Act of Betrayal (35 page)

Figures. Where are those Ginsu knives when you need them?

She chose one of the paring knives, clutched it tightly in her right hand, and picked up the phone with her left hand.

It took her a moment to realize the line was dead.

Her heart thudding in her chest, she began to edge toward the rear door, thinking that she’d better pound on the neighbor’s door, after all—if she could get out.

She was nearly at the door when the faint smell suddenly grew stronger, and she recognized it. Peppermint. Her brow furrowed as she tried to work that bit of information into her situation.

PJ felt someone close behind her and started to whirl around. She didn’t make it. She was shoved forward into the door, with something that might have been a knee pressed hard against her backside. Her arms, which had been raised to ward off an attack, were caught at the wrists and so cruelly twisted that she dropped the knife.

She struggled against the hands holding her wrists, and found them to be like iron bands. Her attacker leaned the length of his body against her, putting his mouth close to her ear. Her nostrils flared, taking in peppermint and the rank smell of her own fear.

“Thanks for coming by, Dr. Gray,” the voice said in a harsh whisper. “You’re right on time.”

Her voice was caught in her throat. The only thing that escaped her was a squawk that sounded like the noise an animal might make when a predator struck.

She was spun around and pushed violently across the room. Her left hip crashed into the kitchen table, and the momentum carried the top half of her body over, bending over the table so that she cracked her jaw hard against the tabletop. She moaned and tasted blood.

PJ tried to straighten herself and found that the ribs on her left side hurt sharply when she moved or took a deep breath. Breathing in shallow pants, crouched to lessen the pain from her ribs, she turned around to face her attacker. The muzzle of a gun was pressed between her eyes. She froze, holding her breath.

“Come along, little lady,” said the voice from above her head. “The show starts soon. You may not be the star, but you could win an Oscar for a supporting role.”

The gun pulled away a couple of feet, and she exhaled. PJ stood at her full height, even though it was painful, bending her left arm and pressing it tightly against her ribs to immobilize them. She could see the face of her attacker, and recognized him as Elijah. PJ swiped at her bloody chin with her right hand and then wiped her hand clean on her jeans.

She knew Elijah to be a brutal killer, but what she didn’t know was his state of mind. Was he unreachable—programmed to perform Libby’s commands—or could he be reasoned with?

Before PJ had much time to think about it, Elijah grabbed her arm and shoved her face into the wall. Pain shot through her left side, and she gasped. He bound her wrists with cord, then turned her around again to face the gun.

He gestured toward the rear door. She didn’t move fast enough. He placed his hand between her shoulder blades and pushed. Stumbling, she moved out of the door he had opened for her and into the backyard.

“Scream, and it’ll be the last thing you do,” he said softly.

She set her lips against the pain in her side and walked across the yard, keeping her eyes low.

Surely someone will see us. Surely the police will stop us before we go far.

There was a car parked in the alley behind Schultz’s house. Elijah opened the front passenger door for her. When she hesitated, thinking that it might be her last chance to scream or to make a break, he roughly pushed her inside. She barely ducked her head in time to avoid colliding with the top of the door frame.

Inside, she struggled to sit up while he moved around the front of the car and got in on the driver’s side.

The door slammed shut. She probably couldn’t yell loud enough for neighbors to hear inside their homes. It had all happened so fast. The pain, the gun between her eyes, her wrists bound, and she was taken. Why hadn’t she resisted more effectively?

As Elijah drove out of the alley, she angled herself sideways, bracing her back against the door. When she thought he was distracted with the task of driving, she tucked her knees up, ignoring the spasm in the left side of her chest, and extended them with as much force as she could, kicking his right thigh.

He grunted, and the car swerved over the center line, narrowly avoiding an oncoming vehicle. Before she could gather her legs for another kick, he brought his right forearm down sharply across her calves. The blow sent waves of pain into her spine, and her vision blackened around the edges.

“Don’t try that again,” he hissed, “or I’ll blow your fucking head off.” The gun, which had been tucked into his waistband, had reappeared impossibly fast. It was aimed at her face. She couldn’t repeat the maneuver before he could fire at her, and as close as he was, he couldn’t miss.

