Blessed are the Meek (22 page)

 

Chapter 49

T
HE SUN IS
setting when I pull onto the dirt road toward the lighthouse, checking the map I got in the hotel lobby. The road is carved through chest-­high scrub brush and meanders along high cliffs overlooking the water below. I drive with my window down, and the brush rustles noisily and eerily as I pass.

The white, sixty-­foot-­tall lighthouse looks like an upended flashlight perched on the rocks. My window down, I can hear the waves crashing below the elevated road. Eventually, the little dirt road dips, and I drop down to a dusty parking lot that is nearly at ocean level. One other car is parked in the lot, a small, beat-­up Fiat that must be Conway's.

I turn off the rattling VW's engine and crane my neck to look up at the lighthouse. I don't see any movement. I listen out the window but only hear the crashing waves. Am I supposed to go inside?

I get out of the car, tugging my sweater on now that the sun is growing low on the horizon. The brisk sea breeze whips my hair and gives me goose bumps. Holding my hand up to shield my eyes from the setting sun, I peer up at the lighthouse again but don't see a soul. The door at the base of the lighthouse opens a few feet with the wind, then slams shut again.

“Hello?” I say, holding the door and straining to see into the darkness inside.

Nothing. The only noise is an eerie sound of wind whistling throughout the huge concrete structure. I step in and let the door fall shut behind me. When my eyes adjust to the dim interior, I make out the beginning of curving concrete steps.

The creepy sound of howling wind makes me pull my sweatshirt tighter and keeps me from yelling out again. I'm almost tiptoeing as I make my way up the stairs. The scent inside the lighthouse is a vaguely familiar one, sort of like a musty basement, which makes the hairs on my arm stand up. The only light is a dim one that pours down in long fingers from windows high above me. I wish I had a flashlight.

About halfway to the top, I pause at a little observation area with windows and an old, wooden bench. I try to see out the windows, but years of dirt and grime make the view a blurry one. The curve of the concrete steps makes it impossible to see what's ahead. I jump when a gust of wind bursts through one of the old windows with a loose clasp, making it rattle and thump noisily.

My heart is racing. I'm too frightened to call out. I trudge up to the next set of windows. What do I know about this Tim Conway guy? Maybe he's the killer and lured Donovan down here to take care of him? What have I gotten myself into? I look back. Part of me is tempted to race down those stairs, get in my car, and peel out of here. But I have to see what Conway knows. It might be the only way to save Donovan.

I glance out the window at my shoulder, which is not as dirty as the other one. Then I see him.

A man on the rocky shore below. He's in a small cove hidden from the parking lot. It looks like he's loading gear into a rowboat tied up nearby. He's wearing a baseball cap pulled low, windbreaker, and khaki shorts. Conway. I start back down the lighthouse steps.

Behind the lighthouse, a steep dirt path inches its way between rocky crags down to the shore. The man is sitting on a big rock about ten yards from the water.

“Tim Conway?”

He doesn't turn around. My words are probably lost in the wind. The man is playing with the rope that leads to the anchored rowboat, yanking it up and down.

I go a few steps closer and am startled by his voice.

“So, you're Sean Donovan's girl?” He doesn't turn around. His ball cap is pulled low. But his profile seems familiar.

I walk over to his side and stick out my hand. “Gabriella Giovanni.”

He doesn't look over at me or take my hand. A chill shoots up my spine. I take a step back when I recognize him—­Adam Grant's friend, Mark. The man from the pool party who rescued that drunken guy. The one who was eyeing me at Adam Grant's wake.

When he finally looks up at me, my insides twist in fear. Without his dark glasses, I see everything clearly now. His eyes. I've seen that look before. In the eyes of a sociopath. The glassy, vacant look. Nothing there.

I remember how when he first touched Annalisa at the wake, she jumped. She was afraid of him. Her snuggling up to him was all an act. He's the killer.

Instinctively, I start backing up, but my heels stop on a rocky outcrop. My horror must show on my face. He lifts his other hand and points his arm out straight at my face. All I see is the barrel of a big gun.

“Sit down.”

