Part 42 (1/2)

Reich stared blankly at him and didn't move or raise the gun. He was in shock. Cab waved at Bradley, telling him to go, and he took off limping through the cemetery. Running for a phone. Cab beckoned to Tresa. He took her hand, and he put out his other hand toward Felix Reich.

'Bradley's right,' Cab said. 'We need to call the Green Bay Police right now. We don't have much time. Let's go, Sheriff.'

Reich said nothing at all. Cab gestured with his hand again.

'Sheriff? Come on, it's over. You're too honorable a man for more violence. It's time to surrender.'

'Take the girl and go.' Reich murmured. 'What?'

Reich looked up, and his face was as dark and dreadful as a corpse. Their eyes met. Cab saw that the sheriff wasn't staring down into the hole anymore. He was inside it, consumed by the mold, dampness, worms, and stench of the burial ground. Reich withdrew Cab's own gun from his pocket, the one he had stolen when he a.s.saulted Cab at Bradley's house, and threw it at his feet.

'Take Tresa with you, Detective,' he repeated.

Cab wrestled with his conscience. Stay or go. 'Sheriff?' he murmured, his voice a question and a warning at the same time.

'The living are more important than the dead,' Reich told him.

Cab retrieved his gun. As he did, Reich deposited his flashlight on the flat stone top of the headstone beside him. He turned his back on Cab and Tresa without another word and marched away, heading back toward the thick curtain of the forest. He still had Troy's gun in his hand. The night swallowed him in seconds, and he disappeared, and so did the wet sucking noise of his boots in the gra.s.s. Cab tugged at Tresa's hand.

'We have to hurry,' he said, pulling her toward the road.

'Are you just going to let him go?' Tresa asked. 'He'll escape.'

'n.o.body escapes,' Cab said.

Reich was right. The living mattered now. Hilary Bradley. Cab hoped they were in time. He grabbed the flashlight and ran, fighting down the waves of pain in his skull, and Tresa ran beside him, her young body quick and graceful. She guided him more than he guided her, urging him to go faster when he slowed down. They fought through the pools of standing water toward the bay. From there, when they could see the beach ahead of them, they followed in Mark Bradley's path on the dirt road toward his house.

That was when Cab heard the single gunshot behind them.

He'd been waiting for it. Expecting it. The noise was loud and sharp as it pierced the forest, growing softer with each successive echo. Tresa flinched and looked in the direction of the shot, but he dragged her away. The waves of sound took several seconds to fade completely away, which was long after the bullet had traveled through Felix Reich's brain and long after the sheriff had fallen where he stood, an old soldier dead in the jungle.

Chapter Fifty-Three.

'I needed a cigarette,' Katie explained. 'I was on the patio with the Green Bay team while Gary gave one of his rah-rah speeches, and I wandered over by the hotel window and flicked my lighter. I heard a girl scream inside. Crazy. I knew Tresa was at the hotel, and I'd been avoiding her, but I never thought Glory would be there too. It must have triggered something when she saw me. The brain's a funny thing.'

Hilary watched this pretty young girl talk clinically about her crimes, as if they had sprung from someone else's hand.

'I never wanted this to happen,' she went on. 'I'm Katie Monroe now. I've spent six years trying to forget that I was Jen Bone or that I ever lived in that house.'

'You murdered your mother and your brothers,' Hilary said. 'You burned them all to death.'

Katie's eyes flashed. 'Did you live there? Do you know what it was like? Do you have any idea of the things they did to me? I wanted to erase them and that house and everything in it. I wanted it to be like none of it had ever existed. I didn't feel guilty. I still don't.'

'But you let your father take the blame.'

Katie's face went cloudy. That was the first real emotion Hilary had seen in her. 'Dad got home while I was watching the place burn. He acted like he was sorry. sorry. Can you believe it? I was doing both of us a favor. With them out of the way, it was finally going to be just the two of us, but Dad didn't understand. He sent me back to Tresa's house, and he stayed there to wait for the sheriff.' Can you believe it? I was doing both of us a favor. With them out of the way, it was finally going to be just the two of us, but Dad didn't understand. He sent me back to Tresa's house, and he stayed there to wait for the sheriff.'

'Has he contacted you?'

Katie shook her head. 'He's dead. If he wasn't dead, he would have gotten in touch with me. My aunt was always telling me I didn't have to be scared of my father coming back. Like she knew something. Like it was a secret I should keep.'

Hilary wanted the girl to keep talking. She wanted time for the police to find them. 'So is Gary Jensen supposed to take your father's place?'

'What does that mean?' Katie retorted. 'Do you think I was sleeping with my father? You think he was abusing me? Is that what you think?'

'I have no idea.'

'You're the one with the husband who screws teenage girls.'

'That's a lie.'

'Oh, you think so? You're like every wife, loyal and stupid. Gary's wife was the same way, until she found pictures of me on his phone. He convinced her he'd dumped me, but he dumped her instead. Off a cliff.'

'Mark's not Gary.'

'Yeah? I followed Glory out to the beach that night, but your husband got in the way. They put on a h.e.l.l of a show.'

'Don't play games with me,' Hilary snapped.

'Glory took off her top, and then she got on her knees. Do I need to spell it out for you?'

'Shut up.'

Katie shrugged. 'You know I'm telling the truth.'

Hilary saw Gary Jensen reappear behind Katie. He had liter bottles of gin, tequila, and vodka in his hands, but his jaw was clenched with dismay. He hovered in the doorway, unwilling to enter the bedroom. Katie gestured at him, and her face betrayed a growing agitation and impatience. She was losing control.

'Pour the alcohol around the room,' Katie told him. 'Quickly.'

Gary didn't move. 'We don't need to do this.'

Katie reached out and caressed his cheek. 'There's no going back now. It's too late. If you'd gotten rid of Amy fast like I told you, then we would have been fine. But you let the cat out of the bag, lover. We could have contained the damage if it was just Amy, but not anymore. By the time the police sift through the ashes, we'll be in Canada.'

Jensen opened his mouth but said nothing. He crouched down and laid two bottles at his feet. He unscrewed the cap on a half-empty bottle of Stolichnaya and hesitated over the p.r.o.ne body of the girl on the floor.

'Pour it over Amy,' she instructed him. 'Do it.'

With a long glance at Katie, Jensen turned the vodka bottle upside down, letting the liquid spill out in spurts, covering Amy in strong- smelling alcohol. Her hair. Her s.h.i.+rt. Her arms. Her jeans. Her feet. As the fumes gathered in her nose, Amy began to stir. Hilary heard her moan, but the girl's eyes were still closed.

He poured until the bottle was empty.

'Now the rest,' Katie told him. 'Do the whole room. The curtains. The carpet. And don't forget Hilary here.'

Jensen's eyes awakened with a kind of shock. 'Jesus, how did this happen?'