Harlan Coben - Stay close

Megan pushed down on the wrist, but the blonde would not let go of the knife. Megan angled her fingers so that her nails dug into the thin skin on the inner wrist. The blonde cried out, but her grip didn’t loosen. Megan dug deeper now. She tried to use the end of her nail to scrape the skin off the spot below the thumb where you check for the pulse. Wasn’t that an artery?

The blonde cried out again, leaned her head forward, and then she sank her teeth into Megan’s wounded arm.

Megan howled in pain.

The blonde chomped down through the flesh, her teeth nearly meeting. The bite, too, had drawn blood-the blonde’s pearly white teeth were splattered with it. Megan dug her fingernail into the wrist even deeper.

The knife dropped to the pavement.

And that was when Megan made a mistake.

She was so focused on possessing the knife, in picking it up and stabbing this blonde until there was nothing left of her, that she forgot all the other tools in a human being’s arsenal.

In order to get the knife and make it her own, Megan had to release the wrist. The blonde, realizing exactly that Megan was solely focused on the knife, reacted. First, she finished her bite by tearing back on the flesh, ripping it off, and spitting it out on the ground.

The fresh wave of pain made Megan’s eyes roll back.

With Megan still reaching for the blade, the blonde shifted her weight. Megan tumbled off balance. She fell headfirst to the right, unable to get her hands in a position to break her fall.

The side of her skull banged hard against the bumper of her car.

Stars exploded in her head.

Get. The. Knife.

The blonde scampered closer and threw a stomping kick at Megan’s head. It landed flush, crushing her skull against the bumper again. Megan could feel consciousness slipping away now. For a moment she really didn’t know where she was or when it was or any of that. She didn’t even know about the blonde or feel the next kick. Only that one thought remained.

Get. The. Knife.

The blonde stood and threw a kick to Megan’s ribs. She fell forward, confused, dazed. Her cheek felt pavement. Her eyes closed. Her arms were splayed to the sides, as though she’d been dropped from a great height.

Megan had nothing left.

A beam of light passed over her, maybe from a flashlight, maybe from an oncoming car. Whatever it was, it made the blonde hesitate just long enough. With her eyes still closed, Megan’s hand ran along the pavement.

She still knew where the knife was.

The blonde screamed and jumped down to finish Megan off.

But Megan had the knife now. She flipped over onto her back, the handle of the knife against her sternum, the blade up in the air.

The blonde landed on the sharp point.

The blade dug deep into the blonde’s belly. Megan didn’t let it go at that. She pulled up, slicing through the stomach, until the blade stopped at the ribcage. She could feel the sticky warmth on her as something poured out of the wound.

The blonde’s mouth opened in a silent scream. Her eyes widened and then they locked on Megan’s. Something passed between the two women, something deep and profound and base and beyond rational explanation. Megan would think about that look for a very long time. She would replay it in her head and wonder what she saw, but she would never be able to voice it to anyone.

The blonde’s eyes opened a little more and then, with Megan watching, something in the blonde’s eyes dimmed, and Megan knew that she was gone for good.

Megan heard footsteps as she began to collapse back to the pavement. Her head was nearly down when she felt hands grab her, hold her gently, and then cradle her to the ground.

She looked up and saw his fear.

“Megan? Oh my God, Megan?”

She almost smiled at Dave’s beautiful face. She wanted to comfort him, say that she loved him, that she would be fine-even her base instinct, she’d remember later, was to love and comfort this man-but no words would come out.

Her eyes rolled back. Dave disappeared, and there was only darkness.

Broome shivered in the cold.

There were six more cops by the well now. One offered him a blanket. Broome frowned and told him to buzz off.

There were bodies in the well.

Lots of them. One piled on top of the other.

The first one they brought up belonged to Carlton Flynn.

His corpse was the freshest and, ergo, most horrid. It reeked from decay. Small animals-rats and squirrels, maybe-had gnawed on the dead flesh. One of the officers turned away. Broome didn’t.

The ME would try to find a time and cause of death, but despite what you see on television, there was no guarantee he’d find either. What with the outdoor temperatures and the animals feasting on vital organs, there would be tons of room for confusion.

Of course, Broome didn’t need scientific evidence to know the timing. Carlton Flynn, he was certain, had died on Mardi Gras.

For a few moments, when the body was brought up with a pulley and rope, they all just stood there solemnly.

“The rest are little more than skeletons,” Samantha Bajraktari said.

That didn’t surprise Broome. After all these years, after all the twists and turns and new developments and sightings and rumors, it all came down to this. Someone had killed these guys and dumped them down this well. Someone had gotten the men to come to this remote site, murdered them, and then used a handcart to drag them to a well about fifty yards off the beaten path.

There was no doubt anymore. This was the work of a serial killer.

“How many bodies?” Broome asked.

“Hard to say yet. At least ten, maybe twenty.”

The Mardi Gras Men hadn’t run off or taken on new identities or traveled to some remote island. Broome shook his head. He should have known. He’d always believed that JFK was killed by the lone gunman. He’d scoffed at UFOs, at Elvis sightings, at fake moon landings, at pretty much every dumb-ass conspiracy theory. Even as a cop, he always suspected the obvious: the spouse, the boyfriend, the family member, because in nearly all matters, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

Stewart Green would probably be near the bottom of the pile.

“We have to tell the feds,” Samantha said.

“I know.”

“You want me to handle it?”

“It’s already done.”

He thought about Sarah Green, sitting in that house all these years, not able to move on, not able to mourn, and all this time her husband had probably been dead in the bottom of a well. Broome had gotten too involved. That had clouded his vision. He had wanted to rescue the Greens. He had convinced himself there was a chance to do that; that despite the odds, he would find Stewart Green whole and bring him back.

Dumb.

There were still questions, of course. Why hadn’t Ross Gunther’s body been dumped down the well too? There were a few possibilities, but Broome didn’t love any of them. The bodies in the well also didn’t answer the question about who had killed Harry Sutton and why, but perhaps the timing had indeed been a coincidence. As for Lorraine seeing Stewart Green alive, that was an easy mistake to make. Even she had admitted that she had her doubts. It was probably someone who looked like Stewart. What with the shaved head and goatee and seventeen years of aging, even Broome could hardly say for sure that age progression was based on him.

Unless, of course, Lorraine hadn’t been wrong. Unless Stewart Green hadn’t been the first victim but the perpetrator…

He didn’t think so.

Another skeleton was brought up.

“Detective Broome?”

He turned.

“I’m Special Agent Guy Angiuoni. Thanks for calling us.”