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  Dale did feel a little green around the gills. But he waved it off.

  “No. Finish, Nash. Go on.”

  “The cutting was about the pain, the little textural details, but the strangulations was about the death. To feel a woman’s final breath pass by my fingers. So that was my fantasy. I’d be a killer who cut and finished with his hands. In college, I started researching serial killers. I was studying criminal justice, so I even got credit for it.” He chuckled. “I was particularly interested in the ones who were never identified, but in my fantasy, I almost wanted to get caught. That’s what they say, isn’t it? That criminals want to get caught. To have the newspapers give them a name—the Memphis Butcher or something like that.” He stopped abruptly. “I guess that about covers it.”

  And as quickly as it started, it was over.

  By now, though, Dale had his hands on his head.

  “I … I can’t believe you’d enter law enforcement with thoughts like that,” he said.

  “Like I just told you and like I’ve told several others, they’re just fantasies. I’ve always wanted to help people not hurt them.”

  Dale breathed in.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Here I am trying to listen, and I immediately go down the path everyone else has, making you defend yourself. Sorry, man. I’m sure it took a lot of guts to get that out.”

  They sat there for a moment. The birds chirped. They both looked forward, out into the park.

  “Hey, Dale.”

  Dale turned.

  “Thank you.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  “Well, kumba-freakin’-ya,” Ventress said. “One lunatic showing compassion for another. Let me dry my misty eyes.”

  Nash glared at her, his eyes cold.

  Earlier in the afternoon, he had been concerned that he was showing too much. Too much of the darkness. At this point, though, his mind had completely reversed on the subject. He wanted italics to show Ventress the darkness. He wanted her to have a moments hesitation, to wonder if he wanted to slice her up.

  Because throughout the course of the day, Nash had seen what she was really made of. I mean, cruel, individual who asserted her power at every turn, marked and ridiculed people feel good to look strong. She took things that were good—the few good, pure things that have been discussed in this questioning—and marked them. Laughed at them.

  In all these ways, she reminded Nash of his mother. The worthless old hag. The methodical bitch. Cold, calculating, manipulative. But one way that Ventress was not like his mother was the fact that his mother had been the fat pig, and National noticed again that adVentressAdVentress, despite her age, had a figure. Long and somewhat lean in the dark business suit.

  Ventress screaming in agony.

  A hand swinging a blade at her.

  Nash laughing.

  She put a folder back in the cardboard box, glanced up at the clock, then looked at Nash.

  “So that really meant something to you, Ha? Is listening to your lunacy. “

  “It was the most decent thing anyone has ever done for me.”

  “And yet as I understand it, you parted ways with him, curing the day you met him.”

  After Dale listened, they sat silently on the park bench.

  Nash turned to Dale.

  “That was very kind of you, especially to come all the way here just to do that. I’ll never forget it.” He was quiet for a moment. “But you’ve also ruined my life. So that leaves things at neutral.”

  He stood up.

  “Don’t ever come around me again.”

  He walked away, leaving Dale sitting on the bench.

  “But not only did he ignore your wishes to never see you again, but he did it by coming by your home,” Ventress said, pacing once more. “And you agreed to come here and help him.”

  “Yes, because of his decency, the code of honor that you scoffed at. A person like you thinks that’s a joke, unattainable, something that’s written in constitutions and chiseled into the side of courthouses but means nothing in reality. You can’t believe in your nasty, mean, judgmental heart that a person can live by such a standard. But there are people like that. And Dale is one of them.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Dale was dreaming…

  But it wasn’t just any dream. It was a memory.

  A time when he and Allie had gone on a short trip together. Somewhere in Maine. He couldn’t remember the name of the little town. But it was cute and picturesque and much of it was aimed toward tourists.

  Dale and Allie walked down a boardwalk. Fun places line either side: fudge shops, ice cream stores, jewelry and T-shirt shops. Allie had his arm. In one hand she held an ice cream cone, which she passed to Dale.

  “You need more time off,” she said, “because we need more of this.”

  “Ice cream? We can buy this at the store.”

  “Time, smartass. Time together. Like this.”

  She squeezed in closer to him then spotted a stand with homemade jewelry: pieces of shells and beach glass.

  Allie picked one of the bracelets up, held it to the bright sunlight.

  “Don’t you just love beach glass? So pretty. Garbage that nature turns into something beautiful. Amazing.”

  The man behind the counter spoke.

  “Speaking of beautiful …”

  Allie turned away from the bracelet, looked at the man.

  “Why, thank you,” she said with a smile.

  She let go of Dale’s arm and leaned toward the man, kissed him on the cheek.

  “Are we in France now?” Dale said.

  Allie and the man looked at him.

  “What?”

  “Kissing a stranger on the cheek.”

  “Who says he’s a stranger?” Allie said, smirking.

  She leaned over the counter again, and she and the man kissed passionately.

  “Hey!”

  Dale took her shoulder, pulled her away from the man.

  “Don’t touch me, Dale! What? Can’t take a little competition.”

  The sides of the vision begin to blacken, closing in around Allie.

