"Two minutes maybe."
"Seems like an instant. I lose track of time." She tried to rise, but her knees refused the command. Nausea roiled in her stomach. She would have collapsed if he hadn't scooped her into his arms.
"Don't try to stand. I've got you.”
"I'm ... okay. Just a little woozy."
She let him carry her to the living room and lay her on the sofa. Concern was etched deeply into his features when he knelt beside her. "Jesus, you're shaking all over."
"That happens afterward." She scrubbed a hand over her forehead where a headache pounded. "Give me a few minutes, okay?"
He reached out and smoothed the hair back from her face. "You keep scaring me."
"What did I write?"
"Just a few words. I was paying closer attention to you than what you were writing." Rising, Nick crossed to the dining room table and picked up the pad. Even from ten feet away, Nat saw his jaw tighten.
"What does it say?"
He carried the pad to the living room and handed it to her.
Eddy Flatter. Ron Wily. Murdur.
A shiver went through her as she read the words. "Ron Wiley was Reno and Sara Wiley's son. He was hit by a car and killed five, maybe six years ago."
"An accident?"
"Hit and run. The driver was never apprehended. The entire town was in an outrage. The police speculated someone had been drinking. The boy was playing on the road in front of his house. It was dusk. The driver didn't see him." She sighed. "Ronnie died at the scene."
Shuddering inwardly at the thought of a child being purposefully mowed down by a car, Nick looked down at the paper. “What about Eddie Flatter?"
"I don't know the name."
"Me, neither."
She looked down at the paper. "This means the killer has been operating for at least five or six years."
"Longer if Eddie Flatter was a victim and killed before the Wiley boy."
"God, Nick, two more children dead, and we're still not any closer to finding the murderer." Frustrated by their lack of progress, Nat put her feet on the floor and rose. The dizziness had subsided but she was still nauseous. Her head was pounding. She felt his eyes on her as she crossed to the dining room table and put the newest note in the folder.
"We're missing something," Nick said.
"What?"
"I don't know." He shook his head. "Why is he targeting kids? Why these kids? Were they random? Or did he choose them for a reason?"
"You're wondering if there's a common denominator?"
She hadn't thought of that. The situation was so emotionally devastating for her, she was having a difficult time being analytical about it. "So far it seems like he's only targeted boys."
Nick nodded. "Right. And all of them have been between the ages of five and nine years of age."
''It seems like that's where any similarities end. All the boys were so different. Different social and economic backgrounds. Different personalities. Even though Kyle had asthma, he was active and played-"
Nick's gaze snapped to hers. "Kyle had asthma?"
She nodded. "We managed it, but-"
''Brand had asthma."
"I don't see how that could make them the target of a killer." But her heart had begun to pound.
"What about Ricky Arnaud?" he asked.
"I don't-" She bit off the words, greasy nausea spreading through her. "Faye once told me the Arnauds' boy had childhood-onset rheumatoid arthritis."
"And Ronnie Wiley?"
"He was autistic."
"Jason LaRue?"
"He's ... obese. Some kind of thyroid disorder."
"Jesus. That's too coincidental."
"Why would somebody ... " Unable to finish the thought, Nat pressed her hand to her stomach. She knew it was stupid at this point, but she felt like crying. For the children who'd been killed. For the families that had been devastated. For her own shattered life. “That's incredibly evil."
"Or insane." He raised his gaze to hers. "But I think maybe we've found the why."
"Now we just need to figure out who could be so utterly ... demented."
Nick raked his fingers through his hair. "First thing in the morning, we dig up anything we can find on Eddie Flatter. See if there's some detail that might point us in the right direction."
"Even knowing what kind of children he targets, how is it going to help us find the killer?"
"It's all we have. Let's pursue it, see where it takes us."
"I don't want to wait until tomorrow." Wishing for a laptop, she began to pace. "Damn it, there's got to be something we can do tonight. Maybe we could drive to Baton Rouge or New Orleans and find a coffee shop with computers and Internet access. Maybe we could talk to somebody here in Bellerose.”
She started when Nick came up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. "It's two o'clock in the morning,” he said. "You're so wiped out you can barely stand upright. There's nothing we can do tonight."
She knew he was right. But even though she was so exhausted she could feel it all the way to her bones, it didn't make the waiting any easier.
Turning to Nick, she realized she wasn't the only one who was tired. He looked as exhausted as a man could be and still be standing. His dark eyes were shadowed. The grooves on either side of his mouth seemed deeper. Even his broad shoulders seemed bowed.
"If you want to sack out here, you're welcome to the sofa," she said.
"I wasn't planning on leaving you."
"What about your father?"
"I'll give him a call, let him know I'm tied up."
