She needed to keep moving, so she wouldn’t give in to her demons. As a precaution, she hadn’t put her iPod on tonight, so she could hear everything should someone try to accost her. After all, there was a killer loose in Kanesville. And even though teenagers seemed to be the targets, a killer was a killer. And she was a woman alone, running at night. This town, which should be so safe, was a hotbed of violence right now.
Safe? Are you kidding me? Have you forgotten what happened to me? And that was twenty years ago.
But it was safe. Bad things hardly ever happened in this small town. Occasionally, of course … But for the most part, crime was low.
There’s evil everywhere. Just because a town is small, or religious, it doesn’t mean it’s safe. This place has never been safe.
Sam shook her head as she ran, pushing harder, faster, her calves aching as she neared the top of the road that led to Highway 89. There she would stop and turn around, if only she could shut her mind off. Stop Callie from talking.
No one you love is safe. And this place killed me. It swallowed me whole.
You have to believe me. You have to know I didn’t kill myself. I was so scared. So scared.
Sam stopped cold in the middle of the street, a sudden chilling awareness running through her body, making the sweat on her skin icy cold, as though she’d just run through a snowstorm. Callie’s haunted voice seemed to echo in the dark around her.
“But you killed yourself. You hung yourself from the tree, right? It was—”
No, it wasn’t.
Suicide had a feel, a desperation, a dark, pulsing need.
Callie’s scene hadn’t been that way. Sam didn’t remember a lot, except how stoic her father was. He’d been the one who took Callie down, her body cold and stiff. Sam remembered bits and pieces of that night. She had run over to Callie—after her father pulled her down from the tree—and touched her face. Freezing cold. Her father pushed Sam away. Where was her mother?
Sam had no memory of that. No screaming—unlike Jeremiah’s mother, Lydia Malone, a beacon calling them to the scene.
Where was Mom?
Sam remembered all the people traipsing through the house. The look of pity on the faces of the ward members and neighbors. And how cold, dark, and empty she felt inside—a feeling she grew up to know as empathy with the victim.
The scene at Milton Needham’s house had felt completely different from the other recent hangings—and, now, from what she remembered of Callie’s death. Sam had known from the moment she walked into the door of the Needhams’ house that it had been a genuine suicide attempt. None of the others had reached out and talked to her this way. She’d sensed the despair on all of them, but there’d been no terror around Milton’s. Just a sense of complete and total failure. And anger. The boy had given up. And just think how sorry everyone would be.
I didn’t want to die.
Callie’s death, no matter how little Sam remembered of it, did not have the same feel. Despair, yes—but terror, too.
Oh my God, please help me. Please help me. I’m scared. I’m so scared.
Terrified. The realization that Callie had been terrified hit Sam in the chest like a solid, physical punch. She gasped for breath and felt a tear on her cheek. She covered her mouth with her right hand to hold back the sobs as the brutality assaulted her. Callie had been terrified as the rope tightened around her neck and her legs swung helplessly, back and forth. She’d struggled to free herself, her hands and arms pulling at the rope around her neck. Blackness seeped into her brain as the rope tightened and her throat ached and the world faded from view. There was no air, no air, no air.…
Save me. Somebody save me. Oh my God, please save me. I don’t want to die.
Was the voice even Callie’s? Did this voice belong to Whitney? Did it belong to Sam herself?
The sobs took over Sam’s body as she thought of her poor sister, so scared and unable to do anything to save herself. Hanging was a brutal death. They didn’t even use it for the death penalty anymore.
Sam struggled to get control of her body and emotions and took off running again, the tears drying on her cheeks. The fear and terror—Callie’s terror, or perhaps Whitney’s—followed Sam. As she ran she scanned the bushes and sides of dark houses for shadows that might move. She could hear the crickets chirp and her feet crunching on the gravel as she scanned the empty streets. Occasionally she would pass a house with a light on inside, but for the most part, all was dark.
