“You poor boy,” his mother says to Adrian, “what kind of mother did you have to have raised you so wrong?”
“It wasn’t their fault,” Adrian says. He moves the gun from Cooper’s mother back to Cooper, and Cooper doesn’t like the look of his shaking hand.
“You had more than one?” she asks.
“I only killed one of them,” Adrian says, yelling now, and Cooper puts his arm in front of his mother and steps slightly in front of her. “The other one. . the other one died naturally,” he says, “and I never ate any fingers or wore a dress! I would never do that!”
“I want you to let her go,” Cooper says.
“Are you sure? Is that really what you want? For your mother to be free to tell the world what kind of man you really are?”
It’s a good point, and one that he’s been thinking about since Adrian first threatened to bring her back here.
“I helped you,” his mother says. “I bandaged up your leg and this is how you repay us? You’re so rude and so ill-mannered. If I were your mother I’d be ashamed right now.”
“Mum,” Cooper says, and gives her a look that suggests it’s time she shuts up.
“Don’t you look at me like that, Cooper. I’ll speak my mind.”
She’s going to get them both killed.
“I knew she was a nasty lady,” Adrian says. “It’s just like the books said. Think of what she’ll tell everybody if I let her go. She may not believe me, but the police will listen to her, they’ll figure things out, they’ll know I’m not lying.”
“Let her go,” Cooper says, only he doesn’t sound convincing and he’s sure his mother will hear it in his voice, and she does.
“Cooper? Is any of what he’s saying true?” she asks, stepping back in front of him and turning to look him in the eyes.
“Of course not,” he says.
“All of it,” Adrian says.
“Shut up, young man,” his mother says, throwing Adrian a glare before turning back to Cooper. “Tell me you haven’t hurt anybody,” she says.
“He’s mad,” Cooper says. “I swear to you he’s mad and he’s making it all up.”
“Promise me. Promise me you haven’t hurt anybody,” she says, and it sounds like she’s telling him off.
“Look at all the blood on his clothes,” Adrian says, and he sounds desperate to convince her. “Ask him how it got there!”
“I was trying to help somebody,” Cooper says. “There was a girl. Adrian stabbed her. I tried to save her, but I couldn’t,” he says, and suddenly he feels like a kid lying to his mother, wanting nothing more than for her to believe him, and if she does, what then? How can he convince her not to tell the police that Adrian kept calling him a serial killer?
He doesn’t think he can. His mother is nearly eighty-and eighty-year-old women say a lot of random shit all the time, and some of that is going to stick somewhere. There must be a way he can walk out of here with her, he can play the part of the victim and the hero assuming the photos haven’t been found.
“She bled out all over me and it was awful,” he says, “really awful. I tried so hard to save her but. . but I couldn’t,” he says.
His mother takes his hand. “It’s going to be okay,” she tells him.
“He told me where the dead girl was,” Adrian says. “How did he know? That’s what the police are going to ask!”
“What dead girl is he talking about?” his mother asks. “The one you tried to save?”
“A different one,” Cooper says. “He’s killed many.”
“What about the thumb? He cuts people’s thumbs off and collects them in jars! I’ve seen it!”
“You’re the one who cuts them off,” Cooper says.
Adrian raises the gun, and Cooper steps further around in front of his mother. It could all end right now. Then Adrian smiles. “I understand why you’re saying these things,” Adrian says. “It’s because you’re scared.”
“It’s going to be okay,” his mother whispers, her hand tight in his.
“Don’t cry,” she tells him, and he wasn’t aware that he was. He reaches up and wipes at his eyes. “You’ll get us out of here,” she tells him.
“I’m sorry,” he tells her.
“It’s not your fault we’re here,” she says. “You can’t be responsible for others, especially for a young man badly deranged.”
“I’m not deranged,” Adrian says. “Tell her, Cooper, tell her about the girl I found that you kidnapped. Tell her!”
