Let Me Go (24 page)

Henry had stopped pacing. The air in the room felt cold and still.

Archie didn't know what she wanted him to say. It was true. He should have seen it coming. He should have known that Gretchen would use the occasion to make a point. He should have been prepared.

“But it wasn't enough for her to see you,” Susan said, pulling out another thread. “She wanted you to know. That's why she sent me that message. That's why she let herself be filmed by the security camera. Why she probably murdered that girl. She wanted you to know that she came back on your birthday.” She fixed her gaze on him, eyes like green glass. “She wanted you to see her”—her mouth twisted in disgust—“all over you.”

Archie tried to meet her eyes, but found it physically painful. He searched for something else to look at, anything but her. His hands. The coffee table. Of all the people in the world, Susan was the last Archie would have chosen to see that video, though he would never tell her that. Even Ginger had abandoned him, retreating under the coffee table and staring up at him with abject disappointment. Henry had gotten very interested in something out the window.

“How was this supposed to go, Archie?” Susan demanded. “Did she think you'd like the performance? Are you flattered? Does it turn you on?”

“No,” Archie said, his voice cracking. He cleared his throat and took a breath. “No,” he said again. He needed to make her understand. His body might betray him when it came to Gretchen, but his mind was clear. But it wasn't enough for Susan. That was evident. She was looking at him with tears in her eyes. He'd seen the same wounded frustration on Debbie's face. That was Gretchen's weapon. He could recover physically, he could give up pills, but he would never be better. “I don't get to have a life without her,” he said to Susan. He shrugged helplessly. He couldn't fight the truth anymore. He was too worn-out. “She can find me anytime. She is there. Even when I think I'm alone. She'll never let me go.” The words hung in the room. “That's what this was about. That's what she wanted me to know.” He said it again: “She will never let me go.” He forced himself to hold Susan's gaze, hoping she understood what he was trying to say. “And she sent you that message because she wanted to make sure you knew it, too.”

Didn't Susan see it? Gretchen had figured out what Archie had worked so hard to keep from Susan. She knew how much he cared for Susan, and she was taking proactive measures to eliminate the possibility of anything happening between them.

Susan balled up the thread in her hands and flung it on the couch cushion. “You know what I think?” she asked. “I think you cheated on your wife. It ended up blowing up in your face. And you're still beating yourself up for it.”

Archie's head hurt. “I think I've paid for that,” he said.

“You're not still punishing yourself?” Susan asked.

“For that?” Archie said. “No.”

“Then why don't you tell people about the affair?” Susan asked. “You're divorced. I'm not talking about sending out a press release. I mean tell the people on your team. Tell the people running the manhunt. Tell them you had an affair with Gretchen Lowell and that it was a mistake and you regret it. It's part of the story, isn't it? It colors her motivations. Maybe you can help them understand her better so they can catch her. You didn't know she was the Beauty Killer. She seduced you. Everyone would understand that.”

Would understand what? That he was a heel? That he'd lied to all of them, then and now? That he'd deserved everything that had happened to him? Archie lifted a hand to his temple.

“That's insane,” Henry said from the window. “You don't have to do that,” he added to Archie.

“I don't think he can move on until it's out in the open,” Susan said.

Archie looked at his hands, hands that had held his children, hands that had moved over every part of Gretchen's body. “It's personal,” he said.

“Well, your personal issues affect other people personally,” Susan said. “Like Lisa Watson, for instance.”

Archie looked up. “Gretchen didn't kill Lisa Watson,” he said.

Susan sighed audibly and threw up her hands.

Henry pursed his lips and stood silently for a moment, and then came over and sat down in the chair next to Archie. He scooted the chair close and folded his hands under his chin. “They were both on that island,” Henry said. “You said you talked to the victim.” He peered over his knuckles at Archie. “Maybe Gretchen saw you and got jealous.”

