“Oh no,” Jas said, softly. “I liked him.”

  Nana stared at my daughter and said, “He had a trunk full of porn. Child porn. Magazines, photos, movies. Stuff he had collected. Probably for decades.”

  “Erasmus?” I couldn’t keep the shock out of my voice. My skin raised in slow prickles. I remembered the way he had looked over at his laptop when the federal agents had been in his house. He’d claimed to be working on a book about the Chadwicks. But…

  Erasmus was a child-porn collector.

  “Was he leaving town?” I asked. “Running? Was the little girl with him?”

  “He was alone. No suitcase in the car. C.C. seems to think he was taking his collection to a safe storage place. Now we have to figure out if he had the little girl, and where he hid her. The cops are all over his house, looking into his background.” Nana looked down at her grease-smeared plate. “Seems there were complaints when he was younger. About him touching little girls. That’s why he moved around so often, from school to school. Maybe he tried to stop. Maybe that’s why he ended up in a college setting, where the girls were too old to interest him. Maybe that’s why his wife died young. Too hard to be married to a pedophile.”

  Clearly Nana had been thinking about this a lot.

  “They didn’t put him in jail?” Jas asked, horrified.

  “Back then, people thought it would ruin the lives of the victims to have it known they had been abused,” I said. Jas looked at me as if I were crazy, so I explained. “Until recently, educators, priests—important people in the community—were quietly fired, with no blemish on their records. They’d get a job in another school district or church and go on abusing. Things are getting better, but until a few years ago, that was the way things were done, Jas. No police involvement, no legal brouhaha.”

  “They’re looking into his job history.” Nana stopped, cutting off the words as if they pained her, and closed her eyes for a moment. “He was one of ours. And he was evil.” She made a slashing movement with one hand, stood and walked to the window, staring out at the spring morning. I knew she wasn’t seeing the bright sun or the horses and barn out back. “I protected this family,” she said to the window, her voice fierce and as hard as old stone. “I told the cops there was no way one of mine was kidnapping and killing children. Seems I was wrong.”

  She turned to us, bracing herself on the counter. “We need to help the cops figure out where he kept the girls. So far they haven’t found anything.” She focused on Jas, and I saw my daughter sit up straighter in her chair. “Can you go to the records office at the county courthouse and look up properties in Erasmus’s parents’ names and his wife’s family names? Find out what they owned in the past and whose names the properties are in now? All the cops have are the rental houses. They were clean, ready to be rented to tenants. I know it’s a school day—”

  “I’ll do it,” Jas said.

  Nana looked at me with penetrating, sad eyes and I fought sitting straighter. It was a losing battle. “And will you go help the cops? See what you can learn, what information they need to help them in the search? Let me know what they need and I’ll get it for them.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. Nana nodded once, a sharp jut of chin, and walked to the door and out into the day.

  Fortunately, Wallace had bound my hands with less cling wrap than Lynnie and my friends in the ED had, and there was enough movement in my fingers to let me drive. Fortified with the grease and protein of a good country breakfast, a strong cup of tea in the cup holder beside me and extra-strength Tylenol to hold back the discomfort, I eased down the driveway toward Columbia. I had reached the entrance to Chadwick Farms and was turning onto Mount Zion Church Road, heading for Trash Pile Curve, when I noticed the truck behind me. It was speeding, going too fast to take the turn.

  I glanced right and left quickly. The road was empty. I wrenched the wheel and pulled hard onto the soft shoulder. I looked into the rearview and had a moment of shock. The truck behind me seemed to speed up.

  I braced myself. The sun glinted off the oncoming truck’s windshield. Its engine roared. And it rammed me.

  I was thrown forward and back, hit the seat belt with my chest, the steering wheel with my forearms, and bounced off.

  Metal screeched; tires squealed. The SUV spun toward the road and around. Sunlight on glass and metal blinded me. When the vehicle stopped, I had one clear thought. This is not an accident.

