Iron House (24 page)

“Says who?”

“The police, for one.”

“Was he charged?”

“Charged, but never tried.”

“Favors and threats?”

“Let’s just say an alternative disposition was made.”

“What kind?”

“Twenty million dollars to the dead girl’s family. Another five to establish a charity in the victim’s name.”

“You bought off her parents.”

“We did what we had to do to protect Julian.”

“And the senator.”

“We did what we had to do. Period.”

She was angry, defensive, and Michael didn’t blame her. “What about the schizophrenia diagnosis?”

“That came before the charges were dismissed; part of the investigation. A police psychiatrist first, then a court-ordered evaluation. The judge agreed to seal the records.”

“But Julian was treated?”

“Medication. Therapy. Eventually, he quit. He said the medicine made him weak. He didn’t like people to think he was weak. A leftover from Iron Mountain, I always supposed; a tear in some deep place.” For a moment, they were silent; then a cloud blotted the sun and Abigail said, “Look, I’ve been patient.”

“So have I. There are still a lot of things unsaid.”

“Please, Michael. I need to know.”

“You want to talk about the warrant.”

It was not a question. They watched a diver roll backward off a metal skiff. Sun flashed on his faceplate, then he was gone. “I need to hear the truth,” she said.

“You trust me?”

“Yes.”

Michael started the engine. “Let’s get out of here.” He turned the Land Rover and started down the sloping track. He waited until the cops disappeared from view, and then told Abigail Vane what she needed to hear. “They’ll find a body in your lake.”

“Oh, no.”

Michael downshifted as the track steepened. Abigail may have been prepared, but Michael couldn’t tell it from looking at her. She was pale and shaken.

“How do you know there’s a body in my lake?”

“I put it there.” She covered her mouth, and Michael said, “Can you handle this?”

“Yes. I’m sorry. Go ahead.”

She held still as Michael told her what he’d found in the boathouse, and why he was there in the first place. He told her what Julian had said to him, then gave her the name of the dead man, and explained that he knew Ronnie Saints very well. It took a few minutes.

“Ronnie Saints?” She turned away. “Oh, God.”

Michael watched her. She was in shock. “You know the name?”

“Give me a minute.” She took several deep breaths, then nodded, eyes closed. “Julian knew him.”

Michael nodded, too. “Knew him. Feared him. Hated him.”

“Saints was one of the boys that harassed him.” Her face was still turned toward the side window. It was not a question.

“Tortured him,” Michael said. “Let’s call it what it is.”

Tortured ...

The word fell from her lips, and Michael felt his hands tighten on the steering wheel. “After Hennessey, Ronnie Saints was the worst, big and strong and sadistic, a juvenile delinquent from the mountains of north Georgia. He broke Julian’s index finger three times. Same one. Every time it healed. The one time Julian tried to defend himself, Ronnie Saints tore his ear so badly part of it had to be stitched back on.”

“Were there no adults?”

“Too few and too uncaring. As long as no one died, we were left to ourselves. The place was tribal.”

“But Julian could have told—”

“No one rats at Iron House.”

Abigail finally turned his way. She drew herself up and said, “I’m glad he’s dead.”

Michael felt the same way. But there were problems Abigail had not yet considered. “They spent a year together on Iron Mountain, Julian and Ronnie Saints. The cops will figure that out, eventually. It will give them motive, and after the dead girl eighteen years ago, that’s all they’ll need to go after Julian with everything they have.”

“But Christina died so long ago. Julian was just a boy.”

“Nobody holds a grudge like a cop. They’re already thinking about Julian. I guarantee it.”

Abigail pinched the bridge of her nose. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. It was hot inside the vehicle. “Let’s back this up. How do the police even know about the body? Who could have called them?”

“Whoever saw me sink it.”

“Why aren’t you in custody?”

“Maybe it was darker than it felt. Maybe there’s some other reason.”

Abigail drooped, still shaken. “Do you think Julian killed him?”

“If he did, he had a reason.”

“And that makes a difference?”

“Reasons always make a difference.”

She kept her eyes on his face. “Have you killed people, Michael? I mean other than the Hennessey boy?”

