Seeing Red (42 page)

Unlike the basement in general, this room was neatly ordered. Huge sheets of thick plastic had been stapled to the floor joists overhead and draped all four walls. It took Nate a moment to recognize the equipment sitting on the workbench. Alexander had set up a dark room to process and print his own film.

Stacked tidily on shelves were boxes, both plastic and cardboard, labeled with black marker. The lettering was precise and evenly spaced. Some containers were marked just by date. Some, like the one on top, had only initials:

E. C. G.

Ellis Christine Greene.

With his gut in a knot and fury burning in his chest, Nate reached for that box.

He pulled it out and placed it on the worktable.

Although he’d known what he would find when he opened it, the sight of that first photo sent spiders down his spine. The sensation was so acute, he flexed his shoulder blades trying to shake it off.

The first photos were of Ellis teaching her class in the park. They had been taken from the stand of trees that led to the marsh. Then came those of Ellis taken through her living room window—some of them looked as if he’d been standing two feet from her when he’d taken them. And it was clear that it would have been easy enough to see Ellis enter her alarm code through the telescopic lens.

Nate fisted his hand and spun in a circle looking for something to hit. He caught himself before he slammed it into the door and made enough racket to draw attention from upstairs. Instead, he squeezed both fists against his forehead and gritted his teeth, counting his ragged and furious breaths until the urge finally passed.

He pulled another box down from the next shelf. More photos. Nate didn’t recognize any of the women. It was clear Alexander had been stalking them—just as he had Laura, peeking in their windows, following them to work.

Next, Nate picked up an opaque plastic box marked mementos.

When he opened it, his heart sped up. He stared at the trophies of brutality, the memory box of a madman, feeling as if he were being spun into a spiderweb.

Broken necklaces. A cluster of silver and gold, pearl and stone; single earrings without mates. A watch with a blood-spattered face. A hammered-silver barrette. Things of beauty, bent and broken as they’d been torn from his victims.

Nate took a gloved finger and spread the jewelry out.

There it was, the proof that would nail this bastard’s skin to the wall. A necklace with an intertwined
K
and
P
—the necklace Kimberly Potter was wearing in the photo that had run in the newspaper. The chain was broken, the two ends knotted to keep the initials from sliding off.

Nate felt a perverse sense of elation in this discovery. There was enough evidence in this box to solve mysteries for a lot of victims, finally put to rest the question of justice.

Unfortunately, unless the police came in here with a warrant, it would all be for naught.

Nate looked through everything again but didn’t find anything that he remembered seeing Laura wear. Maybe he was missing it.

He repacked everything as it had been and closed up the boxes. When he returned them to their shelves, he noticed something tucked between the back of the boxes and the wall. He pulled out a bulging manila envelope. It wasn’t dusty or brittle with age.

Taking it to the table, he slid the contents out onto the table: a current New Mexico driver’s license with Alexander’s picture and the name John David Woods; a birth certificate and a social security card with the same name; several stacks of cash, rubber-banded together. And then, the one thing that took him by surprise—a thick business envelope. Filled with cash.

Where would Alexander get his hands on so much money? There had to be tens of thousands of dollars.

Thievery or blackmail.

Blackmail.

Carr.

I should have thought of it the second I saw the pictures.

There could be others. Maybe that was one of the reasons Alexander had kept all those photos. If he’d taken them of the right people, the pictures were a cash crop.

For a person like Alexander, there would be no honor among thieves. It didn’t matter that he’d collected money from Carr and still showed those photos to Greg. Alexander had his payoff. In a day or so, he’d be off to his new life as a citizen of New Mexico.

Nate put the envelopes back in their hiding places. Everything had to be back in their original order. He was just sliding the hateful box of mementos onto the shelf when he heard a metallic slide and click.

He spun, reaching for the gun tucked in the back of his pants, under his shirt.

Alexander stood in the low doorway, aiming a dusty hunting rifle at Nate’s chest. He gave a serpent’s smile. “You certainly have a way of fucking up my plans.”

The antique clock in Carr’s foyer ticked away the seconds while Ellis stared at the gun.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think.

She managed to shift her gaze to Carr’s face. Gone was the self-confident arrogance. His eyes looked like those of a cornered animal. And he was sweating.

She didn’t have to fake her fear. “If you want the photos that badly, take them.” She held them out to him.

Her best bet was for him to become confident in his control.

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that.” He gestured with the gun. “Get up.”

Ellis moved slowly, and started to put the photos back in her bag. If she could get her hands on her gun.

“Ah-ah!” The muscles in the hand holding the gun tightened. “Keep your hands out here where I can see them.”

Lifting her hands in front of her, she said, “Okay, okay. What do you want?”

“You can’t give me what I want.” Carr’s eyes had begun to lose some of their panic. But he was still sweating profusely; maybe killing wouldn’t come easy for him.

“I don’t understand.” Buy some time. Think.

“Stand up.”

She stood slowly, carefully. Which put her farther away from her gun. “My uncle paid you a call . . . after he saw these.” She lifted the photos. “
He
gave you that split lip.”

“Shut up and start walking. Front door. Leave the bag.”

“What have you done to him?” She stayed where she was. If she could get Carr to reach for her, to urge her into motion . . .

He didn’t. Instead he yelled, “Now!”

“If I don’t? I doubt you’re going to shoot me right here in your living room.”

