Where Angels Rest (15 page)

“What is it? Tell me.”

“No,” Mann said.

“Oh, for God’s sake.” She popped up and made a beeline to his printer, but he cut her off. When he spoke, his voice was low.

“There’s nothing besides geography that connects Jack Calloway with Sara Daniels. She may not even be dead. There’s nothing but Lauren’s pottery classes and a hunch from you that connects him to her.”

“And the picture Lauren drew and Justin’s word.”

“And that,” he conceded. “But even if Huggins and McAllister knew each other—or had an affair—it doesn’t mean he cleaned off her face and killed her. He did pass a lie detector test.”

Erin’s teeth ground. “A true sociopath can lie without betraying himself to a machine.”

He looked at her, his eyes seeming to search for
something more. Lunacy? Lies? She’d been accused of both by Senator McAllister. Hell, she’d been accused of them long before—by her own mother.
You’ve got to believe me, Mom…

The dog jumped up and barked, and a split second later, the doorbell rang.

Mann looked at his watch. “After ten o’clock,” he said. He and Vaega went to the front door. Erin stood back while the deputy positioned himself in front of her.

“Shit,” the sheriff said when he looked out the window.

He opened the door. It was the woman from Engel’s restaurant, crying. “Sheriff,” she sobbed, “Rebecca’s gone.”

A
LARMS WENT OFF
in Nick’s mind—one after another and each more terrifying than the last.
Ace Holmes? Carrie Sitton’s murderer? Jack Calloway?
Erin’s words replayed in his ears… Calloway’s type of women:
The type you have right here in Hopewell. You even introduced me to one this morning…

God, no.

“She’s probably hanging out with Ace, not answering her cell phone,” Quent said, doing his best to be the voice of reason. “Leni said Rebecca threatened running off with him.”

They piled into the Tahoe and a knot of fear clogged Nick’s throat. Pray, God, Quent was right.

They raced through town and stopped at the restaurant first—the last place Rebecca had been seen. The cash register had been emptied of bills.

Thank God.
But even as a twinge of relief plucked at Nick, the realization that he was thanking God that Rebecca had probably stolen money and run off with Holmes hit him between the eyes. In the old days—last week—that would have been a horrible thing in Hopewell.
Now, in the scheme of what Erin Sims was claiming, finding out that Becca had run away with an asshole boyfriend would rate as good news.

He closed his eyes, and the message he’d just printed at home rose up to haunt him. He’d grabbed it on his way out so as not to let Erin see it, and handed it to Quent as he drove. It was from the FBI.

Quent read it, then looked at Nick. “Man. You think Sims is bullshitting us?”

“Maybe. All in all, that report doesn’t make her appear very credible. But I gotta tell ya, Quent, there’s something else that’s been rolling around in my head all day.” Nick swallowed, but the knot in his throat didn’t go away. “What if she’s not bullshitting us? What if she’s right and Jack Calloway’s been screwing girls and killing them, right under my nose for the past five years?”

Quent thought about it for a full minute. “Holy God,” he finally said, almost under his breath. “I hope not.”

John was gone, the son of a bitch. Well, almost.
Pzzt.
He dropped where he stood in front of his own gun cabinet.

The Angelmaker secured a plastic bag over John’s head to keep the blood from spreading, dragged him out the back in the hall rug, and piled him into the shiny new Ford. Hit him with a few strips of duct tape just in case, then went back inside and carefully replaced the rug. On the way back through the foyer, the Angelmaker paused to look at the masks. A thrill surged deep inside.

John would go right
there,
to the left of Lauren McAllister and a little bit lower. An angel, after all.

The Angelmaker went back outside, zapped John again and bound him with duct tape. Hauled him to the
workshop and wrestled the deadweight of his body onto the table.

Ready.

Now, the preparation. The plastic on his head could go; it wasn’t necessary anymore. Then the duct tape—yards and yards of it—spiraling over John’s body and under the table, round and round, making them one. When he began to stir again, it wouldn’t matter; he was immobile. For his head, there was a
technique
: one strip of duct tape across the top of his brow just dipping beneath the roots of the hairline and another strip, longer, looped beneath the chin and up over the ears like a horseshoe. It was a practice perfected years ago. One that held the head as still as a mannequin, yet left the face completely exposed.

