The holding cell is actually warm, which is a small mercy, Scarlett thinks, staring up at the air vent lodged between the bars and the ceiling. A flap of white masking tape—or something like it—clings to one of the slats, undulating with the flow of air. She paced after she was first brought in but eventually took off her shoes and laid atop the bunk for hours, feet tucked into the blanket, which is army green and oddly, comfortingly soft and thick. The lights dimmed after what she guessed was 9:00 p.m., but there was never any chance of sleep.
The night passed something like a rumination within a dream, like a living nightmare.
Now, faint light at the door’s edge tells her night has passed.
She’s been waiting.
A bolt slides through a door at the other side of the room, its click echoing over the cell’s unforgiving surfaces. She slips her shoes back on as a man in a uniform appears—she’d seen him the day before—even in her delirium, she’d thought he looked too young to be a cop.
“Ma’am, if you’d like to make your phone call…”
“Okay,” she agrees, then waits patiently as the officer undoes the latch. She walks briskly to the office where the officer directs her for her call, which is empty aside from a standard office desk and chair.
“I’m going to give you space for your call. I won’t listen in, you have my word, but I’ll be able to see you the entire time, just so you know. Turn around, please,” he says, unlocking her handcuffs, then switching on the office light. “You have fifteen minutes. If you finish early, just signal me, and I’ll come back for you. There are cameras all around the building, and that glass is unbreakable, so no ideas about making a break for it. Dial nine to get out.”
“Sure thing,” she agrees, rubbing her wrists as she hurries inside. Through the window, icicles along the gutter have begun to glisten and drip water in the bright sun. The storm came in quickly and left just as fast.
The guard repeats his uncertain warnings about the allotted time and then disappears.
Scarlett draws a deep breath as Mark answers. She pictures his hair being wet and combed back as if he’s just showered, and flecks of snow clinging to the shoulders of his barn jacket. “My God, are you okay?” he asks. His tone is something like the father of a teenager who’s had a minor car accident.
“I’m…okay. Where’s Iris?” she asks.
Mark clears his throat. “In the hotel here with me. Do you have any idea how traumatic that must have been for her? Seeing her mother cuffed?”
She pictures Mark’s frown. Her lips pinch together.
He sighs heavily. “Look, I’m sorry, it’s obviously not your fault, none of this is. I’m just feeling protective at the moment. I have a call in to an attorney for a referral, I’ll make bail after I talk to him. I’m figuring this out as we go along. I don’t have any experience with these things.”
“Thank you. It’ll be okay.”
“I don’t know how you can be okay in this situation, but that’s you I guess.” He hesitates. “It’s something I’ve always loved about you.”
Scarlett swallows, her grip tight on the receiver.
“Look, is there anything you haven’t told me about what happened over the last few days? Anything at all about your relationships with those people? I’m not questioning you, but the lawyer may ask.”
“No,” she says. “Nothing. Where are you and Iris going now?”
“We have to go back to your apartment to get some of her things, clothes, and favorite toys. I called the station, I talked to every cop in Shepard, I think, before they stopped answering last night. The detective, Larson, called back. She insists on being present while I go inside to make sure I don’t tamper with evidence. I’m meeting her at your place in fifteen minutes.” She hears him shuffle his feet. “I don’t know what we’ll do if this thing drags on for a while. School will start back in a few days, and the other kids might talk. I don’t want her to have to live in the middle of this.”
Scarlett looks at the ground, the tip of his shoe nudging a small pebble.
She nods to herself. This thing.
“I love you, Scarlett. I’m sorry any of this happened, but especially this part. Hopefully there will be good news from the lawyer soon and the bail will go smoothly. I’m going to go by your apartment, then take Iris to breakfast. I’ll come there after I talk to the lawyer.”
Scarlett returns to her cell, and after a short time, low voices rumble in the hall, instructions delivered and acknowledged. The deputy again unlatches the door. “You have a visitor, ma’am,” he says uncertainly.
Scarlett is no lawyer, but she’s pretty sure her taking visitors at the moment is against the rules. But then, when was the last time anyone was arrested for murder in Shepard? Then transported to a holding cell and kept overnight at the tail end of a blizzard? Probably no one was brushed up on every protocol. The poor deputy was clearly doing his best.
Scarlett folds her hands expectantly. He’s here so soon, she thinks.
But it isn’t Mark who appears.
Britt’s hair is brushed back rather than molded into spikes, and she wears a gray sweater beneath her usual black jacket. She’s without makeup, which makes her look five years younger and unarmored.
She takes a small step forward as Britt strides toward the cell. Britt’s glare probably withered that deputy, Scarlett considers.