He fired. The sound tore through her head. The bullet missed her by inches and hit the inside of the fireplace. “I do know how to handle this gun.”

Once the rigidness of shock left her limbs, Ellis started toward the front door.

Reaching the bottom of the porch steps, he directed her toward the garage.

Ellis counted the steps, each one leading her closer to her death. She had to get Carr within reach; her only hope was to disarm him.

“I’m really not interested in dying for those photos,” she said as she walked as slowly as she dared. “It’s not worth it, for either of us.”

“Those damn photos. First Alexander, for those fucking articles. Now you.”

An avalanche of thoughts started to drop into place.

“Alexander was blackmailing you. That’s why you wrote those articles.” Had it been solely to present a picture of Alexander’s innocence, to enhance the appearance of Nate’s guilt?

Alexander was on a crusade of revenge.

She asked, “Why help Alexander frame Nate for the Potter murder?”

Carr’s voice was hard when he said, “Because he thinks he went to prison for Nate Vance’s crime fifteen years ago.”

Nate’s crime?

“Nate didn’t do—”

Oh, dear God! Alexander
didn’t
beat Laura.

The voices that night.
Carr
and Laura.

That’s why there had been no sign of struggle, no cry for help—because Laura had gone with him willingly.

“Ah, now you see.” There was a sneer in Carr’s tone. “You’re not quite as smart as you thought you were. And neither is Hollis. He’s grossly misjudged his situation. He should have just moved on. Then we all could have continued with our lives. But he couldn’t let it go.” Carr’s face twisted with fury. “If only it had been just the money. But he insisted on pushing for a reopening of his case. I got a call yesterday from a lawyer willing to petition to reopen the case. That just can’t happen.”

It was clear Carr was going to do whatever he thought he must to preserve his freedom and his life.

He was ten feet away from her. Too far for her to charge and not get shot in the process.

If she could piss him off, maybe he’d get close and she’d have a chance to get the gun from him.

But how?
Think.

Carr had been the only one not photographed outside or through a car window. It had been through the window of his office, a personal space. He was different.

Laura had gone with him that night.

“So what was the deal with you and Laura?” she said with as much mockery as she could muster. “You bring her booze that night? Sex for booze, that was her game, right? She was
using
you.”

Carr’s hand started to tremble as he squeezed the gun. “I
loved
her. I loved her and she”—he gritted his teeth—“she cheated.” He said the word as if it carried a horrible taste.

Cheated? The adulterer just accused his teenage lover of cheating.

Ellis pushed. “She used you, just like all the others—”

“Shut up and open the door!” He gestured with the gun toward the back of a large SUV sitting just inside the open garage doors.

There was no way she could let him get her inside this vehicle. But she couldn’t do anything until she got him closer. That was the shortfall in her defense tactics; if a guy had a gun and knew what you could do, he wasn’t likely to get within striking distance.

“You loved her.” It was her only shot. Get his emotions to overcome his caution. “You loved her, risked your marriage, and she didn’t care.”

He didn’t take as much as one step closer to her.

He fired a shot that hit the ground right next to her foot. “Open the fucking door!”

Slowly, she turned and put her hand on the cargo door latch.

How could she—

The pain barely registered before everything went black.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-ONE

N
ate left his gun hidden in his waistband and put his hands where Alexander could see them. The man already had the rifle aimed and a bullet in the chamber. The odds were against outdrawing him.

“You might as well give it up, Hollis,” Nate said calmly. “It’s over.”

After the hideous collection Nate had just seen, it took all of his restraint not to lunge for the bastard’s throat.

Alexander’s slimy smile widened. “You seem to have missed the fact that I have the gun.”

Nate forced a smile of his own. “That thing hasn’t been fired in fifty years. I wouldn’t count on it working. Might misfire and take off your head.”

He saw a flicker of unease in those ice-blue eyes.

“Besides,” Nate continued, “how are you going to explain shooting a man in your benefactress’s basement? The woman’s crippled, not deaf.”

“You think you’re so fucking slick.” Alexander’s self-assured expression evolved into an ugly sneer. “This may not be how I’d planned it, but you’re gonna pay anyway.” He took a step backward. “Let’s go.”

“No.”

“Don’t fuck with me!” Alexander hissed in a harsh whisper. “I’d be perfectly justified in shooting you here and now. You’re breaking and entering.”

Nate worked to keep a relaxed posture while he waited for his opportunity to attack. “Ah, but how are you going to explain all of this when they come to haul my body away?” He motioned to the boxes and leaned against the workbench holding the darkroom equipment. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. He had to get Alexander to relax that trigger finger.

“I’m curious,” Nate said. “Why set me up for murder? I mean, I get your other games—Buckley, Greg, Bill, Ellis. I even have to admire the poetic justice in them.” He nearly choked on the praise. “But I can’t figure out why you’re trying to frame me for murder. Is it just because I didn’t take the blame for what you did to Laura?”

“What I did! You damn well know I never got my chance at her.” Those cold eyes grew malevolently curious. “Tell me, was she your first? Once you got a taste”—Alexander’s voice slid low and disturbing—“were you hooked? How many more have you done? Maybe we can compare notes before I kill you.”

Nate studied the man for a moment. Was Alexander just screwing with him?

That gleam of curiosity said it all. Alexander thought Nate had attacked Laura and left her on the beach for dead.

That meant someone else did it. And Alexander really had gone to prison for a crime he hadn’t committed.

The realization nearly sucked the breath from his lungs.