Chapter 28 Taken #2
I stared at the hard-sided pink luggage.
“Go. Before they get here. Find him.”
I flung the luggage into the back of Nick’s SUV and peeled out of the driveway. In the distance, sirens echoed.
Gibby cried piteously at the fresh blood on my clothes.
“It’s okay. It’s okay. She’s gonna be okay,” I recited to him like a mantra. I meant it to be soothing, but I wasn’t sure it was true. There wasn’t any way I could be sure.
All I could do was try to find Nick before the Kings of Warsaw Creek managed to hurt him, too.
I drove down back roads until I found a spot to pull off near a pond.
I pulled Drema’s suitcase out. In it I found clothes for Mason, small shoes, a bag of cosmetics, and a couple of changes of clothes for Drema.
I stripped out of my bloody clothes, and rinsed the blood off my arms and face in the pond.
I stared down at my reflection. I didn’t see my own image there. I saw the Rusalka.
I wriggled into Drema’s jeans and donned a very expensive-feeling black blouse, which clung to my skin like silk. I gazed at my reflection again. I still saw Rusalka, unblinking.
“Come on, Gibby,” I said. “Let’s go find your dad.”
I got Jasper’s address from good old Google and rolled up to his home.
It was a small trailer on some pretty meadow acreage that was less than a mile from the Sumners’ house if you cut through the marshland in the back.
His car wasn’t there, but I still knocked on the door.
I peered through the windows, seeing that no one was home.
I couldn’t imagine that Jasper was capable of hurting anyone.
But then again, I couldn’t imagine that I was, either.
I tried the door. It was locked, but not with a particularly good lock. I plucked my driver’s license out of my wallet and used it to press the tongue of the lock back into the door, and I was in within minutes.
Jasper wasn’t living large. Not at all. I respected that; a lot of guys in law enforcement spent every last overtime dime they had on cars and big houses.
Not Jasper. I poked through the kitchen cabinets.
Everything was clean, and neat as a pin, but there wasn’t any food there, except for a few cans of soup.
There were a couch and a television in the living room. No computer.
The bedroom contained a double bed with simple coverings. The trailer felt like a temporary residence, with no real personality or, it seemed, intent to stay. His clothes were hung neatly in the closet.
On the dresser was a picture, and I paused. It was a picture of a boy and a girl in high school, in their prom clothes. It was of Dana and Jasper. Before it was a river pearl. I wondered if she’d given that to him.
I went outside, to the marsh. Part of me half expected to find Jasper’s and Sumner’s bodies floating there, but the water was peaceful, reflecting the sun and sky above.
A lawn chair was set up on the bank, and there was a fishing pole stuck in the ground beside it.
A breeze pushed dragonflies across the water’s surface, creating bright spots of sun dazzle.
I blinked, and the dazzle churned. I saw the glitter of lights at a dance, young Jasper and Dana. They looked happy, like they had their whole lives ahead of them.
The vision faded, and I was staring at the glassy water once more.
A lump rose in my throat. He had really loved Dana. And he hadn’t built a life at all after she was gone. He was just…existing. Not moving forward. Waiting. Waiting for what? For her attackers to be brought to justice?
And when they weren’t…he’d gone to find justice himself.
Jasper and I understood each other.
—
I headed over to Mark Lister’s house. If that son of a bitch was there, I was going to wring every last drop of knowledge out of him.
I pulled up before the Lister house and found Ross opening the back of a white minivan.
I emerged from the SUV, with Gibby close beside me. The young man grinned when he saw the dog.
“Hi! Is this a police dog?”
“Not really,” I admitted. I forced myself to wear a congenial mask, the one I wore as Lt.
Anna Koray doing community outreach. I forced my lips to curve upward benignly and my eyebrows to lift pleasantly, even while I ground my teeth and felt the stickiness of blood under my fingernails.
Gibby went up to the kid and let him pet him, tail wagging.
I looked at the kid closely. He was pale, and I saw bandages on his arms and legs.
“How are you feeling, Ross?”
He lifted a shoulder. “Still got a few weeks of steroids to take. A couple days ago, I saw some kind of specialist who gave me a bunch of new antibiotics. They make my pee change colors.”
