He’s right, of course. But from everything I know about him, the doubt will fester.
I shrug. “Looks like you’ve thought of everything.” I give it a beat, let him study my expression. “So what’s the plan? If you’d wanted to kill me, I’d be dead. I’ve already felt the fear, when you covered my face with the rag and then the plastic bag. And then—nice touch—another choke hold to remind me of the first time you did it. When you couldn’t take the fact that I was going back to work. That I would find out what you did to Vera Pratt.”
His expression is blank now. I haven’t seen this one before—this neutral facade.
“It must be hard to be you, Wade.”
The sound of that name causes another shift. He smiles and then reaches behind him, pulling out my gun. “Is this the same one you used to kill Clay Lucas?” he asks.
“No,” I tell him. “Of course not. That one went to forensics. I was due anyway—you know, for an upgrade.” My tone is defiant. Mocking.
He examines the firearm, turning it from side to side. He practices the release of the safety, aiming it at the wall with a squinted eye like he’s homing in on a target. This is the first time he’s held a gun. I can tell by how enamored he is with it. How he strokes it with curiosity and then puts it back inside the jacket pocket.
“I brought you a present,” he says now. Then he leaves.
I let myself fall apart, just for second. A silent cry escapes as my breath becomes shallow and quick. Blood rushes to my head, and I have to drop it between my wrists to keep from passing out. Another dry heave. I need water. My throat is on fire.
I hear a door open and close. Then shuffling. Then the muted cries of a man. Wade yells at him to shut up. His voice is commanding and urgent. Like he’s getting excited but also scared. Impatient for this to be over. Whatever he’s planned, he can’t get his head around it. He is not a psychopath. He is not devoid of empathy or emotion. Everything he’s done has been a desperate attempt to be liked. To be loved. To feel accepted by us.
I settle myself again and get ready for what I am about to see. I imagine Rowan bound and gagged, being dragged across the floor. And then Mitch. These thoughts come and go in flashes, and before they ignite any more terror, the question is answered.
Wade enters, his back coming first through the door as he drags a young man by his underarms. The man writhes, twisting and turning, trying to scream through a strip of black duct tape. His hands are bound behind him with a zip tie. Wade drags him across the room and tosses him against the wall. His feet are also bound, and he fights hard to sit upward.
It’s then I see his face. The face of the man from under the bridge. The one whose picture was circled in red and left in the package at my door. Left there by Wade after he slipped undetected into my home.
The man I told him I would kill. Because he deserved it.
ChapterThirty-One
The man he drags into the room is the one Clay Lucas knew from a rehab. The man Clay’s parents recognized that horrible day I sat in their living room and felt their pain. Their hatred for me. Nix. Billy Brannicks.
Now it all makes sense. Wade has been hunting for this man. Taunting me in between as a distraction. But everything has been about this. This man and this moment in a place that I wrote in my post was perfect for killing.
“His name is Billy Brannicks. He goes by Nix,” Wade tells me. “But you already know that. He met Clay at a program he was forced to go to as part of a plea deal for selling drugs to minors. A real piece of shit. And then, when Clay beat his mother with that shovel and ran away, he found this piece of shit because he knew where he hung out. Took him two days but he found him. He wasn’t too crazy to do that, was he? Part of his brain was thinking straight. Sure, go off your meds, see all kinds of demons and monsters, and beat your mother to a bloody pulp, but when you need a place to crash, some food, some drugs, some booze—you know right where to go. And this piece of shit took him in.”
I let him talk so I can think. I let him tell his story of how he found this man. How he took everything I told him about Clay and then asked the most important question—how did Clay Lucas know about the bridge to begin with? From there, he found out about Nix.
Billy Brannicks caused the shooting. Because, Wade tells me, it was his gun Clay took from a stash in his apartment. He was living with some guys who knew how to trade them. He was moving up in the world, Wade says sarcastically.
“It was painstaking work to find him. But I did, right?” Wade looks at the man and expects a nod. When he doesn’t get it, he walks to him and kicks him on the side of his head, knocking him sideways until he falls over. He struggles again to sit up as Wade yells, “Didn’t I?”
The man nods.
I notice then that Wade is wearing hunting boots—and that so am I. My sneakers are gone. He’s changed my shoes. I wiggle my toes and can feel that they are at least four sizes too big. I could kick them off one at a time even though laces pull in the sides.
The man, too, wears boots. All of them are different makes. Different treads. And they look worn.
He’s read my case about the man who killed his wife. How he wore a different size shoe to throw us off.
Shit, I think. This is the kill site. This is part of his plan.
Wade begins to pace. The excitement is too much for him now that the moment is here. It’s one thing to fantasize. It’s another to be living it and breathing it. Experiencing it.
Our brains react differently. They respond to the presence of other human beings. To our faces and our movements and our voices, muted as they may be, and even to our smells. The fear. Perspiration. Cologne. I smell it on the man. All of it.
Our brains react too, as our senses take in the surroundings. The room. The feel of the gun.
It’s true of everything we dream about. A first date. A first kiss. Holding our baby for the first time. Skydiving. Reaching a summit. Jumping in a cold lake on a hot day. Watching the sun rise from a place we’ve only seen in a picture. Embracing along-lostfriend.
