False Positive (21 page)

Tuesday. Morning
.

Ethan missing for eighty-six hours

Devereaux was back on the right side of the desk when the other officer reappeared.

“Mountain Brook?” The guy was a little out of breath. “July '67? Are you sure?”

“That's what my lieutenant told me.” Devereaux pulled a puzzled expression. “Why? Wasn't anything there?”

“Nope. Nada. Meaning I trailed across the length of a football field and back for no reason.”

“This is weird.” Devereaux shook his head. “There were no records of stolen paintings in 1972, either. This whole trip was a wash.”

“Is your lieutenant pissed with you?” The officer pushed past Devereaux and flopped back down in his chair. “Or does she have a mean sense of humor?”

“She's not. Yet. And she doesn't, as far as I know.” Devereaux turned and started for the exit. “But I'm sure going to find out. Thanks for your help. And sorry for wasting your time.”

Devereaux waited until he was hidden behind his Charger before loosening his shirt and producing the file he'd tucked hurriedly into his pants. He figured he could worry about how to return it later. Right then, his priority was finding out what it contained. He was
tempted to snap the brittle, red seal immediately, but he knew that sitting in the archive parking lot reading a bunch of stolen official documents wouldn't be his smartest move.

By the time he'd driven back to his building, parked, and ridden up to his apartment, Devereaux's mood had changed entirely. He didn't even want to touch the file anymore, let alone look at its contents. Even after almost forty years, the memory of Tomcik breaking the news of his father's death still haunted him. The intangible thought of it was bad enough. He didn't know if he could face reading about it, blow by blow, right there in black and white.

Devereaux dropped the file on his coffee table and turned his back on it. Then he sat on the couch and stared at its impersonal, typewritten label for ten long minutes. His mind was flipping one way, then the other.
Read it. Smuggle it back, unopened. Read it. Smuggle it back…

In the end, he decided to read it.

The file was slim. Inside the coarse manila cover there were only five pages:

Devereaux started with Tomcik's report. The style was terse and direct, as it had been in the files that Devereaux had read at his house. The narrative recounted how, acting on information received from a confidential informant, Tomcik and Jenner had gone to Detective Devereaux's house because they believed his life to be in danger. Finding the front door open, they entered the premises. They encountered
Raymond Kerr standing near Detective Devereaux's prostrate body. They called out to Kerr, identifying themselves as police officers and ordering him to drop his weapon and get down on the floor. Kerr failed to comply, and instead turned and raised his weapon in a threatening manner. Acting solely in self-defense, Tomcik and Jenner opened fire. Paramedics were called, but arrived on the scene too late to save either Detective Devereaux or Raymond Kerr.

Jenner's report said essentially the same thing—it was obvious to Devereaux that they'd concocted them together—and their statements were backed up by the forensics report and the medical examiner's conclusion. As far as the paperwork was concerned, there was no room for misunderstanding. It was a slam dunk. Devereaux was not surprised in the least that the firearms board had ruled the way it did.

But he did have one other question.

How could every single person involved in the case have been lying?

The woman had stayed ahead of the game for so long for a reason.

Actually, for several reasons. She was smart. She was subtle. She was patient. She was organized. She was disciplined. And these were all traits that had enabled her to develop a set of rules, and to stick to them. It didn't matter if she was tired. If she was hungry. If there was something else she'd rather be doing. If circumstances called for a particular response, she answered. Always. And without question.

Until that morning.

She knew there was a chance her vehicle had been spotted at the meeting she'd attended on Sunday night. She'd been the first to enter the diner. The other person could have been in the parking lot, waiting for her to arrive. Watching. Noting the details of her Mercedes. Gathering information. That's what she'd have done, if the roles had been reversed. So according to her rules, she should switch to another vehicle. A clean one. Which would be easy to do, because she had one standing by, not far from the route she was on. A standard move in her rigorously prepared game plan.

But nothing was standard anymore.

She had a unique rendezvous coming up, and she could see that
allowing someone else a hint of something familiar—even if it was just a car they recognized—could actually help her.

She wasn't breaking her rule, she reassured herself. She was flexing it.

Giving herself an even greater chance of success.

Tuesday. Morning
.

Ethan missing for eighty-six and three-quarter hours

Bronson Segard was lying completely still when Devereaux stepped into his room in the hospital, thirty minutes later.

Devereaux had given no thought to what he'd do if Segard had fallen into a coma or died. It was as if his brain had defaulted to a primitive, instant response mode, and was only capable of looking one step ahead at a time. When he saw the old man's pallid, almost transparent skin it struck Devereaux that he might have made an error of judgment. But given he was there—and in the absence of other options—he figured he may as well soldier on.

“Mr. Segard? It's Cooper Devereaux. Do you remember me? I need to talk to you. Urgently. I need your help.”

The old man didn't respond.

“It's about my father.” Devereaux leaned in closer. “You knew him. He was your friend.”

The old man showed no reaction.

“Mr. Segard? Can you hear me?”

There was still no answer. Devereaux was about to turn and head for the door, bereft of further ideas, when his eye settled on the monitor above Segard's bed. The little dot had suddenly picked up the pace on its journey across the screen.

“Mr. Segard, give it up. I can see your pulse rate increasing. I know you're awake.”

Segard opened his eyes.

“Busted.” His voice was like a soft breeze blowing through dry grass. “Now knock off that needing-me bullshit. Accept it. You're wasting your time. Look at me. I'm wasting away. How can I help you?”

“I need your brain, not your body.” Devereaux perched on the edge of the bed. “I'm looking for information. About my father. To do with the night he was killed. I've seen the file. I read Tomcik's report. And Jenner's. And I need to know why what they said was wrong.”

