Текст книги "The Last Victim"
Автор книги: Karen Robards
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 24 страниц)
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kaminsky emerged from the bedroom looking confused. She held her gun in one hand, which was down by her side. An admission, via body language, that she’d been mistaken.
“There’s no one here.” She sounded like she hated having to say it. The look she shot Charlie was distrustful. Despite Kaminsky’s continual prickliness, Charlie almost felt sorry for her.
“No,” Charlie agreed, doing her best to keep her face expressionless. What could she do? Telling the truth wasn’t an option.
“I know what I saw.” Kaminsky looked at her hard.
Charlie shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“If you snuck some guy up here for a sleepover—”
“I didn’t,” Charlie interrupted indignantly, her moment of feeling sorry for Kaminsky over. “Do you see a guy?”
“I did. I know I did.” Kaminsky grimaced and strode toward the door. “He must have gone somewhere else. Let me do a quick search of the house.”
“Isn’t the alarm on?” Charlie asked, with the aim of saving the other woman some effort. In fact, she knew the security alarm was on, because she had watched Kaminsky reset it after they had entered.
“Yes.” Kaminsky pulled open the door and walked out into the hall, where she glanced swiftly around. With one hand still on the knob, she looked back at Charlie. “Maybe he was already inside when we came in. Maybe … I don’t know. But I have to check.”
“I don’t think—” Charlie began.
“Lock this door. Stay put,” Kaminsky threw at her without waiting for Charlie to finish, and closed the door.
Charlie stared at the closed door for a second, concluded that there was nothing else she could do to discourage Kaminsky from wasting her time, and locked it.
Then she went in search of Garland.
He was in the bathroom. Naked. With his back to her, swiping in obvious frustration at one of the white bath towels hanging on the rack. If he was hoping to connect, he was out of luck: his hand passed right through it.
A quick, comprehensive glance was all it took to emblazon on Charlie’s memory forever the absolute eye candy of his broad shoulders, corded arms, powerful back, narrow hips, tight ass, and long, strong-looking legs. Muscles upon muscles rippled as he moved. His hair was wet, slicked back from his face, curling just a little on the ends. His tan looked golden in the bathroom’s bright light. Gorgeous wasn’t quite the right word—it was too feminine to do him justice—but it was the first one that sprang to Charlie’s mind.
Dangerous was the second.
“Why are you naked?” she whispered accusingly, mindful of Kaminsky out there searching the house.
“Why do you think? I just felt like stripping off.” He sounded angry. He turned to glare at her. His right biceps sported a tattoo, she saw: a cobra in green and black. But she saw that only in passing, because she was too busy getting a load of his full-frontal glory: wide, smooth pecs and a pronounced six-pack and …
Of course he would be totally hung.
Charlie jerked her eyes elsewhere as her body reacted with a carnality that, until now, she would have said was absolutely foreign to her nature.
What’s wrong with you? It’s not like he’s the first naked man you’ve ever seen, she scolded herself. Then, in an annoying, involuntary corollary, her internal dialogue concluded with, He’s just the best-looking.
He stalked toward her, all hard-bodied and lean-hipped and rampantly male where it counted. He was looking her over. Charlie was suddenly supremely conscious of the messiness of the tousled hair that ten minutes earlier she’d shaken out of her shower cap, run a brush through, and tucked behind her ears; her scrubbed-clean face; the white robe belted around her waist; her bare calves and feet. As if in self-defense against his approach, her hands gripped the ends of the terry cloth belt and tightened it around her waist.
“You want to fuck?” His growled question as he stopped in front of her snapped her eyes into shocked collision with his.
“What? No.” At least she didn’t stutter like a flustered high-schooler. But she had a terrible feeling her cheeks had turned pink. Because the hideous truth was, for just a split second there, maybe she did.
His eyes were blue as a summer sky and hard as glass and as sexually charged as a lap dance.
“Then quit looking at me like that.”
Charlie didn’t know how she was looking at him—she didn’t want to know—but fortunately anger snapped her out of it.
“How do you expect me to look at you when you show up here naked?” The fact that she was whispering took none of the indignation out of her tone. “And just to set the record straight, I don’t think you can fuck anymore, Casper.”
The look he gave her crackled with ill temper.
“Oh, yeah? Let’s find out.” Garland reached out to yank her into his arms. Charlie squeaked and jumped back and would have—well, she didn’t know what she would have done, because instead of grabbing her, his hands passed right through her. She felt the electric charge of the miss clear through to her bones. Glancing down at his empty hands, Garland first looked surprised, then mad.
