Beneath Devil's Bridge(83)

My heart thuds against my rib cage. I think of Clay. The podcast.

TRINITY: How did your jacket get cleaned? How did it come back to you, if Leena was wearing it right before she was killed?

CLAYTON: I don’t know. I just don’t. It showed up in my office washed. It was inside a plastic grocery bag. At first I thought Leena had left it there.

I hear sirens. They invade the hot interior of my truck cab and my thoughts. They grow louder. They are joined by more sirens. They’re coming from the fire hall. It sounds as though they’re heading up into the residential subdivision on the other side of the valley. I’m thinking of Johnny. And nothing is adding up. Every time I learn something new, a curveball comes my way. How does this piece fit into the puzzle?

“You were treating Clay Pelley. You knew about the child pornography. He was a teacher. He had kids in his care. He had a baby of his own. You knew children were in danger. You had an obligation to report this, an ethical obligation. You—”

“Clay came to me for alcoholism. He wanted help with that. Only when I dug deeper in an effort to learn if there were any underlying drivers to his desire to numb himself did it come out. During a session. Under hypnosis. And around the same time, I learned the details from Merle. And . . . Clay was sick, Rache. The recidivism rate for guys like him is—”

“I don’t care. What you did was unforgivable.”

“And you? Did you look the other way?”

I turn my head away from him, stare through the misting window. My heart is jackhammering.

Granger says, “I seeded something in the unconscious of a sick man. He was the one who confessed. He used those details because he wanted to lock himself away.”

Softly I say, “And in the meantime, a violent killer slipped through our fingers and walks free.” I face him. “Did you ask Johnny about the jacket again, after the news about Leena’s body broke?”

“No. I was afraid to. But that’s what I was doing tonight. Just as you barged in. Finally. After all these years, I asked him directly. He says a friend brought the jacket to him at school on Monday morning in a plastic grocery bag, and asked if he’d do them a big favor and wash it and then put it in Clay Pelley’s office.”

“You believe him?”

He inhales and averts his eyes.

“Did he do it, Granger? Did Johnny kill Leena? Did he sexually assault and kill his classmate?”

Granger’s phone rings. He looks down to check the caller ID and holds up his hand. “Just a sec. It’s Johnny.”

He answers it. “What’s up?”

Granger’s body stiffens. His eyes widen. His glance shoots to me. “When?”

I go cold at the look on Granger’s face. He hangs up.

“It’s . . . it’s Maddy and Darren’s house. It’s on fire.”





RACHEL


NOW


Sunday, November 21. Present day.

I gun the gas as I roar up the road toward the cul-de-sac where Maddy, Darren, and my grandbabies live. Heart in throat, I spin the truck wheel and screech around a corner. Granger braces his hand on the dash as I squeal around another corner. More sirens approach from behind us. I can smell smoke. My heart races.

As I round the next bend, I see the blaze. The house is fully engulfed. Lights from fire engines pulse through the mist. The flames illuminate the whole end of the cul-de-sac. A road barricade forces me to slam on my brakes. A cop in uniform comes running toward my truck as I fling open the door and begin to race toward the fire.

I shove the barricade aside and bolt up the middle of the cul-de-sac. The officer chases me. A firefighter in full gear comes at me from an angle. My attention is fixed on the house. All I can think of is Maddy trapped in her chair. Of Lily, Daisy, their dad.

A blast shatters windows out of the side of the house. Wind is sucked inside and flames roar loudly. I hear crackles and a thundering sound. Another explosion.

The front door busts open. A figure comes barreling out with a jacket or blanket over his head. It’s caught on fire. The figure runs onto the front lawn. Firefighters race toward him as he drops on the ground and rolls. One of the firefighters aims the hose to hold back flames beginning to consume the front porch as the other firefighters pull the man to safety.

The firefighter running toward me cuts me off. He grabs my arm.

“Ma’am, you need to stay back.” He’s panting from his run. “Everyone needs to go back. We’re worried about a gas line.”

I fight him off me. “That’s my daughter’s house, she’s in there. With her kids. She’s in a wheelchair—”

The uniformed cop reaches me. She takes hold of my arm, trying to restrain me. I shake her off, too, knocking her in the face. She staggers backward. I need to get to the house. I am not thinking. The power in my limbs is monstrous.

Another cop arrives. A male. Bigger. Stronger. He tackles me and holds me still. He grips me by the shoulders. “Ma’am. Listen to me, ma’am. Look at me.”

I stare at the house. The building is so fully engulfed that the firefighters are not even attempting to enter. They’re merely holding back and containing the blaze, stopping it from spreading to the neighboring homes and to the forest behind. “My . . . my grandkids are in there.”

The female officer has come back up to her feet. Her nose bleeds copiously where I bashed it. She takes my other arm. “I’ve got her,” she says to the firefighter. The firefighter lets go of me and rushes back toward his truck.