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An entire half of the building had shifted downward. They were going to end up crushed beneath forty tons of bricks, beams, cement, and water any second now. Leigh’s phone skidded across the floor and hit the opposite wall, out of reach. The river penetrated one corner of the room and started the process of swallowing up evidence as though it meant nothing. “Shit.”
She grabbed Chandler’s bloodied hand. Her ribs screamed against the pressure of pulling the investigator closer, but she managed to get back on her feet. Pinning her forearms on either side of Chandler’s rib cage, Leigh hauled him almost chest height.
One of the blades dislodged. Then another.
“I don’t suppose you want me to try to put those back?” She dragged Chandler toward the door she’d come through. Ten feet. They were going to make it. She just had to keep going. Just had to take the next step. “Didn’t think so.”
A flashlight shone directly in her face.
The world went ultra-white, searing the backs of her eyes.
“You’re going to want to step away from him now, Agent Brody,” a familiar voice said.
She pressed her eyes closed, turning away while trying to keep both hands firmly around Chandler. She hadn’t heard anyone else in the building. How had he known she was here? Had Livingstone sent him? “And you’re going to want to get that thing out of my face. We’ve got to get out of here. Chandler’s hurt, and the whole building is about to fall apart.”
“I know.” The light diverted away, leaving white spots in its wake. His outline solidified the closer he got. “That’s one of the reasons I chose it. What better place to dispose of evidence in four murders than a building on the verge of collapse? Of course, you can’t time these things. I’ve had to help it along a bit. But I was hoping this dump would’ve taken Mr. Reed down with it before you figured this all out.”
Leigh stilled while her mind tumbled leaps and bounds over itself. His features started filling into the space where shadow hid his face. The nose that’d possibly been broken one too many times. The cleft in his chin where his razor didn’t seem to reach well enough. Even the distinct line between his brows. Her heart shuttered as the answer she’d been searching for since coming home to Lebanon had stood right in front of her since day one. “You?”
Gabriel Boucher took a single step into the moonlight. Lowering his flashlight, the lieutenant raised his sidearm and took aim. At her. “Yeah, Brody. Me.”
THIRTY
Lebanon, New Hampshire
Tuesday, March 16
10:30 p.m.
“I’m not going to ask you again.” Boucher kept that dark gaze steady on her, so unlike the times they’d interacted during their partnership. “Step away from him.”
“You know I can’t do that.” Her arms burned from keeping Chandler Reed upright, but the federal investigator was still alive. The moment Leigh set him down, it was all over. She gauged the distance between her and the door. By the time she managed to get Chandler through, Boucher could put several rounds into her back. Digging her fingers into the investigator’s torso, she shifted into the pinpricks working up her leg to stay in the moment, to figure out how the hell they were going to survive this. “That day in the park, you told me Livingstone had turned you down for a date, but that wasn’t it, was it? She was starting to suspect who you really were.”
“It wasn’t supposed to end like this.” The lieutenant rolled his bottom lip between his teeth and bit down. “I gave you all the chance to walk away, but no one would take it.”
The beams running across the ceiling overhead cracked.
“You killed them.” The building was crumbling around them, the water was getting higher at the far end of the room. She was out of time and options. “All of them. Gresham Schmidt, Michelle Cross, Dr. Jennings. Even Chris Ellingson, right? They were looking into my brother’s case. To find the truth.”
“The truth?” A low scoff escaped Boucher’s composure, and she got a mere glimpse of the man she’d feared would lose it these past few days. “You want to know the truth? Chris Ellingson deserved far worse than what I gave him. You’d think after years of torturing kids, the son of a bitch would be able to handle a taste of his own medicine. But when he took my son, the gloves had to come off. He crossed the line, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let him take the only thing I care about in this world.”
“You brought Carter home the night you killed Ellingson,” she said. “That’s why there was no sign of him in that house or the tunnel beneath the property.”
Leigh tried to take a step toward the door, but she was losing her grip on Chandler. “So all this—using toy soldiers with my name scratched on them, killing those victims in the same manner my brother and Derek Garrison were killed—it was all to get to Ellingson?” she asked. “You knew the manner of death would get my attention, that I would come here and put him at the top of the suspect list.”
“You certainly didn’t disappoint, Brody.” That half smile she’d taken at face value hitched one side of his mouth higher. She’d studied evil all of her adult life. She should’ve recognized a mind game when she saw one. “You might’ve left Lebanon behind, but someone who tries to disprove an entire police department at seventeen wouldn’t have given up so easily.”
Water crept higher up the slope as the corner of the building sank deeper.
Leigh took a step toward the door. “Chris Ellingson abducted you.”
“I was ten,” he said. “I got into a fight at school. Broke the other kid’s arm in four places. Principal said I could either see the school psychologist or be expelled. My parents chose to send me to the psychologist. Mr. Ellingson told them I had anger management issues, but that he could help. Gave me one of these the first day.” Boucher pulled a dark figure from his pocket. A toy soldier. Her heart squeezed hard in her chest. “Told me anytime I was feeling angry to direct it onto this. You’d be surprised how well his advice worked. Right before one night he came into my house through a crawl space in my mom’s sewing room, put a pillow over my nose and mouth until I stopped breathing, and walked me out of there without even waking my parents.”
Was that how Ellingson had gotten all his victims out of their homes? Muffling their cries, ensuring there were no chemicals or drugs to be traced. Fibers would’ve been swallowed and digested if the boys were kept alive long enough. Three days. Ellingson had given Derek Garrison and his other victims three days before their bodies turned up. Long enough for the evidence to disappear. Though that didn’t explain why Ellingson had kept Michael Agutter alive for three months.
Leigh had no willpower against the visual that created, her mind automatically putting Troy’s face front and center. Acid collected at the back of her throat the longer the image held on. She fought against the dead weight in her arms, trying to keep Chandler upright with everything she had, but her arms were on the brink of giving up. “The patterns and behaviors I predicted at the start of the case… I’d attributed them to Officer Pierce. But you were right there with us from the beginning.”
“Donavon Pierce doesn’t have the balls to do what I’ve done, but you were right. About all of it. To be honest, I was getting a little nervous standing in the same room with you those first few days. Especially when I told you that list of students the school board sent over didn’t register any hits. The way you looked at me, I was convinced you knew I’d taken my name off the list, and you knew exactly who I was.” The muscles in Boucher’s jaw flexed under pressure. “But I’ve got to hand it to my mother. She kept our secrets from this town with everything she had. My disappearance, too. After what’d happened to your family, she didn’t want that for us. That summer I told you about not being able to leave my house. I’d gotten free. I ran home, told her what happened. She locked me up tight, homeschooled me after that. Never let me out of her sight. Never let me see my friends or go out. Told me to forget about it. But I couldn’t.”
