Where Angels Rest (39 page)

Nick swallowed back the taste of bile. He looked up at the wall of faces and horror seeped into his bones.

“No way,” Quentin said, following his thoughts.

But Nick thought it just might be. Seven of them, all roughly the same size and shape, though crafted in different styles. Nick had seen the bare forms in Margaret’s workshop—just like the one he now held in his hand. There were always a half dozen or more sitting around on the counters or on a mannequin mold. This was what she started with, made into her signature works of art, and then displayed in museums or sold.

Or hung them in her foyer?

He walked around Margaret’s body, stepping over the little plastic tents that had popped up to mark evidence, and handed the mask in his hand to Gamble. Reached up to the wall and unhooked another, turned it over.

He had to force himself to breathe. No nostril columns on this one—no sign of someone sucking clay into their sinus cavity trying to breathe, but there was an indentation on this one, the size of a large pinhead, right above the corner of the left lip.

A Marilyn Monroe beauty mark. The mole of Lauren McAllister.

Nick reeled; Quentin ducked from the room.

“Take them all,” Nick said, though a moment later, he wasn’t sure he’d said it aloud. “Take them all. They’re going to match the victims.” And a moment later, he added, “Call Florida.”

He forced air back into his lungs and looked to the other room where Quentin, all two-hundred-and-thirty-five pounds of defensive tackle tough-guy, had gone to throw up. When Quent came up for air, Nick said, “Margaret’s workshop. Let’s go.”

They only made it halfway across the parking lot before one of Gamble’s crew ducked out of the carriage house and jogged halfway up the hill. “You gotta see this, Sheriff,” he called out, his voice strung with tension. Half horrified, half excited. “In the trunk of Maggie Calloway’s Saturn.”

They followed him down to the carriage house. The trunk of the car stood open, a high-powered lamp clamped to the edge and shining inside. Two tiny shards of something—bone?—had been photographed inside the trunk, beside their tiny tents that marked them as evidence. The techie was ready to pull them out.

“What are they?” Nick asked, and the woman went down with a pair of tweezers. A second later, she came up with one of them, turning it in the light. It was a slender wedge, black on one side, light on the other. Deep red smudges on one edge.

“Fingernail,” she said. “Black nail polish. Someone was clawing at the carpet in here, trying to get out.”

E
RIN TRIED TO MOVE
but couldn’t. She felt as if she were in a bowl, folded, cramped. She opened her eyes but nothing changed and when she tried to move her hands her wrists wouldn’t come apart. She wiggled her fingers and a nail snagged, ripping. She winced, felt the white-hot chill of her nail bed exposed.

Her heart began to throb. She remembered walking up to Rodney, wondering,
what does he have for me?
Then his hand went into his jacket for it and instead of coming back out, the man named Fisher dropped. Barely a sound. And she ran and she fell, and she slammed into the gravel.

Then, nothing.

Now, she was bouncing—moving, she decided, but her brain still felt thick and soggy, like wool. It was pitch black and musty and cool, and smelled like… trunk.

Oh, God. She was in the trunk of a car.

Her hands were bound at the wrist, trapped against her belly. She tried to straighten her legs, was able to move them a couple of inches, no more. Started thinking about dying like this, running out of air in the trunk, never waking up. She thought of Nick finding her tomorrow or the
next day, stuck in this fetal position, her face the pasty white of the dead.

Stop it. She tried to orient herself in the blackness… Where was the front of the trunk, the corner? There were taillights somewhere. As much as she could move, she started feeling around, wondering what taillights felt like from the inside. She couldn’t reach, bend her arms, couldn’t get any range of motion.

Never mind. Try the feet, keep feeling around. Taillights somewhere…

To Margaret’s studio, the hounds of panic nipping Nick’s brain. He and Quent had been here twice, maybe three times? And just yesterday, while they were talking to Maggie in her workshop, Rebecca Engel had maybe been there in the carriage house, trying to claw her way out of the trunk.

He tamped that down and pulled Gamble and two of the CSI team into the barn, saying: “We know Rebecca was here and Margaret made a mask of her face out of clay. We’re looking for anything to prove that.”

They stared at him as if he were crazy, but he didn’t wait for them to ask questions. “Go,” he ordered.

