Night Sins (51 page)

Silence. The wind. The groaning of the trees.

Taking a deep breath, he ran low for the passenger side of the truck. No shots. Nothing but the hiss of the pickup's wounded radiator. Slowly, Mitch straightened. The cab was empty. Through the windows he could see Garrett Wright running, no more than thirty feet from the edge of the woods.

“Damn, you're too old for this, Holt,” he muttered, gathering his strength. Then he pushed away from the pickup and ran. He expected Wright to fire on him as he crossed the open ground, but no shots came. He charged up the bank, plunging into the trees and brush, leading with his gun.

A flash of movement among the tree trunks to the north sent Mitch in that direction. A bullet chipped a tree a foot to his left at the instant the sound of the shot reached him. He dropped to his belly and waited, scuttling sideways, ignoring the sharp broken branches that poked at him through the snow. His hand caught hold of something soft and warm. He jerked back instantly, thinking it was something alive, but it was a black knit ski mask.

“Wright!” he shouted. “Give it up! You can't win!”

A game. A goddamn game. That was what he called destroying people's lives. The hell if he would win this one.

Another shot zinged toward him. Mitch zigged right and ran on, returning fire. He caught another glimpse of Wright, a darker shape among the shadows, then he was gone again, leaving Mitch swearing.

The muscles in his legs and back were burning. The cold night air came into his lungs like needles. The toe of his boot hit something and he went down hard. As he stood, a bullet cut through the left sleeve of his parka, nicking his arm and spinning him sideways.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” He ducked behind a tree. The wound stung like hell, but it wasn't debilitating and it wasn't his gun hand.

Carefully, he eased his head around the tree trunk. No sign of Wright. An aura of light limned the crest of the hill. Beyond the last of the trees lay the Lakeside neighborhood. Hannah and Paul's neighborhood. Garrett Wright's neighborhood. Garrett Wright, who taught psychology and worked with the Sci-Fi Cowboys and drove a Saab. Who would ever have looked at him and wondered if a madman lurked beneath the neatly pressed surface?

Another flash of movement cut through the falling snow. Mitch gave chase, keeping his eye on Wright's back as he hit the cross-country ski trail that ran along the lip of the hill. Mitch hit the path seconds after him.

“Wright! Stop! You're under arrest!”

His quarry ducked left and disappeared into a stand of snow-laden spruce trees. Praying he wouldn't be running into a bullet, Mitch bolted after him. On the other side of the trees the houses of Lakeside stood on their oversize lots, lights glowing softly in windows. He narrowed his eyes, scanning the yards for Garrett Wright. A shadow moved along the next house to the north. Just a shape along the back wall of the garage, running through an open back door.

“Freeze, dammit!” Mitch shouted, charging through the drifts, never taking his eyes off the door as it swung shut two seconds before he reached it.

He lowered a shoulder and hit the door running. It burst open with an explosive
crack!,
the wood frame splintering. Mitch's momentum carried him straight into Garrett Wright. They went down hard, skidding across the concrete floor, Wright grunting as his breath left him.

“You're under arrest, you son of a bitch,” Mitch snarled, rising up above him, his lungs working like a pair of bellows. He held the Smith & Wesson half an inch from Wright's pale face, the barrel quivering like a rattlesnake tail. “Game's over, Garrett. You lose.”

CHAPTER 39

D
AY
11
9:51
P.M.
         19°         
WINDCHILL FACTOR
: 6°

W
hat's going on?” Karen Wright stood in the doorway that led from the garage to her kitchen, her expression pale and horrified.

“It's a mistake,” her husband said. He lay facedown on the concrete floor of the garage, his hands cuffed behind his back. He twisted his head around to glare up at Mitch, who stood with the Smith & Wesson still trained on him.

“Yeah,” Mitch snarled. “It's a mistake—and
you
made it.”

