Kill You Twice (31 page)

“Does it help, seeing me like this?” she asked.

Archie tried not to think about the heat in his groin. “Not really,” he said.

“You’re seeing someone.” She said it casually.

He knew she was just guessing, reading him somehow, but it still threw him. “Am I?” he said.

“Does she look like me?” She hesitated at the end of the sentence, and the correction was clear:
How I used to look?

“Henry thinks so,” Archie said.

“Good. I want you to be happy.”

Archie laughed. “No, you don’t.”

She smiled and ran the tip of her finger along the scar she’d left across his neck. “You should have had me restrained,” she said. “I could kill you. You never know when
I might have a razor blade tucked up my sleeve.”

“Why kill me now?” Archie said. “It would seem anticlimactic.”

She moved her finger from his neck down the buttons of his shirt to the front of his pants and then settled her palm over his pelvis. He strained for her.

She grinned. “You still like me.”

He knew it was what she wanted. Power. To know she still wielded it over him.

She moved her hand to her mouth and sucked on her fingers, then danced her fingers back down his shirt and slid her fingers into his pants. The rush of blood in his body made him feel
light-headed. The heat of her hand, the stickiness of her saliva.

He put his hand on her wrist.

“No,” he said.

He could smell the sex between them. Both of them breathing heavily, sweating in that cold room.

She pulled her hand out of his pants and curled next to him, her head on his shoulder. “I didn’t plan it,” she said. “Our affair. I just wanted to get inside the
investigation.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” he asked.

“It should probably make you feel worse. If I’d planned it, you’d be a victim of my wiles.”

“This way I’m a guilty shit,” Archie said.

“We’re all guilty.”

“Yeah, well, some of us more than others,” he said. He yawned and rubbed his face. “I don’t know why I came here.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “I do. You want to save the girl. You think I might know where they are, and you think that if you’re nice to me I might tell you.”

This was it.

“Do you know where they are?” Archie asked.

Her chin was on his shoulder, their faces close. He could see the threads of blood vessels in the whites of her eyes. “I need you to kill Colin,” she said. “I don’t want
him caught. I want him killed.”

“I’m a cop, Gretchen,” he said. “I couldn’t even kill you when I had the chance.”

Her nostrils flared. “You think I’m dangerous? He is twice as dangerous as I ever was. He has done worse things. He will do worse things.”

He cupped her head in his hands and looked her in the eye, searching for some tell, some spark of humanity. “Do you know where he is?”

Her gaze didn’t waver. “Tell me you’ll kill him,” she said.

“If I catch him, the state will do that for us.”

“The state didn’t kill me,” she said.

Archie brushed her cheek with his thumb. “You’re a fucking aberration, sweetheart.”

“Promise me you’ll kill him.”

He squinted at her, still searching for her angle. “We lie to each other all the time. Whatever we say, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“I’ll believe you,” she said. There was an urgent quality to her voice that he had never heard before. It unnerved him.

“I’ll kill him,” he said.

She closed her eyes. And he dropped his hands.

Her lids lifted. And she fixed her blue eyes on him. “Where do you go, when God fails you?”

And then he knew. Lowell Street. “The church,” Archie said. The husk of the burned-out building was still there. What better place to hide? He swung his legs off the bed and pushed
his feet into his shoes.

“Darling?” she said. “I’m not crazy.”

Archie was already headed for the door. He looked back at her as he closed it behind him. She was still on her elbows, still watching him. “I know,” he said. And then he flipped off
the light and sent her back into darkness.

Henry was waiting in the hall. “Did it work?” he asked.

CHAPTER

S
usan sat on
the edge of Leo’s bed, his black laptop bobbing on her jiggling knees. Leo was sitting next to her,
watching her like she might have a heart attack at any minute. She had Googled every name she could think of in conjunction with the Heroes column. Jake Kelly. Ryan Motley. All the Beatons. In
fact, she had never typed faster. But nobody but Gabby Meester came up.

Then she had borrowed Leo’s phone to call Lucy Trotter, the
Trib
staffer who put together the Heroes column every week. Lucy had said that a friend of Gabby’s had called her a
few months ago to ask some questions for a form she was working on, nominating Gabby for some award that paid 10K and had been advertised in the classifieds of the
Oregon Herald
. So then
Susan had looked up the call for nominations in the classifieds of the
Herald
, and there it was. “Nominations Wanted for the Good News Award. 10K to local person with most charitable
heart. Reap what you sow.”

“Motherfucker,” Susan said.

The
Herald
classified system provided a third-party e-mail to protect the privacy of the person listing the ad. But you had to provide bona fide contact info in order to get that
third-party e-mail.

Susan called Derek Rogers. With the cutbacks at the paper, he’d be working late, covering the crime beat she’d once hoped to inherit. He was one of those people who worried about his
job, which was probably why he still had one and she didn’t. He probably had on a tie right now. She hoped he’d pick up. She drummed her fingers on her legs while she waited. He picked
up after four rings.

“
Herald
,” he said, wearily.

“It’s me,” Susan said.

“Where are you?” Derek asked, his voice dropping. “Are you okay?”

“I’m calling to give you an exclusive interview on everything that happened today.”

There was a long pause.

“What’s in it for you?” he asked.

He’d been suspicious of her intentions ever since she’d stopped sleeping with him.

“I need a favor,” she said. “I have the third-party e-mail for a
Herald
classified and I need you to e-mail me the guy’s real contact information.”

“Why are you talking so fast?” Derek asked.

“I’m excited,” Susan said.

She saw Leo roll his eyes.

