Pretty Dead (32 page)

“He’s not going to have a prayer in a yellow cab.” David opened the car door and slipped out.

Elise followed while at the same time doubting David’s choice. “So he’ll ditch it as soon as he can,” she argued. “He might have ditched it already.”

“A solid possibility.”

“And he’s a chameleon. He’ll charm the county cops working roadblocks. It only takes one error.”

“You told me to decide.”

She was regretting that.

“Take the car.” David tossed her the keys. “I agree that at the very least they’re going to need one of us to make a positive ID.”

The idea that Jay Thomas was still on the grounds had merit, but what David was suggesting wasn’t the typical behavior of a criminal, especially a murderer.

She pocketed the keys and pulled her weapon.

Half crouching, they moved as silently as possible over the broken scrabble that used to be a parking lot. With each step, Elise’s doubt increased. Playing cops. That was what it felt like. While the distance between them and Jay Thomas increased by the second. On top of which, daylight would be gone in a few hours, and once darkness hit, their chances of catching Jay Thomas would greatly decrease.

“David.” She shouldn’t have turned him loose. “This is wrong.”

“Give me fifteen minutes.” He kept his voice low.

In deference to speed, they split up while keeping each other within visual range.

The old paper mill was like a small city, covering acres, with towering stainless steel tanks and miles of piping. Remaining at ground level, they cut through the heart of the structure to access loading docks located on both sides of a wide cement walkway, where flatbeds once delivered timber to be pulped. David took one side, Elise the other.

Elise reached the end of the cavernous room and looked to see David motioning for her, pointing. Ten steps, and she was looking down into the bay . . . at a yellow cab.

From the vulnerability of her location, she gripped her gun tighter, her gaze panning up as she took in the staggered walkways of steel four stories high. She was lifting her arm to motion for David to take cover when a gunshot exploded in the hollow space.

Elise flew backward, hitting the ground while the echo from the blast unrolled in waves. Another of her misconceptions. She wouldn’t have expected Jay Thomas to be such a good shot.

CHAPTER 56

D
avid heard the gunshot, saw his partner go down, and began firing in the direction of the shooter as he ran for Elise. At the same time, she dug in her heels and side-crawled toward the nearest wall, taking cover.

He joined her.

“I’m okay.” She gasped, touched the area on her vest where the bullet had lodged.

Remaining on the ground, Elise pulled out her phone and called Avery. “Jay Thomas Paul is still in the factory. Repeat, Jay Thomas Paul is inside the old paper mill. Shots fired. Requesting backup.” A pause for reply, then Elise went on to describe the layout of the building and where they were located. She listened a moment, responded, and disconnected. “They ran his photo through facial recognition software,” she told David. “His real name is Jeffrey Nightingale.”

Assured that his partner was okay, David reloaded and said, “Stay here. Keep him focused on you, and I’ll try to take him by surprise.” Without waiting for Elise to protest or order him to stand down, he took off, crouch-running for a set of metal stairs in the far corner of the plant.

He took the steps three at a time, hit the second floor, then spotted another set that took him to the third, followed by the fourth level, each walkway narrower than the previous.

Jay Thomas—or rather Jeffrey Nightingale—might have honed his craft when it came to cold-blooded murder, but those were crimes of persuasion, and the victims usually went with him willingly.

The chase was David’s turf.

David spotted Nightingale crouched on the third level behind a metal barrier. From below, Elise shouted, telling Nightingale to give up. She followed with several random shots.

His footfalls covered by the echoes of gunfire, David moved quickly until he was positioned directly above Nightingale.

He made a perfect target, and David couldn’t deny that part of him wanted to pull the trigger. He didn’t. Instead, he pocketed his weapon, climbed on the wide iron railing, and dropped ten feet, propelling Nightingale to the metal floor, knocking the gun from his hand, the killer’s body breaking David’s fall.

The man’s strength took David by surprise. They rolled. Nightingale reached for David’s throat. David grabbed him by both shoulders and smacked his head against the floor. Stunned, Nightingale let go. David scrambled to his feet, pulled his gun, and kicked Nightingale’s out of the way.

