One Scream Away (38 page)

The lights went out.

He pushed her through the store again, out the door. Dark. He’d killed the store’s street sign with the key, killed all but a single work-light inside. It would be a long time before anyone found the dead clerk in a store that appeared to be closed. She almost admired his thoroughness.

But all thought vanished when he opened the trunk of the old LTD. She kicked and fought, with a surreal sort of awareness of the fact that it wasn’t doing any good, that despite all the years of training, he was in control and she was losing blood, the ability to fight leaking out of her in slow motion. The earth fell from beneath her feet, her head hitting the inside of the trunk and legs tumbling in after. He slammed her into darkness. She kicked, the scents of mold and mildew clogging the back of her nose, and as the car’s tires ground over broken glass and stones, she sank into darkness, thinking all over again,
You did everything wrong
.

T
hey found the site Peggy Bankes might have been referring to in her codicil, a place along the river,” Copeland announced. Ten-thirty at night. Neil looked at his watch again. Beth had taken the Taurus more than two hours ago. “They’re finding bodies there—bones, rather. It looks like two women and a baby. Coroner says they’ve been there eight or ten years.”

“Dear God,” Standlin breathed. “Paige Wheeler and Nina Ellstrom.”

“Probably. Except the baby. It’s been there for more like eighteen or twenty years.”

“Jenny,” Neil said.

“His mother’s codicil willed him
Jenny
?” Brohaugh asked, flabbergasted. “He dug up
Jenny
?”

“Could be,” Standlin said. “We know he got
something
from that location the night he received the codicil.”

The same night he killed Gloria Michaels. Neil couldn’t believe it.

“Maybe,” Copeland acknowledged and didn’t seem to want to say the rest. He swallowed. “The baby’s skull is missing.”

Silence. No one knew what to say to that.

Neil shook his head. At this moment, he couldn’t care about Peggy Bankes’s codicil or victims who had been dead for years or even baby bones. All he could think about was finding Bankes. Finding Beth and Abby.

He closed his eyes, thoughts wriggling in his mind like maggots. Chevy had loved Jenny, so said Sheriff Goodwin. Mother sang so she couldn’t hear Jenny cry, so said Chevy, when attacking Beth. And more…
This is just like home… Mother’s land… Scream so Mother will stop.

Jesus. That school counselor, Iris Rhodes, had been right to try to get Jenny away from that crazy place. If only someone had listened to her, maybe they wouldn’t be digging up baby bones in the backyard now—

Neil froze. “He’s going home,” he said, more to himself than to the room.

Copeland looked at him. “What?”

“His mother’s land. He wants to kill Beth there.”

“How the hell do you know that, Sheridan? You got something the rest of us don’t know?”

Yes.
His hand fisted, the urge to tell all nearly overwhelming. “Think about it,” he said, noticing Standlin’s eyes on him. “Every woman, even Gloria Michaels, was killed or left in a forest, near a body of water. The place he found Jenny became his burial ground, maybe even his killing ground for the next two after Gloria. He’s recreated that setting with almost every woman.”

“But even if you’re right,” Copeland said, “there’s no way he could be at that site now. It’s swarming with cops and Feds. They put up floodlights, have orders to dig until it’s clean.”

“So he’ll have to find another place to do Denison, or a place just like it,” Brohaugh said.

“Find another wooded place along the Susquehanna River, remote enough to get away with killing someone in the middle of the night… ?” Harrison’s big shoulders slumped. “There must be hundreds of miles like that.”

“But he won’t go far. He wants his mother to hear,” Neil said.

Copeland was angry. “Sheridan, if you know something we don’t know, spit it out.”

Neil swallowed, shooting a silent plea to Standlin.
Trust me.

“I think he’s right,” she said after a minute. “That might be where he is.”

“But would Denison know that? She’s at large, too,” Brohaugh said logically, “presumably trying to meet him.”

Neil frowned, trying to think. He recalled drawing out a map on a napkin for Beth: Bankes’s land, Hammond’s hunting grounds, the gun store… “She might go to Samson. If she thinks that’s where Bankes took Abby.” An idea popped to the surface. “Could we still have a scent of Bankes from when he camped out in Beth’s garage?”

“For dogs?” Copeland asked. “I don’t know. But even if they can’t track Bankes, they could track Denison or the little girl.”

