Authors: Chelsea Cain
Jeremy had committed murder. Archie had merely killed his marriage, his sense of self, his job. All without firing his weapon.
He couldn’t imagine what it would feel like, to actually do it, to take someone’s life, what might drive a person to cross that line.
He couldn’t imagine. But Henry could.
“Are you okay?” Archie asked him.
A faint smile crossed Henry’s lips. “That’s a switch. You asking me that.”
Shark Boy had swung at Henry when he’d come in, and Henry had fired at him and given chase. “He was going to kill us,” Archie said.
Henry stared into space for a moment, then frowned. “I’m on desk duty, pending official clearance,” he said. “But it’s a formality.” He scratched the back of his neck. “They identified him. His name was Troy Lipton. Twenty-seven.Worked as a fry cook at a roadhouse out in Sherwood. He’s got a record in Idaho. Robbery.Assault.” Henry coughed and stood up. “You should go back to the house,” he said, waving a hand in Archie’s direction. “Get some rest.”
Archie looked down at his wrinkled clothes, the shirt spotted with blood. “I could use a shower.”
“I’m sending someone with you,” Henry said. “Gretchen’s still out there, and now Jeremy.”
“Agreed.”
Henry took a step and stopped in the doorway, his back to Archie, head down. “I’ve killed people before,” he said.
C H A P T E R 59
Archie stood in Henry’s shower, eyes closed, letting the hot water run down his back. The bandages had come off in the water and circled the drain of the tub. Archie turned up the hot water. He stayed like that for another few minutes, until his skin burned and the steam was thick enough that he could barely breathe, and then he opened his eyes and took a step out of the shower stream. He opened the plastic curtain a few inches, to let in some fresh air, and he examined his wounds. The Taser had left a vicious-looking bruise on his side. It was the size of a handprint, hard and tender to the touch, with two dark red circles, like teeth marks, where the electrical current had entered his body.
His back and legs still stung from the hooks, but he wasn’t bleeding anymore. He lifted his foot and put it on the edge of the tub so he could examine the triangle he’d cut into his thigh. The sliced skin hadn’t required stitches. He rubbed his hand on a bar of soap in the tub’s soap dish and then moved his fingers over the cuts in his skin. Triangles. Isabel had been the only victim Gretchen had ever carved that shape into. Strange that it would be what
captured Jeremy’s attention. That he would carve it on his own body so many times. He had not seen the wounds on her other victims. He would have no way of knowing that it was special.
Archie brushed a tiny scab off one of the cuts and it started to bleed, mixing with the water and sending a pale pink stream down his thigh and around the back of his knee.
Triangles.
He sank to the bottom of the tub and sat there. The bathroom was filled with steam. The mirror was fogged. Archie reached forward and turned off the water. The wound on his leg wasn’t very deep, but it had started to throb.
Archie pulled himself up, climbed out of the tub, dried off, and wrapped a towel around his waist. Then wiped the condensation off the mirror so he could see himself. His hollow reflection gave him a start. He put his hand on the edge of the mirror and waited a minute, and then opened the medicine cabinet and scanned the shelves. He didn’t see what he wanted. He looked under the sink. No pills there. He wondered if Henry really didn’t have any painkillers or if he’d just hidden them.
Archie was walking through the living room on his way to search Henry’s kitchen cabinets when he heard her voice.
“I’m glad you’re all right,” Gretchen said.
He turned around and saw her sitting in Henry’s chair. She was holding one of Henry’s cats in her lap—a gray tabby he’d saved from a crime scene. Her hair was red and pulled back. She was wearing a black sleeveless cotton dress, bare legs crossed. She looked tanned. He had seen her so many times in his head that it took a minute to sink in that it was really her.
He wished that he could take that part of himself—the part that remembered her, was connected to her, the part that wanted her—and cut it out and bury it.
He laughed. “I wish I’d killed you,” Archie said.
The cat rubbed its head against her hand and purred. “I’d imagine.”
“There was no reason,” Archie said. “I’ve been looking for a reason why you kept me alive. Some humanity in you. But there was no reason.”
Gretchen frowned thoughtfully. “Maybe it was love.”
Archie smiled. He beckoned her over with a finger. “I want to show you something,” he said.
She didn’t hesitate. She nudged the cat off her lap onto the floor, stood and walked over. She was wearing high heels and her hips swung as she stepped. When she was a few feet away, he dropped the towel.
“No hard-on,” he said.
He followed her eyes down to his flaccid cock, and he marveled happily at it. “Do you know how long it’s been since I was in the same room with you, without getting hard?” he said. “Jesus, I couldn’t even look at your picture, think your name, without getting a fucking erection.” He touched it, moving it a little to prove it wasn’t stiff. “I could fill a bathtub with the semen I’ve spilled in your honor.”
Gretchen reached out and put a hand behind his head and pulled his lips to hers. He let her do it. But he kept his arms at his sides. She kissed him, pushing her tongue into his mouth. And he felt: nothing.
He laughed again.
She pulled away, took a step back, and smoothed her hair. “The therapy is paying off,” she said. “You’ve been a good patient. I’ve been very pleased. ”
“Stop calling Frank,” Archie said. “You’ve got him believing that you’re actually his sister.”
She smiled and arched a sculpted eyebrow. “Maybe I am.”
Henry and Claire were at the task force offices, not due back
for hours. “How did you know I was here?” Archie asked. Henry kept an extra gun in a box in the closet. Archie would have to get to it, open the box, and load it.
Gretchen leaned her elbows on Henry’s sideboard. “Where else would you go? Vancouver?” She ran her eyes over him and he realized he was still standing there, naked. “I think Debbie’s had enough of your wandering eye.” She ran a fingertip along the top of the sideboard and looked at it. “I can see Claire’s influence,” she said. “It’s much neater.” She was fucking with him. She’d never been in Henry’s house before.
Archie picked up the towel and tucked it around his waist. “Why are you here?” he asked.
She smiled her movie-star smile. “I came to save you.”
He had hoped it wasn’t true. “You called the Herald with the tip about Pearl.”
“How is Jeremy Reynolds?” Gretchen said. “I see he’s introduced you to body suspension.”
“He’s what you made him,” Archie said.
“I’m thinking of suing for trademark infringement. I don’t like being copied.”
“Yet you had George Hay gouge out Courtenay Taggart’s eyes.”
“I was copying Jeremy copying me. That’s not copyright infringement. It’s sampling.”
Henry would have the gun loaded. He didn’t have kids. He didn’t need to worry about that. Boxed, in a closet like that, the gun would be loaded.
Gretchen glanced down the hall. “Where is it?” she said. “The gun you’re thinking about using. There? You’d never get there in time.” She stepped in front of him and took one of his hands in hers and lifted it to her neck. “You could use your hands,” she said. She held it there for a moment and he could feel the thump thump of her pulse. Then she lowered it and kissed his palm.
“You’re so confident I won’t do it,” Archie said.