“The guy said I have ten minutes.”
“How did you…?”
“I’m persuasive. Look, I wanted to see you and hear what in the fuck happened,”
Britt’s brusqueness is an odd solace. “They came to my apartment and arrested me last night. The older cop, King, told me after I was booked that there’s evidence connecting me to both crimes. He said I should call a lawyer. Mark’s doing that, he said. So, I’m waiting to hear more. How did you know I was here?”
“I’m restless; I went for a walk and saw the detective’s truck in front of your apartment last night. I live two blocks away from you, remember?” Britt explains, glancing around.
Right, Scarlett remembers, Britt walks everywhere. Besides, it’s probably safer than driving at the moment.
Britt eyes the bars like she means to bend them. “This is bullshit, you didn’t kill anyone. Do you, I don’t know, need help with your kid or anything?”
A week earlier, Scarlett may have had to stifle a laugh, but now simply shakes her head. “She’s with her father. Thank you for believing I didn’t do it.” Her voice cracks but Britt waves away the emotion, then pulls a folding chair from the wall, turns it around, and sits.
“I don’t see how there’s more evidence connecting you to what happened than any of the rest of us.”
“I don’t either, but they must have something. I’m here.”
Britt’s brow furrows like the circumstances have given her a headache. “Look, none of us killed them. Veronica’s a supposed legal expert but seems too dumb to have carried it off. It’s a wonder she knew how to drive herself up from New Orleans. Robert loved Joe so much that he stuck up for him at every turn. Which leaves, you, me, and Chris. I know I didn’t do it. And you’re so pure it actually makes me sick, but you can’t help it so I don’t hold it against you. Remember last summer when that frog was trapped in the ladies’ room? You caught it and carried it outside. I would have smushed it, I should have smushed it, but you jumped in and saved its little ass. You’re no murderer.”
“And Chris?”
“Chris, I’ve known practically my whole life. I’ve talked to him every day for the last fifteen years. We grew up in the same town, I’ve met his family, and he’s met mine. I’ve cleaned up after his parties; we’ve spent holidays together. Remember what Joe said about assessments? They’re just efficient ways of finding information that you’d come to over time? When you know someone from the beginning, they teach you what they’re capable of and what they’re not.”
Scarlett nods. She’s always liked that idea about assessments too.
Britt hesitates. “But there’s something I haven’t told you.”
Larson pulls in to a parking space beside Mark’s BMW X5, the drive to Scarlett’s apartment having become all too familiar. He’d insisted on going back into the apartment. Just standing by as he gathered a few of Iris’s things seemed reasonable in her guilty frame of mind. At least the roads are slightly clearer now, she thinks, occasional patches of wet asphalt peeking through the ice. She pictures King’s friend running one of the few plows through the night, imagining the amount of coffee it must have taken to keep on. Another two days, and regular vehicles might be driving again in this town.
Overhead, the sky has turned bright and expansive. It would be a beautiful day to be off, she considers, maybe sitting with a book in her living room beside Oscar. Instead, she’s back to work, the truck’s shocks squeaking as she shifts into park. King was right, an investigation like this is a marathon.
Mark opens the SUV’s rear door, then leans inside. After a second, he returns to the driver’s side door and restarts the engine. “She doesn’t want to come in, and I have to say I don’t blame her,” he explains. “She doesn’t want to revisit the scene from last night.”
Larson glances back once to see if she can lock eyes with the girl but sees nothing through the BMW’s dark tint.
“I know better than to leave a kid in a hot car in the summer, but this will only take a minute,” he says, seemingly to himself as his phone begins to chime. Mark looks at the number, then flashes his index finger as he begins backing toward the sidewalk. He leans over. “Would you mind if I take this? It’s the attorney.”
“Go ahead, no rush,” she says, imagining the level of recalibration that must be happening in the three of their lives. She leans to the SUV’s rear window, visoring her eyes, and makes out a small hand waving inside. Larson opens the door and finds Iris buckled into the seat. “Good morning,” she says, rubbing her hands over her arms as a warm burst of air escapes the interior. “I might sit beside you while your dad takes that call. Would that be okay?”
Iris nods. Larson climbs in and closes the door, the interior cave–like from the deep window tint and textured with the smell of vehicle leather and shampoo. The floorboards and seats are generally tidy—certainly more well–kept than Larson’s beat–up truck—but Larson moves a plastic grocery bag to the center of the back seat. Inside are a few small items and a crumbled receipt. “You guys went to the store this morning?” she asks, making conversation. Over Iris’s shoulder, Larson spots Mark pacing the sidewalk, his lips moving quickly, phone pressed against his cheek.