Shakily, I crouch on a nearby rock, still an arm's length away from him. He relaxes and settles the gun in his lap.

“Who are you? Where is Tim Conway?” My voice is shaking. My teeth are chattering, and it's not only from the cold air.

“You'll see him soon enough. Up close and personal, even. He's not far. He's right over there in the boat.”

I remember looking out the lighthouse window and seeing this man lifting a bundle into the boat. I'd assumed it was fishing gear.

“You know, it's a shame you're going to die over a scumbag like Sean Donovan.”

“What?” I feel dazed, stunned. I don't know what else to say.

“It has to end this way.”

He looks back out at the sea again. I steal a quick glance behind me, gauging how fast I can run to get away.

“Don't even try it. I'm a deadeye shooter, expert marksman, sharpshooter, whatever you want to call it. Let's just say I don't miss.” He doesn't even look my way as he says this.

That's when I know for sure. Conway is dead. Bile rises in my throat. I know I'm next. But if he's not Conway, who is he? A guy named Mark who is Adam Grant's friend.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mark fingering a badge in his other hand, the one that doesn't hold the gun. A Rosarito police badge. He's talking about that special task force that Donovan was on. He keeps talking, not looking at me.

“Thanks for leading me to Conway. I've been looking for this guy for the last six months. And I couldn't have planned it better myself. ­People go missing in Mexico all the time. It will be weeks before anyone even realizes the two of you are gone. And I'll be somewhere far away now that all my loose ends are tied up. Except Donovan, the rookie fuck. But he's essentially a dead end, too. He won't be going anywhere anytime soon. I should have taken care of this years ago. But I thought they knew to keep their traps shut.”

He
was
targeting the task-­force members. But why?

He unties the rowboat's rope from a big rock and starts coiling it around his crooked arm in a circle.

“I don't understand,” I say. I'm pretending to pay attention to him, but, also, frantically looking around for a means to escape. There is no way I can outrun his gun. I don't see anywhere to flee. Panic wells up in my chest. That's when I remember—­the badge found with Sebastian Laurent's belongings. Laurent wasn't on the task force. The killer didn't leave the badges as a warning.

“You left those badges as calling cards, didn't you?” He doesn't deny it. “So, why didn't you leave one with Adam Grant?”

“How do you know I didn't?” What is he talking about? Is the Rosarito Police badge why the detectives are going after Donovan? Is that their evidence? Why target all the task-­force members?

Then it strikes me.

He's one of them.

I reel through the names in my head: Flora. Dead. Brooke. Dead. Mueller. Dead. Conway. I gulp—­dead. That leaves one guy—­Mark. Mark Emerson.

His name really is Mark. That much is true.

“Come on, Emerson. If you're going to kill me, at least tell me why?” I try to sound brave, but my voice is shaking. He doesn't even flinch when I use his last name. I was right. He has unhooked the rowboat's thick rope from the rock it was tied on and is busy winding it around his arm.

“I don't understand how Annalisa is connected to all this.”

He doesn't look over at me when he answers. “Listen, this isn't some movie where I'm going to confess my sins to you, lady. I could give a rat's ass what you know and what you don't know. All you need to know is by this time tomorrow, you and Conway are going to be fish food. Now stand up and put your hands behind your back. It's dark enough now. All the fishermen will have headed back to port. We'll have the water to ourselves.”

I stall. When I said Annalisa's name, he paused, frozen for a second. She's always been at the bottom of this, but how?

“Let's talk about Annalisa.”

He stops coiling the rope and fixes his gaze on me. “I don't want to hear her name come out of your mouth.” He says it in a low voice.

“Are you an item?”

“She's mine. She's always been mine. She always will be.” He gives a smile that sends a chill through my core.

That's it. He's obsessed with Annalisa, so he knocks off the competition—­Sebastian Laurent and Adam Grant, but how do the others fit into this? The task-­force members? Donovan? Is it because Annalisa is obsessed with my boyfriend?

Suddenly, Emerson is on me. “I said hands behind your back.”

