shooting. And hell yes, she feels helpless and wants to rescue other kids and the cops can’t do enough, etc., etc. She wants to tell us. Now it’s just a matter of bringing her to the point where it feels better to tell us exactly what she did than to keep it bottled up inside.”
“Maybe,” D.D. muttered, less convinced. She picked up a pencil, tapped its eraser on the polished surface of the maple wood table. “If Charlie’s past makes her a killer,” she mused out loud, “then what else in her past makes her a target?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we have two investigations leading us to one subject: Charlene Rosalind Carter Grant. Just to keep things confusing, she appears to be the perpetrator of one series of crimes, while being the potential victim of another series of crimes. She shoots pedophiles, while counting down the days to her own murder. There’s a crazy kind of logic there, but I still can’t decipher it.”
“Her past may not have anything to do with her friends’ murders.”
D.D. arched a brow. “You mean she just naturally attracts psychopaths? First her mother, then a random stranger who decided to murder the ones she loves?”
O shrugged. “Sure the mom’s dead?”
“The twin Rosalind and Carter tattoos seem a slam dunk. I mean, there could be other deceased Jane Does of the same approximate age and description. Perhaps even deceased Jane Does with the same pineapple-shaped birthmark. But a deceased Jane Doe of the same approximate age, description, birthmark, and tattoo honoring two dead babies…”
“All right, all right. The mom’s dead. Well, think about what Charlene said: How did her mother wind up so crazy when everyone else in the family appears so normal? Except, if Charlene’s running around Boston shooting sex offenders to death, she’s not really that normal, is she?”
“Meaning, maybe neither is the aunt?” D.D. murmured.
“Once you’ve established two homicidal maniacs in the family, what’s a third? Though it makes you wonder what they talk about at family reunions.”
“I once read about a family with two serial killer brothers. And here was the kicker-they murdered independently of one another. Two separate homicidal rampages.”
“Several cases of cousins operating as killing teams. So definitely something to be said for pruning certain family trees.”
“You gonna look up the aunt?” D.D. asked, pushing back in her chair.
“I’ll background the aunt. Given that she’s in town, timing seems right for a face-to-face interview. What are you going to do?”
“Go home. Get some sleep.” D.D. paused. She wanted to be present for the aunt’s interview. Then again, she could barely keep her eyes open, and she was hitting the point of nonsensical cranky that was more hurtful than helpful. She’d advised her unit that this investigation was a marathon not a sprint. Perhaps she should take her own advice. Interesting.
Not to mention that tomorrow was the twenty-first. Game day. Definitely, she wanted to be fresh for game day.
“I’ll sleep a couple of hours first, then pick up Jack from day care,” D.D. determined out loud.
“Coming back to the office?” O asked.
“Maybe after dinner. We might have something from the handwriting expert by then. Plus a report from Neil and Phil on their visit with our third victim’s family. Oh, and I’ll follow up with Grovesnor PD, make sure they get Charlene’s handgun. One thing’s for certain.” D.D. rose to standing, glancing at her watch. “For Charlene Grant there’s not much time left.”
“No,” O agreed. “There certainly isn’t.”
Chapter 31
NINE P.M. FRIDAY NIGHT. Twenty-three hours to go.
Sun gone. Temperature plummeting. Sky dark.
My aunt had left, checking into a hotel for the evening. Tulip had left, going wherever the dog that was not my dog went. I paced my tiny room. I loaded and unloaded my gun.
I thought of my mom. I struggled to remember two tiny siblings, a baby sister and a baby brother, who’d never had a chance at life. Apparently, memory is a muscle, and having atrophied mine for most of my life, I couldn’t magically now fire it to life. I tried to picture a house, a yard, a family pet. A woman, a smell, something, anything that felt like my old life.
In the end, I downed two aspirin, then shadow boxed in front of my mirror.
The woman looking back at me was gaunt. Purple bruised throat. Slicked back brown hair. Crazed blue eyes.
I looked like my mom, twenty years later.
Abigail, Detective O had called me.
I punched the mirror. Suddenly. Quickly. One two three, bam, bam, bam. Shattered it with my bare hands. Then, watched the broken fragments rain down onto the wood floor, a shower of silver.
And for a moment…
My landlady, Frances, knocked on the door. “You okay?”
“Sorry. Um…accident. No problem. All’s well.”
I studied my bleeding knuckles. A mirrored shard of glass protruded from the back of my left hand. I picked out the glass. I licked at the welling blood.
Then, even though I’d be an hour early, I left for work.
OFFICER MACKERETH CAUGHT me in the parking lot. He’d just pulled up in his police cruiser. He popped open the driver side door, got out, spotted me walking down the dimly lit sidewalk behind him, and changed his direction from the warmth of the station to the cold of the street, where I was hoofing it from the T stop.
“Charlie,” he said, and there was something in his voice that was already a warning.
I drew up short, one streetlight behind me, one streetlight ahead of me. I planted my legs, left foot forward, gloved hand on the flap of my messenger bag.
Mackereth saw my change in stance and paused ten feet back, his right hand dropping to his holstered weapon, his own weight going forward, onto the balls of his feet. We stood like that for a full fifteen, twenty seconds, him haloed by one streetlight, me haloed by another. Neither of us at an advantage, neither of us at a disadvantage.
“You carrying?” he asked finally.
“Why do you ask?”
“I know. Call came in today. Shepherd is waiting for you inside to take the twenty-two. What’d you do, Charlie?”
I didn’t answer his question, my mind already racing ahead. Boston PD, had to be. They’d figured out what I’d done to Stan Miller. Detective O had basically admitted as much, trying to wheedle a confession out of me. I didn’t know how, but they were putting together the pieces. Maybe Tomika had told a friend of a friend. Maybe someone had spotted me entering the building not once, but twice that night.
Maybe it just made sense. I mean, a girl like me, growing up the way I grew up. Maybe murder and mayhem had always been only a matter of time.
Because I knew. Rosalind’s pale little body, wrapped snug in a pale pink polka-dotted blanket. She’d loved that blanket. Had clutched the soft fleece in her tiny fists, had sucked on the satin trim.
I’d wrapped her up. Afterward.
Take care of the baby, Charlie. Don’t let her cry. Can’t let her cry.
Oh God, what had I done?
