Warning: disturbing imagery ahead.

For Schafferius.

Chapter 19

This better be good, brooded Stillman dourly, leading Lilly and her blanketed culprit into one of the dim interrogation rooms with farless than his usual zest. The heat had been turned off about an hour ago and the air was already beginning to get chilly. Last thing he wanted after a hard day at work was having to freeze to death babysitting this star witness of Lilly's. Then again—he reminded himself—it was the long-lost Sarah Bryant, who, according to his best detective, was on the verge of giving a sound confession. It would be barely legal to pass up this chance.

Sarah Bryant was in shambles—almost more than her friend Regan had been. Tit for tat, sparkled Stillman's weary mind in spite of himself. He would have smiled… except this was no laughing matter. The poor girl's face was pale and tear-streaked, lips nearly blue, her fingers gripping Lilly's steaming pet coffee mug as if its mission were to keep her anchored to the ground.

"Well?" Stillman prompted kindly—or as kindly as could be expected at this untimely hour.

"I did it," the girl croaked. "I killed that woman."

No beating around the bush. Stillman wasn't sure why he felt so disconcerted—or why a part of him refused to believe her. It just sounded phoney to his ears. But what reason could anyone possibly have for saying they killed someone when they hadn't? And her anxiety seemed genuine enough…

"Tell him how, Sarah," instructed Lilly. Something in her countenance caught Stillman's notice. He couldn't have placed his finger on it, but she seemed strange, savage somehow. Drained and crestfallen—frosty and cynical, with deep dark rings around her eyes.

Heaving a gusty sigh, Sarah's account finally began. "It was the first time we came here, with Regan. November 2002. Regan had just found out she was pregnant, she had to get her check up."

It wasn't hard to visualize the two climbing into their car that chilly autumn day. He'd seen both girls at their worst, he could picture them at their best—Sarah's face pink-cheeked and buoyant, Regan's brown curls flying in the wind. Then again maybe they'd never been that lighthearted—not with the drama of Regan's hidden pregnancy in the background. Their faces were tense, Sarah's lips tight as she gunned her compact down the interstate. Not talking, both worried about what might happen once they found themselves at the doctor's doorstep, these two nobody girls from Shenandoah University, trying to bring an unwanted baby to safe term.

They'd wanted to make it home before dark, but sunset met them an hour shy. They'd set out too late—Sarah told her they should have cut those damn afternoon classes. But Regan hadn't wanted to—she was such a nerd sometimes. So Sarah stepped on it, made her car go twice as fast as it was supposed to. And then, taking a curve, neither of them actually saw what happened.

"There was this horrible sound." Sarah's voice cracked. "We hit something. I don't know what, but it sounded real loud and made us swerve. Regan screamed and I pulled over. We didn't know what to do."

Sarah thought they'd been stoned. Regan was convinced it was a person they'd hit. They hadn't really perceived anything—not even a shadow. Sarah was petrified—she didn't want to look. If it was a person, she didn't want to see it. She couldn't handle it if it was.

"But Regan's hormones totally lost it," she sniffled. "She started screaming that we had murdered someone and we had to look. So finally we did. There was no crash barrier on that side of the road. It was a corn field or something—the plants were really tall. It was so dark. We couldn't see anything, and I was terrified we'd run into a corpse."

They'd trampled through stalks and called out till they were hoarse, but they never found anyone. Just the red leather purse. "It was just lying there, like it had been knocked out of somebody's hand. No blood or anything." Biting her lip, Sarah added, "and Erica Bailey's ID inside."

There were a lot of days in 30 years. Many of them unfriendly days, surrounded by poker-faced, unfriendly people. And of all these days and all these people, Scotty Valens would swear today was the worst.

His partner sat by him in their assigned car, stiff and reticent, a frozen statue. She didn't even volunteer a hello, just stared out the window. So that's how it's gonna be, Scotty thought. Part of him longed to feel wounded, but strangely enough the predominant emotion was guilt. Chris had been all over him the night before, and he hadn't even felt like making love to her afterwards. The image of Lilly racing disappointedly away had been permanently engraved in his mind.

"So what happened to the purse?" he asked, mostly for the sake of conversation but also out of a real desire to know. Rain cascaded down on the windshield, making it hard to see the road.

"She threw it into the Delaware," Lilly inhospitably filled him in. "Just kept the money and the ID."

"Kinda calculating, don't you think?"

Lilly's hunched shoulders plainly said—I couldn't care less. He kept his mouth shut for a long time afterwards.

The maize field Sarah had described was an hour or so south of Philadelphia. Oddly enough, the tire tracks were still there from when she had stepped on the brakes. CSU had already unloaded their equipment and were standing around in waterproof coats, all more or less morose, clearly not thrilled at having to comb through 3-year-old scene on this pouring day.

"If there's a body there, you find it," Stillman had ordered.

