Spilled Blood (38 page)

Altman frowned, but he dropped it.

‘You don’t look happy,’ Chris said.

The county attorney had sunken eyes. Like Glenn Magnus, he appeared to be in the midst of an utter crisis of faith. It wasn’t anger or disappointment. It was devastation. Whatever the man had found in Kirk’s garage had shaken him to the core.

‘You would think that after the years I’ve spent in this job, I would have cultivated a cynical view of human behavior,’ Altman told him. ‘The strange thing is, I haven’t. I’m a Christian, Mr. Hawk. I believe people are basically good.’

‘Actually, I agree with you,’ Chris said.

Altman reached for a file folder on the front seat and handed it to Chris silently. Chris opened it, and he felt a weight land upon his chest, heavy and awful. With each page he turned, he felt nausea grip his stomach, he felt rage chill his heart, and he felt his soul release a silent, irrepressible scream. The images printed on the pages spoke of such depravity that he had a difficult time imagining that whoever had done this was part of the same human race. The trouble was, they were. They walked the same streets. They breathed the same air. They looked like everyone else.

That was the horror Michael Altman was facing. How could you ever trust your neighbor again, when you knew that there were people on earth capable of this?

Chris closed the folder, and he closed his eyes. He steadied his breathing. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Altman held up the bag of flash drives. ‘There’s more. These are even worse. Videos. It’s unspeakable.’

Chris had a hard time conceiving of something that could be worse than what he had already seen. ‘I can’t begin to explain it. I wish I could.’

Altman held up another folder. ‘His buyers are numbered rather than named. The drop shipments go to post office boxes. We’ll have to identify the customers one by one.’

‘They’ll go to prison.’

‘Of course, they will, but that’s not the point. Look at how many people are on this list! These are people with family and friends. People who show a normal face to the world. People who profess to worship the same God I do and live by the same ideals.’ His voice was eloquent in its pain, disbelief, and desperation.

‘Without Kirk’s murder, you might never have found this place,’ Chris said. ‘Now you can put these people away.’

Altman shook his head. ‘I could have gone the rest of my life without seeing the inside of that garage.’

Chris studied the storage locker beyond the police tape. The cops were carrying out guns. ‘Someone ransacked Kirk’s house. Do you think this is what they were looking for?’

‘Possibly.’

‘I know you’re searching for Johan, but I don’t think he killed Kirk. He’s not the one.’

‘Now that I’ve seen this, I think you may be right.’ Altman hesitated and then added, ‘There’s something I failed to mention last night. Where we found Kirk’s body, we found another body, too. A skeleton, partially unburied. Kirk had apparently been digging it up when he was attacked.’

‘Do you have any idea who it was?’

Altman shrugged. ‘The forensics will take a long time, but I can
think of one person who went missing at an opportune time in the last few years.’

Chris thought about it. ‘Vernon Clay.’

‘I’m not a betting man, but that would be my bet.’

‘If he was dead all this time, then he’s obviously not Aquarius.’

‘Yes, and if he’s dead, and Kirk killed him, I doubt he acted on his own.’

‘Florian wanted him eliminated,’ Chris said.

‘Again, that’s a possibility. Not that I’m ever likely to prove it.’

‘So who is Aquarius?’ Chris asked. ‘What’s he planning?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m beginning to think there really has been a monstrous cover-up at Mondamin. Because of it, Aquarius seems to be bent on taking revenge against Florian and exposing his sins. The question is why and what he’s planning next.’

‘Do you think Aquarius killed Kirk? Is that part of the plan?’

Altman turned his head toward Chris. ‘If he did, and if he used that gun, that means one thing.’

‘He started with Ashlynn,’ Chris said.

The rattle of the van awakened Julia Steele. They were moving.

She was blindfolded, but she could tell from the paler shade of darkness on her eyes that they had left the cold garage and were out in the daylight. The bumps of the road pummeled her body like tiny punches. Her seat was reclined. Her hands were tied securely and uncomfortably behind her back, but her feet were free.

She didn’t know whether to be afraid. The man who had taken her from her bedroom had been surprisingly tender. He’d apologized as he tied her up. He’d asked about her comfort. When it was obvious she was cold, he’d taken a blanket and positioned it gently over her body. His voice wasn’t cruel. Even so, she was a prisoner, taken against her will.

