Let It Burn (33 page)

“Then down to Michigan Avenue somewhere, then up to that corner of Warren and Grand River. Then, what did he say, you went somewhere else after that, before coming back…”

He looked up, like he was playing it all back on a tape recorder.

“Yeah, back to the Kings’ house, he said. Then back to Michigan Avenue. Then
back
to Warren and Grand River, for God’s sake. Or something like that. I might have the order mixed up. I think he was running out of gas at that point and he almost lost you, but then you went and ate somewhere, and that’s when he called me.”

“So you went to meet him,” I said. “So you could keep him company while he stayed on my tail.”

“I believe I’ve already apologized for that, but yes. That’s what I did. Like I said, I thought I was looking out for him, because I sure as hell couldn’t have stopped him, but anyway, you went to a hardware store. Then you went back to that corner, for like the third time that day, he said. Although that was the first time I saw it, of course. I was thinking, why the hell would you come here? Then you walked down by where the railroad tracks went over the road. Ryan was getting really anxious then. He figured you were up to something important.”

“I still don’t get it,” I said. “Why did he go to all this trouble? He put his whole life on hold so he could follow me around all day?”

“He was convinced you’d lead him to the man who killed his sister, Alex. I mean, after what you told us yourself … That’s what he thought, and you have to admit, in the end he was right.”

I stood there looking at the house, waiting for it to make sense.

“You really didn’t know he had a gun,” I said.

“I had no idea he even owned one, no. I swear.”

I took a few steps toward the front door, then came back.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Why did he choose that exact moment to come down the street?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to remember. The two of you were running, right? You and Darryl? Running back to the tracks?”

“Yes.”

“That’s what made him go. He figured something was happening. I tried to stop him, Alex. I really did, but he was out of his head at that point.”

“He knew that was Darryl I was with? Even though he’d hadn’t seen him in years?”

“I think he was just assuming, yes.”

“Then when Darryl’s brother came out of the woods…”

Paige just stood there, looking at me.

“How did he know?” I said. “How did he know that was
the man
?”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Alex.”

“He was ready to kill him. He was that sure.”

I looked back at the house, one more time.

“It doesn’t add up,” I said. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Unless he already knew Tremont King.”

He thought it over for a moment.

“Oh my God,” he said. “Of course. That would make it all work, wouldn’t it…”

“It would, yes.”

“That son of a bitch.” Paige reached into the wheel well of his trunk and brought out a tire iron.

“Put that down,” I said. “You stay here. I’m going to go inside and talk to him.”

Paige pushed by me and grabbed the handle on the back of the minivan. Then he raised the rear door.

“What are you doing?” I said. Then I saw what was inside the vehicle. The backseats were folded down. There was a plastic drop cloth spread out on the floor. There was something else, wrapped in more plastic.

A body.

“No need to go inside,” Paige said. “Ryan’s right here.”

Before I could even react to what I was seeing, I heard the sound of that thing moving in the air, behind my head.

Then I was out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sounds. Movement. I’m rolled one way, then back the other way. A wave pushing me toward shore, then pulling me back.

No. I’m in a vehicle. I’m lying down, feeling the momentum of the turns. I’m on plastic. It crinkles every time my weight is shifted.

A voice.

“Hey, Alex. How’re you doing back there?”

God, my head hurts so much. I can’t move. Why can’t I move?

“Settle in, buddy. We’ve got a little drive here.”

My hands. I can’t move my hands. I try to open my eyes, but everything is too bright and spinning too quickly. It makes my head hurt twice as much.

I’m trying to sit up. I have to sit up. I have to get out of here. I have to remember what happened and then I have to get out of here.

My hands are behind my back. Why can’t I move my hands?

God, my head hurts.

The vehicle swings into a big curve. I’m rolling right. I hit something. More crinkle of plastic.

I open my eyes.

I see three other faces. Then two. Then one.

I focus on Ryan Grayson. His dead eyes staring at me.

Then I’m out again.

