White Lies (29 page)

“Take it easy, Mike,” Jack said, waving him off.

Katrina was having a horrible nightmare. She was trapped in a small dark room, surrounded by wraithlike people who had formed a ring to prevent her from escaping. They tightened the circle, shuffling zombie-like toward her. All of a sudden she could make out their faces. They were people she knew: school friends, relatives, old teachers she'd had, colleagues she'd worked with, even Diane Schnell, the VP, right in among them, sharp and bony. She was the one who began the chant of “Liar!” her tight features contorted in hatred. Soon everyone had taken up the chant, saying it louder and louder. Katrina searched the blur of faces for some sign of sympathy. There was none. Each person looked as though they wanted to gut her right there and then, and maybe eat those guts as well. She clamped her hands over her ears, squeezed her eyes shut, and sank to her knees. Someone grabbed her. She screamed, but nothing came out of her mouth. Her throat had shrunken to the size of a straw. The hand gripping her hair shook her violently. She tried to smack it away, the way you smack at a buzzing fly, wild, without coordination. It wouldn't let go. She began clawing at it, desperate. To her horror, the hand was soft and mushy. She pulled away big clumps of wet, rotten flesh.

Shawn. God, it's Shawn, come back from the grave
.

When she finally broke free and spun around, she didn't find Shawn behind her but Charlie, his hair and eyebrows burned away, his skin red and blistered, missing in places, white maggots crawling
over the exposed sinew and coagulated veins. Behind him the throng of people came ever closer until they were right on top of her, cold hands pulling at her clothes, clawing and scraping her. Soon all Katrina could see were squirming limbs and putrid, grinning faces. She pulled herself into a fetal position and screamed her silent scream until she thought she must be dead.

Something changed. She'd jumped scenes, she realized, the way you do in dreams. She knew that without looking around. She opened her eyes and discovered she was in another room. This time she was bound by heavy, rusted chains to a dirty stone-and-mortar wall. Directly across the room from her was a man, manacles spreading his arms six feet high off the ground. He hung there, his head slumped forward, like a forgotten scarecrow.

No!
she thought, instantly recognizing where she was.

As if on cue, the faceless butcher appeared. He was dressed in long black robes and a cowl, like the Devil of Death. Instead of a scythe he had an alien-looking blade in his hand. He began going to work on Shawn. Carving, slicing, skinning, snipping. Katrina yelled and yelled at him to stop, her voice finally found, but he didn't stop. He kept on doing what he was doing. When there was little of Shawn left, he turned around, something he'd never done before, and pulled back the hood that had always hid his identity.

It was Jack.

Katrina woke with a start. Her heart was thumping, and she was completely disorientated. She had laid down when it was still light out, but now her bedroom was completely dark. Rain was falling outside, tapping against the window like the bony fingers of an evil presence who wanted to get in. Something was beside her. She almost jerked away from it before she determined it was only Bandit, snoring softly. She heard what sounded like a game show coming from the other room. Had she turned on the TV earlier? No, she had not.

Had Jack? Was he here?

That possibility frightened her. Badly. She told herself it was the aftereffects of the dream. But the part of her that separated truth from bullshit was having none of it. The longer she sat on the
futon, listening to the monotonous, disembodied voice of the host—Pat Sajak—the more nervous she became.

Her fear of Jack, she realized abruptly, was very real.

It seemed incomprehensible, but at the same time indisputable.

Had she always known this—at least, since the revelation he'd killed Charlie? Had she somehow sensed it at the time but had shelved it because she didn't want to consider it?

Maybe. She didn't know. What she did know was this: now that the possibility had been raised, she had no problem dredging up a series of disturbing incidents which, taken separately over the last twenty-four hours, had been overlookable, but taken together and examined with an adrenaline shot of fear and fresh eyes drew a much more sinister picture. How Jack had manhandled Zach and Charlie, for instance. His refusal to involve the police. His unintentional admission he'd kicked in Charlie's head. The bloodlust she'd seen in his eyes when he'd gone after the Good Samaritan.

