stabbed him. I grabbed it and I slammed it against his head—a couple of times. I got his keys. I’m still a little blurry on all of it—shock, adrenaline, they said—but I got in the car and floored it.”
“You knocked him out and drove away,” Simon murmured, stunned and fascinated.
“I didn’t know where I was, where I was going, and I’m lucky I didn’t kill myself, but I drove like a bat out of hell. There was a lodge, a hotel—I saw the lights. He’d taken me into the Olympic National Forest. They called the rangers, and the rangers called in the FBI and so on and so on. He got away, but I gave them a description. They had the car, his name, his address. Or the one he had on record. And still, he eluded them for nearly a year. Until he shot Greg and Kong, and Kong stopped him. Kong gave his life to stop him.”
She took the knife back, slipped it into her pocket.
“You seem like a fairly smart woman,” Simon commented after a few moments. “So you know that what you did saved other women. The bastard’s put away, right?”
“Multiple and consecutive life terms. They made the deal after I testified, after he realized he’d be convicted for Greg, for me, and he’d face the death penalty.”
“Why’d they deal?”
“For confessions on Greg, on me, on the other twelve victims, for the whereabouts of his notebooks, his tapes, for closure for the families of the murdered women. For answers. And the certainty he’d never get out.”
She nodded as if to a question in her head. “I always thought it was the right thing to do. It gave me, strangely enough, relief to hear him go through all of it, step by step, and to know he’d pay for it, for all of it, for a very, very long time. I wanted to put it behind me, close the door. My father died just nine weeks later. So suddenly, so unexpectedly, and the bottom dropped out again.”
She rubbed her hands over her face. “Horrible times. I came out to stay with Syl for a few weeks, a couple months, I thought, but I realized I didn’t want to go back. I needed to start over, and I wanted to start over here. So I did, and most of the time that door stays closed.”
“What opened it today?”
“Davey came to tell me someone is using Perry’s pattern, including details that weren’t released to the public. There’ve been two so far. In California. It’s started again.”
Questions circled in his head, but he didn’t ask them. She was done, he thought. Purged what she’d needed to purge for now.
“Rough on you. Brings it all back, makes it now instead of then.”
Again she closed her eyes, and her whole body seemed to relax. “Yes. Yes, exactly. God, maybe it’s stupid, but it really helps to have someone say that. To have someone
She laid a hand on his knee, a brief connection. “I have to go in, make some calls.”
“Okay.” He handed her the glass. “Thanks for the drink.”
“You earned it.”
Simon walked over to pick up the puppy, who immediately started bathing his face as if they’d been parted for a decade.
As he drove away, he glanced back to see Fiona going inside, closely followed by her dogs.
Five
Fiona thought about dinner, and had another glass of wine instead. Talking to Greg’s parents tore off the scar tissue and opened the wound again. She knew the healthy option was to fix a meal, maybe take a long walk with the dogs. Get out of the house, get out of herself.
Instead she shooed the dogs outside and indulged in a long session of brooding so wide and deep her hackles rose at the interruption of another visitor.
Couldn’t people just let her wallow?
The chorus of happy barks translated to a friend. She wasn’t surprised to see James and his Koby exchanging greetings with her dogs.
She leaned against the porch post, idly sipping her wine and watching him. In the floodlights she’d flipped on, his hair had a sheen. But then, something about James always did. His skin, an indescribable shade she thought of as caramel dipped in gold dust, was a testament to his widely mixed heritage. His eyes, a bright, shining green, often laughed out of a forest of lashes.
He turned them on Fiona now, with a quick and easy smile as he shook a jumbo take-out bag.
“I brought provisions.”
She took another slow sip of wine. “Davey talked to you.”
“Seeing as he’s married to my sister, he often does.”
He walked to her, bringing the scent of food, then just wrapped his free arm around her to bring her close. Swayed.
“I’m okay. I’ve just been holding the first meeting of my Pity Me Club.”
“I want to join. I’ll be president.”
“I’ve already elected myself president. But since you brought provisions, you can be the second official member.”
“Do we get badges? A secret handshake?” He leaned back to press his lips to her forehead. “Let’s go inside and vote on it over burgers.”
“I talked to Greg’s mother,” Fiona told him as she led the way.
“Hard.”
“Brutal. So I’ve been sitting here drinking wine in the dark.”
“Fair enough, but I’m calling time’s-up on that. Got any Coke?”
“Pepsi. Diet.”
“Blech. I’ll take it.”
As much at home in her place as in his own, he got out plates, set a burger, loaded, on each, then divvied up the mountain of fries from an insulated box. She poured out the drinks after dumping the rest of the wine in her glass down the sink.
“We should’ve had sex before we got to be friends.”
He smiled, sat. “I think we were eleven and twelve when you started coming on island to see your dad, so we were a little young for sex when we got to be friends.”
“Still.” She plopped down in her chair. “If we’d had sex back then, we could have a revival now. It’d be a good distraction. But now it’s too late because I’d feel stupid getting naked with you.”
“It’s a problem.” He took a bite of burger. “We could do it in the dark, and use assumed names. I’d be Rock Hard and you’d be Lavender Silk.”
“Nobody can call out ‘Lavender’ while in the throes. I’ll be Misty Mars. I like the alliteration.”
“Fine. So, Misty, you want to eat first or just go jump in the sack?”
“It’s hard to resist that kind of romance, but we’ll eat.” She nibbled on a fry. “I don’t want to beat on the drum all night, James, but it’s so strange. Just the other day I was telling Syl how I could hardly get Greg’s face in my head. How he’s faded on me. Do you know?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“And the minute Davey told me about what’s happened, it was there again. I can see him, every detail of his face. He’s back. And... is it awful?” she managed as tears rose in her throat. “Is it? That I wish he wasn’t. A part of me wants him to fade, and I didn’t realize that until he came back.”
“So what? You should wear black and read depressing poetry for the rest of your life? You grieved, Fee. You broke, and you mourned, and you healed. You started the unit out of love and respect for him.” Reaching over, he gave her wrist a squeeze. “And it’s a hell of a tribute.”
“If you’re going to be all rational and sensible, I don’t see how you can be a member of the Pity Me Club.”
“We can’t have a club meeting while there are burgers. That requires really bad wine and stale crackers.”
“Damn you, James, you’ve screwed up a really good wallow.” She sighed, ate her burger.
