Trace of Doubt (15 page)

Chapter 28

I
waited, dressed up like a woman from another time and place, for Andrew Colton to come back. He did, and he had an old woman’s cane.

“Here. See if you can walk. I don’t have a wheelchair.”

He handed me the cane, but he didn’t release it.

“And if you try anything, I will slit the children’s throats.”

“I won’t, Andrew,” I said, trying to keep the quaver from my voice.

“Good girl.”

I took the cane and tried to stand. I saw stars and gasped for breath.

“You shouldn’t have fought me in the treehouse.”

I wasn’t going to comment on what
he
shouldn’t have been doing.

I put my foot to the ground. I realized no matter what I did, I was going to be in agony. So, leaning on the cane and biting the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming out, I made my way, an inch at a time, toward the door.

When we got out to the hall, I looked to my right.

“Stairs?” I said incredulously.

“Here.” Andrew was beside me. He lifted me in his arms. “I’ll carry you up.”

We started up the stairs, and I held myself stiffly, not wanting to lean into his body. He smelled of Polo cologne, and close up, he really was very, very handsome. Almost pretty. And yet, I didn’t sense I was near a living, breathing human, but next to some sort of psychotic robot.

When we reached the top step, we were in a living room. It was well appointed, with a couch near a window with its blinds drawn and curtains covering them. Two children, the girl in a lacy dress, the boy in dress pants with a perfect crease, a white shirt that was dazzlingly new, and hair slicked back, sat stiffly in chairs.

At the sight of me, the little girl started to cry. The little boy looked dazed. My heart broke for them.

Andrew set me on the couch.

“Now, family, I have dinner cooking. Mommy isn’t well, so that’s why she’s not in the kitchen, but you sit here and tell Mommy about your day.”

With that, he left us alone.

“Come here,” I whispered at the kids. The little girl rushed to me and buried her face in my chest, grateful I am sure for anyone maternal in this insane situation, terrified.

The little boy just stood and stiffly walked toward me. When he was close up, I could see his pupils were dilated so huge that they were almost blocking out his irises. They had been drugged, too.

Crap. I had never been in such a dire situation in my life. And now I had to think for the three of us. Keep us alive.

In the next room, I could see Andrew ever so slightly if I leaned and peered into the kitchen. I squinted. His back was toward us, and a small black and white television sat on the counter with the sound off. I watched as police were swarming a neighborhood on the screen. The view was from a helicopter.

I leaned back and stroked the girl’s hair and then pulled the boy next to me.

Okay. They were going house to house. Andrew knew it. At some point, law of averages, law of numbers, someone was going to knock on this door. If we screamed, Andrew would kill us. If we were silent, would they just assume we weren’t home and move on? Had they already while I was lying unconscious?

Think, Billie.

We were playing parts. His mother was a suicide, his father a sadist. He had perhaps witnessed his father controlling the family, abusing the mother, torturing her. That twisted his mind.

Nature versus nurture.

All right. Then what? Had Dr. Colton abandoned his first family and she cracked and then killed herself? Had she, first, turned around and been abusive to her children? Had Andrew been sexually abused? In cases where boys are sexually abused it’s sometimes in the guise of him being the “man of the house” with a woman disturbed and husbandless.

I couldn’t beat Andrew physically. He was warped though, cracked, mentally tortured. I could beat him with my mind.

I looked at the little girl and boy.

“Listen to me,” I whispered to them. “I’m going to try to save us. I need you to act happy. I know you’re not happy. You’re scared. But we’re going to play pretend until the police get here. Okay?”

The boy nodded stiffly. The girl looked at me with a fragment of hope in her eyes.

I knew what I had to do. I had to rewrite Andrew’s history. I had to rewrite the history of his parents’ marriage. I had to make him believe I loved him, he loved me, and we were the perfect family.

I had to seduce my mother’s killer.

Until I had a chance to kill him myself.

Chapter 29

A
ndrew came out of the kitchen with a plate of little canapé sandwiches. I instantly “got” it. Andrew’s father had run the house like something out of the 1950s. Perfect housewife by day. But at night, his twisted mind turned his household into a sexual war zone. It was a sick dichotomy. Canapés. No one made them anymore.

“Here you go. This is from your recipe, honey.”

“Thank you, darling,” I murmured.