Ready. Well, almost. Better do the lips. Not much possibility anything could be heard outside this workshop, but it would be a few hours before the job was finished. No sense in taking chances.

The Angelmaker picked up a tube of Super Glue, wiped the tip with a cloth, then dragged a single bead of the clear liquid across the crease of John’s lips. Pressed them together for five seconds.

Now,
John was ready.

The Angelmaker walked around the dim space and lit seven candles—one for each angel so far—then added an eighth for John. A shame he had turned out to be one of them, though it had probably always been just a matter of time.

Time. It was moving quickly now, getting harder to keep things in hand. So much to juggle.

The Angelmaker got to business, turned on the CD player and let the strains of an angel choir float into the air.
Regina caeli, Regina coeli, semper angelis conservabor…
Now for the clay. It was warm, moving like silk in hand, and when the first smear touched John’s face, he came to just enough that his brow wrinkled and his eyelids flickered. He tried to say something but his voice came out
mmmm
and his lips worked against the glue, muscles tightening with panic and the sounds in his throat rising to a feverish pitch. A minute later, his eyes—pupils wide and dilated—lit on the Angelmaker.

The truth leaked into John’s eyes like drops of poison. The Angelmaker smiled, gazing into the mismatched orbs. Those piercing, all-seeing eyes that would soon be rendered harmless.

“Well, good,” the Angelmaker said, “you’re awake. Just in time to watch yourself die.”

Ace Holmes lived a stone’s throw over the Carroll County line, out of Nick’s jurisdiction. Nick thought about calling in Anson Bell, then decided to fuck jurisdictions and fall on Holmes himself. Bell had enough going on with Carrie Sitton’s murder.

Besides, Nick was pumped. Rebecca was probably just falling under Ace’s bad influence and giving her mom hell, but God help him: He was
pumped
.

Holmes’s place was exactly what he’d envisioned: a rundown house suffering from long-term neglect, sitting on a plot that would have looked right in an old trailer park. Scrap metal, splintered wood, and discarded containers of antifreeze and motor oil were piled against one wall. Several bags of garbage had been raided by coons or dogs; Holmes’s Chevy pickup sat in a gravel turnaround, along with a beater-Dodge with expired plates. Nick laid a hand on the hood of one vehicle, then the other: Both engines were cool.

He freed the clip on his 9mm holster, saw Quentin do the same. Without a word, they flanked the front door, and Nick reached to his side and knocked.

Holmes peeked out. “Aw, fuck you,” he said, and Nick strong-armed the door.

“Aren’t you gonna invite us in, Ace?” he asked. The smell of cooked onions oozed onto the porch. Sleazy music—boinky synthesizers and whining electric guitars—came from the TV inside, punctuated by the exuberant “unh, unh” of a woman being pounded by too large a dick.

“Get outta here, man. I didn’t do nothin’. I didn’t even know that Carrie girl.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Nick said. Holmes backed off, stepping from the door and rubbing a hand over his close-shaved head. Nick repeated: “I said, ‘Aren’t you going to invite us in?’ Because out here on the porch, I think I smell some pot. Do you smell pot, Deputy Vaega?”

Quent made a show of sniffing the air. “Smells like top-grade grass to me.”

Holmes swore, then hit the front of the TV with a fist. The woman’s grunts died along with the music. “Assholes,” he said, but didn’t shut the door.

Invitation enough. Ace Holmes had done time for possession and had a couple of raps for robbery. He was sunk if they decided they had sufficient grounds to search the place. Suspicion of marijuana use constituted sufficient grounds.

Nick stepped inside.

“She ain’t here,” Holmes said.

“Who?” asked Quent.

“Shit. You know. I know. Everyone knows. She ain’t here.”

Quentin had eased closer to Holmes while Nick circled around the living room, pausing at a door. “This the bedroom, Ace?”

“She ain’t here.”

Nick pressed the door wide and peered in. A rumpled mattress, piles of dirty clothes on the floor, beer cans. The smell of sex and sweat.

“Where is she, then?” Nick asked, checking the bathroom. Quent had moved to where he could see into the kitchen, and shook his head.

“Probably out hitchhikin’.”

Holmes was built like a tub: six foot, bulky, solid as porcelain. But he didn’t put up any show as Nick stepped close. “Why would she do that?” Nick asked.

