Chapter Thirty-Two
Jack waited to leave the station, just in case there were folks willing to brave the receding floodwaters to come see fireworks. Thankfully, people used their brains and stayed home.
For the first time in a long time, he was feeling frisky.
Maybe it was because of the slightly cooler air, or maybe it was the fact that, after all this time, the crushing sense of dread he’d been feeling was beginning to lighten up.
Or maybe it was the simple fact that he’d enjoyed at least a dozen hard-ons during the day, just thinking about Caroline’s ass in his hands.
Whatever it was that was responsible for his mood, he didn’t fight it.
When his phone rang, he hoped it would be Caroline, so he could play hard to get for all of two full seconds before veering his car in the direction of the Aldridge estate. If nothing else, he could talk her into making out on their porch like they had when they were teenagers. His partner’s voice on the other end of the line had the effect of a finger-thump to his dick. “Hey, Jack.”
“What’s up, Don?”
Garrison seemed to trip over his words, uncertain how to say whatever it was he was trying to spit out of his mouth. Finally, he said, “Jack, listen . . . I know you just left, man . . . but you’ve gotta come back . . . now.”
A bad feeling settled in Jack’s gut at the bleak sound of his voice. “What is it, Don?”
“There’s . . . another body,” he said, but there was something about the way he partitioned the words that made Jack’s stomach wrench a little tighter.
He turned the car around immediately.
She felt like a criminal, hiding and checking over her shoulder repeatedly to see if anyone was following her. That annoyed Augusta, because she didn’t feel as though she was doing anything wrong.
She just had this feeling about Patterson.
However, she wasn’t stupid enough to meet him at his house. She chose a public place, the only place she really felt at home here—the Windjammer on the Isle of Palms. Although the new construction was nothing like the one-story building that had been there originally, with the volleyball nets tangled out back, it was still the one place she knew where she could escape the scent of mothball-permeated Confederate uniforms and the sweating crush of tourists, even if the one thing the ’Jammer saw in plenty during the summer was people.
Parking was ridiculous, especially in her mother’s boat of a car, but once she made it inside, she went straight for the bar, grabbed herself a beer and walked outside to watch the volleyballers and wait. It was ten-fifteen. He was late.
Once back at the station, nobody seemed inclined to tell him anything.
Apparently, they had already called in SLED—the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division—along with the sheriff ’s office, and now they were waiting for the chief to return from across the street, where it seemed he was hijacking Jack’s investigation. At this point, all Jack knew was that it was a woman they’d discovered and he knew the M.O. was similar to the Jones case, but that’s all they seemed inclined to reveal.
Finally, tired of the hemming and hawing, he grabbed Garrison and pulled him out the door, urging him toward the street, toward the park. “Who found her?” Jack demanded.
Garrison wouldn’t look at him. “Some kid and his dad.”
“Where are they now?”
“Inside. Waiting for an interview.” And then he added, “I’m real sorry, Jack.”
The knot in Jack’s stomach grew.
Caroline was the first person who popped into his mind. He hadn’t talked to her at all today and his stomach threatened to empty its contents right there in the street. They crossed into the park, where uniforms were already scouring the perimeter.
The fireworks stage sat on higher ground and the spotlights were still on, but no longer aimed at the equipment itself. Harsh light spilled across the half-submerged park, toward a twisted form by the water’s edge.
As Jack neared, he could begin to make her out, and the pit of his stomach turned violently.
The girl’s long wet blond locks pooled onto the ground around her face. Her body was completely bare, her naked breasts pointed skyward, feet and hands bound. Her body was draped, like a sacrifice over a boulder. He recognized the bags on her waterlogged hands as their own. They lay positioned on her chest in prayerful repose . . . like Amy Jones.
It wasn’t Caroline.
He felt vomit rise up into his throat.
He forced himself not to look away, to go straight to the body and look down on that face he had looked at a hundred times before. Only now her skin would be cold to the touch. She was pale and waterlogged and if he turned her over, postmortem lividity would have begun to stain her perfect white skin. Her mouth was covered with tape, but it was, beyond a shadow of doubt, Kelly Banks.
Her blue eyes stared up at him, unseeing. The whites of her eyes stained with broken vessels spinning veiny webs into her sockets.
He stared down at her a long moment and then walked away and did something he hadn’t done since the early days of his career. He puked in the bushes.