“Gretchen doesn't kill when she gets jealous,” Archie said, frustration edging into his voice. He rubbed his face, searching for the words to explain it. “She sees it as a challenge. She wants to win. She wants me to choose her.” He thought of how carefully Gretchen had laid the groundwork for the collapse of his marriage. “In Gretchen's mind, killing the competition would be cheating.” The more Archie thought about it, the more he was convinced that he was right. “It's been fourteen months since she killed recreationally,” he added.

Henry lifted his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “So we're not counting the serial killer she dismembered two months ago after her escape from the nuthouse?”

“Or the nurse she slaughtered on her way out of that nuthouse?” Susan said.

Archie shook his head. They didn't understand. “Those weren't recreational kills for her. She didn't kill those people for fun; she did it because she had to.”

“So it's just, what, a crazy coincidence that Gretchen shows up at a party shortly before one of the guests turns up dead?” Henry asked.

“Think about it,” Archie said wearily. “Think of all the Beauty Killer victims we've seen over the years. Remember Sarah Jesudason?”

“The librarian,” Henry said.

They had found Jesudason's decapitated body in the back of her 1997 Subaru Outback, and her head in the central library drop box a week later, with a note apologizing for it being overdue.

“Gretchen enjoys killing,” Archie said. “She stretches it out. She makes an art out of it. This didn't have any of Gretchen's creativity. Lisa Watson was stabbed and thrown in a lake. No. Gretchen would consider that crass. Below her pay grade.”

“She's a murderer,” Susan said. “She murders people. She doesn't need a reason. You talk about her like she has rules. Let's not forget that she's a psycho bitch. She made that little tape to prove to you, to all of us, that she can get to you. Anytime she wants. Even on an island crawling with private security guards and cameras mounted everywhere and an FBI surveillance van parked out front. Maybe she wanted to kill someone, and instead of killing you, she killed the first person she came across. It's called bloodlust. She was horny for it.” Susan's cheeks were scarlet. “You made her horny. So she murdered Lisa Watson. Maybe she didn't have time to make it”—she paused and her eyes darkened—“fancy. She didn't have time to get creative. Maybe she just wasn't feeling her artistic muse that day. So she just killed her.” Susan looked from Archie to Henry. “In the end it doesn't matter how she did it, does it? Lisa Watson is still dead.”

“I didn't mean it like that,” Archie said. He had put Susan through enough; he didn't want to argue with her about this.

“What did you do after we watched that tape?” Susan asked evenly. “You called Henry. He dropped everything and came right over. You showed him the footage. And you two have been wringing your hands ever since.”

“So?” Archie said.

“There's a task force out there hunting Gretchen,” Susan asked. “Why didn't you call them?”

Archie fumbled for an answer. “I wanted Henry's take on this first.”

“It's been forty minutes since we saw proof that she was on that island last night,” Susan said. “That's forty minutes that the cops trying to catch her won't have. Maybe she's long gone by now, I don't know. But I do know that when you see a deranged escaped criminal, you call the police. So they can start looking. So they can set up roadblocks. So they can warn the public. You don't call your friend. You don't sit there like an idiot.” Susan peered at him intently. “You do want her caught, right, Archie?”

Archie looked to Henry for support. Henry's eyes went from Susan to Archie. He smoothed his mustache and raised his eyebrows at Archie.

Archie sank back in the sofa. “The video
is
sort of compromising,” he said.

“The serial killer humping your face?” Susan said. “Yeah, I'd say so. But you're already compromised, if you hadn't noticed. Now you need to decide what you're going to do about it.”

“Do you want to make the call, or should I?” Henry asked Archie.

The truth was Archie didn't think they had a chance of catching Gretchen. She was smarter than all of them. But he wasn't going to admit it.

“I'll do it,” Archie said with a sigh, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed.

 

CHAPTER

32

 

The crime scene
investigator was named Gary. He was in his thirties, Archie guessed, with a slight build and thick dark hair that would have fallen just above his shoulders if it hadn't been pulled back in a ponytail. A feathering of dark hair on his chin appeared to mark the early stages of a goatee.