“I’m sorry.”
A heavily pregnant woman climbed out of the driver’s seat of the minivan and stared at me.
“Hi. Are you Ross’s mom?” I asked.
“Yes. And you are…?” She looked me up and down, skeptical.
“I’m Lt. Anna Koray, with the Bayern County Sheriff’s Office.” I said it automatically, even though I knew I was nothing.
“Oh. I thought Mark had finally met someone,” she said sheepishly. “I’m Yvette.”
“Nice to meet you.” I glanced at Ross. “Hey, is your dad home?”
“No. He left earlier today. He called my mom to take me to Pennsylvania with her.” Ross made a face.
“Do you know where he went?”
“Nah. He just got in the car and took off.”
Yvette looked at her son. “Why don’t you go get your stuff together, and I’ll talk to Lt. Koray?”
“Sure,” he said sullenly, and went into the house.
Yvette looked at me. “Why are the police here? Dare I ask what he did?”
“I can’t say for now. But I think you need to make plans for Ross.”
Her jaw hardened. “This is a really bad time.”
“I know. But he’s been through a lot. He needs to see a doctor about those scratches he got from when he almost drowned.”
She rested her hand on her belly. “I’ll take care of it. It’s just…it’s just gonna be hard to have a fifth mouth to feed.”
I nodded. “Ross needs you right now.”
She looked down the road. “Sounds like it.”
I’d seen this a thousand times before, with parents of both sexes. A family splits up, and they rush to mash a new one together, with his kids, her kids, and the kids they decided to have together.
“You might also consider having him stay with friends to finish high school,” I offered.
“Maybe.” She frowned. “That would look pretty shitty, though, wouldn’t it?”
“Doesn’t matter what things look like. What matters is what’s best for the kid. I would advise setting up some therapy for him regardless.”
“Mark really screwed the pooch this time, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he did.” He just wouldn’t know how much, not until I got his neck under my thumbs.
Ross returned from the house with a duffel bag and a backpack. He locked the front door, like a responsible kid.
“You got all your stuff, kiddo?” Yvette asked.
He grunted an affirmative and came out to the van, shoulders slumped in defeat. Gibby gave him a kiss on the back of the hand.
“Come on,” Yvette said. “Let’s get on the road. We should be able to get home in time for dinner.”
He chucked his things into the back of the van, then got in and stared sullenly out the window as I gave my card to Yvette. I surreptitiously slipped one of my cards into Ross’s bag. My personal cell phone number was scrawled on the back of each.
“If Mark contacts you, can you call me?”
“Will do.”
I watched as they pulled out onto the road and headed east, toward Pennsylvania.
I told myself this was the best thing. He’d be far away from Bayern County and its wrathful Rusalka.
But I still felt sad for him. His parents sucked. I could empathize, with his dad being a killer and his mom off creating a new family.
I sure hoped he would be okay.
I stood and waved like a cheerful little cop.
When they were out of sight, I approached the house. I reached under the doormat for the key Ross had left behind, and let myself inside.
I swept through the house, searching for any sign of Nick or Viv, and evidence of any crimes. The worst thing I saw was something green rotting in the fridge. I wasn’t gentle. I tossed the place like a burglar. Didn’t find anything.
I descended to the basement and surveyed the gas pipes.
Mark’s tools were well organized in a pretty red chest. I pulled the sleeve of my blouse down over my hand and picked up a pipe wrench. I loosened the fittings around the furnace pipe until I smelled gas.
I stared at the water heater. It was new, and it didn’t have a pilot light, just an electronic ignition. It would spark at some point soon.
Letting the basement fill with gas, I left the house. I locked the front door behind me, climbed in the SUV, and pulled out of the driveway.
I was going to send a message to Lister. I was going to burn everything he had down to the ground for fucking with me, hurting Monica, and taking Nick.
By the time I pulled out to the main road, the water heater must have cycled on, because a tremendous boom echoed behind me then.
I looked in my rearview mirror at the orange fireball in the sky.
My lips peeled back in a snarl. Gibby grinned at me from the passenger seat, his tongue lolling from his lips.
“Happy Fourth of July, asshole.”