It took time for the tunnels to be made safe enough for the investigative and forensic teams to make their way to Reaper’s torture and burial chamber, the processes slow and painstaking, especially since the explosion that had trapped Liza had all but demolished the major crime scene down there.
First indications – minimal information only being passed to her as a courtesy – were that at least the sound recordings of Joshua Tilden’s confession were clear enough to be helpful for legal purposes.
Not that the killer would ever face trial, his remains having been conclusively identified. Along with those of Thomas Pike. DNA and dental matching of the other victims was to be a lengthier process.
Michael Rider’s body had not yet been found.
Placing him, along with Amos, Jeremiah and Nemesis on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list.
That alone enough to make Liza want to weep.
Better dead, she thought now, hard as that was for her to contemplate. Trying not to wait for news of him, yet still doing that every day.
She knew, with absolute conviction, that even if he had made it out, Michael would never contact her again, would keep himself far from her, for her sake. She asked herself harshly how she could be sure of that when she’d hardly known him, when he had, after all, become one of Reaper’s gang, had allowed himself to be used that way.
Each time, the answer came in the form of two memories. The first, of the young, gentle, bright-eyed teacher at Walden Pond School. The second, of their kiss.
Meantime, Michael’s share of the proceeds of the robbery were still secure.
She had waited until the day of her return to Boston to remove the envelopes from the side of the bathtub. Had run herself a long, foamy tubful as cover, had locked the door, taken the cash and Joel’s list of charities and wrapped them up in a large towel before taking them to her bedroom and packing them in her travel bag.
No word to Ben about it when she got back to Snow Hill Street.
Beyond unfair to turn him into an accomplice.
Her biggest quandary was what to do with the money.
She considered taking a safe deposit box, but feared that she might be under scrutiny, realized that donating large sums to Joel’s or Luke’s charities would be idiotic, and that likewise, trying to get Luke’s money to his parents, now that he had been identified, would be dangerous for her and for them.
She had shredded Joel’s list one weekend while Ben was away with Gina, had disabled the smoke detector in the kitchen and burned the shredded pieces in the sink, watching the ashes disappear.
Not so easy to get rid of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Not that she’d actually counted, because she had no wish to know, because all that taking it had brought her was ongoing guilt and fear. Because investigators had already visited her twice in Boston, asking questions about anything that Michael might have told her, anything that might have ‘slipped her mind’.
‘Nothing,’ she’d said, terrified both times that they might search her room.
Knowing that they might return again, perhaps with a search warrant.
She wavered about her final plan for a while, realizing the risks, knowing too that the only alternatives – keeping the money or calling the FBI – were untenable. The decision made, she burned the original envelopes and, wearing gloves, divided the cash into six parts, placing the wads of notes into new envelopes, hiding one away before setting off on two separate excursions to drop the other five at soup kitchens and homeless shelters around Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn. Afraid to donate closer to home or anyplace that might link to Michael, always disguising herself in a gray hooded jacket and large sunglasses, in case of surveillance cameras.
Some good done with it, at least.
On the upside, she had received a number of offers since the holidays: from magazines, publishers and even one from a TV movie production company.
Had not decided which, if any, to accept.
‘You have to write this,’ Ben encouraged her. ‘You’d be certifiable not to.’
‘I need more time,’ she told him.
‘Don’t wait too long,’ he said. ‘People have short memories.’
‘Not always,’ Liza said, thinking of Reaper.
Still, she knew that Ben was right. Knew too that it might actually be healthy for her to write it all down, though catharsis did not necessarily mean that she would achieve a worthwhile finished product.
And she did need time.
To sift through the emotional wreckage, to consider all the human stories that had been thrown at them in church that long night. To think about John Tilden, a monster in his own right, his trial still to come if and when the Rhode Island Attorney General’s office was ready. Whole gobbets of her story, therefore, sub judice for the foreseeable future.
The list of victims horrifically long, starting with Naomi Tilden, Alice Millicent and Donald Cromwell, continuing with Reaper’s victims, ending with poor Thomas Pike and, finally, with the suicide of the serial killer himself.
And then there was Michael.
Dead or alive, folly or not, she knew she would keep his money for him.
Suspected that her own crime made her feel closer to him.
Chose not to analyze that any more deeply.
For now, her plans were loose, few things certain. She would steel herself to return to Shiloh for a special service following the completion of St Matthew’s restoration works, and she would force herself to go home more often, try to become the granddaughter that Stephen deserved.
As to Shiloh itself, she would never be able to forget what lay beneath, what her dreams reminded her of most nights. Of endless black tunnels and the stench of Reaper’s ‘place’, ingrained in her memory along with the sight of Pike’s branded flesh and agonized, dying eyes.
And the terror of being trapped after the explosion.
She had decided that she would write her story, find out in the process what talent she really possessed, feared learning that she might, after all, be mediocre. Long-ago daydreams of a career in broadcast news laid irrevocably to rest after the siege.
Not yet ready to commence writing, she had begun piecing together Michael’s life and the family history that had dragged him toward what seemed an almost predestined direction; learned that Thad Rider, the father he’d never known, had died five years ago, and wondered how differently things might have unfolded if the rock singer had stayed; found, as she followed Michael’s journey, that its kindlier uphill paths and dark downward dives brought to mind a graphic visualization.
Calm, steady climbs. Then mostly downhill all the way.
Michael’s private past not for publication, that much non-negotiable.
The notion of getting her own professional break through the ordeal repugnant but perhaps inevitable.
It was after that would count, what she’d learned from it all.
What she did with it.
She found it hard to concentrate for long.
Michael in her thoughts too often.
She thought she saw him now and then, a flash of a thin, dark-haired, sharp-featured man, hurrying through the crowds at rush-hour or strolling through the Public Garden or spied from a window seat on a bus.
It was never Michael.
Even if he had survived, he would never come to Boston.
And even if, someday, it was him, they had no future together.
Just another fantasy to learn to live without.
Michael Rider would never be truly with her, never keep her warm at night.
The only tangible remnants of him a framed photograph of a charcoal drawing on her wall and an envelope full of stolen hundred-dollar bills.
Maybe, one day, the cops would arrive with a search warrant.
Or maybe, one day, she would finally take it out from its hiding place, give it away or burn it, or even spend it. Rid herself of that guilt, cease searching for a ghost.
Maybe, in time, the Reaper nightmares would die away.
Not likely to happen any time soon, she thought.