Until there was only one target left.
One more bullet that needed to be fired.
Lisa got off the cold floor. She staggered back to the stairs, still in darkness, and made her way through the family house. First floor. Then the second floor. She was barely aware of what she was doing before she found herself in her parents’ bedroom, with the closet door open. She stared at the metal rod stretching from wall to wall. She remembered opening the door that awful day, seeing her father hanging there, remembered screaming and screaming, unable to do anything but scream until Noah found her and dragged her away.
That old belt. That old brown belt he’d used. How many times had she seen him slip it through the loops in his corduroys? That old belt eventually became a killer.
Lisa had a belt, too.
She undid the buckle and took it off. It dangled from her hand, the hangman’s noose. She knew how to do it, but then, she was an expert, because the picture of her father’s face in the closet was burned into her memory. She could see exactly how the belt had been looped over the rod and tightened around his neck.
I failed you, my sweet.
She could feel them around her now. The ghosts. Gerald. Anton. Charles. Samuel. Madeleine. And Danny. There was room in the cemetery for another plot beside him. She took a confident step into the closet and swung her belt over the high rod. She needed a chair, and there was a makeup chair in the bedroom, so she dragged it into the closet with her.
Lisa climbed onto the chair and rested on her knees.
The belt was right there, waiting for her. All she had to do was tighten the loop around her throat and kick away the chair. Yes, she would struggle. People always did. It was an instinct. But that wouldn’t last long.
She felt strange. She’d expected the ghosts to be happy with her decision. She’d expected to see their arms wide open, welcoming her, smiling, laughing, everyone together again. A dance of the dead. Instead, all she could see were shadows where their faces should be and hear them calling like the whistle of the wind through the old windows. Nooooooooooo. That was what they said. That was what the wind said.
No.
Lisa knelt on the chair for a long, long time, but eventually, she realized she couldn’t do it. She put the chair back. She retrieved her belt and strung it back around her waist. Then she sat on her parents’ bed and wondered what to do. Her whole soul was consumed by emptiness, and she needed to fill it somehow. She needed to do something.
She found herself saying aloud, “Noah, I need you.”
It took her by surprise. Then she said it one more time, and she realized she was crying again.
“Noah, I need help.”
But that was foolish. Her brother wasn’t here, and her brother wasn’t going to help her. She could only help herself. And the way to do that was to keep her promise. She had to find Purdue.
She had to rescue him, even if it meant giving up her own life in the process.
Lisa got off the bed and wiped the tears from her face. She went back downstairs, sure of herself, sure of what she needed to do. She grabbed Madeleine’s coat and went out of the house into the snow, not even bothering to close the door behind her. The Camaro waited for her, already shrouded by white again as the snow kept falling.
Tell me where you are, Purdue.
But she knew. A thriller writer always knew where the plot would take her next. If Garrett and Stoll had carried the boy out of her house, they wouldn’t have taken him back to the cemetery. That plan was dead. No, they had to come up with another plan, and that meant going to the man in charge.
They would take Purdue to Denis Farrell.
She’d find the boy there. At his house.
Lisa hiked through the snowy front yard to the car, but before she got inside, she went to the trunk of the Camaro and opened it up. What she needed was right there, a gift from Shyla.
A fully loaded Glock.
Lisa took the pistol and caressed it in her hands. Then she shoved it into her coat pocket and steeled herself for war.
Noah, I need help.
He heard those words in his head as clear as a church bell. His sister was reaching out to him. Part of him was glad, but another part of him feared that Lisa had to be in the darkest of holes to turn to him for support. He knew what that was like. He knew how far down a soul could go, and he hated to think of Lisa — who’d always been the stronger one between them — suffering what he’d been through.
Noah emptied every other thought from his mind until it was as wide open as the flat nighttime fields bordering the highway. Then he concentrated on sending his sister a message. I’m coming to you, Lis.
He didn’t expect an answer.
The rural roads around him were deserted. The night was pure black, with only his headlights to illuminate the highway ahead of him. Snow chased from one side to the other like a ghost. Up here, Canada inhaled and then blew its icy breath across the northern plains. Noah pushed the accelerator down, driving faster. The car was silent. No radio. Nothing to distract him. He needed to hear, to listen, to let Lisa in.
Where was she? What was she going to do?
One thing he knew about his sister. She would always sacrifice herself for someone else, no matter the cost. Noah remembered the last drive he’d taken with Danny, when they drove five hours to the Minneapolis airport for his flight to California. He knew Lisa wanted Danny to stay, but he also knew she wouldn’t say a thing to change his mind. She had the power. She could have made him stay with two words, but she put his needs ahead of her own.
In the car, he’d asked Danny, “What if Lisa told you, ‘Don’t go’?”
Danny didn’t hesitate. “I’d stay.”
But Lisa didn’t ask. Noah could have made him stay, too. He could have turned the car around and taken Danny home, and everything would have been different. Later, he wished he had, but it wasn’t his place to say anything. Later, when they were crying together after the news came, he’d asked his sister, “Why didn’t you make him stay?”
She said, “Because he needed to go.”
That was what he felt from Lisa right now. She needed to go. Wherever she was heading, it was a dangerous place, and he was afraid that Lisa would end up just like Danny. Never coming home.
Ahead of him, Noah saw the next crossroad.
It was nothing special, two lonely roads meeting in a lonely place. He turned, feeling the tires skid. There was a road sign just ahead of him, counting off the distance to the next major town.
Thief River Falls.
Twenty-five miles.
36
Lisa stood near the riverbank behind Denis Farrell’s house.
From where she was, she saw no lights or movement inside, but she knew Purdue was here. It was like a mother’s sixth sense, part of the connection between them. She knew he was still alive. They hadn’t killed him yet. She could feel his presence in the air and feel his consciousness in her heart.
She reached out to him: I’m here for you, my sweet. I’m going to rescue you.
Lisa bent down and picked up a heavy rock from the garden. Cocking her arm, she hurled it into the very center of the floor-to-ceiling window that faced the water. The tall pane of glass shattered. She stepped forward and punched out the remaining shards until the hole was big enough for her to climb through. Inside, she stood in the center of the living room carpet, with the fire hissing as white snowflakes drifted through the broken window.