  My old SUV was still rocking. I spotted movement outside, a form racing toward me. Male. I unlatched the seat belt and slid to the right, opened the glove box. Grabbed the 9 mm’s box. Hands shaking, needing better access and fewer bandages in the way, I shredded the worn cardboard and grabbed the pearl-handled gun.

  The driver door was locked and I heard the handle jangle. The tap-crack-rattle of breaking safety glass. The door was ripped open. I turned, seeing something black, spreading out like wings, coming at me. I fired.

  The cloth spiraled toward me. It hit my hands, covering the gun. Slapped against my face. I fired again. And again.

  26

  A weight landed on me, trapping my hands between us. Trapping me under the black cloth. Over the concussive deafness, I heart grunts and sobbing. “You shot me. You shot me.”

  Time seemed to slow with the words, each bright and sharp like shattered crystal. I knew the voice. I was sure I knew the voice.

  Through the covering of the black cloth, I struggled to get the gun up. “Get away from me,” I panted, nausea rising in my throat. “Get off me.”

  He rolled toward the steering wheel and away. Collapsing down and back, toward the ground. His body pulled the cloth with him. It slid from me, measured and surreal. Like stop-action photography. It skimmed along my body, pulling my hair in a static charge as light found me. Exposing my shirt, my bandaged hands holding the gun, my slacks.

  His body slithered to the ground, taking one of my shoes, twisting my leg. I raised up, pulling my legs into the cab to uncertain safety, free. My attacker was propped on the street, sprawled half-under my SUV, a black velour throw draped over and beside him.

  He was wearing a mask. A ski mask in spring.

  Heart thudding, hands quaking, I aimed the gun at him. He looked at me through the holes in the mask. “You shot me.” He touched his chest, and his hand came away bloody. “Why did you shoot me, Nem?”

  My hands were shaking so hard I couldn’t keep the gun aimed at him. I set it on my lap and scooted back, curling hard against the passenger door. I could hear my panting breath as my hearing came back. Help. I needed help.

  My bag was on the floor and I reached for it.

  Groaning, he rolled to the side and vomited. There was blood in the vomit. Blood on the road. I couldn’t see the cell phone in the bag and grabbed its bottom, emptying the purse’s contents onto the floor in a disordered pile.

  The man made it to his knees. I spotted the phone.

  He made it to his feet. I opened the phone and stared at the buttons, my mind frozen.

  He stumbled against the SUV and caught himself on the open driver’s door. I remembered the numbers. Punched in 911. Hit Send.

  The man reached for me. For the gun. I dropped the phone, sending it bouncing, and scrabbled for the 9 mm. We fought for it, his hands slippery with blood, mine wrapped in cling and burn pads. He grabbed the gun by the barrel. My hands landed on the butt, finger on the trigger.

  For a moment, everything went still. His eyes met mine, wide and shocked. Blood on the mouth of his mask. His breath was rank with vomit.

  “Don’t make me do this,” I whispered.

  From the phone on the floor, I heard a voice say, “Nine-one-one.”

  He jerked the gun, pulling it. I lurched forward with him.

  Terrified, I fired. The report was almost silent.

  He blinked and looked down, between us. The barrel was buried in his belly. His hands fell away. He pushed back across the seat and out the door. Into the sunlight. Bonelessly, he slid to the ground.

  I looked at my hands, holding the small gun. The cheerful yellow cling wrap was splattered with blood.

  From the floorboard, I heard the voice of the 911 operator and I said, “Help. Help me.” I sobbed hard, the sound as jagged as broken bones, my eyes as dry as a skull-littered desert. “I just killed a man.”

  Holding the phone, keeping the line open per the order of the dispatcher, I sat in the corner of the passenger seat, shaking with cold and the aftershock of violence, the gun beside me on the driver’s seat. Hours went by. I was sure it had to be hours, though no one passed me on the street. My hearing cleared. I heard birdcalls. Heard the sound of the running engine in the truck nearby, the truck I had been rammed with. Saw two hawks soaring overhead, their flight a lazy grace, a languid dance of freedom. And finally I heard the sound of sirens. Several of them.

