I Will Come for You (24 page)

So she did. “I know place,” she said. “What we called Pirate’s Beach. But not time. The
boys were alive, though. And it was that summer.”

“And Alana was talking to a man?”

“A young man,” Natalie corrected. “He wasn’t much older than her.”

“You didn’t hear what they were saying?”

Natalie shook her head. “He was talking. Alana was—“ Natalie recalled the image and found Alana’s bowed body standing beside the guy, the waves tumbling ashore behind them, drowning his words. His hand was clamped around her arm, pulling Alana close. “Scared.”

Graham frowned. “You didn’t see his tattoo?”

“Only that he had one.”

“Where?”

“His left shoulder. He was wearing a tank top.”

He nodded slowly, as he absorbed and tried to make sense of the information Natalie gave him.

“Do you think it’s connected?”

“I think we’ll find out.”

She took a step back. “I’ll remember more,” she promised, then turned and followed the path to the street and her rental car.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Monday, 12:50 pm

Natalie wanted to visit the beach rental where they had spent their summers; to drop by Saul Doss’ bait shop; to hike through the sea grass on the bluffs to where she had found the bodies of her brother and Lance Marquette. She hoped to stir memory, to fit together all the little pieces that together would tell the story of Steven’s murder and Natalie’s role in it.

She remembered reading on the card Doss gave her that he ran a bait shop at the horn. She stopped there first. She thought back to the ferry, to the way she’d felt standing next to Doss, like he’d been a block of dried ice. He’d given off a chill so sharp it’d carried a burn with it. She won’t forget that the man lied to her, either. That her remembrance of him from her childhood was dark around the edges. If Saul Doss survived the sinking ferry she would ask him questions and doubt everything he said to her.

A man much younger than Doss but with the same distinctive peak to his hairline and the same colorless eyes stood behind the counter. Natalie waited as he bagged a half dozen Styrofoam cups of live bait and made change. She noticed that he was
missing three fingers on his left hand, below the top ridge of knuckles, and that just beyond it he carried a tattoo of a detonated grenade.

He held his hand up.
“Self-explanatory.”

Natalie felt her cheeks heat. “You caught me staring. Sorry.”

“No worries. What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for Mr. Doss.”

“You found him.”

He spread his arms wide and the thin cotton of his t-shirt stretched over his shoulders. He smiled, too, a big wolfy grin.

Natalie frowned.

“You weren’t expecting my old man, were you?”

“I think so. Saul Doss.”

“Yeah, that’s my dad. I’ve heard some ladies really dig an older guy, but I’ll never understand it.”

“It’s not that. I mean, it’s nothing personal,” she stumbled, then felt her skin heat when he laughed. “It’s business,” she stressed. “My father and your father were colleagues. Is he here?”

“Nope.”

“Do you expect him?”

“No again.”

“Did he make it off the ferry?”

“You know he was on it?” He cocked his head to one side.
“How well do you know my father?”

“I don’t. I already explained—”

“OK. I’ll cut you a break. I try to exercise my right to a difficult nature, due to my disability—” he waved his hand in the air and laughed again— “but you look ready to flap your wings and squawk.” He wiped his hands on a towel and picked up a small pad and a pen. “My father is recuperating at home today.” He smiled. “I think I took less time after I blew my hand off.”

“How did you do that?” she asked, since he brought it up again.

“Iraq. I was a chaplain with the Marines.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “I lost the faith.”

“No, I mean, you’re Canadian.”

“I’m as Yankee as you are,” he said. “My mother was a San Diego beach bunny. That’s where I was born. I was stationed there most of the time, too.”

He began drawing a map, labeling streets and using arrows to indicate directions.

“My father could use a little company. But don’t say anything that’ll upset him. And no strenuous activity.”

He winked at Natalie and she felt another tide of color sweep into her face.

“Thanks for the directions.” She pushed the paper into the front pocket of her jeans. “Maybe I should wait until tomorrow.”

“No. Go now. He’s waiting for you.”

“What?”

“He said you were a blond, that’s why I didn’t recognize you at first.”

Natalie pushed a strand of hair back from her face and resisted the urge to look at it. She
was
a blond.

“Wishful thinking,” he said. “I’ve spent my life around the real thing. I know it when I see it.”

Natalie took a step backwards and was turning to go when she said, “I guess even the experts are wrong some of the time.”

Saul
Doss lived on the southern end of King’s Ferry, in a cottage that was so close to the water his yard was sand. The paint was fresh and beneath each window was a flower box, empty now. She remembered when it was full of blooms, red and purple geraniums. She remembered the bird houses, tilting lightly in the summer breeze. And she remembered that Saul Doss never locked his doors, but invited risk to enter at any moment.

She walked through the gate and glanced at her hand on the white picket. The hand belonged to a younger Natalie. The fingers were short and the nails were painted a sheer pink; the enamel was scratched from play. She had been at this house when she was eight years old. She had walked through this gate, had held her face to the flowers in the box. She had peered through the
front window and watched, through the gauzy curtains, as Saul Doss held her brother Steven and Lance Marquette in a kind of hypnosis.

The image made her heart shudder, but Natalie didn’t look away. She didn’t let the fear building in her blood break her concentration. Steven and Lance were suspended in mid-air, only two or three feet off the floor. Their heads were tipped back. Eyes closed. Their hands dangled at their sides. And Saul Doss watched them, like the boys were a science experiment. He wrote in a notebook, observed them some more, walked around the room and sketched what he saw.

