Kasey stood frozen. She couldn't move. She stared at him as he slowly regained consciousness. Her own blood ran in streams down her neck. Beside him, sprawled on the floor; she saw the blue skin of one of the women he had killed, and something wriggled in the wound on her neck. Maggots.
His eyes opened. That was what she was waiting for. They opened just enough for him to see her standing over him. For him to realize she was there and for her face to penetrate his mind.
He saw the gun in her hand. He knew what she was going to do. And why.
'You're a killer, Kasey,' he breathed, his lips folding into a broken smile. 'Just like me.'
She nodded. 'You're right.'
Kasey lifted the gun and fired a single shot into his brain.
Chapter Fifty-two
Serena left tracks in the snow with her boots as she marched up the driveway. The farmhouse was ablaze with light, and through the windows, she saw the shadow of someone moving on the second floor. As she got closer, she found the front door wide open. A moving truck was parked outside, its engine running. Behind the truck, hooked for towing, she saw an old Ford Escort.
It was the car she had seen at Regan Conrad's house, the car that had vanished while she was inside.
Everything made sense, but she wished it didn't.
Serena was conscious of her gun hidden in her shoulder holster under her jacket, but she left it where it was. At the threshold, she hesitated. The house was mostly stripped, but she saw an old television in the family room, tuned to the local network. She heard the breathless voice of Blair Rowe and saw the crawl for breaking news scroll across the bottom of the screen.
POLICE RECOVER CHILD'S BODY NEAR CEMETERY.
The news explained the frantic rush to escape. They knew about the search. They knew what the police were going to find in the woods. After that, it wouldn't be long before someone wound up at their doorstep.
Serena walked silently into the house. The main floor was empty, but upstairs she heard heavy, panicked footsteps in the hallway. As she watched, a burly, bearded man thundered down the stairs and froze in horrified surprise when he saw Serena.
Her heart lurched. The man carried a baby wrapped in a blanket in his arms. She couldn't see the baby's face, which was covered by a hood, but she knew who it was. She had suspected all along what she would find inside the house, even though she hadn't allowed herself to believe it could end this way. The baby's hand reached up out of the folds of the blanket and tugged at the man's beard. The hood slipped off her head, and Serena saw her blonde curls. Her beautiful face with its wide eyes and toothy grin. Valerie's child.
It was Callie Glenn. Alive. Safe.
Serena put up her hands to steady him. 'Stay right there, OK? Let's be calm about this. No one wants anyone getting hurt.'
He didn't move. He didn't say anything.
'Where's Kasey?' Serena asked Bruce Kennedy.
Bruce wilted on to the steps. His head burrowed into his thick neck. 'She's out.'
'Did you two really think you could get away with this?'
Bruce put out a thick finger, and Callie grabbed it and put it in her mouth. His eyes welled with tears. 'I don't know what I was thinking. You have to believe me, I never thought any of it would go this far. But when I saw the news, I knew you'd be coming for us. I knew you'd want to take her back.'
Serena gestured toward the sofa. 'Why don't you come downstairs, Bruce? Tell me about it. Tell me why you and Kasey did this.'
Bruce held Callie like a treasure as he came downstairs. She was a tiny bundle in his huge arms. His eyes shot to the open door behind Serena, and she shook her head.
'Please don't try that,' she told him. 'There are police outside. All you would do by running is put her in danger.'
'I'd never do that.'
He sat on a corner of the sofa, and Serena sat opposite him. She couldn't take her eyes off Callie. The little girl was even more beautiful than she had dreamed. All she had seen until now was a photograph, and for days she had steeled herself to the eventual reality of finding her dead. Or never finding her at all. And here she was, perfect and gorgeous. She wanted to take her in her arms and never let go. She was so happy that she thought her heart would break, and she realized that she was crying herself. The reality of seeing Callie hit her harder than she could ever have imagined.
'Isn't she wonderful?' Bruce said.
Serena nodded mutely. She couldn't speak.
'You can't take her away from us,' he said.
'Tell me what happened,' Serena told him, her voice cracking. 'For God's sake, why would you two do something like this?'
Bruce sank back into the sofa with Callie on his chest. 'Our own little boy never had a chance.'
'Your son? He was the baby we found in the woods?'
'Yes.'
'What was wrong?'
'Jack's lungs didn't develop properly.' Bruce shook his head. 'That poor little boy, he would turn blue fighting for breath. As he grew, he struggled more and more.'
'Did you take him to the doctor?' Serena asked.
'Of course we did. They ran tests and scans and put him through hell and all they could say was the defects were too severe. Surgery would have killed him, and he was going to die without it. It was just a matter of time. We didn't want him to die in a hospital. We wanted him home with us. At least we could make him comfortable as long as we could.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Kasey was so depressed. She never slept. She would have killed herself to make that baby healthy, and she thought it was her fault that we were losing him.'
'You're talking about severe congenital defects. It's nobody's fault.'
'I know, but Kasey thought God had abandoned us. She was desperate.'
Serena watched the frantic longing in Bruce's face. She could imagine their minds fraying after months of their child slowly getting worse. 'What about Callie?' she asked.
Bruce stared at the girl in his arms. 'Regan put the idea in Kasey's head. She was our nurse at the hospital. She helped us all year. She came by our house every day. I don't think Kasey would have survived without her.'
'What did she tell you?'
'Jack was dying,' he said with a sigh. 'There was nothing we could do. Regan told us how unfair it was and how we'd been cheated.
She said we deserved to have a baby. She told us about Marcus Glenn and how he didn't love Callie because she wasn't his, and how he and his wife were both cheating on each other, and how awful it would be for a baby to grow up in that household. She said it was like God had made a mistake that night and switched the babies. That's what it was — a mistake. They had a wonderful, healthy little girl, and we were forced to live through the agony of watching our sweet little boy fighting and fighting and not making it. Don't you see? It wasn't supposed to be that way.'
Serena grew angry, imagining Regan preying on their vulnerable souls, using them as pawns in her own game of revenge against Marcus and Valerie Glenn. 'What happened?' she asked.
'Jack finally passed away last week,' Bruce said. 'We lost him.'
