The Last Victim (44 page)

Then she saw it, through the trees. The black SUV. It was bumping up the dirt track, traveling fast.

Screaming, she bolted toward it. They must have spotted her, because it jerked to a halt.

Charlie burst through the trees just as all three of them leaped from the van, running toward her, guns out and aimed at something behind her.

“Haney, freeze!” Tony yelled.
“Drop your weapon.”

Then Charlie reached them, or they reached her. Kaminsky and Crane ran on past, and a single glance over her shoulder told her that
Haney was just yards behind her. He stood still, no longer holding his gun, and she guessed he must have dropped it on Tony’s command. His hands were in the air.

Her strength gave out, and she would have fallen to her knees if Tony hadn’t wrapped an arm around her and pulled her against his side.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You’re safe now.”

“Hannah Beckett’s up there in an RV. She’s alive,” Charlie gasped. Then, panting, resting against him, finally allowing herself to believe it was over, Charlie closed her eyes.

A little later, after Hannah was freed and whisked off to a hospital and Haney had been taken away and an obliging cop had removed the dangling handcuff from her wrist, Charlie sat on a fallen log not too far away from the van. Police and FBI were already swarming around, and the medical examiner was said to be on the way. She knew the media wouldn’t be far behind.

She had just watched the Meads come for Bayley. Julie, Tom, and Trevor had all appeared together, not too far from where she sat. Bayley had come running from the direction of the van, and gone right into Julie’s outstretched arms. Then the four of them had done the group-hug thing and gone walking off together, arm in arm, before disappearing.

Charlie liked to think they’d gone into the white light.

Tony had been in the van for a while. Now he came out to join her, sitting down on the log next to her, offering her a bottle of water.

Charlie accepted it with a nod of thanks, unscrewed the lid, and took a long drink. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized just how dry her throat was.

“I have a question for you,” he said. “Haney and Hannah both said something about an instant appearance and disappearance of a big blond guy.”

Charlie shrugged. She wasn’t about to try to explain Garland to him.

The merest suggestion of a smile touched Tony’s mouth. “I don’t want to know, huh?”

Charlie shook her head.

“Fair enough.”

“I have a question for you,” she said. “How did you find me?”

“We were looking for you everywhere when I got a call from the lab. It was the damned ChapStick. In that bundle of stuff you gave me, seems there were two of them. One was still in the pocket of your jeans. The other one had Haney’s DNA on it. Apparently it was his. All we can figure is that he dropped it the night he killed the Palmers, and it somehow got caught up in your clothes. Soon as I heard that, I had the Bureau put a trace on his cell phone. It didn’t take them long to find him, but it seemed like a lifetime to me.”

The way he was looking at her, Charlie could see that her disappearance had scared him. She appreciated that. It was actually something she could build on.

Maybe.

One day.

Depending on how things went.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Four days later, Tony was taking Charlie home. It was around ten p.m., and twilight had just turned the corner into full dark. They were in Big Stone Gap, driving up her street in a dark blue Lincoln sedan that had been waiting for them when the plane had touched down at Lonesome Pine Airport some three hours before. They’d had dinner at the Mountain Laurel Restaurant—that dinner he’d owed her. After he dropped her off he would be returning to the airport and winging away to Quantico, where Kaminsky and Crane awaited him. Until another serial killer hit their radar, they were working at headquarters.

Charlie had already told Tony that she wouldn’t be taking him up on his offer to join their team.

“I’ll consult,” she had promised. “Call whenever you need me.”

But her home, and her work, were in Big Stone Gap.

To say nothing of a certain lonely grave.

She hadn’t seen Garland since he’d saved her from Haney.

She was hideously afraid that she might never see him again.

Either he’d been kicked into eternity and was unable to get out, or he was around and she just couldn’t see him.

What both scenarios left her with was a raw and aching heart.
She’d let herself get too close to him, and now she was paying the price. She already could tell that it was going to take her some time to heal.

“So Haney’s claiming total innocence?” Charlie said, continuing the conversation she and Tony had been having. “How can he do that? To begin with, he tried to kill me.”

