your own arse.”
“Sir”—Nigel approached his superior officer cautiously—“Chief Morris’s theory might be bullshit. But he’s pursuing it. And if he’s right, and we’re wrong, we run the risk of handing this whole case and all the due credit for solving it to the man we just ousted for his sheer incompetence.”
Woods exhaled smoke, squinting through it at Detective Spader.
“He thinks Regan might be going back to where the incident occurred.”
“And why the fuck would he want to revisit something like that?” Woods said. “What I read in that file makes me sick.”
“That’s just what this guy is,” Nigel said, shrugging. “Sick.”
Woods considered. “We don’t know when he would go there,” he said eventually.
“Better to set up a team immediately, then,” Nigel said. “And every night until he shows. If he shows.”
Woods licked his teeth. He dropped the cigarette and stamped it out, his decision made.
Chapter 76
“START WALKING,” VADA said, poking him in the shoulder with the gun.
“Think about what you’ve done for this man,” Whitt said, taking uneven steps forward in the dark. “You’ve killed two people. You’ve…you’ve impersonated a police officer. You’re going to…you’re…”
You’re going to kill me.
He couldn’t say the words. He swigged the bourbon.
“This isn’t you,” Whitt said. “You’ve made a mistake. Surely they told you this when you signed on to counsel convicted killers. Surely they told you how manipulative they can be, how seductive.”
He stumbled, fell on his hands. The bottle sloshed into the mud. She nudged him with her boot.
“Get up.”
Whitt looked around. There was nowhere to run, and he was too drunk to attempt it. If he sprinted away now, he’d fall helplessly, bash into trees, stagger unarmed until she found him and ended him. His only chance was to keep talking. It was so cold. His jacket was back at the crime scene. He gripped the bourbon bottle so hard, his knuckles ached. They walked in silence.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Whitt pressed on eventually. “He’s a dangerous animal. He’s clever. Cunning. Bad. But you understand him. Only you. And that makes you special. Of course it does. You understand the real Regan. That’s why you do what you do. Because you refuse to give up on them. The worst of the worst. Maybe…maybe someone refused to give up on you, and now…”
“Stop walking,” she said. “Get on your knees.”
“He’s not what you think he is.”
“I said kneel down!”
“There’s a part of you that’s not sure about this,” Whitt said. “You shot at Harry. Regan would never have allowed you to do that. Maybe you thought you could kill her, end Regan’s game. End it for him and you. Vada, there’s still a chance to—”
“It’s over, Whitt,” she said. “Please kneel.”
She clicked the hammer back on the pistol and pointed it at his face.
He knelt.
Whitt’s mind raced, new frantic arguments forming, but before he could voice them, the strange automatic impulse that he’d felt when he punched the officer on the bridge overtook him. He lunged at her legs.
The gun’s blast lit up the forest.
Chapter 77
THEY FELL TOGETHER, and Whitt heard the gun clatter to the dirt. He didn’t know where the shot had gone, but he knew he wasn’t hit. Whitt rolled in the dirt, managed to get on top of Vada, his hands gripping hers over the gun. He was on autopilot, watching a man who was not him grapple for the weapon, trying to force all his weight down on her. He could not focus on her face. He knew seeing her desperate eyes would confuse him, remind him of the Vada he thought he knew, distract him from what he needed to do. He let go with one hand and punched downward, a half-strength blow that glanced off her jaw. Just enough to stop her, not enough to really hurt her. She rolled, and he lost his balance, and the gun’s deadly eye swung around at him again.
Another shot. This one seemed to be louder.
Whitt cowered, his hands on his head, unable to take his eyes off Vada.
She was just as surprised by the shot. The blast had not come from her gun. She swung her weapon in the direction that it had come, but through the darkness came another muzzle flash, the shot this time whizzing over both their heads.
She got up and ran. Whitt watched the space between the trees into which she’d vanished, his hands still gripping his skull. When he turned back toward where the gunshots had come from, he saw it.
It emerged, bent-backed,