Chapter 32

Wednesday, April 2, 2004

11:45 p.m.

Her arm burned where Mr. Ellingson held on.

She tried to pull away, but he was so much stronger than he looked. Every step took her farther away from the house where she believed Troy was being held. Although, she hadn't seen any evidence of that in her short time in the basement. There had to be somewhere else Mr. Ellingson was hiding him. Because she wouldn't accept the alternative. She wouldn't believe her brother was dead. "I'm sorry. Okay? I'll pay for the window. It was just a stupid dare. You don't have to?—"

"I know what you were doing, Leigh." His thumb pressed into her elbow as he marched her back through the woods. His flashlight lit the path ahead but blinded her to everything else. "And I understand. Really, I do." He pulled her to a stop, staring down at her with all the care in the world, and it made her uncomfortable. Him touching her, looking at her. "Your brother was just found murdered beneath your own home. I can't imagine what that feels like, but I do know the toll grief can take on a young mind."

Except that hadn't been her brother's body, and he knew it.

Dropping to one knee in front of her, Mr. Ellingson set both hands on her arms. "You don't want to believe the truth. In reality, your brain is too undeveloped to even comprehend all the emotions you must be feeling, but I want you to know I'm here for you. If you ever want to talk, day or night, I think I can help."

The sincerity in that statement tempted her to ask if that was what he'd done for Troy before he'd abducted him, but despite her undeveloped brain, she knew when to keep her mouth shut. "Do you mean that?"

"Of course." Surprise creased the wrinkles around his eyes. He'd expected her to keep arguing. "I'm here for all my students, especially you high school kids."

She bet he was. "Then do you really have to escort me home to my parents? They're already grieving. I don't think they can take me screwing up."

"You know what? I think you've learned your lesson." Mr. Ellingson got to both feet, crushing the dead leaves scattered through the woods. He handed over his flashlight. "I assume you know your way back?"

"Yes." Leigh kept her gaze on the ground, noting the broken branch a few feet away. Maybe the length of her arm.

"Good," he said. "And, if you'd like, you're welcome to stop by my office after school tomorrow to talk."

"Thank you, Mr. Ellingson." She bit down on her bottom lip. The pain chased back the nerves. For now. "I'll be there."

"Good night, Leigh." He headed back the way they'd come.

Leigh dropped the flashlight and lunged for the broken branch.

Mr. Ellingson started to turn toward her, and she swung the makeshift weapon as hard as she could. Into his head. The resulting thud vibrated down into her hands. He dropped to the ground. Unconscious.

Tossing the branch, she grabbed for the flashlight and pumped her legs as hard as they'd go. The house came into view. The basement light was still on, and she scrambled back down into the window well. Glass crunched beneath her shoes as she spun to search the whole room. "Troy!"

No answer. A small doorway built into the side of the staircase she hadn't noticed until right then had swung open, but there didn't seem to be anyone inside.

She charged up the stairs onto the main floor, out of breath.

The TV flickered from the living room. "Chris, is that you?" a voice asked. The old hardwood floor creaked with approaching footsteps. "What are you doing in there? I thought you were getting me some crushed ice."

Leigh flattened herself against the hallway wall as a woman—too thin for her own good—shuffled past in her robe and slippers. She held her breath, moving deeper into the house. Toward the bedrooms. She didn't know how long she had, but Mr. Ellingson would come straight back here the moment he woke. She had to keep going. She had to find Troy.

Panic lodged in her throat as Mrs. Ellingson—his mother—stopped at the end of the hallway. "Chris?"

Leigh launched herself into the nearest bedroom and closed the door behind her as quietly as the house allowed. It took everything she had to catch her breath. Shapes stood out in the darkness. A bed, a dresser. The closet had been left open. Button-down shirts and slacks hung neatly on hangers. Men's. She was in Mr. Ellingson's bedroom.

She dropped to the floor, checking under the bed. Nothing. She pulled everything from the closet next. Photos had been taped to the back. Her eyes hadn't adjusted yet, so she couldn't make out the subjects. But it didn't matter. Troy wasn't here.

"Are you feeling ill?" Mrs. Ellingson's voice was louder now. Closer. The doorknob shook. Any second she'd open that door and find Leigh inside. "I've got Pepto-Bismol in the cabinet."

