of budget cuts and homicide clearance rates. Who knew how many other transgressions the Berkshire State Police department had committed? There could be an entire backlog of murder cases shelved as accidents, not to mention other crimes that weren’t considered worth their time and resources.
But when it came down to it, how a department was run was only her concern as long as she was working with them. And, as of this morning, she was done. “Then I guess your troubles are over,” Kelly told him as she turned away.
Thirty-Eight
Sam Morgan checked himself in the side mirror of a parked car before entering the diner. He’d been lucky, an eighteen-wheeler had shown up before he’d been on the road ten minutes. The guy had pulled right over and offered him a ride. Thanks to that he was already halfway to Montreal. He figured in a big city, it would be easier to blend in. Soon as he got there he’d do what he could to alter his appearance, dye his hair darker, grow a beard. He wasn’t worried. Canada had a terrible track record for tracking down criminals who fled across their borders, partly because their horror of the barbaric American legal system made them loath to get involved.
He’d wait a few years, until things settled down, then would send for Sylvia and the girls. He was confident she’d come; you don’t live with someone for a decade without knowing them inside and out. She would understand that he would never hurt her or the girls, or anyone else that mattered. Deep down Sylvia was a woman more concerned more with social conventions than a moral code. As long as he kept his hobby to himself, and didn’t take out any of their country club friends, he had the feeling she’d look the other way. Up here, it would be different. How much easier it would be having her onboard. For the time being he’d miss the girls, but there was no avoiding that.
The diner was a battered, converted metal trailer. A line of small booths on his left, a row of swiveling stools welded beneath a long counter to the right. A narrow aisle ran the length of the building. Noting that there was another door at the rear, next to the restroom, he nonchalantly walked the length of the building and slid into the far booth. He tugged the baseball cap he’d nicked from the floor of the truck cab further down over his eyes. At this early-morning hour there were only two other people inside. Both looked like truckers; one read the paper, the other stared into the steam from his coffee mug. The waitress came up and Sam ordered coffee, toast and eggs. He was ravenous, having had nothing but an energy bar since lunch yesterday. He patted his shirt pocket, thankful that his wallet had survived the flight through the woods. He had enough Canadian cash to get him through the week; after that he’d have to find an Internet café somewhere, arrange for a transfer from one of his offshore accounts. He wouldn’t need much, it was smarter to rent a cheap apartment and live off the grid to avoid attracting attention. He’d check craigslist when he got to Montreal, see if he could find a sublet that didn’t require a credit check.
As he devoured his breakfast, he outlined the next few days in his mind, going over the steps he’d need to take to settle into his new life. He was too preoccupied to notice the figure leaning against a tree outside the diner, scanning the room with a pair of high-powered binoculars.
Dwight ducked back behind a tree as the Captain strolled out of the diner. Son of a bitch looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, Dwight thought angrily. Probably figured he got away clean, didn’t count on ol’ Dwight outsmarting him.
As soon as he realized the Captain had slipped through his net, Dwight had hit the road himself, crossing the border. Couldn’t risk getting snared, after all. On the off chance that the Captain might somehow escape from the cops, Dwight camped out by some trees with a good view of the road. Soon enough he saw the Captain bolt from the woods, glancing back over his shoulder. He trotted down the road with his thumb in the air. When the truck pulled over to give him a lift, Dwight scrambled in the back, crawling on top of crates of Florida oranges. Popped open one crate and helped himself to a few. He had to say they were damn good oranges, or maybe everything just tasted better in Canada. An hour later when he felt the gears shift down as the truck slowed, he clambered out the back before it took off again.
His stomach growled and he frowned. He’d had an MRE, but the thought of toast and eggs had his mouth watering. He’d have to stop in for a bite when he was done.
The door swung shut behind the Captain with a tinkling of bells that were loud in the morning stillness. He headed through the parking lot, back toward the road. Dwight was lucky, the Captain was sticking close to the tree line, probably deliberately hovering near cover. And that route would lead him directly past the tree Dwight was hiding behind. Dwight checked the diner: the trucker at the counter had his back to the parking lot, the other was paying at the register. The waitress was focused on their transaction. He craned his ears: nothing but birds chirping in the predawn light and the sound of the wind high in the tree branches. It didn’t sound like any cars were coming. He’d have to chance it.