She said it scared, and Michael did not need to see her face to know what it took to force the words out. She had ideas about him, the kind of theories that make most people squeamish; he understood that. He’d let her see more than he would normally do, but they had this thing they shared, this bond that came close to blood. So, Michael had a choice to make. He could ignore the question or he could tell the same lies he’d told for most of his life. Today, he did something new. “I’ve killed people,” he said.

“And were the reasons good?”

“Some good.” He shrugged. “Some maybe not so great.”

“But nothing you can’t live with?”

“That’s right.”

She stared out the window, and her voice came faintly. “That must be nice.”

They circled the south end of the lake and cut back through the woods toward the guest house. Even before Michael stopped the car, they saw that the door stood wide open.

Michael killed the engine before they got too close.

“Is your girlfriend back?”

Michael didn’t answer right away. He studied the open door, the windows, then checked the woods around them, the tree line on both sides of the house. Elena was strong-willed and had good reason to be upset. No way would she be back yet, not after what she’d seen in the boathouse. “Her car’s not here.”

“But the door’s open.”

“That’s not the kind of thing she would do.”

“Wind, maybe?”

“I don’t think so.”

Michael studied the windows, saw something flicker inside. “Movement,” he said.

Abigail looked back at the house, and when Michael shifted in the seat, she saw that he had a gun in his hand. She had no idea where it had come from. One instant his hand was empty; the next, the gun was simply there. She thought of his talk of reasons, then of bodies on the streets of New York. She thought of blood and death and Otto Kaitlin’s forty-year reign of violence.

“Stay here,” Michael said.

He exited the car, gun low against his leg as he crossed a patch of grass and dirt, then found the bottom step with his foot. Through the door, he saw shadows and light but no other sign of movement. A look back showed Abigail out of the car, one hand on the open door; then he heard movement deep in the house. He eased onto the porch and felt vibration through the floor.

Abigail appeared beside him.

Inside, something hammered on wood, a dull thump repeated twice.

“Right side. In the back.” Michael risked a glance inside, and then spread five fingers, making sure Abigail knew to stay behind him. She nodded, and the hammer moved under Michael’s thumb as he slipped inside and shadow swallowed him up. Two feet in, he heard a voice from the back bedroom.

“Damn it…”

Michael felt Abigail tense behind him, felt her hesitate. A hallway ran to the back of the house, two bedrooms at the end of it. Michael cleared the kitchen, then heard glass shatter, the sound loud in the small house. Whatever the source, it was a lot of glass. Halfway down the hall he realized what was happening, and rounded into the room in time to see a figure drop through the window and disappear.

Rushing forward, he tried to identify the intruder, but forest pushed close against the back of the house, and all he caught was a glimpse of skin and movement as a body pushed through leaves and disappeared.

Without a thought, Michael followed. He landed on the balls of his feet and took off at a run, stretching hard to clear a wooden stool that lay half-hidden in the moss and ferns. He guessed it had been thrown through the window by the person he was chasing, and that person was fast, cutting hard between trees, staying far ahead as the forest thickened around them. In the distance, he heard Abigail calling his name. He ignored her, pushed harder, ran faster; when a trail opened in the woods, he gained enough to see clearly for the first time.

It was a woman. Long legs under short cutoffs. A narrow waist and a gymnast’s build. Small muscles flexed under skin burned brown, and she moved as if she could run forever. Michael pushed harder, closed; as if sensing the change, the woman dodged right, off the trail. For long seconds, Michael lost sight of her, but as smooth as she was, as agile in the woods, she couldn’t run in silence. So, he followed the sound of her, and when the trees parted in a shallow clearing, he caught up with her, flicked out a foot and knocked one ankle into another so she came down in a tangle.

“Take it easy,” he said.

But she scrambled up on all fours, ready to sprint. Michael put a hand on her back and kept her down as he engaged the safety on the gun and pushed into his belt. “I just want to talk to you.” She fought, strong, and Michael said, “Come on, now.”

“Get off me!”

She tried to push herself up. Michael pressed a forearm across her shoulder blades.

“I said, get off, motherfucker!” She pushed harder. “Damn it! Get the fuck off!”

“Relax, first. No one’s going to hurt you.”

