I Will Come for You (28 page)

August 10, 1997
.

Neither Steven’s nor Lance’s names were carved into the wood.
Just the date. August tenth had always been a black hole day for her. She always woke up, feeling the tug on her ankles, knowing before she got out of bed that she would be mired in darkness. Some days she didn’t get up, but lay as if pressed to the mattress by the weight of thought and not all of it about Steven’s death. Sometimes she wondered about the teenager he would have become. Could she have confided in him her worries, her dreams? Or would they have grown apart as they got older? Would he have dedicated his life to animals and preserving nature, or would the loves of his youth have changed into something more worldly? 

His death was so much bigger than his life had been and she had so few memories of the living, breathing Steven.

She’d lay listening to her mother move through the rooms downstairs. August tenth was all about movement for her mother. She didn’t stop, from dawn till dusk, afraid, she once told Natalie, that the sorrow would catch her. She baked cookies, not Steven’s favorite, but Natalie’s, as though marking the day with the celebration of the living; she’d opened all the windows in the house, swept, vacuumed, mopped. All in a precise order. When the floors were dry, her mother started in with the upholstery, applying special cleaners, the stench of which meandered its way up the stairs, under Natalie’s bedroom door, and into her sinuses. With the upholstery left to dry, her mother used oils on the wood work, glass cleaner on mirrors and picture frames. If she worked too quickly, fell off the end of her mental to-do list, Natalie would find her mother, after dark, in the backyard garden, weeding and harvesting by the light of a portable halogen lamp.

On one occasion, Natalie had sat on the back deck and had watched her mother. She’d

been fourteen, and the tenth then had been all about her fury.

“You can’t dig him up, you know,” Natalie had said.

“Natalie!” Her mother perched on her heels and looked over her shoulder at Natalie. “I’m pulling weeds.”

“You’re either trying to pry him loose or bury him deeper. Today is all about forgetting, isn’t it? It’s all about how fast can you run.”

Her mother dropped the claw-shaped garden tool and rested her hands on her knees. She was silent so long, Natalie thought she might be praying.

“I suppose I am running,” her mother admitted. “If I don’t run, if I let my mind stop for just a second, I’ll be six feet under.”

Natalie had left her mother in the garden that night and she’d never intruded upon her mother’s grief again. She wondered now, that if she was able to find Steven’s killer, if she was able to wean some kind of justice for her brother, would it alleviate some of her mother’s pain?

Natalie knelt at the cross. She l
et the fingers skim over the wood. Warmer than the wind, strong with a center that was still soft and green. Her hand trembled, she felt the light shift around her, and knew she was peddling backwards into memory.

She felt Steven, but couldn’t see him. His
small body quaked beside her as they stood in the tall grass, but when she turned to look at him, she was blinded by the pure white light of the sun. Fear was a river that swept around them. Hope was the bank of a distant shore.

She heard something like the cawing of a bird and turned.

Lance. Dark hair, freckles, thin shoulders. A profile that, for all it’s sweet vulnerability, was raised in righteous anger. He stood here, on the bluffs, with darkness descending, and fought for his life. Above him the sky roiled with gray clouds and a winged shadow coasted, banked and swirled in a dervish of motion that taunted the boy. Natalie heard a hissing sound that could have been electricity snapping in the wind. Lance raised his fists and cried out, and as Natalie watched him, blood oozed and dripped from his pores, ran down his neck and arms, kept flowing until he dropped to the ground, lifeless.

And then the picture dissolved and Natalie was again alone on the bluffs.

She had witnessed their deaths and though it came back to her in images that puzzled her, she did remember.

The memory was incomplete, but she knew t
he
feel
of their dying, of having witnessed it. The terror was absolute, thickened the blood in her veins so that she had stood above them, a block of ice.

But she remembered, and knowledge gave her direction.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Monday, 2:40 pm

Graham parks in the lot reserved for teachers, cuts the engine and tries, again, to talk himself out of acting on fear. His nature, the call of his office, everything but the father in him dictates that he act and not react. That he allow himself to be guided by logic and facts, not emotion and impulse. But everything about the King’s Ferry Killer is personal now. The killer shifted direction, contacted Graham through his son, and what is more personal than a man’s son?

The KFK is coming and he is focused on Graham’s family.

And so he’s picking up Isaac early from school. He’s keeping his son close. And if the KFK wants him, he’ll have to go through Graham.

He climbs from the SUV, sets the alarm and strides across the black top. The sky is clear now, the sun’s warmth mixing with the chill air off the water. This isn’t a day for murder, if there ever is one. When he was a kid he used days like today to check the tide for the colored glass that washed ashore—local artists paid for it by the pound. He warmed up his arm tossing
the ball to his father. He played fast-pitch at the batting cages. Teen pursuits. The things Isaac should be doing.

Graham opens the glass door that leads to the school’s office and ducks inside.

“Hi, Chief,” Rose, the school’s secretary, greets him. She worked at the high school back when Graham was passing through.

The school nurse pops her head through her door and waves a thermometer in his direction. The vice-principal stops and shakes his hand. Before Graham can get to business he has a clear indication of what it must be like to be the son of the chief of police.
Uncomfortable. As irritating as wool. He bets Isaac spends plenty of time wishing his father was a plumber.

Graham tries to shrug out of the bad mood that’s building, that gives every thought sharp edges and will result in a hell of a headache.

“You have anything new?” Rose asks. “Anything that will stop this craziness?”

Graham shakes his head but then stops. Seventeen years ago Rose Chavez knew every car that was parked in the student and faculty parking lots. Logging them in was part of her job. “High school,” he says, “a two-tone, blue and white pick up.” He watches a ripple cross her face, looking something like the rising sun.
Recognition. “That stirs a memory,” he says.

