Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(118)
“A few nights ago. I don’t care if I never sleep another wink for the rest of my life. I was afraid it might have made me . . .” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as though he can’t bear to imagine it. “But it wasn’t me. And if you hadn’t set up those cameras . . . I might have believed the evidence myself.”
“They said—back home—there was DNA.”
“There was.”
“The test was wrong?”
“No. It was my DNA—stolen from the Riverview Clinic. He found out, somehow, about that. About a lot of things.”
“You killed him—that was him, down on the jetty?”
Mack nods grimly. “The last thing that son of a bitch did was turn around so I could shoot him in the back. He knew that it would look like—” He shrugs. “I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
“You had a gun.” She still can’t believe it.
“Yes. To protect you and the kids. I got it—”
“You can tell me later.” Allison stands up. “Or—you know what? I don’t even want to know. All that matters is . . .” She chokes up, unable to finish, but looking into Mack’s eyes, she can see straight into his soul at last.
He gets it. He knows.
“I love you, too, Allie,” he whispers, opening his arms, welcoming her in.
Alone in her living room the next morning, a middle-aged woman stares at the television with more than passing interest in a morning news program.
“A bizarre twist in a case that was thought to be solved a decade ago,” the reporter announces, standing on a sidewalk in front of a two-story Colonial-style home, white with dark green shutters, set back beyond ivy-covered trees and a tall hedgerow. “In 2002, handyman Jerry Thompson was convicted for a series of murders that took place in New York City in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks. Sentenced to life in prison, Thompson committed suicide on the tenth anniversary of the murders. Now, it appears he may have been an innocent man, convicted of crimes that were, in fact, committed by his own father.”
The scene shifts from the news desk to a mug shot superimposed with the name Samuel Shields.
The reporter goes on to talk about how Shields killed several women in “leafy, tony Glenhaven Park,” a New York City suburb.
Glenhaven Park.
That’s where Mack lives now, with his children and his new wife, Allison.
Now the television is showing a montage of small-town scenes: diagonally parked cars along a bucolic main street, briefcase-toting commuters boarding a train, children laughing on a playground . . .
“James MacKenna had moved to this idyllic town to escape the horrific memories of September 11, having lost his first wife in the World Trade Center . . .”
The reporter goes on talking, describing how Samuel Shields framed James MacKenna in the latest series of murders.
The woman on the couch has stopped following the story.
All she can do is stare at the photograph now on the screen, the one labeled Carrie Robinson MacKenna.
A familiar name to go with a familiar face.
The same face, though now weathered with the lines wrought by sorrow and age, that the woman glimpsed in the own bathroom mirror just ten minutes ago.
“ . . . and the good news this morning is that all five members of the MacKenna family are safe and sound and looking forward to getting back home, where they will finally be able to put this nightmare behind them. I’m Mary Lindsey reporting live from Glenhaven Park, New York.”
With a trembling hand, the woman who once called herself Carrie Robinson MacKenna aims the remote at the television, turns off the program, and closes her eyes, lost in memories, deciding it might be time to go home at last.
The terror continues in
SHADOWKILLER,
the next page-turning thriller from
New York Times bestselling author
Wendy Corsi Staub
Available from Harper February 2013
May 10, 2012
Saint Antony Island
It’s been a while since Carrie’s spotted someone with enough potential, but . . . here she is.
The woman in the orange and pink paisley sundress is about Carrie’s age—forty, give or take—and has the right features, the right build. She’s a few inches taller than Carrie; her hair is much darker, and she’s wearing glasses. But really, those things don’t matter. Those things can be easily faked: a wig, some heels . . .
What matters far more is that the woman is alone. Not just alone in this particular moment, but alone as in socially isolated, giving off an indefinable vibe that any opportunistic predator would easily recognize.
Carrie’s natural instincts tell her that this is it; this woman is her ticket off this Caribbean island at last.
Always listen to your gut, Daddy used to tell her. If you tune in to your intuition, you’ll find that you know much more than you think you do.
A part of her wanted to mock that advice later, when he’d failed her.
The words didn’t even make sense. How can you know more than you think you do? Whatever you think is what you know. Knowing . . . thinking . . . it was all the same thing.
Anyway, if she really did know more than she thought, she wouldn’t have been so shocked by his betrayal.