*   *   *

I opened my eyes again. I didn’t know how much time had passed. The vehicle wasn’t rolling me from side to side anymore. There was just the steady hum of an engine maintaining a straight, level speed.

I tried to speak. A groan came out.

“Alex, is that you?”

I couldn’t make words anymore. I’d forgotten how.

“We’re almost there.”

I tried one eye. Just the right eye squinting open. I saw Tanner Paige behind the wheel of the minivan.

“I’m glad you’re awake, Alex. Finally. This would have been a whole lot better with someone to talk to.”

My hands. I still couldn’t move my hands.

“I apologize, by the way. I know that doesn’t make it one hundred percent better, but I hope it helps. I’m really, really sorry.”

I tried to sit up again. It was impossible.

“I was starting to like you, Alex. I thought we were really on the same wavelength, you know? I really liked Arnie, too. I hope you realize that. I’m not a monster.”

My hands are tied behind my back, I thought. I’m tied up in the back of this minivan, and Tanner Paige is driving it somewhere.

I opened one eye again and saw the dead body of Ryan Grayson next to me, haphazardly wrapped in the green plastic, the face exposed through a gap at the top. Bloody and bruised, the nose broken, the front teeth knocked out.

It’s only the women he kills with knives, I thought. The men, he just bashes their heads in.

So why am I still alive?

“He kept in touch with me all those years, you know. He was a good guy. Ryan and I even went up there a few times. We’d always take a ride on his boat. Did he tell you that? You were there, too, right? Did you take the exciting ride on his boat?”

I looked up and saw the sunlight coming through the windows. It was still daytime.

“Mostly we just talked a lot, and I think it was good for both of us. Made us both feel less alone, I think, and for him, it was always a good reminder, too. Getting that confession was the highlight of his career. I’d always tell him how much it meant to me. I knew that made him feel good. I was happy to do that for him.”

My ears were still ringing. Every sound had an edge to it. I tried to shake my head … Big mistake. Don’t do that.

“If they hadn’t released Trey’s brother, none of this would have happened, you realize. That’s where all the trouble began. Right there with that cockamamie decision. That’s what got everybody all stirred up again. The last time Arnie called me, he said he probably shouldn’t say anything yet, but he had to talk to somebody. He said you were trying to cast some doubt on the confession. Which didn’t make him happy, but then he said he was getting the old files out and going over them. I guess he drove down and looked at the old confession, too. On tape, I guess? That was the day before Arnie passed.”

I hadn’t really been listening, but that part broke through. The day before Arnie passed? Did this man really just say that?

I struggled to get my hands free. It didn’t feel like rope. It felt more like something rubber, with a little give to it. It was tight. But maybe …

“It kinda got a little funny there. Maybe just my overactive imagination, but he was saying how if Darryl King didn’t kill Elana, then he wanted to find out who did. Make up for the big mistake he’d made. He said he’d owe me a big apology if that ended up happening, because he knew it would be a shock for me. Kinda funny he would say it that way, looking back on it, but he asked me if I thought Ryan should know, and I said no, not yet. That’s why Ryan was so surprised when you brought it up.”

I had to close my eyes again. I had to lie still for a while, let the pounding in my head settle into some kind of rhythm.

“Poor Arnie. You really got to him, Alex. When we were done talking, he said he had to make the hardest phone call of all. He had to call you up and tell you he was wrong. Or might have been wrong. Was probably wrong. Whatever. It was really eating him up. Although I could tell he was kind of excited about maybe the two of you guys working together again. Going back over the old case, just like old times. I told him it sounded like he was trying to bring back those days when he was a young hotshot detective. Back when he owned the city, but he said no, he just wanted to make things right.”

Those words again. Even now, those words haunting me. To make things right.

“As far as Ryan goes … Yeah, poor Ryan. He passed today, too. As you can see. So that got me to thinking, maybe it would be better if people thought he ran away. Couldn’t take it anymore. You see where I’m going with this? His safe is open, all the cash is gone. Yeah, if he just goes, and this car goes … That’ll probably be easier for everyone to deal with.”