He set the plate down.

“Go ahead, children. Take one,” I urged the kids. “They’re delicious. I promise.”

I could see them struggling between being famished and tired and being terrified. Hunger won out, and they each stuffed one in their mouth.

“Good. I have a roast beef in the oven. Honey, would you like a Manhattan?”

“That would be lovely. I’d make you a drink, honey, but silly me and this hurt leg of mine.”

I wondered how he would react to my role playing. But instead of reacting with mistrust, he looked delighted, as if at last someone under stood him.

“No problem. I’ll make me one, too.” He practically skipped back into the kitchen.

I swallowed. This was working. And as sick as I felt inside, sicker still at the thought of him maybe touching me, I knew I would have to go so far as to sleep with him if need be.

I shut my eyes, a vision of David the last time we made love appearing in my head. I chased it away. I had to stay focused.

He returned with an amber-colored Manhattan—two of them actually. He handed me one and then toasted me. “To the perfect wife. The perfect mother. The perfect children.”

I raised my glass. “The perfect man, in every way.”

He seemed pleased by that compliment.

“Do you think you can make it to the dinner table?”

“Sure, sweetheart. You may have to help me.” I put down my Manhattan.

“Carry that in for your mother,” he ordered the little boy.

I stared at the boy, urging him with my eyes. “It’s okay, honey.”

Thank God, he seemed to jolt out of his stupor a little and he picked up the glass and carried it in to the kitchen. The little girl followed him, and then Andrew came to me, helping me to my feet and handing me my cane.

Now that I was moving around a little and not flat on a hard mattress, the pain was still intense, but I was managing to hide it. I limped and struggled, but made it to the kitchen. The table was set with crystal and fancy china.

“This looks lovely,” I said.

“Thank you.” He pulled out my chair, and I sat down.

The children sat at my left and right, and he sat down at the other head of the table. I looked down. He had actually given me a knife, though it didn’t look very sharp. In the roast beef, though, was a sharp carving blade and large fork.

“Are you doing the honors, dear?” I asked him. “I can’t stand.”

“Oh, of course.”

Also on the table were hot rolls, potatoes, corn, beans and a tossed salad. I reached for plates and bowls and served the kids. He placed slices of meat on their plates, then I cut them with the dull knife I had—I practically was sawing the meat just to get it cut into little pieces.

I sipped my Manhattan, grateful for anything to quench my cotton mouth. I saw he had poured the kids milk.

“Grace?” I asked him.

“Of course.” He said a simple blessing, “Thank you for this food and family, Amen.”

And then we ate. I pretended to, bringing bits of corn to my lips, while scanning the room with my eyes, trying to figure out what I was going to do.

In the end, the only weapon was the carving knife. And just as I was formulating a plan…the doorbell rang.

Chapter 30

T
he children exchanged glances. I tried not to reveal any emotion.

“Don’t answer it,” Andrew warned me.

“Darling, I couldn’t even get up.”

The children watched us, first Andrew, then me, as if following a tennis volley.

“Stay there.”

“Of course.”

Now the knocks on the door were becoming louder. “Police! Police!”

I knew it. Even if we didn’t answer, by now Ben would be utilizing all the powers of the force. All it would take was a search for Andrew Colton’s driver’s license, a neighbor to say he lives next door. Anything.

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Andrew bolted from his chair and opened a drawer, pulling out a gun. He approached the little girl, as if he was going to take her hostage.

But with one swift move, ignoring every bolt of pain searing through me like fire, I stood, grabbed the carving knife and plunged it in his stomach, twisting and feeling the sickening spurt of blood on my fingers as my hand slid down the blade and I felt it slice my palm.

“Run to the door,” I shrieked to the kids, even pushing at the little girl with my free hand, assuring they wouldn’t freeze in terror.

They leaped from their chairs and ran, and I could hear them opening the locks on the front door. I locked eyes with Andrew.

I pushed the knife in more, as I heard the police storming in, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Andrew being shot, even as he leveled the gun at me.

I felt as if someone had just punched me. I lost my balance, let go of the knife and collapsed to the floor. From that vantage point, I watched his body being riddled by shots and falling next to me. I looked into his cold eyes, always flat, always dead. Only now, I knew he was truly not only soulless but breathless…. He
was
dead.

