She clicked, brought up a small picture of the dead woman. Young, black hair to her shoulders, smiling into the camera. In the background was Thackeray College, where she had been a student.
“Of course,” Duckworth said. “But I was never the primary on that. It was Rhonda Finderman. Before she became chief.”
“That’s why we didn’t make the connection right away.”
“Shit,” Duckworth said. “She should have. She’s so busy with things that have nothing to do with Promise Falls she doesn’t know what’s going on in her own backyard.”
Wanda did a few lightning-quick keystrokes and mouse maneuvers, and brought up autopsy photos from the Gaynor case, as well as a photo of the woman that had made an online news site.
“You’re right,” Duckworth said. “The wounds are nearly identical.” He reached a hand out toward the screen, as though he wanted to touch the face of Rosemary Gaynor.
“Look at her hair, her face,” he said. “The black hair, the complexions of the two women.”
“Very similar,” Wanda said.
Duckworth shook his head slowly. “God, I need a doughnut.”
“Who killed Rosemary Gaynor, Barry?”
He hesitated. “Finderman likes the doctor for it.”
Wanda pointed at the screen, the two dead women. “You think Sturgess did this?”
Barry Duckworth studied the images. “No.”
“Then you know what this means,” she said.
Duckworth nodded.
“It means our guy’s come back,” he said. “Or maybe he never left. Maybe he’s always been here.”
SEVENTY-THREE
I feel rested.
Ready to get back at it.
Still so much to do.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Authors need help, and I had plenty. Thanks go to Susan Lamb, Heather Connor, John Aitchison, Danielle Perez, Bill Massey, Spencer Barclay, Helen Heller, Brad Martin, Nick Whelan, Kara Welsh, Graeme Williams, Gaby Young, Paige Barclay, Ashley Dunn, Kristin Cochrane, Juliet Ewers, Eva Kolcze and D. P. Lyle.
And, as always, the booksellers.
Don’t miss the next Linwood Barclay thriller set in Promise Falls,
FAR FROM TRUE
Available in hardcover and e-book from New American Library in March 2016.
THEY decided Derek was the one who should get into the trunk.
Before heading off, the four of them, Derek Cutter included, thought it would be cool to smuggle someone in. Not because they couldn’t afford a fourth ticket. That wasn’t the issue. They just felt the situation demanded it of them. It was the sort of thing you were supposed to do.
After all, this was the last night they’d ever have the chance. Like so many other businesses in and around Promise Falls these days, the Constellation Drive-In Theater was packing it in. What with multiplexes, 3-D screens, DVDs, movies you could download at home and watch in seconds—why go to a drive-in, except maybe to make out? And given how much smaller cars had gotten since the drive-in was first conceived, even that wasn’t much of a reason to watch a movie under the stars.
Still, even for people of Derek’s generation, there was something nostalgic about a drive-in. He could remember his parents bringing him here for the first time when he was eight or nine, and how excited he’d been. It was a triple bill, the movies becoming successively more mature. The first was one of the Toy Story flicks—Derek had brought along his Buzz Lightyear and Woody action figures—which was followed by some rom-com Matthew McConaughey thing, back when he was only doing crap, and then a Jason Bourne movie. Derek had barely managed to stay awake until the end of Toy Story. His parents had made a bed for him in the backseat so he could zonk out when they watched features two and three.
Derek longed for those times. When his parents had still been together.
This night, the Constellation was showing one of those dumber-than-dumb Transformers movies, where alien robots inhabiting Earth had disguised themselves as cars—usually Chevrolets, thank you very much, product placement—and trucks. Morphing from car to robot involved a slew of special effects. Lots of things blew up, buildings were destroyed. It was the kind of movie none of the girls they knew was interested in seeing, and even though the guys tried to make them understand the movie itself didn’t matter, that this was an event, that this night at the drive-in was history, they’d failed to win them over.