45. #2
Terrence realized that he had forgotten to ask Mitchell if he had any message for his grandfather. The attorney was upset
that Ruby was not there. He could see that Mitchell was looking for her. They had not known each other long, but it was a
connection. Mitchell looked as if this was the final disappointment, the final betrayal in a life that had gone awry.
The officers led Mitchell to the gurney. He was shaking even harder. Tears coated his cheeks. He didn’t want to die.
Frank Castle fiddled with his beer bottle.
“I didn’t know he would be there,” he said. “I stopped in that bar because I liked to do my hunting in Union City. A thousand
women could go missing down there and no one would care.” He chuckled, and it was a dry sound that went to her stomach. “Maybe
some of them did.”
“It was a coincidence?”
“Bad luck—for him. Sat next to him and we started talking.” He shook his head at the memory. “I didn’t want him to tell anyone
he had seen me.”
“Why would it matter?”
“He remembered me from Chinook. We used to talk, when we ran into each other. I didn’t want anyone to connect me with back
there. In case they ever found them.”
“The bodies.”
“Yeah.” He finished his beer. “They might start asking questions about the caretaker. I buried bodies there, you know. I’m
pretty sure they can’t track me down. I took my file when I left.”
Ruby didn’t mention the ledgers. He wouldn’t know that the matron had written his name there, too.
“And Betty?” she asked.
“Betty always did have bad luck. As soon as Mitchell turned down that road and kept going, I was wondering if he would stop
there. He was a fool. It worked out well for me.”
He smiled at her, victorious.
“The district attorney recognized your car from the video,” she said.
“He would have known it from around the courthouse. Once he talked to you, he knew better than to tell anyone. He asked you to put on your old uniform and take those exhibit boxes out the back door. In return, he signed off on the probate. So you could have this place. In Willa’s name. Your very own burial ground.”
There was no light in his eyes.
“You pretended to be an investigator to get Mitchell’s work file,” she added. “Just in case there was anything in there that
led back to Chinook. So they wouldn’t go there and ask questions.”
He said nothing.
“My mom tried to tell me about you when I was twelve,” she said. “I asked her if she loved you. When really I should have
asked if you loved her.”
His eyes were very dangerous now.
But then he smiled.
“You’re making one mistake,” he said.
“What is that?”
“You’re assuming they all died.”
Her heart fell out of her then—her soul dropped to the dirty floor. She felt that this was probably a trick, but a part of
her—in her heart—asked if it still might be true. She looked around her, wildly, and she heard a little girl’s baby voice
piping up inside her, all full of hope:
“She’s alive?”
He cocked his head, taking pleasure in this moment.
“Maybe. Maybe I didn’t kill them all.”
She thought her heart might stop from the stress. She glanced around her, looking in vain for a door that she knew didn’t
exist. If her mother was alive, she was not here. She had to be somewhere, but where?
“Tell me where she is. I promise—” She heard her voice crack.
He sat back, truly enjoying this.
“Promise what? You’ll let me go?” he asked. “Her life for mine?”
Ruby swallowed. Maybe you can get him to tell, her heart said. But she knew he would kill her before she could tell anyone what he had done. He was not going to let her
leave here alive.
Her dark eyes, so much like his, met his. Her lips opened.
“No,” she said.
He laughed. It was a real laugh, too. Without any warning, he moved. It was a deceptively leisurely move, born of long practice:
One moment he was sitting, beer bottle in hand, and the next he was standing over her.
Ruby jerked. She had not seen it coming—she should have, but what he had said had rattled her to her core. She jumped to her
feet, reaching for her gun, but somehow he had gotten there first. She felt a deep sense of shock, as if she had been asleep
without knowing it and was just now waking up. With astonishing, frightening ease, he grabbed her gun from her hand. He was
so much faster than she had expected. He swung his hand, still holding the empty bottle, over the back of her head, and she
felt as if a sledgehammer had hit her.
She blinked, stunned, and he clubbed her again, and again, and she felt herself falling to the dirty floor. Her last view
was the same one that others had seen. His horrible, grinning face.
Then she was unconscious. Her gun skittered across the floor like a small animal, and he kicked it into a corner. With a grunt,
he picked up her feet.
The officers strapped Mitchell to the gurney. The doctor came in, and without looking at Mitchell’s face, easily found a vein
and taped in the needle. Some of the men, addicts in a previous life, had collapsed veins, but this time the process went
faster.
The doctor left the chamber, and the warden entered.
He stood behind Mitchell, looking steadily through the glass at the people gathering.
When the moment came, he would open the valve, and the poisons would flow.
First a sedative would relax the inmate.
Then the chemicals would stop his heart.
It was painless. That’s what the prisons said, but how would they know?
It wasn’t like they tested it on themselves first.
Mitchell’s frightened eyes swept the room. He was still looking for the exonerator. He saw his attorney, and they locked eyes.
His teeth were chattering. The sound was loud in the death chamber.
The officers leaned over him, checking the restraints.
It hadn’t taken very long to get him ready—they were early. They had to wait for the clock to strike the hour. That was when
it would be legal to kill him.
Frank Castle dragged the unconscious woman past the abandoned car. She was out cold, her eyes closed. Her lips were parted,
as if she were dreaming. Her bloody head bumped over the ground.
Back in his house, her phone began ringing. It was in her bag, left on the floor. He stopped, listening to the sound.
Then he shrugged and kept dragging her toward the trees.
On the other end of the call, all the way in the Reed College lab in Portland, Oregon, Delaney Ford hung up. She was worried
about Ruby. She had a bad feeling about this case, and the funny part was that it seemed to be coming from the bone she had
finished testing—with a result that surprised her.
I called for you, the bone said.
Ruby was being dragged over the red clay soil, over the dead carcasses of the cicadas, which smelled like rotting cheese.
The back of her head hurt. Her hair snagged on roots.
Her eyelids fluttered. Someone was pulling her by her feet.
Who are you? she asked, deep in her mind.
Charise.
It’s you after all.
Yes. Look. We don’t got much time—
Where’s my mom?
I told you, we don’t got time for that right now. You can look for her later. Right now you need to save yourself, so you
can save my son. I worked on getting you here, and now you need to fight back. You need to save Mitchell.
Mom.
Ruby! Pay attention. But don’t open your eyes. Don’t let him know you’re awake.
I’m not awake.