A Grant County Collection (115 page)

Sara looked around for their mother, but no one seemed to be in attendance. She was about to question them when Jeffrey opened the door.

'Back here,' he said. Then, noticing her concern, he assured Sara, 'They're okay.'

Sara stepped over one of the children as she walked toward Jeffrey. She whispered, 'I need to talk to you.'

He shushed her, indicating she should hurry. He didn't give her a chance to speak as the door closed. 'We've got a missing persons report.'

'A woman?'

'Her husband came in about twenty minutes ago. Larry Gibson.' 'Any relation?'

'Boyd Gibson's brother. Valentine says he's clean.'

Sara frowned, wondering when Jeffrey had started taking Jake Valentine at his word. She asked, 'How long has the woman been missing?'

'Since last Saturday.'

'I didn't find a wedding ring on the body,' Sara said, though she knew the metal could have melted off in the intense fire. 'If his wife has been gone for six days, why did he wait so long to come forward?'

'She's gone missing before,' he told her. 'Had a drinking problem, dabbled in meth for a while. She's a schoolteacher. Those are her kids in the waiting room.'

'Christ,' Sara whispered. A schoolteacher with three kids. What had Lena said? A mother. A wife. A friend. A lover.

Jeffrey took Sara's arm, concerned. 'Are you okay?'

'You got a call on your phone.' She pressed his cell phone into his hand. 'From an old friend.'

He scrolled through the various screens, saying, 'I had Frank do a trace.' He meant a trace on Lena's phone. 'There's only been one call made from that number since Monday night – to me at the hotel.'

'She said ...' Sara began, her throat going dry. 'She said that the same thing that happened to the woman in the car could happen to you.'

'She'd say just about anything to get us out of here.' Jeffrey frowned at the phone in his hand. 'Number withheld. It's probably listed on my call records, but it'll take a day or two for it to show up.'

'Jeffrey ...'

'Let's deal with the missing schoolteacher first,' he suggested. 'It'll be fine. Okay?'

She nodded, though it was far from okay. Unbidden, that same flash of Jeffrey on an autopsy table came to mind. Her stomach twisted into a knot as she preceded him down the hallway, Lena's words of warning ringing in her ears.

Do you want the same thing to happen to Jeffrey?

Back in Valentine's office, the sheriff was on the business side of his desk. He was writing on a sheet of paper, probably filling out the missing persons report, as the man in front of him gave the details.

'She's just average,' the man said, sounding frightened and angry at the same time. 'I don't know, Jake ... describe
your
wife. I don't know her height. I don't know her weight. She's just average.'

'That's okay, Larry,' Valentine soothed. 'Listen, I've seen her at church about a million times. I could tell you blindfolded what she looks like. No offense, buddy, but she's a good-looking woman. Am I right?'

The man gave a surprised laugh, as if he'd forgotten that detail. With a pang, Sara recalled the autopsy she'd performed on the man's brother. What if the woman in the Escalade
was
Larry Gibson's wife?

'Guy can't help but notice a good-looking woman,' Valentine said. 'I'd guess she's around five-six in height. For weight we'll put one-twenty. License probably says one-ten, but you know how women are.' He looked up from his form, saw Sara was watching and winked at her. It wasn't a suggestive wink, more like his way of letting her know that he was just doing his job. Whatever he was doing, it was working. Larry Gibson seemed to be calming down.

Valentine asked him, 'That weight okay with you?'

Larry started to nod. 'Yeah, she's about one-twenty, I'd guess. And I remember now – last time I saw her was around two o'clock. She dropped off the kids at the movies, and when she came back, she got on the phone with her mama. I heard her say she needed to go check on her.'

'Well,' Valentine said. 'Sounds like we need to check with her mama.'

'She didn't go,' Larry countered. 'She was taking a bath, and I asked her was she going to her mama's, and she said no, that she'd told her she'd come by tomorrow.'

Valentine
tsked,
shaking his head. 'Can't make up her mind.'

'Right, that's what I said,' Larry agreed. 'And then she told me she might still go for a walk and I said maybe later because there was a game on at two-thirty and did she need me to do anything before because I wanted to watch the game.'