It was nearing 1:00 a.m., the time for all good residents to be in their beds, fast asleep. And yet Sam was up, jogging past midnight, headed to the cemetery, where she always ran the best, the fastest. As though she could outrun all the death that had stained her life.
She reached the black wrought-iron gates of the cemetery, only to realize that was not what she wanted. She didn’t want to talk to Callie tonight. It was already too raw, and Sam couldn’t take any more. She ached for a place to go to escape the pain, and when Gage flashed into her mind she angrily tried to brush the thought away. He would just think she was weak and be even more convinced that she needed his help to do her job. But she couldn’t face any more of Callie’s anguish tonight.
Sam turned away from the cemetery, framing an apology to Callie in her head as she ran back toward her house.
Wasn’t thinking straight, Sis. Just wanted to talk to you. Just wanted your help to figure out this huge mess.
Sam certainly hadn’t planned to be hit with the realization that her sister had been murdered. How did one plan that?
From behind her, she heard the sound of a car approaching, as she saw the shine of the headlights lighting up the pavement in front of her. She instinctively moved closer to the side of the road for the car to pass, and glanced behind her to see the car had slowed and moved closer to her side of the road.
She could taste the fear as it washed into the back of her throat, and she quickly surveyed her surroundings. Across the road, to the south, there was a deep gully where no houses could be built, due to the water level. To the right was a subdivision of small two- and three-bedroom houses: homes that had been there as long as she could remember, much like the one she had grown up in, where her father and mother still lived.
In this subdivision all the lights were off, except for an occasional porch bulb. Directly ahead was a streetlight, and Sam continued to run, determined to stay in the light, hoping this would keep the car behind her from running her off the road. If that was what was intended. Maybe it was just some teenagers trying to scare her. Or an old person unable to sleep, out for a drive. Maybe a middle-of-the-night run to the grocery store for a sick child. Maybe a drunk driver trying to find their way home after a night of partying.
A woman jogging this late would catch all of these people off-guard.
As these thoughts streamed through her head, she kept turning and watching the car, which was keeping pace with her as she ran.
In the dark of the summer evening, all she could tell was that it was a light-colored four-door sedan and whoever was driving it was traveling about the pace of her running. With deadly intention.
Suddenly, deciding that taking action was her only course, Sam sprinted across the road and dove down into the gully, listening as the driver of the car gunned the engine and screeched across the road following her. She tumbled down a steep incline, wincing as twigs and rocks scraped her bare arms and legs and a large stick tore across her cheek.
She reached the bottom of the gully and splashed into a small creek that ran through the ravine, gasping at the sudden shock of cold water on her hot, sweaty body.
She heard a car door slam and chose to stay low, getting onto her knees and crawling over to the side of the creek, where a large tree towered over the rushing stream, branches reaching out across the divide. She quickly moved behind it and waited, reaching into her fanny pack for her off-duty jogging weapon, a Walther PK380. It was lightweight and sleek but packed a powerful punch.
She could see and hear nothing but the rushing of the stream and the intense pounding of the blood in her head as adrenaline rushed through her body. She scanned the hill above her, the gun aimed at darkness, looking to see if whoever had run her off the road—and tried to run her over—was coming down. But she could see nothing.
After a moment, she heard a car door slam and a squealing of tires, but she still didn’t move. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness as much as they would and she listened to every cricket’s chirp, every crunch, every crack, struggling to hear them above the sound of the creek and her own frantic bloodstream.
Finally, she convinced herself that the danger was gone, and only then did she realize how wet her clothes and shoes were, from crossing—rolling through, really—the creek. She began to shake, and instinct kicked in. She put the gun back in her pack and pulled out her phone, calling the first number that came to her.
Why that was Gage Flint’s she didn’t want to know.
She only knew he would come and, for a moment at least, she would feel safe.
And she also knew that the car that had run her off the road was a light-colored four-door sedan, just like the one Paul Carson drove.
