Read The Last Victim Online

Authors: Kevin O'Brien

The Last Victim (45 page)

It was too bad. Despite everything, he would have made a damn good senator. And now the people of this state would have to endure six years with that fascist Jim Foley.
Saddest of all was what would happen when news of Sonny Fessler’s murders became public. All those old wounds that had healed over twenty years ago would be reopened. And for what? So a confined, elderly, mentally ill man would be attacked and demonized; then they’d ship him from a nice, clean sanitarium to a substandard one. That lawyer, Rachel Towles, was right. The ghosts in Gorman’s Creek would have been best left undisturbed.
Bridget drove up the block. “By the way, my friend Zach is coming over a little later tonight,” she announced.
“The guy we met at Dad’s funeral?” David asked. “What—is he your boyfriend now?”
“No, right now, he’s just a friend,” she replied coolly. “Is that okay with you? Do you mind if I have a
friend?
”
“It’s fine,” he muttered. “Jeez, I was just asking.”
They pulled into the driveway. “There’s Phil!” Eric said, waving at the white Taurus parked in front of their house. “Hey, Phil!”
The shadowy figure in the driver’s seat waved back at him.
“Clay isn’t here. You know what that means, don’t you?”
Zach stood near the easels with his hands half-raised in the air. “What does it mean?”
“Means he’s being a bad boy,” Siegel replied. “He’s with your girlfriend. I bet tonight’s the night.”
Zach glanced back at the corkboard—and that pencil-sketch of Bridget sprawled over the bed, her hands and feet tied to the posts. He felt a sickly pang in his gut.
Siegel kept the rifle pointed at him as he moved toward the window. He picked up the handgun from the telephone stand, where Zach had left it. “What did you break in here for anyway?” he asked. “Are you a big art lover or something?”
“I thought I might find some records connecting you with your employer,” Zach admitted.
Siegel chuckled. “We don’t keep shit like that. Hell, why would we—for tax reasons? If you’re looking to incriminate somebody, Sherlock, you won’t find any
evidence
sitting around my place—or here.”
Zach nodded toward the paintings on the wall. “What do you call that?”
He chuckled again. “I call it fucking weird. But then, he’s damn good at his job.” Siegel made a sour face. “Shit, get a whiff of the chemical stink in here. Did you go into his darkroom? It’s like a fucking laboratory—with all the solutions and ethanols and crap. I bet he has some kind of acid stuff I could use.”
“Use for what?” Zach asked warily.
“Well, if I can’t bury you out in the woods, I gotta find some other way for you to disappear.” He moseyed toward Zach, keeping the gun trained on him. “You stupid son of a bitch. You could have had a quick little burial out in those pretty woods. Now all you’ve done is made a lot of work for me. I hate to chop up people. It’s messy, and the acid stinks. And I’ll probably stain his tub too. Clay’s gonna be pissed.”
Zach glanced down at the floor. He just now noticed that Norbert Siegel was still shoeless. He did have on a pair of socks—with extra room in the toes. He must have stolen them from one of those hunters.
“Shit—” Siegel was just now noticing something too. He’d stepped into a puddle of paint thinner.
And once again, for a moment, Zach caught Norbert Siegel looking down.
He knocked over one of the tall candlestick holders—and then the other. They each hit the hardwood floor with a loud clatter. One of the candles went out. But the other flame survived. A burst of fire raced across the puddle on the floor—spreading out in little snakelike rivulets. Suddenly, Norbert Siegel let out a shriek. He dropped the gun and tried to cover his face. The fire seemed to crawl up his body, and he blindly stumbled into a wall of flames that lashed up from the floor.
Zack staggered away from him. He felt a blast of heat across his face. Choking on the black smoke and the smell of burning flesh, he backed into the worktable. Siegel’s screams seemed to fade under the crackling blaze. Zach couldn’t even see him anymore.
Suddenly, flames rushed across the worktable. The tops popped and flew off small cans of paint, and a dozen rags fueled the incendiary wave. Fire swept over Clay Hendricks’s unfinished painting—along with the sketches and photos he had displayed on the corkboards.
Zach glimpsed that image of Bridget tied to the bed. The paper started to burn and curl.
“What do you think Phil would like?” she asked. “Fritos or Sun Chips?”
“Phil likes Sun Chips!” Eric declared.
Working up a smile, Bridget handed her younger son a small bag of Sun Chips. Then she went to the refrigerator and took out a can of Coke.
Eric hadn’t gotten the chance to even say hello to Phil—no less, talk his ear off—when they returned home a few minutes before. Eric had had a bathroom emergency. Once inside the house, he’d raced for the bathroom. Sulking, David had lumbered into the den and switched on the TV.
Now Bridget handed Eric a napkin. “Tell Phil I can make him a sandwich if he wants one.”
She walked Eric to the front door and opened it for him.
Carefully holding the chips, Coke, and napkin, Eric headed down the walkway toward the white Taurus.
Bridget waved at her night watchman, then stepped inside. She left the door open a crack, then wandered into the den. Folding her arms, she frowned at David, who was slouched on the sofa.