'Georgia–Alabama?' Valentine asked, probably to confirm the time. 'Man, that was a good game.'

'Yeah.'

'Did you hear her leave?'

'Yeah,' he repeated. 'Just before halftime I heard the door close. I figured she was going for her walk.'

'Couldn't have been the kids?'

'They were at the movies for that Halloween horror special they advertised in the paper last week.'

Valentine made a note on his sheet. 'Halftime, then. That'd put it at around four, don't you think?'

'Four. Yeah.'

Sara looked at Jeffrey, but he was intently following the interview. She wondered if he was as impressed as she was with Valentine's ability to draw out the details from the concerned husband. The sheriff certainly liked to keep his talents hidden.

'What's that you got there?' Valentine asked.

Larry put a small metal box on the desk. It was old, the cadet blue paint chipped off, showing the gray primer underneath. A rusty lock held the top closed, but Larry easily opened it. 'I wanted to show you,' he said, indicating the contents. Sara leaned forward, seeing a tarnished silver spoon with the handle bent and several unused hypodermics. Tin foil, a few cigarette filters, and a butane lighter rounded out the drug kit.

Larry turned around, as if he'd just realized that Sara and Jeffrey were standing there. He explained, 'She's been clean about six months now. I just brought this to show you' – he turned back to Valentine 'to show
you,
Jake. If she was using again, if that's why she left, then she would'a taken this. There's a pack in here.' He reached in and held up a small jeweler's bag of dirty white powder. 'There's no way she would'a left this if she was using again. You know that.'

Jeffrey asked, 'Mr. Gibson, I don't mean to interrupt, but why did you take so long to report that she was missing?'

Larry blushed, looking down at his shoes. 'I didn't want to get her into trouble. First thing I thought was she was back on the drugs. I started looking around the house, trying to see if she'd taken anything. All her clothes were still there. She'd even left her purse.' He looked at Sara when he said, 'She always took stuff when she ran off before – usually stuff she could sell. TVs, DVD player, iPod ... she never left her purse. Women don't leave their purses.'

Sara nodded, as if she could speak for the man's wife.

Larry turned back to Valentine. 'I called around, talked to her mama, her aunt Lizzie. I guess I was just waiting for her to come back home. She always came back. She didn't want to leave the kids. This drug—' He indicated the bag of dope in his hand. 'It does things to your brain. You don't think right. She didn't know what she was doing sometimes. That's all it was. She just needed to let it run its course and then she'd come back and everything would go back to normal.'

Valentine asked, 'Where's her car, Larry?'

'See, that's the other thing. Her car's still in the driveway. If she just took a walk ...' He rubbed his face with his hands. 'I called into the school and told them to get a sub, that she had the flu. I don't think Sue believed me.' He gulped, tears filling his eyes. 'It can't be her in that car on the football field, Jake. I mean, she's run off before. It can't be her. I don't know what I'd do if ...' his voice was high-pitched, pleading. 'We're gonna put Boyd in the ground tomorrow. I thought for sure she'd come back when she heard about him. Boyd had his problems, but he was taking care of himself. He helped Charlotte get through her bad times ...'

'Mind if I look at this?' Valentine asked, but he was already picking up the box.

Carefully, the sheriff emptied the contents onto his desk blotter. He used the tip of his pen to push the hypodermics to the side, then the bag of meth and other paraphernalia. Sara didn't see anything of value unless you were a cop or an addict. Valentine obviously agreed. He tapped his finger on the inside of the box, then picked up his letter opener and used the edge to pry out the plastic lining. The box was so old that it came out in pieces.

'Well,' Valentine said. 'What's this?'

Sara couldn't tell what he had found until he pulled it out – two light blue sheets of paper that had been folded in two.

Valentine scanned the documents before handing them to Jeffrey, apparently unconcerned with fingerprints. Sara read the pages over Jeffrey's shoulder, recognizing them as old applications for birth certificates. Doctors handled the applications now, but back in the seventies, parents were still allowed to fill out all the pertinent information on their own. They were given six days to decide on a name, then were expected to file the application with the birth registration office at the hospital. The registrar would verify the information, then send it to the state.

