My look warns him not to antagonize her. I’m all too aware of that gun at his back.
“You should have left me alone, Casey,” she says. “But you couldn’t. You had to dig and poke and prod. Destroy what little sanctuary I had. Rob me of what few allies I had.”
“Allies?” I say. “You mean the council? Because I proved they set you up to be raped?”
“I was not raped.” Her voice shakes along with the gun, and I give myself the same warning I gave Dalton. Stop. Just stop.
She continues, “I escaped. If you don’t believe that’s possible, it’s because you didn’t escape your attackers, Casey. You let them beat you. Let them almost kill you. Almost certainly let them rape you. You could not get away, so you cannot conceive of the possibility that another, stronger, smarter woman might have.”
“Okay,” I say, and it’s a calm, even response, but she keeps shaking, wanting to fight, to defend herself, and I change the subject fast. “So you helped Oliver here. You ingratiated yourself with him, while pretending you were spying for us.”
“And you bought it.” She smiles. “You couldn’t help yourself. Your pet project was showing signs of improvement. Joining the community. Making herself useful. I manipulated you into giving me access to him and you jumped at the chance.”
“You brought supplies,” I say. “Food. Weapons. That’s why Oliver didn’t bother retrieving my gun after he shot Brent. And you sent him to Brent. You knew Brent could lead you both to Jacob.”
She says nothing. It doesn’t matter. Not now.
Focus on the facts. On how this fills in the holes.
Brady attacked Brent because Val said Brent could get them a better hostage: Jacob. Who could also guide them out of the wilderness. And the companion Jacob saw with Brady? Val. From a distance, Jacob mistook her for a man. She brought those protein bars they shared, old stock she had access to. Brady had been so confident, he’d outright lied about it. Didn’t even bother making up a story.
I have no idea what you’re talking about, Detective.
Dalton jerks his chin toward Val, and it takes a moment to see what he’s gesturing at—the rifle barrel poking over Val’s collarbone, a gun slung at her back.
“You’re the sniper,” I say.
“Yes, I know my way around a gun, too, Casey,” she says. “Did you presume I was too weak and timid? I told you I used to stay on my grandparents’ farm. They had guns. I insisted on learning. I’m good at it—my aptitude for mathematics comes in handy with distance shooting. Of course, my grandparents didn’t think it was a proper sport for a girl, so while they humored me as a child, I had to shoot in secret when I got older. Which was useful, as it turns out. Do you recall those boys who taunted me? Chased me? Tried to assault me? One died the month before he graduated from high school. Shot by a stray bullet in the forest. A careless hunter, it seems.”
“And you shot Kenny,” I say. “Who was no threat to you. Was never anything but respectful—”
“Respectful? He was a toad. Always trying to talk to me. Ask what he could do for me. I know what he wanted to do for me.”
“So you shot him?”
“He was in the path of my actual target.”
“Casey,” Dalton says, when I don’t respond. “You wanted to kill Casey. You felt threatened—”
“Threatened? By this child?” Val laughs. “No, Sheriff. I only wanted her out of the way. She stood between me and the one thing that really can get us out of this godforsaken wilderness.”
“Him,” I say. “Eric. Shooting him on our walk was accidental—you just wanted it to look as if someone was trying to assassinate Oliver. When Oliver couldn’t get Brent to take him to Jacob, you decided Eric would do. He can guide you out. Keep you alive. You’d kill me and force him to help you escape.”
“Now I don’t need to kill you, so I won’t. Proving I’m not threatened by you, Casey, I’ll just borrow your lover for a week. If he gets us where we want to go, I’ll set him free.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you?”
“He’s no threat to us once we escape, so why would we kill him?”
“Because you can. Because Oliver here is a sadistic—”
“It was Greg,” Brady snarls. “He made me do it. He forced me to help him, and he said if I ever told anyone, he’d kill me.”
“Which would be hard for him to do from a prison cell. He might have groomed you, Oliver, but that’s only because he saw you for what you are—as much a narcissistic, sociopathic sadist as he is. And you, Val?”
I turn to her. “You felt like a prisoner in Rockton because you were. You weren’t there by choice. Which means that farm boy isn’t the only person you’ve killed. That’s the thing about pulling a trigger. Either you’re horrified and suffer a lifetime of guilt . . . or you realize it wasn’t so bad after all. You tried to kill Kenny because he literally stood in your way. You tried to do the same to me because I figuratively blocked your path. You’re no different than this psycho. Which means I can’t trust you to let Eric go once he guides you out.”
“I don’t think you have a choice here, Casey. Drop to your knees with your head down or I’ll put a bullet—”
I shoot her between the eyes.
I don’t think about it. I cannot second-guess. I have my gun in my hand, and I have exactly one chance here, while she’s talking, while she convinced she’s won.
I swing my gun up, and I fire. I see her eyes. There is a moment there, a terrible moment, between her seeing the gun fire and death. A moment when she knows what has happened. A moment of horror that I will not forget.
Val drops to the ground.
“Holy shit,” Brady says. “Holy—”
I point the gun at him, and he stops. I’m waiting for Dalton to tell me no, don’t shoot Brady. But he says nothing. Does nothing. I glance back, and his face is ashen. He isn’t in shock, though. He says nothing because he knows he doesn’t need to. I had to shoot Val . . . and I don’t have to shoot Brady.
“Start walking,” I say to Brady.
“Hell, no. I am not—”
He stops talking. I think that means he’s realized there’s no point arguing. Then I see the blood blossoming on his chest.
His mouth works. He falls to his knees. And he topples face-first to the ground.
I spin, gun raised. That shot did not come from me. It did not come from Dalton. I didn’t hear a gun fire, meaning it came from one with a suppressor. We don’t have suppressors in Rockton.
Both of us turn, our guns raised, scanning the empty forest. Then I see a flash of motion. A killer in flight.
I tear off. Dalton passes me, but the gap is too wide, the killer dressed in camouflage, little more a than blur through the trees.
I let myself slow, gait smoothing as I squint at the shooter.
A slight figure. Narrow shoulders. Hips just as wide. It’s a woman. She’s fast and she’s agile, and she knows how to move in the forest, racing down the path, leaping over obstacles, outrunning Dalton.
He shoots. The sound of that shot surprises me. It’s wild, though. Intentionally wild—no matter what has happened, he’s not aiming to bring down someone who shot a serial killer. He’s just trying to get her attention. He does, and she glances over her shoulder, and I catch a flash of pale skin and light hair and a face I recognize.
Even from this distance, I recognize it.
She doesn’t slow, though. And in trying to surprise her, Dalton got a shock himself, one that has him stumbling. Then she’s around the corner, too far ahead to ever catch.
After a pause he heads back to me as I cover him. I will fire—if she turns and I see her gun trained on Dalton, I will shoot her.
She doesn’t turn.
Dalton breaks into a jog and says, “Did you see . . . ?”
“I did.”
“That was—”
“Petra.”
We leave Val’s and Brady’s bodies behind. We cover them and mark the spot. Then we set out to Rockton.
“I killed Val,” I say.
“You did what I couldn’t. Last winter. With Peter.”
He’s looking straight ahead as we walk.