Bird sighed. “Never mind.”
Brady sounded amused. “Really? Just like that, you got it all figured out?”
“Probably,” said Bird. “Maybe.” He paused, and then thumped his hand against the steering wheel. Once. Twice. Hard.
“Bird?”
“I’m here.” He took a deep breath, and sighed it out noisily through pursed lips. “Goddammit.”
A few moments later, the cruiser pulled back onto the road and drove on. Toward Copper Falls, the junkyard, toward Dwayne Cleaves’s abandoned truck and the charred human remains sitting in it. Remains that would not turn out to be Cleaves, after all—couldn’t be, because Cleaves had just been shot to death by his mistress two hundred miles away. Bird shook his head. There was no point in turning around, even if he’d wanted to; Boston PD had been accommodating enough about surveilling the Richards house, but they wouldn’t welcome an out-of-state cop pushing in on a homicide while the body was still warm. Instead, he’d finish this journey right back where he’d started, watch the day break over a new crime scene, and hopefully end it with the case wrapped, or close enough. Full circle. There was something right about it.
It was nice, at least, to know that his instincts were on point. He must have just missed Cleaves in Boston, the two of them passing like ships in the night as Bird drove back out of town. Another weird coincidence—or maybe Cleaves had been lurking just out of sight, watching, waiting for the police to come and go before he made his move. Something about that felt correct, too, except that it would mean Cleaves must be much smarter than given credit for, which didn’t feel right at all.
Bird sighed, wishing he’d stopped for coffee before getting off the interstate. He had the frustrating sense of having almost figured out something interesting, a dangling thread worth pulling on, but his thoughts were all out of focus and then interrupted by a massive yawn. He rubbed again at his eyes—and then yelped and slammed the brakes as a shape loomed out of the darkness ahead, frozen in the glare of his oncoming headlights. The cruiser screeched to a stop. Bird peered through the windshield at the deer, which stared back at him, pale and unmoving in the middle of the road. It was a doe, and he instinctively looked toward the dark behind her, expecting to see fawns or friends, but she was alone. Bird tapped the horn, annoyed, but the deer only swiveled her head, looking back where she’d come from. He hit the horn again, harder.
“C’mon, girl. Make a decision,” he said, and then chuckled a little as the deer swiveled her head again, her eyes glinting amber as the headlights hit them. Like she’d heard him, and was considering her options. For a moment, she stayed like that, unmoving. Then with a single, graceful leap, she cleared the center line and ran ahead, tail high, and disappeared into the dark.
Chapter 24
Lizzie
“It was self-defense.”
I held the words in my mind because I wanted to be ready to say them. Knowing that this is what I would say, the only thing I’d say, when they asked. But for the longest time, nobody asked me anything at all. An EMT had checked my vitals, asking if I was injured and then nodding in agreement when I said, “I’m okay.” He told me to stay where I was, and I did. Perched on the curb on the dark street, a still little island amid the electric red-blue strobing of the police cruisers and the busy movements of the cops, swarming in and out of the house, stepping around me like I was a bush or a fire hydrant. Just part of the landscape. Some of them glanced at me, but nobody really looked. I couldn’t blame them. I was the least interesting thing around, a silent lump covered in a blanket; it was the dead man inside the house who everyone was there to see. I watched an officer walk up and down the street, up and down the short stone stairs that led to the neighbors’ fancy front doors, the entryways decorated with grapevine wreaths or flashy chrysanthemums in pretty pots. He was methodical, going house by house, knocking and then waiting, looking up at the windows to see if any lights came on. Once, a door was cracked open and someone inside peered out, while the cop gestured toward the house behind me and spoke rapidly. Asking if they’d seen or heard anything, probably, but the door closed again too quickly for the answer to have been anything but “no.” I’d worried that a gaggle of curious neighbors would come out to see what was happening, craning their necks for a glimpse of something gossip-worthy, but everyone stayed inside. Watching from the comfort of their homes if they were watching at all, taking care not to make the curtains twitch. But maybe they’d all come out to talk about it after the police had left—after they took me away. Maybe they’d say that they always knew there was something strange about that woman, that couple. Something dark and wrong, something that told you it was only a matter of time until things ended, and badly.