Karen's big doe eyes brimmed with tears. She twisted her hands in the bottom of her baggy pink sweater. “I don't understand! Garrett hasn't done anything! He doesn't even speed!”

Mitch spared her a glance. He had read many cases where a woman had lived with a man for years, oblivious to the fact that he led a secret life as a rapist or murderer or child predator. That was undoubtedly the case with Karen Wright. She had been working at the volunteer center, mailing out fliers in the effort to find Josh, while her husband had been playing his sick game. Still, she would have to be questioned to see just what she knew and what she didn't, to see if she could corroborate or destroy her husband's story. Mitch couldn't imagine she would hold up very well. She didn't look very resilient.

“Garrett, what's this about?” she cried. “I don't understand!”

“I'm sorry, ma'am,” Mitch said. “If you could just wait inside—”

“Garrett!” she sobbed.

The big garage door was up, a huge open window to the street, letting in the wind and the snow, affording a view of the cruisers coming up the block with Mitch's Explorer right behind them. The vehicles turned in the drive. There were no lights or sirens. Mitch had given specific orders for silence when he had called the dispatcher on his cellular phone. No mention of a code or a crime, just a specific request for Noogie, Dietz, and Stevens, and one other patrol car to report to 91 Lakeshore Drive.

Wright's own house. Mitch supposed he had thought to take the Saab in the garage and escape, but there would be no escape. Tonight, justice got the win.

M
egan sat in the Explorer and watched as Noogie escorted Garrett Wright to a police car. She stared at the face of the man who had beaten her, tormented her, tormented them all. No more than four feet away, he turned and looked right at her. No emotion registered on the face that was cast half in shadow, half in the grainy light that shone down from above the garage door. He simply stared at her. Then Noogie clamped a big hand on his shoulder and stuffed him down into the car.

Megan shivered. She couldn't seem to stop shaking, and it wasn't from cold. Noogie had bundled her up in wool blankets and left the motor running and the heater blasting. She had refused to let him call an ambulance. She had no intention of being whisked off to the emergency room without knowing that Mitch had caught Garrett Wright . . . without knowing that Garrett Wright hadn't shot him.

Dietz and Stevens came out of the garage, one at either elbow of Karen Wright, holding her upright as she sobbed. Wright's eerie whisper floated through Megan's
head—
we . . . we . . . we . . .
Never
I,
always the plural. But she couldn't picture Karen as the other half of the team. There had been too much contempt for women in that disembodied voice.
You're just another stupid bitch!

She jerked at the memory of the blow that had followed.

“Dammit, Megan, you belong in the hospital!”

Mitch had pulled open the passenger door and was scowling at her. But it wasn't anger she saw in his eyes.

“I had to know,” she whispered. “I had to see that you got him.”

Something twisted hard in his chest as he looked at her. Her right eye was blackening. Her lower lip was split and swollen. That son of a bitch had pounded her, yet she sat there with her chin up and defiance shining behind the tears in her eyes.

“I got him,” he whispered. Stroking a hand over her hair, he leaned into the truck and coaxed her head to his shoulder. “
We
got him.”

He shuddered at the thought that the outcome could have been very different. She could have been killed. He could have lost her. But she was here and alive. Relief left him feeling a little shaky.

They were both blinking furiously as he pulled back. He sniffed hard. A crooked smile canted his mouth.

“You're a hell of a cop, Megan O'Malley,” he murmured. “Now let's get you to a hospital.”

11:47
P.M.
         17°         
WINDCHILL FACTOR
: 0°

D
id he tell you where Josh is?” Hannah asked.

Mitch had told her to sit, but she couldn't. She prowled the family room, her arms crossed tight. Her pulse was racing off the chart. She probably should have been lying down, but she needed to move and to keep on moving until Mitch gave her the answer she needed. And then she would sprint out the door and run to Josh. Conversely, Paul sat at the end of the couch, bent over with his head in his hands, seemingly unable to move or speak.