The gun pokes me in the spine. “Hands. Now!” I can smell his breath, minty like toothpaste, as he leans in toward my ear. Irrationally, I think angrily that his breath shouldn't smell fresh and clean. It should smell like the walking corpse that his dead eyes reveal he is.

My arms are wrenched behind me and bound together by something that cuts painfully into my wrists.

“Now walk.”

Holding my arms, he guides me down the path to the boat. When we get there, I brace myself to see Conway's body. It is unnaturally splayed in the bottom of the boat, one leg bent behind him. Bulging eyes look frantic, and his mouth is pulled into a frightening grimace. Bloody brain matter is oozing out a huge hole in his head. It's not really a hole; it's that half his head is missing. I lean over and vomit, spewing what little bile remains in my stomach.

“Get in.”

I nearly trip as I lift my legs to get into the boat. Emerson gets in behind me and pushes me down onto a seat. He uses an oar to push off from the shore. The waves rock us, and I worry that a wave is going to submerge the boat, sending us crashing into the rocks. Somehow, he manages to row us out past the rocky shore. I look down at my sneakers, avoiding the thought that the jeans in front of me are a dead man's legs. Could I disable Emerson enough by kicking him in his groin? Then what?

His dead eyes look at me as if he knows what I'm thinking.

“I could put a bullet through your forehead right now.”

His arms are rowing, but the gun rests on the seat bench beside him. Even if my hands were free, I could never grab it in time.

I lift my chin. “What's stopping you?”

A furrow crosses his brow.

It doesn't go past me. “What? You going to tell me you have some sick code of honor where you don't kill women or something?” My words are dripping disgust. “Or rather you kill them, but not at your own hands? By cutting the brakes on a car? Sort of a ‘keep your hands clean' kind of murder.

He swallows and looks off to the side. “Something like that.”

“What was your plan in Oakland Hills Park then? That seemed pretty hands-­on to me.”

His lips close tightly for a second before he answers. “Wanted to see what you knew. What that rookie fuck told you. Maybe at that point, you would've lived. Who knows? Maybe we would've ended up friends.”

He eyes my chest. I glare at him.

“Listen, lady, it'd be a hell of a lot easier for me just to shoot you, but Donovan would know that you died quickly and painlessly. That's not what I want. I want him to agonize for the rest of his goddamn life over your death. I can imagine his face when I tell him how you spent your last moments on this Earth. He'll be behind bars, and there I'll be—­a free man—­describing the death of his girl to him. And there won't be anything he can do. I can't wait to see the look on his face. He will remember my visit and what I tell him for the rest of his sorry life. It's something I want him to think about—­how you suffered—­while he rots in a prison cell. I want him to replay it over and over again and know there was not a damn thing he could do about it.”

Not only is he going to kill me, but he's ruined Donovan's life—­in so many ways. I picture Donovan growing old in jail, hating himself, blaming himself for everything. It breaks my heart. Emerson's voice interrupts my morbid thoughts.

“Plus, Annalisa wants you dead.”

I know she hates me, but so much that she wants me dead?

He sees the confusion on my face.

“Haven't you figured anything out? How have you ever lasted as a reporter? See, once this is cleared up, Annalisa and I can start our life together.” He actually smiles and gives a little laugh, which is almost more disturbing than when he is scowling at me.

Annalisa. She wasn't just the object of his obsession, but was in on it the whole time? I can't believe it. He's lying.

“Does Annalisa know of your big plans to ride off into the sunset? Somehow, I doubt it.” I purposely make my voice drip with sarcasm. His scowl returns. I hit the nail on the head.

“She'll agree to it readily enough. She won't have a choice. You see, me and Annalisa have some history together. Now, nobody is left. Just the two of us.”

He methodically eliminated the competition. Sick. But I'm surprised to hear him say they have a past together.

“What history?”

“We dated after your pansy boyfriend broke up with her. Dumb rookie fuck brought her to a cop party, and I met her there. I knew right then she was the one for me. And she must have known it, too, because right when they broke up, she came running to me. It didn't work out at the time. But she's mine. She always has been. She always will be.”

“She's no more interested in you than a chicken is in eating an egg sandwich.”