While Nat carried sheets and a pillow to the sofa, Nick called Dutch. She was in the process of unfolding the quilt when he walked into the living room.
"Your dad okay?" she asked.
"Fine. He was in bed. Cussed me out for calling."
She gave him a sympathetic smile over her shoulder. "Sorry."
"It's okay. That's just how he is."
She finished with the quilt and started toward the linen closet in the hall. "I've got an extra pillow-"
"Nat ... wait."
Something in his voice stopped her, and she halted midway to the hall and turned back to him. "What is it?"
“There's one more thing we need to talk about before we call it a night," he said.
She could tell from his expression it was a subject she wasn't going to like. ''What?''
"I want you to tell me what happened that night three years ago."
She felt the words like an open-handed slap, painful and unexpected. She couldn't believe he wanted her to talk about the night Kyle and Ward bad been murdered. The night her life had been torn apart and she'd begun a slow spiral into hell. She knew it was a cowardly reaction, but she didn't want to discuss it. Not now. Not ever.
''I can't talk about that," she heard herself say.
“I know it's difficult." He crossed to her, his eyes direct and earnest, as if he'd somehow looked inside her head and knew exactly what she was thinking, what she was feeling. "Of all the murders we've looked at, Kyle's and Ward's stand out as different. They could never be explained as accidental. I think that could be significant."
"Significant how?"
"I don't know, but I think it's something we need to talk about."
Nat raised her hands as if to fend him off, but she knew it wasn't going to help. She was going to have to tell him what happened whether she wanted to or not. "I've spent the last two and a half years trying to forget. I don't want to remember."
Turning away from him, she walked to the dining room table and lowered herself into a chair. The tea he'd made for her earlier had gone cold, but she picked it up and drank anyway, desperately needing that tiny act of normalcy.
She didn't want to remember that night. Didn't want to relive the hell of seeing her husband and son lying dead on the floor. But she knew that no matter how horrific the memory, she was going to have to relive it one more time. A child's life could very well depend on it.
/>
Vaguely, she was aware of Nick taking the chair across from her. She didn't look up. Didn't even acknowledge him. She didn't want to do this. She was angry at him for suggesting it, shaking inside because her memory was already taking her back. Back to a place she didn't want to go ...
"I'm sorry," he said. "I know it's hard."
"It's worse than hard," she snapped.
"If it wasn't important, I wouldn't put you through it," he said. "But I think it's important. Nat, I don't know how, but I think what happened to you that night is somehow related to what's happening now."
A full minute passed before she spoke. When she did, her voice was so low, she could barely hear it over the thrumming of her heart. "It started out like any other night. I put Kyle to bed around nine. Ward and I went to bed around eleven. I don't know what woke me a few hours later. I thought it was thunder. It was two fifty-three A.M., and Ward wasn't in bed.
''When I checked Kyle's room and saw that he was gone, too. I figured they were downstairs, raiding the refrigerator."
She closed her eyes briefly, remembering with such clarity that her heart was pounding. "I thought it was strange that they hadn't turned on the lights. But there was enough light for me to see, so I went downstairs. I was going to surprise them.
''I saw Kyle first. He was lying on the floor, on his stomach. He was still wearing his pajamas. The yellow ones with little hippos. He looked so little and ... broken." She closed her eyes against a hard punch of grief, the rush of tears, blinked them away.
"I went to him. I thought, this can't be happening. Not to my baby." A sob bubbled up, but she put her hand over her mouth, forced it back down where a thousand more lay in waiting. "His throat had been cut. There was so much blood. It was like a terrible nightmare. I kept hoping I would wake up, but I didn't and it seemed to go on forever.
"Ward was slumped against the cooking island. I remember staring at him, willing him to get up and help me because our little boy needed to be rushed to the hospital. At that point, I was utterly certain that they couldn't possibly be dead.
"But Ward didn't get up." She looked at Nick. Staring into the depths of his gaze, she saw the endless black chasm of grief mirrored in his eyes. She recognized it and wondered if he saw the same thing when he looked at her. A woman whose soul had been hollowed out and would never be whole again.
"Then I heard a noise and realized the intruder was still in the house. I tried to get to the phone, hut he came at me with the knife. I fought him, but I couldn't get away. I remember pain and blood. I remember horror. I remember thinking I was going to die ....
"I picked up the gun--Ward's revolver--but there were no bullets. I threw it at him. We struggled and I ended up falling. I don't know why he didn't kill me. He had every opportunity. But he just ... ran. Somehow, I made it to the phone and called the police. I remember looking at my husband and son and thinking if the ambulance arrived fast enough they would be okay. I remember hearing screams. Terrible, blood chilling screams. It wasn't until the first police officer arrived on the scene that ] realized those screams were coming from me."
