Kill You Twice (12 page)

Archie pulled out the cold chicken burrito that Claire had brought back for him from a food cart. Mostly he just wanted another taste in his mouth besides burned flesh. He took a bite and
chewed.

“You notify the family?” Robbins asked, snipping out another lung.

Robbins had confirmed Gabby Meester’s identity through dental records just before lunch. Archie had been at the house within a half hour. “Husband and sister,” Archie said,
swallowing. “The kids were upstairs.”

Robbins stopped what he was doing. “Hard?” he asked.

Archie could hear the kids playing upstairs, two girls, younger than Sara. They had no idea their world was about to come down on top of them. “It’s always hard,” he said.

“Any leads?” Robbins asked, going back to his task.

“We spent the day interviewing her coworkers, her husband, her clients, canvassing for witnesses,” Archie said. “We’ve tracked down ex-boyfriends. Went through her cell
phone and bank records, credit cards. She left the house early this morning. No one saw her after that.” Archie threw the rest of the burrito back into the bag and tossed it into a red
plastic biohazard bag by the table. “She didn’t know her killer,” he said.

“I’m not going to have anything for you until tomorrow,” Robbins said.

“I know,” Archie said. He looked down at Gabby Meester, her insides flaked with charcoal from the bone saw cutting through her charred rib cage, the flesh of her neck separated from
the muscle and peeled up over her chin. It didn’t turn his stomach. It made him feel more tenderly toward her. In the chaotic push of a homicide investigation, the victims sometimes got
overlooked. Archie liked to remind himself that they were more than photographs. They were flesh and blood and meat. He rubbed his face. “I just needed to see her,” he said.

“Go home,” Robbins said.

Archie looked at his watch. “There’s something I need to do first.”

He left Robbins to do his work, stopping at an alcoholic gel dispenser on the wall at the exit to the stairway to pump a squirt into his hands.

He called Debbie as he walked up to the first floor.

“Hey, it’s me,” he said.

“I saw the news,” his ex-wife said. She paused. “I was going to call. Rough day?”

“Yeah,” he said. He didn’t elaborate. She didn’t ask. “Can I just say hi?” he asked.

“Hold on,” she said. “I’ll get them.” He heard her moving through her apartment. “Kids,” she called, “your dad’s on the phone.”

Archie heard Sara’s excited squeal. He still loved that sound more than anything else in the world.

CHAPTER

Y
ou’re worried about
him again,” Claire said. Henry stared up at the ceiling fan. They were in his bed,
naked and exhausted; Claire’s arm was draped over his chest.

Sex took more out of him these days. He sweated more. His heart worked harder. He tried to hide it from her, but of course she could tell.

Now she had clearly picked up on the fact that his mind was someplace else. He wove his hand into hers. “Sorry,” he said.

Claire sighed, settled back, and looked up at the ceiling fan with him. It had white metal blades and a light fixture that had never worked. Henry had installed it ten years ago, that first
summer after he’d bought the house. The pull chain swung in slow circles. “Just talk to him,” Claire said.

Henry’s cat leapt onto the bed, stalked around, and then dropped and started purring.

Henry had thought about calling Debbie. But only for a second. Archie wouldn’t want that. He wanted his ex-wife to have a life. And she couldn’t have one if she kept getting dragged
into his bullshit. That was how Archie would see it, anyway.

Claire laid her free hand flat on her bare stomach and looked down at the barely perceptible bulge. “Do you think he’s noticed?”

“No,” Henry said.

She bit her lip and looked away. “It’s not that weird. Men are slow that way.”

The ceiling fan had come loose over the years and the fan made a soft knocking sound as it rocked against the ceiling. “Not Archie,” Henry said.

They were quiet for a moment, listening to the blades of the fan, the wind lifting the pages of a woodworking magazine Henry had left on the bedside table, the knocking of the fixture against
the ceiling, the purring cat.

“I hate your futon,” Claire said.

Henry rolled on his side and lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “Futons are an ancient, well-loved bed, the bed of emperors,” he said.

Claire’s short brown hair was spiky with sweat. Her breasts were perfect half peaches, the nipples small and dark. Everything about her was pint-sized. She got carded every time she bought
beer. But she could outrun a criminal and judo his ass into next Friday. They were going to have an extraordinary kid.