He eased off the pressure enough to show he was serious, and beneath his arm, she went limp. Michael saw that she was barefoot, and that her skin was bug-bitten and dirty. She wore frayed shorts and a once-white tank top now stained gray. Her hair was dirty blond, full of twigs, and she was young enough for Michael to feel bad about the way he’d brought her down.

She was just a kid.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t realize…” Michael ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. “Did I hurt you?”

“Are you finished?”

Her voice was as light and girlish as the rest of her.

“Yeah. You bet.” Michael lifted his arm, but she stayed still and limp, a small, dirty girl brought down harder than she should have been. “Listen…”

Michael leaned forward, and she moved, rolling fast onto her back as one hand came up from beneath her right hip. Michael saw a whisk of silver; then she was scrambling away as pain flashed and a bright red line opened on his chest. He touched it once and his palm came away bloodied. When he looked at the girl, she was crouched five feet away, a straight razor in her hand. “Nobody touches me, ’less I say.”

Michael started to rise, and then caught the look on her face, the wide, frightened eyes, and the cherry lips open over bright teeth. She weighed all of ninety pounds, a smooth-limbed girl with a pretty face and blue eyes so wild and bright they almost hurt; but that’s not what took the fight out of Michael. It was deeper than that, and familiar. He settled back onto the dirt as she folded the razor and pushed it into the tight crevasse of her pocket.

“Next time,” she said, “I cut your pretty-boy face.”

Then she spit on the ground and ran, her blue eyes flashing once, her feet as bare and brown as summer dirt.

There’s humiliation and humbleness, and then there’s stupidity. Michael was feeling all three. “She was just a girl. Eighteen, maybe nineteen.”

“Hold still.” Michael sat on the hood of the Land Rover, his shirt a bloody mess on the dirt beneath him. Abigail stood between his knees, a first-aid kit open on the hood beside her. “This is going to hurt.”

The cut was shallow but long, a ten-inch diagonal slice that ran from the sixth rib on his right side to a spot just above his heart. Abigail cleaned it with alcohol, then pressed gauze against it and told Michael to hold it there while she unpackaged a dozen butterfly bandages.

“What did she look like?”

“Beautiful but dirty.” He closed his eyes to picture her. “Five-two, maybe, and all of ninety pounds. She had tangled hair, shoulder length and kind of blond. Small jaw. Large eyes.”

“Blue?”

“Like some kind of stone.” Michael lifted the gauze, frowned at the cut then put pressure back on. “She had a mouth like a sailor.”

“Let me guess the rest.” Abigail kept her eyes on the work she was doing. “Half-naked and wild as a cat in heat.”

“You sound like you know her.”

“Victorine Gautreaux. I know her mother.”

“What’s she doing here?” Abigail looked up, lips pursed, and Michael said, “Julian?”

She shrugged. “I’d call it a suspicion, but I’m pretty sure.”

“Why was she in the guest house?”

“I think she ran away from home. Maybe she was looking for Julian. Hang on. Give me that.”

He handed her more bandages. She pressed on the wound, then switched out gauze and applied more pressure.

“Did she run away for a reason?” Michael asked.

“I don’t much care to speculate about the workings of that family, but I do know social services took her away a few times when she was younger—once when she was about seven, then a couple more times when she was twelve or thirteen.”

“Why?”

“Various types of abuse and neglect. No medical history, basically illiterate. The kid barely went to school, and when she did she was fighting all the time, wild and unmanageable. She bit some students, and hurt a few pretty seriously. It went to court, but those idiots in county government never had the courage to take her away. Probably scared of her mother.” Abigail lifted the gauze, studied the wound, then pushed harder. “Kid never had a chance.”

“And you think she’s with Julian?”

“You saw how she looks. I doubt Julian had a chance.”

“She’s pretty, yes. But how would they have met?”

“Walking in the woods. Hell, I don’t know.”

When the bleeding stopped, she held the lips of the wound together and worked from right to left, sealing it shut with butterfly bandages. Afterward, she put fresh gauze over the wound and taped it in place. “You can get it stitched if you want, but that’ll hold it. It won’t be a pretty scar, but looking at the rest of you, I don’t think that’s an issue.” She gathered up the bloody shirt, the bandages. “Let’s go inside.”