“My dad had to get contact solution,” Iris says.
“That makes sense. It’s good to have.”
The girl nods and gestures toward the left side of her face. “He only wears one though, on this side.” Iris’s tone is calm, like she’s describing an imaginary friend. “Because he has Annie in his eye.”
Larson’s head swivels around. The hair on the back of her neck has stood up. “What did you say?”
Iris shrugs. “He gets tired of people asking about it though, so he wears a contact lens on just that side.”
“Who’s Annie?” Larson asks, masking her urgency.
“That’s just what he calls her. She hides in his eye. One eye is different than the other.”
Sweat forms on Larson’s cold palms. “Hang on, okay? I have to talk to someone.” She finds her phone and calls King’s number. When the voicemail comes on, she sends a text. Patrick, send someone to Scarlett Simmons’s apartment now.
“Did I say something wrong?” Iris asks.
“No, no, you’re okay,” she says. “How long have you known about Annie?”
When Larson looks up, Mark has stopped pacing.
He is looking right at them.
“The night Elizabeth was killed,” Britt says, “I heard her talking with someone in the hallway; then she went back in her office for a few minutes before going to Joe’s office. The next morning, I saw the police cruiser outside. I heard a deputy by the front stairs was saying Elizabeth’s name into a radio, so I went around the back stairs, then took the elevator to our floor. I managed to get into her office before they saw me, and opened her computer.”
“You didn’t tell the police this?”
“I don’t trust the police, you Girl Scout… I trust Chris. And…mostly, you and Robert. Mostly. After, Detective Larson saw me in the hall and I had to play dumb like I’d just come into my own office from outside…”
“How did you…?”
“Listen, because Elizabeth had never logged out. I looked at her sent email folder and there were just messages to our group. Then I checked to see the last things she looked up. Her last two search terms were Joe’s old firm with Jason Gates, Gates–Lyons Assessment, and a medical term. Anisocoria. Do either of those mean anything to you?”
Scarlett had never before felt her blood turn cold.
Grew up in the same town.
Met his family.
…teach you what they’re capable of and what they’re not…
Scarlett’s head begins to shake back and forth, “That can’t be right.”
The door at the far end of the room clatters again, and King steps through. Behind him is the deputy who’d let Britt in, his shoulders slumped. “Ma’am, you’re not supposed to be in here. I’m going to need you to leave immediately.”
“I need to make a phone call right now,” Scarlett calls out.
“We can discuss that after your visitor leaves. You’ve taken your call this morning.”
Scarlett’s eyes shift back to Britt. “How fast can you get to my apartment?”
“I walked here, and the roads are shit. It’s on the other side of Shepard. Why?”
“Ma’am,” King says again, his tone sterner than before.
Scarlett’s cheeks press against the bars like she means to push through. “Listen,” she tells Britt. “Call Robert. Tell him to go to my place as fast as he can, tell him to not let Iris out of his sight.”
Britt nods as King approaches, reaching for her arm. She ducks his grasp and turns toward the hall, her phone already lit up in her hand.
King pulls the door open so Britt can pass, then closes it firmly, following her toward the lobby. Their footsteps echo in the enclosed space. “Young lady, I could place you under arrest right this second,” he says.
The hallway is narrow, and the glass doors at the entrance are rectangles of white light.
“Shut up and listen,” Britt tells him. “Find Doctor Jason Gates in Charlotte. Joe Lyons’s old partner. Now. Ask him what he knows about a patient with anisocoria.”
King’s eyes widen from the urgency in Britt’s voice. “What’s…?”
“The medical condition anisocoria. Go now, run!”
Britt bolts from the station lobby into the snow while King repeats the name and diagnosis to himself and scrambles down the hall.
Britt Martinez gives King the willies. But she’s obviously an accomplished researcher, and the urgency in her voice sent a chill up his spine. Any other day, he wouldn’t take directions from a recent suspect, but Jason Gates had shown up in Lyons’s background check and nothing about the case has fully added up so far.
Scarlett Simmons doesn’t fit the profile of a killer, and her eyes had flashed genuine surprise when she understood she was a suspect.
He’s long considered his ability to read people a strength. Maybe all cops do.
But first impressions can lie.
His chair creaks as he logs on to his computer and navigates to the listing for a consulting firm Britt had called out. He finds the number easily, glances at the time, and calls.
One ring, then an answer. “Hello?”
“This is Officer King from the Dorrance University Police Department calling as part of an investigation. I’m trying to reach Doctor Jason Gates.”
