After texting his wife to say goodnight and let her know the power tool conference in Ohio was going well, he settled down, fully dressed, on top of the made bed in the Bennetts’ master bedroom and managed to get six solid hours of sleep.
13
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 10:43 A.M.
She didn’t know much about the person who’d written the list, the person who’d so far killed at least three people, but she did know that he wasn’t randomly shooting his victims in the street. At least not yet. So far, he had drowned Frank Hopkins in shallow water on a public beach, shot Matthew Beaumont from behind in an isolated location, and poisoned Arthur Kruse with an elaborate contraption. In all three cases there had been no witnesses. Because of that, Jessica felt relatively safe drinking her morning coffee on a bench outside of the Port Clyde General Store.
It was a cold, sunny morning, and she gripped the to-go cup with both hands to keep them warm. Her body was shivering but she was worried less about that than she was about her numb hands. Her Glock was in her side holster, and she might need quick hands to get to it.
There was a constant but slow-moving stream of cars coming and going through Port Clyde. Passengers were gathering on the dock to take the ferry to Monhegan Island, and small boats were coming over from nearby islands, some people just to get coffee or breakfast and head back. The sun came out from behind a three-story bed-and-breakfast, and Jessica moved along the bench to sit in its ineffective light. It was then that she saw the car she’d been waiting for, the dark gray Chevy, pulling into the ferry parking lot, then pulling out again to head back up the incline that led out of the village.
Leaving her coffee cup behind, Jessica raced to her own car, starting it up and speeding away from the curb, scattering gravel. She told herself to slow down, that they were on a peninsula, and there were limited places to go. After cresting a small hill she spotted the car up ahead, heading northeast. Between them was a FedEx truck. She would have liked to keep the truck right where it was, but it was trundling along under the speed limit, and she lost sight of the Chevy, so she accelerated around it on a corner, and kept up her speed until she could see the car again. She followed at what felt like a reasonable distance; in some ways she didn’t particularly mind if she was spotted. She had a gun with her, and if he figured out she was trailing him, then let him try to get the drop on her.
They passed through the village of Tenants Harbor, dipped down a hill to cross an inlet at low tide, then back up an incline to where the Chevy turned right down a side road. Jessica followed, slowing down now, figuring that in the unlikely event she hadn’t been spotted, then why risk it now, and she drove a mile to the end of the road without spotting the Chevy again. She turned around and went slowly back down the dark, wooded street, checking driveways, then spotting a dirt road she’d missed. She took it, the road bending sharply, passing an abandoned granite works building, then dead-ending. Either the Chevy had pulled into the closed garage of the weathered ranch house that was the final building on this road, or it had cut down the narrow, weed-choked driveway that went past a faded sign advertising the Long Cove Quarry.
Jessica thought: This is a trap.
But she also had a gun, now resting on her passenger seat, the safety off. And trap or not, this was an opportunity. Her body flush with adrenaline, she drove her car down the single track, through dense pockets of trees on either side, and emerged into an open space scattered here and there with piles of discarded granite and rusted machinery. There were cliffs on all sides, and a swimming hole shimmered in the sun, reflecting the colored leaves of the trees that lined the top of the cliffs.
The Equinox was parked twenty yards away. Jessica stopped her own car, killed the engine, and took hold of her gun. A man stepped out of the car, looking directly at her. He wore a baseball cap, as he’d done when she’d spotted him the day before. It was a Steelers hat, which seemed wrong somehow. He looked toward her, raised his arms slowly to show that his hands were empty.
She stepped out of the car, the gun down by her side, her finger resting along the short barrel. She took a few steps toward him, and yelled out, “Get down on the ground,” raising her gun slightly, but not so that it pointed at him.
Jessica didn’t hear anything, and she didn’t feel anything, but for a discernible moment, she knew she’d been foolish, that she’d lost this particular game. The man in front of her was bait, and she was now on the hook.
The bullet, moving faster than the sound it had made coming from the Remington M24, struck Jessica Winslow in the back of her skull, sending her pitching forward onto a slab of speckled granite.