Pretty Dead (29 page)

Don’t be a stranger.

He wasn’t surprised that he’d been able to trick two homicide detectives. When you were shut off, blank, it was easy to fool people, because you had no emotional response to trip you up. There was no chance that some unwelcome and fleeting reaction would flash across your face.

He’d fooled his own mother for years. The only reason she’d found out about him was because she caught him in the act of killing a neighbor child. A girl in his class. That was his first, and he’d just wanted to see what it felt like. Weird thing? His mother never told anybody, but she’d been afraid of him after that. She never yelled at him anymore, and she always fixed his favorite food. And she took his secret to her grave.

Nightingale fumbled in his bag and pulled out a folded newspaper. “I brought today’s puzzle. Have you done it yet?” he asked, handing it to Gould.

“Nope. Thanks.”

Elise’s cell phone rang. She checked the screen, then answered, frowning in concentration. “Okay, honey. I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Disconnecting, she explained. “Audrey needs a ride home from school. Something about a science project and having too much to carry.”

Nightingale had met the kid a couple of times, once at the police station and once at Elise’s house. She was like any other teenager. Disrespectful, narcissistic, and gullible. But mothers loved their brats. “I can pick her up,” he said. “It’s not much out of my way, and I’d like to tell her good-bye too.”

“You sure?” Elise asked, while at the same time looking relieved. “Jackson Sweet can’t help because he’s at the hospital getting another round of chemo.”

Nightingale smiled the kind of warm smile he’d practiced so many times in front of the mirror, a smile that was meant to look genuine and heartfelt and reassuring and innocent. All of those things. “No problem.”

Elise sent a text to Audrey, letting her know Jay Thomas Paul would pick her up. Then Elise told Nightingale the address, even though he already knew it. At one point he’d considered killing Audrey, but the times he’d swung past the high school to try to pick her up, Jackson Sweet had been there. And Jackson Sweet was somebody Nightingale didn’t want to mess with.

But now the old man was out of the picture. It was really something how things worked out.

With care, Nightingale chose the last words he planned to speak to Elise Sandburg: “What a relief to know Audrey is safe.”

And now he would deliver what the detective feared the most.

CHAPTER 48

T
wenty minutes after Jay Thomas Paul left, Elise leaned a hip against her desk and set her coffee cup aside. “I should feel relieved,” she said. The killer that had held the city in a grip of terror was in jail. And today was a day for taking it easy, for catching their breath, even as they dove back into cases they’d put aside during the murder investigations.

“It’s hard to shut down after the adrenaline rush of the past weeks.” His feet crossed on his desk, David pulled a pen from behind his ear and filled in a line of squares in the crossword puzzle resting on his thigh.

“That’s probably it.” Elise settled into her chair and slid a stack of case files toward her. Back to the grind.

“I’m glad you didn’t move into Hoffman’s office,” David said without looking up from the paper.

“I don’t want the position, and the mayor is interviewing new people right now.” She opened the top file: a cold case, one of many. As she shuffled through the papers, something changed. The air in the room suddenly felt hollow, like a storm was coming, still and silent.

The sun hadn’t stopped shining. No stars fell from the sky. But suddenly the unease she’d felt all day morphed into a fear of unknown origin. And she knew, in her heart of hearts, that something was wrong. Yet the warning bell didn’t come from a place within her, and it didn’t come from a place beyond the brick walls of the police station. It came from nearby.

From David.

With a jerky movement, she looked up from the paper-clipped photo of a smiling girl. Her gaze tracked slowly to David, where he sat frozen, unmoving, staring at the crossword on his leg. Not an unusual thing, and not so different from a minute ago, yet at the same time everything had changed.

Everything.

It was odd to feel such a powerful emotion, an emotion that was completely true and valid, and yet to have no knowledge of its cause. But in that moment Elise felt her world tilt.

“David?” Her voice trembled while the peculiar and unnamed fear continued to blossom.

