The Last Child

Hunt pointed toward the house, which was invisible beyond the trees. “We found where Jarvis tapped into his circuit box. The cable is buried two inches down. The shed is completely off the grid. And you saw the trail in. It’s barely a footpath. None of this is visible from the road or the house. No permits. No utilities. It’s a shell. A dead zone.”

“Any luck with the kids?”

“They’re sedated. The doctor won’t let me see them.”

The Chief stepped into the shed and Hunt followed. He felt his skin crawl. “As you can see, the walls are padded with mattresses, probably for sound baffling. The windows are packed with fiberglass insulation and sealed with industrial plastic. Again, to muffle sound, but also to keep the site black. Look at this.” Hunt stepped to the far wall and pointed at a small, ragged hole. “This is where she tore out the hook that held her cuffs.” The hook had been bagged and numbered. Hunt picked it up and felt cold metal through the slick plastic. He held it out for the Chief, who touched it once, then knelt and placed a finger on the hole in the wall. It was a shallow hole. The concrete was crumbly and dry. “Tough kid,” Hunt said.

“So how’d she get out of the shed?”

Hunt led the Chief to the door and stepped outside. He gestured at the lock. It was a Yale, big and brass and solid. It was in the locked position, secured to the steel, U-shaped hasp. “He locked the lock, but failed to lock the door.”

“Accident?” The Chief lifted the lock, let it drop and swing. “Or arrogance?”

“Does it matter?”

A shrug. “The gun?”

“Unknown. It could have been in the shed all along. She could have found it in his house. That was unlocked, too.” Both men looked again in the direction of the house. Nothing was visible through the trees. Before dawn, though, with lights burning, Tiffany would have seen it. “I’m guessing he was intoxicated. We found liquor and drugs. The autopsy should tell us.”

“Any sign that there may have been other children?” The Chief kept his tone professional.

“Are you asking about Alyssa Merrimon?”

“Not specifically.”

The Chief was unflinching, his eyes implacable, as Hunt peered into the deep woods. “We’ll need the dog,” Hunt said. “If she’s buried out there, I want to find her.”

“Not much light.”

Hunt’s voice was bleak. “I’ve already made the call.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Behind the thin walls of a house that was not her own, Katherine Merrimon stared into the bathroom mirror. She’d recognized the lie in the cop’s face, felt it like a slap. So she asked herself the hardest question.

Was she a good mother?

Her skin stretched across the bones of her face, washed out and too pale. Hair hung with more weight than it should, and her fingers shook when she raised them to her cheek. She saw how chipped her nails had become, the way dark flesh rose up around her eyes. She looked for something familiar, but the eyes were cardboard eyes.

An image of Joh

Alyssa.

The name cha

Sweat trickled down her back. Her mouth went painfully dry and she could feel how they would be on her tongue-the hard swallow and the short, bitter wait. But when she lifted her gaze to the mirror, she saw those cutout eyes, and they looked faded, like copies of copies. They were the same as Joh

She tilted her hand and allowed the pills to fall. They made small sounds as they struck the porcelain. In a sudden frenzy, she scooped out all of the bottles, raked them into the sink. One by one, she tore them open, dumped the pills into the toilet. One bottle. Twenty. She emptied them all and flushed the pills down.

Fast.

It had to be fast.

She carried the empty bottles to the kitchen, threw them in the trash and hauled the bag outside. Time collapsed as she cleaned and scrubbed. Floors. The refrigerator. Windows. The hours became a hot blur of sweat and ammonia. She stuffed sheets into the washing machine, poured liquor into the weeds and threw bottles into the open can where they shattered and burst as she spun and went back for more. In the end, she confronted the same mirror. Blood hammered in the soft place beneath her jaw. She turned the water scalding hot and scrubbed her face until it hurt, but the eyes still looked wrong. She tore off her clothes and stepped into the shower; but it was not enough.

The dirt was on the inside.

Joh

Joh

The door opened so quietly that Joh

Joh

“How do you feel?” Hunt asked.

Joh

Hunt sat. “Can we talk?” Joh

Joh

“Can you look at me, son?”

Joh

“Joh

Joh

His hand moved, all on its own, and the cop was dimming, even as Joh

Then he was falling, and somebody drove black spikes into his eyes.

Katherine ironed her clothes and dressed. She fought to keep her fingers steady, but the buttons felt very small. She dried her hair, combed out the tangles, and debated over makeup. In the end, she looked like a normal woman stretched over the bones of someone very ill. When she called for a cab, she had to think hard to remember the numbers on the house; then she sat on the sofa’s edge to wait.