“I wasn't Tomcik's partner, back when your father bought the farm. And I never worked with Jenner. I don't know what they wrote in those reports.”

“Jenner was killed only a few weeks after my father. And it was the Kerr case, for Pete's sake. It was huge. It made Tomcik into a rock star. You guys must have talked about it.”

“Not really.”

“I know you did. You came to my building. You gave me a warning. You said,
If she finds out about your father
. I figure the
she
is Loflin. But you know more. You know something, anyway. And whatever it is, I need you to tell me.”

“What did Tomcik's report say?”

Devereaux told him, keeping as close to Tomcik's words as he could remember.

“That sounds like what happened.” Segard clasped his hands, making the tendons in his wrists stand out like wires.

“No! Not you, too.” Devereaux felt like he was going crazy. “That
is not
what happened. The reports all said my father was killed at home. But he wasn't.
I
was the one at home. And I was
alone
. Tomcik came and found me there, afterward. That's when he told me my father had been killed. I remember it like it was yesterday. I still dream about it. And Jenner was with him when he pulled me out of the place I was hiding. So why would he lie in the report? Why would they both lie?”

“Son, we need to step this back a little.” Segard started to wheeze. “First question. Have you found out about Madison Nesbitt?”

“Yes, I have. But she's dead. She was killed in a fire in 1975.”

Segard shook his head, which made his snow-white hair rustle softly against the stiff pillowcase.

“She—” Segard's wheezing grew stronger, obscuring his words.

“Was the daughter of a murderer,” Devereaux suggested, trying to pick up the thread.

“That, too—” Segard broke off again, wracked by a fit of coughing. “Her father was a scumbag called Burke.”

“Mitchell Burke.” Devereaux nodded, willing the old man to continue breathing long enough to finish the story. “He strangled a bunch of people.”

“He did. Till Tomcik took him down. In '68, I think. Madison was nine years old. She went into the system, and ended up in foster care. Tomcik made sure she went to a good family. Kind people. Had heaps of money, too, which was a bonus. They adopted her when she was ten. That's when they changed her name to theirs. Nesbitt.”

“She was born Madison Burke?”

Segard nodded.

“She had to go through life knowing her father was a serial killer?” Devereaux was horrified.

“Yes.” Sadness spread across Segard's face. “She was a difficult child. Trouble was never far behind her. She could never escape her genes, I guess. I wasn't honestly too surprised when the fire happened. All those deaths. What a tragedy…Anyway, Tomcik learned. He had to break the cycle. So with you, he did things different.”

“Because I
was
different.” Devereaux pushed himself away from the bed, sending an avalanche of fishing magazines sliding to the floor. “My father was a cop, like him. Like you.”

“Your father was
not
a cop. He just wanted to be one. He bought an old Javelin squad car when the department was done with it. Lived in a cop neighborhood. Took a job as a security guard, so he could wear some kind of uniform. And he had to tell you something. He was always going out all night. You were a kid. You believed it. So Tomcik made it true. He fudged the paperwork. You could do that kind of thing, back then. He changed your last name, right away. Or more like, he gave you a last name. Your father had
never enrolled you in school, so you'd never had much use for one. Tomcik made it look like you'd been a Devereaux all along. Part of a good Alabama family. Ties right back to the Bonapartists. Never a Kerr. He made you the son of a detective, Cooper. Of a hero. Not of a monster.”

Tuesday. Morning
.

Ethan missing for eighty-seven and a quarter hours

Devereaux had always made a point of only hurting people who deserved to be hurt.

That had been his way even before he joined the police. Whether he'd been dealing with thieves. Bullies. Drug dealers. Muggers. Extortionists. Arsonists. Fraudsters. Rapists. Sadists. Killers. They'd all been bad people. They'd all had their punishments coming to them.

But the truth was, Devereaux hadn't ever been motivated solely by an urge to make a living. Or defend society. Even when he was in uniform. There was a part of him—if he was completely honest—that had always enjoyed the violence. He'd kept that fact in the shadows. Disguised it. Given it other names. But there was no hiding from it now. Segard had exposed everything. Devereaux didn't have a cop's blood in his veins. He had a murderer's blood.

Segard had been wrong about only one thing. Tomcik may have had the best of intentions. But the cycle of destruction hadn't been broken.

Not yet, anyway.

Devereaux didn't know how to form a noose, so he tied a Honda knot—the kind cowboys used to make lassos with in the Old West—then
slung the rope over the beam in the center of his great-grandfather's cabin.

Except that it wasn't
his
great-grandfather's cabin anymore. It was
somebody else's
great-grandfather's cabin. To him, now, it was just
a
cabin. He had no business being there. He had no family ties to the place. The decaying wooden structure couldn't magically connect him with any previous generations. And that was just as well, given what lurked in his DNA. He'd thought he was a good man. Or that he at least had the potential to be good. Because his father was good. But thanks to Tomcik's meddling, Devereaux's assumption was wrong. His logic was faulty. It was a false positive. His relatives were poisonous. Therefore
he
was poisonous. He could see that now. It wasn't his foster families' fault he'd gone off the rails in his younger years. His schools weren't to blame, either. For his poor grades. His bad disciplinary record. The kind of people he hung out with. It was unavoidable.

It was written in his genes.

Looking back, the FBI had been right to reject him. They were the only ones who'd ever taken a proper look. They'd done the psychological tests. Picked up on his deficiencies. And seen what everyone else had missed.

He was cursed. He contaminated everything he touched.

The sooner the world was rid of him, the better off it would be.