  “Well, that’s just pathetic,” she said. “Are you hurt? Heartbroken, Dale?”

  Allie looked down at him now. She was taller than him.

  The darkness had closed around her, a tunnel of light focused right on her.

  She grabbed a large piece of beach glass, smashed it against the table, creating a big, pointed shard.

  She sneered.

  “Right in the heart.”

  She stabbed him in the chest.

  Dale’s eyes snapped open. Panting. He saw the roof of the cave above him. He closed his eyes again. And took a deep breath.

  “You all right?” Mira’s voice called from the other side of the cave.

  “Yeah. Nightmare.”

  “Aww…”

  “It was a real memory at first, then it got … weird. Headache, too.”

  The boardwalk had been real. And the beach glass bracelet. Everything else, no.

  “Here,” Mira said. “Let me bring you some water.”

  Dale stirred in bed. There was a jingling noise, and he felt something.

  He looked up.

  His hands, which had been behind his head, were shackled with metal bands. A length of three-eighths-inch chain connected them, and the chain ran through the eye bolt.

  For just a moment, Dale wondered if he’d forgotten another love-making session with Mira. A kinkier one.

  But that thought lasted only for a moment before his practical side quickly came up with the more appropriate explanation.

  And then logic exploded on.

  Quick fragments of memories of the last few days.

  The things he’d failed to notice.

  The small “stranger” running away from Dale and Nash on the Promenade.

  The framed photo of Clyde and Mira together. They were same height.

  The “stranger” stabbing Ern to death. His shriek.
The flash of the knife stabbing his side.

  Mira talking about Clyde, his small size: “He’s so small. No taller than me…”

  Mira walked up to the mattress, stood over him.

  Looming.

  In her hand was a tin cup. She smiled.

  “Water?”

  “Oh my god …” Dale said. “It was you.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Ventress looked at the clock.

  5 PM. On the dot.

  Perfect.

  “This has all been quite moving, Mr. Harbick. Touching, even. And though you made such an impassioned examination of my moral compass, I’m going to take anything you say with a grain of salt. Know why? You want to kill people. You’re a serial killer without the guts to take action. So I’m perfectly comfortable with my decision. Nothing you’ve said has convinced me of Dale Conley’s supposed nobility. Every moment they’re out there, Mira Lyndon’s life is more in danger. Enough talk. It’s time for action.”

  She looked over the room.

  “Take five, everyone. Go the john. Get some water.” She pointed at Hensley. “You, powder your nose or whatever you need to do, sweetheart. Then meet back here to get this manhunt started. Sadler, we’ll organize how you’re going to track down Clyde Bowen. As for me and my team, we’ll be going on a different manhunt.”

  She looked at her men.

  “It’s time to kill Conley.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  “You murdered those women,” Dale said. “You … chopped them up.”

  Mira put the tin cup on the cave floor then sat on the mattress, folding her arms across her knees. She looked at Dale.

  “You said you thought Allie had cheated on you. Thought she did. And it still affects you. Imagine knowing the man you loved has cheated on you. Over and over. With so many. And in such disgusting ways.”

  “Cheating sucks, but people get cheated on every day. They don’t go out killing people! Are you goddamn insane??”

  As soon as he said that, Dale realized it was the stupidest, most self-answering question he’d posed in a long time.

  “You don’t hurt what you love. The men I’ve loved have spit on my love. My daddy. Clyde, the little half-man. So, yes, you bet I slaughtered his whores.”

  “And Ernie Plunkett…”

  He remembered Ern’s face. The blood. His shriek.

  “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “And you’ve been watching us the whole time.”

  The stranger throwing the shard of glass at the Fordyce, looking through the bars of the fence at the Barton Ridge community…

  “Things were getting more complicated. I had to make sure no one was figuring things out. And no one suspected a thing. I was just about to get away with it. No one was catching on at all. Until you.”

  “You did all this because your boyfriend cheated on you.”

  “Oh, it was a lot worse than that. It started with simple cheating, yes. But remember Clyde and his escalation? He cheated on me with one girl at first. And then several. Then he brought in Sadler. Then me. Can you believe that, Dale? The woman he’s supposed to love. When I told you before that they worked me over the two of them—that much is true. But it wasn’t always just me. They’d bring in others. And they did weird shit to us. Really weird. They even found a private place to do it, somewhere no one would find them, somewhere no one would here the screams.”

  Dale’s mouth opened. His eyes flicked to the shackles on his wrists.

  “Here. So everything you said about this cave and your childhood and a place to hide from Clyde—”

  “Was complete bullshit, I’m afraid. I’m sorry to have lied to you, Dale.”

  Dale thought about all the nastiness that must have happened on the mattress on which he was lying.

  “This was their dungeon, Dale. Can’t you hear the screams?” she said, her eyes tracing over the walls, a strange half-smile on her lips. “Can’t you just feel how ugly and sick this place is? The number of times I was chained to that bed, Sadler doing things, Clyde by the wall with one of his sluts, watching Sadler screw me, watching him hurt me. He was supposed to love me. To cherish me. To protect me from other men. And he gave me away. Like garbage. He got off on it.”

