Tell No Lies Read online

  Crime-scene tape crisscrossed the front door. As Daniel rolled forward along the curb, the narrow side alley crept into view. He felt his temperature rise, the flashback coming at him hard and fast.

  The black-clad form, scaling the gate with animal dexterity. The smell of tar. Daniel sprinting, walls squeezing him at either shoulder. The ill-timed leap, the clang as he’d hit the bars. The killer overhead, nearly through the gap, the black boot not yet withdrawn to deal him the blow to the face. A tearing sound. The ring of metal striking ground—

  Wait.

  Daniel hit the brakes, the car halting with a chirp.

  The ring of metal. Striking ground.

  He’d forgotten that part.

  He heard Dooley’s words in his head: Shit spills outta pockets, Brasher. Especially when you tear them.

  So something else had fallen from the killer’s pocket? A key?

  But they hadn’t recovered anything metal from the crime scene; they’d focused immediately on the business card.

  Daniel parked and climbed out, feeling his pulse quicken as he crossed the front lawn. He stood before the alley, peering cautiously up its length. Then he slid between the two houses, angling his shoulders slightly as he walked toward the gate.

  He arrived and crouched, exhaling with disappointment. Nothing on the ground.

  Backing up, he kept searching in case the object had bounced away. A downspout brushed his elbow. He followed the corrugated pipe up to where it intersected the gutter, then down to where it met the ground. Dropping to all fours, he peered behind the pipe’s mouth. Wedged behind it, barely visible, was a sliver of notched metal.

  The edge of a quarter.

  Daniel removed a credit card from his wallet and used it to poke at the coin until it rattled free out the other side.

  It looked brand-new, the silver face so shiny that even here in the alley it winked back the diffuse sunlight. Careful not to touch it, Daniel drew closer to read the date stamped beneath George Washington’s neck—1967. Nearly fifty years old.

  And yet its condition was pristine.

  Was it a keepsake? A collector’s piece?

  Daniel flashed on being inside Kyle Lane’s living room with Dooley, how when she’d set her feet on the coffee table, they’d jangled the change resting in a black Wedgwood dish. Were those special coins? Had the killer stolen the quarter from that dish?

  Back around to the porch now, excitement and anxiety quickening his step. The front door was still askew from when the rookie officer had kicked it in. Daniel lifted a knuckle through the slants of crime-scene tape and tapped a splintered panel. The door creaked unevenly open. Bending at the waist, he crab-stepped inside.

  The quiet of the house felt strange. A foyer table held a bouquet of browning roses and an empty cardboard box on its side, giving out a spill of packing gauze. Staring at the photograph of the wind chimes on the box’s side, Daniel thought about the life interrupted here. Just a few days prior, Lane had placed these flowers in the vase and hung the new chimes, nestling himself into another week.

  Down the hall, the wind sucked at the broken bedroom window.

  As Daniel moved to the living room, he was drawn to those framed photographs on the piano—Kyle Lane with his wispy ponytail and focused, intelligent eyes. Where was he? What had been done to him?

  Daniel crossed to the stack of coffee-table books on Tuscany, the black Wedgwood dish resting atop them as an accent note. Half filled with coins, most of them scuffed and worn. He stirred the mound with a forefinger, but the underlying change, too, looked ordinary enough.

  He breathed the silence, making out the faintest jangle of the chimes—ting, ting. The sickly-sweet potpourri scent was making him vaguely nauseous, and he had a sudden urge to flee.

  He forced an even pace back to the front door and ducked through the crime-scene tape out onto the porch. The breeze had died, the air laced with car fumes.

  Ting-ting.

  He froze on the wooden slats, noting the dead air, too still to coax music from a wind chime.

  Slowly, he turned his head to take in the ornate chime. There it hung from the overhead hook.

  Except each suspended metal tube was still packaged in shipping foam, locked in place apart from the others. Kyle Lane hadn’t yet had time to free the chimes, which meant it wasn’t possible for them to jangle against one another.

  What, then, had Daniel been hearing all this time?

  Ting-ting.