“Bitch has a temper. What can I say?”

Nick grabbed his shirt and shoved him against the wall.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Holmes complained. His hands flailed, as if he wanted to fight but knew better. “Let go, man.”

“You’re telling me you’re out here in the middle of fucking nowhere, close to where a girl was murdered just three nights ago, and you let your girlfriend leave, alone in the dark, on foot, and it’s less than forty degrees outside?”

“I’m not the controlling type.”

Nick let his fist fly, into Holmes’s left jaw. He caught him and hauled him back up against the wall.

Holmes groaned. “I ain’t shittin’ you. She took off outta here, mad.”

“About what?”

He spit blood. “Money. She brought me a gift, ya know?”

“Where did it come from?”

“A puss gives you money, you don’t ask questions. You take it and fuck her brains out.”

Nick slammed him against the wall. “Where were you when you did her?”

“What?” Holmes was confused.

“Did you do her in your truck?”

“Yeah, I did her in my truck,” he said, showing a slash of bloody teeth. “The
first
time.”

Nick tightened his grip. Holmes was too stupid to realize what he’d just said. “So she was mad at you but let you have her, anyway; is that what you’re telling me?” Nick pressed. “You didn’t have to do any… convincing?”

“Becca likes it rough. Being
convinced
—” he tried to waggle his eyebrows “—it gets her dripping.”

This time Quent caught him. Nick threw the punch, watched him stumble into Quent’s arms, and took a step back to rub his knuckles.

Quent deposited Holmes on the sofa. “Wake up, you son of a bitch,” he said, and dumped the remainder of a beer over his head.

“Jesus,” Holmes sputtered. “What do you want from me?”

Nick, in his face again. “I want your filthy hands
off
any girl in my county. And I want Leni Engel’s money back.”

“Free country,” Holmes snapped.

“Yeah. That’s what all the guys in the state pen said.” Nick stood up. To Quentin: “I’ll send you a car. I’m gonna go look for Becca.”

“Fine. Ace, here,” Quent said, patting Holmes’s shoulder like an old buddy, “is gonna help me look around for that money.”

Nick called in three cars—one for Quent and two to help him search for Rebecca. His heart pounded like a jackhammer. He stuck to County Road 219, the most
direct route from town to Holmes.
Dlmmp.
The sound of his tires thumping over Carrie Sitton’s body echoed in his ears. The image of her pale, muddy face in his mind’s eye, Erin Sims’s accusations in his head…

Nick cursed.
No. Not on my turf, not on my watch.

He found her twenty minutes later, not hitchhiking, but walking along a two-lane road, her hands shoved into her pockets and her head scrunched below her collar. Relief poured into his chest and he piled her into the front seat of his Tahoe and cranked the heat to full blast. “I oughta turn you over my knee then lock you in a cell until you’re thirty,” he growled. “What the hell are you thinking, walking home alone at night like this?”

“H-he said he loved m-me,” she said through the clickety-clack of chattering teeth. The tears were right behind.

“Ah, jeez.” Nick kept his eyes on the road. “Someone a lot better than that is gonna love you someday, Becca.”

He felt her look at him. “You think?”

“Yeah. I think.”

She dropped her head, wringing her fingers on her lap. “I used to think that, too, but I don’t know anymore. I feel kinda used up.”

Nick pulled to the side of the road and parked, angling toward her. “Not yet. But you gotta quit going like this, save a little something for later. You have a long life ahead of you.”

“He said if we had enough money, he’d take me way. Then, when I brought it and wanted to leave, he got mad…”

Nick flipped on the interior light. “Did he hurt you? Anything that happened in the truck would have been in my county. I’ll take him in if he hurt you.”

“Well, it always—” She stopped, confused. “I think it’s just how it is.”

Emotion got Nick in the chest. “It isn’t supposed to hurt, honey.”

She looked at him like she didn’t believe him. “But I—I
let
him…”

“You let him do this?” Nick used a finger to push her hair back. Fresh bruises blossomed along her jaw line, and the cold finger of rage touched his heart.

She swallowed and pulled her hair back down. “Are you gonna call my mom?”

“Not yet.”

She swallowed. “Are you gonna take me home?”

“Not yet.”

She about came out of her skin when she realized where he
was
taking her.