Eclipse (25 page)

‘Thank God,' Wiley said.

‘Shut up,' Adams said, and then, while Alvarez went on with the Miranda, he turned to David. ‘I apologize most sincerely for the delay, Doctor Becket, but I suggest that our priority now is for me to see my patient.'

‘Good,' David said.

‘Doctor Adams,' George Wiley began.

And was silenced by one of the coldest, most damning stares that David Becket could remember seeing.

Adams nodded at Alvarez and Riley, then turned his back on Wiley.

‘Shall we, Doctor Becket?' he said.

The stunned, lost expression on Wiley's face was satisfaction of a kind for David.

The rest, he guessed, could wait.

Her father and the nurse had been asked by Felicia to stay out of her room.

She would speak only to Dr Lucca.

Grace knocked quietly. ‘Felicia, it's Grace Lucca.'

‘OK,' Felicia's voice said.

Opening the door, it took a moment for Grace to locate her. The drapes were open, but her dimmed bedside lamp was the only real light in the room, and the teenager was sitting on the floor on the far side of the bed. She was tucked into the corner near the window, her body twisted so that she half faced the wall, her legs drawn up, arms wrapped around her knees. She was not wearing her big dark glasses, though they were close at hand on the bedside table.

She looked up at Grace. ‘Can you close the door, please?'

Grace stepped back to do so, then stood still.

This had to be driven, at least initially, by Felicia. The glasses were off and her face was not concealed, yet her position and body language spoke of hiding, and Grace knew that if she pushed too hard, the girl might just shut down again.

‘Where would you like me to sit?' she asked.

‘I don't mind.'

The side of the bed might seem intrusive, Grace felt, the chair too formal and interview-like, but though choosing the floor would place them on the same level, it might also make Felicia feel trapped.

Grace decided on the bed, near the foot, giving the teen space.

‘OK?' she said.

‘Sure,' Felicia said.

‘Your father called me,' Grace said.

‘I asked him to.'

Felicia shifted a little, and with more light now illuminating her face, Grace saw that she had been crying. Her eyes were brown, and though the whites were pink from weeping, they appeared normal, healthy eyes.

‘Don't read too much into it,' Felicia said. ‘I often take off the glasses, usually when I'm alone.'

‘It's nice to see your whole face,' Grace said.

‘I don't know,' Felicia said. ‘All that stuff, about my . . . You know.'

‘Yes,' Grace said.

‘It doesn't seem so important anymore.'

Grace waited.

Felicia licked her lips. ‘Not when I think about my mom.'

She began to cry, very softly, and Grace wanted to get down and put an arm around her shoulders, but she stayed where she was, went on waiting for the fourteen-year-old to be ready.

And then, suddenly, she was.

‘We had a fight,' Felicia said.

‘We left that same day,' Toni said. ‘While the chaos of the storm was still happening, everyone occupied. I wiped our prints off the Remington and put it in our father's hands, made it look as if he'd shot himself. And then I came back to the house and wrote a note for Mrs Larsson, my father's part-time housekeeper and, I figured, the next person who'd come by. I wrote that we'd found Jake's body, that he'd killed himself, told her where to find him, said that I couldn't take any more and that Kate and I were leaving.'

‘I didn't want to leave,' Kate said. ‘She made me.'

‘Why did you leave?' Sam asked Toni. ‘Your father's death wasn't Kate's fault. It was an accident.'

‘I'd brought the shotgun, which made it my fault.'

‘And she knew that if we stayed,' her sister said, ‘I might have told them she was the one who'd shot him.'

‘Is that why you ran?' Sam asked Toni.

‘Partly,' she said. ‘Mostly it was because I knew that even if they believed the truth, they'd have taken Kate into care, maybe locked me up, maybe not. Either way, I knew I was the only person who understood my sister's needs, so I couldn't let them split us up. I had to protect Kate.'

‘What did you do next?' Sam asked.

