Death Notice (43 page)

Then he swallowed.

The gash in Martin’s neck opened up. Blood spewed out of it, pouring down his chest. He clutched his throat, gasping, but the blood flowed unabated in thick rivulets.

Kat crawled backward as Martin slumped forward. Face down on the floor, he flopped morbidly, hands useless against the tide of blood. After one last flop and a pained, rattling gasp, Martin Swan grew still.

Every part of Henry’s body was weak, worn down by trauma, blood loss, and the still-unreal fact that he had just killed someone.

He needed rest. And a hospital. Both would have to wait. With the fire growing, he and Kat were still in harm’s way.

“How do we get out of here?” Kat asked.

“Don’t. Know.”

He could barely speak. Each word was agony. Every syllable tugged at the stitches in his neck and inflamed his mutilated lips.

They rose together, clutching each other for support until
both of them were on their feet. Henry was more unsteady than Kat, threatening to tip over at any moment. But Kat kept hold of him.

“This way,” she said, scanning the room with mounting desperation. “I think it’s this way.”

The fire had spread across the floor in red-hot tentacles, grabbing whatever it could reach. The table, Henry noted, was now a charred lump, having been consumed—then discarded—by the flames.

They stumbled past it, groping blindly in the thick smoke. Their destination was the door where Kat had entered. Only they couldn’t find it. The smoke was so overwhelming that they lost all sense of direction.

He and Kat shuffled back to their original spot. On their way there, Henry saw the fire had reached Martin. His scrubs smoldered a moment before bursting into flames. The fire danced across his body, ripping across his back and igniting his hair.

That would be them soon, he realized. The smoke would overpower them, and the fire would close in on them until they, too, succumbed to the flames.

He and Kat still stumbled backward, edging to a far wall—the place where there seemed to be the least smoke.

“What are we going to do?” Kat asked.

Henry coughed out his answer. “Pray.”

He could no longer see Kat. The smoke was too heavy. It moved between them in roiling clouds, cramming his eyes, his nose, his mouth. The searing heat of the encroaching fire forced them to back up even farther until there was no place left to move.

“We’re trapped,” he heard Kat say. “Goddamn it, we’re trapped.”

The smoke blinded Henry, forcing his eyes shut. When he felt something hard bump against his back, he knew what Kat
was talking about. It was the wall, trapping them from behind. In front of them, the smoke created another wall. Beyond that was a third barrier of flames that burned steadily toward them.

Henry turned to the wall. His hands tripped across it. Kat’s did the same. She choked out words through the smoke.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”

It was the Lord’s Prayer. She was literally praying for her life.

Henry mentally joined in.

Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.

Their hands never left the wall. Their scraped and bloody fingers moved across the wood, hoping against hope to find some opening, some way out of the inferno.

On Earth, as it is in Heaven.

One of Henry’s fingers suddenly slipped forward, feeling nothing. It had dipped into a crack that divided one panel of wood from another.

He pushed his face toward the crack and smelled fresh air. Clean, cool, blessed air. And water. Just beyond the wall.

“Lake,” he gasped to Kat. “The. Lake.”

Backing up as far as the fire would allow, Kat rammed herself against the wall. When it didn’t budge, she tried it again. Then again, her body a hammer of desperation beating against the unbending wood.

Henry faced the fire again. It was closer now, about knee-high, turning the gray smoke orange. He saw movement within the smoke—a person, rushing toward them. Then Nick Donnelly burst into view. His blackened face twisted in pain as he hobbled on his right leg, which was wrapped in a cast. Fire tripped over the plaster.

Gripped in Nick’s hands was a wood-handled hatchet, which he hoisted over his shoulder and thrust into the wall. The panel splintered from the force, opening slightly. Nick removed
the hatchet and assaulted the wall again. The hatchet connected with the wood a second time, a whole panel of the wall breaking loose.

The three of them shoved their bodies against it until the wall gave way. Then they tumbled out of the fiery mill, falling into the lake beside it.

The cool water embraced Henry as he broke through its surface. The lake surrounded him, enveloped him, soothed him. As he sank to the bottom, the water took away the soot the smoke had left on his face and hands. It washed the wounds at his neck and mouth.

When he reached the lake floor, Henry pushed upward. The shimmering surface was just a few yards away. Swimming toward it, he couldn’t wait to get there. Once he broke through it, he’d be cleansed. Free of the fire. Free of the smoke. Free of the blood.

Free of his past.

Free of his guilt.

Free.

On New Year’s Day, Kat awoke to the sound of shrieks and cheerful barking coming from the living room. Lifting her head, she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was barely eight. James and his new friend were up early and, most likely, needing to be fed.

The noise grew louder when Kat headed downstairs. It was accompanied by a few bumps of furniture and the pitter-patter of paws on the floor. She found James in the living room, rolling on the carpet. A rambunctious beagle hopped around him, tail wagging with abandon. James reached for the dog, pulling it into a wriggling hug.

“We’re playing tag,” he said when he saw Kat. “Wanna play?”

Kat declined. “Mommy needs coffee first.”

The beagle followed her down the hall to the kitchen, where it made a beeline to its personalized food bowl. Kat poured kibble into the bowl, which was marked with the name Scooby.