“What girl?” Cooper asks, knowing that Adrian must have found Emma.
“The girl you left at Sunnyview. You were going to kill her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Cooper asks.
“I’ll show her to you,” Adrian says, “to both of you. I have her tied up.”
“You have a girl here you kidnapped?” Cooper’s mother asks, and she’s asking Adrian.
“I saved her.”
“You saved a girl who you have tied up. Are you planning on hurting her?” she asks.
“You don’t understand,” Adrian says.
“Because you never make sense,” Cooper says to him.
“You’re scared of her,” Adrian says. “You’ve always been scared of her because she’s dominated you your entire life. It’s what you wrote about in your book. It’s what they all write, all the people who know stuff about serial killers. It’s why she’s here. And you’re lying. I never killed my family. Never had a sister whose dress I never wore.”
“Let us go, please, please, I’m begging you,” Mrs. Riley says.
“I can’t. He’s too valuable.” He looks back up at Cooper. “Wait here,” he says, and he closes the door and disappears.
“Thank God you’re okay,” his mother says, and embraces him.
“I’m going to get us out of here,” he tells her. “I promise,” he says, and all he has to do is ask her not to go to the police until he’s found out whether or not they know he’s a killer.
“He’s back,” Cooper says, hearing the footsteps outside the door. The door opens outward and Adrian is back, the gun still in his hand, no chance of grabbing it.
“I’m doing this to help you,” Adrian says.
“Doing what?” Cooper asks.
“This,” he says, and he lifts the bottom of the shirt and clipped to his belt is a small Walkman. Adrian presses play, and Cooper can hear his voice coming back at him, Adrian’s voice too, and in that moment his mother’s fate is set. At seventy-nine years old, she has had her life. He has to cling to that, and he likes to think she would sacrifice herself to save him. That’s the kind of woman she is. He loves her. He just loves his freedom more.
chapter forty-nine
I’ve gotten a little more used to the roads now and only make two wrong turns leaving Grover Hills. I pull over at one point and fiddle with the unmarked patrol car’s laptop computer, dirt from the road slowly drifting by as I look up the address I want, and when I have it I turn up the volume on the police band and listen in to the reports coming from different parts of the city. Neighbors of Cooper Riley’s mother have described Adrian Loaner and Emma Green’s car as being seen in the driveway. It was one of the neighbors who called the police when he saw her being put into the trunk of the car. Bloody clothes have been left at the scene, and bandaging and medical tape and bloody rags were left on the dining room table. Adrian went there and forced Mrs. Riley to help him. More information comes in as I drive. An empty grave has been found out at Sunnyview, most likely the location where Jane Tyrone was buried. Fingerprints found inside one of the padded cells has matched those taken from the hairbrush from Emma Green’s flat. The background images in the photos Cooper took match those of one of Sunnyview’s padded rooms. Corpse dogs are running the grounds while they wait for ground-penetrating radar to arrive.
When I get into town I get caught up in a traffic jam. It’s almost eleven o’clock and hundreds of teenage drag racers with nothing better to do are out in their cars, cruising the four avenues surrounding the central city, proving to their friends and other drivers that they have a volcano of testosterone just waiting to be released, proving a point to the council and government that even though cruising in packs in their modified cars is now illegal they just don’t care, and proving to me that teenagers with this dickhead mentality are nothing more than sheep in their desperation to feel accepted. I listen to the police channel in the detective’s car, learning that there’s an estimated fifteen hundred drag racers circling the streets. Neon lights line the bottom of some cars, bright paint works, lots of chrome, and big mufflers, intersections are blocked and the police are just too busy with other things to care. Passengers in the car in front of me turn to give me the finger. I stare at them thinking about the man who killed my daughter, and how there’s a lot of room out in that forest for more graves. The line of traffic passes a parked car that’s been set on fire. I can see the lights from fire engines about four blocks away unable to get any closer. I manage to turn left onto a side street about a minute later and get clear of it all.