As the young Natalie stood gazing in the window, Robert Doss walked past her. Not the man from the bait shop, but the guy from the beach. Alana’s boyfriend. He wasn’t much more than a kid, but his hair was the right color and peaked in the right place. The wind stirred, lifting the sleeve of his t-shirt, exposing the tattoo: a heart with the word MOM written over it. He paused at the door and glanced at Natalie. “Freak,” he’d said.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Monday, 1 pm

Graham waits at the corner for the light to change. Across the street, the diner is at overflow with people standing in tight knots outside the entrance. He lets his eyes move over them, picking apart their features:
which one of you is a killer?
He believes the KFK is among the citizens of King’s Ferry, more than a visitor to the island, but someone who drifts between life here and elsewhere. Someone who lives the way Alana does. He wants it to be someone unrelated, known but not cared for, not
connected
to him. But it’s possible he married his brother’s killer; it’s possible his son has a murderer for a mother.

What Natalie Forrester remembered makes sense to him. The pieces slide into place, no coaxing.

But Alana never could have acted alone. She doesn’t have that kind of staying power. Killing of this nature is a mental marathon, with sustained moments of clarity, and Alana isn’t capable of that.

He understands why she never said anything about finding the boys; she did a lot of that when they were married—i
gnored the unpleasant, dressed up the ugly so that it looked and smelled good. She was a master at convincing herself that some of the things she did never happened. In the early years, she convinced Graham, too. But even when it was out there, a fire-breathing reality, Alana could look it in the eye and deny it.

An accomplice?
Maybe she’s that. Maybe she knelt in Iverson’s blood and held her hand. It’s the kind of thing Alana would do. Inflict harm and then feel so bad about it that she cried over the blood she spilled.

Maybe she watched and did nothing to stop the murders from happening.

Maybe she was as much at the mercy of the killer as the dead were.

Maybe showing the victims kindness in the end was all she could do.

The light changes and Graham walks across the street. He studies the line of cars parked along the side of the road and the heavy stream of traffic heading through the main artery of town. A lot of trucks, but none blue and white. By now, of course, the truck, if it still existed, would be twenty years old or more.

He pushes back in his mind, trying to remember such a vehicle from his early days, but comes up empty.

He never knew a woman who drove a two-tone truck. No girls he went to school with, not a neighbor. He tries sorting through his memory—did he ever work on a vehicle of that description? For a few years in high school, he changed oil at a fast lube. Still no hits. But he does know for sure that the woman behind that wheel wasn’t Alana. They were married a few years before she even learned how to drive.

He allows the argument to continue in his mind, seeking a way to exonerate the woman he
once loved, the mother of his son.

The compression prints at the Iverson scene suggest that a woman was present. If the KFK is actually two people,
it’s possible Alana is involved.

But not probable.
Alana’s illness is messy. It’s like blood splatter, all over and obvious. The KFK is controlled, even if he’s starting to slip. And the theory of two doesn’t wash for another undeniable reason: it doubled the opportunity for leaving evidence behind. Seven crime scenes and eight bodies were left clean.

But if Alana isn’t involved, how did she know where to find the boys? Hundreds of islanders were out looking for Lance and Steven, in addition to a massive search executed by the RCMP. And Alana found them.

As far as Graham is concerned, coincidence belongs in the same line up as pixie dust.

So Alana knew, but why?

The question picks up the beat of his heart, hammers at his head, produces a white-out where he wants answers.

A clear indication that he’s thinking too much.

He approaches the wait outside the diner and wades through it. A few people greet him, some call out. Everyone wants answers.

“There’s nothing new,” Graham says and watches the
faces fall flat. Disappointment and disapproval, he prefers those emotions to the fear he sees stretch some features into excess. “Sorry,” he offers.
Maybe tomorrow
, but he can’t push the words past his lips. It’s been too long, the waiting too painful, to even suggest there’s hope. But the truth is, Graham does feel like they’re in the home stretch. He feels so close to the answers that his fingertips burn.

He slides through the door and turns so that he’s facing the booths. Carter doesn’t brown bag it. He doesn’t sit at the counter, either, but spreads himself out close to a window and reads between bites. Today it looks like he has a copy of the Maritime News.

The waitress, Molly, heads toward Graham and he tries to wave her off. She doesn’t waver and stops only when the tips of her squeaky shoes are pressed against his boots.

“I was going to call,” she says. “I should have called right away because I
felt
something was off with her. Natalie Forrester,” Molly announces. “She’s here. On the island. I didn’t recognize her right away, but I put two and two together as soon as Bobette came over from the library. She’s back. The
sister
.” The word is whispered drama and Graham feels his face harden. “And she sat in that booth over there, with your wife.”

Graham follows her finger pointing but says, “Ex-wife, Molly.”

“I didn’t hear everything they said,” Molly continues, “but I do know they talked about those boys dying. Your brother and hers. Alana said, ‘They weren’t alone in the end, Natalie. That should comfort you.’ And she mumbled something about holy water as she was walking out the door. I didn’t catch all of it. But I thought it was important you know that, Chief.”

The shock is almost physical. His brain catches on the words, wades through their implications, but for a moment he can do no more than that.

Alana couldn’t know about the holy water. Not unless she was there. Not unless she herself committed the act of atonement, or watched someone else do it.