Leigh rounded the end of the bed to the window on the other side and ripped the cord down. The blinds shot up. She went for the lock and shoved the window up. She'd just gotten her first leg through when door hinges protested from behind.

She fell through. She landed hard and rolled closer to the house in case Mrs. Ellingson decided to take a look.

"I ain't cooling the outside, boy." The window slammed closed, and the click of the lock engaged. Mrs. Ellingson hadn't seen her.

She'd come out between the house and the freestanding garage. She shoved to sit up. The garage. It didn't make sense to keep Troy in the house. Not with Mrs. Ellingson around. But the garage was far enough away from the house and the street. Nobody would hear her brother.

She stilled, scouring the tree line for any sign Mr. Ellingson had come home. Darting across the short distance, Leigh pressed her back to the building and worked her way around to the front. There was a padlock securing the door. She hadn't come across a key inside. Mr. Ellingson probably kept it on him, but going back to see if he'd woken up wasn't an option. She'd have to break it. "Just add it to the list of charges."

Leigh searched for something to use. There. There was a toolbox next to the car up on jacks. Tipping the lid back, she grabbed for two open wrenches. They'd done this in physics class. She only hoped she remembered how. "It's gotta work."

She hooked both ends of the wrenches on either side of the shackle and brought the handles as close together as possible. The muscles in her forearms burned. A dog barked from a neighboring property. Her nerves convinced her someone was coming. Her hand slipped, and the padlock hit the garage door. "Damn it."

She had to try again. Wiping her damp palms on her jeans, she repositioned her leverage.

The shackle snapped in half.

Victory charged through her as she discarded the broken pieces and hauled the garage overhead. Boxes created a wall between her and the back of the garage, and her heart sank. "Troy?"

Tears burned in her eyes. She'd thought… She'd been so convinced?—

A small voice seeped through the cracks of cardboard. "I knew you'd come for me."

Friday, March 19

10:00 a.m.

Her discharge papers had finally come through.

The bullet wound in her shoulder would heal with minimal scarring. She'd landed herself in a three-day stay due to the concussion, broken nose, and battered bruises from Hailey Pierce's bat, but overall, she'd live.

The same couldn't be said for Boucher. Or his victims.

Police were still dredging the river and through the rubble for a body, but the lieutenant had most likely been caught under the mill's collapse or washed farther downstream. It would take weeks—if not months—to finish the search. As for now, the case was closed.

Gabriel Boucher had tortured and murdered four victims in his mission to protect his son from the very same man who'd haunted him. The town was still reeling. News coverage had shifted from Chief Maynor's admission to Officer Donavon Pierce's arrest, then to Boucher's involvement in the murders stalking Lebanon. They'd lost their trust in the very same police force they'd relied on to get them through the past twenty years. There was no fixing that. And, if she was being honest with herself, she wasn't going to try.

Her life in Lebanon was over. No pieces of her left behind. No connection to the past or wondering what would've happened if things had been different. She was free to move forward. And help others do the same.

State investigators pulled every piece of clothing from Gabriel Boucher's dresser and laid it out across the queen-sized bed wedged into the too small room. The one-bedroom, one-bathroom space the lieutenant had rented after moving out of his family home was nicer than she'd expected. Not as clean as Michelle Cross's or Roxanne Jennings's homes, but Boucher obviously hadn't planned on having a search party.

Photographers did their due diligence as techs pulled a collection of medical textbooks from the bottom drawer. Hand-scribed notes and highlights told a story of a killer diving headfirst into the cardiovascular system. Where to cut. What to avoid. How long his victim would last if he severed blood flow just right. It wasn't enough in and of itself to connect Boucher to these murders with hard evidence. They needed more.

And the evidence taken from the police station or the victims' homes wasn't here.

"Agen' Brody." Livingstone brought all eyes to her with an easiness Leigh had only tasted within the past few days. Authority. Respect. Confidence. Qualities earned in the price of bloodshed. "The hospital informed me you'd checked yourself out early. Thought I might find you here. I figured you would want to know I've gotten word Michael Agutter has made it back home to Fruitland with his parents safely."

"I'm glad." Though there was still the matter of why Chris Ellingson had kept his latest victim alive all this time. Why he'd brought Michael across the country to Lebanon. Without the opportunity to ask the man himself, she'd come to the conclusion Ellingson hadn't actually meant to abduct and kill the boy. Not really. He'd kept control of his compulsions for close to twenty years as far as she knew, but the news of losing his mother had set off a relapse. However, faced with the past clawing back into his life, she imagined there'd been a bit of regret in his last days. Leigh pressed her thumbnail into the seam of her arm sling. "Boucher is dead, but this case still feels unfinished. I needed to know for sure."

