The Burying Place

Kasey peered through the snow that blew sideways across the grass, and right where the woman had been, right where she had died, was another body.

'Oh, no.'

She ran, slipping, toward this new victim, who lay face down and half buried by the driving snow. The body was a woman. She was naked, her skin oddly bloodless and blue, as if she had lain there for hours. Her head was turned to the side, but where her face should have been, there was mostly a pulpy mess of bone and brain.

Kasey lurched back in revulsion. It was Regan Conrad.

She spun around, but he was already behind her, near the wall of the dairy ten feet away, smiling.

'I knew you'd come.'

His voice was husky and unafraid. He wore no mask this time, and she could see his face. His right cheek was pockmarked with acne scars. His black hair was short and wiry. His dark eyes were reptilian as they focused on her, seeing her for what she was: prey. She had no illusions about why he hadn't bothered to hide his face. This was the end.

Kasey screamed for help, but it sounded like a whisper above the hiss of the storm.

'No one will hear you,' he said. 'It's the just the two of us out here.'

'You sick son of a bitch,' she blustered, covering her terror.

'This doesn’t have to end badly, Kasey. You belong with a man like me, not that beer-bellied husband of yours. Come with me.'

'Go to hell.'

'Think about it. Running won't get you where you want to go. But I can protect you.'

She felt humiliated and furious. She wanted to cry and, just as badly, she wanted to destroy him. This was the man who stood between her and the rest of her life. Between her and all her plans.

'I love watching your mind work, Kasey,' he told her. 'I told you. I know exactly who you are.'

'What if I kill you right now?' she demanded.

He smiled, taking a step, and his long gait brought him inches closer to her than he had been before. 'Then you'd be free, wouldn't you?'

'Come any closer, and I'll blow your head off,' she warned him.

'If you had a gun, I'd already be dead.'

She took a step backward, and he took another step toward her, and again the distance between them shrank. But he was still beyond her reach. She was conscious of his size and strength. His eyes never left her. His gloved hands dangled at his sides. She kept the knife hidden in her pocket, but her fist was curled round the hilt.

'What do you want with me? Do you want to kill me like the others?'

'The others meant nothing to me,' he told her. 'This is something else, Kasey. I have special plans for you.'

'What plans?'

'You'll find out soon enough.'

She stared into his black eyes, and her heart filled with bloodlust. There was only one thing to do. Fight. Attack. Murder.

'Why are you doing this?' she asked. 'Who are you?'

'My life story doesn’t matter. It only matters that I am who I am, and you are who you are.'

She took another slow step backward, but this time she let her weight settle on to her right leg. She readied herself to charge.

'I don't deserve to die. Not now. Not like this.'

'Neither did Susan Krauss. Neither did any of the others. But our paths crossed. Life is random like that.' He added, 'Or maybe God sent you to me. Did you think about that?'

'There's no God,' Kasey told him.

She pushed off with a scream, springing across the short space. She whisked the knife through the air in front of her and imagined it slicing across his skin. Felt it burying deep through skin and bone and organs. She was so close.

But it was futile. He was waiting for her, as if he was inside her mind and could see her thoughts. As she reached him, his hand twisted, revealing a black device barely larger than a cell phone. She was barely conscious of it, barely knew what it was, before she heard the sizzle of electricity. The knife spilled from her limp fingers. In the next millisecond, pain exploded throughout her body, savaging her nerve ends and cascading her off her feet. Her blood became fire. She twitched in the snow, in agony, her brain scrambled into floating fragments.

He loomed above her, out of focus, doing cartwheels in her eyes. She wanted to resist, but she felt like a helpless rag doll, with useless arms and legs stuffed with sawdust. She was his toy. He owned her now. He had owned her since that night in the fog.

She was aware of being turned over. Felt snow and dirt pushing into her mouth. Felt her hands being taped. Felt him stroke her hair and whisper in her ear: 'Bad girl.'

He stood up, lifted her limp body into his arms, and carried her across the snowy ground.

PART FOUR IN RUINS

Chapter Forty-three

Valerie heard the front door open. She hadn't moved from where she sat near the fire. Her tears had dried on her cheeks. She heard the footsteps of her husband on the floor of the foyer, and the pounding of his leather heels felt like nails driven into her palms. He didn't call her name. He walked around the house the way a ghost would, ominous and unseen. She dreaded seeing him in the flesh. It was as if, all these years, he had hidden behind a disguise, and now she had finally seen his real face.

The footsteps stopped. When she looked up, she flinched, watching his tall frame fill the doorway. He brought a smell of cold and sweat. His suit was wrinkled, his tie loose. His angular jaw was dark with a long day's growth of beard.

'I need a drink,' he said.

He went to the wet bar and dropped ice into a lowball glass. He poured an inch of whiskey, drank it down in a single swallow, and gritted his teeth as the burn hit his chest. He poured more, draining the rest of the bottle.

'You heard?' he asked. When she didn't answer, he added, 'I'm sorry.'

He made no move to come to her or comfort her. Thank God. She couldn't bear for him to touch her. He sipped his drink and ignored the hostile silence. Her head swirled with words to say, but none of them felt right. It was like being caught outside in the rain, only to realize it was really the deluge.

'Is that all you have to say?' she murmured. 'You're sorry?'

'What else do you want from me? I don't have anything to give you right now.'

That was true. He had never had anything to give. Not from the very beginning.

'I want you to tell me what you did,' she said. 'I want to hear it from your mouth.'

He put down his drink and shook his head. 'Ah, fuck, not you, too.'

Valerie pushed herself off the floor. 'I always wondered how a father could hate his daughter,' she told him. 'Secretly. Deep in my heart. I never admitted it to anyone, even when I saw how you were with her. Denise used to tell me that she was scared, that I shouldn't leave Callie alone with you. I told her she was crazy, but somewhere inside, I wondered.'

'This is crap. I never felt that way. You've been brainwashed.'

'You're right, I have. By you. I've worn blinders for years. I wouldn't allow the thought into my brain. I willed it away. Even when Callie disappeared, I convinced myself that the rest of the world was wrong about you. Blair Rowe was wrong. Your lovers were wrong. You didn't really say what you said to them, about wishing Callie had never been born. Not you. You couldn't think that. No man could think that.'

'Valerie, I didn't mean it like that.'

'How did you mean it?'

'I was angry. I was blowing off steam. That's all it was.'

'Angry? At a little baby girl?'

'Angry at you.'

She tensed. 'OK. I deserve that. I cheated on you.'

'Oh, Christ, it's not that. I'm no saint, and I never pretended to be. Hell, if Tom Sheridan could make you happy, good luck to him, because I sure as hell could never figure out how to do it. I gave you all the money you could ever want. You had a life that every woman in this town envied. But that wasn't enough. You walked around this house like you were an empty shell. Once a week, you spread your legs and let me inside like you were doing me some kind of favor. Get it over with, Marcus, so I can get back to feeling sorry for myself. Yeah, I was angry. I'm still angry.'