Virtue Falls (56 page)

“Why did you care?”

“I’m
the smart one.
I’m
in charge.”

Surprise! He was a control freak. “For the keys to the facility, you attacked Yvonne in the parking lot. But you did it the night before you arrived. How?”

“You are so astute, Elizabeth.” Bradley seemed almost to admire her.

She thought he probably did. If he defeated an intelligent opponent, in his own mind, he was even grander and more important.

This man lived to be important.

He said, “I met a man in Portland at one of my art shows. He bragged about the small, unlicensed helicopter he had built for himself. He bragged that he could fly it low, under the radar, and never got caught. He told me that for one of my paintings, I could rent it. So I did. I rented it, and him, and flew here. The stupid thing leaked fuel all the way here, and all the way back.” Bradley wrinkled his nose as he remembered the stench.

“Yes. Yvonne said her attacker smelled like fuel.”

“Did she? Good thing I killed her, then.”

“God, yes … but the pilot knows about you?” Which would be too much to hope for …

And was, for Bradley said, “Don’t be ridiculous. He knew too much, and I had to kill him.”

He made murder sound so simple, so logical.

Keep him talking. Keep him talking.
“What does your wife say?”

“My wife? Who? Oh … Vivian?” He fingered the tip of his scissors. “Vivian says nothing.”

Elizabeth didn’t like his tone, his little smile. “What do you mean?”

“Do you remember the legend of Blackbeard’s wives? He married many, and one by one they disappeared. Finally he married a smart woman. He gave her the household keys, and told her she could go into any room in his mansion, except one. She couldn’t resist. She unlocked that door, and found the heads of all his other wives hanging there, their faces frozen forever in the death grimace.”

The story made Elizabeth’s skin crawl. “Vivian discovered your stash of … heads?”

“Not quite. She broke into the back room of my studio, and saw my souvenirs and my paintings.” He laughed a little. “It was so interesting to catch her in there, to coax her into confessing. All these years, I thought she was nothing but a fool, a tool, someone for me to use. But she knew what I was. She knew what I was doing.”

“So you killed your wife? Because she knew that you’d killed my mother?”

With deceptive simplicity, he said, “Vivian knew that I killed them all.”

Elizabeth froze, held her breath until she was faint, felt the fear spread from her gut to her cool, numb fingertips.

“The women. The blondes. The mothers.” Those weird blue eyes blazed with evil delight.

He was admitting to everything. Everything Garik had told her. Everything she had feared.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. She had to remain conscious. She had to be smart. She had to survive. She pretended not to know. “You’ve been killing blond mothers?”

“And their children.”

“You’ve been killing
me.
” Garik had told her. She knew the truth. But she hadn’t understood. Not until now, when she could see Bradley’s pleasure, and his determination.

With chilling precision, he said, “That day, twenty-three years ago, I left you alive. I have never made the same mistake again.”

“The children. You’re killing … little children?” Tears leaked from the corners of Elizabeth’s eyes. Tears of grief. Tears of fear. “Because … because you didn’t kill me?”

“You saw me. You saw me when I was talking to your mother, kissing her, seducing her.” His lips curled back from his teeth. “Wretched little girl, always there at the worst times. Misty finally,
finally
took you to play group twice a week so we could make love, and so I could paint her. Then, that day, when she was telling me it was over, I saw you peeking around the corner. You wretched, nosy kid…”

“I did see you kill my mother.” The knowledge made her stagger. She had actually seen him kill her mother. Yet still … she didn’t remember.

She looked at the watercolor. This fragment of memory was all she had.

“Yes. But in the heat of action, I forgot about you. Because I had to kill her, because I grieved at what I had to do.” As if a tear would make his viciousness acceptable, Bradley cried a single, real tear. Then in a prosaic tone, he added, “Because I had to get rid of her body first.”

Elizabeth could see the moment in her mind. “When you came back to get me, it was too late. Daddy had already found me. The police were already here. It was too late.”

“It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She was dead. Misty was dead. My muse … was dead.” Now real grief twisted Bradley’s face.

“You’re missing the point. You
murdered
her.”