Livingstone motioned toward the techs pulling Boucher's life apart inch by inch, and they systematically filed out the door without argument. "You told me the first day we met that you've followed my career. You've seen the good the BAU does to break into the serial killer mind and prevent more deaths, but do you know why I volleyed to become director of this unit to begin with?" Livingstone's legendary discipline fluctuated with a dip in her voice. "Because I was right where you are now. Standing in the middle of a crime scene. Fresh off an attack that turned my world upside down. I was a rookie before the Ravelston Strangler killed my partner back in Edinburgh. I had no idea what I was doing or how I was going to take him down. Only that I never wanted anyone to lose someone to that kind of violence ever again."

The Ravelston Strangler. One of Scotland's most elusive serial offenders. Never killed close to home. From what police believed, he'd rented cars to go hundreds of miles out of his way to ensure his victims couldn't be tied back to him. Planted murder kits in locations he intended to kill. Rope, cleaning agents, changes of clothes, tarps, shovels—he came prepared. Until he'd broken his own set of rules and murdered a man less than half a mile from his home. A police officer in the firearms unit. Livingstone had been part of that investigation? "I didn't realize you'd lost someone."

The director toyed with a thin band on her ring finger. Something Leigh hadn't noticed until right then. "We've all lost someone, Agen' Brody. That doesn't make us special. It's how we respond to that loss that defines us. I joined the Behavioral Analysis Unit when my fiancé and partner was found strangled to death." Livingstone surveyed the sullen bedroom with its framed family photos and dark bedding. "What are you going to do?"

She hadn't considered what would happen next. Her entire professional career had been lived moment-to-moment. Looking for the next lead, the next suspect, the latest data—all to put together a twenty-year-old puzzle that'd followed her no matter how far she'd run. Now that the puzzle was complete, she didn't know where to go from here. Leigh's mind went to that little boy she'd pulled from beneath Chris Ellingson's garage. Michael Agutter had been kept alive for months compared to the short days her brother and Derek Garrison had survived. What if there were more boys out there who'd been kept alive? Or who'd escaped? Others who didn't.

Boucher had suspected Chris Ellingson of taking his son and had done whatever it took to get Carter back, killing his abductor in the process and returning his son home. Not every victim had a father like that. One willing to fight. "I want to find them. Chris Ellingson's victims. All of them. It might take weeks. It might take decades, but I think they deserve to have a voice."

A wisp of a smile played across the director's lips. "I can think of no better assignment. Assuming you'd like to do that with the full support of my unit?"

"I'd like that very much." The hollowness she'd tried to keep from bleeding into other people's lives—her coworkers, one-time friends, neighbors—wouldn't have the same hold on her inside the unit. Livingstone and Chandler Reed were as committed as she was, and it was that sense of belonging, of knowing she was the perfect agent for the job, that eased the displacement brought on by years of hatred, anger, and punishment.

"Where will you start?" Livingstone asked.

Leigh caught sight of a patch of mud on one of the flannel shirts spread across the bed. State investigators had torn this place apart from air vents to cabinets. What were the chances they'd missed vital evidence connecting Boucher to these murders? Her fingertips tingled to run her hand over the patch, to feel the crust of dirt between her fingers. "I think I'll start outside."

She rounded into the short hallway from the bedroom and out the front door. Descending two floors, she took in the stretch of trees encroaching on the complex's property. Boucher had been careful. He'd cleaned up traces of himself at each of the victims' homes and the scenes in which he'd left the bodies to be found. He wouldn't have kept evidence of murder within arm's reach. Her breath solidified in front of her mouth. "But he'd still want it close by."

She hiked up the soft incline leading to the trees. Hard-packed snow carved a path off to her left, and her gut demanded she see where it took her. Pines crowded around her the deeper she treaded, but it was only a dozen or so yards from the tree line she noted the disturbance in the snow. Mixed with streaks of frozen dirt.

Leigh didn't wait for the crime techs to catch up. Grabbing for a broken tree branch with her good hand, she stabbed it into the earth.

And hit something solid.