Sometimes Henry wished he’d met Claire twenty years earlier.

“He’s probably just focused on the case,” Claire said.

It was true. They’d worked all day and turned up nothing. No connection between victims whatsoever. No evidence left behind at the crime scene. No witnesses. But Archie had seemed
distanced from the case, distracted from it.

It was something else.

It was like Claire had read his mind. She said, “What, then?”

The cat stood up and stretched and then rubbed against Claire’s leg, leaving a trail of gray hair on her sweaty skin. She scratched the cat’s head absentmindedly.

Henry wondered sometimes how much Claire had figured out about Archie’s relationship with Gretchen Lowell. It was one of the things they didn’t talk about.

“Did you see his phone?” Claire asked.

The duct tape. Henry had seen it.

“And his hand?” Claire said.

It looked like he’d punched a wall. Henry had put two and two together. Archie had gotten a call he didn’t like.

“Maybe he’s taking pills again,” Claire said.

“Maybe,” Henry said.

But he had known his friend for a long time, and he had a feeling it was something worse. There was only one person who could get under Archie’s skin like that, and she was locked up in
the State Hospital.

Claire nuzzled against Henry’s arm, the cat between them. Henry stared at the ceiling fan and tried not to think about the fact that while he was sweating his ass off, Gretchen Lowell was
luxuriating in taxpayer-subsidized air-conditioning.

CHAPTER

A
rchie watched Gretchen
Lowell sleep, drinking in every inch of her.

She lay on her back, in her bed. Her hospital-issue gray cotton pajamas were the same color as the blanket that covered her from the chest down. The blanket was thin and unforgiving and Archie
could make out the shape of her body underneath. Archie let his eyes drift over her wider thighs, her plump belly; the rough thickness to her arms. Weight gain in her face had made her jowls look
heavy. Her skin was tinged yellow, except where acne had broken out, a red rash on her cheeks. Even closed, her eyes looked sunken. Dried blood collected at the corners of her mouth where the skin
had gotten raw enough to split.

Her hair was dirty, snarled, clumped together in places by something crusty. Her face was relaxed. Her breathing was soundless and steady. She was so perfectly still—so without the
twitches and small shifts of sleep—that Archie thought she might be awake.

She opened her eyes and looked at him.

He was sitting on the windowsill, leaning against the bars, and he had to consciously will himself to stay as still as she was, to not let her read him. Right now he only wanted her to see one
expression on his face: satisfaction.

“Hello, sweetheart,” he said.

She tried to shift her position, and then raised her head and looked down at the leather straps that bound her wrists to the sides of her bed. She dropped her head back on the pillow and smiled
at him. “What are these?” she said. “Afraid I might hurt you?”

Archie got up off the windowsill and walked slowly to her bedside. He kept his hands in his pockets so he could let his fingers brush against the three Vicodin he had stashed there. He leaned
close to her, slowly. He had to do everything slowly around Gretchen, because if he didn’t, he’d make a mistake, show her too much.

“No,” he said, in a low whisper. “I just like seeing you tied up.”

Her nostrils flared and she smiled again, her once-white teeth now a pale shade of gray. “There’s my boy,” she said. Her eyes were bloodshot, but they were still very blue. She
traveled his body with her eyes. “I thought you’d come sooner, so you could see what you’ve done to me,” she said.

“You’ve used your beauty to manipulate people. It’s one less tool in your toolbox.”

Gretchen gave a cynical chuckle. “Is that what you tell them?”

It hadn’t been hard for Archie to convince the hospital administrators to let him take a special interest in Gretchen’s medication. She had killed so many people. She deserved worse.
Prescott was cocky, but he was young and insecure in his position and he followed orders. He accepted that Gretchen’s drug regimen was determined by his bosses. And he had no idea that Archie
was involved.

Archie touched the pills in his pocket. “I don’t want you seeing Susan,” he said. “You need to leave her out of this.”

“Out of what, darling?” Gretchen said.

He knew what she wanted to hear. But he hated saying it. “Us.”

She gave him a pretend pout. “You weren’t returning my calls.”

“I’ve been seeing other serial killers,” Archie said. “I knew you’d be jealous.”

Gretchen raised a smug eyebrow. “I’ve been seeing someone else, too.”