THIRTY-ONE
Gage wrapped Sam in a blanket and handed her a cup of tea. She was shivering head to toe, despite the fact that it was sixty-eight degrees outside. She knew the soaking in the creek wasn’t the cause. Maybe she had freaked herself out, but more likely …
Someone had tried to kill her.
Even as a patrol officer on the streets of Salt Lake City, right out of the academy, she had never faced this. A lot of cops didn’t. But tonight someone had tried to run her over with a car. Or make her scared enough to think he intended to kill her.
He? How do you know it’s a he?
She tried to get the mug to her lips, but her hands shook too badly, and Gage moved in and took it from her, holding it gently up to her lips so she could take a sip.
“You know we need to report this.”
“I can’t.”
“Why the hell not, Sam?”
“Come on, Gage. You know how it works. This case became personal the day that Whitney was found. If it were another jurisdiction, with more officers, I’d have been taken off it immediately. But the more that happens, the more personal it gets, the greater the chance they’ll remove me. You obviously gave me the choking game idea for cover, to delay the inevitable. And so Pamela Nixon would be satisfied. But that’s not going to last forever.”
He was silent as he pondered her words. They stared at each other, Sam wondering about the look in his eye. She couldn’t interpret it. Was he angry? Condescending? Disappointed in her, yet again?
“Sam, maybe it’s just not safe. Maybe you shouldn’t be—”
Sam took a sharp breath. “Look, Gage. I need something from you. I need you to do what you didn’t do before—just believe in me. Give me the chance you never did on the Clarkston case.” She threw off the blanket and stood up, moving until she was face-to-face with Gage. “Please. Help me by letting me do this, hands off. Don’t let anyone or anything make this about me. I must be getting close to something—I don’t know what, but I think someone is scared. Very, very scared.”
Gage was silent for a moment. “This goes against everything I am trained to do,” he said, stepping around Sam. He picked up the blanket and wrapped it back around her shoulders. He had gently removed her shoes when they’d first got to his condo and given her a pair of warm thermal socks. She was sure she was quite the fashionista but didn’t care.
As much as she wanted to stop shivering and to be warm, she wanted to figure this case out more. She wanted it with all of her being.
“Please. I promise I’ll be careful. And if things get too scary I’ll call you. But I have to keep going and find out what’s going on here. You owe me that.”
“I’ve always believed in you, Sam. I’m sorry you think I don’t.”
“Actions speak louder than words, Gage. Show me. Don’t tell me.”
Gage gently pushed her back into the recliner, which he had settled her in when they first arrived, and then walked away, over to a closet near the front door.
He opened the door and reached to the top shelf, then turned and came back to her with a prettily wrapped package.
A gift. Wrapped in a small box, black, with a large red metallic ribbon. It was slightly dusty and had obviously been there awhile, unopened.
Gage walked toward her and reached out with it, trying to hand it to her.
Sam stared cautiously, not moving, not reaching out. In her experience, gifts meant something was expected from her in return, and Gage was a heart-wrenching reminder of everything she’d never managed to have.
Plus this was a girlie-girl-looking gift and everyone knew she wasn’t one of those. She’d never had the opportunity to be one, and it was too damn late to be starting now.
Yet Gage stood in front of her, holding it out, and she didn’t know whether to take it or turn on her heel and walk away. Why was she even tempted?
“Sam, please. Just open it.”
Finally, she reached out and took the package. She pulled off the large ribbon gingerly and opened up the box to see a pink-handled Smith & Wesson .38. It was a perfect carry weapon, lightweight and from the Small Frame Airweight series.
She shook her head as she stared inside the box, then looked up at Gage.
“A pink gun?”
“Yeah, a pink gun. It’s a .38, so it still packs a powerful punch. But it sends a message. Because you think you aren’t feminine, but you are. You are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met. There’s beauty in power, and you’re strong.”
“And you’ve been holding on to this since the Clarkston case?”
He nodded, his eyes darkening, his intent serious.
“I didn’t get the chance to give it to you.”
“But you ruined my career.” Sam tried to put the pieces together in her mind.