  As the sound registered again, he stared at the chimes, perfectly still, perfectly silent.

  Though his gaze never faltered, the phone was lifting to his ear, his thumb speed-dialing. He waited through two rings, and then she answered.

  “I’m at Kyle Lane’s,” he told Dooley. “Get here now.”

  “Lane’s? You’re not inside, are you?”

  He hung up and stepped back into the house.

  He’d been late through a door once, and it had cost Marisol Vargas her life. No matter what waited, he wasn’t going to let it wait longer.

  An electric buzz prickled his skin as he inched back into the living room. His cell phone rang—Dooley calling back—and he silenced it quickly. He set his feet down carefully, straining to make out the noise again. Ahead in the china hutch, the wineglasses gleamed in all their variety—Burgundies with their fat bowls, pinot noirs with their flared rims. He looked from them to the collection of Tuscany photography books, then eased silently into the simple galley kitchen with its bare counters.

  No wine fridge. No wine rack. He checked the cupboards.

  No wine.

  Ting-ting.

  The noise was barely audible, yet he tensed in his shoes. He turned to the back hall, the framed Campari posters and wall sconces, the white shag carpet and the Aztec rug.

  A rug. On a carpet.

  Given Lane’s taste, this seemed an odd choice. Unless he’d been trying to cover something up.

  Daniel braced himself and walked over as silently as possible, each step an agony. With the toe of his shoe, he flipped back the rug to reveal the outline of a hatch in the carpeting.

  Wine cellar.

  Ting-ting.

  The sound, rising through the floor.

  His heart thudding, he leaned forward and lifted the hinged metal ring from its groove. A drop of sweat ran into his left eye, stinging, but he didn’t dare move his arm to wipe it away—ting-ting—because any superfluous gesture and he’d lose his nerve. Bracing, he threw the hatch open, the sight ten feet below grabbing at him—ting-ting—Kyle Lane sprawled on his back on the concrete floor, his skin so gray it looked nearly reptilian, a bib of blood hanging on his shirt. One of his hands was caked with blood and clamped over his own throat, his sleeve sodden to the elbow. The other hand was nestled weakly in a tangle of silverware that had fallen from its velvet-lined box—ting-ting—sounding a meek alarm.

  His throat had been sliced, and the only thing keeping the breath in his windpipe was the seal of his own hand.

  Slits beneath his eyes drained blood. His legs were twisted, one ankle tied with a strip of cloth to the leg of a knocked-over wooden chair at the periphery of the shaft of light. Wine racks rimmed the small cellar, save one set of shelves devoted to storage, from which Lane had no doubt jarred free the silverware with which he was trying to summon help.

  With horror, Daniel realized that Lane had been sounding that same alarm even last night as the cops had creaked the floorboards with their heavy boots. Even as Daniel had arrived and talked with Dooley, chased the attacker, returned to walk everyone through the house yet again. How tantalizing the murmur of conversation must have been overhead. And yet Lane couldn’t grunt or scream or cry for help, couldn’t even move his hand off his throat without leaking his air and sputtering to death. All he’d been able to do was stir the fallen forks and spoons with his fingertips and pray that someone heard the sound and found him entombed in this concrete box.

  The scene below was like the sun—staring
at it directly made something burn behind the eyes. It nailed Daniel to the floor, iced the breath in his lungs, turned him to stone. No more than a second or two had passed.

  The bulging eyes fixed Daniel. The fingertips weakly nudged the spilled silver—ting-ting—a last time, and then Daniel was scrambling down the brief ladder, shouting for help though he knew no one could hear, his panicked voice bouncing off the walls. He slid across the floor to Kyle, his knees scattering the silverware—ting-ting-ting-ting—and cradled him, firming his hand on top of Kyle’s fingers, helping clamp the throat, his palm instantly warm and tacky.

  Kyle’s hand went loose beneath his, the muscles no doubt spent. Daniel fastened his grip, trying to preserve the airway. With his other hand, he fought his cell phone out, thumbed CALL—“Where the hell are you?”

