When it was over, when the big dogs came in to somehow make it look like they had engineered it all this way—that it was their cunning plan to have a showdown and not Jared Barnes’s—Annalisa had nowhere left to go. They’d bandaged her arm in the ambulance and taken her back to base, where she spent the next twenty-four hours answering questions and sleeping in one of the bunks behind the break room. Now she was free, and she didn’t want cameras or kudos. She had seen Barnes’s face at the moment of his defeat, and this would sustain her through whatever hard questions were left to come. She couldn’t imagine returning to her condo, where he had laid out the ropes for her and then moved on to Amy Yakamoto. She didn’t want to go to the hotel and face Colin and whatever emotions he would be having at the moment. She could barely hold in her own feelings right now. She sat in her car outside the precinct and considered going home to her childhood bed. Even this seemed impossible, given what she now knew about Pops and Katie Duffy.
Her phone buzzed, and she about jumped out of her skin. When she saw the text was from Nick, she smiled, although her face cracked with fatigue. CNN tells me you are a hero, he wrote. MSNBC says the governor wants to host you for dinner. You are blowing up on Twitter. I hope you’re going to remember the little people, Vega.
She wrote back: New phone. Who dis?
Stop that, he wrote. It hurts when I laugh.
You going to be okay?
I’m a miracle of modern medicine. But I’m laid up here for a week more, at least. Missing all the action. The little dots danced for a long time as he composed his next message. I’ll be here if you want to talk.
Tears stung her eyes as she read the words. Finally, somewhere she could go where she wouldn’t have to play pretend for anyone. I’ll be right over.
She found he had been moved from the ICU to a regular room, one with white walls—a blank slate. He was sitting propped up in bed while a health aide gave him a shave. “Aw, hell,” he said when he saw her. “I was trying to look all pretty for you.”
“You look great to me,” she told him truthfully. He was pale, his hair lank, and he’d dropped weight, but he was alive. As far as she was concerned, he’d never looked better.
“I’m wearing the blue gown,” he said, smoothing a hand over it. “Lauren here says it brings out my hematomas.”
Lauren rolled her eyes and wiped the last of the shaving cream from his face. “You’ve gotta watch this one. He’s a charmer.”
“I’ve seen his bag of tricks.”
Lauren gathered her things and left the room. Nick extended his arm to Annalisa and waggled his fingers at her. “You look like hell,” he said. “Come over here.”
“I’m not the one in the hospital bed,” she answered, but she did as he asked. She put her hand in his and he squeezed her with surprising strength. She squeezed back. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispered.
“Same,” he said. “You want to pull up a chair and tell me about it?”
She drew a shuddering breath as emotion threatened to overtake her again. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
Nick patted the bed next to him. “Start right here.”
She perched on the edge of the bed and in a halting voice told him about the killer’s phone calls, about finding Amy Yakamoto dead on her floor, and about finding him almost dead inside his car. “You nearly got killed trying to keep me safe,” she said, looking down at her hands.
“You’re my partner.” He nudged her. “I was doing my job. I’m just sorry I couldn’t clue you in sooner.”
“You said shoes. I realized eventually what you meant.”
“I couldn’t make my brain come up with his name. I only remembered the odd thing that stuck in my head when we searched his place. Why were all his shoes so worn out and dirty?”
“Because he’d been running around killing people,” she said dryly.
“The wheelchair sure made a nice cover. Did he ever really need it?”
“It seems so. The medical records back up his story that he got into a bike accident about six months after Katie Duffy’s murder. I guess we know now why he took such a long break.”
“Yeah, but why did he start in the first place?”
She bowed her head. “We can’t very well ask him that now, can we?” Jared Barnes had been dead on the scene with a fractured skull and shattered spine. “It would’ve been better to take him alive.”
“Screw that. It was him or you, and that’s no choice at all. Besides, the guy had been lying to everyone for years about who and what he was. I don’t believe he’d suddenly open up and explain why he’d decided to murder a bunch of people. Go look at interviews with other serial offenders. I have. You know what the honest ones say? They just like watching people die. It gets them off, that life-or-death control over another human being. I’m not sure there’s ever going to be a satisfying answer for that.”
She tried to smile for him. “You always were such a sweet talker.”
He took her hand again. “He finally messed with the wrong woman.”
“Not me,” she said, withdrawing from him. “Grace Harper. Ten to one they’re going to find Jared Barnes’s name among the old utility crews. Grace knew it, and he killed her before she could say anything.”
“I keep thinking about her wall with all those gruesome pictures on it. He could have taken them too, and then we’d never have known about her theory. He stole the laptop. Why not take the murder room with him? He had all the time in the world.”
She could visualize the room as he’d left it—all his victims laid out, the map of the murders, the large-font headlines screaming his nickname. “Because it was a monument to him.”
“Ego,” he said with a chuff. “I guess it gets us all in the end.”
“Not you.” She said, finding a smile for real. She poked him gently at the hip. “At least not yet.”