The call had come nearly two hours before—Mitch telling her Garrett Wright had been arrested and that he would come by the house himself to explain. She had asked him to notify Paul at his office, then waited, stunned and numb.

Mitch looked at his boots and heaved a sigh. “No. So far he isn't talking.”

Mitch had asked him to show a little compassion, tell them if Josh was alive at least, but Garrett Wright held no compassion. He met Mitch's gaze straight-on, nothing showing behind his cold, dark eyes, his fine features blank, devoid of emotion.

“Garrett Wright,” Hannah muttered. “You're certain . . .”

“There's no doubt in my mind,” Mitch said. “He's been toying with us all along, teasing us with clues. He meant to use Megan—Agent O'Malley—to make his point tonight, to show us all how superior he is, but he danced a little too close to the flame this time. I chased him down myself, Hannah. He's our man—one of them, anyway. Whether Olie Swain was connected, or someone else, we don't know yet.”

Mitch refrained from telling them a Harris College student named Todd Childs had been brought in for questioning. Nothing had come of it yet. Nor did he make any mention of the fact that he had issued a bulletin for Christopher Priest to be brought in. The professor hadn't returned from St. Peter, if that was where he had gone. The St. Peter police were checking motels to see if he was among the motorists stranded by the storm.

“My God,
Garrett Wright
.” Hannah shook her head. It seemed inconceivable. He was their neighbor. Karen's husband. A teacher at Harris. He had called her just last night and given her the name of a family counselor.
“Why?”

“I can't answer that, honey,” Mitch murmured. “I wish I could.”

“Why would he hurt us?” she said as if Mitch hadn't spoken.

“Because he's a lunatic!” Paul shouted, vaulting up from the couch. “He's insane!”

And he was trapped in a nightmare. This couldn't possibly be happening. Garrett Wright arrested. No. It couldn't be Garrett. He couldn't stand for it to be Garrett.

“Anybody who would do this kind of thing has to be insane!” he insisted. He turned away from the fireplace, where a photo of Josh stared out at him from a cherry frame on the mantel. On the VCR shelf in the entertainment center sat a stack of Josh's video games. Everywhere he turned were reminders. Inside his head, Josh's voice echoed and echoed.
Dad, can you come and get me from hockey? Dad, can you come and get me from hockey? Dad, can you—

“I can't believe this,” he muttered. He stared at the carpet, afraid to look anywhere else. He couldn't stand the reminders of Josh. He couldn't look at Mitch Holt. He especially couldn't look at Hannah. He couldn't think about Garrett Wright. Guilt and panic and self-pity clogged his throat. “I can't believe this is happening to me.”

No one heard him.

Hannah's attention was on Mitch. He looked as if he had run to hell and back, hair disheveled, coat open and hanging crooked on his shoulders. One sleeve was torn at the biceps, bleeding goose down. The strain of the night sharpened the angles of his face, darkening the shadows, deepening the lines. The worst of it was in his eyes—regret, sympathy, empathy.

“You think Josh is dead, don't you?” she said softly.

Mitch sank down into a wing chair. They had all prayed for this case to end, but no one had wanted it to end like this, with no sign of Josh, with one of their own neighbors in custody, with Megan in the hospital.

“It doesn't look good, honey,” he answered. Hannah knelt at his feet and looked up at him. “There were bloodstains on the sheet. We have to think the blood came from Josh. We'll need both you and Paul to submit to blood tests so the lab can try to get a match on the DNA.”

“He's not dead,” Hannah whispered almost to herself. She rose slowly, touching the fingers of her right hand to her left inner elbow. “They drew blood,” she murmured. “I saw a bandage on his arm.”

“Hannah . . .”

Paul wheeled around. “Jesus Christ, Hannah, give it up! He's dead!”