  “Turning onto the block now,” Dooley said. “What’s—”

  “Get an ambulance here, now.”

  Kyle clutched at Daniel’s collar with his free hand. The words, a drawn-out rasp. “…’on’t ’eave…”

  Daniel let the phone fall, tried to steady him. “I won’t leave. I won’t leave. It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not—”

  Kyle’s arm went limp, giving out entirely, and Daniel felt the next breath hissing through their fingers. He flung Kyle’s hand aside and clamped the throat directly. “I got you. I got you now.”

  Kyle arched his back violently, his heels rattling the floor.

  “No, no. You’re okay. They’re almost— The ambulance— You’re okay.”

  A few bubbles emerged at the sticky seams between his fingers.

  And then no more.

  He heard Dooley barrel through the front door overhead, shouting for him, but he couldn’t find his voice to yell back. A few moments later, he sensed her shadow darken the cellar floor, and then she was half falling down the ladder, at his side, checking for a pulse, saying, “He’s gone. Daniel. He’s gone,” but he wouldn’t let go.

  Eight minutes later when the ambulance arrived, he finally let her pry his cramped fingers from Kyle’s throat.

  Chapter 29

  Breathing in the stillness of Kyle Lane’s powder room, Daniel leaned over the faucet, scouring his forearms, the cracks of his knuckles, the beds of his nails. As he scrubbed, the water turned rust-colored in the bowl of the sink. He kept at it, waiting for the water to stay clear against the porcelain.

  It didn’t.

  Through the door he could hear Dooley talking with another cop.

  “Okay,” she was saying, “so he’s interrupted last night when the rook patrolman kicks in the door. He leaves Lane for dead, covers the hatch to the wine cellar, and hides behind the mirror until—”

  The yellow glow from the fixtures turned Daniel’s reflection jaundiced. The dried blood beneath his nails wouldn’t let go. He nudged the water hotter, leaving a mark on the white handle. Then he was dumping water on the handle, cleaning that, too, but the red just spread out, sliding down around the trim ring.

  “How the hell,” Theresa was saying, “is he getting people to open their doors? Again, no signs of the windows being forced.”

  A deeper voice carried in from the hall. “Maybe he picks the locks.”

  “Two deadbolts on the front door,” she said. “Two on the back. Medecos. I’m thinking no way he gets through those.”

  “The victims are letting him in?”

  “They’re letting him in.”

  The water burned Daniel’s hands, but he kept scrubbing, his fingers turning pink. The door creaked open, and then he sensed another reflection in the mirror, though he didn’t look up. He used his thumbnail to dig beneath the other nails, trying to scrape away all traces of color. He felt Dooley’s hand rest gently on his shoulder.

  “Three,” she said. “Three makes a serial killer.”

  He nodded faintly. “Did CSI get back to you on the coin?”

  “Yeah.” Dooley blew out a breath, shook her head in frustration. “It’s worth twenty-five cents.”

  “Come on. A 1967 quarter that looks like it just rolled off the coining press? It means something to the guy to keep it in that shape.” Daniel’s hands were a blur, drops spattering the counter. “Maybe it’s a special year. Maybe—”

  “Maybe it’s time for you to get home. I called Cristina, let her know what happened. You should get out of here. What went down in that cellar…” For once she sounded unsure what to say.

  Gripping the edge of the sink, he took a deep breath. Turned off the water. Finally lifted his eyes to the mirror. “I need to unsee that,” he said.

  “I know. But we don’t get to.” Dooley plucked a tiny fringed towel from a holder and held it out.

  When Daniel turned and wiped his hands, they left a faint red smudge on the embellished fabric.

  * * *

  He awoke with a fall of moonlight on his face. The bedroom blinds were raised, and Cris was sitting in the round swivel chair, legs tucked under her, staring out at the street through the rain-spotted glass. Pushing himself up on his elbows, he looked across at her dark silhouette. She used to sit just that way during those endless months of treatment when she was kept up by reflux—literal heartburn from the radiation seeds. Something about her bearing now conveyed that same fragility.

