“I’ll have Ed meet us at eight,” Daniel said, mentally calculating how long the commute would be from Dutton to the GBI building with morning traffic. Because even with the police presence outside, Daniel wasn’t taking any chances. There was a sofa in the bungalow’s living room. He’d be sleeping there tonight.
Tuesday, January 30, 9:00 p.m.
His cell phone rang. The one that wasn’t registered in his name. He didn’t have to look at the caller ID. He was the only one who ever called this number.
“Yeah.” He sounded tired to his own ears. Because he was. Body and… soul. If he still had a soul. He remembered the look in Rhett Porter’s eyes. Help me.
“Is it done?” His voice was cold and would suffer no weakness.
So he straightened his spine. “Yeah. Rhett went up in a blaze of glory.”
He grunted. “Shoulda fed him to the gators like you did DJ.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t. I didn’t have time to get down to the swamp and back. Look, I’m tired. I’m going home and-”
“No, you’re not.”
He wanted to sigh, but he sucked it in. “And why not?”
“Because you’re not finished.”
“I’ll take care of Fallon. I’ve already got plans in motion. Discreet plans.”
“Good, but now there’s more. Vartanian went out to dinner tonight with Alex Fallon and Bailey’s kid.”
“The kid’s talking?”
“No.” There was an angry pause. “But she covered her face in pizza sauce. Like she was covered in blood.”
He froze, his mind wildly searching for an explanation. “That’s impossible. She was in the closet. She didn’t see anything.”
“Then maybe she’s psychic.” The words were biting and harsh. “But Bailey’s kid saw something, Sweetpea.”
His gut twisted. “No.” She’s just a child. He’d never… “She’s only a little girl.”
“If she saw you, you’re fucked.”
“She didn’t see me.” Desperation clawed at his throat. “I was outside.”
“Then you went inside.”
“But all she would have seen is me trashing the place. I grabbed Bailey outside.”
“And I’m telling you a restaurant full of people saw that kid cover her face in sauce.”
“Kids do that. Nobody’ll think anything of it.”
“On its own, perhaps not.”
“What else?” he asked dully.
“Sheila Cunningham.”
He closed his eyes. “What did she say?”
“Mostly that Bailey wasn’t the trashy slut everyone’s made her out to be. And that while everyone is upset about the rich girls’ being dead, that nobody cared about the regular girls, that nobody cares about Bailey.”
“That’s all?” He felt marginally better. “So she didn’t say anything.”
“Weren’t you listening to me?”
“Yes, I was,” he said, defensive now. “What are you talking about?”
There was total silence on the other end, and in the quiet, the words clicked.
“Oh, hell.”
“Yeah. And you can bet good old Danny boy heard it, too. He’s no idiot.”
He absorbed the barb. “So did he talk any more with Sheila?”
“Not yet. He whisked Bailey’s kid out of there so fast it made everybody’s head spin. But he did give Sheila his card.”
Fuck. “Were you there?”
“Yes. I saw it all. And people are talking all over town.”
“Has Vartanian gone back to talk to Sheila again?”
“Not yet. They took the kid back to the place the Fallon woman is renting, then fifteen minutes later all four of them piled in Vartanian’s car and headed out of town.”
“Wait. I thought you said there were three.”
“You don’t know what’s going on in your own town, do you? The Tremaine woman’s brought her cousin in to help her take care of the kid. The woman’s a kid shrink.”
What little hope he had of being able to control what happened next fizzled and died. “You want them all gone?”
“Discreetly. If Vartanian knows they’re dead, he won’t stop till he finds out who did it. So make it look like they all just went home.”
“He’ll find out sooner or later.”
“And by then I will have dealt with him. Take care of Sheila first, then the other three. Call me when you’re done.”
Tuesday, January 30, 11:30 p.m.
Mack looked up from the ’Vette’s engine to where Gemma Martin lay on his makeshift garage floor, wide-eyed, hog-tied, and terrified. “You’ve kept the engine well maintained,” he said with approval. “This one I believe I’ll keep.” He had buyers already lined up for the Z and the Mercedes. It was one of the few perks of being inside. You met all kinds of helpful people.
“Who are you?” she said hoarsely and Mack laughed.
“You know who I am.”
She shook her head. “Please. If it’s money you want…”
“Oh, I want money and I’ve got a good bit of yours.” He held up the cash he’d found in her purse. “Once I carried around a wad like this. But times change and tables turn.” Feeling a bit like one of the old Mission: Impossible agents, he peeled off the thin latex with which he’d covered his cheeks. Along with makeup, it had allowed him to hide his one identifying feature.
Gemma’s eyes widened even more. “No. You’re in prison.”
He chuckled. “Obviously not anymore, but logic was never your strong suit.”
“You killed Claudia and Janet.”
“And didn’t they deserve it?” he said mildly. He sat down on the floor next to her. “And don’t you?”
“We were kids.”
“You were bitches. Tonight you’ll be a dead bitch.” He pulled his switchblade from his pocket and began cutting away her clothes. “You three thought you were so clever.”
“We didn’t mean any harm,” she cried.
“What did you think would happen, Gemma?” he said, still mildly. “I asked you to the prom, you agreed. But you didn’t want to go. I was no longer of your class.”
“I’m sorry.” She was crying now, huge terrified tears.
“Well, it’s too late for that now, even if I were so inclined to accept. Which I’m not. Do you remember that night, Gemma? Because I do. I remember picking you up in my sister-in-law’s old car because it was all we had left to drive. I expected you to offer your own car. I should have been suspicious when you didn’t. I remember meeting your friends. Then I don’t remember anything else until I woke up hours later, naked at a rest stop a hundred miles away. My car was gone and so were you and your friends.”
“We didn’t mean anything,” she said, choking on her sobs.
“Yes, you did. You meant for me to be humiliated and I was. I remember what happened after that. I remember waiting in the bushes until a man about my size stopped to use the john. I stole his car so that I could get home. He came back while I was still hot-wiring his engine. He and I fought and I was so angry at you that I beat him unconscious. I hadn’t made it five miles before the cops pulled me over. Assault, battery, grand theft. I did four years because nobody in Dutton would help me. Nobody would help my mother raise the bail. Nobody helped me get a decent lawyer.
“You didn’t mean anything,” he finished coldly. “But you took everything. Now, I get to take your everything.”
“Please,” she sobbed. “Please don’t kill me.”
He laughed. “When the pain gets so bad, you scream that for me, sugar.”
Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 11:30 p.m.
Daniel pulled into the bungalow’s driveway. The car had been silent since they’d left Atlanta. In the back Meredith and Hope slept soundly. Beside him, Alex had been awake and deep in troubled thought. Several times he’d almost asked what was wrong, but the question was ludicrous. What wasn’t wrong? Alex’s life had fallen apart once. It was doing so again. And I’m about to make it a million times worse for her.