PJ wasn’t sure she could move her legs, but she shifted them slowly until she was sitting up in the seat, facing forward. Her legs weren’t broken, but it was miraculous they weren’t. She was sure gigantic bruises were forming underneath the fabric of her jeans.

They drove in silence for a time, except for an occasional moan from PJ as bumps in the road shifted her ribs. She could feel two or three of them floating freely, ends grinding against each other with the motion of the car, and worried that the broken ends would puncture her lung. She wanted to press her left arm against her chest as a kind of splint, but couldn’t because her wrists were tied behind her back.

Amazingly, exhaustion crept up on her, overcoming the pain and the flow of adrenaline, and her eyes slowly drifted shut. She awakened an unknown amount of time later, looked around and found that they were traveling on an interstate through open countryside.

Considering her situation, she realized that the Bo-Peep rhyme was a false clue, a trap, and she’d walked right into it. There was the note she’d left for Helen, so by now Lieutenant Wall knew she’d gone over to Schultz’s house, and why.

A lot of good that did.

She watched the hills roll by outside. How was she going to save Schultz? She had to save herself first.

“Had a nice nap?” Elijah said. Some of the tension was gone from his voice since he’d captured her and things were definitely in his favor. She’d be a lot more confident, too, if things were reversed.

“Just fine, thanks,” she said, keeping her voice even, betraying nothing of her fear and feeling of hopelessness. They might have been out for a Sunday drive. It was still Sunday, wasn’t it?

She decided to play the only ace she had—knowledge of the contents of Jeremiah’s death row letter. She thought for a few minutes, figuring out how to approach the sensitive subjects with Elijah, not knowing how much he already knew or how he was going to react. Finally she decided she would just have to feel her way along.

“I feel terrible about your son’s execution,” she said. “It’s a hard thing when the justice system is fooled in a death sentence case. Trials are meant to uncover the truth.”

He glanced at her. “What’re you talking about? If you have to blabber, at least make some sense.”

“I’m talking about Jeremiah being executed for a crime he didn’t commit.”

She saw uncertainty flutter across his face, like a quick rustling of the leaves of a tree in the winds before a storm. Then he shook his head and grinned at her. “You’re trying to get under my skin, aren’t you, Dr. Gray? You’re a shrink, I remember reading that. You can save your breath. It won’t work. Hell, I’ve been interrogated by a lot worse than you.”

“I’m not trying anything on you, Elijah,” she said calmly. “I’m just offering my sympathy. Your son didn’t deserve to die.”

“My son was a good boy,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road. “He flipped out, is all. I’ve seen it before, in the field. It happens, and I’m not saying it’s right, but he shouldn’t have been punished like that. Taken away from me. From his Mama. That doesn’t bring Eleanor back.”

“The Lord would have dealt with Jeremiah in His own good time, is that it? He could have repented and left it all up to the Lord?”

Elijah turned toward her briefly, and she saw his eyes gleaming, from some inner light or simply from the sun’s reflection. “Exactly. You got that exactly right. It’s not anybody else’s role to judge what he did.”

“Except he didn’t do it.”

Elijah slapped the top of the steering wheel. “Damn, woman, what are you talking about? He confessed. The fool boy confessed. He took it all back later on, but he’d already done the damage.”

“I want you to think about something,” PJ said. She took a deep breath and regretted it as her ribs ground together. “Suppose he confessed to protect someone else. Someone he loved a great deal.”

“That only happens in books and movies.”

“Real life can be stranger than books. Can you at least open yourself up to the thought?”

“Her blood was on his hands. Sweet Eleanor’s blood was on his hands. He did it, all right.”

“You saw the scratches on Jeremiah’s body, didn’t you? Do you think Eleanor could have made those scratches without using her fingernails?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Just answer.”

“No.”

“Well then, why wasn’t there any of Jeremiah’s blood or skin under her nails?”

“Your precious Schultz explained that at the trial,” he said bitterly. “Her nails were freshly clipped. Jeremiah saw what her hands looked like. He clipped her nails, cleaned underneath what was left of them, and took the clippings with him.”