“I’ll have to go down to classifieds,” Derek said. “It’ll take a few minutes. The number you’re calling from is blocked. Give it to me so I can call you
back.”

Susan glanced over at Leo. “It’s not my phone. I’ll call you when you e-mail me the contact info.”

There was another pause.

Susan groaned. “Cross my heart and hope to die,” she said.

“Okay,” Derek said, and he hung up.

Susan slid the computer off her lap and jumped up and headed for the dresser.

“No,” Leo said. “Not a chance.”

“I’m on to something,” Susan said, picking up the small black straw. “I don’t want to get tired.”

“That’s not going to help you find her,” Leo said.

“You’re pretty self-righteous for someone with a gym bag full of heroin,” Susan said.

Leo picked up the little bag of cocaine, pinched it between his fingers, and emptied it on the floor. “Whoops,” he said.

The bedroom door opened and Bliss popped her head in. “What are you two doing?” she asked.

“Mom!” Susan said, dropping the straw. “Knock first.” She moved away from the dresser, from the mirror, from the white powder on the floor. “What if we’d been
having sex?”

“Sexuality is nothing to be embarrassed about, honey.”

Susan cringed internally. “Any news on TV?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Bliss said.

“Do you want some tea?” Leo asked.

“I want some wine,” Bliss said.

Leo leveled his gaze at Susan. “I’ll be right back,” he said. He plucked his cell phone from her hands and led Bliss to the kitchen.

Susan sat back down on the bed and hit refresh until Derek’s e-mail came through. The ad had been placed by Ryan Motley. There was a telephone number listed and an address in St. Helens.
The telephone number was bogus: 503-555-1212. Crack security at the
Herald
, as usual. Susan Googled the address. It was some church in St. Helens. The Church of Living Christ.

By the time Leo walked back into the bedroom, Susan was dressed and had her shoes on.

“What’s going on?” Leo asked.

“There was a gun in that gym bag, do you still have it?” Susan asked.

“No,” Leo said.

Susan raised her eyebrows. “Do you have another gun?”

Leo didn’t answer.

“Do you?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Get it,” Susan said.

“I’m wearing it,” Leo said.

She looked him up and down. She didn’t see a gun.

He scratched the back of his ear. “It’s around my ankle,” he said.

Sure, that wasn’t weird. Carrying a concealed weapon. Susan twisted her wet hair into a ponytail. “We need to go,” she said.

Leo was between her and the door. “Where?”

“There’s something I want to check out,” she said, trying to slide past him.

He put his hands on her shoulders. “I’m supposed to keep you safe,” he said. “Detective Sheridan’s orders.”

She looked up at him. She didn’t know who he was. Or what he was involved in. Right now it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he had a gun, and she was beginning to suspect that
he knew how to use it. She looked at him hard. “You want me to trust you? You trust me.”

“What about your mother?” Leo asked.

Susan lifted each of Leo’s hands off her shoulders, and then motioned for him to follow her. She went to the kitchen, pulled a butcher knife out of the knife block by the Viking range, and
carried the knife to the living room where her mother had just lifted a large pinot glass of red wine to her mouth.

“Mom, we’re going out,” Susan said. She held the knife out, hilt first, and her mother took it. “If anyone comes to the door, stab them with this.”

CHAPTER

T
he land around
what remained of the Church of Living

Christ was treacherous. The moon was full, and the spotlights from the patrol cars threw blinding light and cast strange shadows. Archie watched with Henry from behind the car as Columbia County
SWAT crept forward slowly, their flashlights navigating the overgrown weeds and strewn two-by-fours that littered the ground.

Archie tried the megaphone again. “Colin Beaton, this is the police. Come out of the building with your hands behind your head.”

There was no response.

The frame of the structure was still standing. They had all studied a photograph of it. A hundred-year-old wooden building, windows and door blown out, ceiling caved in. The white paint job was
still visible, darkened with soot.

“It looks haunted,” one of the SWAT guys had said. And no one laughed.

Archie hated this part. Waiting in the back with his Kevlar vest, as the SWAT radio in his hand crackled with hushed communications.

“Approaching.”

“In position.”

“Entering east window.”

Archie peered over the hood of the car and saw the flashlight beams slicing the darkness inside the house.

Henry pulled back the slide on his weapon and released it.

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

“Clear.”

“Shit,” Archie said.

“Sir, we don’t see anyone in here.”

Archie stood up.

He grabbed a flashlight from a nearby officer and started walking toward the church, stumbling over the debris in the yard. He still had the megaphone in his hand. He lifted it to his mouth and
said, “Don’t shoot, I’m coming in.”

The SWAT commander was waiting at the front door.

“Bad info,” the commander said.

“Keep looking,” Archie said.

The commander stepped aside so Archie could walk inside the church. Archie could see stars through the ceiling and the flash-lights of the SWAT team spread throughout the building.

The commander shone his flashlight clockwise around the church. The interior walls had been stripped to their studs. It was basically all one room. There was nowhere to hide.

“Is there a basement?” Archie asked.

“Brick-and-fieldstone foundation. He’s not here, sir.”

Archie hurled the megaphone on the floor. “Goddamn it,” he said.

The flashlight beams froze.

A shadow stepped behind Archie, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Henry. “You’re in a fucking church, Archie,” Henry said.

Archie looked up at the night sky, the stars, the moon. “Sorry,” he said.

Huffington arrived just
as SWAT was clearing out. Archie was in the passenger seat of Henry’s car and Huffington pulled up next to him in her
patrol car, her window down.

She said, “Next time you stage a raid in my town, give me a heads-up.”

“There wasn’t time,” Archie said.

“It took you an hour to get here,” she said.