The beagle came from Caleb Fisher, whose own dogs had produced a litter of puppies. Upon seeing them, James begged to keep one and Kat relented. He deserved it after all he had gone through.

That was another reason Kat gave in on the puppy front—therapy. Although James’s shock wore off a few days after Halloween, remnants of stress remained. Nightmares. Irrational fears. He was plagued by it all. Kat took him to therapy once a week. She didn’t know if he’d fully recover from what he saw that night. But his therapist had hope. Kat did, too.

Having the dog helped. James was devoted to it. And Scooby made him happy, which was good enough for her.

After taking care of the dog, Kat fed James, pouring him a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of orange juice. Then came coffee, which Kat brewed up extra-strength.

The phone rang as she poured the steaming java into the largest mug she could find. Answering it, she heard a familiar voice.

“Turn on CNN,” Nick Donnelly said.

Kat stifled a yawn. “Happy New Year to you, too.”

“Just turn on the TV.”

Carrying both phone and coffee, Kat returned to the living room and flicked on the television. She was immediately greeted by an image of Nick, looking as sharp as ever while giving an interview in the CNN studios.

A cane leaned against his chair. Kat knew he couldn’t walk without it. His right leg was so busted that it never healed properly. There had been surgeries and physical therapy sessions, but the prognosis was always the same—a permanent limp.

“Do you see me?” he asked.

“I do. But how are you talking to me and to CNN at the same time? Don’t tell me you cloned yourself in order to catch more bad guys.”

Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on Nick, who said, “That’s very amusing. And although cloning is a great idea, the interview was taped two weeks ago.”

On the TV, Kat watched him say, “The case was fascinating. Martin Swan was so warped by his own trauma that he didn’t care if he caused other people pain.”

Kat muted the television. She knew the details intimately. She didn’t need to hear them rehashed on TV, even if the rehashing was coming from a friend.

“So how many interviews has this been?” Kat asked Nick as she stared at the silent television.

“Too many to count. I wasn’t going to do this one, but it was for their special on the top ten biggest news stories of the year. We’re ranked number seven, if you care.”

Kat didn’t. Ever since the night the mill burned down, she had been bombarded with interview requests. Magazines wanted her story. TV news programs wanted to devote whole episodes to her. A publishing house specializing in true crime stories had even offered a book deal.

She understood the fascination. It was a compelling case. Martin, having been forced to embalm his own father as a boy, tried it again on innocent victims, including someone who looked so much like his father it was eerie.

Although Kat could never be sure, she suspected that Art McNeil knew Martin was the killer. He also probably knew that his abuse had spurred the crimes. That’s why he made his cryptic confession just before killing himself. He was trying to absolve himself of his guilt.

What Art did was monstrous, but the blame still fell on Martin alone. He must have enjoyed some aspect of his deeds because he spent a lot of time planning them. The embalming tools, chloroform, formaldehyde, and surgical scrubs were all ordered off multiple sites on the Internet. A search of Martin’s home computer yielded records of purchases from dozens of different sites. All of it had been sent to various post office boxes registered under his pseudonym—Meg Parrier.

The only thing Martin didn’t buy himself were the portable fax machines used to send the obituaries. Those were purchased by Deana, who was the woman the clerk had seen at the Best Buy.

The day after his death, Deana admitted her brother had asked her to buy the machines. When she asked him why, he told her they would be used by
Gazette
staff members. He said the newspaper was paying for them and handed her the large amount of cash necessary for the purchase. After buying the machines, she gave them to Martin, who activated the fax numbers under the name Meg Parrier.

Deana swore she didn’t know what Martin was really using them for. Kat believed her. Her dismay at what had happened was too great to be faked. And the fact that she had played a role in the murders only compounded Deana’s stress. Her brother was a killer. Her former boyfriend had been a target. And now both of them were out of her life forever.

Ironically, the only media outlet not begging for her attention was the
Perry Hollow Gazette
. The paper never printed another issue after Halloween. That was the aftermath of having your crime reporter being outed as a serial killer.

Even if the
Gazette
still existed, Kat wouldn’t have given them an interview. She turned down every offer that came her way—from
The New York Times
to
Good Morning America
.

Her reasons for doing so were simple.

First, the incident was still too horrible to reflect upon. She had almost died that night. So had her son. She wanted to forget Martin Swan, not talk about him endlessly to strangers who could never truly know how terrifying the experience had been.

Second, the story wasn’t hers alone. Henry was really the main character of that particular tale. Although Kat was the police chief and Nick the one who saved the day, Henry had seen—and suffered—the most.

And he wasn’t talking.

The night of the fire was the last time Kat saw him. His injuries were too extreme to be treated at the county hospital, so he was whisked away in a helicopter to one in Philadelphia. When Kat was released from the hospital herself, she made an attempt to visit him. But he was gone.

As for Nick Donnelly, he accepted every offer Kat turned down, including the true crime book. He called her regularly, regaling her with tales of all the rich and famous people he had met during the media blitz surrounding the murders. Kat listened patiently, assuring him she was happy for his good fortune.

“So how did you spend New Year’s Eve?” he asked.