And find it they would—even if it didn't seem the least bit probable there'd be one. Sarah's story was extremely sketchy. She'd never glimpsed the person they'd hit, who knew there was a person at all? Couldn't it have been just the purse? Maybe someone had flung it across the interstate in a mad rage. Of course either way, whether it was flung or knocked off somebody's hand, it still implied it had been around in 2002. Which really didn't make any sense, considering Erica had vanished in 1995. What was she still doing near Philly 7 years later? Where had she stashed herself all that time? Why hadn't she gone back for her children? Even for a peek? Why hadn't she used her credit cards? If she'd taken on a new identity—what was her old driver's permit still doing in her purse?

Two hours went by and all they had to show for it were more murderous glares from the CSU crew. Talk about tired and cross—like if they were the only ones susceptible to the wet cold. Lilly's face was funny, pale and red-nosed, bangs plastered to her forehead. Scotty's insides yearned to make a smartass comment but he knew it wouldn't be well received. She'd been about as responsive as a brick wall all morning.

Finally the call of triumph hailed them. "Hey—detectives!"

Scotty hightailed it over to where the action was, a whole bunch of people squatting in the mud. Eyes peeled for human remains, he failed to see what they were really pointing at, a half-buried piece of plastic. Fishing it out with gloved hands, it turned out to be a bank card. The name, barely visible, read Erica S. Bailey.

"That it?"

Lilly squinted at him in distaste. "Proves Sarah's story is true," she declared, her tone clearly stating he was too dumb to figure it out on his own.

"Never doubted it," Scotty defended himself. "But it still don't get us anywhere."

Lilly ignored him and began speaking to CSU. Suit yourself, Scotty shot back as he turned away, his patience at end. He glanced at the road, trying to figure out how someone standing on the other side could manage to throw the purse this far. The sight of a strange car idling just beyond theirs made him do a double take.

"Hey!" he yelled, starting toward it. Much to his surprise, the car—an old beat-up red chevy—squealed to life and blasted away. No license plates. Where the hell have I seen that car before?

Jeffries couldn't pretend to be unhappy. Their quest had been pretty damn successful. CSU had not turned up a body at Newton's trailer park, but they'd come across a whole bunch of other Erica Bailey stuff—jewelry, clothes… even underwear. What kind of a psycho would keep the underwear of a woman who had left him 10 years before? It had to be some sort of fetish—or trophy. On the other hand, it seemed now Erica Bailey had been alive at least till 2002. Either way it proved he was lying his head off.

Where are you? he thought, concentrating on the blonde woman's image, trying to find her concealed in the walls or underground. He knew Stillman had been unable to shake Newton's story back in headquarters. Spending the night in a jail cell hadn't really scared Newton into anything but screaming for a lawyer. Now they were screwed. Already the lawyer had demanded they do a polygraph if they didn't trust his client, which he'd passed with flying colors. Of course those things could easily be fooled.

Now they'd be forced to release him. But not yet. Not with all the evidence piling against him. All circumstantial, to be sure—but even Kite would have to agree there was enough for a trial. Maybe they could bully him into striking a deal, get him to tell where he'd put Erica. Then her family would be able to give her a decent burial at least.

His mind flew involuntarily back to Mary for a second and he felt a stab of pain. Having your wife's body to bury was scanty comfort, but it was better than nothing. Catching the person responsible for it—that was something to live for.

"Hey, Will!" screeched Vera, his voice about an octave higher than usual. Startled, Jeffries sauntered over to where he was bent over the door to this old shed, a few yards away from the trailer. "Take a look at this."

Jeffries cringed. A CSU investigator was already inside, shining a blacklight. Ghoulishly, a pale shimmering cloud appeared in the back wall, faintly resembling the mushroomexpanse of a nuclear bomb, spreading at least a foot in every direction.

"Blood." Vera smacked his lips in satisfaction. "Lots and lots of blood."

Lilly felt unusually blithe as she hopped down the stairs after the long day. Rain pelted down in sheets, turning the parking lot into a huge, sodden, dripping mess. But she couldn't care less. She was too high on the idea of being on the verge of closing this case. It had burdened her more than most. Neither the victims nor the doer were in any way connected to her, but it had all been so dense, so full of thorny human drama, she was only too happy to put it behind her. Both the twins and Erica deserved justice—and damned if they weren't going to get it.

Everything so far pointed to Morgan Newton. He had worked in Kemp's garage during the time of Erica's disappearance, he'd been recognized by Jenna Bailey, he had admitted to having a relationship with her, he was responsible for half that note. Her clothes had been found all over his trailer. Blood littered his walls. He'd passed the polygraph—it was true. But fooling the lie detector wouldn't be hard for a psychopath. Didn't matter what that thing said—he was guilty as sin, and he knew it.

Best of all—he was in custody. He wouldn't be bothering or threatening anyone anymore. His filthy prints had been all over the phone used to call Scotty that time—how dare he? And then he'd tried to go for her at Headquarters as well. What an obvious fuck up.

Her own words came back to haunt her: "People stepped forward only when they were so desperate they'd risk anything to avoid getting caught… including getting caught. It was the great criminal paradox."

