“My God.”
Her hands were still shaking. She’d been planning to steal the man from his children, take him to the woods, and break him. It wasn’t academic or some dark fantasy. She’d been minutes away from doing it. Cuffs. Car. Some wooded place.
She caught a glimpse of her eyes in the mirror; found them haunted and bruised. She felt out of control, dangerous. But Channing was still out there, and that, too, was real. What choice did she have but to walk the road?
She stopped at a traffic light, watched cops at a checkpoint.
What if the road disappeared?
What if she was already lost?
Gideon was shot, and Channing gone. Crybaby was alive or dead—she didn’t know.
And, there was Adrian.
Elizabeth turned away from the checkpoint, working the back roads toward her house. She needed to know if cops were there, or if Channing—by some miracle—had returned. She was two minutes out when the phone vibrated in her pocket. “Hello.”
“Is it true?”
“Adrian? Where are you?”
“Is it true they found my wife under the church?”
Elizabeth saw another marked car. They were everywhere. “Don’t come here.”
“Somebody killed her.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“She didn’t deserve that, Liz. We may not have worked at the end, but she was a gentle soul, and alone because of me. I can’t just sit here.”
“The police are looking for you.”
“You, too,” he said. “Your face is all over the news. They’re linking you to the dead guard. They say you’re an accessory to murder.”
Elizabeth went silent. She didn’t think it would really happen. Not Dyer. Not this fast. “Stay away from me,” she said. “Stay away from this place.”
She disconnected before he could argue, then made the last turn before her neighborhood. Parking a block away from her house, she worked through a line of trees, approached from the rear, and slipped inside. She knew at once the house was empty, but checked it anyway. Every room. Every door. A dozen messages clogged her machine, but none were from Channing.
What to do?
The cops could be a mile away, engines wide open. If they found her, she’d face jail and trial and prison. That meant she had to move, and do it now. So, she collected cash and clothing and spare weapons. She stuffed it all into a bag, working faster because speed kept her safe from the truth: that she had nowhere to go, and no way to find the only thing that really mattered.
Channing …
That was the arrow that brought her down, and she felt it as if it were real, a sudden pain that made her sit on a kitchen chair, hands open and upturned, eyes wide but not really seeing. Channing was gone, and Elizabeth had no way to find her.
Two minutes later a car rolled into the drive.
It wasn’t Channing.
*
Beckett’s illusions fell apart when the warrant hit the wires. Until then he’d believed the world might still correct. They’d catch the killer, and Liz would come home. The warden would somehow disappear. Never mind the dead couple in the motel, or that he’d gotten them killed. That was too big, and he had nowhere to put the guilt.
How could he know Liz would lie?
He couldn’t.
But, the couple was still dead. That was still on him.
“Where’s Dyer?” He grabbed the first cop he saw, a uniformed officer plying the crowded halls same as him. State cops. SBI. It was as if someone had kicked apart a nest of ants. Everyone was angry and full of grim intent. Serial killer. Guard killer. People felt it same as Beckett, long falls and acceleration.
“Dyer’s gone,” the uniform said. “Thirty minutes, maybe.”
“Where?”
“No idea.”
Beckett let him go and checked Dyer’s office for the third time. He wanted the warrant quashed before Liz got hurt. But the office was empty. No answer on the cell. He tried Liz, but she wasn’t answering, either. She was angry; didn’t trust him.
Shit, he couldn’t blame her.
“I’m on my cell.” He flung the words at one of the switchboard operators. “Tell Dyer to call me if he shows up.”
Beckett pulled the coat off his chair and shrugged it on as he stepped outside, taking in the news crews and cops and all the bright, moving colors. Forces were gathering against him. Old pressures. Old sins. He needed something, and it had nothing to do with the job.
Taking the steps down, he ate up the sidewalk in long strides, took the car across town, and stepped out at the hair salon two blocks from the mall. Inside, it smelled of chemicals and lotions and blown hair. Beckett nodded at the receptionist, then walked past mirrored stations and long looks and found his wife wrist deep in hair the size of a basketball. “Can I talk to you?”
“Hey, baby. Everything okay?”
“I just need a moment.”
She patted the woman in the chair. “Give me a sec, sugar.” Beckett led his wife to a quiet space beside the rear wall. “What’s up?”