Without taking his eyes from the paper, he lifted a finger in the air, telling her to wait. And odder, he continued with the puzzle, rapidly filling in squares, reading some of the clues aloud for her input. They were easy; they must have been easy, because she figured them out even as her heart pounded and the back of her neck felt as if a cool breeze were blowing across it, though no windows were open and no fans stirred the air.

Clues like:

Michelangelo’s what?
David.

M*A*S*H
actor.
Gould.

Opposite of always.
Never.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Please stop the clock. Please turn it back five minutes. Better yet, rationalize this moment. Scoff at this moment. Look at me and smile.
David and his obsession with the crossword puzzle, trying to say it was aimed at him. Silly, silly stuff.

His feet dropped to the floor. He leaned forward, placed the paper on his desk, and began drawing circles around words. Elise told herself to get up, to step close to see what he was doing, but she couldn’t move. She was afraid to find out.

David tossed down his pen and turned the folded paper around. His name was outlined in black ink. And there were other words outlined as well. Put them together and they said:
You’ll never catch me, David Gould.

Elise’s phone rang. She picked it up automatically. “Detective Sandburg.”

“This is Stella Edwards from the
New York Times
personnel office. You contacted me several days ago asking about one of our employees.”

“I appreciate the call, but Jay Thomas Paul left town today, so my request is no longer a priority.”

“That’s odd, because after doing some digging, I discovered Jay Thomas Paul died several years ago.”

The darkness gripping Elise intensified. “I thought you said he was on leave.”

“The records were incorrect. It’s very possible someone tampered with them since it appears we don’t even have an accurate photo on file. An expert is looking into it right now.”

“Thank you,” Elise said woodenly.

She finally and truly understood the fear that had dogged her for so long. Fear of losing Audrey.

She didn’t remember hanging up, but she must have, because there was the phone back in the cradle.

It was David’s turn to question and wonder what was going on.

“You were right,” Elise said. From the very beginning, back when Lamont came up with his profile and David shot it down.

David swung her around so she was facing him, his hands on the arms of her chair. “What are you talking about?”

He didn’t know. He knew they had the wrong guy, but he didn’t know the rest. “Jay Thomas Paul is the killer,” she said.

Seconds passed. “I don’t get it. Tyrell King supplied us with a positive ID,” David said. “The rope and the knife used on Jay Thomas matched the Savannah Killer murders.” Still trying to figure it all out.

“For some reason King lied,” Elise said. “But he wasn’t the only liar.” He wasn’t the biggest liar.

She watched as the full meaning of her words sank in. She could track David’s thought process, from the bafflement and disbelief at learning the true identity of the person who’d committed such horrendous crimes—a person who’d worked beside them—to the real story here.

The story of Elise and Audrey.

And when he got it, she saw the recoil, saw the reminder of his own loss, along with the anger. And the sympathy. That might have been the hardest to process, because the depth of his sympathy meant he was already thinking the worst.

Too many times she’d told a mother her child was dead. Too many times she’d watched the recipient of that news dissolve before her eyes. They usually collapsed. And then came the loud sobs of denial as arms were lifted to the sky.

Inside, Elise did all of those things. Inside, she was a mother crumbling into a million terrified pieces.

David pushed himself upright and took a few faltering steps away from her.

“You’ve already written her obituary,” Elise said.

He spun back around, his face registering sudden awareness of his own behavior, followed by the correcting, the masking. “I’m sorry.”

“You can’t fall apart right now. I need you. Audrey needs you.”

He passed a trembling hand across his forehead. “Okay, first thing. Call Audrey. Then call the school.”

Shaking, Elise pulled out her phone and made the call. It went straight to voice mail. Not unusual. If Audrey was still in the school building, her phone would have been silenced or put in airplane mode. She left a voice mail, warning Audrey about Jay Thomas and telling her not to get in the car with him.

Next to her, David placed a call to Avery, quickly filling him in and instructing him to organize a team to move once David gave the order. “And somebody bring in Tyrell King for questioning. Find out why that son of a bitch lied about Charles Almena.”