She met his outburst with steely determination, strength rising up from somewhere deep inside. In a far, detached corner of her mind, she thought it was odd that she should find the strength now in the face of such devastating news. She had imagined this moment in her nightmares, had envisioned herself breaking into a million pieces. But she wasn't breaking. She wasn't giving up on Josh and she was all through putting up with Paul.

“He's not dead, and I'm sick of you telling me he is!” she said, glaring at the man who had once been husband and lover and friend. “You're the one who's dead—at least the part of you I used to love. I don't know who you are anymore, but I know I'm sick of your lies and your accusations. I'm sick of you blaming me for losing Josh, when all you seem to want to do is bury him and hope the cameras get your good side at the funeral!”

Paul splayed a hand across his chest as if she had plunged a knife into his heart. “How can you say that?”

“Because it's the truth!”

“I don't have to listen to this.” He looked away from her, away from the contempt in her eyes.

“No,” Hannah said, picking up his coat off the back of the sofa. She flung it at him, her mouth trembling with fury and with the effort to hold the angry tears at bay. “You don't have to listen to me anymore. And I don't have to put up with your moods and your wounded male ego and your stupid petty jealousy. I'm through with it! I'm through with you.”

She tried to draw in an even breath. She wouldn't cry in front of him. She would shed her tears in private for what they had lost. He stood there, staring down at the coat in his hands. The man she had married would have fought back. The man she had married would have said he loved her. Too bad for both of them that man no longer existed.

“You don't live here anymore, Paul,” she murmured. “Why don't you leave now. I'm sure there are still reporters around eager to get a sound bite from the grieving father.”

Paul took a step back, her words hitting him with the force of a physical blow.
I've lost everything
.
I can't believe this is happening to me.

Josh's words whispered in the back of his mind—
Dad, can you come and get me?
The guilt nearly choked him. He fought to contain it, to hide it. He could feel their eyes on him—Hannah's, Mitch Holt's. Could they see it? Could they smell it on him like the stink of sweat? He was losing everything—his son, his marriage, everything. And for the rest of his life he would have to live with the secret—that while he had been cheating on his wife, his mistress's husband had abducted Josh.

Nausea and weakness shuddered through him. “I have to get out of here,” he muttered.

Hannah watched him go, listened to the door close and the muffled sound of a car starting. She could see Mitch sitting there in the wing chair, his face averted, as if he were pretending he wasn't there at all.

“I'm sorry you had to see that,” she said.

He stood, at a loss, out of energy. “This has been rough on both of you. You need some time—”

“No,” she said quietly, firmly. She reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “No, that's not what we need.”

Mitch didn't try to argue.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“We're conducting an extensive search for the place Wright took Megan. We figure it can't be more than seventy-five miles away. Probably less. We're checking to see if he owns any other property, see if he owns a van. As soon as his lawyer gets here, he'll be questioned. In the meantime, we bust our asses to build a case that'll put him away for the rest of his life.”

Hannah nodded. “And Josh?”

“We'll do everything we can to find him.” Him or his body. He didn't say it, but Hannah could read it in his eyes.

“Tell me you won't give up on him, Mitch,” she said. “You know what it is to lose a child. Promise me you won't give up on Josh.”

Mitch slipped his arms around her and held her for a moment. He did know what it was to lose a child, and, practical or not, he couldn't make Hannah face that pain if there was even just a sliver of hope.

“I promise,” he whispered hoarsely. “He's alive until someone proves to me otherwise.”

“He's alive,” Hannah said with quiet resolve. “He's alive and I'm not giving up until I find him.”

M
itch promised to call her if anything developed, to keep her as well informed as he could. She saw him to the door and watched him back his truck out of the driveway and head south, taillights glowing, the only color in a black and white night. The snow was still falling, driven by a wind that cut to the bone.

Hannah stepped back into the house, rubbing the chill from her arms, though she knew it went much deeper. It gripped the core of her as she stood in the family room and realized her family no longer existed. The house felt huge and empty. She felt alone, and she shivered at the thought that she would be alone from then on.