“He’s lawyered up, and he’s twisting the facts. He’s saying that he only realized that his son was the killer we were looking for when he found the three of you in that travel van. That he shot his own son to save you and Hannah Beckett. That you freaked out and ran when the shooting started, and imagined the rest.”

“The liar,” Charlie said indignantly.

“Yeah, I know.”

“Aside from everything else, he shot Kingston the moment he stepped inside that van. He never even saw Hannah and me until after Kingston was dead. He must have known all along his son was the killer.”

“Not all along.” Tony shook his head. “We don’t think Haney knew the copycat was his son until a convenience store owner drew his attention to a surveillance shot of a gray Dodge Charger at the right time and place to be involved in the attack at the Meads’. Kingston has a gray Dodge Charger. When he saw the car, Haney must have recognized it and instantly started to suspect Kingston. We know this because he substituted surveillance footage of another gray car—remember the DVD of the gray Avalon he had Officer Price give me?—for the footage of the Charger. He must have made the substitution in case the convenience store owner mentioned the surveillance shot to anyone else. Anyway, we’ve got both shots now: the original of the Charger, and the substitute one of the Avalon Haney passed on to me, trying to throw the investigation off track. It’s actually a pretty damning piece of evidence against him.”

Charlie considered, then frowned. “He gave that surveillance footage to you on the night before—”

She broke off. Following the thought to its conclusion was just too horrible.

Tony finished it for her. “Bayley Evans’ body was found. Yeah.
After seeing the footage of the Charger, Haney went straight over to Kingston’s house. He found Bayley Evans there, tied up in the basement, and had it out with Kingston. During the course of what went down that night, Kingston revealed he knew that Haney was the Boardwalk Killer, and told him that he had found one of the girls Haney had kidnapped. Apparently Haney kept them out in a detached garage behind the house. After that, when little kid Kingston was visiting his dad, he’d check to see if Haney had a girl back there. If he did, Kingston would slip into a closet and watch as his father tortured and killed her.”

“My God,” Charlie breathed. “How do you know all this?”

“Kingston had a webcam trained on Bayley Evans—on each of the girls, when he had them. Recording everything, so that he could relive the experience later. The argument Kingston and Haney had that night took place in the basement, right where he was keeping Bayley Evans. It got picked up by the webcam, and it’s still on Kingston’s computer.”

“Tony.” Charlie’s heart had started to thump. “Did the webcam catch Bayley’s murder?”

Tony’s mouth twisted. “Yeah. It caught that, too.”

For a moment Charlie could hardly breathe. “Did Kingston do it? Or …”

“Kingston. He didn’t want to, but Haney ordered him to kill her right there and then and warned him to stop with the murders. When Kingston didn’t—well, that’s when the rest of it went down.”

“Serial killers can’t stop,” Charlie said. “It’s a compulsion. They have to kill until they are caught or something stops them.”

“Like Haney’s car accident stopped him,” Tony said. “No telling how many more victims there would have been in the original group if that hadn’t happened.”

They had discovered that right after the Palmer murders, Haney’s car had been hit by a drunk driver. He’d been ejected through the windshield, spent almost a year in the hospital and another year in rehab, and had extensive plastic surgery to repair his facial injuries. This knowledge made Charlie feel a little better about not recognizing him.

“That’s why Kingston took Hannah so soon after he was forced to kill Bayley,” Charlie said. “He couldn’t stop. He had to play out his fantasy to the end.”

“Haney must have been going out of his mind,” Tony said. “We know that as soon as he left the Becketts’ house, he went searching for his son. He expected Kingston would have taken Hannah to his house, just like he did Bayley and the others, but Kingston was too smart for that, since Haney had found him there the last time and made him get rid of Bayley. When Haney got there, the house was empty.”

“How do you know?” Charlie asked. “Was that caught on Kingston’s webcam, too?”

Tony shook his head. “Kingston had his computer with him in the van, up in the passenger seat. I’m guessing he meant to turn it on Hannah, but just hadn’t gotten the chance yet. What we’ve got is the GPS from Haney’s police car showing us where Haney went that night.”

“Ah,” Charlie said. “So Haney set fire to Kingston’s house to make sure he couldn’t take Hannah back there and finish his fantasy with her?”

