Darkness First (29 page)

She flipped the first tumbler off the shear line.

‘He's going inside. Are you out yet?'

‘No.' Tumbler number two joined its mate. Three to go.

‘Good.'

‘What?'

‘The woman with the white dog's right behind him. They've stopped. They're talking to each other.'

‘Good,' Maggie agreed. The third tumbler slid off.

‘He looks suspicious. I think she told him about you.'

‘Has he spotted you?' Maggie asked.

‘No.'

‘They're inside and heading up the stairs. He's first. She's right behind.'

No time for the other two. Three tumblers would have to do. She tried the door. Locked. Maggie raced toward the stairs to the third floor. Reached the sixth step a microsecond before Sean Carroll stepped out on to the second-floor landing, followed by Alice Spaulding and the ball of fluff. Maggie pressed herself against the wall. Put her phone on mute. Caressed her Glock. Hoped she wouldn't have to use it.

‘And she didn't say what she wanted?' Carroll asked Alice.

Maggie held her breath and waited.

‘No. Just that she wanted to talk to you. When I told her you weren't here, she left. Same time I did. We went out together.'

‘Did you see her drive away?'

‘No. She was making a phone call. Still on the phone when Mongo and I turned the corner.'

Jesus. The ball of fluff was
Mongo
?

‘Shit,' Carroll muttered, sounding irritated.

‘I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong?'

‘No. No. I'm sorry. You were fine. Thanks for letting me know. Maggie and I do work together. I just forgot something I really had to get done.'

‘Would you like to come in for a drink?' asked the blonde. Her voice, Maggie thought, sounded hopeful.

‘No thanks, Ali. I'd love to but not tonight. I'm kind of wiped.'

‘Okay.' Hopeful turned disappointed. ‘Some other time, then. Good night.'

‘Good night.'

Maggie listened as two keys slid into two doors. One door closed. Then the second. She texted McCabe:
I'm ok. Waiting
5
before I leave. Watch his windows. Rt hand side
.

Thirty seconds later, he texted back.
Lights on
.

Maggie waited the five minutes and then slipped silently past Sean Carroll's door, down the stairs and out the door. Hoping Carroll wasn't looking out the window, she crossed the street and climbed into the Honda. McCabe pulled away from the curb.

‘Cruise around town for a while,' she said.

‘Why?'

‘I'm just wondering what brought Carroll home tonight.'

McCabe began a random series of lefts and rights. With his peripheral vision he could see Maggie's right hand nervously caressing the grip of her Glock.

‘You okay?'

‘Yeah, why?'

‘'Cause you haven't taken your hand off your gun since you got in the car.'

‘Sorry. A little wired I guess.'

For the next ten minutes they turned from one dark and empty street into another. No cars. No lights. No people. Finally, Maggie withdrew a business card from her pocket. ‘I have a test for your photographic memory,' she said. ‘555-9755.'

‘Susan Marsh's cell phone number,' said McCabe without a moment's hesitation.

‘Did you get it from her today?'

‘No. She gave it to me a couple of years ago when she was prosecuting a case I was working on.'

‘Careless,' Maggie said, more to herself than to McCabe.

‘What?'

‘To call from her own phone.' She looked at her watch. ‘All right, let's go back to Carroll's place.'

McCabe didn't ask why. Just followed instructions. They turned on to Hobart Avenue about three minutes later. Maggie told him to park the car where they had a good view of number twenty-six.

‘What now?' he asked.

‘Now, we wait.'

‘What are we waiting for?'

‘You'll see. I think.'

Forty-five minutes later she shook McCabe awake from his nap. A shiny black Mercedes E550 had pulled up across from Carroll's building.

Maggie scrunched down low in her seat. Susan Marsh looked both ways then crossed the street and climbed the steps to the house.

‘Interesting,' said McCabe. ‘Ready to go now?'

‘No. I want to see how long she plans on staying.'

An hour later the lights went off in Carroll's bedroom and Maggie figured she had her answer. The E550 was still parked across the street.

O
n the way out of Ellsworth, McCabe said, ‘Okay, I guess we have to assume he knows you think he's the killer,' said McCabe.

‘Yeah, he knows.'

‘He also knows you were at the apartment.'

‘He knows that too.'

‘And he knows where you live.'

‘What's your point?'

‘I don't think you should go home tonight.'

She looked over at McCabe. ‘No. I guess I don't either.'

They drove past a large white colonial Maggie had never seen before. ‘Wait a minute. Stop.'

He stopped. ‘What?'

‘Back up,' she said.

He did.

She pointed to a small, elegant oval sign hanging in front of the house:
Connors & Riordan. Funeral Directors.