“See?” Feeling both smug and way safer than she had just seconds before, Charlie smiled at him. She couldn’t help it; there was a taunt in there somewhere.
“Enjoying yourself, Doc?” The words were soft. Too soft. The purr in his voice and aggressive set to his jaw would have given her pause not so long ago. But now …
She realized she wasn’t the least little bit afraid of him anymore. And it wasn’t only because he’d lost the power to be a physical threat.
The sound of Kaminsky coming back through the door kept her from responding. Charlie heard the key in the lock, heard the door open, and tore herself away from the devil in her bathroom to deal with the FBI agent in her living room.
“I couldn’t find anyone,” Kaminsky said from the open doorway when she saw Charlie. “I came to tell you so you wouldn’t worry.”
Charlie almost said she wasn’t worried, but bit the words back in time. If she hadn’t known who the naked man was that Kaminsky had spotted outside her door, she wouldn’t just have been worried, she would have been scared down to her toes.
“Maybe what you saw was a shadow. Or a reflection of some kind,” she offered, simply because she felt a little guilty that Kaminsky was looking so perturbed. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Garland walk into the living room. He was still naked. Still all rippling muscle and bad attitude.
It required what was almost a physical effort, but Charlie managed to stay focused on Kaminsky.
“Maybe.” Kaminsky didn’t sound like she believed it. But after all, what other explanation could there be? Charlie had been around the agent long enough to be almost certain the truth would never even occur to her.
If Kaminsky didn’t believe in something as universally accepted as psychiatry, Charlie was willing to bet dollars to doughnuts she also didn’t believe in things that go bump in the night.
“Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe. We’ve been all through this place. There’s nobody here but us.” Tony walked up behind Kaminsky and gave Charlie a reassuring smile over the other woman’s head. Charlie was surprised to see him: she hadn’t realized he’d returned to the house. Immediately self-conscious about her un-made-up, tousle-haired, bathrobe-clad self, she summoned the internal fortitude to smile back, then caught a distracting glimpse of the naked man on the other side of the room looking up sharply from what he was doing—which involved her laptop, damn it—to watch.
“I must have imagined it,” Kaminsky told Tony, sounding embarrassed. From the suspicious glance she shot Charlie, it was obvious she was still not totally convinced she hadn’t seen what in fact she had. “I never would’ve called you guys over here if I hadn’t thought there was good reason.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Tony replied. “We’re all tired. Anybody can make a mistake.”
“I blame all that wine you had with dinner,” Crane called up from somewhere below. He was joking, Charlie knew, because of course Kaminsky, like the rest of them, had not had a single alcoholic drink.
Kaminsky’s brows snapped together. It was clear from her expression that Crane’s joke had gone over like a lead balloon. “I’m going to bed,” she told Tony. Then, with another of those quick, mistrustful looks at Charlie, she turned and strode toward her room. “Hey, Buzz Cut, go soak your head,” she yelled down the stairs.
“Love you, too, Lean Cuisine,” Crane shot back.
“And on that totally professional note, I’ll say good-night,” Tony said with resignation. He looked beyond tired, with lines around his eyes and mouth that Charlie hadn’t noticed before, and shadows beneath his eyes. But he also looked determined and capable. The kind of man a woman wanted on her side when a serial killer might be hunting her.
“I’m sorry your work got interrupted,” Charlie said quietly.
He shook his head. “It was time to pack it in for the night anyway. We got a make and model off that surveillance shot Haney gave us, by the way. No license plate, though. At least, not yet.”
“That’s something.”
“Yeah.” He smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Charlie, we’ll keep you safe.”
“I know you will.” She smiled back at him. “Good-night, Tony.” Their eyes connected in a warm and friendly way that had overtones of something more. Then the naked serial killer ghost behind her made a rude noise, and she glanced in his direction automatically, breaking eye contact with Tony, and the moment was lost.
“ ’Night. Lock this door,” Tony told her as he pulled it shut.
Charlie did, then turned around to glare at the problem. Fortunately, enough furniture stood between them that she could only see him from approximately the navel up. Still, that much unclothed Garland was definitely something to see.
“Charlie. Tony,” he mocked. “You’re making progress, Doc. Keep it up, and pretty soon he’ll be asking to hold your hand.”
