They were sitting together on Ty’s back deck facing Lake Massey, each holding a Coors, looking at the lake glistening beneath a half moon and a dazzling display of stars casting diamonds on the still, dark water. House lights across the lake began to wink out as tourists and book festival fans hung it up for the night. Every time a light went out, the starlight display over the lake became more brilliant.
Sala looked over at the chief. “Imagine you’re camping out in an abandoned house. It’s time to hit the road, so you’re careful cleaning up after yourself. You don’t want to leave anything for anyone to find, even though you doubt anyone will come looking through the house for years. You and your girlfriend—yes, I think that mad laugh had to be the killer’s girlfriend—both of you pick up every single hair, wipe down every surface, scrub the bathroom. You’re thorough. When you drive away, you’re pleased with yourselves for a job well done, your plan perfectly executed. No one will ever find Octavia Ryan. Her body will be eaten by the fish, and her bones will lie on the bottom of the lake forever. As for Porto—” He swallowed, couldn’t help it. “He’ll die of thirst, tied up in a closet.” He felt her hand lightly touch his arm, for comfort, for reassurance that he was alive and here with her, that it was over. He drew a deep breath and leaned back in the wooden deck chair, closed his eyes. He’d survived because of Savich.
They fell into a comfortable silence. Ty heard night sounds she was used to—crickets chirping, the movement of small animals in the undergrowth, the gentle lapping of the water against her dock, the rustling of tree leaves in the night breeze, sounds that soothed and comforted.
Sala took another drink of his beer. His throat still felt razor dry. No, don’t think about those hours in the closet. Put it behind you. Focus, like Savich said. The headache is fine. It means you’re alive.
Ty said, “I like the bandage over your forehead. Looks rakish, like a badass pirate.”
He lightly touched a fingertip to the large adhesive bandage. “Dr. Staunton is good. I didn’t feel a thing when she stitched me up.” He paused, then said, “I can’t stop thinking about this. Why didn’t Octavia recognize his voice?”
“You weren’t conscious for very long. What, a minute or two? She probably did recognize him, once they were on the lake.” Ty sipped her beer. “I wonder if his girlfriend was with him when he came to your cabin.”
“I don’t know. I never saw her, and forensics couldn’t help us. They only found the window he broke in through, some of my blood on the floor, and our smashed cell phones.”
Ty said, “They must have used the Volvo to get you to Gatewood and then dumped it somewhere in the woods. We were lucky to find you after only a day.”
She smacked her head. “What a dummy. That toilet paper rod means the Gatewood plumbing still worked. And to use the toilet means they had to have the water turned on, right?”
“Maybe, or they could have simply brought in buckets of lake water to flush the toilet.” He watched her pull her cell out of her breast pocket, then sigh and put it back.
“I forgot. It’s Saturday night. At best I’d get a maintenance worker. On Monday, we’ll find out. Fake name, but it’ll be something.”
Sala said, “Maybe they turned the water on themselves, and we’ll find prints on the main water valve.”
“Good thought.”
He grinned at her. He felt good, but only for an instant, then a slap of guilt swamped him and he fell silent, rolling the beer between his palms. “Thanks for letting me stay here with you, Chief. I appreciate it.”
“You know Dr. Staunton said you’ve had a concussion, and she ordered you to rest. I couldn’t have you driving back and forth on the highway, and I doubt there are any vacancies in town at all. Besides, I can keep an eye on you this way, make sure you’re all right. So don’t worry about it. It’s not a problem.” Didn’t he realize that available rooms or no, she’d have insisted he stay with her? No way would she let him be alone after what he’d been through. “Since you’re staying in my guest room and I put clean sheets on your bed, even plumped up your pillow, you should call me Ty.”
He nodded. “And since I’m sleeping on those clean sheets, call me Sala.”
She smiled, nodded.
“What does Ty stand for?”
“Don’t go there, too scary. Now, your name, it’s very unusual.”
“My dad’s responsible, at least that’s what my mom always swore when I’d come home from school with bloody knuckles and a black eye.” He paused, smiled again. “Never really bothered me, though. I really liked to mix it up when I was a kid. Never lost a fight after the age of five, when I learned not to mess with a third-grader. My dad was a marine, a real scrapper back in the day, so he taught me, my mama rolling her eyes in the background.” He paused. “My mom gave me lessons, too, she was a pretty dirty fighter herself. She grew up on Chicago’s South Side with three brothers.”
Ty sighed. “My mother went hysterical when I told her I was going to be a cop. She gave it her best shot to talk me out of it, but it was no use. Needless to say, my dad was all for it. He’s a captain in the Washington State Patrol. So why didn’t your parents change your name? Save the spillage of blood on all sides.”
He laughed. “Dad and Mom said I should be proud of my name, so I learned to fight.”
She gave him a huge grin, cracked her knuckles. “One of these days, we can see at the gym which of us is the dirtiest fighter, Mr. FBI.”
“Yeah, yeah, blah, blah.”
They fell silent, both looking out over the lake. Sala said after a while, “He has my Glock. It’s like missing a limb.”
That was a tough one because it was never supposed to happen. She said with no hesitation, “You’ll get it back.”
“You’re that certain we’ll get him?”
“He has no idea how close we are, no idea we probably have his fingerprints, and pretty soon we’re going to know his name. A couple more days and we’ll have both him and his girlfriend.”
Sala tapped his head, then thumped his fist to his chest. “I know that in my head, but not here, not in my heart, not yet.”
15
* * *
Ty couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be tied up and helpless in a closet no one would ever open, struggling to finally accept that you were going to die, all the while grieving for a woman you were close to and believed had been murdered. She reached over and touched his arm again, kept her voice calm. “I’m very sorry for what happened to Octavia and to you, Sala. It was a horrible thing to go through. I saw him murder Octavia on the lake, and that was bad enough. But the bottom line is we’ll catch him and find his girlfriend with him. There will be justice.”
Sala was tempted to dismiss what she’d said because he didn’t care about justice right then. What he really wanted to do was squeeze his hands around the killer’s neck and choke the life out of him. For Octavia and for himself. He said, “I wondered about his girlfriend when I was in the closet. That mad laugh—I wanted to see her face.” If he was honest with himself, Sala wanted to kill her, too.
“Try to let it go, Sala, at least for tonight.” She wondered where the two of them were that night. A hundred miles away? Believing they’d pulled everything off perfectly?
She pulled out a grin, gave a dramatic sigh. “That was a sigh of relief since nothing dramatic happened at the book festival today—well, other than the deal with Sherlock in the children’s tent. Whatever that was, thankfully none of the parents or kids seemed to realize anything had really happened.”