Out of Ellsworth they headed north on route 1. About halfway home, McCabe pulled into a no-name motel on the other side of Gouldsboro. McCabe went to the office and then came back to the car.

‘Only one vacancy.'

‘One's fine. I'll sleep on the couch.'

Maggie stayed in the car while McCabe went back to the office and checked in. He paid cash for the room and parked Emily's Honda around back, where nobody could see it from the road. The room was crummy but clean enough. They argued briefly over who should sleep on the couch. Maggie won. Or maybe lost. It all depended, she supposed, on your point of view.

2:41
A.M.
, Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Gouldsboro, Maine

T
hat night, on the couch, Maggie dreamed she was back in Machiasport the night of Tiff Stoddard's murder. In her dream she was walking on a long, empty road, the one that led from Emily's office to the state park. The sky was starless and moonless and, like the road and the trees on either side, as black as pitch. The air even heavier and steamier than it had been in the interview room the day she wrested the confession from Kyle Carnes. As she walked, Maggie felt herself fighting for every breath, gagging with the stench of death and putrification, of sweat and blood and rotting flesh.

She passed the place on the road where Emily was hit. In Maggie's dream, Em was still there, her long, strong athlete's body broken and twisted, one leg turned back and pointing toward her head at an impossible angle. Maggie knelt and took her friend's hand in hers. It felt as cold as death. Em looked up with cold, dead eyes.

Then Em was gone and Maggie was climbing a steep flight of stairs. At the top a boy. Danny Labouisse. Still twelve years old. Still smiling his mean little smile that seemed to say how pleased he was with himself for what he had done to her friend.

Maggie drew closer to the twelve-year-old Danny, who silently beckoned her with one hand. As she climbed toward him she slid her Glock from its holster and chambered a round, determined to finish Labouisse once and for all. She reached the last step and she held the gun outstretched. She aimed at his face. Only it wasn't the face of Danny Labouisse any more.

‘Hello, Magpie.'

Harlan stood beside a pool table, smiling his Harlan smile at her. His Killers t-shirt spattered in blood. His right hand holding a slim-bladed knife with a red handle.

On the table the slender naked body of a woman lay spreadeagled across the green felt. Maggie could see cuts on the woman's face and her breasts and between her legs, blood pouring from a gaping wound across her neck. But the woman wasn't Tiff Stoddard. Maggie was looking down at herself, dead and bleeding on to the table but still somehow alive. She looked up, her blood-blinded eyes searching for Harlan. Instead, they found Sean Carroll coming for her, holding the same knife Harlan had held and wanting to kill her yet again. The dead but not dead Maggie sat up, raised her gun and fired. The bullet hit Carroll in the chest but he just smiled and kept coming. She fired again. Again the bullet had no effect. When he reached the table Carroll raised the knife and thrust it down toward her open legs.

Maggie woke, suppressing a scream. Her breath came hard. Her heart beat faster than she had ever remembered it. Her skin felt cold yet damp with sweat. She wrapped her arms around herself. It didn't help. She shivered uncontrollably.

Through the darkness she could hear McCabe breathing from the bed. The sound was steady. Rhythmic. Comforting. Right now, in this room, in this place of death, there was nothing she needed more than comforting. She walked across to where he lay in the double bed. Lifted the sheet and blanket and slid in beside him. McCabe faced away from her, on his side, naked except for a pair of boxers. She rested one hand on the warmth of his back. Then she slipped the other arm around him, part of her hoping that the feel of her body against his wouldn't wake him. Part of her hoping that it would.

McCabe stirred. Then turned. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. He began stroking her hair and then her back and then kissing her gently. He kissed her eyes. Her neck. He felt the wetness on her face as she began to kiss him back.

‘Are you okay?' he whispered.

‘Yes.' Her lips found his and then began exploring the familiar contours of his face. Not the drop-dead handsomeness of Sean Carroll's face. Something better. Much better. Because it was real. Suddenly they were kissing hard.

McCabe slid his hand under her t-shirt, began massaging the bare skin of her back. Then his hand came around and began stroking her small breasts.

Before going any further, he pulled away and studied her in the soft light of a crescent moon that spilled like quicksilver through the thin slats of the blinds. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?' he asked.

She smiled at the worry she could see etched on his face, knowing this time he worried not for himself but for her.

‘Yes,' she whispered, leaning across to kiss him again. ‘I'm sure.'

Even if it's only this once, she thought, I'm very sure.

When they were both naked, Maggie turned on to her back and took McCabe inside her. And as they made love, each of them took joy in discovering the only things about each other that they hadn't known before.

