She lifted the knife for one last go but stopped when something reflected off her knife blade. It was the glare of headlights coming up the road. Out of time. Silva’s head had fallen back against the headrest, her mouth slack, tears trickling down her cheeks. Amelia longed for one more strike but didn’t dare. The headlights were coming. She looked down at Silva, bereft that she wouldn’t be able to watch her breathe her last.
“Die well,” she whispered before pulling a red wig from inside her jacket and placing it on Silva’s head. The wig was a big F U to the cops, one she hoped would have them spinning their wheels to explain. She slammed the door shut, kicked the rest of the spikes to the side of the road, ran back to her car, and sped away. When she hit the main road, she turned left toward the highway. Pumped but denied her payoff.
“No, no, no.”
Each “no” was punctuated by a bang to the steering wheel. She’d planned it so carefully, the time, the method, and she’d meant for it to go so differently, had anticipated it taking hours, not minutes. But her thoughts quickly turned toward self-preservation. Had she brushed every last spike away? Had the driver in the approaching car noticed her fleeing taillights? Though she’d made sure not to touch a thing inside Silva’s car, had she left behind even a single strand of hair? She glued worried eyes on her rearview mirror and drove well below the speed limit. She slowly caught her breath, convincing herself she’d done well enough, that she was sure none of this would be tied back to Bodie or her. Dr. Mariana Silva was dead, and the Morgans would be okay.
By the time she got home, she’d almost convinced herself that they would be. The kill hadn’t been as clean as she would’ve liked or as her father would’ve expected, but it was done. She poured herself a glass of white wine but barely tasted it as it slid down her throat. So she poured another, then another.
Bodie was safe.
She’d done her job.
But it had all happened too quickly.
Angry, she hurled the empty glass against the wall and watched as it shattered into a trillion jagged little pieces. “Now what am I supposed to do with the rest of my fuckin’ night?”
CHAPTER 66
Bodie stared at the detectives looming over him. They’d just shown up at his door in the middle of the night and dragged him out. One cop was a big white guy with a buzz cut, the other a human version of a Ken doll. It was those dead girls. Amelia had told him not to worry, but he did. He didn’t do well under pressure. He shut his eyes to the grim faces and clenched jaws and scornful looks. They stared at him like he was nothing. Defective scum. He hated himself for wishing Am were here to help him.
He’d been in this cramped room for hours now. It was now 6:00 a.m. They were trying to wear him down, confuse him, scare him into incriminating himself. He knew how they worked. Cops were all the same. It should be his father sitting here, anyway, not him, but as angry as he was at the man, however much he blamed him for the shithole his life had become, he couldn’t bring himself to give up his family’s secret. He should have asked for a lawyer hours ago, but then he’d have had to talk and tell things, and Morgans didn’t do that. “For the thousandth time, you’ve got the wrong guy,” he said. “And you can’t just bring me down here and lock me in a room whenever you feel like it. I’m a citizen. I have rights.”
The detectives who’d identified themselves as Lonergan and Kelley said nothing.
“Look, you’re barking up the wrong tree, all right? I just want to be left the hell alone.”
The door burst open, and the female detectives he remembered from his apartment came in, looking just as grim as the two in front of him. Foster and Li. How could he ever forget their names?
“Account for your time,” Foster said.
His breath caught. Did they know about the girl in the other building? Had she seen him, turned him in? “When?”
“Let’s start with yesterday,” Li said, “all the way up until we brought you in here early this morning.”
Bodie stared up at Li, then Foster, then at the two cops holding the wall up. He knew exactly what he’d been doing most of that time, but he couldn’t tell them. If they knew he’d been on his roof, if they knew he’d been watching the girl, he’d be done. “Why?”
Li banged on the table, her eyes wild. “Wrong answer. Account for your time. We’ll tell you when to stop.”
Foster tossed a photo of the reflective paint on the back of her car and one from Li’s. In both, the zoom-in on the glowing circles was prominent. “Someone marked our cars.” She tossed another photo of the cigarette butts lying in the grass. “Someone was in my yard.”
Bodie got it now. His father was hunting again, only this time he wasn’t hunting pretty young women; he was hunting cops. The man was insane. “Not me.” It was all he could think to say. Foster and Li were in trouble, and so was he. “I didn’t. I don’t smoke.” His pleading eyes watched the cops. All of them looked like they wanted to kill him. “I don’t know where either of you live. I don’t own a car.” He stared at the photos. “I didn’t do that.” Even he could hear the desperation in his voice, the fear. He needed to man up. “I need to make a call.”
“Your sister can’t help you now,” Li said.
It startled him. They knew about Am? How much did they know? He faced each cop down, feeling the heat, shaking inside but fighting for his life. Was everything unraveling? He’d thought he could get out of this on his own, but now he needed to talk to Am. “I have to make a call.”
Li slammed her files down on her desk. “He wants to make a call? That sicko was outside my house with my baby sleeping inside. My mother.”
“Someone was,” Foster said calmly. “But look at him. Unless we’re dealing with a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation, I can’t see him getting it together well enough to coordinate all this. And he doesn’t smell like a smoker. No telltale signs either—nicotine-stained teeth, yellowing at the fingertips.”
“I know it sounds like it should be him,” Symansky said. “He’s done something like this before, but I’m with Foster. We can’t even get him on killing the cat.” He slid her a look of sympathy. “Condolences by the way.”
“He wasn’t mine,” she said. She didn’t want to talk about Lost. “We hold him for a while longer to make sure but get him what he asked for. Maybe we find a way to get him to give us a blood sample. Meanwhile, we get some coverage on Li’s place.”
“What about your place?” Symansky asked.
“I’ve got it covered,” Foster said. “No one there but me.” She quickly dismissed the topic. “Where are we? Tom Morgan?”
“There’s not even a parking ticket for him,” Kelley said. “He’s a ghost.”
Li plopped down into her chair, still livid, but she pulled out the pages of information she’d amassed. “This family’s off. The different names on the birth certificate. Bodie in Westhaven, the sister changing her name for no good reason, the mother, Priscilla Jensen or Morgan? I can’t find her. We’ve got Niles Jensen confirmed dead in a crash. That leaves Tom. Adopted father? Guardian? Amelia claims he died when they were in college, and Bodie told Silva the same thing. But I can’t find a death certificate. Of course, I haven’t checked all fifty states. Amelia told us their father was a CPA who was a wiz with money? Well, I found an old business ad for a CPA by the name of Thomas W. Morgan. In Naperville. The ad’s fifteen years old.” Li handed a xeroxed copy of the ad to Foster, then dug into the pile again. “And an old record for a house sale in the same name. The time frame fits with Davies’s account of when their father died. But no idea if this Morgan the CPA is their Morgan the CPA. I doubt Bodie in there would confirm, but I suppose we could try.”