“Put on some pants,” she snapped, moving toward him with the intention of snatching her laptop, which was in front of him and thankfully in sleep mode, out of his reach.
“You got any ghost pants lying around?”
“Ghost pants?”
“Yeah, because real pants don’t work for me anymore. Neither do towels. I tried.”
She stopped walking, folded her arms over her chest, and regarded him quizzically. “What happened to your clothes?”
“I went for a walk on the beach. Then I decided to go swimming in the ocean. Flag’s up, but it doesn’t matter, because I sure as hell ain’t gonna drown. What did happen was that my clothes disappeared. I’m out there, bobbing along like a cork on the waves, since I apparently have no weight anymore, and I realize I’m naked. Why? Got me. What to do about it? Got me. You have any suggestions, I’m all ears.”
Charlie frowned. The problem of ghost wardrobe had never come up previously. “Where did you get the clothes in the first place?”
He shook his head. “One minute I’m in a prison uniform, next minute I’m wearing the clothes I wore when I got arrested. I’ve gained some muscle since then—not a whole lot to do in prison besides work out and read—but they fit fine. While I was in the water they vanished. I took off my boots before I went in. When I got out, they were gone, too.”
Charlie didn’t know what to make of that. “Hmm.”
He gave her a disgusted look. “ ‘Hmm’? That’s all you’ve got?”
“You know, I’ve never had a pet ghost before. I may not be totally up to speed on all the ins and outs of it.”
His eyes narrowed. “I ain’t no pet, Doc. If I were you, I’d keep that in mind.” He looked her over. “So are you gonna clue me in on why three FBI agents are guarding you like the Crown Jewels?”
Charlie thought back to their exchange in the car. “You said you weren’t interested in knowing.”
“I am now.”
Frowning, she considered for a moment.
“All right.” If he was going to be hanging around, it was time to lay it out for him. No more glossing over the aspects that he might find disturbing—or worse. “Trevor Mead and his parents were murdered, and his half sister, Bayley, was taken, by a serial killer. The same serial killer who slaughtered two other families and kidnapped and killed two other teenage girls within the last few weeks. This serial killer may or may not be the same one who butchered five families and kidnapped and murdered five teenage girls fifteen years ago. And the FBI is protecting me because I am of value to them, and I am of value to the FBI because I am, as you know, an expert on serial killers.”
Her tone had bite, and was in the end even accusatory, because after all he was one of them. But something in her expression must have been a little off, because Garland looked at her more closely.
“That doesn’t explain why you’re holed up in here under guard, like you’re a potential victim. Unless I’m missing something, this guy’s target is teenage girls. You’re not a teenage girl. So what’s up?”
Charlie’s lips pursed. Having been freshly reminded of what he was, she lost any inclination to spill her guts to him. If the human race was divided into sub-groups of predator and prey, she knew which group they each belonged in. The look she gave him was challenging. “I told you. I’m of value to the FBI.”
“Ye-eah.” The way he drew the word out left her in no doubt that he didn’t believe that was all there was to it. “You don’t want to tell me, that’s fine by me. But I’m in here with you, and your boyfriend and his pals are out there. If I were you, and I was in some kind of trouble, I’d be thinking of me as your last line of defense.”
“Defense?” She gave a scornful little laugh. “First, I’d have to be nuts to trust you to defend me, and second, you couldn’t even if you wanted to. You can’t even pick up a towel, remember?”
He was leaning over her computer again, like he’d lost interest in the conversation. But at that, he cast her a glinting look.
“You can trust me, all right, Doc. You know why? Because you’re my ticket to staying here. As for not being able to defend you, I admit, you’ve got a point. But I’m working on it.” He jabbed at the keyboard with a frustrated forefinger. To his obvious surprise—and hers, too—the screen began to glow. He’d managed to wake the thing up. “Look at that! I’m coming back.”
Obviously elated, he bent back over the laptop. Charlie was galvanized by the memory of what was on the screen: the sheet describing the killing of his stepfather. Even as she scooted over there and snatched her laptop from the table—“Give me that!”—she could tell by the way he straightened and looked at her that he had seen enough to know exactly what she’d been reading.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Checking up on me, Doc?” Garland’s eyes were hard.
Her chin came up. Shutting the laptop, she clutched it close. “Rereading your file. I didn’t pay all that much attention the first time. I wanted to verify … what you said.” She felt guilty. Why? Damn it, she refused to feel guilty for doing what was no more than her job. Or at least, what had been no more than her job. Probably the fact that he was no longer alive had taken the mandate to figure out what made him tick beyond the parameters of her grant.