  Cancer, earthquakes, falling Acme safes. So much calamity and tragedy was inherent and avoidable. Why add human evil to the mix? The word—“evil”—struck him as dogmatic somehow, but picturing the vivid human mess at the bottom of the cellar ladder, Daniel found himself unable to dial it back. Horror had shifted to a cold, burning rage, a flame inside a block of ice.

  Cristina finally took note of him before turning back to the darkened street. “I can’t sleep. I keep picturing her out there, waiting for us in that yellow rain slicker. Pointing. I could feel her through the blind.”

  He rose and slid behind her in the seat. Together they watched the dark street. Every so often a car would roll by, headlights illuminating the spot that the mystery woman had commanded just two nights prior.

  “I keep seeing her,” Cris said. “Then I don’t.”

  He rested his hand across those pinpoint tattoos on her chest, felt her heartbeat tapping against his palm. Quicker than usual. She felt warm, so warm.

  Cris squeezed his hand, a little too tight. “What if she was marking us as the next target?” she said. “Singling us out for … for…”

  “We don’t know that’s what she meant. But we’ll be careful as hell just in case.”

  “That’s the problem,” Cris said. “I feel so helpless. And helpless is goddamned scary.”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “I keep thinking about Kyle Lane. What kind of person does something like that to another human? And what do they want?”

  Daniel thought about his conversation with Dooley over the checkered tablecloth at Capp’s Corner, how their exchange had strayed onto personal ground. The inspector’s claim about the group members rang in his head: They could have chosen you. True. And yet he’d answered honestly; he’d racked his brain and come up with no theory on why he’d have been targeted. Which left Cris.

  “Do you think—” He cleared his throat. “Do you think, Luis…?” The name sounded bare and raw when uttered here in the confines of their safe bedroom walls. It occurred to him that they rarely, if ever, used Cristina’s ex-husband’s name, preferring euphemisms for that period of time. In my former life, Cris would say. Or, When I still lived in the Mission.

  Cris half turned, showing him her profile. The slope of her nose, the prominent lips, so lovely even now. “What?”

  “Do you think he’s a threat? Dooley suggested he might be behind this somehow. Maybe involved with someone in my group.”

  “God, I can’t imagine he’d be capable of something like this. He’s a bitter, useless drunk. This is way too … ambitious for him.”

  “You never know what people are capable of.”

  “No,” she said. “I guess you don�
�t.”

  They sat, eyes trained on the dark patch of street below. Another set of headlights came along, illuminating the stretch of asphalt. Beneath his arms he felt Cris tense up, but there was nothing there but raindrops tapping the ground. She let out a held-in breath. They watched the gloom some more, waiting for the woman to ghost into existence.

  “Can you actually go back into that group?” she asked. “Tomorrow night?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’ll probably be sitting in the same room as the killer. Are you as scared by that as I am?”

  He kept his gaze on the street below. His silence, they both knew, gave the answer.

  Chapter 30

  Pulling in to the underground garage at Metro South, Daniel felt his palms slick against the steering wheel, the back of his shirt sticking to the cheap fabric of the smart car. He climbed out, armed sweat off his brow, and took a look around, gathering himself. A few people were strolling to the elevator, and several more sat in their cars, fussing with cell phones. He pegged no one for an undercover cop, but Dooley had promised there would be several in the building, herself included, playing guardian angel.

  In the lobby he passed through the doorframe metal detectors, noting the familiar weary faces of the security guards and wondering at the efficacy of the machines, which he’d rarely heard beep. Riding up to the second floor, he kept his hand on the iPhone in his pocket, ready to call Dooley with a single tap of his thumb. He tensed as the doors parted, but there was no one waiting, coiled to spring. With an exhale he stepped out into the hall. Mixed with the parolees were a couple of cops and parole officers—an undercover could blend in here on the admin floor without even being undercover. A passing patrolman gave him a faint nod, and he couldn’t figure out if it was code or general courtesy.

  He hurried down the hall, eager to sneak in some pre-session time in the records room. After mumbling a greeting to the receptionist, he closed himself in, pulled the six files of his group members, and dug in.