“Oh, you don’t need a box for torment, Inspector. Free men suffer, too. Sometimes the only thing you need for madness is a memory burned into your eyes. I have that.”
“I have that, too,” Easton reminded him. His voice was a low, bitter growl.
“You think you’ve seen it all, but you haven’t. There are plenty of other demons out there for you. Horror can always get worse. Don’t make this personal between us, Inspector.”
“Too late.”
The noise of the phone became dead air. Easton had hung up abruptly; the call was over. Rudy powered down his phone and took out the battery. He picked up the binoculars again and settled in to wait.
Evening would be coming soon. Maria would be running.
He’d wavered about his plans for Frost Easton, but now he knew what to do. No mercy. If Easton wanted to make it personal, then Rudy would oblige. The detective had no idea just how personal it was going to get.
39
Frost threw down the phone on the seat beside him. He swore loudly in the silence of the truck, and his hands squeezed into fists. He’d lied to himself and to Rudy Cutter about the violence gripping his heart. If he had the chance right now, he would do just what Cutter had suggested. He’d put a bullet in the man’s head.
He tried to calm himself as he drove the last few blocks. He was late, and he was somewhere he didn’t particularly want to be. Parked cars crowded the street beside the eucalyptus trees of Stern Grove as he turned off Nineteenth Avenue. Natasha Lubin’s parents had a full house for the gathering of families of Cutter’s victims. Their bay window fronted the park, and he could see people inside.
Frost got out of the truck. Stern Grove was like a dense forest inside the city, and the trees loomed over his head like giants, with their bony branches knotted together. He shoved his hands in his pockets as he crossed the oil-smudged street. He climbed the steps, and he could hear voices through the front door. He steeled himself to face down the cold stares of the families.
What could he tell them?
Rudy Cutter was still free. He was still killing. And he was going to kill again.
A slim woman in a dark-green dress answered the door. He’d met her once before. Dominika Lubin was Natasha’s mother. It was obvious from her tight-lipped expression that she recognized him, too.
“Mr. Easton,” she said. “Janice and Ned told me you would be here. Come in.”
He crossed the threshold into the lion’s den. The space in the living and dining rooms was small and crowded. Family members clustered together, talking in hushed tones with no smiles. The conversations came to a sudden end as people noticed him, and he felt a wave of silent hostility. No one said anything, but they didn’t need to say a word to convey their message.
His parents spotted him. Ned broke away from the people he was with to welcome Frost with his usual smothering hug.
“Thanks for coming,” his father murmured in his ear. “It means a lot to your mother.”
“That’s why I did it,” Frost replied.
“What a great dinner last night, huh? Your mother and I are so thrilled about Duane and Tabby. Isn’t she great?”
“She is.”
“Next time, bring this Eden woman with you,” Ned said.
“We’re not a couple, Dad. Really.”
“Well, bring her anyway. It will make Janice happy to see you with someone.”
Ned steered Frost into the gathering with an arm around his shoulder. Polite, lukewarm smiles greeted him. His mother was in a circle with three others, including Gilda Flores and a thirty-something Chinese couple, whom Frost assumed were related to the sixth victim, Shu Chan. Janice took hold of Frost’s shoulders and kissed him on the cheek.
“This may be uncomfortable for you, but I’m glad you’re here,” his mother whispered.
He saw that furniture had been pulled into a rough circle of sofas and chairs, with an open area of gold carpet in the middle. There wasn’t enough seating for everyone in the room. Frost estimated the crowd at nearly thirty people. He saw members of different families holding hands and clinging to each other. Hugging. Crying. There was some laughter, too. Around the room, he saw a handful of framed photographs of an attractive young woman he knew to be Natasha Lubin. Some of the other family members shared photographs on their phones.
It was probably cathartic for many of them, but for Frost, it was suffocating. As a rule, he didn’t do well in crowds.
“Shall we do the reflections?” Dominika Lubin announced after twenty minutes that felt like an hour.
Frost eyed his mother with a question.
“It’s a chance for people to share memories,” Janice murmured.
The parents and the older people in the gathering gravitated to the chairs, and Frost stayed in the back with the rest, which included siblings and children. He spotted Camille Valou, looking wealthy and pained in one of the armchairs. Their eyes met, and her mouth opened slightly in unhappy surprise. He remembered their confrontation and her grieved reaction as she studied the inscription on the back of Melanie’s real watch. La rêveuse.
Camille half stood from the chair, as if she were possessed by a desire to cross the room and slap him. Then she sat back down and looked away, biting her lip.
The stories began.
Dominika Lubin started. Her husband, who was very tall and several years older, sat next to her. She recalled the empty house after Natasha had gone away to college and how long the four years had felt while their daughter was away. Eventually, Natasha had moved home and taken a job with the parks department, which meant she could walk across the street to work in Stern Grove. Mother, father, and daughter had been able to have breakfast every day.
Until Rudy Cutter came.
After that, the house had felt empty again, as if Natasha had gone back to school; only this time, Dominika knew her daughter was never coming home.
Rae Hart’s father spoke next.
Then Gilda Flores. Then Camille Valou. Then Hazel Dixon’s husband, with their young son in his lap. Everyone was crying. Frost himself felt dizzy, hearing all the names again, victim after victim. He knew their faces, but he didn’t know them, not really, not until now. They were like the ghosts in the room, haunting the ones they’d left behind. He listened to the voices, but all he could hear in his head was the voice of Rudy Cutter over the phone, and he’d never felt angrier or more helpless in his life.
While he was consumed with his own thoughts, his mother spoke to him from across the room.
“Frost? Would you like to share something about Katie?”
They all looked at him. Every face turned to him expectantly. The silence was like the ticking of a clock. Tick tock. He thought about what he could say, but he had nothing. Heat gathered on his neck. His mouth felt dry. He ran his hand back through his brown hair and said, “I need some air.”
Just like that, he turned and bolted from the house. He slammed the door behind him. He crossed the street to the trees, where he steadied himself against one of the thick eucalyptus trunks. It was difficult to breathe. In the dense gloom of the woods, day felt like night.
Close by, someone spoke to him. “You part of the group?”
Frost glanced sideways and saw a man about his own age sitting on a fieldstone bench with his legs jutting out into the dirt. He held a cigar in his hand, leaching peppery smoke into the air. He wore a rust-colored sweater and jeans, and he had black hair and red glasses on his face.
“Excuse me?” Frost said.
“I saw you come out of the house. I figured you must be a member of the families.”