Dead Past

She took her phone from her pocket and called the police station. She told them who she was and what she saw. They said they would send someone to investigate. She would stay here and wait.

In the darkness, as she looked at the sad rubble of so many lives, a realization flashed through her mind like someone flipping pictures. She understood what the evidence meant-the evidence she and her team had overlooked because they didn’t understand it. The silver charm and the blond hair. They were planted on the bodies of Blake Stanton and Eric McNair as memorials to one of the victims killed in the explosion and fire. She knew who murdered Stanton and McNair, and why-and she knew where Adler was. She took her phone again and tried to dial out. This time she had no battery. She had forgotten to plug in the charger.

Diane looked around for anything to use as a weapon. She found a broken branch. Perhaps not heavy enough, but it would have to do. She walked across the street to the blackened house site. The charred wood creaked as she knelt down and looked inside the burned-out basement. She saw Adler tied to a chair, his mouth bound with duct tape. In front of him someone had lined up photographs leaning against a log of charred wood. She knew who they were-not a name, but she had seen them before.

Diane took a step back, but she was jerked backward. She fell; the back of her stitched and tender head hit the snow-covered ground. She was dazed. She tried to get up, but was pushed back down. Her weapon was gone. Diane tried to focus her eyes. When the momentary blur went away she was staring down the barrel of a gun.

The sad-faced woman looking for her daughter held it, the woman who had appealed to her in the coffee tent and showed her pictures of her daughter-the same pictures now in front of Adler. The woman she saw walking to her car alone from the Student Learning Center when they were looking for Star.

“You aren’t going to take this away from me,” she said. “This is all I have left.”

“Catherine, don’t do this. Dr. Fallon’s not the bad guy here.” It was Archie Donahue.

“Archie,” said Diane, “I was so hoping you weren’t part of this.”

“I know you were. I came to see you today to explain,” he said. “Catherine’s my sister. Kimberlyn was her daughter, my niece. She was the girl who was pregnant. We didn’t know, but the baby would have been Catherine’s only grandchild.” He stopped and almost cried from the pain. “That was her hair you looked at. That was our Kimberlyn’s hair.”

“I am so sorry,” said Diane.

“Catherine, let’s get out of the cold. Let’s talk,” said Archie. “Please.”

“Get up,” Catherine said.

“The police are coming,” said Diane.

“No, they aren’t,” said Archie. “I knew you’d call for back up. I used my partner’s car number and cancelled it. They’ll figure it out sooner or later, but it’ll be too late.”

Too late for what, wondered Diane. Archie helped her up off the ground and led her toward the adjacent house, the one that was empty because of renovations from the fire damage. So, this was where they had been hiding out.

Inside the house was barely warmer than the outside. The only lights were from the glow of lanterns. Catherine pushed Diane down in a chair.

“It’s not too late to stop this,” said Diane.

“I don’t want to stop it,” said Catherine. “I want that son of a bitch to know what he’s done. I want him to sit down in that burned-out shell that my baby died in and know what he did to her.”

“You think he was involved in the meth lab?” said Diane.

“I know he was,” said Archie. “McNair and his cousin Eric were up to their necks in the business. His wife doesn’t have money. Catherine lives next door to them. She knows the wife,” said Archie. “McNair was in Adler’s pocket. Adler isn’t clean. Why do you think he gutted the drug unit?”

“I know this is hard…,” said Diane.

Catherine slapped Diane across the face. “You don’t know anything,” she spat at her. “You don’t know anything.”

“Catherine!” said Archie.

Diane looked into her hate-filled eyes. “I know exactly. Someone worse than Adler and McNair killed my daughter, so don’t you dare tell me that I don’t know.”

Catherine was taken aback. She stared at Diane, stunned. For a moment Diane saw the humanity come back into her face.

“Then how can you try to stop me?” she whispered.

“You can’t let yourself become like them,” said Diane.

“I’m not like them. How can you compare what I’m doing with what they did? I’m just getting rid of what you people can’t. Archie told me what you people talked about. How you can only pick up the pieces.”

“Blake Stanton wasn’t a part of the meth lab,” said Diane.

“I tried to tell her,” said Archie. Diane could see tears in his eyes. “I tried to tell her.”

“Why did he try to hijack your car? I heard about that.” Catherine’s gaze darted toward Archie.

“Because he was stealing from my museum and he thought I knew about it. Like your daughter, he just happened to be at the party. He was completely innocent of the meth lab crimes. And he has a mother just like you who is in unbearable pain because someone killed her baby,” said Diane.

Diane saw it in her eyes, the sudden flash of guilt. She is the one who killed Stanton. And Archie killed McNair. McNair was probably guilty, but Stanton didn’t have anything to do with her daughter’s death.

“No, you’re lying,” she said.

But Diane knew Catherine believed her.

“If he…”

There was a pop, like a lightbulb being stepped on, and Catherine stopped talking and stared; a dot of red dripped in the center of her forehead and she fell to the floor.

“What?” said Archie.

Another lightbulb bursting, and he went down, too, the back of his head blown out.

Chapter 54

Diane stared at the two dead bodies for a second before she dove from the chair and skidded across the linoleum. Get away from the windows, her brain told her. She crawled across to the door into another room. It was a dining room that opened onto a deck. She saw a shadow on the deck from the moonlight. She crawled on her belly from the dining room into the carpeted living room.

What is this, she thought? Payback for McNair or Stanton? Drug dealers looking for revenge? SWAT team? Adler loose from his bonds? She crawled across the floor looking for a place to hide. She saw a partially open door and a stairway. She slithered through the door and ran up the carpeted stairs. OK, now what. The gunman would be coming in, she knew it. Why hadn’t she gotten at least one of the guns that Catherine and Archie had? She always yelled at the people in movies who didn’t pick up dropped guns in situations just like this one. Damn.

She ran into a bedroom and looked out the window onto the deck below. Someone was there. A hulking guy, not a ninja type. He was in a shadow. She eased over to the dresser, pulling out the drawers and looking for any kind of weapon. Foolish, the owners would have taken their guns with them. No. She felt the barrel of a gun. Pure joy. She grabbed it and pulled it out. It was a vibrator. Shit.

She went into the bathroom, looking for something. Nothing but shampoo, conditioner, and Band-Aids. Come on, there’s got to be a razor blade-something. Nothing. She heard whoever it was trying to break in. Archie must have locked the doors behind him. Thank God for that. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. She ran to the nightstands and looked for anything.

There was a photograph on the night table. She grabbed it and fumbling, took out the glass. She went to the bathroom and put a towel around it and broke it into several long pieces. She put three together, found some tape bandage, and wrapped it around one end of the pieces. She took a washcloth and wrapped and bandaged it up so that she had a soft handle. OK, now she had a piss poor weapon. But it was better than no weapon.