I could feel the minivan accelerating. I looked up and saw a truck on the right side. For one brief second, the face of the truck driver. Another human being who could theoretically help me. Then he was gone.

“I do feel bad for Ryan, but maybe this was all for the best anyway. He was in such pain, Alex. He was so obsessed about finding the man who killed his sister. Kind of funny, again, looking back on it. That I would be helping him, but he made it easy. All I had to do was point to Trey and say, ‘That’s him!’ He didn’t even think about it. He just reacted.”

The back windows were tinted. A fact that just came to me then. Even if we passed another truck, I don’t think anyone could see inside.

“Of course, after all the dust settled, Ryan asked the same question you did. It finally came to him today. How did you even know who that man was? That’s when I realized that, no matter what I said, it would only be a matter of time until Ryan started looking a little deeper. How I was alone that day, the day Elana passed, supposedly playing a practice round at the club. Good excuse to disappear for four hours, by the way, but then also all the traveling I’ve been doing. I’m a manufacturer’s rep for a golf club company. Don’t know if I told you that. I’ve got the whole eastern half of the U.S. I’ll go and do a demo day at a golf club somewhere, pack up and go somewhere else the same day. Go south in the winter, where people are still playing golf. It keeps me pretty busy.”

I concentrated on my hands. This is why a cop handcuffs you this way, because it makes you pretty much useless. Even getting to my feet would be a monumental chore right now, but if I can get these hands free …

“It gave me a chance to work things out, too. All that time on the road. It really helped me. It was good therapy, reliving that day, seeing if I could be a little less angry each time. A little more in control of myself.”

His words breaking through again. Good therapy? Reliving that day? Is that what he’s really calling it? Murdering seven women?

“Do you play golf, Alex? You look like you could be a good golfer.”

Focus, God damn it. Your hands are tied crossways. There’s something looped around them in both directions …

“Ryan was terrible at golf. No patience at all. He was about as good at golf as he was at shooting a gun.”

If I can flex my wrists. Work them one way, then the other. Back and forth.

“Although, I’ll be honest with you, Alex. I’m kinda glad he didn’t kill Trey. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, but he still looked like that old kid in the train station. I’d meet him there at the station most every Saturday morning. It was a lot better than playing golf with those guys at the club, believe me.”

Trey. He keeps calling him Trey. His pet name for Tremont?

“You should have seen him back then. What a sweet thing he was. My God did I love that kid.”

Stay calm. Work your hands. Ignore the way your head feels. Ignore the bile rising in your throat. Just stay calm and work your hands.

“He wasn’t supposed to be there on a Thursday. That part wasn’t planned. I was not happy with him, believe me.”

Damn it damn it damn it.

“I told Trey, I said, this was supposed to be between Elana and me, and nobody else. That’s why I told her to come down to the station because I was going to surprise her, and not to tell anybody because I knew we weren’t supposed to be up there, but there’s this place in the old part of the station where the light comes through those big windows and I knew she’d love it and be able to get some great shots there, you know? And she really did love it, I gotta say, I mean I totally nailed it, but then that’s not why we were there, not really, which kind of became obvious, I guess.”

Don’t listen to him, I told myself. Don’t get sucked into this. Just keep concentrating.

“So when Trey was there, I was like, you and I have a secret now, my little sweet thing. We’re in this together now.”

Work the hands. God, my head hurts so much.

“That was a long time ago, Alex. I swear, things were really getting better. I was in such a better place mentally. I’d worked it all out of my system, I think. I was even ready to forgive her for what she did to me.”

Shut up, you goddamned psychopath. Just shut the hell up.

“None of it would have happened if she wasn’t planning on leaving me. You realize that.”

It’s working, I told myself. You can move your hands a little bit more now. I was rubbing them raw, but I was making progress.

“Her family never thought I was good enough for her. Not rich enough, not successful enough. I wasn’t a County Amateur champion like her father, but that stuff isn’t supposed to matter, right? I thought me and Elana had something there. I thought we had something bulletproof.”