“I did what I had to do!”

“You killed my mother … and your paintings were never the same.” Elizabeth allowed the watercolor to drop.

As if he couldn’t take his gaze away, he watched it flutter to the floor.

She slid her hand into her bag and brought out her knife.

In a mournful tone, he said, “After all this is over, never again will I perform work worthy of my genius.”

“Oh, how you mourn your genius.” She allowed her sarcasm to overflow.

He yanked his gaze up to hers.

“You killed my mother for your paintings. You killed blond women because they remind you of my mother. You killed children because”—in a burst of fury, Elizabeth yelled—“you’re a fucking coward who destroys people who are smaller and weaker than you.”

Bradley shook as if an earthquake rattled him from the inside out. Those blue eyes grew blindly manic. Lifting the scissors, he rushed at her fast and hard.

She swung aside, slammed her bag into his throat, and thrust her knife into his belly.

“Bitch!” Bradley shouted.

She dropped her bag, left her knife in his gut, and ran.

CHAPTER EIGHTY-NINE

Moving fast, Elizabeth rounded the corner into the living room—and Bradley tackled her from behind. She screamed as she went down, then hit flat and hard on the bare chipboard floor.

Her lips split. Her breath slammed out of her lungs.

He landed on top of her.

She put her hands down to push herself up.

His hand slashed down over top of hers.

Agony.

A pair of scissors pinned her to the floor. His pair of scissors … through her palm.

Blood rose from the wound. Blood pooled on the floor.

She couldn’t believe—this was wrong. Impossible. Her nightmares come to life. She was helpless against the man who had slaughtered her mother.

She screamed and scrambled to reach for the handles.

He slammed her to the floor again, his knee against her back. He grabbed her jaw, twisted it around until he wrenched her neck, until she could see him out of the corners of her eyes. Said, “I’ve been waiting for twenty-three years to do this.”

No. He would not kill her. She wouldn’t allow it.

He yanked the scissors out of her hand.

Agony
. She screamed again.

He repeated the words he’d said to her once before, “Let’s cut off your pretty hair. We don’t want to get blood in it.”

She felt a snip close to her ear. Blond strands drifted to the floor.

He placed the points of the scissors against her eye.

And with her bloody hand, she reached behind her, grabbed his hair, and slammed his head forward and her head back.

She felt it; his face broke against her skull.

Now
he
screamed.

Driven by pain, by desperation, she bucked like a wild horse, throwing him off. She flipped over, and smacked the side of his head, over his ear, with her flat of her palm, driving air into his ear canal.

For one moment, his face went slack. He fell backward.

She rolled, got halfway to her feet.

He kicked her leg out from underneath her.

She caught a glimpse of his bloody face, of his eyes, insane with fury.

Insane. Yes. And livid.

Then, from the side, she heard a roar.

A male body crashed into Bradley, knocking him away and tumbling him across the room.

*   *   *

Elizabeth caught a glimpse of Garik as he slammed Bradley against the wall. Garik punched him, fast and hard, in the face, the chest, the belly.

But hurt as he was, Bradley still fought.

Insane.

His insanity gave him strength and cunning—and he still held the scissors. He knew Garik’s weakness, the ribs still unhealed, and he dodged and slashed, going for Garik’s side again and again.

Every time he did, Garik fell back, gasping.

Every time Garik faltered, he returned to fight again.

Never taking her gaze from the two men, she tried to stand.

Her knee collapsed.

She crawled her way to the wall, used it to support herself as she inched to her feet. She was bleeding. From her hand, from her face. Blood slid down the back of her neck.

She looked around, found a two-by-four torn from a boarded-up window. Picking it up was torment. Lifting it over her head, she turned—in time to see Bradley rush Garik. Like a bullfighter, Garik stepped aside, gave him a push, and slammed him into the wall.

The scissors clanged to the floor.

Bradley crumpled, unconscious.

Elizabeth dropped the two-by-four. She slid to her knees in relief.

Garik checked Bradley for a pulse. “He’s still alive. Damn it.” He stood over him, fists clenched, jaw clenched, expression tight with wrath and frustration. “I ought to finish the job.”