‘I took the Colt pistol and most of the cash in our father's safe – there was much more than I'd expected – a lot of cash, I mean a
lot
– I don't know where it came from. It was easy enough, because all I had to do was take his keys off him, then lock up the safe again and put the keys back on his belt, and I don't suppose anyone but Jake knew how much money he'd put away over the years, or where he got it from.'

She'd called that ‘easy', Sam registered: returning twice to the horror of her father's body. Not many grown men, let alone fifteen-year-old daughters, would call that
easy
.

‘And then we packed what we needed, got on the road, hitched a few rides and made our way to Florida.'

‘Didn't anyone come after you?' Sam asked.

‘I don't know, but they never found us. We changed our surname to Petit, and maybe they believed that Jake Grand had shot himself. It was crazy that night, trees falling, crops getting wiped out. One farmer less to make insurance claims, maybe. Two less kids to take care of, and no one to miss us. Mrs Larsson used to keep to herself, did her work and went home again, so I don't think she'd have cared.'

‘She didn't like me,' Kate said.

Sam felt less intensity flowing from her now, wondered if she might tire any time soon.

‘Did you make your name change official?' he asked.

‘Of course not,' Toni said. ‘I wouldn't have known how to take care of something like that without drawing attention. We had more than enough for our start, and I'd always been good at sewing, so I made a living from dressmaking. My customers pay me in cash or, sometimes, in the early years, I bartered for stuff we needed.'

‘I don't work,' Kate said flatly. ‘And I can't claim disability, because she made us run away.'

There was a moment's silence.

‘Why did you take the Colt?' Sam asked. ‘After what had happened?'

‘Kate told me to take it,' Toni said. ‘She was in a bad way. She said having the gun would make her feel safer. She said if we didn't take it, she wouldn't come with me. So I took it.'

‘I'd been a bitch for two days,' Felicia said, ‘because my mom had tried to make me go to the doctor because . . .'

Too hard to talk about her eyes, plainly.

‘I know about that, Felicia,' Grace said gently, ‘because your mother told Doctor Shrike what happened.'

‘The other shrink,' Felicia said.

‘Yes.'

‘I was a bitch after that too.' She paused. ‘I thought shrinks aren't supposed to say what a patient's told them.'

‘That is mostly true,' Grace said. ‘But Doctor Shrike wasn't repeating anything you said to her.'

‘It doesn't matter anyway,' Felicia said, ‘because what I'm going to tell you isn't secret. I just couldn't tell my father, and you . . .'

Grace said nothing.

Felicia took a breath, seemed about to speak, but more tears welled up.

‘Don't worry,' Grace said. ‘You cry if you need to.'

‘But it's late.' Felicia looked at the clock on her bedside table, pulled two tissues from the Kleenex box beside it, blew her nose. ‘It's almost midnight, and you've come here specially.'

‘For you, yes,' Grace said.

‘But it's so late,' Felicia said again.

‘I have as much time as you need,' Grace said.

‘You say you took the Colt so that Kate would feel safe,' Sam said. ‘Who did she need to be kept safe from, with your father dead?'

‘I'd never needed protection from my father,' Kate said. ‘If you were paying attention, you'd know that, Detective.'

Sam had been in too many tight spots not to know how to try to navigate a conversation while under threat. But this situation was confusing as hell, because though he had thought something was
wrong
about Toni, he had not believed he was coming after her looking for a killer. And so far, these two women had only shared confessions about old crimes from which it might be possible for them to emerge free and clear, after so many years. Accidental death and theft. And though Sam found it perplexing that the Louisiana cops had not gone after the sisters back then, he had infinitely bigger things on his mind now.

Kate's use of those words ‘big black hole', describing the wound in Jake Grand's forehead, had not been coincidental.

But the instant Sam asked these women about the Black Hole killings, the stakes in this room would rocket.

No way out for him that he could see.

And then Kate Petit took them there anyway, without being asked.

‘He knows,' she said.

Toni Petit didn't speak.

She looked spent. Which was, Sam supposed, part of what he'd observed earlier at Tyler Allen's. Because this woman had to have been putting on a front for years, covering up for her sister who might, or might not, be insane.

