“And you saw the whole thing?”
She nodded. “I was in shock. It happened so fast, and I just stood there, frozen. There you were, covered in blood, Abby dead at your feet.” More tears filled her eyes. “It was Anna Marie all over again.”
Anna Marie?
So it was true. He was responsible for her death too.
Jesus, he thought. Will it ever end?
“You don’t remember that night, do you? The night Anna Marie died.”
He didn’t know what he remembered at this point.
“Clive and Kruger and the others were all out partying, but I stayed back because I wasn’t feeling well, and you said you needed to go to the library.”
No, Tolan thought. He hadn’t gone to the library. He’d stayed home to study. He was almost sure of it.
“Then about eleven o’clock, you came home in a panic, babbling on about calling the police. You had a gun wrapped up in your sweater.”
Jesus. Had he had another blackout? How often had he lost time and never even known it?
“The thing is,” Lisa continued, “you didn’t even have to do it. Anna told me the night before that she was planning to dump the law student and come back to you.”
“I don’t believe this. I don’t believe any of it.”
“Believe it, Michael. I helped you clean up. Helped you get rid of the gun. And when the police questioned all of us, I lied and said you’d been with me all night.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I told you. Because I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
“And the night Abby died?”
“The same thing. There was a lot of blood, but I put you in the shower, helped you clean up, got you into your car and on the road. I don’t think you said three words to me the whole time.”
“And what about my alibi?”
“You didn’t need one, thanks to Vincent.”
It took Tolan a moment to realize what she was saying, the weight of that realization nearly flooring him. He stared at Lisa with new eyes.
“You? You did that to her?”
“I had to, Michael. Don’t you see? I had to protect you. Vincent was in the papers every day for weeks. It only seemed natural to blame it all on him. To keep the police from suspecting you.”
Tolan squeezed his eyes shut now and buried his head in his hands. He was no longer interested in the truth. He just wanted to curl up like Jane Doe and die.
He’d spent his entire professional life and a good portion of his childhood dealing with people who suffered from the mildest phobias to the most severe psychosis. But until this moment, he had never fully understood or appreciated their pain.
To realize that he was one of them was like being told he had only a week to live. And Lisa, out of some misplaced sense of loyalty or twisted love, had done the unthinkable. Had done it for him.
She may have kept him from going to jail, but this moment, this pain, this realization was worse than the most hellish day in prison. Bile stung the back of his throat and he swallowed hard, trying to keep from throwing up.
“There’s something else you need to know,” she said.
Tolan opened his eyes and looked up at her, unable to even imagine what that something might be.
“What?”
“You won’t believe me, but I swear to God it’s true.”
“Tell me.”
“All those things you saw in seclusion room three? Abby’s eyes? Her face? You didn’t imagine them. They weren’t a delusion. They were real.”
She was talking crazy now. “Real?”
She nodded, then said words Tolan never thought he’d hear. Impossible words. Damaging words.
Words that inexplicably filled him with hope.
“She’s back, Michael. Abby’s back. And she’s alive.”
51
Blackburn’s hands shook as he took out the new phone he’d picked up at the station house and quickly punched in Carmody’s number. After several rings the line switched over to voice mail.
The nausea that had been crowding his stomach intensified. He felt like he was about to do a Linda Blair all over Kat’s crisp black uniform.
Clicking off, he immediately dialed again. A different number this time.
De Mello answered on the third ring.
“Fred, are you still at the squad?”
“Yeah, I was just packing up. I’ve got a few things on the fire, but I figured I could follow them up at—”
“Drop all that and sit your ass down,” Blackburn said.
“Why? What’s up?”
“I need you to do a GPS trace on Carmody’s cell phone.”
“Carmody? But—”
“Just do it, Fred. Now.” He gave him his new number. “Call me back as soon as you locate her.”
“Is Carmody okay?”
“That’s what I want to find out.” He clicked off and turned to Kat. “Here’s what I need you to do.”
“Shoot.”
“Clean this place up, get everything back where it belongs, but leave the tackle box open on Tolan’s desktop and break one of the windows. Then I want you and Hogan to drive to the nearest pay phone and call 911.”
“Why?”
“You’re gonna report a break-in, anonymously. Give them Tolan’s address. And the minute the call comes out over the radio, you respond.”
Kat nodded, immediately understanding. This would give them probable cause to enter the premises and “discover” the evidence laying out in plain sight.
It was an old tried-and-true ruse, and Blackburn had never lost any sleep over using it.
“Where will you be?” Kat asked.
“Wherever De Mello sends me.”
Five minutes later, he was on the road and traveling, heading in the only direction he knew to go. Toward where he’d last left Carmody.
Toward Baycliff Hospital.
As he waited for De Mello’s call, he ran the evidence through his head, still thinking that something didn’t quite fit right. What he’d found in that desk drawer was like pure gold to an investigator, but it seemed too convenient somehow. Too staged.
If Tolan was Vincent, then Blackburn’s extortion theory went right out the window. Why would Tolan need to buy Hastert’s and Janovic’s silence? Why would he need them at all?
Because if Tolan was Vincent he’d already know about the burn marks. He’d be the originator of the burn marks.
It was the same damn stumbling block as before, only from the opposite direction this time.
Someone had surely butchered Hastert and Janovic. Someone using Vincent’s mark. And every instinct Blackburn had said that the two victims were involved in a blackmail scheme. The reason for their murders.
But if Tolan wasn’t the target of that scheme, who was?
Blackburn let the events of the day tumble through his head and kept coming back to the phone calls Tolan had attributed to Vincent.
Was it possible that they weren’t phony after all? That they hadn’t been the product of a guilty conscience? Had Tolan been telling the truth about them all along?
Blackburn dialed his phone again, hoping to catch the squad’s resident computer tech, Billy Warren, still in his office.
No such luck.
Dialing dispatch, he asked for Billy’s home phone number, then got him on the line in three rings.
“Billy, this is Frank Blackburn.”
A pause. “Hey, Frank, what’s up?”
“Got a question for you.”
“I’m in the middle of Jeopardy here, man. Can it wait?”
Blackburn ignored him. “I need to know if it’s possible for somebody from the outside, some hacker, to go in and change official cell phone records.”