“No. You can’t. You really can’t.” Elizabeth started crying—from pain, from relief, from a frantic worry that would not ease as long as Bradley Hoff breathed free. “If you do that, you’d never work for the FBI again.”

“I don’t care about that. That’s over, anyway. And someone’s got to kill him. He’s evil, and he deserves to die.” With his foot, Garik pushed at Bradley’s limp body. He sighed in disgust, and turned away. Coming to Elizabeth, he knelt in front of her, and took her in his arms. “But you’re right. I can’t do it. No matter what kind of garbage he is, I can’t kill an unconscious man.”

Elizabeth cried on Garik’s chest.

He murmured softly to her as he dug out his phone. “I’m calling nine-one-one and telling them to send an ambulance. You’ve got blood all over you.”

“You’re bleeding, too.”

“He opened some of the stitches. What did he do to you?” Lifting her chin, he looked at her face. “You must have hit your face, and that looks painful. But where is the blood coming from?”

She held up her mutilated hand.

He took it in his. His horror was palpable. “This is … my God, Elizabeth. This is barbaric. I
can
kill him, because he so deserves to die.” Garik half-turned toward Bradley’s body.

But the body was gone.

Bradley was on his feet, bloody, vicious, the two-by-four clutched in his hand, his malicious gaze fixed on Garik.

Elizabeth yelled a warning.

Garik lifted his arm barely in time.

Bradley swung the two-by-four.

Garik took the blow on his forearm and forehead.

Elizabeth heard bone crack. “Garik!”

Garik fell to the floor, unconscious.

She lunged for him. Dead? Was Garik dead?

Bradley grabbed her hair in his fist and forced her to the floor.

She screamed in pain and panic.

He dragged her across the splintered boards to the scissors. He picked them up. Through blood and gore and malice, he smiled.

He thought he had won.

But she now understood him all too well. She knew what he feared.

Grabbing his wrist, she held it, fighting to control him. “Look around you,” she said. “Do you see the blood? Some of it is yours. Some of it is mine. Some of it is Garik’s. But
you
caused it all. You’re bruised. You’re broken. You’ve had a knife in your belly. DNA tests will ID you. Your fingerprints will ID you. And everyone will know. You’re caught. You’re dead. Even if you kill Garik, even if you kill me, even if you get rid of our bodies, they’ll catch you. They’ll put you in prison. They’ll fry you.”

Bradley looked. He saw. “I can get away.”

“No. You’re caught in your own trap.”

She saw the knowledge dawn in his eyes—the knowledge that she was right. Finally, at last, he would face justice.

For one moment, hope burned in her heart.

Then he put his scissors to her face. “I don’t care. Ever since I killed Misty, ever since I realized I had left a witness, I’ve been planning how I would cut out your eyes. How here, in this place, I would finish what I started. Now, at last, my dreams will come true. Misty was my first kill … and you will be my last.
Perfect
.”

Wild with terror, she fought him.

The scissors came closer. Closer.

His wrist flexed against her palm.

The scissors touched the corner of her eye.

She couldn’t look away from him, from that madness that twisted his face.

The last thing she would ever see …

Suddenly … he jerked as if something had hit him. His eyes grew wide and astonished. His mouth dropped open … and blood trickled out.

What…? How…?

She looked beyond him, over his shoulder.

Her father stood behind Bradley.

She looked back at Bradley.

The point of her knife protruded from his throat.

Charles twisted the blade. Yanked it free. Grabbing Bradley by the shoulder, he threw him away from her.

Bradley staggered, his knees weak. He turned and stared at Charles without comprehension. His lips moved, but Elizabeth heard only a horrible gurgling. He fell to his knees.

Her father kicked his chest.

Bradley collapsed backward, his legs at awkward angles, his hands flopping.

Coolly, deliberately, Charles knelt on him, knee on his chest, and plunged the knife into Bradley’s heart.

When Bradley’s twitching stopped and his eyes went cold and blank, Charles looked out the broken window at the sky. “There, Misty,” he said, “I did what I promised. I saved our daughter. I saved Elizabeth.”