Funny how accurate that had turned out to be in this case.

She knew finding the one responsible for his wife's disappearance wouldn't erase the troubled lines from Aaron Bailey's brow, but it might help answer his daughter's questions and maybe even reunite him with his son. It wasn't the perfect solution, but it was as much as the police could do for such a dysfunctional family. The rest… was just up to them.

Whipping up her umbrella, Lilly stepped out into the gaping black parking lot, actually enjoying the sound of raindrops hitting the plastic. She wasn't particularly fond of rain, but when joined with a feeling of relief and satisfaction, there was a sort of soothing quality to it. She wondered what Willie the Baby Bodyguard would say when she let him know his nights of free coffee and Cartoon Network were over.

What happened next was a mystery. Neither then nor afterwards could she explain how she never heard anyone coming behind her, never noticed any movement. All she knew was that one moment she was cheerfully strolling down the flooded parking lot, next, the umbrella had been jerked out from overhead and she was landing head-first into a puddle.

"What the—" she managed to sputter. All sorts of alarms were going off in her head, instincts telling her to get up and fight before it was too late. But her eyes, nose and mouth were filled with water, she couldn't even see. And by the time she'd cleared her eyes up some, a vise-strong grip had caught hold of her wrist.

Not even waiting to see who it was, Lilly swung her other arm into the assailant's face, knocking him off balance, spun around and ran. But something grabbed her foot and she found herself promptly slammed back down with a sickening thump. Winded, she was unable to claw her way backto her feet as some unseen force dragged her back across the blacktop. The light from the lamppost was suddenly gone, and, before she realized what was happening, she was yanked around onto her back, for the first time catching a glimpse of a masked shape hovering above her, eerily close, eyes veiled and menacing.

"Just couldn't leave well enough alone, could you, bitch," he snarled.

That voice, Lilly's mind was a whirlwind. Where have I heard that voice?

Fingers closed around her throat, dead weight settling on her midriff. This guy's sitting on me! her dignity protested. But as his hands tightened it soon became clear that was the least of her problems. It was increasingly difficult to breathe. There's not gonna be a next time to fight back, Rush. It's now or never.

Gathering all the strength she could muster with her oxygen-deprived brain, Lilly pretended to go limp and then flailed out with all she was worth. Her elbow slammed into his shoulder at the same time her knee wedged itself between his. For one horrifying second her larynx felt like it was about to snap, but then his fingers loosened and she pried herself away, her heart beating so fast she wondered how it didn't explode.

"You fucking whore!" a voice flared up behind her, just before an agonizing pain in her scalp let her know he'd seized her by the hair. A stunning blow struck her to the ground, skull crashing into the pavement—no puddle this time. Her eyesight blurred.

"All you whores are the same," he kept huffing in the background, on and on like some sort of hellish neverending tape. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lilly was vaguely aware of cloth ripping, but it was some time before she realized it was her own. Her favorite overcoat with its burgundy lining had just been torn clear off her shoulders, and by the sound of things, her blouse was next. She was suddenly nauseatingly conscious of his hands on her, groping her, mauling her, trailing through places no one had access to without her permission.

Wake up! the long-forgotten ten-year-old inside her screamed. Anything but this. Not here, not in Our world—not in Headquarters. Wake up, Rush!

In a second she was up and struggling, squirming, fighting with all the energy she had. But it was too late. He was just too strong, too heavy—he had all the advantage. She'd let things get too far.

Scream, Rush!

Her mouth opened into the downpour, hoping someone would hear her hopeless gurgle. But the words weren't even out before a fist smashed into her jaw, rendering her silent. "Yeah, you go ahead and howl, bitch."

Limply, Lilly's fading alertness barely registered the sound of pants unzipping. Her face throbbed with pain—a horrible searing pain she remembered all too well. The taste of blood on her tongue stirred memories buried deep, things she would have preferred to leave behind. For years they'd been hiding there, in her subconscious—lurking through her dreams, checking her emotions. Now it was all happening before her, all over again—the little girl with the long hair spread out behind her, screaming, screaming for help—screaming for her mommy, screaming against the bad man who insisted on pounding her, even after she'd given him all she had. An innocent little girl sent unsuspectingly to the liquor store in the middle of the night—a little girl who, after that night, would be a child no longer.

This isn't happening to me again, the ten-year-old sentenced, resolve and rage flooding through her like lightning. I'm grown up now, I'm a detective. This is not happening to me ever again.

Horror pumping through her system, adrenaline coursing through her body, Lilly suddenly found herself on her feet. How she'd got there was unclear. Her attacker was writhing on the ground and she realized she was kicking him—over and over and over, brutal furious blows like she could never remember giving before.

Die, you son of a fucking bitch.

And then someone was clutching her shoulder, holding her back, stopping her when she didn't want to be stopped. Distraught, wild-eyed, Lilly turned—prepared to destroy anyone who stood in the way of her revenge.

Scotty and Stillman's shocked faces gawked back at her.