To Catch a Killer(85)

“The FBI has it,” I say.

“If that were true, we wouldn’t be here right now. So, tell me and things will go easier on you.”

“Pound sand. I’m not telling you anything.”

“Go ahead and tell him, Erin,” Victor says. “It’ll be better if you do.”

Furious, I give Victor a laser glare.

He’s so confident that I slow down for a second and try to think like him. I get the vibe that he wants me to tell Principal Roberts that the samples are in our freezer at home because that’s where he put the ones we ran today. Is he forgetting that Miss Peters’s samples are in there, too? Of course, Mr. Roberts probably won’t go browsing into a bag of peas once he finds the first set.

Principal Roberts waves the gun in front of Spam’s face. Her eyes are the size of golf balls and they move and follow the gun, but she sticks her tongue out at him anyway.

“What’s it going to be, Erin? Hard, painful bullets, where I kill everyone else and make you watch? Or a nice, soothing, eternal, happy nap?”

“Fine!” I play the part, looking torn and broken. “In the freezer at my house.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it? Is your spare key still under the mailbox?”

I nod. Creepy. I guess that explains how he got into my room.

He stares at Spam’s feet and shakes his head. “Look at you with your ridiculous costumes. Why can’t you wear normal shoes like everyone else?” Using one hand, he jerks off her boots, first one and then the other, and tosses them randomly into the back of the van.

Mr. Roberts bends to slide the loops over Spam’s ankles, and as he does, a large crucifix necklace slips out of the front of his shirt. The way it dangles there, free around his neck, catches the light from the headlights on Rachel’s car and casts a small shadow of a cross on my leg.

A sudden memory explodes in my brain, loud and painful.

I turtle my shoulders protectively around my head. If my hands were free I would bury my ears in them. I would do almost anything to block this pain. It’s sharp and intense, like being shot in the skull.

There’s a woman’s voice … a voice I’ve never heard before but suddenly remember. It’s a voice that’s clear and bright and strong.

She’s not your daughter.

I look around the van. Where’s it coming from? I stare at the cross on my leg.

“I remember now.…” My voice is barely a whisper.

“What?” Mr. Roberts turns his head sharply toward me.

“Oh my god. It’s her. My mother.” It feels strange to finally say it and mean it. I stare at the shadow swaying on my leg. “I remember now.… She yelled at you.”

“No. No.” Principal Roberts fumbles, trying to lash Spam’s feet together.

“She did. She said: ‘She’s not your daughter.’”

“No!” he roars.

“Yes … and then you hurt her.”

He grabs me roughly by the arms, picks me up, and tosses me farther into the van. I land just beyond Victor’s shoulder, near Journey. Spam scoots next to me, trying to stay out of his grasp.

“Shut up. Just shut up,” he yells. “She only said that because he was filling her head with lies. You have been my daughter every day for the last sixteen years.”

For some reason I know it in my bones; I feel it in my cells. There’s no way this crazy psycho’s blood pounds in my veins. He’s not my father. I’m 100 percent sure of that.

“Liar!” I scream.

“Just shut up,” he says, his voice cracking.

From my angle in the back of the van, I watch him duct-tape a three-inch flexible hose to the exhaust pipe and secure it to the bumper with heavy strips of tape. He then works the flex hose up through a piece of dry, rotted wood flooring. He brings the hose up to about the middle of the van wall. Then he tapes it in place.

When he’s finished, he slams the rear doors, locking us inside. A few seconds later, he opens the driver’s door, reaches in, and attempts to start the engine.

The van sputters and dies on the first two tries and I’m hopeful. If ever there was a perfect time for Journey’s van not to start, this is it.

But no such luck. Third try, the engine cranks over.

Mr. Roberts pounds on the side of the van. “Okay, chums. I’ll be back in a bit to set the murder-suicide stage. Don’t worry, I won’t wake you.”

And then he’s gone.

Carbon monoxide pours down on us from the hose and begins to build up inside. The smell is strong, like sticking your head under a bus … only maybe worse.





41

Keep this in mind, nearly everywhere you go, you’re surrounded by a cloud of bacteria that is as unique as a fingerprint.





—VICTOR FLEMMING


Victor rocks from side to side, twisting around and worm-crawling to the back of the van.

“Somebody check on Journey,” he says. “I need him working with me.”

I try to roll to Journey’s side, but it’s awkward and I end up stuck, face down, because it kills my shoulder to roll over on it.

“I’m awake, I’ve just been laying back,” Journey says. “Let’s do this.”