“Prescott,” Archie said.

She stole a glance behind him, out the window into the night. There was no clock in her room, and he realized that she was trying to puzzle out the time. “I thought he’d be here when
you came,” she said. “I wanted you to meet him.”

So she could manipulate them both, play them off each other. Archie was familiar with the tactic. “I didn’t tell him I was coming,” he said. “I’m sorry. Was that
not part of your plan?”

“Who’s jealous now?” Gretchen said.

There was nothing in the room. No family snapshots taped on the walls. No toiletries. No books. None of the pleasantries allowed other patients. Prescott had lobbied for that to change. Archie
had read his report. Personal items, Prescott posited, would be therapeutic. Prescott had never scraped one of Gretchen’s victims up off the floor.

“You don’t care about Prescott,” he said. “But you’ve done a nice job with him. Surprising.” He studied her face. “Considering.” Archie rolled the
Vicodin in his pocket between his fingers. “He wants to reduce your meds.” He took a step closer to her and saw the tendons in her arms tighten as she strained at the wrist straps.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” he asked. “The thing is, sweetheart, I like to see you like this, that sharp brain of yours foggy, physically helpless.” He was
close enough now that he could smell her skin and hair. He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply through his nose, taking in her sweet stink. “I like it too much to give it up,” he said,
opening his eyes. “I will never let them take you off the drugs.” She showed no response, no reaction. “I have to say, I don’t mind you being in here as much as I thought I
would. You belong in prison. We’d all be a lot safer with you manacled in maximum security. But the administrators of this place don’t know quite what to do with you here. And you know
who they ask?” She gazed at him blankly. “Me,” Archie said. “Prescott and the rest of your team of shrinks can make all the recommendations they want. But at the end of the
day, they depend on the person who knows you best to decide what privileges you can handle, what books you’re allowed to read, how many hours a day you get to spend unrestrained.”

“You like it, don’t you?” Gretchen said.

Archie grinned. “More than you know.”

“That’s an awfully unkind thing to say,” Gretchen said, “to someone who is suffering from mental illness.”

“I’m crazier than you are,” Archie said flatly.

“Prescott says that I have to be insane, to do the things I’ve done.”

Archie nodded, drawing out the moment. Then he said, “I’ve gotten you a new doctor. Didn’t I mention that? Because I know you like to play, and I think that Prescott
wasn’t enough of a challenge for you.”

Gretchen’s smile vanished for a second, a tiny splinter in the façade. “Ryan Motley’s back.”

She was a genius at redirecting.

“Let me guess,” Archie said. “He’s the one who’s after your child?”

“He’s close,” Gretchen said without emotion. “If you get me out of here, I can stop him.”

The drugs were making her delusional.

“Do you think motherhood might help get you out of here sooner?” He couldn’t even conceive of it. “You. A mother. There’s a hysterical image. Good luck with that.
You think that will convince them you’re cured? You know what works better?” Archie practically spat it out: “Find God.”

Gretchen was watching him; with those blue eyes of hers, she always looked like she was seeing something other people couldn’t. “My daughter’s name was Lily,” she
said.

Archie’s chest tightened.

She couldn’t have known about the lilies.

“I’m tired,” she said, rolling over. “They give me sedatives at night.”

She was fishing. She was like a sideshow psychic that way, trying things out, seeing what struck a nerve. “I was leaving anyway,” Archie said, heading toward the door.

“How’s Henry recovering?” he heard her ask.

He stopped in his tracks. His hands were in his pockets. He pressed the pills into his thigh.

“Give him my love,” she said drowsily. “It’s hard for men like him to lose their physical strength. I’d keep my eye on him if I were you.”

Archie spun around, took his hands out of his pockets, and walked to the side of her bed. She still had her head turned away from him when he slid his hand along her skull into her hairline and
knotted her hair in his fist. He leaned in close to her. He could feel her fighting him, straining against his grip, her hair snapping at the roots, the short pants of her breaths.
“Don’t say his name,” Archie said. He inhaled her again, the same smell, but stronger now, more intense. He saw her eyes wander to his front left pants pocket and then widen with
understanding. She knew he had the pills. She recognized the shape, or saw him fingering them, or she just read him well enough to recognize when he was weak.