Obviously, they were looking at the applications Lena's mother had filled out for her twin girls; Angela Adams had signed her name at the bottom in a feminine cursive. Everything seemed normal to Sara until she noticed the section marked 'Father's Name.'

The woman had listed Henry 'Hank' Norton.

Lena lay flat on her belly, hidden by the grass, taking pictures of the dilapidated warehouse at the bottom of the hill. Over the last forty-eight hours, she had documented it all: the cars pulling up, the money going out the window, the dope coming back in. At night, it got downright congested. No one seemed afraid of getting caught. They kept their radios turned up, rap or country blaring from the speakers. Kids rode up on bikes. Couples strolled. One time, a sheriff's cruiser rolled by and there was a scrambling of bodies, a minuscule show of concern, but for the most part, the traffic in and out of the warehouse was pretty steady.

They might as well be printing money in there.

A white sedan pulled up and a man got out. His boots kicked up dust as he walked across the parking lot. Lena photographed every step until he went into the building, slamming the door closed behind him.

She put down the camera, checked the time and made another notation in the log.

10:15pm – CLINT arrives in white sedan. Enters building.

Lena had been lying on her back, waiting for Jeffrey to come, when she'd heard the men arguing at the end of the hallway. On the football field the night before, the man in the black ski mask had called the man with the red swastika Clint. Now, lying in the hospital bed, she instantly recognized Clint's harsh growl echoing up the hall. Black Mask wasn't too hard to peg down, either. His voice was soft, almost singsong, when he said, 'Clint, listen to me. We've got to get rid of her.' Clint had disagreed, said something about needing permission to kill a cop. In the end, nothing had been decided, though the two had gone at it for nearly ten more minutes, according to the clock radio beside her bed. Lena had lay there helpless, wrists chaffing from the restraints as she used every muscle in her body to try to break free.

Finally, the two men had walked toward the elevator, their heavy shoes scuffing the tile floor.

By then, Lena was in a full-blown sweat. What had Hank gotten himself mixed up in? These people had burned Charlotte alive. They had beaten Deacon Simms to death. It was only a matter of time before they decided that letting Lena live had been a big mistake. And who else would they take down in the process? Who else would Lena put in harm's way because of her inability to let things go?

Sara. Poor Sara. It had been absurdly easy to escape into the bathroom next to her hospital room. Clothes Lena found downstairs in the laundry, too-large tennis shoes in a nurse's locker. There was a wallet, a bunch of credit cards, but she left them, taking instead a screwdriver from a toolbox in the corner. Lena used the woods behind the hospital as a cut-through, running as fast as she could in the ill-fitting sneakers. She didn't know how much time she had other than very little.

The lock on her motel room door was easily jimmied with the screwdriver, which she tossed onto the table as she eased the door shut behind her. Lena was sweating from the run. She pulled off the scrubs and changed into her own clothes and shoes. She grabbed her cell phone and charger. Her Glock was under the bed where she had hidden it the day before. The keys to Hank's bar were on the dresser. The only time she hesitated was as she was leaving the room. Lena rushed back in before the door closed, grabbed one more thing that she needed.

She threw the scrubs and shoes into the hotel Dumpster en route to the bar. Hank's two thousand dollars was still tucked behind the cheap bottle of scotch. This time, she had no qualms about taking the money.

Another quick jog through the woods and she was back at Hank's house. The spare key to the Mercedes was on the key ring she had taken from his office. The engine cranked on the third try. An Elawah County sheriff's cruiser was making a right onto Hank's street as Lena made a left, heading in the opposite direction. She checked the clock on the dash as she put Reece in her rearview mirror. Only twenty-eight minutes had elapsed since she'd left the hospital. She was holed up in a roadside motel on the Florida side of the border by the time the sun rose in the morning.

She had fallen into bed but was too exhausted to sleep. Everything started to sink in – what she had seen, what she had done.

That was when the demons started eating her alive.