He caught her hand and held it. “When I get out of here, maybe you’ll let me take you to dinner.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. “Hold that thought,” she said, squeezing him before taking out the phone to look at the text. It was Colin. When are you coming home? He meant the hotel, and her heart swelled, looking at the words. He’d been home to her once, and maybe could be again. She had enough hope that she texted back. Soon.
“About that dinner,” she said as she put her phone away. “If it’s a partnership celebration, I’m all in.”
“Oh.” His face fell and he cleared his throat. “Just for work, then.”
“We tried the other kind of dinner before,” she said gently. “Seems I recall it didn’t work out so well in the end.”
“I guess it depends,” he countered.
“Depends on what?”
His smile returned. “On whether or not you consider this the end.”
When she returned to the hotel, the guards were gone, and she lingered in the silent hallway for a few moments before knocking softly on the door. Colin whipped it open immediately and grabbed her in his arms. “Anna. Thank God.” They held each other and he cradled her head with his hand. She relaxed for the first time in forever. “That was an unbelievably foolish and dangerous thing you did, running off by yourself after a murderer.” He paused, emotional. “Thank you.”
After all these years, they still fit together like interlocking pieces, the top of her head just under his chin. “I need a shower. And food. And sleep.” She wasn’t sure what order.
“Anything. Anything you want.”
She opted for the shower first, and then her body decided on sleep, conking out dramatically the minute she lay down on the bed. When she woke, they ordered a mountain of food from room service, and she devoured it all. Eventually, she had a different hunger, one only he could assuage, and Colin proved an eager lover. He kissed her everywhere, marveling in her physical form like she was a goddess brought to life, and she drank from the forgiveness that she tasted on his lips.
In the dark, his fingers trailed down her shoulder and across her arm as she listened to the steady thrum of his heart beneath her ear. “I have so many questions,” he murmured.
She tensed up and shifted away, thinking of the answers she didn’t want to give. “Can they wait?”
“Of course.” He gathered her closer. “Of course, they can wait. We have all the time in the world.”
The world. She wanted to see all of it now, with him. She hugged him around the middle. “Let’s plan a trip somewhere.”
“Yes, let’s. First, I have to go on a whirlwind tour through Scandinavia, during which I have to file about a dozen pieces. That would be no fun for you. After, though, we can go anywhere you want. Just name the place.”
“Italy? No, Brazil. Or maybe Egypt.”
He laughed and rolled her under him. “Tell you what. Let’s do them all.”
Eventually, she had to go home. She drove down her familiar street but it looked different to her now. The front yards were empty, doors and windows locked up tight. They had caught the killer, but the wounds he left had not yet healed. She wondered if they ever would. Annalisa almost turned around and fled again when she saw Jason Yakamoto carrying a box out of his mother’s home and loading it into an SUV. Instead, she forced herself to go and offer her condolences. His smile, his naked relief at seeing another human being, intensified her guilt. “I saw on the news that you got him. The guy who killed her. I don’t know how I can ever thank you.”
“Please don’t.” She swallowed with effort and looked down the bare street. “If your mom hadn’t lived so close to me—”
He cut her off. “Mom loved it here. She said the neighborhood was friendly, full of kids and dogs. She loved the light that came through the bay windows in the back. Perfect for her plants.” His voice took on a note of regret. “I’m shipping some of her stuff back with me to Seattle, but I can’t take the plants.”
“I’ll take them.” She blurted out the offer, surprising herself. “I mean, I would love to have them. I don’t know that much about gardening, but I’d like to learn.”
He tried to smile. “I think she would like that.” He helped her carry the larger pots from Amy’s condo to hers, and soon her windows overflowed with greenery. They looked out of place and misarranged, but she was determined to make them a home.
Jason handed her a misting bottle and gave her a small salute. “Good luck.”
He left and she squirted the nearest plant a few times. The leaves shivered and so she stopped. She curled up on her sofa and looked at the family photos on her bookshelf. Sassy had offered to have Annalisa stay with them, but she had two small children and Alex’s relapse to manage. Annalisa didn’t want to crash her own issues into their otherwise delicate atmosphere. No, she’d stay here with the bewildered plants. Together they would find a way to adjust to the new view.
Over the next few days, she escaped to work whenever she could. The shooting investigational board cleared her promptly, but Zimmer kept her chained to the desk anyway. “Wait for the media to cool down,” she said. “How are you supposed to work a case with six news trucks following you everywhere?” But Annalisa discovered she was still the officer of record in Grace Harper’s murder, and she remembered the people who had first reported her missing. The Grave Diggers deserved some answers.
She met the remainder of the local team at Oliver Benton’s home in Lakeview. It was a Queen Anne–style worker’s cottage, built in brick, which meant it had been constructed after the Great Fire of 1871. His wife, Sandra, answered the door, and the colorful headscarf she wore reminded Annalisa that Sandra was battling cancer. “The hero of the hour,” she said warmly as she widened the door to admit Annalisa. “Welcome.”
“I’m no hero. I was as shocked as you must have been.”
