A Killer in the Wind (43 page)
I started to answer but then I didn’t, not right away. Because I realized my answer wasn’t her answer. I realized, even as I was starting to speak, that what had happened in that house tonight was a shock to her. But for me . . . Well, in some ways, it was the work I was born for.
“You’ll learn to deal with it,” I said finally. “It’s not like you got drunk and ran over a kid in a crosswalk. You snuffed out a monster. You owed it to her and she had it coming. You can live with that, Samantha.”
“Right.” She sighed. “Right. I guess it just goes to show, doesn’t it? All this time I’ve been trying to . . . process my anger. Learn to forgive. Learn to let go of the past. But to just put a bullet in the monster’s head—I never even thought of that.”
“It’s quicker. Cheaper too.”
“Mental health through assassination.”
“Exactly.”
I glanced over to see her smiling wryly. I felt a pang of—something . . . Loss, that’s it. A pang of loss. I found myself thinking about the little girl I used to know, the girl Samantha who built castles in the orphanage sand and told me stories about the knights and princesses who lived there . . . I wondered what that little girl would have turned into if there had been no Fat Woman, no foster fathers and all the rest. I wished I knew. I missed that girl. I missed—not just the child Samantha . . . but also the other Samantha, the one I saw in my hallucination, the Samantha she would have grown up to be. I liked this woman sitting beside me. She was tougher than she thought she was and righteous in anger and sort of funny too, though I could still see the gentleness and generosity she hid away under that. I liked her a lot.
But I missed Samantha, the woman I would have loved.
We came into Greensward in the hours before dawn. I drove down State Street. It was empty—silent except for the buzz of the streetlights and the clunk and hum of the changing traffic lights. But there were no cars, no shops open except one diner at the edge of town. Everything seemed in suspension, hung between the end of one day and the beginning of the next.
I drove by the public lot to see if my G8 was still there. It was, though there were several parking tickets stuck under the windshield wipers.
“I’m going to leave this car with you and send the girl who owns it to come get it,” I told Samantha.
“Nice,” she said. “I’d like to meet her. We can compare notes about you.”
“Good luck with that.”
I drove her home. She didn’t have her keys anymore and I didn’t want to wake up the landlord, so I picked the lock while the security camera watched me. We walked up the stairs to her apartment. I picked the lock up there too. We went inside and stood together in the litter of bedding and papers and utensils strewn around the floor.
“Look at this,” she said, turning in a circle to survey the wreckage. “They really ransacked the place.”
“They didn’t know where to look,” I said.
She smiled. “But you did.”
We both glanced down at the wainscoting that covered her hiding place, the place where I’d found her papers. She didn’t say anything and neither did I. But I’m pretty sure we were both thinking about Alexander.
I stayed with her for what was left of the night. We slept in each other’s arms, wrapped up together like two lost children. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, I saw her face first thing—that beautiful face, close to mine. My heart tightened at the thought of leaving her, and at the thought of everything that had happened to us.
In the next moment, she opened her eyes too. She saw me watching her and smiled.
“I could stay,” I whispered. “We could . . .”
“Ssh.” She put her finger against my lips.
We made love to each other for the last time.
Later, we stood in the doorway. I held her against me. I kissed her hair.
“You’re never alone from now on,” I murmured to her. “Remember that.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I mean it. I’ll let you know how to get in touch with me, soon as I can. You’ll always be able to reach me. I’ll always come.”
“Danny!”
“Anything happens, anything frightens you, anyone hurts you, you call me, I’ll make it stop.”
She nodded, her head pressed against my chest.
“You go out with some guy and he’s a son of a bitch, don’t call your psychiatrist, call me.”
She laughed.
It wasn’t easy to let her go, but I did it. I took one final look at her face, letting my eyes linger a while on every feature. Then I turned away.
I walked down the short hall to the stairs. Just as I reached them, she said behind me, “Don’t be a stranger, Danny.”
I raised my hand in good-bye. I went down the stairs. Out the door. Into the morning.
I got in my car and headed for the interstate. I got on the interstate and headed for New York. I drove east at an easy pace, into the rising sun.
I had to go see Monahan. I had to tell him that his family was safe, that they could return to their lives. I had to talk to Bethany too. Tell her where her car was. Tell her that things were going to be different now. More than that. I had to tell her something like good-bye.
The miles passed. At the hour, I turned on the car radio. I listened to the news. The networks had the story about the fire in the New York woods and the bodies that had been discovered there. “Suspected criminals,” the newsman said. “The murderous result of a criminal enterprise, according to the police.”
Right,
I thought. I turned the radio off. A criminal enterprise. Public service murders. No one would ever know the truth.
Except Monahan, that is. Because finally, when his family was resettled, when Bethany was gone, I would sit down alone with Monahan and tell him the whole story from the beginning.
And then, when I was done telling it, I would give him the Fat Woman’s laptop—the laptop lying on the passenger seat beside me.
I had seen what was in it. Everything was in it. Her records. Her contacts. Her suppliers. Her customers. In New York and across the country and around the world. There had probably been more in the ledgers too, but I couldn’t save those and still cover for Samantha. That was all right. The laptop would be enough. It would be more than enough.
I smiled to myself. I pressed down the gas pedal and drove a little faster, racing into the morning.
It might take a while. Some months, even some years. But they would get them, a lot of them anyway. The buyers, the suppliers, the Fat Woman’s whole network. They would break down their doors in New York and Los Angeles. They would drag them off the streets of London and Paris. They would come in shooting in Moscow and Tallinn. Even in Bangkok, they would arrange for them to disappear forever.
The monsters might never know who had brought them down. But I would know. I’d be watching the whole time and I would know exactly who it was who had tracked them, hunted them, and finally destroyed them.
It was the little boy who got away, you bastards. I’m still here. Still in the wind. I’ll be here as long as it takes. We’ll all be here. Alexander. Samantha. All of the dead.
And we’re coming after you.
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