“First, you sic the police on me. They come around asking me to account for my whereabouts when this happened to you,” he said. “Suggesting that I was to blame. I told them that I held no grudge against you. Even though it wasn’t true, I told them it was my fault that Ivy died.”
Emma met his glaring gaze but remained silent, her stomach churning. Where was David?
“But that wasn’t enough for you, was it?” he asked. “You had to prove it was my fault. When you didn’t get your way with the cops, you decided to take care of it yourself. Today you came to my home to see my wife. Based on some drawing in my daughter’s notebook, you accuse me of being a monster, not a father.”
Emma’s heart was thudding. “Get away from me. David!” she called out.
Devlin ignored her cry. “You persecute me. You hound me. And then you ask me why I’m here?”
“I didn’t—” Emma started to protest.
Devlin suddenly pulled his fists from his coat pockets, raised them up, and grasped the unit’s door handle above his head.
“What are you…what?” She heard the clank of the door as it began to roll down, descending.
“No, stop that!” Emma cried. She began to stumble across boxes and objects that blocked her path to the door.
Devlin was jerking the door down. It was at his waist. In a moment it would slam shut, trapping her inside.
Could he lock her in here? “Stop it!” she cried.
“Enjoy your stay, bitch.”
Emma could see only the lower half of his legs now. She pulled her father’s gun to eye level, grasped it with both hands, and squinted down the barrel, pointing it at his shins. Her arms were trembling. She tried to hold them steady. She prayed the old gun still worked, and fired.
There was a horrible scream, and she saw Devlin crumble, grasping his shattered shin and shrieking in pain.
Emma clambered across the space and jammed her wooden rocking horse beneath the sinking door.
“You bitch,” Devlin was screaming.
Emma pocketed the gun, grabbed the door handle with a cry of pain, and began to lift. The door rolled back up and Emma staggered out. Devlin was rolling on the asphalt walkway. She fought the temptation to put another bullet into him.
She heard another groan, turned, and saw David sprawled on the cement.
“David!” She fell to her knees and tried to lift him into her arms.
He struggled to a sitting position, gripping his head.
“You’re bleeding.”
He looked at his own hand. “What happened?” he said.
“Devlin. He was trying to lock me in the storage room.”
“Jesus, I never saw him coming. I was leaning against the door, watching you rummage around in there. And then I got sucker punched.” He reached up and gingerly patted tiny bits of gravel in his head wound. “I must have hit my head when I went down.” Then he looked searchingly at Emma. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “I shot him,” she cried.
“You did?” He grabbed her, squeezing her upper arms. His eyes were wide.
“He’s over there. I shot him in the knee.”
David looked at the figure on the ground, writhing in pain, and hollering. His expression changed from horror to glee. He pulled her close. “That’s my girl. Serves the bastard right,” he said. “Way to go.”
T
HE
D
EVLIN
house was dark, except for one light behind a shaded window. A blue minivan was parked in the driveway. Joan Atkins rapped loudly on the door. “Mrs. Devlin,” she called out. “It’s Lieutenant Atkins and Detective Marbery.”
There was silence from inside the house, and she rapped again. “Are you in there Mrs. Devlin? Are you all right? Please open the door.”
After a few more moments of silence, Risa Devlin opened the door.
Joan could hardly believe it was the same woman who she had met during her earlier visit. She was wearing a dark jacket that was buttoned up and belted around her ample waist. Her blond tendrils still waved beguilingly around her face, but her eyes were flinty and her pudgy face was pale. “What do you want?” she said.
“We need to talk to you. Your husband’s been shot. He is at the hospital. In police custody.”
Risa’s eyes widened. “He was shot?”
Joan noticed that she did not inquire as to who shot him, how badly he was injured, or if he was going to be all right. The customary questions. She provided the answers for her anyway. “It’s not a life-threatening injury. He was shot in the knee. Could we come in and talk to you for a moment?”
Risa looked vaguely disappointed. “He’s going to be all right, then?”
Joan nodded. “He’s in surgery right now, having the bullet removed and the knee patched up.”
Risa shrugged. “You can come in. But I’m busy packing. And I have to get back to it. We need to get to the airport.” Without another word she turned away, leaving the door ajar. Joan and Trey Marbery followed her into the house. Sure enough, right in the front hallway were three suitcases, sitting side by side.
“Where are you going?” Joan asked.
“Back to my family in Wisconsin. My father and my brothers live there. We’ll be safe there. Once I tell them…” Her voice trailed off. She walked to the foot of the staircase and shouted up the stairs. “Alida? Are you ready?”
The girl’s voice was muffled and sounded tearful. “Almost. I’m coming.”
“You and your husband had an argument?” Joan asked.
Risa turned and frowned at her. “How did you know?”
“Your husband was shot by Dr. Webster. He was very angry about her coming to see you today. He accosted her, and she shot him,” Joan said flatly.
Risa stared at her. “Did he hurt Dr. Webster?”
Joan shook her head and watched Risa’s face. “No. Luckily. He injured her husband slightly. But as soon as he’s able to answer questions, we want to talk to him about the other attempts on Dr. Webster’s life.”