“How long to get there by chopper?” Neil asked.

“You could be there in forty minutes,” Brohaugh answered. “But what if that’s not where they are? We’ve got nothing but your hunch, Sheridan, and we’re putting all our eggs in that one basket—”

“Agent Copeland.” A secretary popped her head in the door. “The RA in Samson just called. They just found the car Denison was driving.” Neil heart stopped. “It’s at a little gas-station store four miles from Bankes’s home.”

“Grover’s,” Neil said.

“Right. One of the local cops checked the store because its lights were all out, and usually it’s open all night. Clerk is shot dead, clerk’s ’85 Ford LTD is gone, Denison’s—or rather, Foster’s—Taurus is parked there.”

“Jesus,” Neil said, reeling.

Brohaugh slumped. “All right. So it’s the right basket for our eggs.”

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”

“Shut up,” Copeland barked. “Is there surveillance tape from the store?”

“They’re feeding it through right now. You should be able to access it in a minute,” the woman said to Brohaugh. “But there’s one more thing. Rebecca Alexander’s Monte Carlo was there, too, parked inside the car wash where no one could see it.”

“Mother of God,” whispered Harrison. “He
is
going home.”

Copeland snapped his fingers. “All right. Get those dogs; get the chopper.” To the secretary: “Call the Samson RA and give him my private line. Tell him to call me directly from now on.”

“Denison left Foster’s two and a half hours ago,” Standlin said.

“We’ll see the time on the video,” Brohaugh said. “Here it comes.”

They all gathered behind Brohaugh, watching the gas station’s security tape. Nothing happened on it at first and Brohaugh fast-forwarded the images, then Bankes entered the store and Brohaugh slowed the speed to normal. Everything happened in choppy black-and-white silence. The clerk went down—a single bullet from a handgun a foot away, right through the young man’s nose, splat, and into the wall behind him. Bankes watched him slide to the floor, grabbed a Reese’s Cup and ripped it open, then went around the counter and bent over the body for a second. He rose and went to the back of the store, tossing something small in his hand. The lights in the store flicked off and on once, then he left through the front door and there was nothing else for—Neil watched the numbers go by as Brohaugh fast-forwarded—five minutes, ten, twenty, thirty-five. Then the front door opened, and a woman’s head poked in.

Beth.

And she must have seen something because suddenly she was gone again, and there was a flurry of activity outside the door. A minute later the camera caught the smudge of her face pressed into the glass and Bankes, a few inches taller, manhandling her from behind. Terror clawed at Neil. It wasn’t happening in real time, he reminded himself; it had already occurred. He couldn’t stop it; it was over. Just watch, and
think
. Panic coursed through his veins; he was unable to tell what Bankes was doing to her. The details were obscured by stickers on the glass door and the glare from outside lights through the camera lens, until Bankes walked Beth back through the store and into the back. Dragging her, like she was hurt. Her mouth was swathed in duct tape, a dark stain above one breast, her hands behind her back.

And then the picture went dark. The camera kept running, but there were only shadows moving through the store. The door opened and closed. The shadows vanished.

A living, breathing documentary of something that had happened an hour ago, a hundred and ten miles away. Neil wasn’t sure his heart was still beating.

The secretary returned when the recording ended, saying fresh blood had been found on shards of glass in the parking lot. “And,” she added, careful not to look at Neil, “Denison’s purse was found at the gas station. Evan Foster’s Ruger is inside.”

I
t was chilly even to Chevy, and he was wearing a suede jacket. Beth shivered violently. Her shoulders hunched against the air, her dress torn and crusted with blood. Her wrists were bound at her back, her panty hose running in shreds up her legs, and her bare feet leaving dark smudges of blood on the ground. She looked alarmingly fragile. For a minute he worried she wouldn’t last too long. He didn’t dare push her too far, too fast. He needed her alert and aware.
Feeling.

They were almost there now. The narrow column of light from his flashlight seemed to dissolve within ten feet in the damp underbrush, the inky night closing in around them. A little after one in the morning now and he wished they could have started sooner, but he’d had no choice but to take the time to deal with Abby, then hide the LTD he’d stolen from the gas station attendant.

Beth dragged silently through the forest. He’d stripped the tape from her mouth after they got far enough she couldn’t be heard no matter how loudly she screamed. Still, she hadn’t given him a single sound, even though there was a hole in her shoulder, her feet were cut, and he thought he’d cracked at least one of her ribs in their scuffle at the gas station. Beth just gritted her teeth and kept silent, no matter what.