Tony nodded. “Also to get rid of all the evidence. Haney knew Kingston was on our short list of suspects. He knew that there was a good chance we were going to bring him in sooner or later. I’m sure he was afraid that if we arrested Kingston, his son would spill the beans on him, too. After he set fire to Kingston’s house, he waited around nearby for him to come home.”

“He was actually taking a big risk.” Charlie closed her eyes for a moment as she realized how differently things could have worked out. When she opened them again, it was to discover Tony watching her with concern. She gave him a small, reassuring smile:
I’m fine
. “Kingston could have gone anywhere in that van. Given that Haney had already surprised him in the house with Bayley, it’s a wonder that Kingston didn’t just take off with Hannah.”

Tony smiled back. “But, see, Haney knew Kingston had a police scanner. He knew Kingston listened to it all the time, and that he would hear over it that his house was on fire, and come to check it out. All he had to do was wait.”

“I see.” Charlie nodded. “Haney was right about that, too.”

“Haney was right about a lot. Having burned Kingston’s house, if he had found and killed Kingston and made it look like Kingston had killed Hannah, he would have been home free.” Tony’s gaze was steady on her face. “What he didn’t expect to find in that van was you. But ever since he’d learned who you are, that you were the girl who had survived the original Boardwalk Killer murders and had actually seen him, he’d been afraid of you, afraid you’d recognize him. Finding you there, getting the chance to finally silence you, knowing that if you and Hannah were killed he could pin the blame on Kingston and take the credit for stopping the new Boardwalk Killer was just too good an opportunity for him to pass up. And it almost worked.”

Charlie remembered Holly’s claim that Kingston had witnessed her being murdered, and shivered. “Haney really didn’t know that his son had watched him kill?”

“I don’t think so,” Tony replied. “We know that Haney and Kingston were estranged, that apart from maybe a year’s court-ordered visitation they hadn’t really had much interaction at all since Kingston’s mother, Haney’s first wife, divorced him fifteen years ago. You were on the money with that one, too, by the way. Haney and Kingston’s mother met at a dance, and we’re working on the assumption that their divorce was what triggered the original Boardwalk Killer murders. Apparently the mother was afraid of Haney and tried to keep her son away from him. We do know that Kingston—and he’s Terry Kingston instead of Terry Haney because his mother married Ron Kingston, and Terry was later adopted by his stepfather and took his name, which is why the fact that Haney is his biological father never turned up in any of our computer searches—was still visiting his father regularly right after the divorce, which is when the original Boardwalk Killer murders occurred.”

“I’ve always wondered about the nature versus nurture element in the evolution of a serial killer,” Charlie said. Detaching emotionally by reverting to her researcher persona was the best way to keep too-painful emotions at bay, she had learned. “Did Terry Kingston inherit an as-yet-unidentified serial killer gene from his father, or was his urge to kill sparked by watching his father murder those poor girls?”

“Fascinating question, Dr. Stone.” Tony’s face relaxed into a teasing
grin as he pulled into her driveway. Except for the porch light, her house was dark, but still she felt like it was welcoming her home. “I’m sure you’ll ponder it endlessly.”

“Yes, I will,” Charlie replied with dignity. “Because I’m a researcher, and that’s what we researchers do.” She took a deep breath as he braked and put the car into park. She was glad to be home, but she was just realizing how much she was going to miss Tony, and Kaminsky and Crane, too. “Let me ask you something: are you sure there’s enough evidence to absolutely convict Haney?”

Tony’s hand was on the ignition, but he didn’t shut off the motor. Charlie got the feeling he was a little reluctant to say good-bye to her, too.

“I’m sure.” Tony looked at her through the dark. “You don’t have to worry that he’ll ever get out and come after you again. We’ve got him dead to rights, even without going back to the original Boardwalk Killer murders.” Tony cocked an eyebrow at her. “So, you ready to tell me about the blond mystery guy yet?”

Charlie shook her head. She absolutely was not. She doubted that she ever would be. “It’s one of those I-see-dead-people things, okay? Sometimes spirits flash in and out.”