“I’m sorry if I got a little snippy with you in the car,” she said. “I’ve had a pretty awful day today. I don’t want to go into it right now. But we need to have a long talk tomorrow.”
“Am I in trouble?” he asked.
“No, honey. You’re fine—you’re terrific.” She managed to smile at him. “And about Zach Matthias, you have every right to ask about him. The truth is I like him a lot—”
Bridget fell silent. The way David stared at her, he seemed utterly horrified. It took Bridget a moment to realize he wasn’t looking at her at all. Puzzled, she glanced over her shoulder.
Eric stood at the edge of the den. Tears streaked down his face, and his lower lip was trembling.
A man hovered behind him. He held a hunting knife against Eric’s throat.
The inferno encircled him. Coughing, Zach looked around for a way to escape. He was suffocating. He kept thinking he had to get to Bridget before it was too late.
The fire alarm went off with a shrill ring.
In all the smoke, he wasn’t sure where the door was. But he decided to run toward the sound of the alarm bell. Blindly, he raced through the fire. Wretched fumes filled his mouth and nostrils. He felt the heat burning his hair.
But Zach kept running until he slammed into a wall. Frantic, he felt around for the door and burned his fingers on the bricks. It was as if he were inside an oven. He could feel his skin cooking.
“Let go of him,” Bridget said in a low voice.
She recognized
Clay,
the man who had helped her that night she’d been stranded with the flat tire. She remembered his chiseled features and those intense eyes. Even when he’d
come to her rescue
that evening, she’d felt a bit uneasy around him. If Triple-A hadn’t shown up when it had, would he have used that Exacto-knife on her? She now realized he’d only given her the little knife because she’d caught him trying to conceal it.
The knife he held against Eric’s neck was not little at all. It had a six-inch blade and a serrated edge.
“I said,
Let go of him!
” Bridget repeated.
Clay seemed astonished—and a bit amused—by her authoritative tone. He grinned at her and pulled the hunting knife away from Eric’s throat.
Crying, Eric ran into her arms. “He killed Phil! Phil’s dead! I saw him lying in the backseat of the car!”
Bridget hugged her younger son. She glanced over at David, who had gotten to his feet. He stood by the sofa, with his eyes riveted on their intruder.
Clay put away his knife, and within a second, he pulled out a gun. He chuckled. “Thanks for the Coke and the chips. I’ll have them later. Right now, we’re all going upstairs.”
“You don’t want these boys,” Bridget said, trying to breathe right. Her heart was racing. “You just want me. So why don’t you send them upstairs? They won’t go anywhere. You and I can be down here—alone. Wouldn’t that be better?”
“Mom, no—” David said.
“
Sí!
” she hissed. “
Tu y Eric peuden escaparse por la ventana del baño y bajarse por el árbol. Ambos lo han hecho antes.
”
“Mom—”
“What the hell did you just say to him?” Clay asked.
She’d told David that he could escape with his brother out the upstairs bathroom window, then climb down a nearby tree. He’d done it before.
“I told him to be quiet,” Bridget explained, shooting a quick look at David. Then she stared at Clay, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “I also said that you weren’t going to hurt him. Now, you’re not interested in either one of my sons. So—don’t you think it would be better if you and I were alone?”
“No, Bridget. This will be
fun for the entire family
.” He nodded toward the front hall. “C’mon. Upstairs, single file. Eric takes the lead, followed by Mom, then David in front of me—and my gun.”
Bridget shuddered. How did he know all their names? How long had he been planning this?
“David, think you’re going to have a cigarette upstairs?” he asked.
Bridget glanced back at her son.
“Put down the goddamn ashtray, kid,” Clay continued. “What—did you plan to
hurt
me with that thing?”
“It was worth a try,” David answered defiantly, glaring back at him. He held the heavy marble candy dish out in the open now.
“Put it down—unless you want to be carrying a couple of your fingers in it.”
“You heard what he said,” Bridget whispered.
David returned the candy dish to its spot on the coffee table.
Clay motioned toward the front hall, and they filed out of the den. Bridget kept her hands on Eric’s shoulders. His whole body shook. She could tell he was trying not to cry. But every so often a scared, heartbreaking little whimper came out of him. “We’re going to be okay, sweetie,” she said under her breath. “We’ll be okay.”
Yet she knew they were heading up those stairs to their doom. She’d already seen what this man had done to Gerry and Leslie. All she could think about was getting her boys out of there. But right now she had no idea how she was going to do that.
His jacket was on fire.
Zach staggered out to the hallway, where the fire alarm bell was deafening. The overhead sprinklers had been activated. But the water hadn’t yet dowsed the flames crawling up his sleeve. Because Siegel’s jacket was so small and tight on him, Zach couldn’t struggle out of it until he was halfway down the first flight of stairs. He flung the burning garment behind him and kept running down the steps.
The shower of water felt cool against his hot skin. But he was still coughing and gagging—until finally, he spat up some black mucuslike liquid. Then he relentlessly continued down the stairwell.

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