Taking Liberty (42 page)

___________________________

‘You must have killed a priest in an another life,’
my former partner, Harry Kelso, had said on several occasions, and I’d never had any cause to dispute it.

I lay Rae on her side and then threw open the skylight. Took a moment to clear my lungs in the freezing night air.

Down below, Engel’s swanky yacht was still moored against the jetty, its long windows reflecting flames. I could see Engel and the weasel-faced Russian moving crates onto the boat’s aft deck. Clearing out. Relocating their sexual slavery operation to an undisclosed location. Closer to home, geysers of smoke were rising past the edge of the roof, gushing out of the first floor windows.

A dull
thwump
sounded from inside the house. The attic floor wobbled beneath my feet.

Gently, I rolled Rae into my arms and eased her out through the skylight, head first, halfway onto the thick layer of crisp snow covering the roof. She was limp, heavy in the way limp bodies tend to be. One wrong nudge and she’d go sliding down the gradient and fall thirty foot to the ground below. I needed to tether us together. I unbuckled my belt, pulled it out and looped it through Rae’s at the small of her back. Then I fed it back through the buckle and wrapped the leather around my fist. Not the best safety line, but better than none. I pushed her all the way through, sending disturbed snow skittering off the roof. Then I hoisted myself out and crawled to the apex, slowly, dragging Rae with me.

I reached the crown of the roof and kept crawling, hands and knees slipping on the icy peak. Rae was folded at the waist, like a suit bag, arms and legs trailing behind her. I passed a long gouge in the snow where Engel had slid downslope earlier. Heard another muffled
thwump
from far below, then another. Only a matter of time before the whole house collapsed in on itself. And I was losing strength. Muscles shaking. Hands and face numb from the cold. I gritted teeth and plowed on. Came to the end of the apex and peered over its icicled edge.

Heat had shattered the downstairs windows and flames were flapping through. Shadows dancing across the nearby tundra. The snowdrift piled high against the side of the house was visible in the orange glow, ten feet deep, easy. I rolled onto my stomach and heaved Rae to the brink. Impossible to say if her necktie was doing its job, but I had to hope that it was. No time to stop and worry. I braced thighs against the apex and slid her off the roof.

Instantly, her weight tried to pull me over with her. I held on as the leather belt snapped taut and the bones in my hand crunched together. I bit down against the pain as Rae dangled in mid-air, fifteen foot above the snowdrift, turning slowly.

Then I let go.

I had no choice.

I saw her fall, face-first, and crash into the snow bank. Blood-red hair making a splash against the white. She seemed to sink into the drift by a couple of feet before coming to a stop.

Another
thwump
sounded behind me, followed by two more, and this time the entire roof wobbled like a drunk doing a sobriety test.

Without a second thought, I slung my legs over the edge and pushed out into the air.

___________________________

I landed on my back about three feet in. Snow crumbling into my eyes and mouth. From above, it must have looked like the impression Wile E Coyote makes in the canyon floor, in the cartoon. I flapped and kicked my way over to Rae, hooked hands under her arms and slid us down to the ground.

Unbelievably, we’d escape incineration.

But there was a red streak on the slope behind us.

I rolled Rae onto her back and fearfully checked her bandage. Blood everywhere. Frantically, I redressed the wound and tightened everything up. Felt for her pulse and found it, barely.

At this rate she’d hemorrhage fatally before I’d even summoned help.

I had to get her to safety. Stop moving her.

Above us, the house started moaning. Demons lamenting. I could hear wooden beams rupturing. Glass shattering. Metal whining. Shovelfuls of snow skating off the roof and crashing into the yard. I looked up to see intense flame raging from all the windows. Thick smoke billowing from under the eaves.

The whole place was about to cave in.

I carried Rae over to one of the outbuildings, out of immediate danger. There was a smaller snow drift down the side. I kicked a wedge out of it and laid her down, so that her head and shoulders were surrounded by snow. Then I shoveled it in around her with my hands, compacting it down to form a snug blanket.

I’d heard of trauma victims surviving longer by reducing body temperature. I was hoping the cold would shrink the cut and keep the blood from leaking out. Maybe slow everything down, at least enough until rescue arrived.

An almighty roar rumbled across the yard. Something like a plane crash in slow motion. I turned to see the roof of the main house collapse inward and fifty-foot flames reach for the sky. Thick smoke churning. The aluminum sidings began to buckle, screeching and tearing as they leaned inward into the inferno.

I needed a phone.

I needed to get to Engel’s motor yacht.

I needed a weapon.

