All those lost years.
Angie should’ve held her daughter at the hospital. Just that once. She should’ve imprinted some memory of her touch so that her daughter didn’t flinch the way she did now, moving away from her hand the way she would move away from a stranger’s.
They were strangers.
Angie shook her head. She couldn’t go down the rabbit hole of everything she had lost and why. She had to think about how strong she was, that she was a survivor. Angie had spent her life running on the edge of a razor—sprinting away from the things that people usually ran toward: a child, a husband, a home, a life.
Happiness. Contentment. Love.
All the things Will wanted. All the things Angie had thought she would never need.
She realized now that all of her running had led her straight to this dark room, trapped in this dark place, holding her daughter for the first time, for the last time, as the girl bled to death in her arms.
There was a scuffing noise outside the closed door. The slit of light at the threshold showed the shadow of two feet slithering along the floor.
Angie closed her eyes again. Dale had done the same thing when she was ten years old. Stood outside the closed door to Deidre’s apartment. Waited for Angie to open up. Deidre never hesitated to open the door. She didn’t care who was on the other side so long as he could bring a needle full of heroin closer to her arm.
Her daughter’s would-be killer?
Her own murderer?
Open the door and let him in.
‘Angela,’ Dale said, the same now as he had then.
The door rattled in the frame. There was a scraping sound. Metal against metal. The square of light narrowed, then disappeared, as a screwdriver was jammed into the opening.
Click-click-click, like the dry fire of an empty gun.
Gently Angie eased Jo’s head to the floor. The girl groaned with pain. She was still alive, still holding on.
Angie crawled around the dark room, ignoring the chalky grit of sawdust and metal shavings grinding into her knees, the stabbing pain beneath her ribs, the steady flow of blood that left a trail behind her. She found screws and nails and then her hand brushed against something cold and round and metal. She picked up the object. In the darkness, her fingers told her what she was holding: the broken doorknob. Solid. Heavy. The four-inch spindle stuck out like an ice pick.
There was a final click of the latch engaging. The screwdriver clattered to the concrete floor. The door cracked open.
Angie stood up. She pressed her back to the wall beside the door. She thought about all the ways she had hurt the men in her life. Once with a gun. Once with a needle. Countless times with her fists. With her mouth. With her teeth. With her heart.
The door opened a few more careful inches. The tip of a gun snaked around the corner.
She gripped the doorknob so that the spindle shot out between her fingers, and waited for Dale to come in.
‘Angela?’ he said. ‘I’m not going to hurt you.’
The last time he would ever tell her that lie.
She grabbed Dale’s wrist and pulled him into the room. He stumbled, twisting around. Moonlight played across his face. He looked surprised. He should’ve been surprised. Forty years of tricking out little girls and not one of them had ever turned on him.
Until now.
Angie drove the doorknob into the side of his neck. She felt the resistance as the rusty spindle tore through cartilage and sinew.
Dale’s breath hissed out. She tasted the decay from his rotting body.
He fell back onto the floor.
Blood splashed the front of her legs.
His arms flopped open. His lips parted. His eyes were closed. One last breath seeped out, not a snake hissing, but a tire slowly deflating. The moon had shifted outside the windows. A long shadow crept into the room, caressing Dale’s body in darkness. Hell had sent a minion to claim his miserable soul.
‘Angela.’
The name snapped Angie out of her daze. She had never told Jo her name. She was using the name that Dale had called her.
‘Angela,’ Jo repeated. She was sitting up. She held the knife steady with her hand. ‘I want to see my boy.’
Anthony. Christ, what was she going to do about Anthony?
‘Help me up.’ Jo struggled to stand.
Angie rushed over to help. She couldn’t believe the strength left in the girl.
Jo said, ‘I need to see my boy. I have to tell him—’
‘You will.’ Angie ignored her own pain as she helped raise Jo up. They both staggered a few steps before Jo walked forward on her own. Angie could see the knife now, pushed in to the hilt. Jo’s hand was dangling from her arm. The tourniquet had slipped. Blood spurted out, flicking across Dale’s body. More blood covered the floor. Jo slumped against the wall.
Jo said, ‘Just give me a second. I can do this.’ She couldn’t do it. She slid to the floor. Angie ran to catch her, but it was too late. Jo slumped to the ground. Her eyes closed. Her face went slack. Her lips still moved. ‘I can do this.’
Angie made her cop training take over. Basic triage. No time for an ambulance. She had to find a way to slow the bleeding again or Jo would never make it down the stairs. There was the tarp in her car. Duct tape. She took a step, then stopped. This was a crime scene. Two sets of footprints, two suspects. Angie had her Haix police boots in the car. Reuben Figaroa would be looking for his wife. His son. Angie needed to cover Jo’s tracks. Dale’s car. The bricks of cash in the trunk. Delilah’s credit cards. The APD. The GBI.
Will.
Rippy was his case. He would be called here. He would find Dale. He would find a lake of blood. Angie knew him. She knew how his mind worked. He wouldn’t stop digging until he had buried them all in a grave.
‘Angela,’ Jo whispered. ‘Is it Anthony?’
Zzzt. Zzzt.
Dale’s phone was vibrating in his pocket.
Jo said, ‘Is it my boy? Is he calling?’
Jo’s boy was being held by someone who had him pressed against a wall, a hunting knife to his neck.
Angie flipped open Dale’s phone. She pressed it to her ear. There were sounds: a child crying, a cartoon playing too loud.
A woman said, ‘Hey, asshole, I’m losing my patience here. You want this little boy or should I sell him for parts?’
Fire burned its way into the pit of Angie’s stomach. She was ten years old again. Frightened, alone, willing to do anything to make the pain go away.
‘Dale?’ The woman waited. ‘You there?’
‘Mama?’ Angie’s ten-year-old voice came back into her mouth. ‘Is that you?’
She laughed her low, husky laugh. ‘Yeah, it’s me, baby. Did you miss me?’
Present Day
NINE
Will pressed his phone tight against his ear. He heard Angie’s voice echo in his head.
It’s me, baby. Did you miss me?
Was this the Xanax? Will looked at his phone. CALLER ID BLOCKED. He sat up. He looked around the chapel like Angie might be there. Watching him. Laughing at him. He felt his mouth moving. He didn’t hear any words coming out.
‘Will?’ Her teasing tone was gone. ‘You okay, baby? Take a breath.’
Take a breath.
Sara had said the same thing to him downstairs. Except this time, he wasn’t having a panic attack. He was filled with a blinding, uncontrollable rage. ‘You fucking bitch.’
She laughed. ‘That’s more like it.’
Rippy’s club. Angie’s purse. Her gun. Her car. Her blood. And now the body in the funeral home with her wedding ring.
She had set him up. She had gotten herself into trouble, and whatever way she’d managed to claw her way out had presented an opportunity for her to fuck with his head.
He said it again. ‘You fucking bitch.’
She laughed at him again.
Will would’ve punched her in the throat if she were standing in front of him. He would find her. He would do whatever it took to track her down and strangle the life out of her worthless body.
The chapel door opened. Faith walked in.
Will took in gulps of air, trying to swallow down his fury. His outrage. His resentment.