He came out from behind the furniture and walked toward her, clearly not one whit bothered by the fact that he was naked. Muscles flexed. Sinews rippled. Other things … moved. Charlie resolutely kept her eyes on his face. It could have been carved from granite.
“You wanted to verify that I killed my stepfather when I was that poor kid’s age? I did.”
“I saw.”
“He deserved it.”
“I’m sure you think so.”
“If you’re looking at me like that thinking you’re going to see some of that remorse you were always asking me if I felt, you’re shit out of luck. I don’t feel any remorse. I’d blow that bastard away again right now.” Near enough so that an involuntary drop of her eyes gave her a real up-close-and-personal view of his chiseled chest, to the point where she could see the faint scar that still remained over his left nipple, he exuded magnetic energy.
Jerking her eyes up, she found him looming over her, his whole manner radiating aggression.
Something unexpected happened to Charlie. Meeting the hard stare of this intimidatingly tall, powerfully built man whom she knew to be a stone-cold killer, she had an instant mental vision of the skinny little towheaded kid whose eyes had looked out at her from the snapshot clipped inside his paper file, which was still locked in the file cabinet in her office at Wallens Ridge. And her heart ached for him.
“You killed your stepfather to protect yourself and your mother. You were a little boy, and he was violently abusive. I’m sure you felt there was nothing else you could do,” she said quietly.
His eyes flickered. “Making excuses for me, Doc?”
She searched his face. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
He made an impatient sound. “I knew the first time I laid eyes on you that you were way too soft-hearted under all that ball-busting, my-way-or-the-highway crap of yours. You want to be careful about being softhearted, Doc. It can get you in bad trouble.”
“So are you going to tell me what happened that night with your stepfather, or not?” she asked.
He countered, “Are you gonna tell me why you’re locked up in here with three damned FBI agents standing guard over you?”
Charlie hesitated. Then she made a decision. After all, there was no real reason not to tell him, and if she revealed something of her past maybe he would open up, too. She found that she was as fascinated as ever by the prospect of understanding what had made him what he was. “Those serial killer attacks that took place fifteen years ago? I survived them. I was the only one who survived, the only eyewitness to what happened. If this is the same perpetrator, I can identify him.”
He went very still. “You saw the killer?”
Charlie nodded.
Garland let out a nearly soundless whistle. “So what the hell are you doing here?”
“I told you. Tony—the FBI—came to get me because they needed my input. They thought I might be able to help them rescue Bayley Evans. And identify the killer.”
“To hell with that. If Tony had the brains of a gerbil, he would have kept you as far away from here as possible. If this is the same guy, and he knows you saw him, and he finds out you’re here, he’s going to be coming after you with everything he’s got.” Charlie’s face must have once again given something away, because Garland’s gaze sharpened. “He knows you’re here, doesn’t he?”
“It was on the news tonight,” she confessed. Remembering the broadcast caused her heart to flutter. Her chest tightened with anxiety. She wet her suddenly dry lips. “Anyway, I’m sure—almost sure—this killer is a copycat.”
Garland swore. “ ‘Almost’ can get you killed. You need to hightail it out of here. Let Tony and his pals find the girl. And the killer. That’s their job.”
She shook her head. “I can’t just leave. That girl—”
“You have to,” he cut in ruthlessly. Clearly forgetting that any kind of physical gesture on his part was a waste of time, he grabbed for her arms and, of course, failed to make contact. “Damn it, Doc—”
An electric tingle accompanied his miss. Charlie involuntarily glanced down at the source. At what she saw, her eyes widened and shot to his face. He was looking down, too—at his hands, to be precise. Or, rather, his hand. His right one was missing to the wrist, which was a little fuzzy around the edges. “Fuck,” he said, staring at the stump.
“Oh, dear.” As soon as she said it, Charlie realized that her response was woefully inadequate. But really, what do you say to something like that?
“Ya think?” Their eyes collided. Then an expression that she could only describe as mild panic crossed his face. “You don’t suppose I’m being sucked into Spookville in pieces, do you? Like, the clothes first, then the hand, then God knows what other body parts, until it’s got all of me?”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
“Me either, but I’m not taking any chances. That voodoo stuff you promised me? I want you to do it now.”
“What? No. I can’t.”