Ben Sato appeared over me. I heard him say, “She’s shot. Bleeding.”

Then he leaned in very close to me and whispered in my ear, his lips touching me. “You got him. You’re a warrior.”

And that’s the last thing I remember of the night I caught my mother’s killer.

Chapter 31

W
hen I woke up again, I heard the steady beeping of hospital machinery. My eyelids fluttered. Feeling a bit like Dorothy coming to in the
Wizard of Oz,
I looked around and saw all the people I loved. My father, Mikey, Lewis, C.C., Joe and Ben. Then I felt a rush of tears, because he wasn’t there.

David was missing.

My father leaned down and kissed me on my forehead, not once, but a hundred times. “I know, baby. I know.” His arm was in a sling, and I glimpsed bandages beneath his shirt.

“You okay, Daddy?”

“Except for seeing you like this. Yeah.”

I fought to speak, my voice betraying my sadness, “I’d hoped he had lied to me. That David wasn’t really dead.”

Dad wiped at his eyes. Mikey turned around so I wouldn’t see him cry, but his shoulders shook.

“Can you all leave me alone for a bit?” I asked. My heart felt like it had broken all anew.

One by one they nodded, each coming to my bed and kissing me, except for Ben, who simply bowed.

And there, alone in a hospital bed on crisp white sheets, I wept for the man I loved. I wept until no more tears would come. And only then, only then, did I call a nurse and tell her to send in Lewis.

His face popped around the side of the door.

“Wilhelmina, I’m so sorry.” He walked in, carrying a plant, which he put on the windowsill. “I know it doesn’t help even a tiny bit, but I had to buy you something. I’ve never felt so useless my entire life.”

“What happened?”

Lewis pulled up a chair. Then he took my hand and caressed it, pulling it to his face, which was prickly.

“You haven’t shaved.”

“I haven’t left here for twenty-four hours.” He kissed my palm, which was bandaged and then kissed my fingertips. “Don’t ever scare ol’ Lewis like that again.”

“I’ll try not to,” I said. It hurt to talk.

“You were shot in the chest. Missed your heart by a mere three inches. Needed surgery. Lost two pints of blood. We all donated. Maybe you even have a little bit of me pumping through your veins.”

“God forbid…. Lewis…how did you find me?”

“Well, C.C. and I got to his sister’s. That poor girl was lying in bed looking like she was sound asleep, but he had post-mortem done her body up like a corpse. Powder. Lipstick. And she’d been stabbed about a hundred times. Her throat slit. Anger issues,” he tried to be his old self, mocking the dead, but his usual smile was very weak and his eyes were wounded.

“Then you called us, and we knew we were in a world of trouble. Later on, not then, but hours later we found out that after Dr. Colton left his first family, the first missus had turned to prostitution. Drank. Drugs. She wasn’t so much a suicide as a passive suicide. Died of hepatitis C and alcoholism. She used to turn tricks in front of the children. After her death, Andrew and his sister went to live with their grandmother—who lived in that house we found you in. Not Colton, but her name was Margaret Farmer. He inherited the house upon her death.”

“Farmer?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t she live next door to the church? The crazy old lady who used to yell at the neighborhood kids?”

“Well, I wasn’t there, but from what I hear, yes. Resented the hell out of that boy and girl coming to live with her.”

“He had seen my mother at church every Sunday, then. She never missed Mass.”

“And your mother looked like his before Mrs. Colton ruined herself on drink and drugs. Anyway, the father had gotten his new family. His perfect family. So he didn’t want to be saddled with the kids. Total rejection. Not only that, apparently he was a sadist, as we guessed. No telling what he did to that poor first wife before she died. Crushed her spirit.”

“So Andrew’s been spending his life trying to re-create a perfect family so his father won’t leave? So his mother won’t die?”

“Near as we can figure it. We’ll never totally know. Serial killers warp everything. Like a hall of mirrors.”

I inhaled and winced.

“Want to ring for your morphine shot?”

“No. Not until I know what happened to David.”

Lewis took my hand and rubbed it against his cheek again.

“Well, when you called, we called Ben who did an about-face. He had to call and get backup, SWAT, everything, but try to do it so it wouldn’t sound like the army converging on your dad’s place and maybe scaring Andrew into killing you all.” I saw him inhale to collect himself.

“But by the time they got there, I was gone.”

