Chapter 31

Tuesday, March 16

11:00 p.m.

Pressure built in her ears.

Leigh fought against the whirlpool dragging her into the corner of the room already submerged beneath the river. The hole in her shoulder burned with every reach of her hand to grab something to hold on to, but it was no use.

The building was coming apart at the seams. Literally crumbling in her grip. Air escaped her mouth and nose every second she fought to surface. Thousands of tons of pressure twisted her in every direction until she wasn't sure which way was up.

A rod of metal scraped along her side. Her scream was lost to the freezing darkness, but she grabbed on to it. Numbness expanded out from the bullet wound and took everything she had left. Her body was starting to shut down against the temperature, trying to save her organs as long as it could, but she wouldn't let go.

Water rushed past her, fighting to loosen her hold.

She could do this. She had to do this. Because it wouldn't end. The killings wouldn't stop as long as Boucher believed he was protecting himself and his family. He'd put an end to one monster but had created one in himself along the way. This… This was up to her.

Her chest suctioned in on itself, her lungs using the last of her reserves. She was out of air and had no better idea of which way to the surface than when she'd fallen in.

Until a sliver of brightness cut through the water.

The unboarded window. She followed the length of what felt like rebar in her hand to its source. A section of the floor had been lost, exposing the inner workings of the old mill. Leigh clawed at a grid of metal, crumbling cement, and old pipes. Every cell in her body begged for her to give up, to provide some kind of relief, but she had to fight the part of her brain that told her this was the end.

It wasn't.

She'd come too far. From leaving Lebanon at seventeen, to pushing herself through the police academy, her father's imprisonment, living with the news of her mother's suicide, the loneliness of losing her only sibling. She'd spent a lifetime learning everything she could about men like Chris Ellingson—like Boucher—to make a difference. To earn the trust and respect of a town that wouldn't ever see her as anything more than a petulant child in denial. To prove she was worth something.

But her past had no room in this investigation anymore. Or in her life. All she could do was stop the pain of it happening to someone else. To Carter Boucher. To Michael Agutter. To Chandler Reed.

Leigh wound her hand around a grouping of wires and hauled herself up the incline of the failing floor. The electrical cables jerked free, but she caught on to a crossbar. Pain came alive with each pull while seconds seemed to distort into full minutes. But she only had attention for that small sliver of silvery light. Her knee connected with the floor and gave her the leverage she needed to climb.

Webs of black tendrilled across her vision. She was close. She could feel it. The water was shallower here, the crushing weight lighter.

She shoved to her feet and broke through the surface with a harrowing gasp for oxygen. The burning sensation in her chest intensified as though her lungs had forgotten the feeling of fullness.

Leigh shoved wet hair from her face. Her shoulder refused to budge despite the bullet tearing completely through, and she clamped a hand over the wound to chase back the numbness. Agony ripped through muscle and down into bone. But at least she was still alive to feel it.

"You just don't give up, do you?" Boucher discarded Chandler Reed's body to the floor. Advancing, he kicked up water in his wake. "Even when the fight is already over."

"Come on, Boucher. You know you would've missed me." Her defenses kicked in. Leigh backed up as far as the room allowed while staying on her feet. She reached behind for a weapon along what used to be a work bench. A broken glass bottle head sliced the end of her finger as she swung for the lieutenant's neck.

He leaned back to dodge the strike, letting her overcorrect. Her momentum gave him exactly what he'd been waiting for. Boucher ripped the makeshift weapon free from her grip and locked one hand around her throat. He pressed her low back into the work bench and arched her spine until the wood cut into the nerves there. "I'd find a way to live with myself."

She latched on to his wrist to dislodge his hold. White streaks lightninged across her vision. He was too strong. Too powerful. Blood pooled in the arteries lining her neck, sucking consciousness from her brain. A delirious laugh reverberated through her. "You spent… your life fighting… him. Now you are him."

Surprise relaxed his features but not his strangling grip. The explosive scream escaping his chest shocked her nervous system. Boucher rocketed his fist into her face. Once. Twice.

