Finding Claire Fletcher (44 page)

I put it back in its case, marveling at how Carolyn had arranged for a brand new Glock to be purchased, packaged, and delivered to a location she specified in a matter of hours from several states away.

All that power did not prevent her soul from shrinking to a small, lifeless kernel.

Which of us had truly survived Reynard?

I started the car and hesitated. There was an acute ache inside me as I thought of Connor sleeping peacefully in the hotel room, trusting that I would keep my end of our bargain. I was suddenly glad I'd asked him to hold me last night. After today, I might never see him again, and even if I did, there was little chance he'd speak to me once I'd betrayed his trust. The prospect of losing Connor in my newfound life hurt far worse than I could have imagined. I had to put it away for now. There was time for pain and regret later, when I had privacy and quiet to listen to the wretched keening of my soul. For now, my focus was on finding Reynard.

It took Connor a half hour to track down the local mechanic who had knocked on his and Claire's hotel room that morning. After speaking with several hotel employees who had seen the mechanic leave with Claire, Connor eventually learned that the day manager had given the man Claire’s room number after speaking with the night manager by phone, who had had breakfast with the mechanic at a local diner. A waitress at the diner directed Connor to the mechanic’s shop. Every person Connor spoke to in his pursuit of Claire shrank from him. He hadn't bothered to shower or shave. He knew he looked and probably smelled frightful. When he woke that morning to find Claire gone, her scent lingering on his clothes, he had felt as frightened as everyone he talked to appeared.

In spite of his fear and exhaustion, Connor's mind still reeled with the memory of holding Claire in his arms the night before. It seemed like a dream, particularly the part where she asked him to hold her. He felt as though he had waited an eternity for the smallest signal from her that she was becoming more comfortable with him. He wanted to touch her all the time. The effort of resisting his impulses had worn him out.

He hadn't had time to think about any of that in the last three months, and now he had even less time to examine his feelings for Claire or her response to him. Again, Reynard Johnson stood between them. The instant the mechanic told him what he had told Claire, Connor knew what she was going to do.

His gut clenched. Connor's body gave way a little as the realization, accompanied by an image of Claire in prison for first-degree murder, hit him. The mechanic must have sensed Connor's anxiety. He offered Connor his tow truck, and Connor accepted.

Connor checked the magazine in his Glock before he started the truck. The mechanic stood just outside the driver's side door, staring in bewilderment. Connor looked the man in the eye.

“There's one more thing,” Connor said.

The mechanic nodded dumbly.

“I need twenty minutes. Wait twenty minutes. Then call your police chief and tell him what's going on. Tell him to call the FBI.”

The cabin was small, set back on an incline from the narrow mountain road. A gravel driveway led to its front. The cabin itself was partially obstructed by foliage. The afternoon sunlight dappled the trees and weaved random designs on the outer walls of the cabin. I approached it on a diagonal line, threading my way through the trees and brush, remembering the stealth I acquired from all those nights I had snuck away from the trailer when Reynard wasn’t home. I circled to the rear of the cabin, drawing the Glock once I was close enough to touch its walls. There was a momentary tremor in my hands. I had driven past the driveway and parked the rental car a half mile up the road. I used the short walk to calm my rapid breathing and shut out the booming pulse of my heartbeat, which exploded in my ears.

Moving slowly, I rounded the side of the cabin. The windows were covered with curtains. I paused and listened, straining to hear the smallest sound. There was nothing but the birds calling back and forth to each other above me. A truck was parked haphazardly in front of the cabin. It was old and dilapidated with California plates, much like the one I had crashed into a police cruiser in front of Connor’s home three months earlier.

The windows in the front were open, dark screens making it impossible for me to peek in without pressing my face against them. Silently, I climbed the steps. Again, I listened but heard no sounds from within the cabin. No television, no movement, rustles, or ambient noise. Sweat beaded along my upper lip. I took one hand from the Glock and delicately turned the doorknob. It was unlocked. I pushed it open and stepped into the darkness, my index finger serene against the trigger.

He looked genuinely stunned to see me. The cabin was sparsely but rustically furnished. Compared to the places Reynard had made Tiffany and I live in, it was luxurious. The air inside was still. I surprised him in the dimly lit living room. The Glock was rock steady in my hands, and my voice was strident.

“Where is she, you son of a bitch?”

He froze when he saw the gun, his body in a half turn. Slowly, he turned to face me, exposing his center mass. I almost smiled. Somewhere in a far off recess of my consciousness, I was astonished by the impenetrable calm that possessed my body, my voice, the gun in my hand.

He said, “Lynn.”

“Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare. My name is Claire.”

He dropped his gaze to the floor momentarily. “I knew you would come.”

“Where is Emily Hartman?”

He waved a hand toward the doorway to what was obviously a small kitchen where Tiffany now stood, silent and immobile, watching us with disinterest. “I tried to replace you,” Johnson said. “I should have known that you—you were special. You always demanded more from me. You were my first.”

His voice was soft, almost effeminate. His eyes shown with adoration that made me want to shoot him right then, before finding out what he had done with the girl.

“I wasn’t your first. Not even close.”

He extended his hands toward me, palms up, a strange little smile on his face. “But you
were
my first. You were the first to stay. Don’t you see? You were so special. That’s why I could never bring myself to kill you. I was right—here you are. You came back.”

Rage burned in my stomach. “Shut up. Shut up. You're sick. Delusional. What is the matter with you? You kidnapped me. You took me away from my family. You raped me and tortured me. You threatened my family. I hate you. I have always hated you. You make me sick.”