“This is Gates.” It sounds like the man is around King’s age. King hears him mutter to someone nearby, then a click. “I used to work in Winston–Salem with Dr. Joe Lyons in a practice that specialized in forensic assessment, and at times, his consultant. I saw the news this morning, it comes as a shock. What can I do for you?”
King rocks forward in his chair. “The investigation is ongoing and we may have some questions for you in the coming days, but for right now, I was hoping you could tell me about a patient who might have suffered from a condition called, and I hope I’m pronouncing this right, anisocoria.”
“Just a second, let me get to my computer.”
King hears a door close and shuffling sounds in the background. “Unlike Joe, I computerized our old records. The law says you have to keep them seven years post contact. Detective, there are confidentiality concerns about disclosing information on patients, I…”
“With all due respect, Doctor, Lyons was murdered. Whoever killed him may be at large, and I’m trying to keep this community safe. Take me to court later.”
“Understood.” Keystrokes are audible in the background. “Searching using that keyword through all our files.”
A pause.
“Here. Oh, I see. It was a divorce case about four years ago, a young couple, one child. Joe was called in to do an evaluation. There aren’t many reasons psychologists get sued, but one is evaluations involving child custody. Parents don’t like their rights being taken away. They look for someone to blame, so Joe dotted his i’s and crossed his t’s. He…interviewed the father and gave him a number of tests. When the results came back inconsistent, he apparently got concerned; it can happen if a patient is misleading. There are a number of notes. Yes, there’s a note about a patient’s eye condition called anisocoria, where the pupils are different sizes. Quite uncommon, often the result of trauma to the eye. Joe dug into the patient’s past, very deep, for any records related to his history. Initially, he couldn’t find much.”
King looks at the time. He’s been on the call for three minutes.
“It looks like Joe eventually traced the husband’s records back to a boarding school where he went years earlier, then connected those records to a forensic report from a…”
King hears keys tapping.
“…a Simon Martin in Gainesville, Florida. It was a murder case. It turned out the husband had dropped part of his name and the wife didn’t know his full history. Joe was legally obligated to keep the material confidential, except for the patient and his attorney, who he obviously disclosed it to. After that, the husband dropped the case and settled, knowing he’d been found and that his past would come out if he pushed it and he would lose the case.”
“And the patient’s name?”
“Things don’t always seem dangerous at the time, you know. You work with a lot of people, start forgetting there are real monsters in the world..”
“I need a name, Doctor.”
Another pause.
“The patient’s name is Mark Simmons. The wife was a Scarlett Simmons.”
King drops the receiver and runs.
Mark pockets his phone as he circles the back of the SUV and lingers at the base of the stairs. “Ready, detective.”
Larson turns to Iris. “I want you to do me a favor, okay? Just stay here in the car. If more officers like me arrive, let them know I’m upstairs?”
Iris nods.
The stairs creak as Larson follows Mark up to the apartment, dialing and redialing King’s number. What are the chances “Annie” means something more than a figment of a kid’s imagination?
Mark opens the door and pushes inside. All the lights are off, and the apartment is eerily still—abandoned, like a place in some zombie film where humans haven’t lived in weeks.
“I’ll go in Iris’s room now, okay?”
Larson nods, staying beside the door. She hears the shush sound of a wooden drawer opening, then Mark’s voice. “We didn’t have any wherewithal to pack anything last night; Iris was beside herself, wearing the same clothes since yesterday. And I’m always so silly about winter clothes. They seem so cumbersome, still.”
Larson examines a photo of Iris hung in the hallway. She’s beside a lighthouse on a beach, smiling toothlessly as she shields her eyes from the sun. “Still?”
There’s a slight pause. “I grew up in Florida.”
In the bedroom, a drawer slams closed.
Larson jumps as it does, her conversation with Robert from the day before reentering her mind. What were those steps that he’d told her?
Don’t rely on body language or eye contact.
Check. She can hardly see Mark directly from the angle she’s observing him.
Be nice, Robert had said. Nice works. Don’t challenge or push too fast.
Larson hears the rolling sound of the closet opening, then the slipping sound of plastic on metal as Mark sorts through the hung clothes.
She tries King’s number again, but it goes to voicemail like before. “I’m jealous,” she says. “You must’ve gone to the beach all the time.”
“People say that but not as much as you’d expect. Just daily life like anywhere else, going to school, playing sports. My dad worked in a downtown office. The beach was mostly tourists.”
“I get that,” Larson says. “People just idealize where they vacation.”
“Maybe, yeah.”
Be strategic with evidence.
“You met Ms. Simmons in Florida?”
