Tess Gerritsen - Die Again

“Johnny Posthumus.”

Millie nodded. “By the time they finally started searching for Johnny, it was too late. He’d had plenty of time to vanish. Weeks later, they found the truck parked in Johannesburg.”

“The same truck that wouldn’t start in the bush.”

“Yes. A mechanic explained to me later how it could be done. How to temporarily disable a car without anyone spotting the problem. Something about the fuse box and plastic relays.”

Jane looked at Gabriel, and he nodded.

“Unplug the start or fuel pump relay,” he said. “It wouldn’t be easy to detect. And it’s reversible.”

“He made us think we were stranded,” said Millie. “He trapped us there, so he could kill us one by one. First, Clarence. Then Isao. Elliot would have been next. He was taking out the men first, leaving the women for last. We thought we were on safari, but we were really on Johnny’s hunting trip. And we were the game.” Millie took a breath and it came out a shudder. “The night he killed the others, I ran. I had no idea where I was going. We were miles from the nearest road, miles from the airstrip. He knew there was no chance I’d survive, so he simply packed up camp and drove away, leaving the bodies to the animals. Everything else, he took. Our wallets, cameras, passports. The police say he used Richard’s credit card to buy petrol in Maun. And Elliot’s card to buy supplies in Gaborone. Then he crossed the border into South Africa, where he vanished. Who knows where he went next. With our passports and credit cards, he could have dyed his hair brown and passed for Richard. Could have flown to London and breezed straight through immigration.” She hugged herself. “He could have turned up on my doorstep.”

Gabriel said: “The UK has no record of Richard Renwick reentering the country.”

“What if he’s killed other people, taken other identities? He could go anywhere, be anyone.”

“Are you certain your guide was actually Johnny Posthumus?”

“The police showed me his passport photo, taken just two years earlier. It was the same man.”

“There are very few verified photos of him in existence. You saw only that one.”

“You think I made a mistake?”

“You know how people can look different, sometimes completely different, from one photo to the next.”

“If it wasn’t Johnny, who else would he be?”

“An impostor.”

She stared at Gabriel, struck dumb by the possibility.

They heard the clatter of china as DeBruin returned from the kitchen with the tea tray. Noticing the silence in the room, he quietly set the tray down on the coffee table and gave his wife a searching look.

“Can I pour the tea, Mummy?” said Violet. “I promise I won’t spill it.”

“No, darling. Mummy needs to pour it this time. Maybe you and Daddy can go watch some TV.” She gave her husband a pleading look.

DeBruin took their daughter’s hand. “Let’s go see what’s on, hey?” he said and led her out.

A moment later they heard the TV come on in the next room with a blast of jarringly cheerful music. Though the tea tray sat on the table in front of her, Millie made no move to pour, but sat with arms wrapped around herself, still chilled by this new uncertainty.

“Henk Andriessen from Interpol told us that you were still hospitalized when the police showed you the photo. You were still weak, still recovering. And it had been weeks since you’d last seen the killer.”

“You think I made a mistake,” she said softly.

“Witnesses frequently make mistakes,” said Gabriel. “They misremember details or they forget faces.”

Jane thought of all the well-meaning eyewitnesses who’d so confidently pointed to the wrong suspects, or offered descriptions that later proved wildly inaccurate. The human mind was expert at filling in missing details and confidently turning them into facts, even if those facts were merely imagined.

“You’re trying to make me doubt myself,” said Millie. “But the photo they showed me was Johnny. I remember every detail of his face.” She looked back and forth at Jane and Gabriel. “Maybe he goes by a different name now. But wherever he is, whatever he calls himself, I know he hasn’t forgotten me, either.”

They heard Violet give a squeal of laughter as the TV played its relentlessly cheerful music. But in here, a chill had settled so deeply into the room that even the afternoon sunlight streaming in the window could not dispel it.

“That’s why you didn’t return to London,” said Jane.

“Johnny knew where I lived, where I worked. He knew how to find me. I couldn’t go back.” Millie looked toward the sound of her daughter’s laughter. “And there was Christopher.”

“He told us how you met.”

“After I walked out of the bush, he was the one who stayed with me. Who sat by my hospital bed day after day. He’s the one who made me feel safe. The only one.” She looked at Jane. “Why would I go back to London?”

“Isn’t your sister there?”

“But this is my home now. It’s where I belong.” She looked out the window, at the tree with the all-embracing branches. “Africa changed me. Out there, in the bush, I lost bits and pieces of myself. It wears you away like a grinding stone, makes you shed everything that’s unnecessary. It forces you to face who you really are. When I first got there, I was just a silly girl. I fussed over shoes and purses and face creams. I wasted years, waiting for Richard to marry me. I thought all I needed was a wedding ring to make me happy. But then, just when I thought I was dying, I found myself. My real self. I left the old Millie out there, and I don’t miss her. This is my life right here, in Touws River.”

“Where you still have nightmares.”

Millie blinked. “Chris told you?”

“He told us you’ve been waking up screaming.”

“Because you called me. That’s why it all started again, because you brought it back.”

“Which means it’s still there, Millie. You haven’t really left it behind.”

“I was doing fine.”

“Were you?” Jane looked around the room at the neatly arranged books on the shelves, at the vase of flowers precisely centered on the mantelpiece. “Or is this just a place to hide from the world?”

“After what happened to me, wouldn’t you hide?”

“I’d want to feel safe again. The only way to do that is to find this man and lock him away.”

“That’s your job, Detective. Not mine. I’ll help you as much as I’m able to. I’ll look at whatever photos you’ve brought. I’ll answer all your questions. But I won’t go to Boston. I won’t leave my home.”

“And there’s no way we can change your mind?”

Millie looked straight at her. “None whatsoever.”

THEY ARE STAYING IN OUR GUEST BEDROOM TONIGHT. IF ANYTHING should make me feel safe, it would be having both a policewoman and a US federal agent under my roof, yet once again I cannot fall asleep. Chris lies breathing deeply beside me, a warm, reassuring hulk in the darkness. What luxury to sleep so soundly every night, to awake refreshed in the morning, free of the smothering cobwebs of bad dreams.

He doesn’t stir as I climb out of bed, reach for a robe, and slip out of our room.

Down the hall, I pass the guest bedroom where Detective Rizzoli and her husband are staying. Odd that I did not immediately pick up on the fact they were married to each other, until after I’d spent the whole afternoon with them. They’d shown me photo after photo of possible suspects on a laptop computer. So many faces, so many men. By the time it was dinner hour, the photos were all blending together. I rubbed my tired eyes and when I opened them again, I saw Agent Dean’s hand resting on Detective Rizzoli’s shoulder. It was not just a platonic pat, but the caress of a man who cared about this woman. That’s when the other details came into focus: the matching wedding rings. The way they finished each other’s sentences. The fact he didn’t have to ask, but simply stirred a teaspoon of sugar into her coffee before handing it to her.