Erica Spindler - Dead Run

“Why don’t we take a ride and find out?”

“Now?” She hung back, frightened by the intensity of his gaze.

“Your sister may be alive, Ms. Ames. If she is, I imagine your face would be the first she’d want to see.”

“But Pastor Tim…shouldn’t we wait for an ambulance?”

“He can’t be helped now. But maybe your sister can.” He glanced at his watch, then back at her, expression grim. “Ms. Ames, your sister may be in danger from whoever shot Pastor Tim.”

Wednesday, November 21

9:15 p.m.

Minutes later, Liz huddled against the front passenger seat of the lieutenant’s sedan. Cold air poured out of the air-conditioner vents, hitting the car’s warm, damp interior and fogging the windows. She shuddered and hugged herself. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“To get your sister,” the detective replied, maneuvering through the debris-littered streets.

“I meant…where on Key West are we-”

“Not far. You’ll see.”

Her teeth began to chatter. He didn’t seem to notice, nor did he seem affected by the chill. “D…do you th…think she’s at that address?”

He glanced at her, his eyes strangely blank. “I’m sure she is.”

She stared at him, her breath quickening. “Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

“I bet you’re grateful I showed up when I did. Too bad it wasn’t soon enough to save Tim.”

His voice sounded wrong, she realized. Tinny. Expressionless.

She cleared her throat. “How did you…I mean, what made you come by the church?”

“Tim called me.” He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel. “That’s what people do when they need help, call the police. Public servants. Can you believe that’s what they call us, Liz? Servants?”

Uneasy, she pressed herself closer to the door. “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

“Smart girl. You and your sister both.” He shook his head. “You’ve handed me the last piece of the puzzle, Liz. I thank you for that.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your sister. I wondered what had happened to her. I had my suspicions, but until tonight I didn’t know for sure. One minute in my sights, the next-” he snapped his fingers “-poof, she was gone.”

She stared at him in growing horror. Dear God. She’d been right before; he was the one.

“She called you, didn’t she? About the Horned Flower?”

“People always trust the police.” He smiled again. “Funny, isn’t it? Even though we carry guns and have the power and knowledge to totally fuck them over, they trust us. Because we work for them. Because we’re their servants.”

He said the last in a high, singsong voice that sent a chill over her. She rubbed her arms. “You went to kill her but she was gone.”

His smile faded. “It was a night like this one, thunder and lightning, rain coming down in sheets. She didn’t get far from Paradise Christian. Found her car wrapped around a tree. Problem was, she wasn’t in it.”

Liz pressed her lips together to keep from whimpering. She imagined her terrified sister, losing control of her car, seeing the tree rushing up to meet her.

“How did you get rid of her car?”

“I’m the police, Liz. Dealing with evidence is what I do, day in and out.” He let out a tired-sounding breath. “I had to shoot him, you know. Tim. Bitch didn’t think about how I was going to have to clean up after her. She never thinks about me and what I have to do.”

Heather. They were in it together.

He let out a tight-sounding breath. “What a waste. He was a good guy, you know? A good ball player.”

Pastor Tim hadn’t been part of it. “Like my sister, he called you for help,” she murmured. “Because he discovered Rachel was alive.”

“Stephen told him.”

Stephen? She didn’t know he could speak.

As if he read her mind, he nodded. “Yeah, he can speak, if that’s what you want to call the sounds he makes. Growing up, we gave him a hard time. Called him half-wit, retard and stuff. We were merciless when he tried to speak. Somewhere along the line, he just stopped talking.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “Sad, isn’t it? Too bad Carla’s bullet hadn’t done the job. A person like him, what’s the point? He’d be better off dead.”

She hugged herself, feeling ill. She wanted nothing more than to fling open the door and make a run for it, but he knew where Rachel was. Somehow, she would have to find a way to overcome him and save her sister.

“What about my sister’s Bible? And the knife?”

He shrugged. “As far as I can tell, he just freaked out. Tim thought he had seen Mark Morgan with Stephen, so I paid Stephen a visit. Showed him some crime-scene photos. Described in detail the monster we were looking for, what he’d done. Talked about Taft, quoted some Scripture. I tried to impress on him the importance of cooperating with the police. Actually, it worked out rather nicely for me.”

He smiled. She found the way his lips stretched across his teeth obscene. “Some people just have no stomach for police work.”

Liz could imagine gentle, damaged Stephen being forced to look at photos of Tara and Naomi. At what had been done to them. How that might cause him to react, to “freak out,” as Val called it.

A brilliant flash of lightning tore across the night sky. It opened up then, unleashing a flood. Val flipped the wipers on high and eased off the accelerator. “Stephen saw them drag your sister out of the car.”

She straightened. “Them? Who?”

“A couple of those Rainbow Nation kids. They’re like roaches. No matter how you try, you can’t get rid of them.”

Liz thought of the young man who had warned her off the island earlier that day. “What did they want with her?”

“I don’t think they wanted anything of her. But they’ll do anything for money.”

He fell silent. Liz gripped the sides of the bucket seat. “You and Heather are partners, aren’t you?”

Her question seemed to jolt him. He looked at her and she smiled grimly. “Heather and Taft worked together. They killed her little sister.”

His lips curled slightly and Liz realized that even though a monster, he drew the line at that. He shook his head, expression suddenly resigned. Sad. “You should have taken my threats seriously, Ms. Ames. You should have left Key West. I didn’t want this to happen.”

“You left the note,” she murmured. “And the rat.”

“And paid that little cockroach to scare you today.” He slowed the automobile. “Here we are.”

He pulled up in front of a beautiful old Caribbean-style home. Wide galleries circled the white structure. Dark-green storm shutters covered the windows, all closed tight against Mother Nature’s fury. An iron fence circled the lushly landscaped lot, which appeared to be a block deep.

He opened his car door, stepped out of the vehicle and came around for her. She didn’t resist and let him lead her across the sidewalk and through the iron gate. The wind caught it and slammed it shut behind them. She had to find Rachel and get her away from here.

He didn’t ring the bell or knock. She stood back and watched as he tried the door, found it locked, drew out his gun and fired three shots into the frame, then kicked the door open.

The picture of barely controlled fury, he strode into the foyer, dragging her with him. Candlelight cast the room in a flickering, golden light.

“Where are you!” he roared. “Show yourself, you whore from hell!”

He released her and Liz inched back, frightened.

“Where are you!” he shouted again and started toward the stairs. He passed a flower arrangement and ripped it from its pedestal and sent it crashing to the floor. The vase shattered and water spewed over the marble entryway, the exotic blooms with it.