Yes—that was the game changer, wasn't it? Up until then she'd been on his side. She'd still cared for him. Still was doing everything she was doing for him. But after he'd chased the red-haired man into the woods—that's when she'd begun to see him in a different light. That's when some of his shining armor began to fall off, and she began to glimpse what lay beneath the gloss and polish. His emotionless efficiency in disguising a murder. His apparent lack of remorse over what they'd done. The ease at which he could lie.

Katrina shook her head, dumbfounded. It was a terrifying, baffling revelation, made more so by the fact she had truly cared for him.

Jesus! How had she not seen the truth
?

The answer, of course, was obvious. His charm and charisma had so completely won her over she'd been unable, or unwilling, to recognize his true nature.

She'd been blinded by love, to use the old cliché.

Okay, Kat, now that we're thinking straight, being honest with ourselves, let's turn to the Good Samaritan again, shall we? So,
what do you think? Is he sitting at home with his family, watching a Disney movie? Playing Monopoly? Or is he lying in the woods somewhere, stiff and dead and rotting? Because Jack didn't threaten him, did he? Didn't tell him to walk home so he could think about that threat. Why would Jack do something like that? Leave a loose end untied like that? Why would he do that when it would be so much easier to simply kill him? Because Jack doesn't mind killing people. Doesn't feel it. Some people are like that. They don't feel. And it's always those people who don't feel on the inside that shine on the outside, isn't that right? The attractive, amiable Ted Bundy next door.

Katrina pushed herself off the futon and stood. Her chest was tight, her mouth sand-dry. She worked it to get some saliva moving. She crossed the bedroom quietly, and inched open the door. She peered through the crack, down the hallway. She didn't see Jack, but she saw his legs, which were crossed at the ankles. He would be sitting in the armchair. She had a wild urge to bolt out the back door. But she couldn't do that. Couldn't run. Not yet. She might not be looking out for Jack anymore, but she was still looking out for herself, still unsure about what her next course of action would be. Until she figured that out, she had to keep on the path she was on. Had to find out what happened with the policeman. And the fact Jack was here, and not in custody, was a good sign.

She took a deep breath, pulled herself together, and went to the living room. On the TV a female contestant on
Wheel of Fortune
was shouting “Come on! Big money!”

Jack turned to face her when she appeared. “You're alive!” he said, standing.

“What happened with the policeman?” she asked immediately.

Jack explained everything to her.

“He bought it?”

“Hook, line, and sinker. He was just following up for the sheriff in Skykomish. He has nothing.”

“Will he be by to see me again?”

“Can't see why. I had him eating out of my hand.”

Katrina had thought she would feel ecstatic. Liberated. Because
they had done it. They had beaten the system. Gotten away with murder. But the truth was she didn't feel much of anything.

Except fear—fear of the man standing before her.

Jack ran a hand through her hair, pulled her close, and kissed her on the lips. She flinched. He pulled back. His eyes probed hers. She had no idea what conclusions he was drawing, whether he could see past her act. All she knew was she felt extremely vulnerable under his stare.

“Something wrong?” he said, and there was a hardness in his voice that wasn't there before.

“I'm still—you know—all this.”

“It's finished.”

“I know,” she said, holding his eyes. “I know.”

Zach climbed out of bed as quietly as he could and gathered his discarded clothes from the floor. It was dark outside. The only light in the room came from an Asian rice-paper lantern he'd picked up at a gift shop when he'd been in Wenatchee for the day. Before closing the bedroom door, he glanced back at Crystal. She was curled up in a half moon, a small lump under the forest-green sheets, her hair fanned out around her head. Seeing her there, in his bed, gave him a virile feeling. Especially since he no longer had any reservations about pursuing things with her. His realization that Jack had likely threatened Katrina to help him get rid of the body of the old man, just as he'd threatened Zach to keep quiet about what he'd witnessed, had changed that. It had lessened, if not nullified, her culpability, and put her firmly on his side. If he went to the police now, he would not be destroying her. He would be helping her. Crystal would understand that. And far from being outraged with him, as he'd originally feared, she would be grateful.