Throbbing soreness gave way to crunching bone. Blood filled her mouth and gushed down the back of her throat. The third strike came. Leigh dropped to her knees, doing everything in her power to stay alert. But it hurt too much.

"You're wrong." Heaving inhales nearly drowned the rush of rising water. Boucher stood over her, made of punishment and revenge and duty. He unholstered the gun at his side. She wasn't going to win against him. Not head-on. And he knew it. "I'm nothing like him. Nothing."

Her fingertips brushed an array of debris beneath the surface, and she took one in her hand. It wasn't much, but it'd have to be enough. "Whatever you have to tell yourself to get to sleep."

She stabbed the broken chunk of cement into the side of his thigh.

Boucher wrenched away. His bellow threatened to puncture her eardrums, but the distraction gave her time to go for the gun.

Leigh twisted it from his hand. Only she wasn't fast enough. His knee intercepted and knocked it free from her hold. The sidearm disappeared into the water, and she lunged. Stinging pain aggravated her scalp as Boucher fisted her hair.

"You can't win, Brody. Because you're not willing to do what needs to be done." He forced her to stare up at him from her knees. "That's why you couldn't stop Chris Ellingson. That's why you couldn't help your brother. That's why you've spent your entire life on the sidelines instead of in the field. You think you can save people from predators by picking out patterns and shit? You can't even save yourself, but me? I'm the only one who went to the source to get my son back. I do what needs doing. What do you think I'll do to you?"

The water grew angry then. The exterior wall fell to pieces in a matter of seconds and vanished into the river. A tidal wave slammed into them, and suddenly she was back under water. The water's temperature wasn't such a shock the second time, but she was helpless against the river's pull. Boucher's hand released from her hair, and she slammed against the abandoned work bench. Latching on to one of the cabinet doors, Leigh got her feet back under her.

Boucher struggled to haul himself up a large piece of machinery. He was right. She hadn't been able to bring down Chris Ellingson. And she'd failed Troy. She should've come back to Lebanon sooner. She should've faced her fears instead of letting them lead her deeper into obsession. But investigating this case, surviving Donavon Pierce's threats, battling the hollow ache that'd taken over every time she'd stepped foot in her childhood home, realizing her father had given up hope—it'd all built up to this. To this moment. To the only person standing between Gabriel Boucher and his next victim.

And she would have to be enough.

The lieutenant got to his feet. Blood trailed down one side of his face from a laceration at his temple.

Leigh dragged a piece of rebar from beneath the water's surface and waded toward him. Exhaustion doubled the weight of her legs and intensified the pain in her face. Broken nose. Maybe a cheekbone. But she couldn't let it stop her. "I might not have been strong enough then, but you have no idea what I'm capable of now. Gabriel Boucher, you are under arrest for the murder of Gresham Schmidt, Michelle Cross, Roxanne Jennings, Chris Ellingson, and the attempted murder of two federal agents. You have the right?—"

Boucher laughed. The full sound that pooled dread at the base of her spine. "We're way past that, Brody." He launched his fist into her stomach. "Come on now. Show me what you got."

Air vacated at the contact and doubled her forward. The rebar slid through her fingers. She stumbled back to put distance between them as her lungs tried to remember how to function.

Then swung the steel as hard as she could.

He caught her wrist a split second before contact. She released her grip, letting the rebar drop. And caught it with her opposite hand. A single step forward. That was all it took for the tip to penetrate the flesh of his gut. The metal tore through muscle and skin and came out the other side, pinning him into the spokes of the machinery at his back.

Boucher's exhale brushed the underside of her jaw.

His blood ran over her hands and dripped into the surge of water coming between them. She didn't have the capacity to process what'd just happened and let go, nearly tripping over debris behind her. She wiped at her face with the back of her hand. "We had the proof, Boucher. We had him. He was going to pay for what he did. He was going to pay for everything, but you…" She motioned toward him. "You had to become this."

His ragged breathing silenced the destruction raging around them. "It wasn't good enough. Nothing would've been good enough."