“No, I met her up here. I had a job in medical sales, and she was doing intakes at a psych clinic. I guess she always knew she wanted to be in the field.” The closet door closes with a click. His voice is so calm, so casual, almost as though he forgot he was irritable a moment earlier. A second later, Mark emerges from the bedroom and passes Larson in the hall. “I’m going to grab a few of her bathroom things, a toothbrush.”
Larson nods. “Sure.”
“I haven’t lived with her for a few years, and you didn’t ask for my two cents, but I really don’t think she did anything like what you guys suspect.” His voice echoes off the tile and glass. “She’s always been a little competitive but not…vindictive.”
A drawer slides open.
“How often do you get to visit up here?”
“About once a month.” The drawer closes.
The same amount of time the security camera on the side of Hull Hall has been disabled. Mark knew neither one of the victims, but he’s had access to this apartment the whole time. She rests her hand on her gun as Mark appears in the hallway, more quickly than she’d counted on, grinning at her. Can he see the change in her eyes? She can’t tell. She’s never been much of a deceiver, always straight–up. What people see is what they get.
“Ready?” he asks.
Her pulse pounds in her throat. What she wants is to be behind him now, so she steps into the living room.
Mark senses she hasn’t moved. He’s almost to the door when he stops.
Ask the unanticipated question, then watch them think.
They lock eyes.
Sociopaths actually show more eye contact.
Larson clears her throat. “How many janitor uniforms did you have to try on before you found one that fit?”
He springs at her fast, like he’d anticipated the challenge, wrapping his arms around her legs and driving her backward into the sliding door. When her head slams into the glass, the crack so loud, it sounds it feels like it originates inside her skull. Larson’s hand is on her gun, but Mark grips her wrist, knocking it free. Two quick punches to her temple stun her, her vision blurring as she tries to stand, his forearm bearing down on her throat.
Everything spins.
The little girl is in his back seat, she thinks. King’s the only one who knows where they are, and he’s at the station. Concepts dissolve into fragments in Larson’s mind, then begin falling, falling. He’s turned her over, his elbow now around her throat as he drags her down the hall into the bathroom.
Larson looks up at him as her feet kick wildly, searching for leverage. His mouth shows the strain of pulling, but the calm in his eyes deepens.
From this distance she can make out the faint line of his contact lens.
He’s fooled everyone. Including Scarlett, Larson realizes.
Another punch to Larson’s head makes half her vision go momentarily black. White–hot pain shoots across her forehead before his arm loops under her legs; he lifts her, and for the first time she understands how physically powerful he is. The side of her shoe catches on the wall, but he knocks her leg down. She drops for an instant, then her head slams again into something hard and ungiving. Her legs and her back hit it, too, her hand sliding across something wet and moisture rising through her clothes.
He’s dropped her into the bathtub. Larson partly recognizes a subtle scent around her, something sharp and floral. She tries turning onto her side but his hand is firm on her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says, his breathing slightly labored. “I didn’t want any of this for you. It’s nothing personal. You’d already arrested her. You could have let this go.”
Larson opens her mouth but words don’t come out. What Mark must have done flashes through her mind: killed Joe Lyons and let Scarlett take the blame.
Wanted Scarlett to take the blame.
Had Elizabeth known?
He leans so close, Larson can smell the citrus of his aftershave. After all her training and experience, she knew officers got killed on duty. She’d read the stories, overheard them discussed at the station. Once, she went to a fellow officer’s funeral. But it never occurred to her that her life would end this way.
Mark pulls a knife from his pocket.
She’s seen in the last four days what he can do with one.
He presses it to her throat.
Then, he stops.
Through blurry vision she watches his head jerk up.
He’s heard something.
She hears it too.
A car door closing, then a little girl’s voice.
Then, another car door closing.
Mark pushes away, and she can feel his footsteps through the floor.
They’re here, she thinks. King is here, just in time. He’s called others. He has a gun trained on Mark Simmons right now. She tries again to stand, but her right wrist screams with searing pain—something structural happened inside it when he knocked the gun away. It won’t take an X–ray to show it’s broken; through her left eye, she can see it’s bent unnaturally. Larson draws a deep breath and raises her left arm, her hand slipping along the side of the tub as she attempts a grip to pull herself upright.
She wants to get in front of Iris, to protect her; no kid should see what’s likely about to happen.
Outside, an engine revs.
Then, footsteps quickly approach. Mark is above her, breathing more heavily, his eyes wide. “Going, going, going…” He’s panicked, talking to himself, she realizes. “Don’t go any…” His gaze darts around the room before landing on her belt. He yanks the handcuffs off with such force that her torso jerks upward. He takes hold of her wrist and pulls it upward, adrenaline resharpening her consciousness.
