Let Me Go (36 page)

She smiled at him and with a casual flick of her elbow slid the blade out of his flesh. It was three inches, Archie guessed, the surgical steel stained with his blood. He brought his hand to the wound. The slit in his shirt was already darkened with red.

“Does the blade feel the same going in,” Gretchen asked, “with all that scar tissue?”

Blood oozed from the wound. Archie pulled up his shirt to look at the half-inch dark red notch in his flesh. “It still hurts, if that's what you mean,” Archie said.

Gretchen smirked. “Good,” she said. She slipped the blade into an envelope case in her dress pocket. His blood was on her hand. She withdrew a folded white handkerchief out of her other pocket, gave it a shake, and then started cleaning off her fingers. “You're not leaving me,” she said, wiping his blood from the curve of her thumb. “When he comes for the knife, you'll have him on tape.”

She refolded the handkerchief neatly and then pressed it on Archie's wound and held it there. The wound was tender, and the pressure hurt, but Archie didn't pull away. There was a new stain on the front of her dress, a red smear on her hip, about the size of a quarter. It saturated the fabric differently from the fake blood spatter around it, both uglier and more vivid. Real blood was messy that way.

The handkerchief was reddening.

Archie blamed himself. He'd let himself get distracted by Lisa Watson's killer. But that wasn't why he was here, despite Gretchen's intentions.

“I want to see her,” Archie said.

Gretchen lifted the cloth and then pressed it back into place. “Patience, darling,” she said.

Archie put his hand under her chin and lifted her face up to his. The tiny drops of fake blood along her jawline were sticky under his fingers. Her makeup was in place. Her coloring was even. Stabbing him had not even elevated her heart rate. He touched the side of her face. “Please,” he said.

She met his gaze without emotion. He couldn't tell what she was thinking. After a long moment she took his hand in hers and lowered it from her face and pressed it to the handkerchief. “Since you've learned to ask nicely,” she said.

She returned to the laptop. Archie followed her hesitantly, holding the handkerchief to his belly. He watched as her fingers glided over the keyboard and another window appeared onscreen next to the video feed from outside.

Like the security footage, the feed was in black-and-white and the resolution wasn't sharp, but Archie knew Susan immediately. She was a small figure, sitting with her arms around her knees in a ball of light surrounded by darkness. He recognized the shape of the lantern at her feet—a Coleman, like Gretchen's.

Susan was somewhere in the subbasement with them.

Archie's eyes traveled over the outline of the blade case in Gretchen's front pocket. His pulse throbbed in his ears. If Susan was in the basement, then Archie didn't need Gretchen. He could find her himself. He wondered if he could put his hands around Gretchen's neck and break it before she stabbed him somewhere that mattered. He didn't have a lot of practice breaking necks. It would probably be close.

“You think you can find her without me?” Gretchen asked. “Maybe she's down here. But there are dozens of rooms, old tunnels, secret passageways. Maybe she's in another basement. They do make such excellent cells.” Gretchen leaned into him and nuzzled against his neck again, and Archie winced as her hip connected with his wound. “You need me,” Gretchen said.

Archie kept his eyes fixed on the screen, on Susan, trying to make sense of all this. Three hours was enough time for Gretchen to have taken Susan, driven to the lake, and made it through the tunnels with Susan in tow, and then back to Archie's place. And adjusting the security camera behind the boathouse, installing the webcams—she'd had all day to do that.

Susan rocked back and forth on the screen, her arms squeezed tightly around her knees. It was hard to tell how big the room was, but Susan seemed especially small. It looked like she didn't want to take up much space, like she didn't want to touch anything around her. Her face, in the lantern light, was a blur of white and black static.

Why sit in the middle of the floor like that? Why not sit against a wall?

Archie had a sickening revelation. “You put her in his kill room, didn't you?” Archie said.

Gretchen lifted her head from his chest and gave him a wicked smile.

Archie looked back at the screen. Susan was still in a tight little ball, rocking back and forth. He needed to get her out of there. But Gretchen would never be convinced to move her, especially if Archie showed concern. He had to make it about something else. Archie injected a note of irritation into his voice. “Is there physical evidence in there?” he asked.

