Serena nodded. 'You're right. That's not fair. We both need to think about what we're going to do.'
She walked over to him and kissed him with her soft lips. He didn't need a reminder of how good it felt. Then she turned and left the office and closed the door behind her.
Serena drove to Duluth on Wednesday afternoon and found a bar and grill north of the airport. She pulled into the parking lot and stared at the entrance door. Inside was vodka. Glass after glass of it. She could taste it and imagine it dulling her into unconsciousness. She hadn't fallen off the wagon in fifteen years, but now seemed like a good time. It was as if no time had passed at all since her last drink. She could still remember it on her lips.
She hadn't anticipated this crossroads. She had been slowly getting her mind around the idea of staying in Duluth forever. Of staying with Jonny forever. Those weren't decisions she made lightly, not given her past, but she had begun to believe it. She should have listened to the warning signs and realized that nothing lasts forever. She loved Jonny. He loved her. That didn't mean they could make it work. They both had too many walls and sharp edges.
She had no idea what she would do next. Stay. Go. Try again. Give up. It wasn't the first time in her life she had considered starting over, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Her instinct was to forgive Jonny, but she couldn't do it alone, and she couldn't do it without his whole heart in it. It killed her to think of walking away, but she wasn't going to sit in the background while Stride and Maggie worked side by side every day. The threesome was over.
She stared at the door of the bar. The lure of vodka was so vivid and clear that she could hear it calling to her. She could see the liquid in the bottle. Watch it splash into her glass and swirl around the ice. One drink after another after another. Until she was in the same state of mind that Jonny had been, feeling nothing.
Serena opened the car door.
As she did, her phone rang again. It was Denise Sheridan. She answered the phone and felt as if she had been given a temporary rescue, dragging her back from a cliff's edge.
'What's up, Denise?'
'I heard from the team we had following Marcus,' she reported. 'He was in Duluth this morning in surgery.'
'So?'
'So he left the hospital to go back to Grand Rapids, and they lost him.'
'How?'
'He knew they were back there. He deliberately ran a light and got them off his trail. It may not mean anything, but I wanted you to know.'
'Where was he when he skipped?' Serena asked.
'Rice Lake Road near Martin. They thought he was heading back home, but we staked out Highway 2 and he never showed.'
'What's he driving?'
'A burgundy Lexus.'
Serena thought about Marcus Glenn speeding into the north farmlands. She was in the same area herself, and she was pretty sure she could read the surgeon's mind. 'I know where he's going,' she said.
Chapter Thirty-four
Kasey, Kasey, Kasey. You're running, aren't you?
Her face came into focus through the binoculars. She stopped in the front door of her farmhouse, as if she knew she was being watched. Her nervous eyes flicked to the woods behind their garage, then to the open fields and down the dirt driveway to the highway, where a police car was parked on the shoulder. A bored policeman eyed the traffic in both directions.
Kasey balanced two boxes in her arms. She carried them to a rental truck parked next to the garage and disappeared up the ramp into the rear of the truck. A minute later, she returned to the house with empty arms for another load. He had been watching the back-and- forth from his vantage in the trees for nearly an hour. Kasey's husband had arrived with the truck around noon, and since then, the two of them had led a steady parade as they packed the truck with their belongings.
You can't run, Kasey. It doesn’t work that way. We're not done.
Bruce Kennedy opened the front door with his boot and trudged down the steps. He watched him. Kasey's husband was a big man, with fair blond hair and a bushy beard. He wore jeans and an untucked flannel shirt. He had the look of a plodder, a follower who did what he was told. No doubt Kasey could lead him around by the nose, but she deserved better. It made him angry, looking at Bruce Kennedy through the binoculars and imagining this clumsy man with no idea what a special prize he had. When he lost her, he wouldn't even have a clue what he'd possessed. The fool.
His phone vibrated in his pocket. He was secluded in the woods, invisible and out of earshot, but he looked around cautiously before answering.
'Yes?'
'Nieman, it's Matt Clayton in Buckthorn.'
'What can I do for you?'
'Have you been out to the school lately?' Clayton asked.
Nieman hesitated. 'Yeah, I make the rounds out there every few days to make sure the site is secure.'
'Do you think anyone could have gotten inside?'
'Not likely. It's locked up tight. Why, is there a problem?'
'I don't know. I got a call from Maggie Bei in the Duluth Police. She's trying to track down a missing person who may have had his eyes on the school.'
'I haven't seen anything wrong out there,' he said.
'When were you last inside?'
'Sunday.'
'Well, this kid supposedly disappeared on Saturday, so if you've been in there since then, there's probably nothing to worry about. Even so, I'd appreciate it if you could go over there today and do a walk-through, OK?'
'Sure.'
'The last thing we need is another insurance claim at that place.'
'I understand.'
'When you're done, call Sergeant Bei and give her a report.' Clayton rattled off a phone number. 'Oh, and keep an eye out for pistachio shells, too, all right? I guess this kid drops them wherever he goes.'
'Yeah, no problem,' he said. He added, 'Why do the cops think this guy was at the school? Did somebody see him out there?'
'No, nothing like that. He was taking pictures of the place. Like I said, it's probably nothing.'
'I'll check it out.'
'Thanks, Nieman. You're a good man.'
He hung up and shoved his phone back in his pocket. He was annoyed at his bad luck. There was no way the cops should have been able to (tie Nick Garaldo to the school so quickly. He had found the kid's digital camera in his backpack, and he had gone to his apartment and taken out his computer and anything else that might have tipped them off that Garaldo was an urban explorer. But obviously he had missed something, which was the kind of mistake he didn't usually make.
He knew he could report back to Clayton and the cops that he had found nothing amiss at the school. The stall would buy him a few days, but the clock was ticking. Sooner or later, they would circle back to the school and check it out themselves. It was only a matter of time before they broke inside and found his collection. He needed to disappear long before they made their discovery. Move on to a new city, somewhere in the south this time, where the winter was warm. Shed his skin, as he had done many times before. Start over.
When he lifted his binoculars, he saw Kasey again. The wind blew her red hair across her face. Her jaw was clenched. She looked desperate and fierce, like a wounded animal that fights even harder when it knows it's about to die. He admired her courage. That was why he had something special planned for her.
As he thought about it, he realized that the timing was perfect. Tonight was the night to wrap up his stay in Duluth. The hunt for Nick Garaldo might even work to his advantage. If he didn't act, Kasey would be gone in the morning, and he didn't want to risk losing her. He could chase her across the country if necessary, but it was much better to do it now. They had a date at the school, like a spotlight dance at the prom, while the others watched them.