“All that careful action from a boy who ‘flipped out,’ your exact phrase? And if he was going to confess, why try to conceal any evidence?”

“A person flips out and realizes it right afterward. Can’t undo the killing, but he can protect himself. That confession—I guess the guilt just swept over him. I wish to God he’d never confessed. That set the police on him like ticks on a dog.”

“Has it occurred to you that maybe Eleanor’s nails were clipped and cleaned to conceal the fact that there were no skin cells under them in the first place?”

“You’re talking crazy. Can’t say I blame you, in your position.”

PJ didn’t answer. She just looked out the window, refusing to meet his eyes when they darted in her direction, and waited him out.

“Who’d do a thing like that?” he asked after a while.

Hooked.

“From the way you’re talking, I’m assuming you haven’t heard Jeremiah’s version of the story.”

“Oh, and you have? What’d you do, go over to the cemetery and hook up earphones to his tombstone?”

“I didn’t know you had a sense of humor, Elijah. I thought you just murdered people.” She regretted her sarcasm, but the words were out.

He was quiet for so long that she thought she’d lost all chance with him.

“When you say Jeremiah’s story,” he said, as if nothing had happened between the two of them, “are you talking about his confession? I know all about that.”

While he’d been quiet, Elijah had gotten off the interstate. He was turning the car onto progressively smaller roads. They weren’t on gravel yet, but it was clear that they were heading for some isolated area. If she didn’t speak up now, she might not get a chance to.

“Tell me something first. Is Schultz still alive?”

“Far as I know.”

PJ closed her eyes in mixed relief and pain. “I’m not talking about the confession. Jeremiah wrote a letter just before he was executed. It was hand-carried to Darla.”

“You talked to Darla?” She heard genuine interest in his voice. “I haven’t seen her in… well, years.”

“She didn’t want to be found. By me or by you, either, I’m sure. She doesn’t want anything to do with what’s left of the Ramsey family.”

“That’s a hard thing for a father to hear.”

PJ let the comment go by. There were even harder things for a father to hear coming up. “Darla never read the letter. It’s been in a box in her closet since the execution.”

“You aren’t going to tell me he planned Eleanor’s murder, are you? ’Cause all this time I believed he flipped out. It’d break my heart to hear that he went over there intent on killing her.”

“Elijah, it’s a lot worse than that.” PJ had no idea how the man was going to take the news. She hoped he wouldn’t run off the road. “Did you know Jeremiah and Libby were lovers for years, and that Eleanor was their daughter?”

“Christ Almighty, you’re making this up. You’re trying everything you can think of to throw me off track. Jesus motherfucking Christ.”

“Keep your eyes on the road, please, or slow down. Don’t get us both killed.” They were on a two-lane road with a lot of twists and turns.

They rode in silence for a minute or two, the only noise Elijah’s hard breathing.

“You’re making it up,” he said at last. “My son wouldn’t do that.”

“It was Libby who urged him on. Jeremiah genuinely thought he was in love with her. It tore him up, but he thought he loved her.”

“When did this start? Or when do you say it started?”

“When Jeremiah was fifteen. It was Libby who went to him, not the other way around. But he must have felt some kind of attraction even then.”

Elijah’s hands were tight on the steering wheel and the muscles of his jaw and neck were clenched. She wondered if she should try pulling her legs up for another kick, maybe try to open the door and drop out on the shoulder of the road. Where would she go from there, if Elijah wasn’t completely disabled?

“How could this have gone on and I didn’t know about it?” His voice sharp as a switchblade, slicing through the thick fog of emotion around him.

“You were overseas a lot, weren’t you? Eleanor found out who her true parents were. She never liked her mother much in the first place, and that knowledge clinched it. She did like Jeremiah, though. They had a good relationship. He writes lovingly of her in his letter.”

“So that’s what Jeremiah had to say from death row? If it’s true, and I hope to God it isn’t, he should have kept his mouth shut about the whole thing. He should have taken that to the grave with him. You’d think he’d be ashamed.”

“He was. But he wanted Darla to know who the true murderer was. I guess he wanted someone to understand and forgive him. And I’m sure he meant for Darla to tell you, when she was ready. It turns out she was never ready.”