Gretchen's eyes flicked to the screen.

“I want to see it,” Archie said firmly. “The longer she's in there, the more evidence she can corrupt. Blood samples, hair, fibers, prints—it's all useless to me if she steps on it.”

Gretchen was looking at the screen, watching Susan.

“You won't let me recover the knife,” Archie said. “If he comes back for it, the security footage isn't admissible. I assume you're not willing to testify. That leaves me with exactly nothing.” He gave her an aggrieved look. “So that's my birthday present? A killer I can't catch?”

On the screen Susan looked up, as if she'd heard them, as if she knew they were watching, and for a moment the black-and-white static of her face came into focus, a shadow darkening her eyes. She extended her arm, and held up her middle finger.

That-a-girl.

Gretchen's gaze moved from the screen to Archie, and she regarded him with that cold, impenetrable expression he knew so well. Then something behind the mask fluctuated, and her lip quavered. “Do you really think I ruined your life?” she asked.

The scalpel wound barely hurt now. The handkerchief was soaked with blood. Archie peeled it from his flesh and tossed it on the table. “No,” he said. “I did that all by myself.”

 

CHAPTER

40

 

A
dirty two-by-four
barred the door to Susan's impromptu cell. Nails were driven through the wood, securing it in place.

“Were you planning on ever letting her out?” Archie asked Gretchen.

“I didn't have a key to the lock,” Gretchen said with a shrug. She picked up a hammer that was on the floor in front of the door and handed it to him.

The head of the hammer was rusty. The wooden handle was blackened with dirt. It looked like something she had found in the tunnels. Archie jammed the hammer's claw between the piece of wood and the door and jimmied it. The effort strained his muscles, making his wound pulse with pain. But he stayed at it, until the two-by-four finally came loose and clattered to the concrete floor with a crack, sending up a cloud of concrete and wood dust.

Archie coughed and wiped the dust from his eyes.

Gretchen held her hand out for the hammer. “I'll take that,” she said.

Archie looked down at the hammer. “I wasn't going to bash your head in until I confirmed that she was inside,” he said, handing it over.

He turned the knob and pushed the door open. Susan was on her feet now, near the lantern in the center of the room. Archie had never been so happy to see her in his life. But she appeared disoriented, backing away, terrified. She didn't know it was him—the light spilling from the hallway behind him must have blackened his features. Then Archie felt Gretchen reach around the door and slide her hand along the wall and an overhead incandescent bulb came on.

The room was filled with bright light.

Susan blinked and gazed up at the bulb over her head. “Shut the fuck up,” Susan said.

Her hair was wild and her hands were balled into fists. She whipped her head toward the doorway, her body coiled like a feral cat's. Then he saw her take in his presence. Her defensive posturing crumpled with relief, and she cried out—a heartbreaking yelp of relief and elation. Then Gretchen stepped beside him, and Susan stiffened.

The room smelled like concrete and urine. The floor was fissured with cracks.

Susan looked cautiously from Archie to Gretchen. “Are you two back together?” she asked.

Archie moved toward her. He could feel Gretchen's eyes on his back. He didn't want to get too close. Any affection he showed for Susan would just give Gretchen another reason to kill her. “Are you all right?” Archie asked her.

Susan gave him an indignant look. “No, Archie. I'm not all right.”

He tried to keep his body language composed. “You're going to be fine,” he said. “She's not going to kill you.” He raised his voice pointedly. “Are you, Gretchen?”

“Probably not,” Gretchen said, after a pause.

Susan was shaking, whether from fright or fury Archie couldn't tell. She had been down here for hours, with no water or bathroom, knowing that Gretchen could return at any moment. She looked exhausted. Archie wanted to take his blazer off and drape it around her shoulders, to take her in his arms, but he knew that Gretchen wouldn't like it. He just had to keep Susan calm, and make sure she didn't do or say anything that would get her killed before he could get her out of here. “She's not going to hurt you,” Archie said evenly. “She wanted my attention and now she has it. She just used you to get to me.”