Lewis nodded. “They didn’t miss you by but ten minutes, they figure. Max.”

“Dad?”

“He was stabbed, but it wasn’t as bad as it looked.”

And then the question I dreaded asking. “David?”

Lewis put his hand to his eyes, rubbing them hard. Composing himself, he whispered, “Maybe you should rest.”

“No. I have to know, Lewis. Don’t baby me.”

“Heaven forbid that.” He shut his eyes. “Okay then. David didn’t suffer. Andrew had put a trip wire in the woods, and when David fell, Andrew slit his throat with a hunting knife. It was over in less than a minute.” Lewis opened his eyes and looked at me again. “I’m so sorry.”

I swallowed hard and looked out the window. “He asked me to marry him.” I looked down at my hand where my engagement ring sparkled.

“I saw that. Beautiful ring. He loved you. God, did that man love you.”

“I know. I’ll never forget the first time we got to touch each other after prison. God…will I ever feel that way about someone again. Shit, Lewis, it hurts so bad. What happened next?”

“Well, Ben got there. They quickly ascertained you were gone. They got your dad to the hospital, but once they stitched him up, he discharged himself AMA—against medical advice. He was in the search, too. And Mikey. And all the Quinns. Cops finally gave up arguing with them all. Too many of them.”

I smiled to myself, despite my broken heart.

“They canvased the neighborhood. Figured you couldn’t have gone far. He had a van, but they had shut down the town’s perimeter. They just went door to door. Every bush, car, garage, house, window, school building. Andrew Colton didn’t ring any bells. But then someone mentioned an Andrew
Farmer.
”

“And then they knew where I was.”

“Yes. We peeked in the garage and saw the van. And let me tell you, it was the classic, ‘But he seemed so normal.’ He had a job.”

“Doing what?”

“Sold textbooks to schools. Traveled a lot. When he would meet with teachers about course adoptions or travel near schools, he would spot the sibling pairs. That’s how he picked his victims.”

“Jesus. How are the kids?”

“Oh, you know. They’ll need a lot of therapy. Jesus, I feel like I need therapy except I would pity the shrink who tried to treat me. You saved those kids’ lives. Their parents have been here. Want to talk to you when you’re up to it. They want to thank you. As for you, almost a compound fracture. Five pins in that leg.”

I looked at my leg in a cast, hoisted up in a trapezelike contraption.

“Yeah. You ain’t going to look like a beauty queen in a bathing suit with that leg.” He winked at me. “Gunshot, I told you about. And that takes you to about here.”

“How long was I in that house?”

“Not long. Five hours.”

“Seemed like days.”

“I know. It had to have.” He shook his head. “Don’t know how you survived it, Billie. But it was the drugs made it feel like a really long time.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Lewis. For finding me.”

“Like I said,” he stood up. “Don’t do that to me again. I love you, you know. In a…well, you know in what way.”

“I love you, too. As my best and dearest friend.”

“I told Mitch to shove the television job, by the way.”

I grinned.

“Yeah,” Lewis said sheepishly. “What do I need more money for when I’ve got my girl?”

“C.C.”

“Well, C.C., I love her. But I mean you. Working side by side.”

I teared up. “Can you send my dad and Mikey in?”

“Sure thing.”

He left, and Dad and my brother came in.

“He won’t ever bother us again,” I said. “I’m so sorry for all I put you through.”

“Don’t, Billie,” Mikey said. “And I swear to you, I won’t ever get in trouble again. I’m on the straight and narrow from now on.”

“Hospital bed promises are forgotten when the person recovers, Mikey.”

“Not this time.”

I knew he meant it. Now. And I knew his heart was in the right place. The same way I knew it would be just a matter of time before he heard of a good score of DVDs or a backroom poker game with high stakes.

“He proposed to me, you know,” I told them quietly. I shut my eyes. I thought I was done crying, but I was realizing I might never be done. Not totally.

“He was a good man,” my father said.

“I would have been proud to call him my brother-in-law.”

“Thanks, Mikey.”

“You need your rest,” Dad said.

“I know. I love you.”

“I love you, too. I think I’m going to stay in that house after all. I think maybe she would want that.”

“Can you send in Ben?”

“Sure.”

