Don't Be Afraid (35 page)

The skin was pale, almost translucent, the nail painted hot pink. Amy dropped the lid, staggering back, tripping in her anxiousness to get away, falling on her knees to the carpet and vomiting until her stomach was raw with the effort.

Her mind reeled. Paul was the one who’d sent the finger to her. Paul was the killer. He’d killed Sheila, Meredith, Poppy. He would kill Emma.

She pulled herself up using a corner of the desk, her legs shaking so badly she wasn’t sure she’d be able to stand. But she had to get up. She had to find her daughter.

Blinking and choking, Amy stared at the photo so her eyes wouldn’t stray back to the box. The house came into focus and suddenly Amy recognized it. This was the property that Sheila couldn’t unload. The Bellamy estate that all the realtors were talking about. The house that nobody wanted to purchase because the original buyers had pulled out late in the process and the home they’d chosen to build was to their specifications and new buyers at this level wanted their own tastes, not someone else’s.

Amy grabbed the photo and ran past the startled Pritchard, who was lounging on the couch, watching a big-screen TV, her purse beside him. She grabbed it, too, and took off with the man yelling after her.

 

 

“Looks like a quiet night,” Mo Conway said to her fellow dispatcher.

“Now you’ve jinxed us,” Harry Beard complained good-naturedly. He passed her the dish of M&M’s they’d been sharing.

“I shouldn’t be eating this junk,” Mo said, shifting her weight in the chair.

“Yeah, we’ll start our diet tomorrow.”

They both laughed. The lights blinked on seconds before the beeping sounded. Mo immediately hit the button. “911. What’s the nature of your emergency.”

“I see a dead lady.” It was a high-pitched voice. A kid playing a practical joke? A woman with a squeaky voice? She had to treat it as serious.

“You see a dead lady? Where?”

An address given quickly and carefully. Not a kid then. The voice was giving Mo the creeps. “Hurry. She’s in the kitchen. There’s a lot of blood.”

The call disconnected. Mo tried to reconnect, but there was dead air. She switched to the radio. “We’ve got a possible homicide on 110 Lewis Street. All personnel respond immediately. Repeat, there’s a possible homicide on 110 Lewis Street. All available cars respond immediately.”

 

 

Detective Black got the call as he was enjoying a piece of homemade pumpkin pie in front of the TV. It was about the only thing his wife made that he liked, but she only made them in the fall and never in such great numbers that he could grow tired of it.

“Black here.”

He put down the pie on the coffee table and his wife looked away from
Survivor
, the laundry she was supposedly folding abandoned in a basket at her feet. Her husband listened for a few minutes, making grunting noises.

“Okay. Yeah. I’m on my way.”

He slammed the phone down and headed for the door.

“What happened?”

“Killer’s struck again.”

 

 

In her head, Amy was screaming Emma’s name over and over again. She’d never been a great believer in women’s intuition, but she felt it now. Emma was at that house. Paul had taken her to that house.

The house was in a new plan, somewhere on reclaimed farmland on the outer edges of Steerforth. It was far from town and the water, far from the very things that made living in Steerforth palatable, but then some people didn’t want the small, old houses they could get closer in, they wanted these monstrosities, these McMansions.

There were several such developments, but which one was the house in? Try as she might, Amy couldn’t think of it. She called the realty office, hoping to find someone in. On the sixth ring Douglas picked up.

“I need to know the address of the half-constructed house Sheila was trying to unload.”

“Amy, my dear, how nice to hear from you.”

“Hello, Douglas. The address please.”

“My, my. Have all social niceties been abandoned? I knew that we didn’t exactly get along, but I didn’t think there was such overt hostility between us—”

“Douglas, I don’t have time for this crap. Please just give me the address.”

There was a pause, then she heard some keys tapping. “It’s off Grove Road. Bellamy Estates. Do you have a buyer coming now? You’re in route?”

“What’s the house number?”

“Fourteen something. It’s quite obvious. It’s the only one that’s half-finished—”

“Great. Thanks!”

“Wait, do you have a live one—”

She hung up on him, returning the phone to her pocket. It rang immediately, but she let it go.

She drove like she was auditioning for Le Mans, taking corners tight, accelerating immediately after them. She floored the accelerator when she hit Grove Road, slowing only when she spotted the sign for Bellamy Estates, taking a hard right corner into it and braking hard to avoid slamming into a gatepost before immediately accelerating again.

The homes at the front of the development were occupied, the road paved. They were all mock colonials and tudors, houses on steroids, with pretentious sweeping driveways and Tara-like columns. There were lamps lit above several entrances, but the curving road was deserted, everyone tucked away inside their own little fantasy palaces.

