to you is dead,” POLICE told her. “He will never hurt another woman again.”
Gina’s fist went to her lips. She tried to hold onto his words, to not let them slip away. She had survived this. She was alive. She would go home. She would make changes. She would become a healthier eater. She would work out three days a week. She would call her mother more often. She would be kind to her sulky, sullen niece. She would tell her twelve-year-old boss that she actually did know how to sync her Outlook calendar.
POLICE rubbed her arm. “Just try to breathe through it, okay? You’ve been drugged.”
No shit sir that is abundantly clear!
“They’re almost here,” POLICE said. “Go on and cry if you need to. I’m not going to leave you.”
Gina realized she had shoved her fist into her mouth. She looked at her fingers like a mindless baby. Pointer. Middle. Ring. Pinky. Thumb. She could move them all. She closed her eyes. She could still feel them moving. She didn’t even have to think about it.
A laugh fluttered out of her mouth. Holy shit she was so stoned. How could she be this high when she had literally thrown up her stomach? It was lying on the ground like a Smurf shit. She waved her fingers again, trying to catch the soap bubbles floating like amoeba through the air. The colors were glorious. Gina was glorious! She was a gemstone tumbling inside a kaleidoscope. A warm, fluffy sock lazily dancing around other warm, fuzzy socks in a clothes dryer.
“Ma’am?” POLICE said, “Ma’am?”
God dammit, she was still old.
One week later
30
Sara stared out her office window. The sun was setting. The parking lot at GBI headquarters was nearly empty. She could see Will’s car parked beside Faith’s Mini. Sara’s car was at home. Will had insisted on driving her the last few days. Amanda’s Acura was several spaces closer to the front entrance.
She turned back to her laptop. She had paused the video from Brock’s office. The only part she cared about was the last sixteen seconds.
Sara studied Brock’s face.
She wanted to see madness there, danger, aggression—
But it was just his face.
He had asked her to take care of his mother. Myrna Brock had been found lying dead in her room at the assisted-living home. Her hair and make-up had been done. An empty syringe was on her bedside table. The residue inside was dirty brown. Analysis showed that she had been injected with what was called a hotshot, heroin mixed with a lethal substance, in this case, embalming fluid.
The same chemicals had been found in the syringe that Brock had injected into his own arm.
He had designated Sara as the executor of his estate. He’d left exact instructions on how his mother’s remains were to be handled. He’d pre-paid for everything, a common practice in the industry. Sara had ensured that Myrna had been given a proper Christian burial in the Heartsdale Memory Gardens. Her own mother had attended the graveside, but the rest of the town had stayed away.
As for Brock’s remains, nothing had been specified in any of his documents. He had left it to Sara to dispose of his body. She imagined that he’d assumed Sara would be kind.
She had paid for his cremation out of her own pocket. She had stood over the toilet in the funeral home and kept flushing until every last bit of his ashes were gone.
Sara pressed the space bar to start the video.
Brock said, “I didn’t really give those women a choice …”
She closed her eyes, but she had watched the scene so many times that she could still see the wisp of a smile on his face. Brock had been in control from the moment Sara had walked into his office. She had watched him roll up his sleeves. He’d prepared the hotshot ahead of time. He’d concealed it inside the edge of one of the binders. He had made sure that his mother would never hear about his crimes. He had dangled Gina Vogel’s life over Sara’s head.
Unlike his victims, he had gone out on his own terms.
On the video, Brock said, “I always did like a fire road.”
Sara opened her eyes. This was the part that always got her. The only indication that Brock was injecting himself was an almost imperceptible twitch in his shoulders.
She heard her own gasp on the recording.
He was pushing down the plunger.
She stopped the video.
Gina Vogel. Still salvageable.
Sara’s hand curled into a fist.