The Third Victim Part 47

Danny didn't talk. He knew absolutely he could not talk, could not trust anyone, even during the quiet hours of the night when the words bobbed up inside him and lodged as a fierce, hard knot in the center of his chest. That's when he saw what had happened again, clearly but somehow distanced, as if it had all been a dream and had nothing to do with him. Then he'd raise his hand, see that he wasn't even trembling, and want to scream and scream and scream.

The lawyer told him two experts would be visiting him as well. There were more rules about talking. One of them couldn't be trusted. Danny was to be careful. The other -Schaffer, maybe? worked for his parents. He could tell him everything. Maybe he should think about telling him everything. Maybe he would feel better about getting it off his chest. The lawyer looked at him kindly.

Danny thought about Miss Avalon. The expression that had washed over her face. The way she had turned toward him. Her last words, not understanding.

"Danny, run! Run, run, run/' The spider reached the window. Danny watched it race happily over the warm, unbreakable gla.s.s.

So many things in his mind. All these images, but so far away. Blood.

Noise. Smells he'd never imagined. Hot guns in his hands. But so far away. Maybe just a dream. Snap, open your eyes and it's gone. Maybe a bad TV show. Click, turn it off, go to bed.

Sally and Alice and Miss Avalon. Sally and Alice and pretty Miss Avalon.

"Run, Danny, run!"

Danny got up. He raised his hand and slammed it down on the spider.

Smash. He had happy spider guts all over his hand. He studied his fingers. They still wouldn't tremble. He stared at his hand and he willed it to shake. Nothing.

Danny, the stone-cold killer.

He went back to his bed.

Rainie swooped down on Charlie Kenyon like a bat out of h.e.l.l. She'd had four run-ins with the nineteen-year-old, and this time around she didn't have the patience. She spotted him riding a small Huffy dirt bike down a b.u.mpy logging road on his father's wooded estate, she flipped on her lights, and she went after him.

Quincy was riding shotgun. He didn't blink an eye at the display of sirens, lights, and billowing dust as Rainie pulled Charlie over to the side of the road and fishtailed to a stop. She got out of the car with her hand resting on the top of the baton in her heavy utility belt.

"Off the bike, Charlie."

"Holy s.h.i.+t, Officer, was I speeding?" Looking cool in a black leather jacket and too-tight jeans, Charlie remained standing over the dirt bike. He gave her a mocking grin. Rainie worked on not smas.h.i.+ng in his face. She needed to get more sleep. Even for herself, she was short-tempered these days.

Charlie's gaze flickered behind her, to where Quincy was climbing out of the car.

"Who's the suit?" Charlie asked.

"None of your business."

"Breaking in a new partner? Shouldn't you have told him about the dress code? Man, I've seen guys killed for wearing silk ties in these parts."

Rainie ignored his comments.

"Whose bike, Charlie?"

"Why? Gonna make me an offer?"

"Whose bike, Charlie?"

"Mine ' "It's sized for an eight-year-old."

"I'm nostalgic."

"Really? And here I thought you were just a lying piece of s.h.i.+t. Get off the bike, Charlie, and put your hands in the air."

Charlie finally dropped his James Dean routine long enough to scowl and whine.

"Hey, I won the bike fair and square. It's not my fault the kid never learned to dodge left in a fight."

"I said now."

"I'm on my father's property ' "Now!"

Charlie finally went quiet. He stared at her. He stared at Quincy.

Then he grudgingly swung a leg over the bike and let it drop to the ground.

"All right, all right, don't get your panties in a wad."

"Hands in the air. Turn around. Place them against the tree trunk.

Spread your legs."

"You're gonna pat me down? Over stealing a bike?"

"Who said this had anything to do with a bike?"

"What the ' He was too late. Rainie had already gotten close enough to hook her foot around his. She twisted him straight into the tree trunk, planted his hands above his head, and frisked him. A minute later she was the proud owner of a corkscrew, a switchblade, two hundred dollars cash, and a roll of quarters.

Quincy helped himself to the coins. He hefted the roll in his hand, fisted his fingers around it, and admired the weight. Charlie Kenyon knew how to pack a punch.

"Slow nights, Mr. Kenyon?" he asked Charlie. Rainie released her pressure on the teen's back. He turned around unhurriedly, making a big show of shaking out his arms and fussing with the collar of his leather jacket. After smoothing back his brown wavy hair, he gave Quincy a disdainful stare.

"I'm sorry," the teen said with bracing sarcasm, 'but I didn't catch your name."

"Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy. FBI."

"Ah s.h.i.+t," Charlie said.

Rainie finally smiled.

"Funny, your father said the same thing when I spoke to him this afternoon. It appears it's one thing to tangle with the locals, but not even your father feels like messing with the feds."

"You can take the bike."

"No kidding. Charlie, tell us about Danny O'grady."

"What?"

"You heard me. We want to know everything you ever said to Danny. And if I were you, I'd give us absolute cooperation, because a few eyewitnesses have already told us enough to book you as an accomplice to murder. You're nineteen, Charlie. You end up aiding and abetting a ma.s.s murder, and there's nothing your p.i.s.sant ex-mayor father can do to help you anymore. You graduate to a whole new league of adult delinquency. We're talking hard time, and not even at one of those lovely country-club prisons. You'd get the real thing."

"Hey, hey, hey, hey." Charlie held up two hands and made a big show of backing off.

"You think I was involved with hurting those girls? No way, no how. I got an alibi." He gave Quincy a look.