Go ahead, he thought wryly, tough it out a little while longer. Then the fun would begin. And he had a bag full of blank tapes.

Beth stumbled and he grabbed her arm. She grunted between her teeth. The sound surprised him, resonating in his crotch.

“Not as strong as you used to be, are you?” he said, chuckling. “As I recall, a little blood and a steady pounding between your legs didn’t give me much to listen to the first time around. It wasn’t a fair encounter, though. I hadn’t had a chance to wear you down first. This time I know you’re ready.”

“Where’s Abby?”

“You’re a broken record.”

She stopped and spoke through chattering teeth. “Let her go, and I swear I’ll do anything you want. Please. Just don’t hurt my daughter.”

Tears gathered in her eyes, and they looked legitimate, not put on because she thought that’s what he wanted her to do. He hadn’t thought Beth Denison capable of genuine emotion.

But it wasn’t genuine. He’d almost forgotten: She was as good as Mother.

He sneered at her. “You think you have everyone fooled, but not me. How does it feel to know that when you spoke to Margaret Chadburne on the phone it was really me? To know I had lunch with Hannah Blake and that I spoke to your daughter on the phone? How did you like it when you finally figured out the dolls?” He leaned closer. “
You’re
the real fake. You hurt Jenny, you lie about Abby’s father, then you plant a bunch of flowers and smile. You’re just like Mother.”

“I n-never hurt Jenny. I never even saw her. You’re the one who hurt your baby sister. You killed her.”

“I didn’t do anything to Jenny! Mother hated the baby, Sheriff…”

“Now, son, why would you say that?”

“Because Grandpa gave her bad blood. He’s the reason Jenny’s so weak. She has bad blood.”

Rage seized him by the throat and he whirled, kicking Beth in the belly. She hit the ground like a sack of flour. “You claim you never hurt Jenny,” he seethed. “You’re a lying cunt, just like Mother. For years she played in Grandpa’s bed, pretending she hated it. But did she ever do anything to stop it?”

Beth still lay perfectly still, and for a moment, Chevy panicked. She’d lost a lot of blood, and here he was, almost losing control. If he wasn’t careful, he’d lose her before he even got her going.

Mother started humming.

Shut the fuck up.

He grabbed Beth by an arm and yanked her up. “Keep walking.”

One twenty-five in the morning. Neil stalked the gas station’s parking lot, his gut lurching at the sight of bloody glass. Harrison punched off his cell phone and stepped over to him.

“That was the lab,” he said quietly. “Blood here is O-negative. Matches Denison’s.”

Neil wondered why that news hit so hard. He’d expected the blood to be Beth’s. She’d taken off her shoes in the living room of the apartment, she couldn’t get them with Suarez right there. She didn’t have a coat, either, and the overnight temperature had dipped into the fifties. Illogically, the idea of Beth being cold was as cruel as the dozens of other horrific images Neil had conjured up on the way here. The images preyed on his brain, stalking him like a predator he couldn’t see or touch or get his hands on.

He walked toward Harrison, who was watching the crime scene unit take apart Alexander’s car.
Keep moving, work. Don’t feel.
God knows, he’d done that for nine years. Why couldn’t he manage it now?

Harrison met him halfway across the parking lot. “They dusted the Monte Carlo, and they’re about to open the trunk, see if any trace evidence can be collected.”

“I can’t believe he drove Alexander’s car all the way up here without being noticed. There’s been an APB out on that Monte Carlo since we got Rebecca Alexander out of that park.”

“But he was already on his way by then. Driving in the dark, on back roads…”

A chopper sliced through the air overhead, and they waited until the noise had faded before going on. If Bankes
was
deep in the woods, a chopper would have a hard time spotting him. Even though the forest wasn’t in full foliage yet, the trees were dense and it was dark. The better bet was the canine team. Neil had given them Abby’s T-ball hat with the embroidered ladybug, and Beth’s T-shirt with Pooh and the honeypot. Dog handlers hadn’t thought there was any hope of getting a scent of Bankes from the cabinet in Beth’s garage, particularly after the crime scene unit had gone over it with chemicals and cleansers. But if Bankes was actually
with
Abby or Beth…