She yells out from the pain, a scream that echoes around the small space. Then she hears two quick metallic zips and understands in a flash what he’s done: handcuffed her to the rounded ceramic bar above the soap dish in the wall.
Her shoulder is on fire as she pulls against the tightness of the cuff, her hand and forearm already purple from the fracture.
“Mark, think,” Larson manages to say. “This can end okay. Your daughter…”
But Mark opens the knife and runs it down Larson’s forearm, wrist to elbow. Pain erupts from her arm before her sleeve turns crimson.
She’s too shocked to scream.
Or move her legs.
Her right side turns warm as Mark closes the knife. “That’s it. Just close your eyes, and you won’t hurt. I’ll have to come back here.”
He means come back for my body, Larson thinks as his footfalls rattle the back of her skull. She turns her arm to better see the cut: half an inch deep and seven inches long. From the color of the blood, it’s clear he’s at least nicked an artery. Larson’s training in acute care makes her all too aware of how much time she has before passing out: less than fifteen minutes.
That’s why he wanted you in the bathtub: there’s a record of him coming here, and this will be easier to clean up.
She hears the front door slam and the double whoop of his SUV unlocking as he starts after whoever just took his daughter.
Britt’s call twenty minutes earlier had been unexpected to say the least.
Right away, a tingle of adrenaline had surged through his body. She sounded uncharacteristically frantic. “Scarlett needs your help, she’s in jail.”
He was still in bed but sat up and put his feet on the floor. What she was saying made no sense, the sequence seemed as realistic as a worrisome dream. “I’m sorry, slow down. She’s where?”
“Listen to me very carefully,” she’d said in a forceful whisper. “It’s Mark, he did it. And you have to get to Scarlett’s apartment, he’s there with the kid.”
Robert stifled his questions, the realization rushing over him while he listened as Britt walked through the sequence of events, lining up the pieces. His heart had began pounding and his apartment suddenly felt like a cage. He had walked to the living room for a look at the road. He hadn’t planned on going anywhere for the next day, at least. “So, we’ll tell the police. You’re already there, just tell them. Right now.”
“That’s the plan, lieutenant, but will you just go and try to help keep the kid safe until they get there? Just watch the husband’s car, follow him if they leave her place.”
Robert was already slipping on a sweatshirt, eyeing his Nikes by the door. “I’m on it,” he’d said.
He trots down the icy stairs, his heels slipping twice, before catching himself on the frozen handrail. He’d had no time to find socks or proper clothing for the cold, and the snow chills his ankles with each step. Every window in the apartment complex is dark—emergency aside, a routine fall would be dangerous right now. There’d be no one nearby to help.
At the bottom of the stairwell, Robert pats his jeans pockets, his stomach sinking with the realization he’d left his phone upstairs. He estimates the time it might take to get back up and down, then remembers Britt urging him to hurry. If Mark left before he got to Scarlett’s apartment and didn’t go to his hotel like he’d told Scarlett, he could slip away.
With Iris.
His Honda Civic is so snow covered, the make and model were indiscernible. A blurry flash of yellow lights peeks through as he unlocks it. He scoops snow from the windshield with cupped bare hands, his fingers numbing. Inside, he blasts the heat, praying it will melt the ice coating covering the windshield as he speeds down the empty streets.
When he’d met Mark several days earlier, had Mark recognized a counterpart in duplicity? Robert hadn’t—nothing about Mark had seemed off at all. Maybe they were like two mirrors then, reflecting the other’s reflection until their images vanished from sight.
He rolls down his window and squints into the rushing wind, his grip clawlike around the steering wheel. He hits a curb so hard, he’s sure his front rim and bumper are dented, but there’s no time to stop and check. Fifty feet from Scarlett’s place, he cuts the engine and slides to a stop. Two vehicles are visible beside Scarlett’s apartment: Larson’s Tacoma truck and the SUV he’d seen Mark driving in the preceding days, thin wisps of vapor rising from its tailpipe. Through the back window of the SUV, he can make out the clear shape of Iris’s head.
Had Mark left her inside? It was plausible.
When Robert looks up at the apartment windows, he sees Mark’s expression blacken just as he lunges toward Larson.
Larson’s hand flashes upward, slamming against Mark’s jaw. Her blue uniform smashes against the glass door so thunderously, clumps of snow drop from the porch railing.
Robert bolts toward the stairs, thrusting his hand into his pocket to call for help.
He stops.
He’s left his phone.