They’d spent the night in the cramped confines of the van. They were inside; she could tell from the quiet, and she’d heard the slam of a garage door. He’d been with her the whole time, in the driver’s seat. He hadn’t touched her. Despite herself, she’d fallen in and out of sleep, but whenever she awakened she felt his presence beside her, and she heard him breathing. As far as she knew, he hadn’t slept at all.

‘Who are you?’ she asked quietly.

He waited a long time before he replied. ‘You know who I am, Mrs. Steele.’

‘Aquarius.’

‘Yes.’

‘That tells me nothing,’ she said.

He was silent again. The truck rumbled on the road, but the pavement felt smooth, like a highway. She wondered where he was taking her. And why.

‘Aquarius is the water bearer,’ he went on.

‘I’m a Christian, not an astrologer.’

‘As am I.’

‘A Christian wouldn’t do what you’ve done.’

His voice remained measured and calm. ‘You’re not a woman to offer lectures on morality.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘You’re married to Florian Steele,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘So he created something evil and immoral. I intend to destroy it.’

‘Florian has done great things,’ she insisted. ‘People who would have starved in this world are alive because of my husband. Is that a sin? Are you one of those anarchists who believe we can go back to the Garden of Eden by wandering around naked?’

‘No.’

‘Then why do you have a vendetta against Florian?’

‘Your husband took away my life, and now I will take away his.’

Julia sucked in her breath. He said it with a matter-of-fact sincerity. ‘Who are you?’ she asked again. When the man next to her was silent, she said, ‘You’re not Vernon Clay. I’d recognize his voice.’

‘So you do know.’

‘What?’

‘You know what Vernon Clay did.’

Julia didn’t want to pretend anymore. They had made a mistake, but she had never dreamed that God would make them pay and pay and pay.

‘Vernon was insane,’ she told him. ‘Yes, it’s true, Vernon spent years poisoning the groundwater near St. Croix. It was horrifying,
but we didn’t know it was happening
. If you want to believe the deaths there were connected to the chemicals, so be it. When Florian
found out about Vernon, he made sure it
stopped
. He got rid of Vernon, and he cleaned up the land.’

‘Then he covered up the truth. He lied. He cheated. He destroyed.’

‘What choice did he have? Let the company be wiped out by the actions of one deranged psychopath? Would that have been fair to the employees and their families? To the people of Barron? To the farmers?’

‘He killed.’

‘Florian would never do that.’

‘You don’t know him as well as you think. Or have you deceived yourself all these years?’

‘
Let me go.
Stop this.’

Julia struggled against her bonds, but they held her tight. She was angry now. She wanted to escape. She wriggled in her seat and tried to reach the door handle, not caring if she spilled out of the moving van on to the highway. She found the indentation in the door where it should have been, but the handle had been removed. There was no way out.

She sank onto the seat cushion, breathing heavily, kicking the underside of the dashboard in frustration. The man next to her didn’t say a thing. He made no move to stop her.

‘So why are you doing this?’ she asked quietly. ‘Are you related to one of the children in St. Croix? If so, I am very sorry. It may mean nothing, but our hearts broke with every death.’

Aquarius was silent.

Julia felt a shiver of fear for the first time. She realized that calm, tender men can also be deadly. ‘Tell me something. Be honest with me. Should I make my peace with God?’

‘You mean, am I planning to kill you?’

‘Yes.’

‘What you say to God is up to you, Mrs. Steele, but I have no intention of harming you. I need you to bring your husband to me, and then you’ll be free to go.’

She tried to decide if she believed him. She didn’t think he had a reason to lie. Not now. Then again, this man was intent on violence and revenge. He would say anything if it meant getting what he wanted. ‘Did my daughter figure out who you were?’ she asked.

‘Yes, she did,’ he acknowledged. ‘She was a smart girl.’

‘So you had to stop her from exposing you.’

She heard sorrow in his voice. ‘The only person Ashlynn wanted to expose, Mrs. Steele, was her father.’