Risa’s blue eyes widened in horror, and she groped for the bannister as her knees seemed to give way. She sat down on the stairs with a thud. “You think he’s the one who tried to kill her?”
“We don’t know. Dr. Webster pointed out to us just this evening that your husband works in the building across from the station where someone tried to push her onto the tracks, and so far, we have not been able to locate the student whom he claimed he was tutoring at the time. As for the first attempt, you’re the one who gave him an alibi for that night. You agreed that he was here watching some Italian movie. Was that true?”
Risa Devlin sighed. “I remember vaguely watching the movie. I couldn’t swear to you it was that night.”
“Where do you rent your movies?” Trey interjected.
Risa Devlin frowned at him. “Blockbuster. The one on Shelby,” she said.
“They’ll have a record of when you rented it,” said Trey.
“Although that won’t tell us when they watched it,” Joan said.
“It will if they brought it back the next day,” said Trey.
Joan nodded. “Can you check it out?”
“Sure,” said Trey. “Right now?”
“When we’re done here,” said Joan. “Mrs. Devlin, why did Dr. Webster come and see you earlier? Can you remember that?”
Risa nodded, her gaze wandering, as if she was trying to reconstruct something in her mind. “It was about…” Risa looked anxiously up the stairs. “Don’t you tell Alida. She’s been through enough today.”
“We need to know what it was that you talked about with Dr. Webster.”
Risa looked at her warily. “Didn’t she tell you?”
“Not without your permission,” she said. “Privileged.”
Risa seemed to consider it, and then she shook her head. “I’m not saying anything else. My daughter doesn’t need to have this all over the newspapers. No. We’re getting away from here. Alida,” she cried. “Come down. We have to go.”
“Mrs. Devlin. You can’t run away from this. If you know why your husband went after Dr. Webster, you’re going to have to tell us. You’re going to have to testify in court, in fact.”
“What did Daddy do?” cried a soft voice from the staircase.
They all looked up. Alida, in a baggy sweatshirt, her eyes redrimmed, was standing stock-still on the stairs, wearing a backpack and dangling a duffel bag.
“Come on, honey,” said Risa. “Never mind about it. We have to go.”
Alida did not budge. “What happened?”
“Your dad is in the hospital,” said Risa. “He’s been shot.”
Alida blanched. “Is this because of me?”
“No, baby, of course not,” her mother insisted.
“Why would you think that, Alida?” Joan asked.
Alida shook her head. “My parents had a huge fight about me after those two doctors left. My father was screaming at my mom.”
“All right, that’s enough,” said Risa. “Don’t say anything else.”
The girl looked at her mother with disappointment in her eyes. “You said not to be ashamed. You said it wasn’t my fault. Or Ivy’s,” said Alida.
“What wasn’t your fault?” Joan asked.
The girl looked at her mother for permission, for support.
Risa took a deep breath. “No, baby, it wasn’t your fault.”
“What happened, Alida?” Joan asked gently.
Alida, halfway down the staircase, looked like a scruffy blond angel, the light from the top of the stairs making a halo around her head. Her small voice trembled but was clear. “My dad did stuff. To me. He said he wanted me to know what to do when I had a real boyfriend.”
Joan Atkins recoiled inwardly from the revelation, the utter believability of that fatuous excuse for depravity. God, there are a lot of worthless men in this world, Joan thought. So many men who would do anything to get what they wanted, and they didn’t give a damn who suffered. Then again, what about the wife? Why couldn’t she see what was happening under her nose and do something about it?
As if in response to Joan’s thoughts, Risa Devlin’s shoulders slumped, and she sank down on the bottom step. “Both my babies. He did it to both my babies. My Ivy was starving herself. Trying to…disappear. That’s what Dr. Webster said. Disappear. Ivy was trying to…escape from him. When I took Ivy to the center, Dr. Webster tried to tell me what it meant, but I wouldn’t believe it.”
Risa shook her head hopelessly. “Tonight he walked in with that superior look on his face, talking down to me. But I’d seen the picture from school. They showed it to me. And it dawned on me. I finally understood. He’d moved on. To Alida. How could I have been so blind?” She began to sob.
Alida rushed down the stairs, her bag bumping behind her. She put her arms around her mother’s shoulders and buried her face in the dark jacket. “Don’t cry, Mom. Let’s go to Grandpa’s, Mom, like you said. Come on. Let’s go before he gets back.”
Risa held her daughter close and looked pleadingly at Joan. “Let me get her away from here. Please.”
“I need you here for my investigation.”
“I’ll come back. You can call me. But I need to take my daughter somewhere safe. I can’t stay in this house. He must be completely crazy to have done this. To both his daughters. And then…that poor woman.” Risa shuddered.
Joan looked at her thoughtfully. “I need a statement from you. Written and signed. It won’t take long. Then you can go.”
Risa nodded. “Okay.”
“This is not the end of it, you understand. I’ll need to talk to you again.”
“I understand,” Risa said solemnly.
“All right. We’ll knock out your statement as quickly as possible and then I’ll have an officer take you to the airport. Do you mind if my officers search your house and your computers?”
Risa looked around at the home she had tried to make. She was leaving this house and hoping never to return. “It’s all yours,” she said.