Susan wiped some snot from her nose and flailed her arm at the wall. “She's killed people here,” she said, hiccupping.

Archie moved his eyes around the room, taking in the blood spatter on the walls, the bloodstains on the mattress.

“Not her,” Archie said. “Someone else has.”

“I'm helping Archie out with a case,” Gretchen said breezily from behind him.

“What's she talking about?” Susan demanded from Archie.

How was he going to explain this one?

“The man who killed Lisa Watson the night of the party,” Gretchen said before Archie could answer. “We think he works for Jack Reynolds, and that he's killed before.”

Archie wished Gretchen would stop talking. He glanced back at her. She was still standing just inside the door. She blew him a kiss.

“
We?
” Susan said to Archie.

“Gretchen was here that night,” Archie told Susan.

“No shit,” Susan said.

Archie wondered if she would ever be able to look at him without seeing the images from the flash drive footage. “The woman found dead this morning,” Archie continued. “Gretchen didn't kill her.”

Susan looked skeptical.

“Gretchen saw it,” Archie said. “She witnessed the killer lure Lisa Watson into the tunnels and then later bring up her body and dump it in the lake.”

The lantern on the floor went out. Susan glared accusingly at Gretchen. “That wasn't even a hundred hours!” she sputtered.

“I didn't say the batteries were new,” Gretchen said.

Archie tried to ignore them both, and began to scan the room clockwise as if it were any other crime scene, taking in the walls, ceiling, and floor. The mattress, Archie noticed, wasn't just soaked with blood. It was soaked with generations of blood. Stains overlapped one another, in various stages of oxygenation.

“You can't believe her story,” Susan said. “She's a pathological liar.” Susan hiccupped again. “What are you doing?”

Archie had inched closer to the mattress. “I'm looking for clues,” he said.

“I thought you said Gretchen saw him,” Susan said.

“He was wearing a mask,” Gretchen said from the door.

“It must have been a big mask,” Susan muttered.

“I only saw him from a distance, pigeon,” Gretchen said.

Archie could hear the irritation in Gretchen's voice. If Susan kept goading her, it wouldn't matter what Archie said or did—Gretchen would kill her. “You were right,” Archie announced to Gretchen. “There are varying ages of bloodstains here.” Archie glanced over at Susan. “He's killed more than one person in this room.”

“A serial killer, huh?” Susan said. “I know someone else like that.” She pointed at Gretchen.
“Her.”

Archie willed Susan to understand what he was trying to do, that he had to go along with this, that he was doing it for her. “If I can stop this guy, I can save lives,” he said.

Susan crossed her arms. “Your judgment hasn't been exactly stellar lately,” she said. She pursed her lips and lifted her chin. “The stripper?” she said. “For instance?”

Archie cringed.

“What stripper?” Gretchen asked.

“I did not have sex with the stripper,” Archie said to Susan. “Not that I have to explain that.” He looked back at Gretchen. “To either of you.” He turned back to Susan, remembering suddenly how infuriating she could be. “I had to talk to Leo. In private. And I wasn't drunk, by the way. It was nonalcoholic beer.”

Susan scratched her ear. “Oh,” she said.

Archie concentrated on what was in front of him. The hole in his belly stung now every time he took a step. He kept his back to Gretchen and moved along the walls, studying the blood spatter. An open cardboard box in the corner was full of chains. They looked roughly the same size as the ligature marks on Lisa Watson's torso. Propped against the box were three unopened packages of five-pound scuba-diving weights and a neat stack of black mesh bags. The weights went in the bag, the chain threaded through the bag's handle, and you'd have a nice anchor for a corpse. The killer had stocked up. He had enough supplies to dispose of several more people before he'd have to go back to the dive store. A black nylon reusable grocery bag sat on the other side of the box. Archie nudged it open with his foot.

“What is it?” Susan asked.

“Lightbulbs,” Archie said. He glanced up at the single bulb that illuminated the room overhead. It would be inconvenient if it burned out in the middle of a murder. The killer had thought of everything.