Dwight eased around to the side of the tree facing the road. The Captain was whistling, a tune he recognized but couldn’t place. As the Captain’s foot came into view, Dwight lunged to the side and jammed the taser directly into his neck. The Captain’s eyes went wide before he dropped to the ground, twitching. The only noise he made was a sort of strangled gasp. Glancing sideways quickly to see if anyone had noticed, Dwight grabbed his heels and dragged him into the woods.
In the late morning Kelly conceded there was nothing more she could do at the border. More rangers and Vermont State Police had entered the park and were searching it for signs of either man. Morgan’s and Sullivan’s faces were splattered across every major newspaper and newscast within a three-state radius. She caught a ride to the hospital with a Vermont cop heading back for his shift change. His station was tuned to a talk-radio show, the chatter occasionally drowned out by the crackle of his police-band. She listened, leaning against the car window half-asleep, the heat from outside pressing against her forehead. People calling in to the show were outraged, professing shock and disbelief at the fact that not one but two potential killers had escaped and were now somewhere out there among them. One woman with a particularly shrill voice said, “We’d be better off if our tax dollars got us guns to defend ourselves. Cops are goddamned stupid and incompetent. Who needs ’em?”
“You mind turning that off?” Kelly had asked, tired. The cop complied, and they passed the rest of the drive in silence.
Kelly steeled herself before pushing open the door to the ICU. Her badge had gained her entry with only a raised eyebrow. Now, part of her was wishing she’d been turned away. Monica sat in a brown plastic chair, her body slumped forward, head in her hands. Zach was a mass of tubes; what she could see of his face was pale and drawn. She walked forward, stepping quietly, and lightly touched Monica’s arm. Monica started and looked up blearily.
“How is he?” Kelly asked.
Monica shook her head. “Too soon to say. He’s had one surgery so far, he might need to have more. Both his arms and one leg are broken, one of his rubs punctured his right lung…” A tear trickled down her face. “The doctors say if he survives the next twenty-four hours, it’s a good sign.”
Kelly bent down and hugged her. Monica settled into her arms, and Kelly stroked her hair. “I’m sure he’ll be fine. He’s young and healthy, he’ll heal fast.”
“I hope so.” Monica sighed and pulled back.
“Can I get you anything? Coffee, or food?” Kelly knelt next to the chair.
Monica shook her head. “I can’t eat.” Her voice hardened as she asked, “Did you get Morgan?”
“Not yet. They’ve issued a huge dragnet in Canada, though. They’re working to get the public involved, posting photos of Morgan and Sullivan in the media. I’m sure we’ll have them both in custody soon.” Kelly tried to inject her voice with more confidence then she felt. The truth of the matter was that the Canadian government was already balking at pursuing two criminals who faced the federal death penalty if extradited. They were also not pleased that the U.S. government had allowed two serial killers to slip across their border. Amidst the waves of recriminations, it was hard to know what was actually being done to catch them.
Worse yet, she hadn’t heard from Jake since he’d dashed off into the woods hours earlier. She tried not to think about it. Jake knew how to take care of himself. If he wasn’t in radio contact, there was a good reason. “I still think Dwight might be holed up somewhere upstate. We’ve focused our efforts there for now. Vermont and Massachusetts are both devoting a lot of their resources to finding him.”
Monica shook her head. “You’ll never find Morgan. He’s too damn smart.”
“I’ve caught smart ones before.”
“Maybe.” Monica fell silent, gazing at her son’s broken body. “I just feel so guilty, you know? Like I should have figured it out sooner. Then maybe Zach wouldn’t be here.”
“You can’t second-guess yourself like that.”
“No? Is there anything you would have done differently?”
Kelly thought it over. “Probably not. But I don’t even let myself ask anymore. I lost a partner last year, and spent months afterward going back through the case in my mind, trying to figure out where I screwed up, what would have saved him. You can drive yourself crazy doing that.”
“Yeah, well, parenthood is all about driving yourself crazy,” Monica said mournfully. Her voice lowered as she continued, “If he dies, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“He’s going to be fine,” Kelly said, trying to sound reassuring. She pulled over the other chair in the room and sank into it, holding one of Monica’s hands in hers, helping her keep watch over Zach. In spite of herself, her mind kept drifting back to Jake, and what she’d do if he didn’t come back. Her heart clenched at the thought. She couldn’t stop fixating on all the ways she’d brushed him off this past week, all the overtures she’d thrown back in his face. What was wrong with her? After all these years, she still pushed people away. She’d finally met someone wonderful, who really seemed to understand her. And now she might have lost him forever.