Authors: Chelsea Cain
Henry took a deep breath and exchanged a look with Claire. “Jeremy Reynolds is involved in this?”
“Archie saw his picture at Fintan English’s apartment,” Susan said.
Henry was shaking his head. “He went to see Jack Reynolds,” he said.
Susan gave a noncommittal shrug.
“Are Archie’s prints going to be on that gun?” Henry asked.
Susan looked at her feet and nodded.
If Henry had been a cartoon character, steam would have come out his ears.
Claire lowered her voice. “Go to your happy place,” she said to Henry.
He put his hands on his hips and gazed up at the night sky.
Susan figured she might as well spill everything. “The cult people,” she said. “They said that Jeremy remembers what happened. You know, with Gretchen.”
Henry whipped his head toward her. “That’s bullshit.”
“Archie didn’t think so,” Susan said. “One of the guys had these scars on his chest. Cut marks. A heart.And this weird triangle pattern. He said that Jeremy had carved them.”
“How would he know about the triangles?” Henry said to no one in particular.
A red-haired patrol cop with a badge that read
WHATLEY appeared at Henry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Detective,” he said. “What crime are we investigating here?”
Henry tilted his head toward Susan. “Assault,” he said.
Whatley gave Susan a slow look. She’d left the Burgerville napkin back in the car. She reached up and touched her cheek. It wasn’t even bleeding anymore. She felt bad. Like she was a disappointment.
“You must be a bigwig,” Whatley said, scratching his chin. “This is a lot to throw at an assault investigation.”
Susan shot him a sparkling smile. “It’s really comforting that our police force is so responsive,” she said.
“Get back to work, Officer,” Claire said.
“Okeydokey,” Whatley said, and he turned around and walked back inside the warehouse.
Henry leaned close to Susan. He hadn’t shaved and his head and chin had the same five o’clock shadow. “Everywhere I’ve gone today,” he said, “I have found you, up to your purple hair, in peril.”
“They wanted Archie and me involved,” Susan said. “They orchestrated this.”
Henry lifted his hands in frustration. “Gretchen is out there, murdering people. Right now I don’t give a fuck about Fintan English or Jeremy Reynolds. And neither should you.”
“What if it’s connected?” Susan said.
“You’ve got blood on your chin,” he said.
Susan wiped the spot with her finger, looked at it, and put her finger in her mouth. It was tart and sweet. “Ketchup,” she said.
C H A P T E R 43
When Archie woke up he was floating. He could see the floor a few feet below, parallel to his body. His neck was stiff, his head hurt, and his back and legs felt like they were on fire. His arms were extended, his fingertips just above the floor. He lifted them. The effort made his head swim. The floor moved. Only it wasn’t, he realized, the floor that was moving—it was him. He was swinging. The motion ripped at his body, and fierce flesh-opening pain washed over him a moment before he settled back into blackness.
When he woke up again, the pain had settled into a dull burn. He was still suspended over the floor. He slowly moved an arm up, and reached over his shoulder blade. The skin over his scapula was taut like a drum, stretched three or four inches straight up in a tent. Archie moved his hand to the top of his stretched flesh and found something metal and curved piercing his skin. A hook. He tried to roll over, to turn his head back to see if he could wrench it out, but he couldn’t move without more brutal pain.
The masked man put his face next to Archie’s. He was squatting
next to him, wearing a ratty gray robe, nylon still pulled over his face. Who knows how long he’d been there. Archie was barely aware of the room around him. The light was low. The floor was concrete. He’d been moved. Archie lifted his head to look around, but he didn’t see anyone else, just a large empty room. Ducts ran overhead and rusty fittings for long-gone equipment were still affixed to the ceiling.
“Don’t make such a funeral face,” the masked man said.
“What have you done to me?” Archie asked.
“Body suspension,” the masked man said. He stood up and walked slowly around Archie, bending over to touch the spots where hooks pierced Archie’s flesh. “Six hooks in your back, two on each leg.” He gave Archie a little push and he swung, and Archie fought the urge to vomit. “The trick is to distribute the weight evenly,” the masked man went on. “Or your skin will split open.”
Archie could feel him checking the rigging. His body burned with every touch.
“The hooks are attached to nylon ropes,” the masked man said. He came around the front again. Archie could see his bare feet. “The ropes are attached to a pulley system, which I control.” Archie was lifted a few more inches off the floor. The pain of gravity fighting the hooks for his body was startling. It overwhelmed him. “I had to take your clothes off,” the masked man said. “For the hooks. Sorry.”
Archie grimaced through the pain. “You’re starting to piss me off,” he said.
The masked man reached out and put a hand on Archie’s shoulder and steadied him. “Exhale,” he said gently. “If you relax, I think you’ll like it.”
“You didn’t get this from Gretchen’s playbook,” Archie said.
“I’m improvising.”
“Let me see Jeremy,” Archie said.
The masked man squatted down next to Archie’s head again. “He understands you,” he said, his nylon-smashed features nodding thoughtfully. “I think he can help you if you let him.”
“I was thinking more the other way around,” Archie said.
He fiddled with some of the rigging above Archie’s head. “You have a lot in common.”
“Let me see him,” Archie said. Archie had always liked Jeremy. He was a weird kid. A quiet kid. He’d been kidnapped by Gretchen Lowell. He’d most likely witnessed his sister’s torture and murder. Archie had always believed Jeremy’s claims that he didn’t remember what had happened, because Archie had hoped Jeremy didn’t remember, because remembering something like that, remembering Gretchen, that would fuck you up epically. “Take off your mask and let me see you, Jeremy.”
Jeremy peeled off the nylon stocking and dropped it on the concrete floor.
“You’re in a shitload of trouble, kiddo,” Archie said.
C H A P T E R 44
Susan took a gulp of lukewarm coffee out of a cracked Ziggy mug and clicked through another set of booking shots on the computer.
“Anything?” Claire asked.
“Do you have any pictures of just their teeth?” Susan said.
“Believe me, if that guy’s in the system, the teeth will pop up as an identifying characteristic.”
The Beauty Killer Task Force offices were in an old bank that the city had provided when Archie Sheridan had come off medical leave to hunt the After-School Strangler. The last time Susan had been there, it was because Gretchen had escaped from prison, taking Archie with her.
It was two in the morning, but you’d never know it from the activity level. They were all there, every detective on the force, even the front-desk receptionist. International maps papered the walls, with pushpins marking every sighting, every crime that could possibly be related to Gretchen.