There was no warning when the road changed back to dirt, her car slamming down with a screeching, grinding noise. Amy bit her tongue as her head slammed against the roof, but she kept her foot on the accelerator, peering out at the darkness surrounding her, trying to find the house she’d seen in the picture.

There was nothing being built back here. Things had been surveyed, gas lines run and the requisite half-acre divisions made, but there were just a few plots where any kind of construction was going on, and those no farther along than digging out the foundations. The same retro streetlights from the rest of the division illuminated the For Sale signs stuck in weedy plots. The listing of some of them was indicative of just how long they’d been there.

Then she saw it. Alone, up a slight elevation to the right, sat a large, two-story, framed but not finished house. She turned onto the driveway leading up to it, which was also unpaved and parked in front of the entrance, bolting from the car, gun in hand, calling out to Emma and Chloe. There was no response.

Wooden planking covered the mud where a walkway and steps would be and Amy raced up it to the front entrance, a finished, dark wooden door with a heavy brass knocker in its center. It was ajar. She pushed it open and stepped inside. The darkness became complete. She couldn’t see anything and she stayed near the door, holding the gun outright, grasped firmly in both hands.

“Emma!” Her voice echoed. “Emma! Chloe!” No response, but a distant noise like paper rattling.

Her eyes were adjusting. She could see the grand, two-story entrance hall where she was standing and just make out the curving line of a stairway approximately ten feet ahead.

“Your daughter’s okay, Amy.”

The voice came from the darkness, a hiss in her ear. She swung left just as Paul stepped into view on her right, and as she swung back he grabbed her arm and with one short, sharp twist he had the gun.

“Where’s Emma?” Amy demanded, as if she was the one who still had the weapon and was not standing defenseless. She had her cell phone in her pocket and she hit the speed dial, but nothing happened.

“There’s no reception out here,” he said, taking it from her and tossing it away. She heard it clatter in some dark corner. She was breathing hard, stunned at how fast it had happened, afraid for her life, afraid for her daughter, wanting to tear the man in front of her from limb to limb.

“You’ve been a big disappointment to me, Amy,” Paul said, moving slowly toward her, the gun cocked at her the entire time. “A big disappointment.”

She automatically stepped back, smacking into a wall. He caught her wrists in one of his hands and pulled her arms above her head. Then he pressed the gun lightly against the hollow in her neck and she tried not to move, though she could feel her heart flailing like a trapped bird. The safety was off and she knew that the cartridge was full.

“I thought you were different,” he hissed, moving the gun slowly down, lingering in the hollow between her breasts.

“People know I’m here,” she said hoarsely. “They’ll get the police.”

“People like who?” He sounded unconcerned. His eyes were on the gun at her chest. He nudged the muzzle between the buttons on her shirt. She felt the cold like a brand against her bare skin. His eyes flicked up to hers, the pupils dark in those spookily light irises. She felt his madness most strongly in that moment, like coming face-to-face with a rabid dog or realizing the depth of coldness in a shark’s eyes.

“They know you’re the one,” she said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.

“No they don’t,” he said with apparent nonchalance, but the gun was moving again, trailing down her body while his eyes stayed locked with hers, and his own breath was getting ragged. He was turned on.

The gun passed over her navel, inched its way farther down, burning her skin with its deceptively light touch. She wanted to knee him in the groin, but then the gun would go off and she wouldn’t be able to find Emma. She had to stay still because Emma was here and she had to find Emma.

“They think your boyfriend did it,” he said, moving the gun up and down her crotch like it was a vibrator. She thought she might throw up.

“Who?”

“Ryan,” he hissed, his voice wet against her ear. “The great superhero. Paramedic man.”

 

 

The last call of the afternoon had been to help an overweight man who’d somehow fallen and gotten wedged between his refrigerator and sink.

“Fat motherfucker,” Anthony said, rubbing his back as they walked out of emergency at the hospital. “He should get one of those gastric bypasses. I’m going to need back surgery. Shit, it’s cold out here.”

Ryan was only half listening. His own back was aching and his cell phone was vibrating again. It had been vibrating all damn day. The mechanic about needing another day to finish the repairs that were going to cost twice as much as they were supposed to. His mother reminding him, like he needed reminding, that he’d promised to trim that tree in her yard.

The last one from his mother all of forty minutes ago saying she needed him to come home right away. Sounding panicked, of course, which probably meant that she couldn’t figure out the VCR or that her email wasn’t working.