He and Quent took the largest studio, where Margaret held her classes, stored most supplies, and did the firing of her sculptures. They stayed out of the way of the forensics team but walked the workshop one step at a time, opening every cupboard, closet, drawer, hitting every light switch. It was bright, spacious, cool. An artist’s domain, a place where masterworks were created. A ribbon of nausea twisted in Nick’s belly at the thought of how those masterworks were created, and he had to force himself to keep moving, keep looking. There was no switch to a secret
door or passage, no sign of struggle or hardship, no hint that this space had ever held a woman against her will.

Just a few stacks of bare facial molds ready for their destinies.

Quent handled them one by one, laying them facedown on a counter so they could see the inner contours. Across a window ledge sat a handful of wig blocks and a row of mounted mannequin heads, male and female. Three of them were covered with clay, drying.

“I don’t know what to think,” Quentin said, looking at both the molds and the masks. “These were made on plastic. They aren’t human. You think the ones out there on the wall could have modeled for her willingly?” he asked.

“The one in Margaret’s hands—Rebecca—had breathed clay into her nostrils.”

Quentin’s face fell. “Right.” He came to the last mask in the stack and stopped. Nick frowned.

“What?”

Quentin’s skin lost three shades. He held up the mask, turning it over to face Nick. A short gray hair was stuck to the edge of the temple.

“Ah, Jesus,” Nick said.

It was Jack.

Rodney drove like a blue-hair—cruise control set for exactly the speed limit, complete stops at intersections, careful not to attract any attention. It was dark now, so his driving a car wouldn’t attract any attention. At least not until Mann put an APB on this sedan in particular.

He turned on the radio—nothing. The news hadn’t gotten wind of Maggie’s death yet. But it didn’t mean Mann didn’t know. He might have been to Hilltop House already, found her, and gagged the press. Could have even started
a search for this car already. Depended upon whether the dead agent had been discovered yet.

He drove for almost an hour, Sims beating at the inside of the trunk, falling silent for a few minutes, then starting up again. She’d have come around shortly after he put her in, and he imagined that in the quieter moments, she was probably frantically squirreling around inside, trying to knock out a taillight. She wouldn’t be able to, not with her hands bound. Besides, he’d sealed off the taillights from the inside with some of the duct tape.

Taking no chances. He didn’t need her for much longer but there was one more thing he wanted to do. She’d have to suffice as the last angel. When Nick came for her, there would be no chance to do a mask for him. There would only be time to kill him.

But Rodney would make sure there was still one more mask. And he’d leave it for Nick Mann.

A little gift, you son of a bitch.

Nick could hardly wrap his mind around it. Maggie’s masks. He couldn’t fathom it.

“It explains the paint thinner,” Quentin said. “She didn’t want the bodies found with clay on their faces.”

That snapped Nick back like a rubber band to the face. “Just Lauren McAllister and Robin Weelkes,” he said. “We don’t know about Eleanor Vann ’cause she was in the lake too long. And none of the other bodies were ever found—including Jack and—” he stopped, then forced himself to say it “—Rebecca.” He propped his hands on his belt and tried to think: Where the fuck were the bodies? Where the fuck was Rebecca? Jack and Margaret owned forty acres, woods in one direction and farmlands in the others. Lake Erie, an hour’s drive. He tried to
remember if any unidentified bodies had been found in the past few years anywhere in the area, but couldn’t. His brain was too full of Margaret’s sickness.

Commotion erupted outside the workshop, and Nick snapped back. A woman cried out, and a deputy called after her. It sounded like—

“Rosa,” Nick said, as she burst past the deputy. “What is it?”

“Calvin,” she said. Her voice shook with emotion. “He needs to tell you something.”

Nick followed Rosa out of the workroom. Calvin was in Jack’s workshop in the main part of the barn, walking in small circles. Around and around. His head wagged back and forth in such tiny, fast movements it should have jostled his brain.

“Calvin?”

“… Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, five-thirty-two a.m., November thirteenth, two-thousand-twelve… Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, five-thirty-one a.m., November thirteenth, two-thousand-twelve…”

“Calvin.” Rosa stood next to Quentin, a knuckle pressed against her lips.
“Madre de dios.”

“Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, five-thirty-one a.m., November thirteenth, two-thousand-twelve…”

Nick took him by the shoulders, gave him a hard shake. “Calvin, look at me. What are you talking about?”

But Calvin’s gaze never made contact and he sank back into his mantra, jumping dates and temperatures, making no sense. “Eighteen-hundred-and-fifty degrees Fahrenheit, November fourteenth, two-thousand-twelve… Too hot, hot, hot. Thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit, five-thirty-one, November thirteenth, two-thousand-twelve…”

Nick closed his eyes. Goddamn it, what in the hell
was he supposed to read from that? Then he stopped. He ran over the last time and date in his mind, repeating it aloud. “Five-thirty-two a.m., November thirteenth, two-thousand-twelve… That was yesterday. When Rebecca disappeared.”

Rosa looked at him in horror. “Calvin, what is this?”

Quentin stepped up. Calvin’s eyes bounced around the barn like a scared animal. Nick took him by the arm, vibrating inside. “Five-thirty-two a.m., November thirteenth,” he said. “Why were you outside, Calvin? How come you know the temperature?”

Calvin’s eyes got big. His head swiveled back and forth.

“Did you see Rebecca yesterday morning?”

He shook his head. A violent shaking.

“You were outside. When Margaret was in bed and your mom would have been in the kitchen. Rodney went to Kroger.” He grabbed Calvin by the shoulders, hard. “How come you know the temperature?”

“Kroger. Kroger. Eyes hurt. Red, red eyes, like a witch-witch-witch. Pills from trash bag at Kroger. Bring the whole bag whole bag whole bag. Thirty-eight-degrees Fahrenheit, five-thirty-nine a.m…”

Nick straightened, stunned. He looked at Quent and a knot of shock transformed to cold rage. “Rodney. He snowed us. That motherfucker snowed us.”

W
EAVER’S
C
LAY
R
ESERVES
.

It was eight-thirty in the evening when Rodney got there. He’d been here dozens of times with Maggie. Knew just where to find the clay.

Except—he frowned—there were still lights on. Shit. He’d never come at night before. Didn’t think about a second shift going.

He passed the mine—and the driveway that led to Nick Mann’s vacation property—tooling around the perimeter of Weaver’s as far as he could. The offices were all dark and there was no equipment moving the earth outside at this time of night. But steam still rose from the biggest building, where the clay passed through the hammer mill. And there was plenty of activity in the warehouse, where they packaged and stored the finished product. Lots of bright security lights outside.

Too many people. And most of them would know Rodney on sight.

He’d have to wait.

He turned around and swung into the Mann drive, pulling into the woods. Had always wondered what sort of
place Mann had back here. Now, he approached the house and got out of the car. Scoffed. Mann really had struck it rich when his wife was killed. The place was huge and desolate. A few trees looked as if they’d been hung with ghosts for Halloween and never taken down. The driveway was gravel, and with all the drizzle and sleet this week, the stones were slick with—

He stopped, reaching down. For God’s sake, why hadn’t he thought of that? There was a reason the Weaver brothers mined this area. Ohio was the fourth largest clay producer in the country and Weaver’s one of the biggest games in the business. This whole area was rich with clay. He didn’t need the fucking mine. Dig any hole. This mask didn’t need to be pristine for Maggie to use. It only needed to be identifiable—for Nick.

He dug his fingers through the gravel, scraped out a handful of mud. Squeezed it a few times to test the consistency.

He straightened and looked around, and smiled. The irony was magnificent. There couldn’t be a better place to leave Erin Sims in her mask.

Rodney’s cabin door stood open. A couple of dirty towels lay on the floor by the door. The furniture was… shifted. Not quite in order.

“He’s gone,” Nick said, knowing it in the pit of his stomach. A couple of deputies went through anyway, making sure. When they came back, nick nodded to Gamble and his techies. “Get busy.”

“He can’t get far,” Quent said. “Three-wheeler. Bli—”

He started to say it, and Nick looked at him. Not blind. A blind man doesn’t leave a stack of dirty towels on the floor to trip over. A blind man couldn’t have maneuvered around the county the way the killer needed to.

“He’s driving something,” Nick said. “Gotta have a vehicle.”

“Or could’ve scrambled out into the woods like some sort of survivalist.”