He shook his head as if to indicate what I was saying was just plain silly. I wished I was close enough to spit on him. “Where is Emily? I know you took her. Where is she?”

Tiffany left the kitchen doorway, but I was unconcerned with her. I knew from my final escape from the trailer that she was ineffectual. Against a bigger, more fearsome opponent she would not put up a fight.

Johnson sighed. “I wish we could talk about this, Lynn.”

The rage boiled inside me, heating my skin until sweat broke out all over my body. “Fuck you. We're done talking—you're done talking. I only want to hear one thing from you, and after that, I'm putting a bullet in your head. Where is the girl?”

He hesitated. Then he opened his mouth to speak.

The sound of tires rolling over gravel outside stopped him.

Connor drove the truck full speed up the narrow gravel drive, nearly taking out the entire cabin before he stopped. The front tires of the truck bounced against the front steps as he braked. His body slammed forward into the steering wheel. He snatched his gun from the passenger's seat and leapt out of the truck.

He had forgotten about his injured leg, and it buckled when his feet hit ground. He held onto the truck door to keep his balance. He racked a round into the Glock’s chamber and limped to the cabin door. He didn't hear anything, and he didn't know whether to be more or less afraid of what he would find inside. He raised the pistol in front of him and nudged the door open with his foot. It creaked loudly as it cleared the doorframe. Connor stepped inside and aimed for center mass.

“Claire, put the gun down.”

She didn't respond. Her eyes and her weapon were locked on Reynard Johnson, who looked from her to Connor with an amused smile. Connor wished he were in a position to smack the smile right off Johnson's face.

“Claire,” he said again.

She didn't look at Connor, but she said, “I'm sorry. I tried to keep you out of this.”

Connor held his gun on her. “Don't do this, Claire.”

She clenched and unclenched her hand around the handle of the gun. “He deserves to die,” she said firmly.

“Not like this.”

She took a step forward but didn't lower her weapon. “You're right,” she said. “He deserves a slow, torturous death.”

“Claire, please.”

“This is between me and him,” she said.

Connor cleared his throat, keeping Johnson in the periphery of his field of vision. “You're not the only one. There are other victims.”

“And they'll thank me for killing him.”

“
I can't let you do this, Claire.”

“I thought you believed in justice.”

Connor's face burned. The image of the rapist bleeding out came to him unbidden. He tried to shake it out of his head. “This isn't justice,” he croaked.

“Isn’t it?”

“Because if you do this, I lose you. I’ll lose you for good. You'll either die from the bullet wound or you'll go to prison for murder. Either way this piece of shit comes out on top—again.”

She said nothing. A single tear slid down her cheek.

“Lynn,” Johnson said softly.

“Shut the fuck up,” Connor said roughly. His throat felt thick. His hands itched. The muscles in his shoulders cramped. “Claire, please don't make me shoot you. Please.”

She shook her head, gaze still squarely on Johnson. “When does it end? What happens? You arrest him and then we wait months, years for a trial. He could escape or worse, get acquitted.”

“There are a lot of charges against him. He's not going anywhere. But he's the one who should go to prison, not you. Put the gun down. You don’t want to spend the rest of your life in prison for someone who isn't worth spitting on. You have your family, Claire. They love you. They're waiting for you to come home to them—for good.”

The tone of Johnson's voice was sulky. “I'm your family, Lynn,” he said as if Connor were not even in the room, as if Claire wasn’t aiming a pistol directly at his skull.

“Shut up,” Claire commanded. Then to Connor, “My family. Look what he's done to us—to so many families. He deserves to die.”

Connor kept his voice quiet but firm. “Killing him is not going to take it away, Claire.”

Briefly, he saw her shoulders quiver. He continued, “I know you wish you could forget everything he did. I wish I could take it away from you, but I can't. I know you feel guilty for not escaping earlier, but killing this piece of shit is not going to take any of that away.”

Another tear crept down her cheek. “Then what?” she asked, voice thick with unshed tears. “How do I make it go away?” She kept her gun raised and aimed at Johnson but squeezed her eyes shut. “I can't live like this,” she sobbed. “I just want it all to go away.”

Connor lowered his gun slightly and took another painful step toward Claire. “I don't know that it will ever
go away
,” he said softly. “I do know that killing him is not going to help you with those things. You have to make new memories, happy memories—with your family. They're waiting for you.” He paused. She lowered her pistol slightly, eyes still tightly closed. He wished he could see her eyes. “I'm waiting for you,” he said.

“Lynn,” Johnson interjected, voice tinged with desperation. “Don't go with him.”

Claire's eyes popped open. Connor looked at Johnson to tell him once more to shut up, but the flash of a knife just behind Johnson caught Connor's eye. An earsplitting howl reverberated throughout the cabin. Johnson stumbled forward. Blood appeared on the front of his white shirt, spreading outward in a large blotch.

A thin wisp of a girl with lank brown hair stood behind Johnson. Her eyes were huge and black with fury. She seemed to be animated by some otherworldly force as she withdrew the knife from Johnson's back and stabbed again.

“You bastard,” she screamed.

It happened so fast. Within seconds, Tiffany had stabbed Johnson in the back three times. Blood splattered back onto her. Fat beaded drops landed in her hair, on her face. Blood streaked her arms. Reynard fell and rolled onto his back. At least one of the wounds had gone clear through to his front. His shirt was already completely stained.

Tiffany straddled him, her thin hips rocking back and forth over his in a macabre motion as she stabbed again and again with piston like movements. Her howls had receded to grunts. I heard fragments of speech. “Lynn, Lynn, Lynn. That's all you care about is her. You never cared about me. I hate you.”