Lena stayed in bed for almost twelve hours, only getting up when nature compelled her to. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw Charlotte sitting in the back of the Escalade again, waiting for the flames to devour her. The way the woman's arms had flailed, her feet kicking the back of Lena's seat like an animal trapped in a box ... the thought of it was too much to bear.

She wanted not to
feel
anything. Wasn't that what Charlotte had said that last time they had spoken in the trailer at school? What had the woman done afterward? Probably taught her last class, then gone home to fix supper for her kids. She had kissed her husband when he got home from work. Maybe they watched a movie that night on the sofa. She would have had less than twenty-four hours left in her life by then. How had she spent them? What had Charlotte been doing that morning when the bad guys came to get her?

That was when Lena had started rereading Charlotte's letters. She had gone back into the motel for them, known that they could not be left behind. She cherished them now, these love letters that said as much about Sibyl as they did about the woman who wrote them. Charlotte had been a kind, good person. No matter what mistakes she had made in her life, she did not deserve to die in such a horrible way.

Lena should have been in the back of that car. She was the one who had made the mistakes. She was the one who deserved to be punished.

'Why didn't they kill me instead?'

That's what she had asked Jeffrey when she'd called. Lena had been so stupid to think that he would leave town. Even Sara Linton had known there was no way Jeffrey would abandon her. Hearing his voice on the phone was like a knife twisting in her gut. She had wanted to tell him everything – where she was, what had happened to Charlotte, how Hank had lied to her all these years – but she'd panicked the moment she'd heard his voice. The men who killed Charlotte could be listening in. They could somehow trace the call through the cell towers. They could kill Jeffrey for knowing too much.

They must have been watching Lena all along, following her from the minute she rolled into town. What a fool she had been. A smart person would have acted differently. A caring niece would have taken one look at her uncle and called an ambulance. A good friend would have left Charlotte Warren alone. A just person would have walked back into the fire and joined Charlotte in her violent end rather than sitting like a spectator on the sidelines.

Maybe Lena would have if the sheriff hadn't shown up. Jake Valentine. What a stupid name. He seemed to realize this, because he had ducked his head in embarrassment the first time he introduced himself, and Lena had seen something that few people had probably ever laid their eyes on: a thinning spot at the top of his head. Valentine had seen Lena notice it and had really blushed then, rubbing his hand along the spot, quickly putting his hat back on.

As if an Escalade wasn't blazing right behind him, a dead woman inside.

She hadn't talked to him, hadn't let one word cross her lips. At first, this had been because she was in shock. Lena had been sitting on the bleachers on the football field, her mind reeling, but not with the things that she would've expected. She was remembering football games, pep rallies. In school, Lena had always hung out with the bad kids and they never sat on the front row of the bleachers. They were always in the top row, hidden by the crowd so they could heckle the cheerleaders or, better yet, drop down to the ground and sneak away.

But, that night, she sat in the front row, her foot propped up on the gas can, as she watched the Escalade burn. The heat was intense, like nothing she'd ever felt before. Even sitting a hundred feet away from it, her skin prickled as if from a sunburn. Her throat hurt as if she'd swallowed acid, and when Jake Valentine had stood in front of her, trying to draw her out, she hadn't been able to make words.

'What'd he do to you?' Valentine asked, and Lena didn't know what he meant, so she just kept quiet.

He'd sat beside her on the bench, watched the car burn. 'I see you've been hit. You don't get bruised like that from falling down.'

Lena had stared at the flames, watched them dance along the roof of the car. The gas tank had exploded a while ago and though she could hear the man's voice, she couldn't quite process his words.

The sheriff said, 'Whatever he did to you, you gotta let me know. If it was self-defense—'

Lena had looked at him, her head snapping around in surprise. She opened her mouth, felt the air hit the back of her throat, the heat from the burning SUV quickly drying the saliva.

She closed her mouth and stared at the fire.

To his credit, Jake Valentine had not handcuffed her then. Lena was thankful for that at least. Ethan had liked her handcuffs, liked sneaking up on her, wrapping his hand around her mouth and scaring the shit out of her. He had loved hitting her even more, and Lena found herself considering the irony as Jake Valentine helped her into the back of one of the squad cars on scene – the sheriff thinking Lena was an abused woman who had snapped instead of a devil who brought death to everyone around her.