Elise opened their supply locker and pulled out two bulletproof vests and two boxes of shells, one for her Glock and one for David’s Smith & Wesson. In less than a minute they were heading for the emergency stairs.

CHAPTER 49

A
udrey waited at her school’s south entrance where Jay Thomas Paul was supposed to pick her up. Beside her on the ground was a large piece of folded cardboard, and in her arms were the two boxes of supplies for the terrarium she had to put together over the weekend.

She’d met Jay Thomas a couple of times, once at the police department and once when he’d stopped by their house for a photo shoot for the article he was writing about her mom and David. He’d made her feel shy and awkward. She’d thought he was cute, which was really creepy since he was probably as old as her dad.

She didn’t know what his car looked like, so she was glad to see him striding up the wide sidewalk toward her, a friendly smile on his face. Jeans, his vest with all the pockets, and a light blue T-shirt.

Maybe it was his curly hair. She really liked guys with curly hair.

“Hey, Audrey! How’s it going?”

“Thanks for picking me up.”

“No big deal. This yours?” He indicated the giant piece of cardboard she’d cut from a refrigerator box.

She made a face. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad I got a chance to see you before I head out.” He took the boxes from Audrey. “I’ll get these; you get the cardboard.”

“You’re leaving?”

“Yep. I’ll sure miss Savannah.”

“Think you’ll ever visit again?” she asked as they fell into step and moved toward a big gray car.

“Hard to say.”

“Mom liked having you around.” Kind of a lie, but not a complete lie. What she’d actually said was something about getting used to him always lurking behind her.

Jay Thomas hit the “Trunk Release” button on the key fob and paused to look at her. “That’s really nice of you to say.”

She shrugged, feeling a fresh rush of bashfulness now that he was standing so close.

He dropped the boxes inside the trunk. The cardboard wouldn’t fit, so Audrey shoved things around, trying to make room and accidentally knocking over a paper bag. The contents spilled.

Silver duct tape, rope, and a knife.

She stared.

“Just call me a Boy Scout,” Jay Thomas said with a “ho-ho-ho, silly me” tone. “Duct tape fixes everything, right? Have you seen those billfolds made of duct tape? They’re pretty cool.”

Audrey’s shoulders relaxed. “I tried to make one myself, but it was a disaster. It stuck to everything.”

Jay Thomas laughed and shut the trunk. “Hop in.”

Moving in unison, they circled opposite sides of the car, opened the doors, and got in, Jay Thomas behind the wheel and Audrey in the passenger seat, her floral print skirt fanning out over her legs.

There was so much room.

“Hook your seat belt,” he said as he turned the key and started the car.

She hooked her seat belt.

He put the car in gear, and they chugged away from the curb.

Audrey kept thinking about the duct tape.

That was crazy. Jay Thomas was a nice guy. And her mother had sent him to pick her up. Her mother knew all about bad guys.

“What’s your project?” Jay Thomas asked.

“Terrariums and sealed ecosystems.”

“I love that kind of thing.”

“It was either that or steam engines.”

“I think you made the right choice.”

He took a wrong turn, followed by another wrong turn.

“Do you know how to get to my house from here?” Audrey asked.

“I thought I’d take a more scenic route since I’m leaving town soon.”

Except he really wasn’t taking a scenic route. “I should get right home.”

“It’ll only take a little bit longer.”

Her mother had lectured her on the importance of listening to your gut.

Even when everything seems okay on the surface
, Elise told her,
pay attention if deep down you feel that something isn’t right. And if something isn’t right, exit. Remove yourself from the situation. If you’re wrong, no big deal. Being embarrassed is better than being dead
.

Audrey could have tested him by asking him to pull over. She could have tested him by telling him she was sick and she needed to get out and throw up. But her instinct also told her not to give him any warning.

He slowed the car for a turn.

With her left hand she pushed the release on her seat belt. With her right, she opened the door and dove out. The car was moving faster than she thought, and she hit the ground hard, her bare legs sliding across the pavement.