Something had happened, something had
changed
, and maybe Toni had left that rehearsal tonight because she knew it was time for them to run again.

‘You're the one who wanted to talk,' Kate Petit said now to her sister.

‘You must have known we'd have to, finally,' Toni said.

‘I always knew you'd betray me in the end,' Kate said.

Bitterness and a kind of satisfaction in the words.

‘Oh, Kate.' Toni looked sad as an open grave.

Sam let the silence hover for another second.

And then he asked: ‘Where is Billie Smith?'

Just past midnight, Martinez was outside on Foster Avenue.

Everything quiet.

Sam's Saab was parked a little way along from Toni Petit's house, and Martinez was engaging in a little silent debate with himself as to whether he should just wait out here, go knock on the lady's door or call the Hallandale PD.

Petit had no outstanding warrants.

Then again, so far as he'd been able to ascertain, there was no record of her existence, period.

He figured he'd take a look around.

His cell phone rang.

Mary Cutter telling him she'd had a call from Dr Lopez.

‘The receptionist called him, said she'd been staying up late trying to remember who'd been there when Felicia Delgado got mad at Beatriz. And then it suddenly came back to her that two other people walked out right after them.'

‘She just remembered this now?' Martinez said acidly.

‘Go figure,' Cutter said.

Martinez kept his eyes on the house. ‘So who were they?'

‘One of them was a patient waiting to see a gynecologist; she thinks the other woman was just waiting with her. The patient's name was Toni Petit. That's Petit like in small, only no ‘e' on the end.'

‘Shit,' Martinez said. ‘Would you believe I just ran her tag for Sam?'

‘How come?' Cutter asked.

‘Would you believe I'm sitting outside her house now?' Martinez paused. ‘And Sam's inside.'

‘Are we talking possible suspect here, Al?'

‘I don't know what we're talking,' Martinez said.

And then he saw something.

Some
one.

In the darkness at the side of the house.

There one minute, then gone.

‘What the fuck?' Martinez said under his breath, cut the call, took his phone off the dash, turned off the ringer.

Very quietly, he opened his door and drew his Glock.

‘Billie Smith is just fine,' Kate answered Sam's question.

‘Where is she?' he asked again.

Uncertain whether he was notching down the tension in the woman holding the gun, or maybe lighting the fuse.

‘Billie's all tucked up and comfy, waiting.'

The beautiful young woman with the stunning eyes and gorgeous voice, who had asked him for help and been turned away.

Making this Sam's fault.

No question.

At least Billie was alive, if that wail had come from her, and he had to believe that was true. And if they had her prisoner, then that alone explained the change in Toni. Because whether or not Kate Petit was the Black Hole killer, whatever had gone down with Billie Smith was too damned close to home, and Toni had to have known they were finished.

‘OK.' Sam sounded reasonable. ‘So the first thing we need to do right now is let her go.'

‘Wrong,' Kate said.

Toni had stopped speaking. She seemed lost, Sam thought, elsewhere; and maybe she was back on their old Louisiana farmstead, or maybe she was with the victims.

Her sister's victims.

And then, everything turned upside down.

Kate stood up.

Unfolded from the footstool, with only a trace of unsteadiness.

She crossed the small room, keeping the gun trained on Sam, and sat down again, perching on one arm of the sofa.

‘Hey,' she said, ‘big sis.'

Toni Petit looked up at her.

‘Here,' Kate said.

And, very carefully, keeping control of its aim, she placed the Colt into her sister's hands.

‘Shoot him,' she said.

Sam saw shock in Toni's eyes.

‘No,' she said.

Sam stopped breathing. If he was going to make a move, it had to be the instant this woman's grip wavered even a little, because Toni did not want this, so this had to be his best, perhaps his last chance.

Except the gun was still leveled at him, Toni's grip looking tighter and steadier than her sister's had. And Sam saw that the threat against him had just intensified, because suddenly Toni no longer looked
spent.