Crawling to her purse for her Treo, Caitlin heard a bang from the side of the house. Then heavy footsteps clunked up the hallway. She looked at her watch, and a bolt of fear shot through her. Randall Regan?
She got to her feet, instinctively looking for a place to hide. As she glanced toward the hall door, she saw a large brown pill bottle sitting on the fireplace hearth. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now it seemed the largest object in the room. The bottle had no lid, and it was empty.
“Who are you?” shouted a male voice. “What the hell’s happening here?”
Caitlin turned to see a tall, dark-haired man in his fifties kneeling beside Katy. In one glance Caitlin knew this was the man who had raped and murdered two former employees of Royal Insurance. God only knew what he’d done to Katy behind the locked doors of this house—or what he would do to Caitlin if he caught her.
“I think she took some pills,” Caitlin said, casting about for a lie that would buy the time she needed to escape. “See there?” She pointed to the empty bottle by the fireplace. “I was about to call 911.”
Regan’s eyes didn’t leave her for a second. “Who are you?”
He stood and took a step toward her.
Caitlin grabbed her purse off the floor, spilling out half its contents. Regan was still closing the space between them when she got her pistol out and held it in front of her.
The sight of the .38 stopped him, but she wasn’t sure it would hold Regan long. He had the eyes of an enraged animal.
“Call 911!” she shouted. “And let me out of here! Just let me go!”
“You’re that Masters bitch,” he said in a low, cracked voice. “Penn Cage’s whore. You’re not gonna shoot me.”
Caitlin felt her arm shaking. Regan was calling her bluff. What would happen if she shot a man in his own home, after having gained entry under false pretenses? Did it even matter? Not if I don’t get out of here alive.
“Let me out, I said! I’ll shoot!”
Regan laughed and started forward.
Caitlin fired into the floor at his feet. He stopped, and the smell of gunpowder filled the room. Caitlin moved quickly around him, keeping the gun pointed at him all the time. Regan turned to track her movements, but the door wasn’t far away now. Then a horrifying thought struck her.
“You’d better call 911,” she said. “Because I’m calling it as soon as I leave. You can’t let her die on the floor.”
“You’re dead,” Regan rasped, his eyes burning. “You and your boyfriend both. Dead.”
Caitlin whirled and ran for her car.
CHAPTER 76
I’M SITTING ON the second floor of the old City Jail, now refurbished as a meeting hall for the Board of Selectmen but still known as the “old jail.” Tonight the jail is being used for the Joint Governance Meeting, which brings the city and county governments together, an event as rare as a U.S.-Chinese summit. For nearly two hours I’ve listened in excruciating agony while black and white politicians with only one thing in common—a profound ignorance of history—debate the merits of creating a unique but racially sensitive historical park and memorial. As a result, I’ve developed a detailed fantasy of dropping several of my colleagues through the long-disused hangman’s trapdoor upstairs.
Four days ago, the two projects we’ve met to discuss were the chief goals of my administration (after reforming the public school system). Now they seem like obscure public works projects I read about in the back pages of Newsweek. This is the kind of meeting where I wish the only two people on my side would get off of it. One ally is black, the other white, and neither seems to realize that his impassioned rant will only hurt our chances of securing the votes and funding required to get this park built.
Not that I give a damn at this moment.
For the first hour, all I could think about was what Lincoln Turner told me in the juke near Anna’s Bottom, and the deductions I made afterward. Then Sheriff Dennis called my cell. When I stepped out of the meeting, Dennis told me that, not long before, someone identifying himself only as “Mr. Brown” had called his office and insisted on speaking to the sheriff. When Walker got on the line, “Mr. Brown” told him that on the previous night, he’d witnessed a pickup truck bearing the Royal Oil Company logo smash the front door of the Concordia Beacon with its right front fender. Then he’d seen two men get out, one of whom appeared to be carrying a large backpack. They entered the newspaper, and moments later, an intense glow became visible through the smashed door. About a minute later, the arsonists had emerged and fled the scene in the truck.
“Did you ask this ‘Mr. Brown’ if he recognized them?” I asked.
“He said he did,” Walker answered in the tone of a man telling a good joke. “He said one was Randall Regan, and the other was Brody Royal himself. Those were his exact words. Himself.”
This news actually lifted me out of my trance. “He told you Brody Royal torched the Concordia Beacon?”
“Yep. What do you think I ought to do about that tip?”
“Have you told anybody else about it?”
“Not yet.”
“Not even your deputies?”
“No.”
“Then don’t. Don’t say anything about it to anybody. I’ll get back to you about this later. Okay?”
“If you say so.”