  Two marked cars reached me first, both of them sheriff deputy cars, black and silver, lights flashing. The deputies pulled close, putting their cars between mine and themselves, tires squealing to stops at almost the same time. The deputies opened their doors and pointed guns at me across the hoods of their cars. I raised my bandaged hands.

  “Get out of the car and lie on the ground,” one of them shouted, “hands over your head.” I lowered my right hand and tried to open the passenger door. It was locked. The door being locked broke something inside me and started the tears that hadn’t come. I pressed the lock button and lifted the handle. The door opened. More sirens were coming. Tears poured harder and I sobbed, my breath abrading my throat like rope burns.

  “Come around to the front of the vehicle,” the other cop shouted. “Keep your hands where we can see them.”

  I nodded and raised my hands higher. Easing from the SUV to the ground, my one shoe and bare foot sank into the soft earth. I walked around the cab and stood, knowing I couldn’t kneel. Not on my injured knees. I should have made Wallace leave them bandaged. That made me laugh, a hysterical sound mixed with the sobs.

  “Down! Down on the ground!”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I’m hurt.”

  One of the deputies said, “Ash? Ashlee Davenport?”

  “Yes.” I sobbed harder when the deputy said something to the other and put away his weapon. He stepped from the protection of his unit and walked toward me, my tears hiding his identity until he was up close. It was Randy. Randy Bollington. We’d gone to high school together.

  He put an arm around me and led me to his patrol car, my gait uneven, the pavement burning my stocking-clad sole. He sat me in the back seat, my legs dangling to the pavement. Three other cars pulled up close. And when one of them was an ugly gray Crown Victoria, I stood up and collapsed, right into Jim Ramsey’s arms.

  The questioning and paperwork took the rest of the day. The FBI was in charge, but Jim wasn’t part of the team that brought me in. He was relegated to the sidelines, his face furious as Emma Simmons took over. Lucky me.

  She confiscated my cling wrap, took my clothes, impounded my damaged SUV and infuriated my lawyer. I thought Macon would pull out a gun and shoot her when she suggested that I had lured the man to the street and shot him in cold blood. I laughed at that one, standing there in the FBI interrogation room in sweatpants, shirt and sock feet. “Yeah. I lured him in,” I said. “And made him hit me with his car. And made him throw a black cloth over my head. A black velour cloth similar to the one you feebs are looking for in the kidnapper and killer of the little girls.”

  “You shot him at point-blank range,” she said.

  “He didn’t give me a choice.” The words were true. He hadn’t given me a choice. And with that realization, that acceptance of a truth, some of the guilt eased away from me.

  She was watching my face when the understanding and acceptance hit, and seemed to see the emotions settle under my skin. She sat and said, “Tell me what happened. Again.”

  I did, thoroughly, comprehensively and exhaustively, over the course of the afternoon. After that, they left me alone for several hours.

  It wasn’t until nearly dark that I found out who I had killed.

  On my way to the bathroom, escorted by Julie Schwartz, we paused at a desk so Julie could sign some papers. There was a television in the corner, tuned to a local news update.

  The announcer’s voice caught my attention. “Prominent Columbia doctor, Paul Christopher, was shot today by one of his nurses in what some are calling a crime of passion.” I turned to Julie and met her eyes. Julie was as still as marble, watching my face. “Ashlee Caldwell Davenport, who was working with the FBI on the Ballerina Doll murders, shot and killed Dr. Christopher on the street today in Dawkins County. Sources suggest that the divorced doctor and the widowed nurse had been secretly seeing one another for some time. More on this developing news later in our program.”

  I looked up at Julie. “Dr. Christopher?” Dear God. Did I shoot an innocent man? Her eyes gave nothing away and I searched her face as she watched me, evaluating.

  “No,” I said softly. “He was wearing a mask. He rammed my SUV. He came at me with a black cloth. He was going to…kidnap me.” Uncertainty hit me and I whispered, “Wasn’t he?”

