Steckle shifted his weight closer to the edge of the chair. “You lost me.”
Gurney took the minute to consider how Steckle could fit into the shoes of the killer. He could have been the fourth bully at Brightwater, the boy known as Wolf. He could have invited his three old camp pals to the lodge. He could have sold them on the notion of the blackmail scheme. He could have killed them after they’d carried out their instructions to spread the nightmare fiction. And, of course, he could have killed Ethan. Means and opportunity would be available.
The big question would be motive.
Gurney recalled the conversation he’d had with Steckle in the attic, the conversation about the Gall crest and the Gall history. The conversation about power and control. And he considered the practical consequences of the four deaths.
The more he thought about it, the clearer the puzzle became. And there was this final, simple convincer. He’d tossed the rock into the hornet’s nest, and Austen Steckle had flown out.
Every fact was now explainable.
But not a single thing was provable.
As he was pondering the best way forward, he heard the soft buzzing sound his phone made on a wooden surface in vibrate mode. He reached from his chair over to the end table and, keeping a careful eye on Steckle, picked it up.
It was a text from Hardwick.
“Shitty roads. Pulled off and researched the tech terms on the mystery site. That thing may be a micro version of a classified hi-def image projector used by the military.”
Steckle moved uneasily on the edge of his chair.
Gurney looked up from his phone. “What made you so sure we were in our room?”
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you be?”
“Because most of the time we haven’t been. We’ve been in and out, downstairs, out by the lake, in the Hearth Room, the Hammonds’ chalet, other places. And you knocked. Three times. You even called out to us. And you got no response. None at all. I’m surprised you didn’t conclude we were out.”
“Why are you making a big deal out of this?”
“You looked so surprised to see me coming into the room behind you—more than surprised, absolutely baffled—as if you couldn’t understand how it could be happening.”
“The hell are you talking about?”
Gurney withdrew the Beretta from his pocket and made a point of confirming the presence of a round in the chamber.
Steckle’s eyes widened. “What the fuck . . .?”
Gurney smiled. “It’s almost funny, isn’t it? All that planning, all that elaborate deception. Then you trip over a pebble. The wrong look at the wrong moment. And it all collapses. You were positive we were here in our suite, because our conversation came to you through the bug that you planted here. Audio surveillance is such a reliable tool. Except when it isn’t. Problem is, it has a big limitation. It can’t distinguish between live voices and recorded voices.”
Steckle’s face was as pale as the gray light from the windows. “This is completely nuts.”
“Save your breath, Alfonz.”
“Austen. My name is Austen.”
“No it isn’t. Austen was the name of the rehabilitated man, the good man. But that man never existed. Inside, you were always Alfonz Volk. Embezzler, manipulator, and general piece of shit. You’re a bad man who killed good people. And that’s a real problem.” Gurney rose from the arm of the couch.
He stepped over to the row of windows and ripped the cords out of two venetian blinds, then picked up an iron poker from the hearth. He tossed one of the long cords in Steckle’s lap.
“What’s this?”
Gurney adopted an attitude of creepy calmness. “The cord? The cord is the easy way.”
“Easy way . . . to do what?”
“The easy way to make sure you don’t run away.” He glanced vaguely at the poker but said nothing about it. The hard way was easy enough to imagine—and more frightening in the imagination than words could make it.
Gurney smiled. “Please tie your ankles together—nice and tight.”
Steckle stared at the cord. “I don’t know what you think I did, but I guarantee you got it wrong.”
“You need to tie your ankles together right now.” Gurney’s hand tightened visibly on the poker.
Steckle was shaking his head but did as he was told.
“Tighter,” said Gurney.
Again he did as he was told. His scalp was glistening with sweat.
When his ankles were firmly bound together, Gurney told him to put his hands behind him. When he complied, Gurney used the second venetian blind cord to tie his wrists, running the end of the long cord under the seat of the chair and knotting it to the ankle cord.
Steckle was breathing heavily. “This is all a bad dream, right?”
Gurney came around in front of the chair to face Steckle. “Like the dream you dictated to Ethan?”
“What? Why the hell would I do that?”
“Why is obvious. What I didn’t understand at first was why Ethan would do it for you. Then I remembered something Fenton told me—to prove you couldn’t have forged the letter. He told me that up until last week you had a cast on your hand. He figured that exonerated you. But that turned out to be the answer to my question. You got Ethan to write out the dream narrative for you because of that cast.”
“Gurney, this is crazy talk. Where’s the evidence?”
Gurney smiled. “Evidence is only required by courts.”
Steckle’s jaw muscles tightened.
Gurney’s voice now was hard as ice. “The legal system doesn’t work. It’s a game. Smart guys win, dumb guys lose. Harmless idiots get jammed up for having a few street pills in their pockets, and really bad guys—the guys who kill good people—dance through the system with fancy lawyers.”
He pointed the Beretta at Steckle’s right eye, then at his left eye, then at his throat, his heart, his stomach, his groin. Steckle flinched. Gurney continued. “The bad guys who kill good people—those are the ones who really bother me. Those are the ones I can’t ignore, the ones I can’t trust the courts to punish.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing, Alfonz. You have nothing to trade. You have nothing I want.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. It’s not a negotiation. It’s an execution.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
Gurney appeared not to hear him. “When bad people kill good people, I have to step in and do what the courts fail to do. Bad people don’t get to kill good people and walk away. Not on my watch. That’s my purpose in life. Do you have a purpose in your life?”
Gurney raised the Beretta in a sudden movement, aiming it between Steckle’s eyes.
“Wait! Christ! Wait a second! Who the hell are these good people you’re talking about?”
Gurney did his best to conceal a sense of victory. He had Steckle believing he might be able to escape vigilante justice by proving his victims unworthy of any justice at all. It was a path on which the man was likely to incriminate himself in the belief that he was saving himself.
“The good people I’m talking about are Ethan Gall and your buddies from Brightwater. But especially Ethan. That man was a saint.”
“Okay, just a second. You want to know the truth?”
Gurney said nothing.
“Let me tell you about Ethan, the fucking saint.”
Steckle launched into an excoriation of Gall as a maniacal control freak, obsessed with manipulating the lives of everyone around him—a tyrant who used the Gall New Life Foundation as a prison where his whims were law.
“Every day, every minute, he tried to humiliate us, rip us into little pieces that he could glue back together, whatever way he wanted to—like we were goddamn toys. The great god Ethan. The great god Ethan was a disgusting monster. The whole world should be grateful he’s dead!”