But first, of course, he had to confirm all this. Which meant paying Katrina a visit.

Zach crept up the stairs and left the basement. It was still raining, the sky low and dark. He pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and went east on Birch Street, past Orchard and Cascade. He turned onto Ski Hill Drive and continued along until he reached Wheeler. As he walked down the street, he thought back to the night he came here to see what Katrina's place looked like, spying on her through the window, coming back the next night.

He shivered. What had he been thinking? But that was exactly
it. He hadn't been thinking. He'd been caught up in something ugly and petty, and he really hadn't been thinking.

It was four minutes past nine when he reached Katrina's property. He stopped dead in his tracks.

Jack's black Porsche 911 was in the driveway.

Zach's mind reeled, trying to figure out what this meant. Had he been wrong about Katrina? Was she, in fact, in league with Jack? Not a prisoner of fear, but a willing accomplice? Were they inside celebrating their victory?

Only one way to find out.

He dashed down the driveway, then cut across the lawn so he was next to the trunk of the massive ponderosa pine, safely concealed in thick shadows the boughs created.

Nobody was in the front bay window. Not yet, anyhow. He watched and waited.

He never noticed the man in the unmarked sedan parked across the street.

“Jack,” Katrina said, “there's something we need to discuss. It's about us.”

Jack flicked off the TV and gave her his full attention.

“If this is finished, as you say, well, we have to decide what we're going to do from here. What are your plans?”

He shrugged. “Like I told you before, I was heading east. But to be honest, Leavenworth is growing on me.”

Katrina tried not to let her disappointment show. This was going to be just as hard as she'd imagined. “I didn't think you were a small-town type of guy.”

“I'm not. But change is good, right? Keeps you young.”

It was then Katrina realized she didn't know Jack's age. She'd always imagined him to be in his mid-thirties. The fact she was only guessing struck a chord within her. It hit home how little she really knew about him. “So what are you thinking? A few more days? A week? Months?”

“If you're worried I'm going to leave you, don't be. I'll stick around however long you want. We'll see how things go from there.”

“That's sort of what I'm getting at.” She paused. Swallowed. Pressed on. “I think the best thing we could do now would be to lay low. Separately.”

Jack didn't react, or she didn't think he did at first. Then she saw something fleeting and dark in his eyes, the only indication he'd understood what she was saying and wasn't happy about it. “Would you care to elaborate?” he said.

“Jack, I've been through a lot. We both have. But I'm not made
like you. I don't have your strength. I need time to rest. To recover. To sort things out in my head. It's going to take a while.”

He pulled his ponytail over his shoulder and began stroking it. Katrina had never seen him do that before. It was oddly disturbing.

“Can you understand?” she pressed.

“Oh, I understand perfectly.” The darkness was back in his eyes, no longer a misty apparition but a black fire. “You need space, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“And if I decide to stay in Leavenworth for a while, because I think it's such a nice place and everything?”

“That would be your prerogative.”

“You would simply ignore me?”

“No, of course not,” she said, knowing full well that's exactly what she would do.

Jack studied her, long and hard and intense. She almost buckled under his stare and looked away, but she didn't. Then he shrugged. “You're worried. Stressed. Get a good night's sleep and you'll feel differently about things in the morning.”

His words carried a finality that made them seem more like a threat than sound advice. But before she had time to let them sink in, let alone respond, someone outside shouted.

“Hey, you!”

Zach whirled around and squinted through the rain. He was so surprised to see a small man in a yellow windbreaker pointing a pistol at him that he cried out in alarm. His muscles bunched, as if his body was getting ready to run. But you couldn't outrun a bullet.

“Police! Put your hands where I can see them.”