‘That’s a lie,’ Julia snapped, but she remembered the light under Florian’s door in the middle of the night. She remembered finding Ashlynn at Florian’s computer. What was she looking for? What did she discover? Julia realized that Aquarius was right. There were some sins you couldn’t cover up. Sooner or later, they rose up to consume you.

It was as if he could see the workings of her mind. ‘You know I’m right, don’t you?’

Julia said nothing. She felt the van drift to a stop. The world around her was quiet. She listened, and she could hear the hiss of the wind, but she didn’t hear any other traffic. ‘Where are we?’ she asked.

He didn’t reply.

‘What are you going to do?’

‘You’re a Christian, Mrs. Steele, so you know the Book of Genesis.’

‘Of course, but what are you talking about?’

‘God looked around at the world He had created and saw that it was so corrupt, so evil, so wicked, that it was beyond salvation. He determined to destroy it so that humankind could start over.’

The man who called himself Aquarius reached over and removed Julia’s blindfold. She squinted at the light, squeezing her eyes shut. Even the gray day felt bright after a night of darkness. When she could see, she craned her neck to stare through the windows of the van.

She knew where they were. She didn’t understand.

And then she did.

‘Oh, dear Lord,’ she murmured.

Aquarius didn’t react. He reached for his phone and dialed. ‘Mr. Steele?’ he said when Florian answered. ‘You know who this is. It’s time we met.’

Chris watched Olivia from the doorway of Hannah’s bedroom. His daughter had a pencil in her teeth, and her brown eyes were serious and focused as she tapped on the keys of the computer. A long strand of her hair came loose on her cheek, and she brushed it back behind her ear. She wore a baggy pink T-shirt over her skinny frame and cotton boxers. Her feet were bare. Staring at her, he thought what any father would think. She was the prettiest girl in the whole world.

He didn’t say anything, but eventually she felt his presence, and the pencil dropped from her mouth. She gave him a smile. ‘Oh, hey, Dad,’ she said and went back to her work.

It was a nothing moment that felt like everything to Chris. If you didn’t pay attention to those moments, they were gone. He couldn’t believe he had missed out on three years of those smiles, and standing there, he swore to himself that he would never miss out on any of them again. He would never spend a day of his life where he didn’t tell his daughter how he felt.

He walked over and kissed her on top of her head. ‘I love you, kiddo.’

Olivia stopped typing. She looked up at him strangely. ‘You okay?’

‘Fine.’ Chris slid down next to the bed and took a picture of her in his mind, the kind of picture you deliberately tried to remember for years. ‘So what are you doing?’

‘Research.’

‘On what?’

‘Cancer.’

Chris frowned. ‘Oh.’

‘I don’t like doing nothing. I like to fight.’

‘Me, too.’

‘I’m trying to think of the best way to kick cancer’s butt. Like, do I become a doctor? Or a lab rat trying to find a cure? Or do I just get really rich so I can give away lots of money?’

He laughed. ‘I think whatever you do, you will kick butt.’

‘Unless I’m in jail, huh?’

‘That’s
not
going to happen. Don’t even think about that.’

Olivia got up from the chair and slid down next to him beside the bed. ‘Can I tell you something? I haven’t said anything to Mom, but I’ve been thinking about it.’

‘Sure.’

‘I’m scared,’ she said.

Chris put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. ‘I know. It’s okay. Remember, Mom’s a fighter, too.’

‘It’s bad, though, huh? She doesn’t talk about it, so I figure she’s trying to protect me. I wish she would just be straight with me. I know how horrible it can be. I saw it with Kimberly.’

‘Cancer’s never good, but your Mom is about the strongest person I’ve ever met. Except maybe for you.’

His daughter spoke softly, her head buried in the crook of his neck, her chestnut hair swishing over his shoulder. ‘You still love her, don’t you?’

‘Olivia,’ he murmured.

‘It’s not like you’re a great actor, Dad. I can see it in your face. So if you were in love with her, how could you let her go?’

It wasn’t an accusation. It wasn’t angry. She said it curiously, but there was another question in her voice. It was tucked behind the wall, unspoken.
How could you let
me
go?
She wanted the truth. She wanted him to be straight with her. He owed it to her to be straight with himself.

He thought about a million different excuses. A million different
ways to rationalize the mistakes they’d made. It all boiled down to one thing.