Archie shifted his weight and the plastic sheeting under his bare feet crinkled.

“Will this take much longer?” Archie asked, clearing his throat.

“If you keep squirming,” Gary said.

On the other side of the bedroom door, Archie could hear the others having a hushed, heated discussion, but Gary seemed impervious. Archie couldn't make out many words, but he recognized Sanchez's voice as one of the loudest.

At first it had been a relief when Gary had shown up. At least Archie got to leave the room.

Gary ran a latex-clad finger over the back of Archie's bare thigh and Archie felt his gluteal muscle reflexively tense.

He had been picked clean by CSU before. Just two months ago, after a bomb strapped to a man had gone off, splattering Archie with a pink soup of flesh and bone, Archie had spent an hour being culled for evidence.

But this was different.

He was naked, standing on a plastic sheet, while a fully clothed man knelt in front of him. It was, to put it mildly, a bit more invasive.

Gary touched a mole on Archie's thigh and then peered at it through a magnifying glass like it might be a clue.

“That's me,” Archie said with a sigh. “I've had that my whole life.”

Gary nodded. His prominent nose was offset with deep-set large dark eyes and eyelashes like Elizabeth Taylor's. If he managed to grow the goatee, it would look good.

Archie stole a glance at his bedside clock. It was after nine. He shifted his weight again.

“I took a shower this morning,” Archie said.

“You already said that,” Gary said. “And then I said it was still worth harvesting evidence, and then you objected to my use of the word
harvesting
.”

Archie remembered that now.

“Are you uncomfortable?” Gary asked.

“I'm naked,” Archie said. He was finding himself in this situation a little too regularly for comfort.

“It won't be much longer,” Gary said. He got to his feet and focused his attention on Archie's neck. The stray fine hairs at Gary's hairline fluttered every time Archie exhaled. Archie tried to remain perfectly still. It was hard to be still. Every one of Archie's knuckles suddenly needed cracking. His nose itched. He wanted to stretch. He was cold. Gary produced a pair of tweezers and plucked something off Archie's skin and deposited it in a plastic bag. Gary had done that four times so far, and each time the item he'd pulled off Archie had been so minuscule that Archie couldn't see it at all.

“What's that?” Archie asked.

Gary shrugged. “Probably nothing,” he said. He tucked the bag into his crime scene kit and returned with a small black plastic comb and then settled onto his heels in front of Archie. “I'm going to comb your pubic hair,” he said.

Archie wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he tried to remain stoic as Gary drew the comb through Archie's pubic hair in short swift strokes, stopping after each stroke to examine the comb for any errant hairs. When Gary saw hairs on the comb he eased them into an evidence bag. After thirty or so strokes, he sealed the bag, wrote something on it, and stowed it in his crime scene kit.

When Gary turned back to Archie he was holding what looked like a six-inch-long Q-tip.

Archie had a bad feeling about this. He took a small step back.

“We use this to perform two tests,” Gary said, wiggling the Q-tip. “We use it to swab the shaft and glans of the penis to search for traces of vaginal mucus, and we also insert it into the urethra to collect a sample for STD testing.”

“Excuse me?” Archie said. His mouth felt very dry.

“It's protocol,” Gary said. “For a full examination.”

“It's unnecessary,” Archie said emphatically. “Because I did not have sex with her.”

Gary pursed his lips. “It's my understanding you don't remember much of last night, yes?” he said. “So you can't be sure, can you?”

Archie drew his hands through his hair. He hadn't considered the possibility that he'd had sex with Gretchen last night or that there had been anything more to the evening than what the tape showed. But he had lost five hours, and the tape only accounted for two minutes of that. He was barely conscious in the boathouse footage, but who's to say what state he'd been in before that? He wanted to believe he hadn't had sex with her. But at the same time he couldn't put it past himself, not with their history. He knew himself well enough to know that.

Archie eyed the Q-tip pinched between Gary's latex-clad fingers. “We have to do both tests?” he asked.