2:41
A.M
., Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Moose Island, Maine

E
ighty miles away, in Toby Mahler's grandfather's house, Conor Riordan's words from the night before played over and over again in Harlan's mind.

Tabitha
, Riordan had called out,
leave me Tiff's package and I'll leave you alone. I promise I won't hurt you. I want Tiff's package. Not you.

I want Tiff's package. Not you.

Lying bastard. He wanted both.

The question Harlan wrestled with now was: how did Riordan know there was a package? How did he know Tabitha had it?

His first thought had been that Riordan had tortured the information out of Tiff before he killed her. But the more he thought about that the less he believed it. Every competent military interrogator he ever talked to in Iraq, and he'd talked to more than a few, always told him the same thing. Torture doesn't work. All it gets you is lies. Inflict enough pain and you can get almost anyone to tell you something. But not the truth. At least not when the truth meant something important to the detainee. Especially not when the detainee was someone as tough and stubborn as Tiff. No. The more he thought about it the surer he was. Tiff would have lied and lied and lied. Lied until hell froze over before she'd give up her little sister. Lied until the bastard Riordan killed her. Lied until she was dead and, finally and safely, beyond his torture.

But if Tiff didn't tell Riordan about the package, who did?

Harlan lay in the dark and pondered the possibilities. He wished he had a cigarette to suck on. One of those little old shorty Camels his father had smoked forever. Harlan remembered sneaking them from the old man, sometimes whole packs at a time, from a carton he kept in his underwear drawer. Harlan liked the smokes. Seemed like they always helped him think. And right now his thinking needed all the help it could get.

Okay, he told himself, only three people knew Tabitha had the package. Tiff. Tabitha. And Harlan himself. He knew he'd never said a word to anybody.

If Tiff hadn't either, that left only Tabbie.

Could the child have been foolish enough to have blurted it out to someone, anyone, who might have passed it on? She'd promised Tiff she wouldn't and, as she had told him over and over, a promise is a promise.

Harlan lifted himself off the ground cloth, leaned over on his elbow and moved his face close to Tabitha's. Her eyes were closed. Her breathing slow and regular. She looked so young and innocent it was almost heartbreaking. He was happy that she'd finally stopped talking and had fallen asleep. But he needed an answer and he needed it now. He shook her awake.

‘What is it?' Her voice sounded tired and cranky. She opened her eyes. ‘What do you want?'

‘Sit up. I need to ask you something.'

‘Now?'

‘Yes, now.'

Tabitha sat up and rubbed her face. Found her glasses. Put them on. ‘What time is it?'

‘Three o'clock.'

‘In the morning?'

‘Yes.'

‘What is it?'

‘Are you sure you never said anything to anyone about the package Tiff gave you. Except me?'

‘Yes. I already told you. I promised Tiff I wouldn't and I didn't. Except to you.'

‘How about your mother or your father? Did you say anything to either of them?'

‘No. They would've freaked out. Made me give them the package. I didn't tell anyone.'

‘All right Tabitha, look at me. I need you to think hard. This is very, very important. Do you remember ever saying anything out loud about the package even when nobody else was around. Even when you didn't think anyone could hear you? Anything at all. Don't answer right away. Think hard.'

Tabitha thought hard. Suddenly she shut her eyes and squeezed her face tightly together like she was in pain. ‘Oh shit.'

‘Oh shit what?'

She looked up at him. ‘I did say something out loud. But only once. And nobody could've heard me.'

‘When?'

‘I called Tiff's cell phone.'

‘Before she was dead?'

‘No. After.'

Harlan frowned. ‘Why would you call her after she was dead?'

‘I called her a bunch of times. I liked hearing her voice on the message. “Hi, this is Tiff. You know the drill. Leave your number and I'll call you back.” One time I left her a message.'

‘And you mentioned the package?'

Tabitha nodded. ‘Yes.'

‘Okay. What did you say? Try to remember the exact words if you can.'

‘First I said, “Hi, Tiff.” Then I told her I was really, really going to miss her and that I was really, really sorry she couldn't get out of town like she wanted. Then I asked her what she wanted me to do with the package she gave me.'

‘ “What do you want me to do with the package you gave me?” Are those the exact words you used?'

‘Pretty much.'

‘Did you say anything else?'

‘No.'

‘And you only left the one message?'

‘Yes. Why? Did I do something really bad?'

‘No. No, you didn't.'

Harlan smiled. Not only had she not done anything bad, she'd made it blindingly obvious what they had to do next. Right now. Harlan rummaged around in his backpack and found the disposable cell phone at the bottom.