Never Knowing

“Do you want to wake up Ally?” he said.

I said, “She’s right, Billy. How are you going to explain two deaths?”

He pointed the gun at me. “I told you to shut up.” He continued pacing. Then stopped and spun around. “John had a large fan base, all murder groupies — they’re angry you killed him. One of them decided to seek revenge.” He nodded. “I can make that work.” Billy walked over to the knife block, picked up the biggest one, and hefted it in his hand, like he was testing its weight. He sliced it through the air, once, twice.

Melanie said, “Or I can help you.” I gasped. But she didn’t look at me. She said, “Suicide is way more believable — there’s already drugs in Sara’s system. We don’t have to hurt the kid. But it would look better for you if I’m the one to find Sara’s body. I could try to revive her, but…” She shrugged.

“You think I’m going to fall for that?” But he sounded tense. He knew she was right.

“I hate Sara.” Melanie spit the words out. “I’ve always hated her. She’s not even my real sister. If she dies, I’ll owe you for the rest of my life.” She dropped to her knees off the chair. Startled, Billy stepped back, the gun pointed at her face, but she crawled forward on her knees. “I’ll even tell the cops I saw her today and she was really depressed.” From the side, I saw a gleam in Melanie’s eye. I wanted to say something, anything, but my tongue felt thick and my vision was a little blurry. The pills were definitely kicking in.

Melanie was in front of Billy now. He didn’t move.

“I’m your best chance to get out of this,” she said. Billy’s face was intense, his forehead covered in a fine sheen of sweat.

Her hands at her sides, Melanie rose, still on her knees, so her mouth was right in front of Billy’s crotch. He stared down, transfixed.

“I’ll do anything you want, Billy.”

I finally found my voice. “Doesn’t matter what she says — you’ll never get away with this. And when your father finds out, he’ll—”

Billy looked up. “You bitch—”

Melanie rammed her forehead into his crotch. He let out a huge bellow and stumbled backward. The knife fell out of his hands and skidded to my left. I lunged for it, but my body was slow to respond and I hit the floor with a thud.

Melanie and Billy were struggling for the gun. He grabbed her by the hair and slammed her head into the fridge. I reached for the knife but my fingers closed around air. I looked to my left and saw Billy dive for the gun on the floor — Melanie kicked it away in time.

He punched her. She went down and stayed down. Now he was coming for me. My vision was blurry, but I could see the gun in his hand. I searched the floor in frantic swoops. Just as my fingers closed around the knife, his hands grasped my feet and he hauled me out from under the table. I tried to grip the table leg with one hand, but he pulled harder. Then I heard a small voice.

“Mommy?”

Billy let go of my leg and straightened up. I thrust the knife into his thigh. He screamed and clutched at it. I was still gripping the handle as he wrenched his body backward until I was left holding the knife.

“Mommy!”

Blood from Billy’s leg was turning the front of his jeans dark. He dropped to his knees. My vision was getting worse.

Ally was still screaming. Billy crawled toward the gun, which had ended up near the sliding glass door. Moose was going nuts through the glass.

With the knife in my hands I crawled after Billy, but my body swayed. I focused my blurred eyes on his back as he stretched for the gun. When I was right behind him, I raised my hand with the knife. He saw me in the door’s reflection and kicked backward, catching me under the chin and knocking me into the cupboards. Ally screamed and ran toward me.

I yelled, “Stay there!”

Billy spun around, his face a mask of red rage, and pointed the gun at me. I used my last bit of strength to brace on my elbows and kicked my heel hard into the wound in his thigh. He screamed and I kicked out again, managing to connect with his hand and knocking the gun across the kitchen.

It landed at Ally’s feet. She had her hands over her ears as she screamed and screamed. Billy and I scrambled after the gun. I pulled myself onto his back and tried to wrap my arms under his neck. He got to his feet with me clinging to him and roared as he stumbled backward.

We hit the sliding glass door with a thud that knocked the breath out of me. As he stepped forward I slid off his back and landed on the floor hard, gasping for air. My mouth filled with the metallic taste of blood. He spun around and started to kick me. In my chest, my legs, my head. Pinned against the glass, I had nowhere to go. Behind me Moose barked frantically.

Melanie’s voice rang out. “Leave my sister alone, you fucker.”

The loud crack of a gun. The images were blurry, but I could make out the stunned expression on Billy’s face and a circle of blood opening up on the front of his shirt. Another shot rang out and he collapsed on top of me.

Everything turned dark. Hands were on my arm and someone was pulling me hard, and then there was a finger down my throat.

“Sara, throw up!”

I fought the finger, but it jammed in deeper.

Melanie’s voice said, “Ally, call 911!”

I hope to God you never have to have your stomach pumped, Nadine. Not a lot of fun — nor is hanging out in the hospital for two days. You wouldn’t believe how loud it gets in there sometimes, especially at night. But I never slept anyway. The fact that John took the blame for attacking you and shooting Evan still haunts me. He must have suspected it was someone on the force. But it’s hard to know what was going on in his head. I wonder sometimes why he didn’t just tell me it wasn’t him, but I wouldn’t have believed him. And he probably knew it.

He must have also known all along I was working with the cops and set up the meetings to test me. But I don’t understand why he kept phoning. He had to have realized he was taking a chance with each call. Was he that confident they wouldn’t catch him, or did he want a connection with me so badly he was willing to take the risk? I’d betrayed him, again and again, but he still tried to protect me. If I was carrying guilt for killing him before, I’m dragging heaps of it now. I understand your theory that I might be focusing on my father’s rescuing me as a way of reconciling myself with his being a serial killer. But it’s the opposite. Knowing he wasn’t all bad is a whole lot harder than believing he was pure evil.

I keep thinking about that last day with John — my only day with him — how hard he was trying to please me. And when I attacked him in the river … I wonder what he’d been trying to tell me. I’ll never know. There’s a lot we’ll never know about this case, which is what I’m having the hardest time with. Acceptance and letting go isn’t really my thing. But I need to if I’m ever going to find some sort of peace.

The cops were hard on us when they first took our statements, but as soon as they found the Remington.223 in Billy’s attic and discovered a shell casing missing from an evidence box, they changed their tune. Sandy came to see me in the hospital. Turns out it was Billy who convinced Julia to speak to me about meeting John. He’d been filling her in on the case all along, part of his strategy to scare the crap out of her so she’d turn around and pressure me. Sandy only spoke to her a couple of times. Julia wasn’t lying after all.

Sandy apologized for being so obsessed by the case and admitted she was hard on me. But it was part of a plan. After it became clear Sandy and I didn’t connect, Billy suggested she act as the aggressor and he be the nice guy. She still feels bad that John got Ally, and she’s mortified that she didn’t know what her partner was up to. When I told her I knew she’d done the best she could, I swear I saw tears in her eyes. I look at her differently now — or maybe I’m just finally seeing her.

When they searched Billy’s house they also found a few books about The Art of War and some other Chinese classics. On his hard drive they found a draft of his own book, titled The Art of Police Work. He’d used several famous cases for examples, but most of the strategies were applied to his “one big case,” the hunt for the Campsite Killer. He also had notebooks on John and copies of every file.