He got back in the truck and must have slammed the door extra hard because Anthony shot him a quizzical look from the passenger side.

“Relax, man, our shift is over.”

“Yeah. Not a fucking minute too soon.”

Anthony laughed. “You sound happy. Me, I am happy now that it’s over. I’m going over to Linda’s. Did I tell you she has one of those whirlpool tubs? The ones with the jets and all? It’s big enough for two, my friend, big enough for two.” He thrust his groin up and down, looking like a whiter, skinnier version of Michael Jackson, and Ryan smiled despite himself.

He pulled up in front of his mother’s house, feeling a little less sorry for himself, and let himself in the front door, surprised that she didn’t have the porch light on for him.

“Hey, Ma, I’m here,” he called, taking off his coat and dumping it over the back of an armchair in the living room. There were no lights on in there either. Weird, but maybe she was cooking something. He could see light coming from the kitchen.

“You making me dinner?” he called, walking in that direction, turning on lights as he went. One of the dining room chairs was overturned and he righted it. She still hadn’t answered him, but maybe she was sulking because he hadn’t called her back.

For a moment, just a moment, he thought that she’d stepped out and in a hurry. A kettle sat half-on, half-off one of the burners on the stove, as if it had been put down in a hurry, and there was a cup of tea on the table. He took this in first—the kettle, the cup of tea, the chair pushed back like she’d just been sitting there and had gotten called away. Only she hadn’t.

She was on the floor between the table and the sink, lying on her back, her eyes rolled back in her head.

“Oh my God, Mom!” He sank to his knees beside her, feeling for a pulse at her neck but not finding one. Her hands were nailed palm down to the linoleum, her legs wide apart, nylons ripped down.

“Please, please,” he said, not knowing whom he was asking and what he was asking for because she was dead, so obviously dead, but he couldn’t stop trying. He reached his hand around her neck and his fingers came back bloody, and that and the nails in her hand were enough for him to know what he was dealing with, but he still tried CPR.

When it was clear that wasn’t working he realized that he had to get help, that he had to call the police, and he stood up and saw pruning shears on the table next to his mother’s teacup and on the other side, laid out as neatly as a knife in a place setting, was his mother’s ring finger.

He’d put his hand on the shears, barely touched them, when the kitchen door burst in and a uniformed officer followed, gun pointing at Ryan. “Drop the weapon! Drop it, motherfucker!”

He dropped the shears. He put his hands in the air automatically. He tried to open his mouth to explain, but the officer was screaming. “Get down! Get down! Down, motherfucker, get down!”

And then he was being shoved onto his belly on the floor next to his mother’s body, and he was being kicked and cuffed and read his rights, and none of it mattered except that she was dead.

 

 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Amy said. “Ryan didn’t kill anyone—you did.”

“He killed his mother.” Paul clicked his tongue. “Such a bad boy.” He rubbed the gun back and forth. “Don’t worry. The police caught him. They caught the Toolman.”

“Did you kill those women in New Jersey?”

“That’s very blunt, Amy. Didn’t your mother teach you better manners?”

The gun moved to her head. She held her breath, struggling to keep her eyes open and focused. She had to stay alert.

“I told you I’d worked at many different jobs before I became a medical researcher,” he said, holding the gun cocked against her temple. “I worked as a repairman for a while when I was in school. Such a fun way to meet people.”

He laughed but his eyes were cold. “I enjoy people watching. I always have. I liked watching you, Amy.”

Her skin crawled. “How did you get in my house?”

The gun tapped against her skull. “Amy, Amy. I thought you were smarter than that. I picked the lock, of course.”

“But how could you do that without anyone seeing you?”

“People don’t pay attention to plumbers. And I came in through the back door.”

“But I had the chain on.”

He gave her a patronizing smile like a teacher explaining things to a slow student. “Once I had the door unlocked, I slipped my hand under the chain.” The gun left her head as he used both hands to illustrate. “I slipped a thin wire over the last chain link and slowly drew the wire back while pulling the door closed. Once the door closed on the wire I simply popped the chain free.”

He tapped her lightly on the nose with the gun and grinned malevolently. “You never spotted me, did you?”

She shook her head and his smile got broader. There was genuine pride in his voice as he said, “No one ever does. Sheila was completely oblivious.”

Amy struggled to keep her voice neutral. “Why did you kill her?”

“She was a bitch!” he shouted and suddenly shoved the gun hard against her pubic bone.

Amy jumped and he laughed. “Are you scared?” he said conversationally. “Sheila begged me for her life, you know. She begged me. Are you going to beg me?”

“Where’s Emma?” Amy said, unable to stop her voice from shaking. The gun traced the inside of her thigh.

