The One That Got Away (21 page)

Interdepartmental help went as far as a “thanks, and don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out” for Greening. Now he knew how Zoë felt when he’d brushed her off. If he removed his stung emotions from the equation, it wasn’t that bad. The Mono sheriff and Deputy Solis were cordial and grateful, but they planned to stick to the jurisdictional rule book. They were keeping him in the loop, even if they wouldn’t let him play in the sandbox. All niceties aside, he did detect a little irritation from them for discovering the crime scene. No one likes having their professional abilities shown up by someone else.

He couldn’t complain too much. They’d be the ones working the scene all night, while he got to write up his report at a reasonable hour. Shown the door, he drove back to Mammoth Lakes. Zoë Sutton’s car was gone from the motel lot when he arrived. It was a shame she’d left. He would have liked to have smoothed things over with her. She was the key to this case.

He let himself into his room with his cop-on-the-go dinner: burger, fries, and a Coke from Carl’s Jr. He could have gone out for a sit-down meal with his per diem, but he never liked eating alone.

He dumped the food on the room’s desk, slipped off his jacket, and kicked off his shoes. He took a bite out of the burger. It tasted pretty damn good. He couldn’t decide if it was because of the altitude or the fact he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

He waited until he was halfway through his meal before calling Ogawa to fill him in. Ogawa wasn’t impressed that he’d spent the entire day with Zoë, but he’d told him to get close to her, so he couldn’t really complain. Keeping her close was the way to go. Her history said she was volatile, and she was no good to the investigation if she was in a combative mood.

“She found the site.” He held off saying
the kill site
. At this point, there were no bodies.

“After all this time, she suddenly remembered where it happened?” Ogawa said.

His skepticism was hard to miss. Zoë still had a ways to go before winning him over.

“It was more the process of elimination. We hit every road until we came across this one. I didn’t need her to tell me this was the place. It matched the one from her statement from last year.”

“I don’t like that she was out there.”

“She wants answers.”

“Or she’s covering her ass.”

Greening returned to his food and picked up a fry. “So, you don’t trust her.”

“There are too many unanswered questions. She’s far from being cleared from our investigation.”

Greening smiled. He liked working with Ogawa for this reason—he didn’t trust a single soul. “So what’s your assessment of her?”

“I don’t have one because there are too many possibilities,” Ogawa said.

“Something happened to this girl fifteen months ago. There’s been a distinct personality and life change. But I can’t find a connection with Laurie Hernandez.”

“Ms. Sutton is far too interested in throwing herself into our investigation for my liking.”

“OK, but why is she interested in our investigation? If she killed Holli Buckner and wanted to stay off our radar, she simply had to keep her mouth shut. We wouldn’t have made any connections between Laurie Hernandez and her, or any other potential victims.”

“And that’s what I don’t like. We’ve been led on a merry dance since this woman busted into our crime scene. You are only where you are because of her.”

Ogawa had a point.

“When do you think you’ll be back?”

“I’ll check in with the sheriff in the morning and then head out.”

“How are the mountain boys in blue treating you?”

“Like a distant cousin.”

“Another reason for you to get your ass back here. Look, I don’t have anything against this Sutton woman, per se. At this point, I can’t implicate her and I can’t dismiss her, so she’s a problem that needs cleaning up. Now, to do that, I suggest you go through the case and her accounts and look for inconsistencies.”

Greening hung up on his partner. Ogawa was a son of a bitch. A healthy mistrust of people was a handy weapon for every cop, but Ogawa took it another step. Greening wasn’t quite sure of Zoë, but he’d been pretty sure she was the victim and not the perpetrator. Now Ogawa had him thinking his way. Plenty of things pointed toward her innocence, but Zoë’s situation was so vague in places, he didn’t really know what he had.

He threw out the rest of the fast food and brought out his maps. He marked the location of the Tally Man site with a Sharpie, then traced with a green highlighter the roads from the Smokehouse in Bishop to the site. Lastly, he indicated in orange highlights Zoë’s escape route, to where she’d crashed. He sat back, trying to make sense of what he’d charted.

Zoë had followed the winding track back to US 95, driven north to Mammoth Lakes, and somewhere along the way, had pulled a U-turn in order to crash in the southbound lane of the highway. Yes, Zoë had been in no condition to drive, and it wasn’t surprising she’d ended up turning around and running off the road. However, it was odd that after she’d escaped the Tally Man, she’d crashed less than five miles from his lair. If Greening squinted at this picture through Ogawa’s jaded eye, it looked as if she’d been driving back to the scene of the crime.

Crossing the Bay Bridge into San Francisco, Zoë was reminded of how overpopulated and impatient the Bay Area was. Even at this late hour, everyone was driving too close and going too fast. In the two days she’d been away, she’d adjusted to the isolation outside California’s big cities and had been able to be alone with her thoughts. Squeezed onto the bridge with hundreds of others, all she could think of was not being hit by cars weaving in and out in front of her.

The drive back had been good for her. The solitude had helped her decompress and lose the resentment she’d felt when Greening had kicked her to the curb. He was right. It was out of her hands. She’d done her part. She’d been the sniffer dog and rooted out a clue. It was down to the cops to do something with it. She’d hold Greening to his word and pressure him for updates.

The solitude had also given her an opportunity to mourn for herself and Holli. That night had always straddled the line between reality and nightmare. Had she really been abducted? Had she actually seen Holli dangling from a hook? Had she really escaped a killer? She’d known how the Mono Sheriff’s Department felt about her—that she’d made the whole thing up while in a drunken stupor. Finding those outbuildings meant it was real. It had happened. It also meant she truly had abandoned Holli.