“What do you mean, ‘No, I can’t’? You gave me your word. I’m holding you to it.”
“I gave you my word I’d try.”
“So try already.”
“I’ve never even attempted to keep a ghost earthbound. I’m not sure I know anything that will work.”
“You knew enough ju-ju to get me sucked away.”
“Getting rid of ghosts I can do. The other is problematic.” Charlie shot him an exasperated look. “Anyway, did it ever occur to you that maybe I don’t want you attached to me for the next however long?”
“Yeah, well, I’m not real wild about the idea of being stuck with you, either, but when I consider the alternative, you win. By a landslide.” He was staring at his truncated wrist in fascination tinged with horror. “You’ve got to help me out here, Doc. Please.”
The please did it. He was right: she was way too softhearted. The last thing she wanted was to have Garland attached to her for any length of time—but then, that probably wasn’t going to happen: no matter what she did, the universe had its own laws and Garland had his own fate. She would try, because she had promised, although she felt the chance she would succeed was small. But because she would have to deal with him until nature took its course, she would seize the opportunity to lay down a few ground rules for him to follow until he went away.
She told him, “For as long as you’re around you have to help when I need you.”
He met her gaze. “Just so we’re clear, I ain’t talking to any more dead kids.”
Charlie discovered that there was a lot of pleasure involved in so clearly having the upper hand. “You want me to help you? Then you talk to any spirit I need you to talk to. And you keep your mouth shut when I’m trying to have a conversation with people, keep your nose out of my business, and in general stay out of my way.”
The merest suggestion of humor glimmered in his eyes. “No more trying to help you with the boyfriend, huh?”
That earned him a glower. “You’re blowing it here, just so you’re aware.”
“I was kidding.”
“Well, I’m serious. Any opinions you might have about anybody I might be …” she hesitated “… with, you keep to yourself.”
“Fine.”
“And the rest of it.”
He didn’t look happy. But then, he didn’t have much choice. “Agreed.”
Having just had an idea of what she could do to at least temporarily keep any more of him from crossing over, if that was indeed what was happening, Charlie turned and headed toward the bedroom.
“Where are you going?”
“Wait right there,” she flung over her shoulder. Somewhat to her surprise, he did.
When she came back, she was carrying the small canister of sea salt that was part of her Miracle-Go kit. Garland was sitting on the couch gripping his right wrist: his hand was back, Charlie saw at a glance. So were his clothes. She felt a rush of relief.
“I’ve got no idea what just happened here.” Garland looked up to see her eyes on him. He let go of his wrist, flexed his fingers. “But I’m sure as hell glad it did.”
Charlie didn’t say, Me too. No point in letting him think that it made a difference to her one way or another.
“They just came back? You didn’t do anything?” She took the lid off the canister.
“Not a thing. What’s that?” He quit wiggling his fingers to watch as she began to sprinkle the sea salt in a thin line around the perimeter of the room. Its purpose was to create a barrier that a spirit could not cross. Charlie had first meant to use it to barricade herself in the bedroom so she could snatch a few hours of much-needed sleep without worrying that Garland might come in. Then it had occurred to her: if she could ward him out of the bedroom, she could probably use the same technique to ward him into the living room. If he couldn’t pass through the barrier she put down, he wouldn’t be going anywhere—not into the room where she lay sleeping, and not back to Spookville. It was the psychic equivalent of locking him in a jail cell.
“Sea salt,” Charlie said. The coarse white crystals were all but disappearing into the carpet, but she didn’t suppose it really mattered. The key was to not leave any openings.
“Sea salt.” He sounded a little wary. “How do I know you’re not going to use that to get me sucked into Spookville again?”
Charlie shrugged. “I guess you’re going to have to trust me.”
“Usually when people say things like You’re going to have to trust me, you can pretty much kiss your ass good-bye. Just saying.”
Charlie paused with her hand in the canister to pucker up and make kissy sounds at him.
“Funny.” He watched her moodily. “How is that supposed to work, exactly?”
“It creates a barrier. You can’t get past it. In theory.” She reached the couch. “You want to get up for a minute? I need to sprinkle this behind the couch.”
“In theory? You got a hell of a bedside manner, Doc.” He stood up, reached automatically for the couch arm to pull the heavy piece of furniture out for her, and had his hands go right through it.
“Great. You’re useless.” She pulled the couch away from the wall herself and dribbled sea salt behind it. “I told you I’ve never done this before. If it works, it works.” When she glanced at him, she saw that his expression had changed. “What?”