  “Wait… Clyde…”

  Outside the Fordyce: The stranger looks up, waves, fluttering his fingers.

  “Every encounter I’ve had was … with you. So Clyde …”

  He trailed off.

  Camila at the Alistaire: “He hasn’t been to work in three days.”

  "Where’s Clyde, Mira?”

  Mira smiled.

  “If you weren’t chained up, I’d tell you to walk over to the mouth of the cave and look out into the trees in about sixteen different directions. You’d find a bit of him here, there, everywhere. Really shallow graves. Only an inch or so deep. It’s easy to bury a man when he’s in little handfuls.”

  Dale looked about the cave, thinking.

  “This whole time, the guy I’ve been tracking … Clyde Bowen … He was dead before I even got into town, wasn’t he?”

  Mira nodded.

  “Remember when you said you’ve been chasing a ghost?” Mira said with a laugh. “You didn’t know how right you were.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Nash sat in his chair at the conference table, and he realized that his fingers were digging into the armrests. He looked down and saw that his knuckles were white, fingers taught and shaky. He released them.

  As he watched the people coming and going from the room—heading to and from the bathroom, drinking coffee, discussing quietly—he wondered what the hell he was going to do next. Because he wasn’t going to let Ventress kill Dale.

  It occurred to him then—there was nothing keeping him there. This wasn’t a real trial, and he wasn’t a member of any of these law-enforcement departments. No one was going to stop him from walking out right now. And just as he had these thoughts, just as he was about to stand up…

  Fulton came up and sat beside him.

  Nash turned to him.

  “Sorry, man. I’m supposed to watch over you. Ventress’ “orders.” He reached out for a handshake. “Greg Fulton.”

  “Nash Harbick.”

  Nash looked around the room again. He saw Taft. He wondered, surely had the clout to get Dale out of this situation. Couldn’t he call in for assistance?

  Someone came in, gave Taft an envelope and left. Nash watched as Taft opened it then looked about the room, his eyes landing on Nash.

  Taft walked up.

  “Excuse me, Fulton. I have a couple questions for the “prisoner.””

  Fulton waved his hand. “Be my guest. I didn’t want guard duty for a man who’s done not a damn thing wrong.”

  Taft waved a hand. “Come on, Harbick. I gotta take leak.”

  He started toward the door.

  Nash got up and followed.

  He had known Walter Taft in the past—having met him a couple times during the first assignment with Dale up north—and while he was only a vague acquaintance, Nash knew him well enough to under that something was happening…

  What was Taft up to?

  Chapter Forty-Six

  “You dispatched of Clyde first and then started killing off his women,” Dale said.

  Mira smiled. “I killed him second, actually. In the middle of the night. After the first girl, Paula Willett. When Kathy at Sullivan’s gave you an alibi for Clyde that night, she wasn’t lying. Clyde really was at the bar when I was chopping up Paula.”

  “I see. Which means the guys that beat the shit out of Nash and me in the alley were just looking out for a buddy, trying to put the fear into the fuzz.”

  “Of course they were. Sullivan’s was where it was all organized. Clyde and Sadler would meet up with local girls there, or Clyde would bring tourists in from the spa across the street. Those other loser drunks would help them out, get them fresh girls. They revered Clyde and Sadler. But they
were never allowed to play. Only Clyde and Bill could play. Just old, drunk losers. More pathetic men. There were people like Kathy who didn’t like what they saw. But they didn’t know how dark things were really getting outside the bar. And, besides, who were they going to run to? Sadler’s a cop. A high-ranking cop.”

  “And you killed three of those girls. Must have been planning on a lot more.”

  “Oh, no. I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever, that the heat would get too much. There were so many women. Those three were the ringleaders. The top sluts. They even brought Clyde and Bill other women.”

  “So kill Clyde, plant some books about serial killers in his house, and start killing his women according to the killers in one of the books. When the bodies start showing up and the cops investigate, they’ll eventually discover that the connection between the women is Clyde. The truth will come out about Clyde and Sadler. When Clyde’s fourth victim, you, survives, she’ll be in hysterics at first. But eventually she’ll tell the police that Clyde tried to murder her. She’ll tell them about the shit that Clyde and Bill did to women in a cave. The cops will go to the cave and find a mattress along with chains and other weird shit in there. Where were these hiding this whole time, by the way? (rattles the chains). I didn’t see them when we first came here.

  Mira pointed to a crack along the base of the cave on the opposite side—about four inches tall and three feet long.

  “Gotcha,” Dale said. “After the cops investigate the cave and see that the victim isn’t lying, Sadler will, at a minimum, lose his job but mostly get implicated as an accomplice. And since Clyde had an alibi for the first murder—being seen at Sullivan’s—the chances are pretty good that Sadler will get convicted as one of the killers as well. Of course, Clyde will never be found. Because you’ve gotten your ultimate revenge on him. And eventually, once you’re healed up from your ‘attack.’ the victim will go home with the sympathy of the city.”