That single thought preoccupied her through most of her drive and took the urgency and aggression out of her driving. She let the other cars swarm around her. They could have their extra foot of real estate. She would get home when she got home.

She came up on the entrance to her apartment complex and hit the remote. The gate slid back, and she squeezed through. It was too late to return the rental tonight. She parked next to her motorcycle and carried her bag up to her apartment, then let herself in and flicked the lights on. Dulled by the long drive and the emotional rollercoaster she’d been on, it took her a moment to realize something about her place was off. She couldn’t put her finger on it. She walked into the living room and stopped. Nothing was out of order, but nothing felt right, as if everything had been moved, then put back in the exact same spot. Then she realized what was wrong—she could smell the faint odor of cologne.

It took her only a matter of seconds to realize her mistake, but the damage was done. The door had closed behind her, cutting off her escape. One hand was still holding the handle of her roller bag, and her mind wasn’t in a defensive mode. She’d handed her intruder all the edge he needed. He came at her from her bedroom, entirely in her blind spot.

“Shit.”

She had enough time to drop the bag and spin around to see a large black-clad-and-gloved figure, wearing a ski mask. She didn’t know why he’d bothered with the ninja disguise. She knew exactly who was hiding under the mask. The Tally Man had caught up with her at last. He charged at her with a Taser outstretched. She chopped her hand across his forearm, sending it flying across the room.

It landed far from both of them. She sorely wanted it, but she wouldn’t rely on it.

She might have disarmed him, but it didn’t stop his momentum. He slammed into her, wrapping his arms around her and driving her forward into the armchair. The chair back chopped her across the stomach, exploding the breath from her, but it also stopped her from crashing to the ground, which would have given him all the advantage he needed.

The impact drove the armchair forward a few inches on the carpet. With his weight on top of her, she was forced onto her toes—but so was he. He was off balance. She pounced on her good fortune and smashed her foot down on his. Her running shoes deformed over a steel toecap. He’d come prepared. She was in real trouble.

He laughed.

His arrogance would be his downfall. She fired an elbow into his gut. His laugh turned into a groan, and he staggered back a step.

The pressure was off her body. Air rushed into her lungs, dulling the pain across her stomach. With no time to rest, she spun around to drive the heel of her hand into the underside of his chin. Instead, she met his backhand. With his size and weight advantage, he whipped her head violently to one side, sending her flying and crashing to the floor.

She didn’t stand a chance on the ground. She was done if he got to her. She scrambled to rise, but only managed to get to all fours before he kicked her in the stomach. Starlight exploded in her vision as air was vacuumed from her lungs. Recovery moves and defense strategies filled her brain, but her body betrayed her, and she deflated under the punishment.

Come on, Zoë
, she thought.
You’re better than this
. It was a rallying cry she believed but that her body did not.

He staggered toward her, rubbing his stomach.

Keep on coming
, she thought.
Let him think he’s won
. That was the key. She still had options. Her strength was returning one ragged breath at a time, but she feigned serious injury. She raised her legs, bending them at the knee, and moaned. It looked good. It looked real. She was ready for him.

He reached into his pocket and brought out a wadded rag. She didn’t have to be told what was on it and what it was for.

When he got within range, she shot out a leg, smashing him in the groin. She felt her foot connect with a cup. She didn’t hurt him, but it did repel him.

He was way too prepared. Way too practiced. Way too frightening.

She scrabbled away on her back using the armchair as a barrier between them.

He was moving in when someone banged on the door.

“What the fuck is going on in there? People are trying to sleep.”

Her assailant turned toward the door. Zoë saw her opportunity, rolled over, and lunged across the carpet for the Taser. “Help! Call 911,” she yelled.

The door opened and in the doorway stood her neighbor from downstairs. She didn’t know his name. His appearance created an awkward dilemma for her attacker—who to disable first, Zoë or her neighbor?

He chose Zoë. It was obvious her neighbor was no match for him. He charged at her, and she snatched up the Taser. Before she could get to her feet, he kicked it from her outstretched arm.

“Hey,” came a feeble cry from her neighbor.

The intruder dropped on top of her, pinning her arms to the ground with his knees. She peppered his back with knee blows but just didn’t have the power or reach to have a real impact.

He smashed her with a right hook that took the fight out of her. “You’ve done so much better this time around, Zoë,” he said with real admiration in his voice.

He put his hands around her throat and squeezed. He was applying pressure to all the right spots. She knew she’d black out soon if she didn’t break his grip. She wrenched at his hands, then clawed at his face but couldn’t reach. She felt a buzzing in her head and the world collapse in.

“This isn’t over. I still need to cross you off my to-do list.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Zoë exploded back into life to the sound of voices around her and hands upon her. An intense light was in her face, obscuring everything and everyone. She screamed and struck out in all directions, occasionally making a connection.

“It’s OK,” a voice bellowed over her screams. “You’re safe.”

She paused for a second. Her hands remained balled into fists, ready to lash out at the hint of a wrong move from any of them.

“Get that damn light out of my face.”

“Sorry,” a voice said, and the light was extinguished.

Her eyes adjusted and faces came into focus. Two EMTs and two uniformed cops surrounded her.

The female EMT said, “We need to examine you. OK?”

Zoë nodded.

While the EMTs worked on her, the cops questioned her. She had only one question for them. “Did you catch him?”

“No,” was the crushing yet simple answer.

“Did you know your attacker?”

Yeah, I know him, just not his name
. “It was the Tally Man. You need to contact Inspector Ryan Greening.”