“I told you that Emma is fine,” he said in a bored voice. He leaned in closer and his voice dipped
.
“You know, you could have been the one.” He licked a corner of her ear and she flinched. “I thought you were the one.” He suckled on her earlobe. She could feel her earring clicking against his teeth, his teeth against her skin.

“I am the one,” she said, trying to sound seductive. “I am the one.”

He stopped abruptly and pulled back. The gun lifted off her skin. She couldn’t see his expression, she didn’t know what he was thinking until the gun hand rose and he slammed her in the face.

She cried out, the force of it banging her head off the drywall behind her. She could taste blood. For a moment all she saw were pinpoints of light. He took her arm while she was still blinded and jerked her along.

“You’re not the one,” he said and she felt the first step as her ankle slammed against it. She climbed numbly, pulled along by him. “You were never the one. It was a trick. You tricked me, Violet.”

They’d gotten to the top of the stairs. She pulled against his grip. “Who’s Violet?”

He ignored her if he heard her. He was pulling her down a hallway, their feet loud on the plywood subflooring. There was a dim light down the hall. It got brighter. It came from a doorway and he suddenly thrust her ahead of him into the room.

“Emma!”

Her daughter was sitting against a wall, the only other thing in the room besides a Coleman lantern across from her. Duct tape covered her mouth and wrapped around her ankles and presumably around her wrists, which were pulled behind her. Her dark hair was in disarray, her blue eyes wide and wet with tears, her whole being radiating fear. Amy forgot Paul, forgot the gun, forgot everything except her daughter and dropped next to her, kissing her face, her eyes, her covered lips. “Emma, baby, Emma!”

A savage kick against her rib cage knocked her aside and brought back reality. “Sit up!” Paul commanded, pulling her by her hair into a sitting position. He slammed her against the wall near her daughter.

“Let her go,” Amy begged. “She hasn’t done anything to you—”

“Shut up!” The gun was at her temple again
.
Amy could feel the wall vibrating with Emma’s fear. She kept her mouth shut.

“Where is it?” Paul muttered, looking around. He swung around on Emma. “Where did you hide the tape, you little bitch!”

Her eyes must have flashed in that direction, because at once he turned and saw something in the corner. “Get it!” he commanded Amy.

She started to stand and he thrust her back down. “Hands and knees, bitch! Hands and knees like the bitch you are!”

She scrambled across the plywood floor, feeling splinters digging into her hands and knees, and found the roll of duct tape. She thought of using the heavy roll as a weapon, driving it into him and trying to overpower him, but when she turned back she saw that he was holding the gun to Emma’s head. He had a little smirk on his face, as if he knew what she’d been thinking.

He kicked her again once she gave him the tape and made her get back into place against the wall. “You move one fucking inch and I’ll kill the girl!”

He put the gun down next to him, eyeing her the whole time, and pulled a box cutter from his pocket. He cut strips of tape, never taking his eyes off her, and she thought of everything she’d ever learned in self-defense classes and tried to appear passive and nonthreatening.

“This could have been yours,” he said in a conversational tone as he straddled her legs with his weight, so he could tape her wrists behind her. “This could have all been ours, but you ruined it.”

“It’s a nice house,” she said in a low voice, desperate to say something before he taped her mouth closed and that avenue of escape was over.

“It’s a dream house,” he corrected her. “A palace fit for a king and queen.” He moved off her legs and began taping them together at the ankle. “But it wasn’t enough for you, was it, Violet? Always wanting more, more, more!”

“Violet didn’t want the house?”

He stopped cutting the tape and blinked at Amy, as if he suddenly remembered who she was. “She wanted it until Sheila. It was Sheila’s fault. Violet changed because Sheila told her to change. Sheila was a dangerous bitch!”

“So you killed her?”

He laughed. “Yes, I killed her. But you’re like rats, you realtors. For every one I kill there are a thousand more waiting.”

“Why did you kill Meredith?”

“Meredith?”

“The woman in the tub.”

He laughed. “That bitch. That was for you, Amy. She was giving you such a hard time. I killed her for you and you didn’t say thank you.”

“Thank you.”

He backhanded her again. Amy felt Emma’s muffled scream and tried not to let the pain show so she wouldn’t cause Emma additional stress.

“Don’t be insincere, Amy. It doesn’t suit you. You had such promise.” He shook his head. “I warned you with that Braxton bitch, but you weren’t paying attention. I worked so hard to get her on that surfboard. You wouldn’t think a little whore like that would be so heavy, but then dead weight is dead weight.”