“She deserved it.” He moved forward and reached out a hand. She felt bile move up her throat, but instead of touching her breast, the fingers of his right hand slid around her nape and then forward, until his thumb fit inside the well at the base of her throat.
“What were you fighting about?” Liv asked.
“She suspected about Sylvia . . . I had to hit her. She said she was leaving me for Navarone.”
I’m done,
Mama had told Liv.
And that’s when Liv had gone through the back door and seen what she’d seen, not understanding, burying the memory except for the bad feeling that haunted her soul.
“I watched her often. Through the window. From the field. I only really wanted her . . . then . . .” he said in that ultrasoft voice that sounded more menacing with each syllable. “But that night was the last. She even told you she was done. That’s when I knew I had to finish it. I went back in after she sent you away. I wanted to caress her.” His hand squeezed Liv’s throat. “But I had to do it differently, or even those morons at the Rock Springs police would have found me. So I hung her.” His hand squeezed harder, his breath raspy. “I wanted to touch her, but I couldn’t.” His other hand joined the first in a circle around the base of Liv’s neck. Liv’s heart was jumping wildly in her chest. He’d come back in the kitchen, knocked her mother senseless, then hanged her. If either Liv, or Hague, had gone back to the kitchen at that time and caught him, they would have been killed as well.
“You hit me with your truck,” Liv said, desperately trying to keep the conversation going. “You ran me off the road.”
“The truck isn’t registered to me. Lorinda found it. She asked too many questions . . . and now this is the last time I can use it, because you damaged it!”
Liv surfaced briefly from her paralyzing fear. “
You
hit
me.
”
He yanked his hands back from her throat then slapped her. Hard. Her ears rang. She felt darkness enveloping her once more and she welcomed it.
Before she blacked out, she prayed,
Auggie, find me. . . .
Auggie pounded on Hague’s door with his fist so hard it made his whole arm hurt. It was only a few minutes but felt like an eternity before Della opened the door. Just like last time her blond hair was pulled back in a bun and her blue eyes raked him with suspicion, and it just combined to make him feel crazy. He burst past her and confronted Hague in his chair.
“Albert has Liv?” he demanded. “You’re saying Albert has Liv?”
“It’s the government. You can’t trust them.”
“Where? Where does he have her? At his house?”
“No. No. Not there,” Hague said. “He’d be afraid of Lorinda. He stopped because of her. She kept the demons out for a long time, but not forever.”
“He told you this?” Auggie demanded.
“No . . . in the folds of my brain. They put them there . . . and I know things. . . .”
His eyes rolled back and Auggie grabbed him and shook him. “Hague! HAGUE!”
“Let go of him!” Della shrieked. “You’re hurting him!”
“HAAAGGGUUEE!”
Della’s hands were scrabbling at Auggie’s arms. He slowly released Hague, who flopped back in his chair. Gone.
“You bastard! You bastard!” she was shrieking at Auggie.
He turned on her. “I need answers! Don’t you get it? He has Liv.
Albert has Liv!
”
Della was breathing hard, her emotions rocketing around. He watched her fight for control. “Albert?” she questioned.
“Hague says it’s Albert. Goddammit,” Auggie said, frustrated. “Liv dropped my cell phone on Highway 26, just before the foothills. Or, he did. One of them did.”
“Trees,” Della said. “Hague’s been talking about his father and trees.”
Blue eyes met blue eyes. Auggie said, “Forestry . . . that’s his profession.”
Della nodded.
“There’s a forestry tower out there.” He turned away, stumbling, sick with worry. He’d been so close.
Right there!
And now he had to go all the way back.
If anything happened to her . . . and he could have saved her . . .
He shot past the clambering elevator and jumped down the stairs, out to the street, into the Jeep.
“My brain is full of worms. I don’t have control. There’s no finesse anymore because ends must be met. Ends must be met.”
Liv’s ears picked up his voice. Her head was hanging forward and she kept it that way, hoping he wouldn’t notice she’d returned to consciousness.
She realized he was behind her, untying her. She poised herself. This might be her only chance. As soon as her hand was free she leapt to her feet. But he was on her in an instant, slamming her against a rafter.
“Don’t try that again,” he snarled. “This time there will be finesse. I’ve waited a long, long time, Deborah. We’re going to the field.”
“I’m not Deborah.”
“I know who you are. You’re all the same . . . all the same . . .”
