Headlights(58)

Trying to piece together a life I shattered, going to dinners, having drinks with people I wouldn’t have to reconcile with if I hadn’t abandoned them in the first place. Running. Running all the time, always running. I should have been working every second, should have seen what was right in front of me, should have— There’s a rustling in the trees.

I don’t think, just move.

Jump up, tense.

That strange pressure.

VOOM.

The sound.

VOOM.

A footstep on dried leaves. My head snaps to a spot in the trees. It’s too dark to see.

VOOM.

Another snap.

VOOM.

Another.

And—

Hannah Lawrence steps out into the moonlight.





19



She doesn’t move, at first. Just waits at the edge of the path. She knows I see her, she’s letting me. Then she takes a step forward, holding something in her arms.

She’s wearing a ranger puffer, a sweater, jeans, boots. Her hair is loose over her shoulders.

She’s here. Standing in front of me.

Watching.

“Hi,” she says, after a moment.

That’s it.

“Hi,” I say back. Adrenaline. Breath.

“I … I think I need your help,” she says.

Hannah Lawrence, here on my running path. Here, where she knew how to find me.

I don’t have my gun, cuffs, anything. Not that I … Hannah Lawrence is here. I can’t see her well, just enough to know it’s her.

I watch us as if from above, as if we are two strangers I have never met, as I nod my head once. As I say, “Let’s go inside and talk.”

We walk in silence, and I am lasered in on her every movement. This woman who could be the one organizing all of this, who could be responsible for so many lost lives. She glances at me every minute or so. I don’t know what she could be thinking.

We pass through the trees at the back of the property, and I feel her pause half a step when she sees the house. I keep walking, my attention still fixed on her in my periphery. We cross the lawn and come up on the French doors leading to the dining room.

I say, “What’s in your arms?”

She drops it to the ground, kicks it over to me. Something wrapped in a sweatshirt. I think for half a second that it could be an explosive, that I’ll reach forward, and that’ll be it.

“What is it?” I ask again.

“It isn’t mine, I don’t know how it…”

I look at her, realize she seems almost afraid.

I bend down slowly and take hold of the sweatshirt, slowly unravel it, letting whatever’s wrapped inside clatter onto the back patio. And I let out a long exhale.

There’s dried blood on it. We’ve been looking for this for so long. Assuming it’s the same one, assuming it’s been used for every killing, which I feel in my gut, know, that it is and has. She told us it was strange, homemade-looking. Daphne noted the jagged striations.

The knife looks like it was hand-carved from bone. Amateur carving, but effective. A six-inch handle, a little uneven, and the blade about the same length, crude but sharp enough to skin a person.

Hannah Lawrence just brought the murder weapon to my house.

“If you let me explain … I just…”

She’s right here, on my actual doorstep. The person I’ve been looking for all this time. The lights in the house faintly glowing, reflecting off her skin through the glass. Half her face in their yellow-orange glow, the other half in the little moonlight there is. She leans away from the door, like she’d rather do anything than go inside. My heart hammers looking at her.

I shake my head, open the door, gesture for her to walk before me.

The one I’ve been searching for for six years. It would make her twenty-two when it started. Doubt creeps in, questions. So many goddamned questions.

I reach down and pick up the bundle, careful not to touch the knife.

I walk us to the living room.

The shadows all hang back, silent and still for once. Waiting to see what will happen. I’m crazy, I know by now I’m crazy, but I see her gaze linger as we pass each one, could almost believe she’s clocking them.

I shouldn’t let her see all the files, shouldn’t let her know how much I know, or more accurately how much I don’t. But a part of me wants her to see. Wants her to realize what’s going to happen. She’s come here, and this is the end of it, and if she did this, she’s going to jail for a very, very long time. Or maybe I want her to see how badly I have wanted this, how much I want to see the person responsible put away. Maybe I just want to see how she reacts.

Her fox drawing, the card, at least, is nowhere in sight.

“You can sit,” I say, indicating the couch. She looks at me, and I try to read the expression there. Fear, for sure. But something else. Pain, almost. She holds her hand over her nose, keeps far away from me.

She steps around files and sits, takes in all the folders before her, the fireplace, the room. She looks up to the ceiling. I step over, set the sweatshirt-bundled knife down on floor by the hearth. I put a few logs on the fire, hold my back to her to get it started. I tell myself I’m doing it because I want to show her I’m not afraid. But I just need to take a breath. Just need a second to collect myself, not looking at her.