Lying on his back, Nightingale looked up at him, a smile blossoming on his face. “David, David.”

It occurred to David that Nightingale was enjoying this—as much as someone like him could enjoy anything.

“You think you know me,” Nightingale said. “But you don’t.”

“Oh, I know you.” David kept his gun trained on the man on the walkway. “I know more about you than you do. There’s the surface, easy stuff. That you’re a sick son of a bitch. And your first kill was probably someone you knew pretty well. A neighbor. A friend. A family member. How’m I doing?”

“Not bad, but you could do better.”

“Sometimes I think you really wanted to be Jay Thomas Paul. Not always, but sometimes I think that person you were pretending to be bled through. Just a little. Is that right too? Because I don’t believe anybody is one hundred percent evil. I’ve never known a killer who didn’t have a line he wouldn’t cross. Sometimes it’s a line that makes no sense to the rest of us, but it’s a line.”

“You’re projecting. A good agent doesn’t project.”

“What do you get out of it?” David asked. “The killing? What does it feel like to be you?”

“You shouldn’t knock it until you’ve tried it. I’m sure you’ve killed people in the line of duty. That’s different. To kill an innocent—that’s where the high comes from.” He gave David a look of consideration. “What about your wife? Did you ever ask your wife how it felt to kill your son? If you’re so curious about it? No? You didn’t? You had a case study right there in your hands, and you didn’t pursue it? I can tell you how it feels. She drowned him, right? I’ll bet she took him into the bathroom and gently helped him take off his clothes while she filled the tub. Maybe she even put some toys in there, like a rubber ducky. And maybe she even talked sweetly to him, all soft and intimate. And maybe he wrapped his little arms around her neck and she buried her face in his hair and inhaled the baby scent of him. And maybe she stroked his head and told him everything was going to be okay. What happened next, David? Want to tell me?”

The scene had played out in David’s mind a million times. It would play out a million times more. Nightingale was right. The ritual of the bath. And the toys. He was right about that too.

Nightingale wanted to die. He was goading David because he wanted David to kill him.

But David wanted him to live. He’d be sentenced to death, but they could learn a lot from the killer before he took his final breath. The longer he was kept alive, the better.

“Okay, I’ll tell you,” Nightingale said. “She put him in the water, and he began to play with the toys. And then she grabbed him by the arms, told him good night, and held him under. He struggled, but he was just a child, no match for her strength. She might have even sung him a lullaby as the life left his eyes. What do you think?”

“David, he’s baiting you!” Elise shouted from below.

“And you—” Nightingale glanced in Elise’s direction, his voice louder now, carrying and echoing in the cavernous space. “I know all about you, about the things you won’t discuss, not even with David. About what happened with Tremain. About what he did to you.”

“You don’t know anything,” Elise said.

“Oh, but I do. Because I read between the lines, and I understand him. He tied you down and raped you in every way possible. He tore you up and banged into you until you passed out. Am I right?”

“Shut up,” David said.

“Don’t shoot him, David. That’s what he wants.”

Nightingale smiled a cold smile. “I’ll bet you have nightmares about it,” he shouted to Elise. “Remember how you attacked me that first day at the police station? Post-traumatic stress. You’re both really messed-up people. David, married to a baby killer, and you, sodomized by an old acquaintance.”

David’s gun hand was shaking.

“You still haven’t figured it out, have you?” Nightingale asked. “If you’d worked the crossword puzzles from the beginning, you’d know. We go way back, you and I, and our long friendship was documented in clues and answers. I’m sorry you missed out on those.”

The echoes of the familiar that had haunted David from the beginning of the Savannah Killer case were overwhelming now.

“I have to admit you did a little better on this investigation than Puget Sound,” Nightingale said.

Maybe David had, in some unconscious way, known the answer all along. The night at Elise’s where he’d felt the air shift. The days when deep in his gut he knew something was off about
everything
, but on a practical level he recognized that what he was feeling didn’t match the facts in front of him. And now David finally understood that the man at his feet was the very man who, in a twisted and indirect way, was responsible for everything that had gone wrong in David’s life.