“I know Robert Doss drove one,” she says.

The confirmation is sweet. Another piece sliding smoothly into place.

“He didn’t make it to school very often
,” she continues, “and Saul took that truck away from him long before graduation anyway. But when he had it, Robert tore up these streets. He always had a girl with him, too. You know that bad boy magic.” She rolls her eyes, but then her voice changes tone, drops a little, and her papery face folds into deep creases. “Sometimes it was Alana.”

             
“They dated?” Graham asks.

“Oh, no, it was never anything that serious. But she skipped school and when she did they connected.”

“You don’t have to spare my feelings, Rose,” Graham reminds her.

“I’m not. Robert Doss was never with one girl long enough for it to develop into a relationship. That’s the way I saw it, anyway. And back then, Alana knew better. At least I think she did.”

Graham nods. “You’re sure Doss’ truck was red and white?”

The secretary shakes her head and chides him, “You said blue and white and that’s exactly what it was.”

Graham nods and leans against the counter. “Thank you, Rose,” he says, then reaches for an early dismissal form. “I’m picking Isaac up a little early today. Personal business.”

“Pick him up?” she says. “But he never came to school.”

Graham’s heart takes a nose dive. The air flutters in his throat.

“What?”

“I’m sure he’s on the absentee list.” She rummages through a pile of files on her desk and pulls out a computerized roll of paper. “Yes, he’s a no show today. Unusual for Isaac. We only got through the Ks so far, but we would have called before the end of the day.”

“He rode his bike today,” Graham says. That was the plan, when he returned from the Kroeger crime scene this morning, after they finished up with Isaac’s computer and forensics came and took it away, Isaac told him he was riding
his bike to school. He said, “Take a shower, dad. Eat something. I want to ride my bike today.” And Graham said Okay. He wasn’t feeling yet the full implications of the KFK’s message. He didn’t start to worry yet for Isaac’s safety. He was all about driving into Victoria, connecting with Natalie Forrester, digging through the remnants of her memory for that missing piece. And by the time he got out of the shower, Isaac was gone.

“Check with his teachers, OK? All the classes he should have attended up until now.”

“He was marked absent by all five teachers so far,” Rose frets, consulting the print out. “But it won’t hurt to double check.”

Graham watches as she picks up the phone and presses a few buttons. She repeats the same dialogue four times and then drops the receiver back in its cradle.

“I’m sorry, Graham. Isaac didn’t come in today.”

Bile rises in Graham’s throat. He pushes away from the counter and out into the crisp air. The thinking part of his
mind is frozen. Spurred by fear, his imagination flips through possible crime scene photos. Isaac slashed at the throat. His wide and frightened eyes. Isaac drained of life.

He slams the mental
file shut. He can’t do that. Thinking like that makes him worthless.

He reaches his department cruiser and fumbles in his pocket for the key.

“Chief.”

Saul Doss is leaning against the hood of the SUV. His face is bruised still, and strained. He looks frail and light on his feet.

Graham ignores Doss, pulls the key from his pocket and presses the release button.

“You’re looking for Isaac,” Doss says. He steps closer. “They’re together.”

Graham turns on him. “Who? Isaac and who?”

“Natalie Forrester. I passed them coming in. They’re out on the bluffs. That’s what I came to tell you. They’re waiting for you. And there’s not a lot of time.”

Graham stares at Doss, wondering if he is indeed the killer. Doss has been on the suspect

list
from the beginning. He was saved from intense scrutiny by an airtight alibi. And Graham knows those are sold sometimes for less than the cost of dinner.

“He’s after Isaac, now, isn’t he, Chief?” Doss whispers.

“Why do you say that? Huh, Doss? How would you know that, if you’re not the killer?”

“For a while,” Doss confides, “I thought it was me. I set traps for myself. But they were never needed. No, the killer is close, but closer to you than to me, I think. It’s someone you know, isn’t it, Chief?”

Tension is a snake in his blood, pouring into his muscles, wrapping around his heart. He knows he’s running out of time. He knows the killer is looking in Isaac’s direction, and if Graham can’t find him, if the killer is hunting him, Isaac is as good as gone. He remembers Carter’s words: “
It’s when the Son is separated from the Father that He dies.”

Graham drops his keys and strikes. His hand clenches around Doss’ throat and he shoves the man up against the SUV. His face is so close to
Doss’, Graham can count the veins of yellow in his irises.

“It could be you,” Graham says. Maybe this has all been a game to Doss. Cold and calculated with the intention to arrive exactly where they are today.
Striking where Graham is the most vulnerable. Where he’d never recover. “Are you the man we’re looking for?”

Doss doesn’t struggle. He remains limp in Graham’s hold, but shakes his head and tries to speak around the knot of Graham’s hand.

“I’m not a killer, Chief. I’m the man who released him.”

Graham presses his hand against the man’s throat until Doss
gasps for air.

“What does that mean?” he demands. “You know the killer?
All this time you’ve

known
—”

“Not who he is but what he is,” Doss admits. “Not what he looks like on the outside, but on the inside. It’s a terrible evil.
Goes all the way back to original sin. Do you believe in that, Chief? That a soul can span generations, decades, centuries? That’s what happened here. Not so much as birthed into a new person, but slipping inside and assuming his—or her—existence. He takes hostages. He releases no one alive.”

Graham stares at Doss. His mind is in conflict, logic and emotion dueling over Doss’ revelation.

“You have to believe,” Doss says. “You have to know what you’re looking for.”