Vanish

“Get in the hole,” he said. “It’s deep enough now.”

“Not my baby,” she whispered. “She’s so small-”

“Get in, bitch.”

His kick thudded into her ribs and she rolled onto her side, unable to scream because it hurt so much just to breathe.

“Move,” he commanded.

Slowly she struggled to her knees and crawled to Regina. Felt something warm and wet trickling from her nose. Gathering the baby into her arms, she pressed her lips to soft wisps of hair and rocked back and forth, her blood dripping onto her baby’s head. Mommy has you. Mommy will never let you go.

“It’s time,” he said.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Gabriel stared into Jane’s parked Subaru, and his heart gave a sickening lurch. Her cell phone was on the dashboard, and the baby seat was buckled into the back. He turned, aiming his flashlight directly at Peter Lukas’s face.

“Where is she?”

Lukas’s gaze flitted to Barsanti and Glasser, who were standing a few feet away, watching the confrontation in silence.

“This is her car,” said Gabriel. “Where is she?”

Lukas raised his hand to shield his eyes against the glare of the flashlight. “She must have knocked on my door while I was in the shower. I didn’t even notice that her car was parked out here.”

“First she calls you, then she comes to your house. Why?”

“I don’t know-”

“Why?” Gabriel repeated.

“She’s your wife. Don’t you know?”

Gabriel went for the man’s throat so quickly that Lukas didn’t have time to react. He stumbled backward against Barsanti’s car, his head slamming onto the hood. Gasping for air, he clawed at Gabriel’s hands but could not free himself, could only flail helplessly, his back pinned against the car.

“Dean,” said Barsanti. “Dean!”

Gabriel released Lukas and backed away, breathing hard, trying not to give in to panic. But it was already there, gripping his throat as surely as he had gripped Lukas, who was now down on his knees, coughing and wheezing. Gabriel turned to the house. Ran up the steps and banged through the front door. Moving at a blur now, he ran from room to room, opening doors, checking closets. Only when he came back into the living room did he spot what he had missed on the first pass: Jane’s car keys, lying on the carpet behind the couch. He stared down at them, panic freezing into dread. You were in this house, he thought. You and Regina…

Distant gunshots made his head snap up.

He ran out of the house, onto the porch.

“It came from the woods,” said Barsanti.

They all froze at the crack of a third gunshot.

All at once, Gabriel was running, heedless of whipping branches and saplings as he plunged into the woods. His flashlight beam danced crazily across a forest floor strewn with dead leaves and fallen birches. Which way, which way? Was he going in the right direction?

A tangle of vines caught his ankle and he pitched forward, landing on his knees. He rose back to his feet, chest heaving, as he caught his breath.

“Jane?” he shouted. His voice broke, her name fading to a whisper. “Jane…”

Help me find you. Show me the way.

He stood listening, trees looming all around him like the bars of a prison. Beyond the beam of his flashlight was a night so thick it might be solid, unbreachable.

From the distance came the snap of a twig.

He spun around, but could see nothing beyond his flashlight’s glow. He shut off the light and stared, heart thudding, as he strained to make out anything at all in the darkness. Only then did he see the twinkling, so faint it might merely be fireflies dancing among the trees. Another snap of a twig. The light was moving in his direction.

He drew his weapon. Held it pointed toward the ground as he watched the light grow brighter. He could not see who was wielding the other flashlight, but he could hear the approaching footfalls, the rustle of leaves, only a few yards away now.

He raised his weapon. Switched on the flashlight.

Caught in the beam of Gabriel’s light, the figure shrank like a terrified animal, eyes squinting against the glare. He stared at the pale face, the spiky red hair. Just a girl, he thought. Just a scared, skinny girl.

“Mila?” he said.

Then he saw the other figure emerge from the shadows right behind the girl. Even before he saw her face, he recognized the walk, the silhouette of unruly curls.

He dropped the flashlight and ran toward his wife and daughter, arms already open and hungry to hold them. She leaned against him, shaking, her arms wrapped around Regina, just as his arms were wrapped around her. A hug within a hug, their whole family contained in the universe of his embrace.

“I heard gunshots,” he said. “I thought-”

“It was Mila,” Jane whispered.

“What?”

“She took my gun. She followed us…” Jane suddenly stiffened and looked up at him. “Where’s Peter Lukas?”

“Barsanti’s watching him. He’s not going anywhere.”

Jane released a shuddering breath and turned to face the woods. “There’ll be scavengers showing up for the body. We need to get CSU out here.”

“Whose body?”

“I’ll show you.”

Gabriel stood at the edge of the trees, staying out of the way of the detectives and the crime scene unit, his gaze fixed on the open hole that would have been the grave of his wife and daughter. Police tape had been strung around the site, and battery-powered lights glared down on the man’s body. Maura Isles, who’d been crouching over the corpse, now rose to her feet and turned to Detectives Moore and Crowe.

“I see three entry wounds,” she said. “Two in the chest, one in the forehead.”

“That’s what we heard,” said Gabriel. “Three shots.”

Maura looked at him. “How long an interval between them?”

Gabriel thought about it, and felt once again the echoes of panic. He remembered his plunge into the woods, and how, with every step, his sense of dread had mounted. “There were two in quick succession,” he said. “The third shot was about five, ten seconds after that.”

Maura was silent as her gaze swung back to the corpse. She stared down at the man’s blond hair, the powerful shoulders. A SIG Sauer lay near his right hand.

“Well,” said Crowe, “I’d call this a pretty obvious case of self-defense.”