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Back inside the house, he went to his mother’s room, and into her tiny private bathroom. The bottom shelf of the medicine cabinet held a ski
He opened the first bottle and turned it upside down. Four small round pills with white crosses etched across their centers fell into his shaking hand. The second vial held nine. Gripping the thirteen pills in his sweaty palm, he shuffled out of his mother’s room and into his own.
Earlier that afternoon, he’d carried the television into his bedroom, then filled a bowl with a mixture of cat food and rat poison. He had set the bowl on the front porch for the evil Ian.
Now he flipped the television on and tuned into an old episode of Leave It to Beaver. He turned the volume down and grabbed his tape deck. He slid a Bob Dylan cassette in and set the volume to medium. He could no longer bear silence. He needed to feel as though someone were with him. He didn’t want to die alone.
He sat on his bed. It would only be a matter of hours before they found him now. This was the end. Finally. He hoped the world outside his head was the real one. He wasn’t sure if it was, but decided to be hopeful. It was all he had. He thought about Chris and felt even more frightened. Killing him had been a mortal sin.
He wondered if God would find a way to forgive him.
He closed his eyes. Darkness. Is this what death would look like? How would it feel? Peaceful? Safe? Would there be love? Families? A chance for a new, normal begi
Deciding anything was better than what he was living, he opened his eyes and twisted the cap off a bottle of Budweiser. He took three pills at a time until he’d swallowed them all.
He lay back in his bed and peered out the window, listening to Dylan croon Lay, Lady, Lay. The sky had darkened so much with the storm that he could no longer see outside his window. Ian had come and gone moments ago. His eyes had looked especially red and cruel against the stormy evening as he glared at him through the window. He’d mewed weakly and pressed his scrawny body against the dirty glass. Then the cat had left. Perhaps to retrieve the food from the porch.
He now lay in the small room, under the sheet, his body curled into a ball. The heavier his eyelids felt, the more frightened he became. He fought it. He fought going to sleep, dying and going to an unknown and possibly more terrifying place. But it was getting difficult to stay awake.
Dylan crooned to him as he drifted off.
Chapter 68
ERICA WAITED FOR what seemed an eternity to leave her hiding spot against the big oak, worried that he might be waiting in the shadows close by, ready to spring. But once she was somewhat certain he’d gone, she jumped up and ran.
It had begun to storm and the sky was now a purplish-black. It was difficult to navigate the woods through the darkness. Branches tore at the bare flesh of her arms and legs, and pine combs ripped at her feet. But she kept ru
A wall of Spanish moss whipped into her face temporarily blinding her, but she kept ru
An SUV pulled onto the narrow shoulder and slowed to a stop. A bird shrieked from the near distance, then flew across Whiskey Road, its wings beating in the stormy night air. Ru
“Mrs. Anderson!” she screamed. She opened the door and a bewildered, red-eyed Rachel stared back at her.
“I need your help,” she started, out of breath. “I know who he is.”
“Who who is? My God, are you okay?” Rachel exclaimed.
Erica looked down at her bloodied arms and legs.
“Yeah, I’m. . . I’m fine. I was just ru
“It’s too dangerous for you to be standing out there. Come on, get in.”
She climbed in the truck and slammed the door.
“Okay, now slow down. Who are you talking about,” Rachel asked.
“I think I know who took Tiffany Perron and Sarah Greene! And who killed the guy in the woods!”
“In the woods? I don’t--”
“We found a body.”
“We--? Who found a body?”
“The man. Guitreaux and I—”
“Erica, you must slow down, Rachel said, talking slowly as though she were dealing with a crazy person. She put a hand on Erica’s shoulder. “Just take a second and gather your thoughts. Then tell me what’s going on.”
“Okay, okay,” Erica said, then took a few long breaths. Then she told Rachel what she had seen just minutes ago. Once she was done, she felt the need to clarify.
“Look, I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure,” she said, her voice a little calmer. “If he’s the guy, he lives a quarter of a mile from here by road. Please, just take me there so we can know for sure.”
Rachel pulled a cell phone from her visor, hit a number on the keypad, then put the phone to her ear.
The SUV slowly inched forward.
Chapter 69
THROWING THE STATION wagon into park, Haley jumped out of the car and ran to Erica’s front door.
The clouds in the sky were dark and menacing and seemed to loom too close to the ground. Fat rain drops pelted Haley so hard they felt like balls of hail.
There were vibrations coming from inside the house. Loud music. A surprised Pamela answered, a can of Miller Lite, its rim stained with red lipstick, in a well-manicured hand. Cajun music was blaring inside the house.
“What’s wrong, cher?” she asked, her eyes growing wide.
“I need to talk to Erica,” Haley said, out of breath. “Is she home?”
Her eyebrows arched. “She’s not here, darling. But yore gettin’ all wet. Come on inside.”
Haley shook her head. “Do you know where she is?”
“No tellin’, she goes off so often by herself. Probably in those woods even though we’ve warned her about them. When you find her please tell her she needs to be more careful. We worry about her gettin’ hurt.”
Haley ran back to the car. As she drove toward Whiskey Road, the windshield wipers protested, jerking and screeching as they stuck and unstuck from the windshield. There was a truck behind Haley, but through the clouds of rain and the sticking wipers she could barely make out its taillights.
Lightning leapt from the sky. Unable to catch her breath, Haley rolled down the window for some fresh air. Rainwater and the wet, sour scent of manure trickled in. To make things worse, the sharp odor of the bayou in the distance swirled into the station wagon and crawled up her nostrils.
Double yellow lines stretched on and on against the gray pavement and rain trailed down the windshield. Haley turned onto a dirt drive.
She wondered if she should have called the sheriff or Detective Guitreaux to tell one of them about Tiffany’s necklace? But it was too soon, right? Maybe her negative opinion of Seacrest was clouding her judgment. She wanted to think everything through before implicating the teenaged girl in the disappearances of Tiffany and Sarah. . . no matter how appalling the girl was.