“So Grant pushed Borenson to look the other way, to ignore sham evidence.”
“I think so. Then Marcy Linton gets arrested and the battle comes to a head. Maybe my father knows Mr. Grant’s involved with Marcy or maybe it’s just really bad karma, but Grant uses what he’s got on Borenson to get Marcy a new trial and reduced sentence.”
“Your daddy wasn’t happy. So how did they achieve this truce?”
Susannah turned to a year after Alicia Tremaine’s murder, to the day Simon “died.” “The day Simon disappeared, I heard him and my father arguing. My father had found the pictures, the ones Daniel ended up using to track down the victims of Simon’s rape club. My father told Simon either he’d turn him in or Simon had to disappear. A few days later we heard Simon was dead. He’d run to Mexico and had a car accident.”
“But Simon wasn’t dead.”
“No. My father made it look like he was because he knew my mother would never stop looking for him unless she believed he was dead. My father went away and came back with a coffin he said held Simon’s remains. There’d been a Mexican autopsy and the body inside was burned beyond recognition. But they still needed a death certificate, signed by an ME.”
“I read that the body inside the coffin was under six feet tall and Simon was six-six.”
“No ME would have mistaken that body for Simon’s, even with the charred skin.” She held out the book for Talia to see. “Arthur recorded receipt of one death certificate, signed by the ME, who was also the town doctor.”
“The ME was complicit.”
“Had to have been. The date Arthur says he received the death certificate was the day after Simon disappeared. The day before we got word Simon had died in Mexico.” Susannah was unsurprised and stunned all at once. “They all knew Simon was alive.”
“So after he sells the death certificate, Borenson retires and goes into seclusion.”
“My father had neutralized the threat and Mr. Grant had to back down, again. A few months later I went to New York, to college.”
“But Charles Grant wouldn’t let you go,” Talia murmured. “You were his.”
“I can only guess he’d influenced Marcy over the years until she sought me out. I guess she would have hated me because of what my father did to her and her family.”
Talia’s sigh was heavy and sad. “Now we have our connection. I’ll call Chase and give him the update. Gather up the journals and I’ll help you carry them out to the car.”
Talia rose and walked to the foyer to make her call, but Susannah simply sat motionless, staring at the journals. So much pain, so much misery. All for greed, for mastery. It was a damn game to them. And I was their pawn.
Wearily she brought the journals and ledgers up from the deep floor safe, then stared. Beneath the ledgers were bundles of cash. Lots of cash. “Talia? Come h…”
The word trailed off as Susannah looked over her shoulder and her heart stuttered to a stop. Talia wasn’t standing in the doorway. Bobby was. She wore a malevolent grin and in her left hand she held a gun with a silencer. “Welcome home, little sister.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Dutton, Monday, February 5, 1:20 p.m.
Charles Grant sat in a folding chair at Janet Bowie’s graveside service, his hands somberly folded atop his walking stick. At the other funerals he’d had ringside seats, but today he and the two old men from the barbershop bench had been relegated to the back. Which was better, actually. From here he could see everyone. From here, he could surreptitiously check his cell phone when it buzzed in his pocket.
It was a text message. From Paul, he hoped, saying Daniel Vartanian and Alex Fallon were ensconced in the interrogation room in his basement. But disappointment speared. It was the throwaway cell he’d given Bobby last night. Disappointment abruptly became anticipation. The text read SHOWTIME.
Bobby had Susannah. I have to get out there. He feigned a wince, clenching his walking stick. “My sciatica,” he murmured to Dr. Fink, the dentist, on his right. He rose stiffly, grimacing in affected pain. “I need to move.” He did so, murmuring apologies as he moved through the crowd. It was finally time to see Susannah die.
But then he’d have to deal with Bobby. He’d lost control of her, so he’d have to kill her. He rubbed the head of his walking stick. Just like I killed my Darcy six years ago.
Dutton, Monday, February 5, 1:30 p.m.
“Goddammit,” Luke snapped. Bobby was not hiding in Charles Grant’s house.
Pete looked around Grant’s living room. “Ready to start tearing out the walls?”
“Not quite. At least Grant’s still at the cemetery.” Germanio had confirmed that ten minutes before. “He still doesn’t know we’re here or that we’re on to him.”
They’d approached in stealth, difficult when the media had converged on Dutton for Janet Bowie’s funeral. He and Chase had debated having Dutton’s new sheriff secure Grant’s house in the event Bobby had been hiding, but they couldn’t be certain there weren’t more dirty deputies who’d alert Bobby or Grant. Instead, Luke once again called on Arcadia’s Sheriff Corchran, who’d put himself and a trusted deputy on silent patrol.
Corchran had also told Luke’s team how to approach without getting snarled in the funeral traffic. Luke’s hopes had been high entering Grant’s modest frame house off Main Street. Now… he could only hope the house itself would hold an answer.
His team waited impatiently. “The warrant covers Bobby’s whereabouts and the crimes in the bunker.” It had been the best Chloe had been able to do. “Keep looking.”
The team scattered, Pete going upstairs, Nancy down. Luke tackled the living room, but there was nothing to indicate this man was anything other than what he purported himself to be-a retired high school English teacher.
Luke stared at one wall. And a community theater director. The wall held playbills from productions Grant had directed, including a school production of Snow White in which he’d cast Bobby in the lead. Luke thought of little Kate Davis being “thoughtlessly” cast as a squirrel, earning the nickname “Rocky.” How thoughtless had it been? Garth had told them that Bobby had “made Kate beautiful.” Destroying Kate’s self-esteem only to build her back up was a great way to guarantee loyalty.
Grant’s bookshelves sagged under the weight of hundreds of books, and Luke began checking each one. Homer, Plutarch, Dante… He sighed. Nothing but a lot of words.
“Luke!” Nancy called from the basement, urgency in her voice. “Come and see.”
Luke took the stairs two at a time. “Is it Bobby?”
Nancy stood by a steel-reinforced door set in a wall of concrete. “No, it’s a bunker, just like the one we found in Mansfield’s basement,” she said. “Mansfield used his to store his guns, ammo, and kiddie porn. Charles Grant… well, look for yourself.” She opened the door and the smell was intolerable. The sight was worse.
It was a torture chamber, with shackles in the walls and shelves of carefully sorted knives. In the middle of the room was a raised slab, making Luke think of Frankenstein’s lab. On the bed was a man. Or he’d been one, before he’d been carved into ribbons.
“Borenson’s dead.” Luke crossed the threshold and stared. In the corner were an easy chair and a lamp on a doily-covered table. “My God. Grant sat there and watched.”
Nancy pointed to a CD player on the small table. “While he listened to Mozart.”