“You’ve stalked me for years.”
He cocked his head. “You knew about me. Too fucking crazy to remember, but you knew about me.”
“I was a kid!”
“I had to know if you’d really forgotten . . . and guess what? You didn’t forget. You were just waiting to remember.” He slipped the baling twine he’d used to hold her hands around her neck and yanked it tight. “We’re going down the ladder, now.”
They were at a forestry tower, Liv realized with a sinking heart.
“Don’t make me hurt you,” he warned, tugging on the twine. “Come on.”
She had to move forward or be choked. “What about Hague?”
“Hague.” He tried to feign disinterest but his expression darkened. “He’s Navarone’s.”
“I don’t think so. He’s more like you.”
“Crazy as a loon? That what you mean?” He pressed his face to hers. “I thought he was mine. Didn’t wanna send him away. Not my son. But then it turned out he’s crazy like Navarone, not like me. He’s Navarone’s.”
“I don’t believe Mama ever cheated on you,” Liv said, and that earned her another slap as he dragged her to the ladder and she stumbled after him.
The track to the forestry tower was overgrown with dry weeds and Auggie forced himself to drive slowly though he wanted to race with sirens blaring. There was a curve about a quarter of a mile in, and he parked and slid out of the Jeep, pushing his Glock in the back waistband of his pants, pressing himself close to the Douglas firs on the west side, moving quietly beneath their green canopies. The forestry tower was at the fat end of a tear-shaped clearing; he was at the other. Parked to one side was a gray GMC truck. Albert’s.
And then he saw Albert coming down a ladder from an access door in the floor of the tower. Behind him was Liv. Tethered by a rope.
He saw red. There was no way to describe it later. Blind rage overtook him and he ran forward at his fastest sprint. He was gonna kill the bastard.
Liv was giving Albert some trouble. He could hear her saying she felt faint. He didn’t know if it was true or not and he didn’t care.
Albert heard him coming and turned. His eyes bulged out and he yelled, “YOU!”
And then Auggie was on him. Rolling on the ground. Both of them throwing punches. Auggie trying to reach his gun. Failing. The Glock flying loose. Breaking Auggie’s hold. Albert scrambled away, stumbled, grabbed for the gun. Liv was hanging onto the last rung of the ladder as if she were about to faint.
“Stop!” Auggie yelled, struggling to his feet.
Albert was heading for Liv but then jogged away, under the tower. Auggie started after him but Liv collapsed onto the ground. A rope was around her neck. Choking her.
Quickly he dropped to his knees beside her and loosened the tie. She gasped in a long breath of air.
“Auggie,” she whispered, barely audible. Then, more urgently, “Auggie!”
Albert was running at them with an axe held high. Auggie leapt at him, low, taking out his knees. Albert swore viciously, kicking at him, trying to wield the axe.
In a flash Auggie yanked the axe away, then slammed the back of it against Albert’s head, knocking him cold.
Silence filled the air.
Dropping the axe, Auggie returned to Liv, holding her close while she clung to him.
“It’s over, Livvie,” he whispered.
Epilogue
One week later . . .
“Hey!” Auggie yelled to Liv, who was taking her sweet time coming out to the backyard. He was barbequing chicken, not nearly as good at it as he would have her believe, but he wanted to bring some more of that normalcy to her world, convince her that yes, they could have a boring, suburban life together despite the rigors of his job, the trauma she’d just been through and her paranoia that, though eased, had been ingrained so deeply that she feared it would never be completely gone.
Auggie didn’t give a rat’s ass. He loved her, and she loved him. He believed it, even if she couldn’t say the words, yet. Baby steps.
She stepped through the back door and looked at his efforts. She’d mostly physically recovered from the effects of her kidnapping, though the mark around her throat from the twine was still visible. Auggie had to tamp down a fresh round of fury directed at the man who’d caused her so much pain, but the system would take care of the bastard once and for all.
Across the fence, the other duplexers were sitting outside as well, enjoying their own end of the summer party, and, if her nose wasn’t lying to her, enjoying some marijuana.
“Aaron smoked weed, too,” she said, walking up to Auggie. “It almost makes me nostalgic.”
“It’s for medicinal purposes,” he said, inclining his head toward the neighbors. “Or, so they would have you believe.”
“They know you’re a cop?”
“I told ’em I was a doctor.”
“You did not.”
“I did. Dr. Augdogsen.”
