“Then we’ll have to take a look at both of them.”
“We might not have time to approach this too carefully.”
“Because…”
“The name of one of them is Andy Smith.”
Terror blew up inside Amarok with the force of a hand grenade, and his knees went so weak he nearly crumpled to the ground.
“You don’t think it could be our Andy Smith, do you?” Phil said. “I mean, that’s a common name, but it’s also quite a coincidence.”
Fighting through the sudden weakness, the dread and the fear, Amarok whistled for Makita and started running for his truck. He was leaving part of his forensic kit and that poor dead woman behind, but that didn’t stop him. Nothing could stop him. He’d sent Andy to look after Evelyn. Andy was with Evelyn at their own house.
And Andy was Jasper.
Bits of memory flashed through his mind. Andy carrying Evelyn when Amarok came to the house last year. Evelyn telling him about Andy callously tearing up the photograph of that inmate’s dead grandmother. Andy’s complete self-absorption and the fact that no one really knew anything about him until he showed up in Alaska eight months ago.
Amarok was willing to bet that, if they had time to check, they’d find out he’d come from Arizona.
“That’s no coincidence,” he managed to say as he wrenched his door open and waited for Makita to jump in. “Get over to my house. Now!”
29
Phil was standing in the yard looking dumbstruck when Amarok turned down the street. He glanced toward Amarok’s headlights as he pulled up but didn’t approach. He returned to staring at the house, hands shoved in the pockets of his coat, shoulders hunched against the cold.
The panic Amarok had been feeling during the entire trip had his stomach tied in knots. Evelyn’s SUV wasn’t in the drive, but Andy Smith’s F-250 was. Where was her vehicle? Had he taken it? Was it already too late?
If Andy—or, rather, Jasper—was gone, it had to be too late. Amarok knew it was when, after ordering Makita to stay in the truck, he jumped out and saw the expression of defeat on Phil’s face and the tears streaking down his cheeks.
Amarok grabbed him by his coat. “Evelyn?” he asked, her name a question pregnant with all the hope that’d fueled his race back to Hilltop.
Phil shook his head, couldn’t even meet his eyes. “I’m sorry, Amarok. She’s gone.”
Amarok clutched his own chest as he stumbled back. “No!”
“No one could’ve survived what he did to her. There’s blood everywhere. And the cruelty!” Phil tilted his head back and squeezed his eyes shut as though he couldn’t bear the mental image of what he’d witnessed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I felt for a pulse, just in case. I wanted to … to do what I could if she was still alive. For you. For her. But it was too late.”
“You didn’t see him.”
“No, he was gone.”
Just that fast. A murderous rage rose up inside Amarok. He would find Jasper. He would hunt him to the ends of the earth if he had to, no matter what the cost, no matter how long it took, and he would annihilate that monster.
As he started toward the house, Phil, suddenly galvanized into action, came after him. “No, Amarok! Don’t go in there. You don’t want to see what I saw. You’ll never”—his voice wobbled—“you’ll never forget it. It’s better to remember her as the beautiful, intelligent, vibrant woman she was.”
Phil was right. Amarok didn’t want to see the woman he loved mutilated like some of Jasper’s other victims, especially since he’d failed to recognize Andy Smith as the threat he’d been.
But he couldn’t remain where he was, couldn’t leave Evelyn alone in the house simply because he was too much of a coward to face what had happened. He was drawn to her side by something far more powerful than reason. He had to touch her in order to believe she was really gone, had to gather up what was left of her and hold her in his arms one last time.
He managed to shake Phil off as he continued to the porch. He could hear Phil calling his name and, more dimly, Makita barking in his truck. But he ignored them, left them both where they were. He had to do this.
He could see footprints in blood before he even crossed the threshold. He didn’t know if those footprints belonged to Jasper or to Phil, but it made him light-headed, nauseous, to know that it was Evelyn’s blood.
And yet he went in, compelled beyond his ability to resist.
The house was eerily quiet. Why had he taken Makita with him? If only he’d dropped the dog off here at the house, maybe Evelyn would’ve had some protection. Instead, he’d left her completely vulnerable.…
That thought, more than any other, tore him up inside. Tears began to cascade down his cheeks as he followed those bloody footprints down the hall to their bedroom. Jasper had killed Evelyn in Amarok’s own bed, where she’d learned to make love again after what Jasper had done to her so many years ago.
Hand shaking, he pushed the door, which had swung partway closed, open enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the naked and bloody corpse lying across the bed. “Oh God.”
Amarok had never seen so much blood. Spatter covered the walls, even the ceiling, bathed Evelyn’s body red and soaked the blankets and mattress. Jasper had beaten Evelyn so badly he’d completely obliterated her face, and her hair was so matted it didn’t look the same color anymore.
As a cop, he knew better than to touch the body. He needed to detach himself emotionally, photograph the scene, start gathering evidence, go after her killer. But he wasn’t a robot; he couldn’t think like that right now. He’d been reduced to nothing more than a brokenhearted man who’d loved the woman lying dead in front of him.
He knelt beside the bed and took her hand. The defensive wounds on her arms made his gut hurt so badly he felt as if someone were stabbing him. She was still warm but not alive, and that made everything worse. He’d tried to do all he could to stop Jasper, but he’d let Jasper outsmart him in the end. He’d never dreamed Jasper, or anyone, could be quite that diabolical or quite that bold. Andy Smith had pretended to be a hero last year when he saved her life. That must’ve been his way of covering up when Amarok arrived to find him carrying Evelyn out of the house, but it’d seemed so believable at the time. He’d been wearing a Hanover House CO’s uniform, and he’d told such a convincing story!
“I’m sorry,” Amarok whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Jasper had played his part well. Amarok wished he could go back and redo the past eight months, wished he could’ve spotted something that would’ve given the son of a bitch away. But the small things that seemed to reveal Andy Smith’s lack of character had seemed too insignificant. He and Evelyn had both rationalized—
Suddenly Amarok pulled back. The ring on the hand he’d kissed wasn’t Evelyn’s ring. Where did she get that? Had Jasper put it on her finger? Was it some sort of final “gift”?
No. Amarok stiffened as he stared down at it. Although it was difficult to judge with all the blood, when he looked more closely, he could tell that the hand he held wasn’t Evelyn’s, either.
As grotesque as the sight was, he studied what used to be the woman’s face, searching for other signs. A little lower down he saw a mole on her shoulder.
Evelyn didn’t have a mole there. He’d touched her shoulders enough to know how smooth they were. But, like the ring, he’d seen that mole before, recognized it …
Her feet were tangled in the bedding. He yanked the comforter away so he could see the rest of her. Her toes, the color of the polish on her toenails, the shape of her legs, the size of her body. None of it was right.
This wasn’t Evelyn.
It was Samantha.
*
The door to the house stood open, Makita was barking like crazy in Amarok’s truck, which was parked next to Andy Smith’s F-250, and Phil stood beside his own vehicle, hanging his head, when Evelyn pulled up.
“What’s going on?” she asked as she got out.