CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Alison stood at the window again, looking out over the city that was now fast asleep.
It had been more than twenty-four hours since Hartley had visited to tell them about the sighting near Stockton.
Since then, he hadn’t been seen. They were monitoring the roads between Stockton and Oakland, and he hadn’t been seen, but there was a chance he had slipped past, gone through some farmland.
There was also a chance that he had succumbed to his bullet wound, if he did have one, and he would be found early one morning by a farmer.
Alison wondered how logical it was to be standing at the window when Mills might be back in the city with a gun.
Would he come for her? Sarah Hartman had blamed people for what her brother did and what happened to him, and she’d gone after them.
Would Mills come after her? Did he blame her?
Derek? Her father? Would he take a shot at her from the bushes? He’d shot a cop.
It felt like an act of defiance to stand at the window.
Twenty-two years she had been searching for the man who killed her sister, and she wouldn’t cower away now that she knew who he was.
Still, it felt like something of an anticlimax.
What if he did succumb to his injuries and was found in a field somewhere?
Would that be justice? He would be dead, and he couldn’t kill anyone else, but she wanted to look him in the eye.
Just like Derek, she wanted to be the one to bring him in after searching for him for so long.
For more than twenty years, she had been the only one looking for him.
"Still nothing," Derek said when he returned to the living room. "Are you sure you don't want to try and get some rest, and I’ll wake you the first I hear something?
"I won't be able to sleep," she said. "They have to hear something soon."
Derek nodded.
They heard footsteps from the kitchen, and Rex, her father’s dog, appeared, slowly padding his way through from the kitchen.
He was getting old, but he was still going.
James had brought him over to help guard the house, and Alison had tried not to laugh at that.
Rex was the most amazing dog, but he couldn’t keep up with time any longer, let alone an intruder.
Besides, no one was getting in without tripping the alarm.
Her father was also trying to keep up with time, and he was asleep upstairs in the guest room.
"I’ll make some coffee," Derek said. He headed off to the kitchen to put a pot on.
Alison looked out of the window again. Somewhere out there, dead or alive, was Mills. She didn't think he had come back to the city to kill her. It was waiting that would kill her.
"They might have something," Derek said as he rushed back through to the living room. "The surest light at the back of Mills’s house was just triggered, and the light in the kitchen is on. They have a team going down there right now."
Alison looked at the clock on the living room wall. It was a little after three in the morning.
Was it Mills? Trying to sneak into his home? Would he go back there?
"I want to go down there," Alison said. "If it’s him, I want to be there when they pick him up."
"We were told to stay here," Derek said.
"No, you were told to stay with me," she corrected. "We go together. Dad can stay here and watch the house. He has Rex and his firearm. Go wake him and tell him, and I’ll reset the alarm once we leave. I need to be down there."
"Okay," Derek said.
***
Alison liked to think that she always remained calm in the face of danger.
It was only three days previously that she had talked Sarah Hartman down from killing a man.
She hadn’t felt nervous at all as she stood before her, knowing that one wrong move, saying the wrong thing, could end a man’s life.
Yet, as they drove to Howard Mills’s home, she was nervous.
The team would be there before she and Derek arrived, so there would be no danger, and if Mills was picked up, he would already be cuffed and subdued.
She'd been face-to-face with Mills before, only a few weeks previously, but that was before they knew for sure that Mills was the killer.
Now they knew exactly who he was, and Alison was nervous about facing him.
It didn't make sense, not even to her, and she had devoted her entire life to understanding how the human mind worked.
"She was brilliant," Alison said as they drove through the night. "I know I’m a little biased, and I’m never going to say anything negative about my sister after what happened to her, but she really was brilliant.
She was kind, and strong-willed, and driven, and athletic, and artistic, and she knew who she was and who she wanted to be. She was a good sister to me."
Derek didn't reply as they drove; he just smiled as Alison spoke about her sister.
"Sarah asked me in the abandoned facility if I hated my sister, and I told her that I did at times, but only to gain her confidence.
The truth is that I never hated her. I mean, we were sisters, so we had disagreements, but I never hated her.
I loved her more than anything or anyone.
I still love her. There was never any hate. "
"I got to know her some more when I was out with your dad," Derek admitted. "We spent a lot of time just watching people, and he talked about him."
"Really?" Alison asked with a smile. "That’s really nice. He doesn’t often talk about her, but these past few months have really changed him. I like how he’s becoming. He wanted to leave the past in the past, but we can't ever do that, I don't think. Maybe some things, but not something like this."
"I understand him a little more," Derek admitted.
The streets were quiet. The late-night crowds that had frequented bars and clubs had returned home, and they didn't pass any twenty-four-hour stores or diners. There was not a soul to be seen.