Jeffrey. She had to get him out of this town before he ruined everything.

Down at the abandoned warehouse, a Harley-Davidson motorcycle pulled up, the muffler popping and roaring like an angry dragon. Lena put her eye to the camera. She had turned off the digital screen because of the light and the need to save the battery. It was hard to find a place to charge things when you didn't know where you'd be spending your nights.

She cringed as lightning illuminated the night sky. From early afternoon, the air had been heavy with the threat of rain. Lena wasn't worried so much about getting drenched as being found. These were not the kind of people who took kindly to being spied on.

The Harley revved a few times, then the engine was cut. The rider was one of the few people who went into the building but didn't come out immediately with a bag of dope. Despite the bike, he didn't dress like a Hells Angel. Of course, the bike wasn't really his – it belonged to Deacon Simms. Lena recognized the Harley the moment she saw it. The rider was around Lena's age, clean-cut, his hair neatly shaved in a military style. He wore faded jeans, but a dress shirt was usually under his leather jacket. He always left his helmet on the seat of the bike. On more than one occasion, she had seen him check his reflection in the mirror mounted on the handlebars before going inside.

She'd nicknamed him Harley for the obvious reason, but she knew he had a name and that his name probably caused fear in a lot of people. There was something about the way the others steered clear of him that made her think he was a colonel rather than a foot soldier.

Harley was Lena's suspect zero, the rat who had led her back to the nest. The first thing she'd done when she got back to Reece two days ago was look for Hank. The drive from Florida had been a long one. It was the middle of the night by the time she got into town. Lena had parked the Mercedes three streets from Hank's house and made the trek on foot. She'd nearly vomited from the smell when she first walked in through the back door. Her initial thought was that Deacon Simms, still tucked up in the attic, was the source of the odor, but a quick look in the bathroom had proven otherwise. The toilet had been shattered. The house was empty. There was no sign of anything except misery and ruin.

Lena had given up then. Hank was gone. Charlotte was dead. Lena was a fugitive. Two days ago, a couple of men had argued in the hospital corridor about whether or not to kill her, and Ethan ... who knew how Ethan was involved?

Lena went outside to think. She was sitting on one of the boxes stacked on the back porch when she heard the motorcycle. The pipes must have woken up everyone on the street, but no one threw open their windows to complain. She followed the rumble as the bike came up the drive, parked in front of Hank's house. It was Deacon's bike, she knew it by sound, just like she knew there was no way Deacon was riding it.

As quietly as she could, Lena made her way toward the old Chevy in the backyard. She slid underneath, the rusted floor of the cab scraping her back as the gate creaked open.

The motion light on the side of the house tripped on. Harley blinked up at the light, clearly annoyed. Clint came behind him, closing the gate.

'He wouldn't come back here,' Clint said, nervous. 'Just let the dope do its work. He's not gonna go far off the needle.'

Harley spoke with the clipped, nasally accent of a New Englander. 'That should kill him rather too painlessly, don't you think?'

Clint was obviously nervous. 'Let's just go, man. There's nothing in the house.'

'I would love to talk to him, see what exactly he thought he might accomplish.'

'I don't think that would be a good idea.'

'I don't think you were brought into this organization to think.' Clint was much stronger than Harley, but he flinched as the younger man grabbed him by the shoulder. 'You've known Mr. Norton for a while.'

Clint shook his head, obviously seeing where this was going. 'I did my job. I did exactly what you told me to do.'

'You've had a close connection to the family over the years.'

'No, sir. That don't matter. I don't play favorites.'

'Then why is Hank Norton's niece still alive?'

'You told us not to kill any cops.' Clint spoke carefully. 'You issued a standing order.'

'And now we've got two cops to deal with: one on the run and the other rather curious as to why.'

'I'm sorry. It was my call.'

'It's good of you to accept the blame, Clint, but your lack of initiative explains your lack of progress in the organization.' Harley turned back to Hank's house. 'Let's go see if you at least did this correctly.'

'I can't be responsible if—'

Harley didn't say anything, but his expression must have spoken volumes.