Chuck Hogan - The Killing Moon - A Novel

Dig marks.

No.

Impossible.

In Sinclair’s cut-and-stitched sneakers, Ripsbaugh walked to the open toilet. He flushed it, holding down the handle with his inhuman fingers until the bowl emptied.

The snake twitched as the rush of the water tugged on it.

On the display screen, the camera view trembled. Maddox could do nothing but watch.

Water splattered forth. Glowing green, it vomited from the mouth of the pipe, spraying Tracy’s face.

She covered her nose and mouth and her eyes glowed wide as she screamed into the darkness.

Maddox heard a muffled cry, as from someone calling out from miles beneath the ground.

“There’s air, but it’s bad air, and going fast. No light. She doesn’t know where she is.”

“Get her out!” The chair shook beneath him, Maddox pushing with every muscle, eyes locked on Tracy on the screen. “Get her out! She has nothing to do with this! ”

Tracy’s hands stayed up near her muck-streaked face, eyes wild. Her screaming was so far away.

“You want to save her,” said Ripsbaugh, turning on the sink, full power. “To deliver her from that place, from that pain.” He ran water in the tub, opening the drain. “If only you could.”

More water flowing past the camera, obscuring the view.

“That is why I am showing you this, Don.” He walked away, back down the hall, to the kitchen. “Now you understand.” Maddox heard him open the sink tap. “Now you know what I go through.”

Maddox was underneath that bridge in Haverhill again. Standing over Casey’s naked corpse, knowing it should be him lying there and not her. Knowing that no amount of vengeance would ever be enough, and going a little crazy inside.

Ripsbaugh returned. “They’ll find her truck pulled over on one of the hill roads. Keys inside, though not your garage door opener. Thousands of young women disappear every year. They’ll come here, they’ll search your house with lasers and filtered vacuums. They’ll search it good, the residence of a missing state trooper. But they’ll never think to search the septic tank.” Ripsbaugh brought his glabrous face close, so close that a few strands of wig hair brushed against Maddox’s cheek before Maddox could jerk away. “They won’t ever find her.”

Maddox rocked the chair with everything he had. “Kill me, get it over with,” he said. “But let her go !”

Ripsbaugh watched him struggle. “One problem with that, Don. With killing you. Sinclair’s next murder will be his third. Do you know what that means?”

Maddox swelled his chest, pushing against the seat. He felt some separation in the wood beneath him. Or imagined he did.

“Three victims, that meets the FBI criteria for a serial killer. And I sure don’t want the FBI here.”

Maddox could bend his elbows a bit, giving him more leverage.

“So you’re going to have to disappear. Sinclair will be suspected, of course. They’ll find this kitchen chair pulled out from the table. Abrasions in its sides, some rope fibers. Rounds from your gun lodged in the wall and ceiling upstairs. Sinclair was in your house tonight. But, as with the girl, your disappearance will remain a mystery.”

Ripsbaugh stepped into the parlor, pinching a bit of sleeve with his coated fingers and rubbing the fabric against the corner of the divan. Another Sinclair transfer.

“Sinclair’s legend will only grow. Because he is going to disappear tonight with you. His work here is done. But Sinclair will live on, longer than you or even I, haunting the woods around Black Falls. A town needs a good bogeyman. Fear is like religion that way. It galvanizes a community. Makes them care. Black Falls is already coming back to life. You feel it, can’t you?”

Maddox had earned just enough rope slack to lean forward onto the balls of his feet, tipping up the back legs. With all that he had, he rocked back down, driving the chair legs into the floor.

A good blow, but not enough. There was no crack, though his feet were looser, allowing him even more leverage. He rocked violently side to side, trying it again.

This time, the rope shifted, still holding him fast, but giving him a few more precious centimeters with which to work.

Ripsbaugh watched dispassionately. “If I’ve gone on too long, it’s only because, as I said, Don, I always liked you.” He looked at his smooth hands again, as though awaiting their command. “I always liked you.”

Maddox sprang up with all his might, driving his hips down and hearing wood crack as a splat fractured behind his lower back, one of the legs on the left side giving way.

Maddox was on the floor. On his side, still lashed to the broken chair. But loose inside the ropes.

Ripsbaugh did not move at first. Maddox had no time to be shocked, kicking free of the splintered front legs, squirming with his hands still bound behind his back.

When Ripsbaugh did finally reach out to stop him, Maddox flailed, jabbing at Ripsbaugh’s knee with a loose foot, kicking him back. Maddox writhed madly, his wrists getting looser, his knees pulling free.

He felt a new tension pulling on his waist. Ripsbaugh had taken up one end of the rope. He fashioned a loop with it and came at Maddox, meaning to slip the noose around his neck.

Maddox, helpless against a strangling, dug in with his heels and spun himself around, keeping his head away from Ripsbaugh, swinging another kick at his legs.

Ripsbaugh looped Maddox’s foot, catching it. The broken chair back scraped against the floor as Ripsbaugh pulled the rope hand over hand, reeling Maddox in. His smooth, blank fingers.

Maddox went limp a moment, tempting Ripsbaugh with slack. Ripsbaugh took the bait, yanking back on the line, looking to bring Maddox close enough to fall on him with the rope and finish him.

But Maddox jerked as Ripsbaugh hauled, the line pulling taut, the rope ripping right through Ripsbaugh’s fingers. Ripsbaugh let go, but not fast enough.

Ripsbaugh brought his hands up in front of his face as though they had been burned. Strips of shielding latex hung like layers of dead skin, baring his fingers beneath.

Maddox dug into the floor with his heels. He scraped away on his back, down the hall, away from Ripsbaugh. He knocked over the shovel by the kitchen counter and dragged it along with him, the ropes pulling looser with every movement.

Maddox got to one knee. Both wrists were free of their knots, his arms still tangled in the rope and chair behind his back. He shrugged one arm loose and used that to start on his legs. In the kitchen to his right, the sink was running.

Ripsbaugh remained at the other end of the hall, doing something with his exposed hands.

Maddox worked maniacally, shredding skin off own his fingertips as he stripped away the last of the rope and the chair. He picked up the shovel with the intention of running down the hall and braining Ripsbaugh with it, but the angry crack of a handgun froze him.

Ripsbaugh held Maddox’s revolver in his peeling hands, having fired it into the floor. He raised the smoking barrel now, leveling it at Maddox.

“All right,” said Ripsbaugh. “That’s about enough.”

Pulled from the back of his waistband, the revolver felt cold against the bare parts of Ripsbaugh’s fingers. He could almost feel his skin oils adhering to the wood grip. He had to be so careful now.

Maddox stood at the other end of the hallway, wild with desperation.

Ripsbaugh had to remain clearheaded. This was a critical time. This was where killers made their mistakes — in haste. In going off plan. Part of him was exposed, but he still had control of the scene.

He had the gun. He was okay. Nothing had gotten away from him yet.