She started laughing, and then Auggie joined her, and pretty soon their combined laughter caused one of their neighbors, the one who wore a kerchief over a mass of long hair, to look over the fence and ask, “Hey, man, you guys high?” which caused them to break into another round.
Sitting in the swivel chair at her desk, September swung back and forth in a slow arc, her hands clasped behind her head, thinking. Pauline Kirby had been all over her for another interview but she’d been “unavailable,” and D’ Annibal had been too busy to give much thought to Laurelton PD public relations with the Zuma Software case coming to a close. The lieutenant had also been getting accolades for solving the cold case of the Rock Springs serial strangler, so D’Annibal had been even more “unavailable” than September the past week.
Navarone was out on bail for shooting Detective Wes Pelligree, and was staying with his sister at his garage rental pending trial. There were other charges pending, and he would undoubtedly return to jail soon. His business had been shut down, though a number of his “patients” were loudly protesting his arrest. Go figure.
Wes himself was recovering well. September had gone to see him in the hospital, and met his girlfriend, Kayleen Jefferson, who told him he could just stay in the hospital ’cause she wasn’t gonna be listening to his whining while he had her running and fetching for him. Nosirree. He’d grinned at her and she’d glared back at him for all of five seconds before she broke into a smile, too.
September and Gretchen had tried to make a case that Albert Dugan was responsible for Glenda Tripp’s death, and maybe Emmy Decatur and Sheila Dempsey’s, as well, but it had been a longshot from the outset, and Dugan himself had been repelled by the “slice and dice” aspect to the victim’s flesh, to which Gretchen had commented, “Dugan’s got a rule book for killing people, and this is too graphic?”
Apparently so.
Now, September got up and walked to the bulletin board where Glenda Tripp’s picture had been placed beside the other two victims. Gretchen came into the room with a sandwich from the vending machine and held out half to September. “Ham,” she said. “The only thing that looked edible.”
“Thanks.”
“Think Olivia Dugan’s gonna be your new sister-in-law?” Gretchen asked, resting a hip on her desk and biting into her sandwich.
“I think he really cares about her,” September said.
“Pisses me off,” she said around a mouthful. “Woulda liked a shot at him. Instead, it’s back to the bars with disgusting drunks and lechers.”
“Maybe there’s a better place to meet people,” September suggested, munching on her sandwich as well.
“Church?”
September chuckled and Gretchen smiled as well. “Maybe somewhere in between,” September said.
They finished their sandwiches and both of them tried to throw their wrappers in Wes’s trash can. Gretchen failed, and September’s lobbed in.
George appeared from the hallway just in time to see it. He clapped and said, “You’re getting pretty damn good. How long’ve you been here now, Nine?”
“Four months?”
“Just about the time Sheila Dempsey’s body was found,” Gretchen said. “That’s how I remember.”
“Hey, Detective Rafferty.”
September looked up. One of the women who worked in administration—Candy Something-Or-Other—entered the squad room, holding an envelope. “This came for you,” Candy said.
“For me?”
“Says Detective September Rafferty right in the address.” She put the manila envelope in September’s hand and walked away.
“No return address,” September said as she reached inside.
George snorted. “Must have a new fan from your television debut!”
September pulled out a birthday card. It read, “Way to go, 3-YEAR-OLD,” except someone had written in a zero beside the three, making it “30.” “They know my age,” she said, faintly disturbed as she opened it.
Then she reached back into the envelope and pulled out a piece of children’s artwork that nearly stopped September’s heart. It was
her
artwork. From a grade-school project that she’d received a happy face for a job well done. The teacher had stuck several gold stars across the top of the page as well, and added a handwritten note:
Your birthday cupcakes were terrific! Way to start the school year!
But now underneath the teacher’s words, new ones had been scrawled in blood:
DO UNTO OTHERS AS SHE DID TO ME.
“Jesus, Nine,” Gretchen said, shocked. “It really does have to do with you!”
“No.” September wouldn’t believe it. The missive dropped from her nerveless fingers but fluttered down to land face up.
“What the hell is that?” George asked, getting up from his desk.
Her vision narrowed. She felt weird and dissociated. The card and artwork were from someone who knew her from her youth? How did they get it? What did it mean? “This is from . . .”
Second grade!
“The Do Unto Others killer knows you,” Gretchen said from a long distance away.
“Who . . . ?” September whispered aloud.
Who . . . ?