They each kissed me on the top of my head. When they left, I shut my eyes. The pain was pretty intense. An image of Andrew jumped into my head. I opened my eyes to chase it away, and Ben was standing next to my bed.

I expected him to bow, but instead he came over to me, bent over and placed his lips on my forehead. He pulled away and looked me in the eyes and sat in the chair next to the bed. He slid it closer to my bedside.

He put his hand on top of mine, and I was grateful for my friend’s touch.

“I may be a warrior, but I was very frightened for you, Billie.”

“It was horrible,” I whispered.

“I cannot even imagine.” He spoke quietly, which I realized was his way. It felt soothing to me. I looked out the window and saw dusk was settling over the sky.

“He held me at one point, carrying me upstairs,” I said. “I felt his chest and stomach pressed against me. All I wanted to do was kill him or react, but instead I had to act as if I cared for him. Every nerve in my being wanted to not do it, Ben. But I had to. I had to save the children.”

His eyes looked moist. “You saved them. You did a very brave thing. Something most people could not do.”

“Those poor babies.”

“Just like you and your brother.”

I shook my head. “No, we weren’t tormented like that. He left us there alone. He just took her.”

“I think maybe…maybe your mother saved you. By going with him quietly that night instead of panicking.”

“I think you’re right.”

Just leave the children and I will go with you.

My mother had died so that Mikey and I would live. A mother’s total sacrifice.

“We found files on his laptop. He had his next two sibling pairs picked out. If you hadn’t stopped him, he would have kept on killing.”

I swallowed hard, wondering if my voice would betray me. “Yes, but…David…”

He hung his head and patted my hand. “I know.”

“I thought, if I did this, I would leave the grieving behind. I wouldn’t be like Achlys anymore. I would move forward in life.” My diamond ring glittered in the light. I would have moved forward. David and I would have had children, and I would have visited my dad in that house and they would have played in the yard and brought life back to the house again. Now I never would move forward. Not ever.

“I thought so, too. I thought it would bring closure. You have made too many sacrifices.”

“Is there such a thing? Does God even care about our sacrifices?”

“Sometimes I think the gods know that warriors can bear more tragedy. We are burdened more because we can carry more burden.”

“It hurts, Ben.”

“I hurt, too. I hurt for you. I rode in the ambulance with you. I talked to you. In your ear. I told you to live. That you had more things yet to do.”

We sat in silence for a while. “Ben?”

“Yes, Billie?”

“Did you feel me in that house? Did you feel me calling you?”

“Asking me to find you?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“What is that?”

“I don’t know. I always thought I was a lone warrior. But I think when you have your other half, the other half of how you think, then maybe…I just knew you weren’t dead yet, and we had to search harder and faster.”

“Are you in big trouble? With your lieutenant and all?”

He gave me a crooked smile. “I
was.
But then CNN and MSNBC and CBS and ABC…and NBC…they all came. Catching a serial killer is big news. Now he’s not so mad.”

“Funny how things work that way.”

“Yes.”

I shut my eyes and tried to rest, but again Andrew’s face came to me. My eyes shot open. “I keep seeing him in my mind. I hate it. I see him, and I feel like he’s here, making me dress for him. I want to burn that nightgown.”

“You must replace his face with something else. Try to picture your mother as an angel instead. With David. Or maybe just picture in your mind a happy time. Every time Andrew comes into your mind, you tell him to leave and replace him with the other thought.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

“I’ll let you rest.”

He stood, hesitated and leaned down again and kissed my forehead. Then he said, “Shut your eyes. Gently.”

I did. Then I felt Ben kiss each eyelid.

“Rest well, my warrior.”

“Ben?” I said, keeping my eyes shut.

“Yes?”

“Thanks for finding me.”

He touched my cheek, and I heard him leave.

Andrew’s face came to me again. But I decided to replace him. I pictured an actual memory, a summer day. Mikey and I were running through the grass chasing butterflies while my mother tended her garden. She laughed watching us, and we ran over to her with dandelions.

“Make a wish, Mama,” I said, holding out my “flower.”

She shut her eyes, then blew hard. The white milky blossoms floated away.

“Now your wish will come true.”

“What did you wish for?” Mikey asked.

“To live to be a very old woman. That way I can bounce my grandbabies on my knee.” She kissed us both. We ran. I felt Mikey’s hand in mine. It’s always been there, his hand in mine.