“Fuck!” he says out loud, his head swiveling toward the SUV. His stomach is sick from being pulled in opposite directions, and he wants badly to get his hands around Mark’s neck.
Even if Mark outweighs him by thirty pounds.
No, the best chance to help both Larson and Iris is to call 911 as quickly as possible. Larson is trained and armed.
And surely she’s already called for backup.
He looks back at Iris’s profile in the SUV; she hasn’t moved. His Nikes crunch through the snow. He needs to get Iris away from this and out of harm’s way. Her mouth falls open when he flings open the SUV’s door. “What are you doing here?”
“Come on. Your…mom wanted me to give you a ride to campus.”
“Really?”
He glances over his shoulder. “Yes, really. I’m helping her out, so let’s move.”
Never mind that he’s essentially kidnapping Iris, he thinks, luring her like some kind of predator as she undoes the car seat straps and follows him through the snow.
“Is my dad…?”
“Your dad…may be a minute.” Robert hurries her into the Honda, then starts away. The Civic’s tires slip on the first turn, the car sliding like a hockey puck down a small hill before regaining traction at the bottom.
“Does this car work in the snow?”
Only then does Robert realize he should have just taken Mark’s BMW. He hits the windshield wipers, which scrape at the snow that’s blown off the hood. “We’re about to find out. It’s an experiment. Fasten your seatbelt.”
He catches her rolling her eyes.
Iris has been in Robert’s car countless times but has never ridden up front. “It’s okay for me to sit up here?”
They turn at the first light, following their usual weekday morning route straight down University Drive. He glances in the review mirror. “You know, just for today I don’t think anyone will mind.”
She nods, apparently satisfied. “Where…are we going?”
“The police station on campus, where everything is going to get sorted out.”
They drift down another hill, then climb until they crest another. The tires have zero grip as Robert feathers the brake the way he saw in a video once online, which works temporarily, until they round a turn more sharply than he’d expected and connect with a curb. He and Iris both jolt forward against their seat belts. “Sorry. Hold on.”
Robert steps on the gas and they lurch forward before stopping again. The car sinks backward as if it’s being pulled. He grits his teeth and revs the engine, shifting back and forth between neutral and drive a few times. In front of them is a brick sign marking a side entrance onto campus, but they’re going no further.
Robert slams his palm against the steering wheel.
Outside, everything around them is still and winter quiet.
“I think we’re stuck,” Iris says.
The door across from Scarlett’s cell unlocks again, and King strides forward holding his phone.
“What’s happening?” she asks. “Where are Mark and Iris?”
There had always been something missing, she’d realized, Mark’s full past. His parents had been killed in a car accident when he was in high school—she knew that was true, she’d visited their graves—and that he’d attended boarding school afterward. She had such a big family that she hadn’t asked many questions about holidays or occasions; obligations were already too numerous. And he was such a devoted father.
“I missed three calls from Officer Larson in the last ten minutes. I need you to tell me as much as you can about Mark Simmons”—the cell door clangs open—“on our way to find them. Come on.”
Concentrating is harder with each passing second.
The edge of Larson’s vision blurs, the soles of her shoes slipping on the tub’s base as she pushes herself back, extending her legs so she can sit upright. The handcuffs’ only benefit is elevating her arm, which might buy her another few minutes of consciousness.
At best.
Her time is dissolving.
She tugs the cuff to test the sturdiness of the shower handle and grits her teeth as pain shoots into her ribs. It won’t budge. Already, her wrist has swollen into the metal band. She raises her knee to support her arm, then presses her forehead against the cut. Her eyes dart around, scanning for something solid that she might knock into the handle, but there’s no such object nearby. And even if there were, there’s isn’t enough time to start chipping her way out.
Blood pools beneath her on the porcelain. She gives her head a shake to stay alert as she raises her forehead long enough to inspect the handcuff itself. If the son of a bitch hadn’t taken her keys, she’d be able to spring the lock in half a second.
Her pulse slows as she lowers her head to rest against her arm. And as it does, the chain around her neck rolls forward, her mother’s hairpin charm knocking against her chest.
It’s long and thin, the gemstone at the base sparkling in the bathroom light.
Larson draws a deep breath, then rips it off her neck.
The thought flashes in an instant: he should have bought the Subaru when he moved to North Carolina. But no, the Honda was marginally sportier and a few thousand dollars less, and he’d needed money for clothes and groceries. At the time, he’d glanced at the weather stats and decided that he could live with a few inconvenient snowy days each year.
Who anticipates a once–in–a–decade blizzard arriving at precisely the wrong time?
Not him.