___________________________

I retreated into the backyard and scanned the compacted gravel for the snubnosed revolver. Heat scratching at my skin. I had a rough idea where it had landed after Brutus had let it fly. But it wasn’t where I’d expected it to be. I found it yards away, hiding in an icy channel, grabbed it up and ran back down the side of the burning house. Splashed through snow-melt and slurry streaming from the shrinking snowdrift.

Then . . . disaster.

Engel’s boat was already moving away from the pier.

I’d missed it by seconds!

I fell into a sprint. Legs pumping. Arms slicing air.

I had to stop it, somehow. I had to get to a phone.

Rae’s life depended on it.

I leapt onto the jetty and banged across the boards.

The motor yacht was picking up speed; already fifty yards out and widening the gap.

I raised the thirty-eight special and squeezed off two rounds.

I didn’t know what I’d expect to achieve. Maybe get their attention. Maybe force my way onboard and to a phone.

The bullets either fell short or missed their target completely.

I came to a juddering halt, breathing hard, and steadied my aim.

Squeezed off another couple of rounds.

A hundred yards out and accelerating.

Then . . . catastrophe.

A bubble of blinding light blossomed from the spot where Engel’s boat had been a moment earlier. I shielded my eyes against the silent fireball expanding and rising, lighting up the surrounding water. It mushroomed into a glowing cloud of hot gas as the boom of an explosion barreled across the bay and thumped me in the face.

I stared, numb from the feet up, as the motor yacht blazed brightly. Suddenly going nowhere. Everyone on board dead.

One of the bullets must have hit the fuel tank – that’s all I could think. A delayed reaction as fuel had leaked out, then spontaneous combustion as it had come into contact with the electrical system.

Then . . .
boom!

I’d killed Fillmore and his cohorts.

Moreover, I’d killed my boy.

The boat was gone.

And with it any hope I had of saving Rae.

___________________________

“Hot damn! That’s some firework display!”

I swiveled on my heels.

I wasn’t alone on the pier, I realized.

There was a man, sitting on the end of the jetty, swinging his legs like a kid with no cares in the world.

George!

There was something in his hand, I saw: a cell phone.

He waggled it at me. “Remote detonation. Worked like a charm, didn’t it?”

My son was alive!

I reacted on autopilot.

In that moment all I could see was red. Rae’s blood on my hands, red. Rage red. Descending like a satanic mist.

I grabbed George by his collar and hauled him flat against the boards.

He just laughed. Didn’t even try and do anything about it. Laughed like a son goofing around with his dad – which he had been, all this time.

“You’re under arrest,” I snarled.

“For what – opening your eyes?”

“For being a disappointment, dammit.”

His eyes were wild, reflecting stars – only they weren’t stars, they were motes: images of the people he’d murdered in cold blood, including Harry, Jamie and little Jennifer McNamara. All the souls he’d reaped on a whim.

How had we come to be here?

How had my son grown from a boy into a monster?

Nature of nurture?

George’s maniacal laughter rang out through the night.

I clipped him between his eyes with the butt of the revolver, hard enough to slam his eyelids closed.

He sagged unconsciously to the cold boards and lay there, purring like a baby.

I scooped up the phone, then pushed away from him. All at once I didn’t want to be anywhere near my son. Not even in the same State of the Union. Maybe anywhere at all.

I dialed nine-one-one as the remains of Engel’s house crashed and burned.

___________________________

There was a greasy handprint on the one-way glass. Left behind where somebody had leaned close, probably disbelieving their ears. It looked like my hand shape. Same dislocated thumb mark.

Beyond the smudged fingerprints I could see someone wearing my son’s face. He had the same dark hair and pale skin. Same brooding eyes and bruised circles. But he was an imposter. He’d taken my son hostage a long time ago. Killed him. Now he was wearing my son’s skin like a suit.

He was seated at a brushed steel table, both wrists handcuffed to loops welded to its spotless surface. He was wearing a cheery orange jumpsuit over a plain white undershirt. A conceited look tugging at his thick eyebrows.

At a glance, the resemblance to my son was remarkable. But this wasn’t my boy. My son had died when he was five years old. Cracked his head after falling from a carousel at the zoo. All my fault. A demon had seized him that day. Taken over his mind and forced George into a dark corner, permanently. This wasn’t my son. This was a cold-blooded serial killer. A monster responsible for the deaths of more than a dozen innocent people. A madman who believed in blood prophesies and dispatched people dispassionately because of them.

I knew him as
The Undertaker.

But everyone in the room knew him as George Quinn.

Captivity had oiled his jaw and he was talking openly, freely answering the endless barrage of questions posed by the three FBI agents grilling him in the interview room. Like an actor auditioning for a role, he was playing to the camera recording his confession. More than that – he was enthusing, eager to share, to boast. Gushing about his supernatural visions – apparently a side effect of his
condition
– and his consequent missions to right future wrongs.