“I’m furious. There is no part of this that does not make me see red. Those poor women. And Grace! He pretended to be her friend, to be a friend to all of us, when in reality he was just this horrible monster. I’ve been thinking about him in that wheelchair that he apparently didn’t need. He wouldn’t come out here, you know, on account of the stairs we have inside the house. I’m glad now, but I felt bad then that we couldn’t accommodate him. I also felt scared. What if I ended up like him in a chair and Oliver and I had to leave our home? I know it sounds pitiful, given all the heinous acts he committed, but it just shows you how low he would stoop—using a disability to hide his true self.”
She walked Annalisa into the wood-paneled den where Oliver was bringing out a tray of cheese and crackers. Chris hovered by the window, drinking a Coke. Travis and Molly sat on the sofa, dressed for Sunday church. “Detective Vega,” Oliver said with a broad smile. “Thank you for coming.”
“Of course. I wanted to tell you what I can about the case, about what we’ve learned so far about Jared Barnes.” They all sat and gave her their undivided attention as she recited what little she could: Barnes had grown up with a violent drunk for a father while his mother was a secretary in a doctor’s office. She also cleaned houses to make ends meet and was often not at home to shield Barnes from his father’s rages. Barnes enrolled in the Army at age eighteen and had a distinguished but brief career as an MP. After, he’d worked various jobs, including three years at the power company during the time of the original murders. He had probably joined the Grave Diggers to keep tabs on what they knew about his case.
“That story he told us about his friend who killed the man in Iraq,” Oliver said. “Was it true?”
“Eddie Mack,” Molly added with a shudder. “I had nightmares after that story.”
They’d been conducting interviews with every known contact of Jared Barnes. “Our people interviewed an Edward Mack in Ohio,” she said. “He mentioned Barnes had killed a man for sport while they were serving together in the Middle East.”
“So he was talking about himself,” Oliver said as though he’d suspected it.
“Bragging is more like it,” said Molly. “Everyone wants his story now. We’ve been flooded with people wanting to join the Grave Diggers since the news broke. A thousand people at least, from all over the country.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Chris replied grimly. He crushed the Coke can with one enormous hand. “I’m shutting it down.”
“What?” Oliver asked. His confused expression said this was news to him.
“Gracie got killed. Don’t you get that? It’s not worth it.”
“But the bodies we’ve identified,” Oliver said quietly. “The missing people who aren’t missing anymore. Surely that counts for something.”
“Grace is dead.” He ground out the words between his teeth. “And we’re responsible. All of us. We didn’t even see the guy when he was sitting in our own living rooms. How’s that for amateur sleuthing?”
“Grace found him,” Annalisa said, and they all turned to look at her. “She just didn’t know it yet. I think—no, I know—if Grace had pursued her theory about the storms and the utility workers to the end, she would have uncovered his secret. I’ve seen the storeroom of evidence on this case, with all the boxes stacked up to the ceiling. The cops had all of that but came up empty. It was one of you who figured out the solution based on a simple idea no one had considered yet.”
Molly smiled and dug out a tissue to dab at her eyes. “Gracie’s brain was like my mama’s nacho dip—seven layers deep. She had notes on other cases, too. Did you recover her laptop?”
“I don’t know,” Annalisa replied. Teams of cops had torn Barnes’s apartment practically down to the studs, and they’d found a rented storage locker in his name. She wasn’t sure what all they’d found. “I promise you this, though—I will find out.”
It took her several days to track down the answer, which was yes, they had recovered Grace Harper’s laptop from Barnes’s storage unit. Computer forensics would eventually go through it, but it was not a high priority since the case was closed and would not be going to trial. Annalisa tried to wheedle a mirror copy of the hard drive out of the tech department, but they weren’t interested in making the time to help her out. She took her case to Zimmer.
“What do you want with it, anyway?”
“Does it matter? I’m the lead on the case. Technically, it’s my call.”
“Technically, I’m your boss. I believe that makes it my call.” Zimmer peered over the rims of her glasses. “You did good, Vega. You got justice for her. There’s nothing more you can do to help Grace Harper.”
Annalisa read the concern on her commander’s face. Zimmer wasn’t about to foster what she viewed as a possible growing obsession, so Annalisa needed to think fast to come up with a compelling reason she needed the laptop. “Grace Harper was working other cases,” she said. “She almost beat us on this one. I don’t think we want the Grave Diggers making any more headlines right now, do you? Let me see what other notes she had.”
Zimmer bought the line, and Annalisa got her mirrored hard drive. She found various cases, all neatly bundled with notes and pictures. Grace Harper had added to the Lovelorn Killer file just hours before she’d been killed: Molly’s uncle may be able to help us access power company records. Annalisa wondered if she’d mentioned this to Barnes, if he’d known how truly close she was. She closed out of that file and clicked on a folder labeled Grace Notes. It appeared to be an electronic journal. Intrigued, Annalisa made herself a cup of strong coffee and took the laptop to a small private room where she could meet her victim in peace.