World of Trouble (The Last Policeman #3)(42)

Her face tilts gently to one side, and her eyes are closed, as if in sleep. She’s at peace, they would say that, people always say things like that, but it’s an inaccurate statement—thoughts are thundering around in my head, grief is choking its way up my throat—she’s not at peace, she’s dead, she was at peace when she was laughing at something clever someone said, she was at peace when she was smoking a cigarette, listening to Sonic Youth. She liked all that ’80s and ’90s stuff, the college-radio acts. Hüsker Dü, the Pixies. That smart-ass Replacements song about the flight attendant.

There’s dirt on her cheeks. I wipe it away with my thumb. A few strands of hair are matted across her forehead like delicate fractures. Her whole life, Nico was so pretty and always trying to pretend she wasn’t. So pretty, and so annoyed about it.

I look up at the sky, up at the wavering gray sun and then past it, imagining I can see 2011GV1 in its current location. It’s close now, a couple million miles now, our nearest neighbor. They say that for the last couple of nights you’ll be able to see it with the naked eye, a new star, a gold pin in the black heavens. They say that just before impact the sky will brighten ferociously, like the sun has burst from its own skin, and then we will feel it, even on the far side of the Earth we will feel it, the whole world will quaver from the blow. They say that sufficient debris will be ejected from the impact site to fill Earth’s atmosphere in a matter of hours.

I stand up, stumble away, and then I grab my forehead with both hands and slowly claw my fingers down my face: dig into my eyes, gouge my cheeks, burrow my fingers through my ridiculous policeman’s mustache, disfigure my lips and my mouth, tear angry furrows into my chin. Birds are chattering to each other in a nearby tree. Lily, the girl, whatever her name is, she’s still on the outskirts of the clearing, sobbing wordlessly, a dissonant ghostly moan.

Go on now, Detective, urges Detective Culverson, comforting but firm. Go on and get to work.

I turn back around and step close again, give myself a push and look at the body like any other body, the crime scene like any other crime scene.

Her throat is cut, the same as Lily’s. Her face is covered with scratches and slight bruising, the same as Lily’s. And her hair: a hunk is missing from the back, from just above the nape of the neck. She’s had bad haircuts in recent years—punkish, short, choppy—so it’s hard to tell. But I think it was hacked off. I shake my head, run my hand through my own short hair. I demand a summary of findings and it comes back in the voice of Dr. Alice Fenton, chief medical examiner of the state of New Hampshire, another old acquaintance: We have a Caucasian female, twenty-one years old, signs of struggle including incised wounds to the fingers, palms, and forearms; cause of death is massive blood loss from traumatic laceration to the structures of the throat, inflicted with a knife or other sharp object wielded by a determined assailant.

I bite my lip. I look at her face, her closed eyes. What else?

This clearing is smaller than the one where we found the first victim, the one who survived. The ravine where we found her was neat and circular, encircled by pines. This place is rougher around its edges, smaller and more irregular, surrounded not by forest trees but low ugly bushes, rough with pricklers and brambles.

The same evidentiary challenges, here, though, the same unuseful ground, thick with mud. Footprinting a lost cause.

I stand up again. My head spins with stars. I walk a tight circle. What else?

Slow down, Palace, says Detective Culverson, slow down, says Officer McConnell, and I tell my ghosts to hush up now, tell them to be still a minute because I can’t slow down, I won’t—there’s no time.

Lily is still on the edge of the field, moaning and shaking.

“Hey,” I say to her. Walking over quickly. “Hey. Are you okay?”

She shakes her head and wipes at her mouth with the back of one sleeve. “No,” she whispers, barely moving her mouth. I step forward, closer, so I can hear. She says, “I don’t know what happened.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“I remember running. Through the woods.”

“From what?”

“Just—that’s all I remember. Running.”

“From who?”

She starts to talk but she can’t talk, no words come out, her mouth hangs open and her jaw quivers.

“From who, Lily?”

“I don’t remember.” Her hands come up in front of her mouth. “I had to. No choice. I had to. It was just … run.” The words escape one by one from behind the barrier of her hands, each little syllable encased in its own small bubble. “Run … run … run …”

I ask her again—from who—from what—why were you running, but she is done, she has stopped cold, stopped like a clock. Her hands come down, away from her frozen mouth, and her face is pure blank, staring forward. I peer into her eyes like narrow windows, as though if I look hard enough I can see through them and into the darkened theater of her mind, watch whatever happened to my sister unspooling inside Lily’s eyes.

Lily’s not her name. I still don’t know her name. I have to learn her name.

I have to learn everything.

Attacker finds two girls in the kitchenette.

Corners them both and slashes victim one. Assuming she’s dead, he chases the other one, victim number two, chases her out into the woods. And I can’t help it, I’m thinking of good ole Billy, back at the RV, Billy draped in his bloody apron, holding a doomed chicken by the neck.