“I think I got this thing figured out.” He had his hand up and was turning it over thoughtfully, looking at it. “When I walked into the ocean, I could feel the water just like when I was alive. It was warm, and I got wet all the way up to my waist, which is how far in I walked before I started swimming. A little bit after that, I started feeling different. I told you, like I didn’t have any weight. And now that I think about it, I couldn’t really feel the water anymore. That’s about the time I noticed my clothes were gone. In here, when I turned your laptop on, I could feel the keyboard when I touched it. The other times when I tried to touch things, I couldn’t feel them. I couldn’t feel that couch just now, and my hands passed right through it.” He dropped his hand and looked at her. “I think somehow, every now and again, I’m able to turn solid for a little bit. And when I do, something gets thrown out of whack. Then some part of me—my clothes, my hand, probably whatever took the brunt of what I was doing—dissolves or disperses or gets swallowed up by Spookville or something. In reaction.”
Charlie finished salting behind the couch and shoved it back into place, then moved on around the room.
“It’s possible,” she said. “I know some spirits are able to manifest physically occasionally. Somehow their atoms kind of come together and they’re tangible for very brief periods. I suspect strong emotion triggers it, and that’s what’s behind a lot of ghost sightings.”
“That’s why Sweet Cheeks was able to see me in the hall. And I paid for it by going invisible for a few minutes right after.”
Charlie quit laying down salt to narrow her eyes at him. “You know, just for your information, calling Agent Kaminsky names like ‘Sweet Cheeks’ and ‘Sugar Buns’ is disrespectful and demeaning.”
His eyes brightened, then twinkled. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You don’t have to worry, Doc. Your ass blows hers away. Want to know what I used to call you? Hot—”
“No,” Charlie snapped, glaring as she interrupted him before he could finish. “I don’t want to know. You’re treading on dangerous ground here,” she warned.
He held up his hands. His grin was full-blown now. “No offense meant. It’s just that I’m bad with names,” he said, and she snorted.
“I guess that makes us even, then, because I’m bad at keeping spirits away from divine retribution.” Charlie put the lid back on the salt canister with a snap.
“Aw, come on, it was a joke.” His mouth sobered, but his eyes still twinkled. “Finish up with the salt.”
“No more with the demeaning nicknames,” Charlie said, and he nodded solemnly. She eyed him—if penitent was the expression he was going for, he was failing miserably—then took the lid off the salt, and resumed sprinkling.
“You think there’s any way I could learn to—what did you call it? manifest physically?—on purpose?” he asked after a moment.
Charlie shrugged. “How would I know?”
“Jesus Christ, Doc, you’re supposed to be the expert here.”
“When I see an apparition, it’s usually for ten to fifteen minutes, tops. I’ve never been saddled with one on a full-time basis before. It’s a whole new experience.” She finished with the salt by creating a line across the doorway that led into the bedroom, then put the lid back on the canister again. “There you go. You’re now locked in for the night. Enjoy yourself. I’m going to bed.”
Even as she said it, she realized how tired she was. The adrenaline rush associated with discovering a naked Garland in her apartment had probably masked it until now.
“Wait a minute. Explain to me what you just did.”
“I sealed you into this room. You—including your clothes and all your body parts, hopefully—can’t get out. Tomorrow I’ll see if I can come up with something better. For tonight, that’s the best I can do.” She headed for her bedroom.
“Doc. Wait. Come back.”
He sounded like it was urgent. Charlie stopped, cast her eyes heavenward, then turned and retraced her steps, frowning at him from just beyond the line of salt. “What?”
“I was serious about what I said earlier. If there’s a serial killer at work in the area who knows you can identify him, you need to be getting on out of here. Like, first thing tomorrow. He’ll be coming for you, I can almost guarantee it.”
Fatigue was starting to take its toll. Her shoulders drooped, the small canister of sea salt felt like it weighed a ton, and her emotions were closer to the surface than usual. Fear had started creeping through her veins from the moment she had seen herself on TV. Now it flowed freely, ice cold and thick as oil. Despite trying as hard as she could, it was all she could do to keep the terrible memories of that night at the Palmers’ at bay. Given her history, it was unreal that she was standing here feeling sorry for Garland, liking Garland. A visceral reaction to her own gullibility made her snap: “And you’re so sure of that because …? Oh, that’s right, you’d know all about serial killers, wouldn’t you?”