Maybe not. Maybe Chris Ellingson hadn't suffered enough for what he'd done to his victims over and over. Maybe Boucher was exactly the punishment her brother's murderer deserved. But it didn't make it right. It didn't fix all the loss and grief and anger plaguing this town.

But it was over.

The next corner of the building took that moment to collapse. Another wave was coming. One that might finally kill them both. Leigh waded through floating stretches of wood and plaster toward the body face down a few feet away. Chandler. She flipped him onto his back. No signs of life. She tipped his chin back. "Come on, Chandler. Breathe."

"Don't you do it, Brody. Don't you dare tell them it was me." Boucher struggled against the rebar skewering him. He gripped the end and pulled. "Don't let them take it out on my son!"

She dipped beneath the surface of the water to set Chandler over her shoulder. But the bullet wound wasn't having it. The wave rolled across the room, bringing at least another six inches of water with it.

Boucher saw it coming. He shoved himself forward, pushing the rebar through his back in a vain attempt to get free. "Brody!"

Leigh fisted the investigator's jacket and dragged him toward the door that was no longer there. Weeds and mud seeped through the opening. The building was still hanging on for dear life. She just needed it to stand a little while longer. They were almost there.

A strong hand wrenched her backward and shoved her beneath the water.

She kicked as Boucher's hands found her throat, but it was no use. He was too strong. Chandler's weight pinned one side of her body down. She gave up trying to dislodge Boucher's strangling hold and went for his face. Her fingernails gouged into his skin, but it made no difference. Murky water filled her mouth and drove down the back of her throat, but there was nowhere for it to go.

His grip tightened.

She couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

Her vision was going black.

Leigh stretched her hands out to either side. Boucher's sidearm. It was right there. Just out of reach. The chance the gunpowder had been submerged too long ran high, but she had to try. Clamping a hand on his wrist, she tried to push herself deeper. Her fingertip brushed the textured grip, shifting it farther away. She tried again and managed to move it again. Still not close enough.

The harder she fought, the faster precious oxygen burned up in her chest.

She had nothing left to give. And stilled.

Her legs lifted of their own accord, breaking the surface of the water. She pried her hand from around his. The darkness had taken over, and there was a sense of peace that came with it. She'd done the job Livingstone had recruited her for. She'd found the killer. She'd fought for this town, knowing it'd never do the same for her. That acceptance—that clarity—was all she needed. She wouldn't ever be strong enough against him. But she'd studied enough killers to know how they thought.

And to convince them they'd won.

Boucher let go.

She fought the urge to surge upward. Instead, she expelled the rest of her oxygen and forced herself down.

Leigh secured her hand around the gun, brought it forward, and pulled the trigger. Then again. Both bullets found their mark. Getting her feet underneath her, she thrust upward, weapon in hand.

Boucher stumbled back. Both hands locked on his chest, he raised his gaze to meet hers. Then fell into the depths.

She stood frozen for a series of labored breaths.

A beam from overhead swung within two feet of her position and slammed into the wall behind her. Fighting water now up to her waist, Leigh tried to run for the exit. Chandler Reed—unconscious and unmoving—was there, and she tossed the gun to get the investigator out.

She made it through the opening where a door had once stood, but the collapse left little room between the structure and the riverbank to fit through. And it was sinking deeper right in front of her eyes, cutting off her only escape. "Think skinny thoughts."

Leigh hugged the investigator to her front and took a deep breath. Submerging them both, she kicked with everything she had. She pulled them through the doorframe and onto the other side to resurface. Her shoulder gave out as the earth swallowed the old mill brick by brick. Mud and weeds provided leverage the farther up she managed to drag his body one-handed.

She released Chandler's hand and fell onto her backside into the snow. On her knees, she fisted both hands right below his sternum and pumped hard chest compressions. Two. Three. She fed air into his mouth and airway. Then again. A funnel of water spit from his mouth and nose, and Leigh turned Chandler onto his side to give him more oxygen. His gasps nearly overrode the echo of sirens piercing through the night.

It was over. Leigh's gaze settled on Chandler, noting the blades used to torture him and four other victims were now gone. She hadn't failed him.

It was finally over.