It was all bullshit.

The killer believed every word escaping his lips. Hard to imagine him being anything other than in total control over his life and his destiny. Possessed with passion and dynamism. Deriving immense pride and pleasure from imparting his dark secrets.

Cuckoo.

He was facing serious charges: several counts of premeditated murder; conspiracy to commit murder; obstruction of justice; kidnap; impersonating a police officer; identity theft; fraud; arson; planting bombs; killing a federal agent; killing two police officers; malice aforethought; being a bad son. He knew the charges. Hadn’t dented his hide one bit.

Psycho.

The killer had already come clean over everything. Washed his bloodied hands.
The Undertaker’s
hour-long confessional had covered every base. He’d confessed about how he’d seen a vision of our calamitous coming together in Kodiak. About how that revelation had revealed the faces behind the human trafficking ring. And about how he’d visualized a way to prolong my suffering while exposing the evil behind the sexual slavery being run through Akhiok.

Another good deed – like killing everyone associated with Harland Labs back in January.

He’d confessed about how he’d discovered Gary Cornsilk hunting him down and how he’d decided to do something about it. About how he’d orchestrated a chance encounter, using a false identity to garner Cornsilk’s trust. About how he’d sympathized with Cornsilk’s plight to do me harm. And about how he’d introduced the disaffected ex-Fed to Richard Schaeffer – the surfer dude from Huntington Beach – who was also keen to blight my name in public.

He’d confessed about how he’d convinced Cornsilk to travel to Kodiak with him. About how he’d masterminded the plan to deliver me right into his hands. And about how he’d deliberately used the Westbrook ID to pique the Bureau’s interest, gambling on the fact I would be sprung from Springfield and sent to investigate.

The fulfillment of a prophesy.

He’d confessed to killing Cornsilk, to cement confidence with those running the human trafficking ring. Confessed to burning Cornsilk to a cinder on that cold Alaskan beach, then using his credit card to spin me back to California. Never knowing that I would misidentify the body, then spend the whole of Christmastime believing my son had been brutally murdered.

A fool and his logic soon come unstuck.

He’d confessed to manipulating those behind the human trafficking operation – especially Paul Engel, who he had first met during our father-and-son expedition to Kodiak years earlier. Confessed to exposing their operation and then to killing them for their heinous crimes.

The irony was tearful.

I’d already worked out that Engel had been the one to patch him up following his fall from the Stratosphere Tower in Las Vegas. The killer had taken two bullets from Sonny’s gun. He’d timed everything to perfection. Engel had been in town that night, visiting his folks. The killer had forced him to fix him up, then convinced Engel to allow him inside his inner circle out at Deadman Bay.

He killed, cheated and lied.

No way he was ever coming out.

Already, a date for his trial had been set.

The press would want their pound of flesh.

I had no illusions about how it was all likely to pan out.

The Undertaker
was a readymade media sensation.

Soon to be a household name.

In the coming weeks and months, the whole world was going to learn everything there was to know about the killer. How his condition caused him to kill. How his hatred for me was his driving force. For a brief moment in time he’d become famous, infamous. His name, face and atrocities splashed across all the papers and Internet feeds. News programs running feature-length reports. Crime analysts giving their honest verdict. Supporters of the death penalty citing his inhuman crimes as justification to uphold Old Testament mentalities.

The Celebrity Cop dad with the Celebrity Killer son.

A perfect recipe for a media feeding frenzy.

I felt sorry.

Not for me.

Certainly not for the killer.

I felt sorry for the families and the friends of all his victims, whose lives had been irreversibly traumatized by his condition. The media attention would force them to relive their pain under a global spotlight.

In court, on nationwide TV,
The Undertaker
would live it up. Charm the cameras. Turn his condition into a godsend. He’d run through his confessional again, as many times as they liked. Not to glorify his actions, but to justify them. To show the world how he saved a million lives by taking one. He’d use his trial as a forum from which to point the crooked finger of blame at the one person he held ultimately accountable for creating the monster:

Me.

Back inside the interrogation room, his evil eyes looked my way and the coolness inside of me turned to a chill.

No words can describe the indescribable.

Only feelings.

And mine were frozen in time, twenty-five years in the past.

The killer looked directly at me.

Of course, there was no way he could see me through the mirrored finish. No way he could see the dread and disappointment drawing down my jowls. Rather, he could sense my presence – just as I could feel the gravity of loss pulling us together.

He mouthed a silent sentence.

I placed my palm against the glass, leaning in to hear his whispered words.

This is all your fault.

Then, abruptly, his wild eyes returned to his inquisitors, and the words bubbling from his mouth were no longer aimed at me.

My son had died that day at the zoo and he was never coming back.