Robert steps on the Honda’s gas again and the rear tires whirl once more. He shifts into reverse and the same thing happens, except in the opposite direction.
“Shit,” he says.
“You can’t curse,” Iris tells him.
Robert glances at her. There is no doubt this is Scarlett’s child. “Iris, if there’s ever a time it’s acceptable, it’s right now.” He looks over his shoulder at the wintry roads extending in all directions. What does anyone do in these situations besides wait for the snow to thaw?
“Should we get out and push?”
“I’m considering that.”
“You talk funny, like I’m a grown–up.”
“Because I’m nervous and trying to act like everything’s okay.”
“Because of what’s happening with my mom and dad?”
“Sure.” There’s no way to form an appropriate response. “Look, I don’t want you to be upset so I’m acting like I have everything figured out.”
“Uh–huh,” she says.
“Is that sarcasm?”
Iris folds her arms as Robert hits the gas once more, digging the car in deeper. “It’s not about to start working now,” she says.
“I’m getting that straight now, yeah.”
“We have to wedge something under one of the tires like my mom did last year; you didn’t know how to do that?”
“I’m from LA.” He cranes his neck to look over the steering wheel. They’re a hundred feet from the main library, but directly on the other side of campus from the police station. Easily a three–quarter–mile walk.
It would have to work.
He glances down at Iris’s snow boots, then at his own pale ankles. “You’re about to take a very unique tour of campus. Come on.”
Just as they climb out of the car, Robert hears the engine of an approaching vehicle.
The world is white except for Britt’s obsidian shape and raven hair as she strides through the snow. The soles of her boots dig into the ice as she ends her call with Robert, then dials another number.
Chris answers immediately.
“Where are you right now?” she asks.
Larson’s breath comes in shallow waves.
The last time she picked a lock, she was thirteen years old, stuck outside of her mom’s motel room in Baton Rouge. Her set had ended, but her mom had “gone for a drive” and likely wouldn’t be back for a few hours. Only upon returning to the room did Alana realize she’d forgotten to take a key, and there was no way she was going to sit in a sketchy hallway until God knew when. So she got creative with a piece of bent wire for the better part of an hour before eventually opening the door.
She has a sliver of that time now.
How much time has passed since Mark left? What had happened was clear enough—Larson had heard the girl’s voice clearly—but she had no clue who’d taken her. As far as she knew, Scarlett Simmons was in a holding cell. If that had changed, King would be helping her right now. But no one’s here.
Her right eye has nearly swollen shut, and her left stings from sweat as she wipes her sleeve over it. Based on the soft edges around her field of vision, she estimates she has a few minutes before losing consciousness. Sometime after that, she’ll likely bleed out.
She bends the charm into an L shape and works it into the tiny hole. From there, she turns it sideways until she can feel the edge of the latch and nudges it until she hears a minuscule click. She concentrates on the edge of the charm, gripping it with her nails, pushing it slightly further inside, then rotating it clockwise.
Make a wish, she thinks.
The cuff makes a pop sound as it opens, too delicate and tinny for an event so consequential. Her head slips back against the bathtub’s lip for a single instant before she scrambles to get her feet under her, the adrenaline surge from getting free having stopped her head from spinning temporarily.
If she can slow the hemorrhaging from her arm, she may have a shot.
Her shoes slip along the old tile as she makes her way to the sink, then she wrenches on the sink faucet and jams her arm underneath. The tap water comes out winter cold, Larson’s breath hisses through her teeth as the pressure stings the wound. She maintains the flow of water despite the pain, her left hand flinging open the medicine cabinet, where her eyes land on a needful object: medical tape. In the adjoining bedroom, she flings open Scarlett’s chest of drawers, rips out a T–shirt, and winds the medical tape around and around.
Her head pounds as she makes her way to the front door, pausing to pluck her phone from the living room carpet. She calls King while tromping down the stairs to her truck.
He answers on the first ring. “Alana, listen…”
She cuts him off. “It’s Mark Simmons. He’s free. Somebody took the girl and he followed them.” She turns the key and the engine growls. Larson looks over her shoulder as she reverses, tires digging through the lot’s tire–marked snow. Her eyes begin to follow two sets of tracks down the road.
“Where are you? Are you hurt? I’m calling an ambulance.”
She should not be driving—she knows this—but an ambulance from Shepard General could take fifteen minutes to arrive. And the bleeding is mostly stopped. Slowed, at least. She gives her head another wake–up shake. A corny line from one of her mom’s favorite action movies from the ’80s occurs to her so suddenly, she almost says it aloud to King: I don’t have time to bleed.
“They headed toward the college,” she says, popping the truck into drive.