R
EPORTERS CALLED
so persistently that David ended up turning off the ringer on the phone. It was all anyone could talk about on television. On the radio. Lambert University professor Lyle Devlin had been shot and was in surgery. Police were waiting to question him in connection with the attack in the Pine Barrens on honeymooner Emma Webster and the murder of hunter Claude Mathis, as well as to question him about accusations of sexual abuse of his own daughters. Emma stared at the TV screen, curious at first, and then mesmerized until David switched it off.
“How could he?” she asked, shaking her head.
“He’s sick,” said David. “But you know that. You’re the shrink.”
“I just can’t understand that mind-set. I mean, I try, but…To prey on your own children when they’re helpless to resist,” she said. “To use them like that. To destroy them. It’s almost worse than murder. One expert in the field calls it ‘soul murder.’ I think that’s a good description.”
“You tried to warn them. The guy is evil,” David said.
“Because you can never really get over something like that,” Emma continued. “I mean, the whole idea of trust becomes…laughable. If your own parent would do something so selfish and cruel to you…”
“I agree. It’s…awful. But you put a stop to it with your Smith & Wesson. That’s something to be grateful for, anyway,” he said.
She reached up and touched the bandage on his head. “You’re right. How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Well, on the one hand, I’ve got one hell of a headache,” he admitted. “But,” he said, smiling, “on the other hand, I forgot all about my toe.”
She lifted his hand to her face and kissed it. They sat together on the sofa in their bathrobes, the remains of the pizza they had ordered in a box on the table.
“How ’bout you? Feel better?” he asked.
“Starting to.”
A pounding on the front door made Emma shrink into a corner of the sofa, holding the neck of her robe together. David stood up. “They never quit. I’ll get rid of them,” he said wearily. He got up and walked to the door, opening it a few inches.
Emma heard voices, and then David opened the door wider. Lieutenant Atkins stepped into the foyer, wearing a gray, microfiber trench coat over her suit. She looked into the living room and saw Emma. “Emma,” she said. “How are you feeling now?”
“Better, thanks.”
“I’m sure you’ve heard the news. Devlin is having surgery on his knee even as we speak. His wife and daughter are on their way to the airport, heading to the mother’s family out in the Midwest. We’ll be placing Devlin under arrest once he’s out of recovery. Sometime late tonight, I suspect.”
“What if he denies everything?” Emma asked.
“We have enough evidence to hold him. His computers are revealing that he had numerous contacts with underage girls. And his daughter signed a sworn statement on the sexual assault charge. Her mother is backing her up all the way.”
“What about the attacks on Emma?” David demanded.
“Well, we’re going to question him, of course,” said Joan carefully.
“Do you have any doubt?” David asked.
Joan gazed at him thoughtfully. She knew that he had good reason to be angry at Devlin. The bandage on his head, and the attempt to lock his wife in the storage unit, were reasons enough. But Joan found his eagerness to blame Devlin to be a bit…convenient. “Technically,” she said, “Devlin didn’t lay a hand on your wife tonight.”
“I don’t believe this,” said David. “He tried to lock her away. And he certainly whacked me,” said David, gingerly touching the bandage on his head.
“I know. But so far we haven’t tied him to the other attacks,” said Joan.
“I told you about the music building being right across from the train station,” Emma reminded her.
“I haven’t forgotten,” Joan said.
“What about the anonymous letters I got? Is there any link to Devlin?”
“No, we don’t know who wrote those letters,” said Joan. “We’re still investigating. It’s possible that Devlin will become our prime suspect.”
“Instead of me,” said David ruefully.
Joan took a deep breath. “As far as why I’m here…”
Emma looked up at her.
“Regardless of how much Professor Devlin may have deserved it, Emma, you assaulted him with a deadly weapon. An illegal firearm to boot,” she said.
“A deadly weapon…!” David cried. “After what she’s been through?”
“You did not have a valid license to carry that handgun.”
Emma blanched. “What are you saying? Are you…arresting me?”
Joan smiled and shook her head. “No. I doubt there will be any felony charges filed. I think this can safely be classified as a case of self-defense.”
“At least the system isn’t completely mad,” said David.
“Although you will have to appear in court on a misdemeanor charge and probably pay a fine at some point,” the lieutenant warned. “Right now I’m here to confiscate the weapon.”
“But I need that gun,” Emma protested.
“You’re not licensed to use it,” Joan reminded her.
“It was my father’s. I don’t want to part with it,” Emma said.
“You’ll get it back eventually.”
Emma looked up at David as if appealing to him to intervene. Then she remembered that she was trying not to do that. Not to lay it all on him. Emma sighed. “All right, Lieutenant,” she said. She got up from the sofa and went to the Stickley-style cabinet in the dining room. She pulled out the gun, which she had unloaded when they got home. She put the holster back into the cabinet and handed the gun over.
“Thank you,” Joan said. “Now, try and get some rest. I believe this gun has served its purpose.”
Emma walked the lieutenant to the door, closed the door on her retreating figure, and turned around. David was cleaning up the pizza crusts and folding paper plates into the box. “It’s not fair,” she said.