  “Let’s get you to the restroom. Come on.” She took my arm and it occurred to me that this had been planned, letting me find out this way, so she could watch me react to the news. While I had no doubt that Bow-tie Emma put her up to it, it was Julie who carried the charade through. Julie, who I had liked, and had half hoped would end up with Macon. At the moment, I hated cops.

  I walked beside her to the restroom, a special place just for prisoners, a room with no stall, just a toilet. I sighed.

  “Sorry about the lack of walls,” Julie said, not sounding as if she meant it at all.

  “I had a baby when I was not quite twenty, with half my female relatives standing all around, cheering me on. I think I can pee in front of you.”

  Julie chuckled under her breath as I sat. “Lord, spare me from that.”

  Knowing I was exposed and vulnerable, and that looking harmless often made people more forthcoming with information and truth, I asked, “Do you really believe I killed Dr. Christopher in cold blood?”

  She looked at the door, as if weighing her response. “No. But Simmons is running this show, despite everything the Chadwicks are throwing at her.”

  “Nana’s calling in the big guns?”

  Julie pursed her lips, speculation on her face, and decided to share. That made me marginally less antagonistic toward her. “We had a visitor from the governor’s office and a phone call from Washington. Your nana knows some important people. Simmons had to tell them you were being held in protective custody, pending resolution of the accident and shooting. She’s not very happy at the political interference in her job.”

  “Ladder climbers seldom are.” I finished my business and rearranged my clothes, then lifted a roll of toilet paper off the dispenser and handed it to Julie. When she looked confused, I said, “Wrap my hands so the pads don’t fall off. The Wicked Witch of the Feebs took my cling wrap. I’m hurting.”

  Julie took the roll and looked at my hands. Shrugging, she unrolled a length of paper and began to wrap my right hand, tucking the end under to hold it in place. When she was finished wrapping my left hand, she set the roll on top of the dispenser and studied me. “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it.

  “On another topic, SLED arrested your cousin’s husband,” Julie said. SLED meant State Law Enforcement. I looked my question at her and she added, “Nicolas Poulous. Curator of the biggest museum in the state?”

  “For what?”

  She gave me a small, tight smile and opened the bathroom door. “For a lot of things. Mostly for trafficking in antiquities. Seems he had a gambling problem and a few rich clients. He’s been filching stuff for years and selling them off. Interesting family you have, Ashlee Davenport.”

  “A lot more interesting than I thought,” I said, my tone sour.

  Shaking her head, Julie led me back down the hall. When she opened the door of my room, I stopped in the doorway. With all the sarcasm I could muster, I said, “Home sweet interrogation cell.” I looked at Julie. “Wait, I forgot, it’s a protective custody cell now. Funny how one looks so much like the other.”

  Julie didn’t respond to that at all. She pulled out my chair for me and sat across the table, a folder open but angled away from me on her lap. I was bored and hurting. I wanted Tylenol. I wanted to go home. I wanted to not have killed a man. Another man.

  I closed my eyes against the truth of it. I had killed two men in my life. I had to live with their souls on my conscience. Had to live with the memory of their dying faces.

  I didn’t know if I could do it; I didn’t want to do it. I wanted to turn time back and stay home for the day, not leave on Nana’s errands. Not get rammed. Not kill. But for now, I had to put away my grief and guilt and concentrate on getting free and home to my baby.

  Macon joined us soon after the bathroom break, opening the door to the dour little cell, his face satisfied and slightly smug. I sighed with relief, knowing that meant he had found a way to get me out of here. Emma followed him in, looking considerably less cheerful, and took the chair next to Julie. I was sure I was the only one who caught the look Macon and Julie exchanged across the table. Things were going well in someone’s life, it seemed.

  Emma looked at me with unfeeling eyes, her mouth pursed. The expression was giving her smoker’s lips, wrinkles in vertical lines. She needed a good facial peel. Funny how every time I saw her, I thought of spa treatments. Maybe because Emma Simmons, while the antithesis of my spa-going mama, seemed to look down on me the same way Josey did. As if I wasn’t good enough. Somehow that brought out all the meanness in my soul. I’d have to pray about that one.

  Maybe later.