“That’s right,” Nightingale said once he saw the pieces drop firmly into place. His next words were measured and proud. “I’m the Puget Sound Killer. And not just the Sound Killer. There were other killings. A lot more.”

From below, Elise attempted another warning. “He’s lying.”

Without taking his eyes off Nightingale, David said, “No, he’s not.” And yet the man’s damning revelation wasn’t enough to make David snap.

“And what about Audrey? Sweet, sweet Audrey?” Nightingale asked, realizing he hadn’t yet pushed the right button. “Did she tell you what I did to her? No? I’ll bet she didn’t have time because she was whisked away so quickly. I
will
tell you that if she was a virgin this morning, which I doubt, she isn’t one any longer.”

David wanted nothing more than to put a bullet through Nightingale’s skull. Instead, he holstered his gun and charged.

“David!” Elise shouted as she raced up the metal stairs.

Fists pummeled and the men rolled. Nightingale, straddling David, slamming his head repeatedly into the metal floor. Dazed, David gripped Nightingale by the throat and squeezed.

“Don’t kill him!”

David wasn’t listening.

Nightingale’s arms flailed in an involuntary effort to survive. His hands pounded at David in desperation. Elise saw a flash of metal, saw David’s gun in Nightingale’s hand, saw that hand rise, saw the weapon turn toward David’s head.

On the second landing, Elise paused, aimed, and fired.

CHAPTER 57

E
lise felt Nightingale’s neck for a pulse, straightened, pulled out her phone, placed the call, and hit “Speaker.” When Avery answered, she said, “Nightingale is dead.”

“How dead?”

The question might have seemed odd, but after what had happened with Atticus Tremain . . .

Elise contemplated the body at her feet. “Pretty dead.”

“Anybody in need of medical assistance on-site?” Avery asked.

She looked at David, who was lying on his back, his face spattered with Nightingale’s blood.
No
, he mouthed.

“We can wait until we get to town,” Elise said. “How’s Audrey?”

“She’s with Strata Luna. Audrey called her when she arrived at the police station, and the two of them went to the hospital. I’ll tell her you’re fine.”

“Jackson Sweet?”

“Last I heard, he was going into surgery.” Avery’s voice dropped. “Glad you guys are okay.”

“Thanks. Me too.” Elise disconnected, pocketed her phone, then held out her hand to David. He grabbed it, and she pulled him to his feet, both of them grimacing in pain.

“Chest?” he asked.

“Yeah.” It was the first time she’d taken a hit wearing a bulletproof vest. It was every bit as unpleasant as people said.

“Have that looked at when we get back.”

Together, they moved down the steps, slowly this time. From a distance came the sound of sirens.

“Well, this is anticlimactic,” David said.

“Sure you’re okay?” Elise asked.

“I will be. Once I’m back in my apartment with a beer in my hand and a cat on my lap.”

“Here.” She draped his arm over her shoulder, and he leaned heavily into her—a testament to just how not okay he was.

“You’re always saving me,” he said in amazement and gratitude, and maybe a little jealousy since he was the one who most likely preferred to do the saving.

Elise watched as police cars filled the lot, lights flashing, tires squealing, clouds of dust drifting toward them. “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”

CHAPTER 58

A
surgeon dressed in yellow scrubs, a blue mask around his neck, stepped through the double doors. “Are you Jackson Sweet’s family?”

“Yes.” A unanimous lie and truth, spoken by Elise, David, Audrey, and Strata Luna.

“He’s in recovery right now.”

“Is he going to be okay?” Audrey asked.

“It’s too early to tell, but he’s tough. The bullet missed his vital organs, but with the cancer and chemo . . . His immune system is compromised right now, and we’re concerned about infection. He’ll be in intensive care for at least twenty-four hours, but you can visit him for a few minutes.”

Strata Luna surprised them all by bursting into tears.

Elise and Audrey patted her on the back in an awkward attempt at comfort, even though Strata Luna didn’t seem like a woman who would welcome such a thing. She pulled a damp handkerchief from her black sleeve and looked up at the ceiling. “The man just comes back to me, and now this. Does everybody I love have to die?”

Elise wondered if Strata Luna realized she’d spoken the L-word. “He’s not dead,” came her gentle reminder.