Laneer and Sylvia had not seemed confused. They had been very clear that Walker had come to fetch Kali, so Faye considered their recollections to be fact. Now Walker was nowhere to be seen. They were also very clear that Walker had said that Linton sent him. Now Linton was nowhere to be seen, either.
It made no sense for Walker and Linton to be working together, so one of them had the girl and was using the other one for cover.
Faye looked around her one more time.
No Walt Walker.
No Linton.
And no Kali.
Chapter Forty-two
Faye was pretending that she was Joe. She had successfully tracked Kali once, so she was trying to do it again, but she didn’t have Joe’s magic eyes. Nevertheless, she was scouring the ground between Laneer’s car and the church for footprints, while keeping an eye on where all the key players were. Linton and Walt were nowhere to be found.
Neither was Kali. Faye doubted that Kali had run away again. Walt was the last person seen with her and he would have sounded an alarm if she’d gotten away from him. Faye’s gut said that somebody had the child, and Walt Walker was the obvious suspect.
But what about Linton? Why was he missing? Did he take Kali from Walker, perhaps to stake a claim as her stepfather? But again, Walt had sounded no alarm. Was Walt missing because he was trying to get Linton to give Kali back to Laneer? Or, worse, was he missing because he was trying to keep Linton from killing again?
McDaniel had been questioning witnesses and his face said that those witnesses had been no help at all. He hustled across the parking to see what Faye knew. “Linton?”
“I saw him coming out of the church a few minutes ago,” she said, gesturing at the door behind her. “I don’t see him anywhere now.”
“I’ll search the church. You just showed me what you can do as a tracker. Until my officers get here with their dogs, you’re all I’ve got. Find that girl.”
He threw the church’s side door open, the same one where Kali had fled her mother’s funeral. Reverend Atkinson was standing on the other side, and McDaniel almost mowed him down as he hurried inside the church.
Reverend Atkinson joined Faye where she stood searching the ground for new footprints. His face was as distraught as hers.
“Did you find her? I’ve been inside praying for Sister Frida and hoping that maybe one of you forgot to come in and tell me that the little girl was safe. Then I got to the point that I couldn’t wait any longer. I know I’m doing Kali more good by praying for her, but I just have got to know something.”
His eyes raked over Faye’s frantic face, and he said, “Ah. I see. You don’t have any good news for me.” Looking up at the darkening sky, he said, “It’s getting too late to lay Sister Frida to rest today. Maybe it’s providential. We’ll have to delay the burial.”
Faye asked, “What do you mean?”
The minister’s eyes swept the church, the garden, the parking lot, the creek, the trees. “When I think of what happened to Sister Frida, I want to pray. I need to pray, or I’ll be seized with the kind of anger that doesn’t help a soul. It will do me good to pray over her all night tonight, and maybe it will do her good, too. Maybe it will bring her peace. She surely deserves it.”
Faye agreed with that thought, as far as it went. Frida certainly deserved peace, but Faye thought that Frida deserved something more; Frida deserved justice.
She looked around her, puzzled. “It hadn’t occurred to me to ask where Frida would be buried. I don’t see a cemetery. Will you be taking her back into town?”
“We have our own graveyard. It’s just through those trees a bit. We think that the people who built this place wanted to give the dead some extra quiet, so they can rest peacefully in God’s own arms. Every prayer I say between now and then will be for sweet Kali to be standing there with us tomorrow to see her mother laid to rest.”
Faye looked in the direction where the minister was pointing, and she saw a narrow opening in the trees. She was already walking before he’d finished speaking.
Chapter Forty-three
He had the girl now. He had the flowers. Providence had provided a grave.
Providence had not provided a shovel, but he could make do. He could step away from his unsatisfying plan to drown her and use a weapon that was almost as good as a shovel.
Ted Bundy had used a stout log for his final rampage, but there were no stout logs at hand. The thin brittle sticks littering the ground in this woodland were no help at all.
In his trunk, though, was a lug wrench that was as sturdy a weapon as a shovel. It waited for him in the car he had parked at the other end of this shady lane.
He walked down the dirt path, suppressing the urge to whistle. Joy was rising, and his step was light because he was one step closer to restoring order. At rock bottom, this was always his motivation, when he was sane.
When he wasn’t sane, he became disorder personified. Then, when he came back to himself, he was compelled to return to his orderly life. It might not look like much to others, but it was his life, and he loved it.
It had been so easy to convince Kali to come with him to look at her mother’s resting place. Now she waited, gagged with her own belt and bound with his tie and her white satin hair ribbon. She