"I mean, I don't understand him fully, but I get it to an extent. I’ve only been around the case for the last eighteen months, and it’s been hard to face the disappointment of it.
If it weren’t for you, I would have given up by now.
Even if it were a family member, I’m not sure that I could have kept going for as long as you have. "
"I don't know how I kept going either," Alison admitted. "I just had to. It’s always felt as if she’s been guiding me, like there’s been this invisible force guiding my way.
Even when we faced dead end after dead end, I…
No, maybe not completely. There were times when I thought we were done.
Times when I expected we would never catch up to him. "
"If he hadn’t killed Katrina Sands two months ago, we never would have," Derek noted. "Her crime scene led us to the van, and that eventually led us to Mills. Seven years. He went seven years without killing anyone, two more years than usual, because his wife got cancer. If he had killed two years ago, we might never have gotten him. If he had one longer without killing, we might not have gotten him. That does feel like an invisible hand guiding us. Katrina Sands death won't be in vain. She’s the one who finally led us to Mills. We catch him for her, and for Emma, and the others. I bet we’ll get to the house, and he’ll be led out in handcuffs. It ends tonight."
Alison didn't reply to that. Most of it was overwhelming, but she still couldn’t get her hopes up. She knew that if Mills had come back to the city, they would be more likely to get him. It had gone from decades to years to months to days to hours. That’s all it should take: hours.
That’s all it should take.
"She dreamed of being an Olympic swimmer," Alison said.
"I don't know if she ever would have become one, but he took that opportunity from her.
And for what? We don't even know why. I know it doesn't matter, but I still want to know.
Five women over twenty-two years with no connection between them.
He didn't kill them because of who they were, but because he wanted to kill.
Is that all it boils down to? She was in the wrong place at the wrong time? "
"I don't know," Derek admitted. "Looking at it objectively, I would say yes. That’s what it comes down to. I don't know if that’s better or worse, but I would guess that she was killed because he knew he could get to her. Perhaps there was something of a power thing there. He had a regular life with a wife and kids, a regular job, perhaps he saw it as stable but boring. He took the life of someone younger, someone he could overpower, an attractive young woman, because he couldn’t have that in his life anymore. We don't need to think about this."
"No, it’s good," Alison said. "I need to think about something.
It won't help me if I know why he killed her. There’s no reason that will make this okay, but my mind needs to make sense of it, to make it all fit like the other cases.
I want him behind bars, and I want to know. I need that for myself."
"Then we’ll get it," Derek said.
Alison swallowed when they pulled onto Mills’s street. Blue and red lights flashed outside his house, and there was a flurry of activity outside.
Derek stopped the car, and he and Alison got out. Alison turned her head and saw a car fly by the end of the street, light splashing, but the siren was quiet. A couple of marshals were talking animatedly on the street, and behind them was Special Agent Hartley.
Alison appreciated her so much for the work she was doing, but she also wished for some respite for the agent. She was four months pregnant and hoping to orchestrate one of the state's latest manhunts. Almost five weeks, and they were rig back where they started.
Does this end at the beginning?
Hartley spotted them and walked over briskly. She flashed Derek a look that said, I told you not to come down here, but here you are, so oh, well!
"Alison," Hartley said.
"Did you get him?" Alison asked.
"There's a marshal and two FBI agents in there talking to the wife right now.
She claims that a bobcat or a coyote must have been in her backyard, and that's what tripped the light, but she is acting strange, cagey.
We think that Mills was here, but he left before we arrived.
Maybe he wanted to see her one last time and turn himself in. He can't be in good shape."
"So, where is he?" Derek demanded.
"He can't have gone far," Hartley said. "I know we keep saying that, but it’s true this time. I mean, it was true—anyway! His car’s still here. He didn't come back for that. He can't be in good shape. We have seven cars out there searching the streets. We’ll get him tonight."
"If he were here," Derek pointed out. "The wife might be telling the truth. Why would she cover for him?"
"She still loves him," Alison answered. "She hates him, but she loves him, and she’s probably trying to rationalize what’s going on.
She can't believe that her husband of twenty-five years could kill five women.
She won't let herself believe that, because what does that mean for her?
It means she never really knew the man she loved. "
"Just go back home," Hartley said. "I know that’s hard, but we can handle this."
"We’ll help with the search," Derek said. "I’m not taking no for an answer, so just accept the help."
"Yeah, all right," Hartley said, shaking her head. "Get on the phone to Agent Henderson back at the office, and he’ll direct you. We go block to block, working our way outward. We do this properly, and we find him before dawn."
"Okay," Derek said. "Come on," he added to Alison.
They ran back to the car together, and Derek pulled out his phone when it hit Alison. Maybe she was wrong, but they wouldn’t get there for a while, and maybe he would be gone before then. They could check and then circle back.
"We need to go to Granton Park," she said.