KATE PLUGGED IN HER cam and clipped an ascender to the line, heat steaming off her skin as she groped her way up the rock face. The last leg of the journey was always the hardest. She reached into her chalk bag, clapped some loose powder on her palms, and gripped the rock before adjusting her position. Her arms shook with strain as her toes sought refuge in the smallest indents, and her fingertips pressed into cracks the width of a dime.
She reached the top of the six-hundred-foot cliff and pulled herself up over the edge, breathing hard with exertion. She stood on the precipice and turned toward the morning sun, catching the light on her face and shoulders. August in Seattle. To the west was Puget Sound. To the east were the Cascade Mountains, snow-capped peaks jutting above the tree line. Down below, spread across the foothills for hundreds of miles in all directions, were the wilderness trails. A long morning hike had brought them to this crustal block after a steep drive along a wooded road. She took her bottled water out of her backpack and drank greedily, then wiped her mouth with her hand. There was a sultry, leathery smell to her sweat. It had been a tough climb, but well worth the effort.
Six months ago, Kate had crawled out of the Maine woods in the dead of winter with nothing worse than a mild case of dehydration and a couple of bruised ribs. Only her psyche had been battered and broken.
Palmer Dyson had left two deep purple thumbprints on her windpipe. She’d watched them gradually fade away, going from cobalt to green to yellow in a matter of days, until there was nothing left. Healing took time—she reminded herself of that every day.
The depth of her fear had woven itself into her nightmares, which smelled of wet adrenaline, of the burning urge to flee and hot dry breaths. Nightmares could be cured through therapy, but the payload of fear lingered. You couldn’t turn it on and off like a light switch. You couldn’t medicate it away. You had to coax it out into the open, then try to reason with it and convince it not to take up so much space in your life. Recovery was slow. But her life was gradually taking back its natural rhythm.
Kate was back in therapy, and Ira was helping her deal with her losses. She missed her father terribly. She felt guilty for ever suspecting him. He’d tried his best. At first a question nagged at Kate: Julia could’ve had any man she wanted, but she’d chosen Bram Wolfe. Why? Julia was beautiful and vivacious. Men flocked to her. But the more she thought about her father, and about her mother’s final days, Kate grew to realize that what Julia had loved about Bram was his essential decency. He’d managed to keep her grounded for a while.
Palmer Dyson had left a trail of death behind him. There were thirty-eight hair samples in the briefcase, and he was linked to disappearances as far away as Oregon. The Blunt River PD was cooperating with jurisdictions from at least six states. There was speculation Palmer went on holiday murder sprees, killing all over the country to get his fix. Cold cases were being reopened, and the media dubbed him the Shaved Head Killer. For Kate, it revealed Palmer’s lies, the way he had tried to blame her mother for his twisted nature. He had murdered many girls without even the slightest connection to Julia Wolfe or his desire for revenge against William Stigler. He had just loved to kill.
She struggled with the fact that she’d killed another human being. It was as if Palmer had crawled into her head and taken up residence. No charges had been brought against her; the police, the DA’s office, the media, and the public had all concluded that it was a case of self-defense. Some hailed her as a hero, but Kate couldn’t help thinking—once you entered the darkness, the darkness entered you.
Derrick Ward had been charged with Nelly’s murder. He claimed that one of their frequent arguments about his wife’s treatment of Maddie had gotten out of hand, when he had returned home to discover that Nelly had left her daughter in Boston. He admitted that he had been drinking heavily, and that it wasn’t the first time he had laid hands on Nelly. Maddie Ward would never be going home, but her foster placement was working well, and she remained under Ira’s care. While she was no longer Kate’s patient, she needed friends, and Kate was happy to fill those shoes.
James clambered over the edge of the cliff and joined her. “Phew. Where were all the fucking handholds? Talk about a hairy climb.”
“Nah,” she bragged. “Piece of cake.”
“Yeah right, Lara Croft.” He brushed the dirt off his hands and grinned at her. “I definitely need some new material, huh?”
She smiled at him. “You think?”
“I’m still hilarious, though, aren’t I?”
“My boyfriend is badass.”
“I’m badassical.” He grinned. He locked his arms around her waist and wove his fingers together at her tailbone. They were standing on a large sandstone overhang that dropped off precipitously over a breathtaking view. The air was thick with the heady scent of western pine.
“It’s pretty, huh?” she said.
“Beautiful.” He’d been doing a lot of crunches and dead lifts at the gym, burying his anxiety in physical activity. Athletic, tanned, handsome, as cocky as ever, James suffered in secret, she knew. He pretended to be strong for her.
There was a picture she kept in her desk drawer at work, something from Dr. Holley’s archives: an old Polaroid of Palmer Dyson’s mother taken fifty years ago at an asylum in Manchester. She looked like a cornered rat. She’d been admitted in the midst of a nervous breakdown, having just attacked her son with a pair of scissors. Luckily, none of his vital organs or major arteries had been hit. Otherwise, Palmer Dyson wouldn’t have survived to become one of the most notorious serial killers in modern history. Every day when Kate looked at that photograph, she couldn’t help wondering—how the hell did you miss his heart, you stupid woman?
She wanted to throw the Polaroid away, because it made her feel sorry for him—just a little. It kept her from hating him as completely as she wanted to. It spoke to her of inherited traits, monstrous parenting, nature versus nurture. As a child psychiatrist, she couldn’t help but feel a little empathy for the victim. Mrs. Dyson’s face revealed that the leap from sanity to insanity was separated by the thinnest of membranes.
Anyway. It was time.
Kate unzipped her backpack and took out the gifts Nikki McCormack had given her six months ago—a barnacled pair of 1950s eyeglasses, a tortoiseshell comb, a corroded compass, and last but not least, a skirt weight from the twenties.
She said a few words, then tossed them over the side, and they both watched as Nikki’s gifts disappeared into a landscape of eroded sandstone and basalt, a bleeding watercolor of burnt siennas, terracottas, and yellow ochers. They landed without a sound.
James was watching her closely, looking for signs of trouble. “You okay?”
Kate panicked for a moment. What could she say? No? I’ll never be okay again?
She blurted out, “Will you marry me?”
He didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she waited for several awkward seconds before he emitted a surprised hoot of laughter. “Whoa. Did you just ask me to marry you?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I thought it was time.”
“You amaze me,” he said.
She smiled so hard, her cheeks hurt.
“I’ll marry you on one condition: I want my ring back. Then I’m going to ask you properly, like a prop-pah British gentleman, and slip that ring on your finger, and see if it stays put. I want to see what happens when it’s an actual engagement ring.”
“That is so manipulative of you,” she said with a laugh.
“I can’t help it. I have a scientific curiosity about your finger.”
“Really? Guess which finger I’m holding up now?”
He smoothed his hand down her cheek and cupped it lovingly. “My girlfriend is gorgeous.”
That night in bed, he held onto her and refused to let go.
The world felt fragile, full of lacy edges you could drop off of. She wanted closure. To put an end to these agonizing road trips down memory freaking lane. She had managed to slay the monster, but he’d transformed her into a killer. She was changed forever.