# # #
Nick wanted to go to her. Hold her. Do something, anything to stanch the flood of grief he saw in her eyes. But he knew if he touched her now she would shatter into a thousand pieces. Looking at her, he didn't think either of them could put all those pieces back together.
He could only imagine the hell she'd gone through that night. Even though his own son's death would forever stand in his memory as the blackest day of his life, he knew it would have been infinitely worse to see it happen. Nat had experienced the horror firsthand. She'd been injured herself. Putting himself in her place, he thought it would be too much for his mind to absorb. The pain too deep for his heart to endure.
"Did you see the killer's face?" he asked, surprised by the roughness of his voice.
"He was wearing a ski mask."
"Ward had been stabbed? Same as Kyle?"
"Ward had been shot. It wasn't until later that I realized the gunshot is probably what woke me."
Nick raked his fingers through his hair, surprised to see that his hand was shaking. "Did the cops think it was a home invasion? A robbery? Did Ward walk in on something? What?"
“The cops think I killed Ward for the insurance money. They think I didn't want my child or the life I'd made with them.”
"Did they have secondary theories?"
"Just Alcee's vagrant."
"But you don't believe it."
She met his gaze steadily, but her eyes were so haunted it was impossible to look at her and not ache. "I think the killer was after Kyle. I think he was trying to lure him from the house. I think Ward walked in on them and tried to stop it."
"Were there any prints on the gun?"
“The gun was never found."
“The cops looked?"
“Thoroughly. They tore up the backyard. They trampled through the woods behind the house. They searched the vehicles. Every inch of the house. The flower beds. They even had a couple of divers search the river behind the house."
"What about the knife?"
"It was left in the kitchen sink. Covered with blood. My prints were all over it."
Jesus. "How did your prints get on the knife?"
"I don't know. I don't remember picking it up, but I must have at some point. I barely remember those moments after finding them."
"Why were the police so certain that you had done it?" he asked. "Surely the people who knew you spoke out in your defense."
"Some did. Some were so intent on getting justice for a horrendous crime ... I think they needed someone to blame. It didn't matter that that someone was me."
"What about the evidence?"
"I told you about the screen . . .”
Remembering, Nick ran the scenario through his mind. "The screen had been cut with your knife from the inside."
"So it would appear as if I'd cut the screen to make it look as if someone had cut the screen and come into the house through the window."
"What else?"
"There was some blood spatter. On my nightgown. Kyle's blood." She let out a shuddery breath. “The police sent the gown to the lab and had some blood spatter expert look at it. He ascertained that, judging from the direction of the spatter it allegedly came from my knife as I was supposedly stabbing. "
"It was later disproved?"
"By a second expert witness during the grand jury stage."
Nick contemplated her, hurting for her, outraged and saddened by what she had been put through. "Do you think someone tried to frame you?"
Her expression turned fierce. "I know they did. It's the only explanation that makes sense."
"Any idea why someone would do that?"
"I don't know. To protect themselves by diverting suspicion onto me. To get back at me for some perceived wrong. Because they're insane. All of the above."
"Did you have any enemies at that time? Did Ward?"
"No. But--” Her gaze skittered away, and for the first time Nick got the feeling she hadn't told him everything.
"Nat, if you're holding something back ... "
She stared at him for an uncomfortable moment, then lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. "I dragged you into this. I guess I owe you the rest of it."
"Rest of what?"
The silence weighed heavily for several seconds. Nat fiddled with the folder, looking everywhere but at him. "Ward and I ... we'd been having some problems."
"What kind of problems?"
"Marital. There was . . . a distance between us I didn't understand."
"Did you argue?"
"No, we just .. ." She sighed. "It was like we were going through the motions. We didn't talk. We didn't share. We didn't ... connect the way I thought a husband and wife should. It was like there was a distance between us I couldn't seem to gap no matter how hard I tried."
"Do you have any idea why?"
She shook her head, look
ed away. "No."
But Nick sensed there was more. "Nat, talk to me," he said gently. "Get it out. It's okay."
When she raised her gaze to his, there were tears in her eyes. ''We hadn't .... been intimate for almost a year. He ... he'd had some sexual problems. It only happened a couple of times. I just figured it was stress. I mean, it happens. We were busy, and we just didn't talk about it." She lowered her head and rubbed the place between her eyes. "God, Nick, this feels wrong, talking about him like this. He was always a very private man."
"If he were here now, do you think he'd want you to get to the bottom of what really happened that night?"
Raising her head, she blinked away tears. "He was having an affair."
"With whom?"
"His administrative assistant at the church. Sara Wiley."
Nick shouldn't have been shocked. He'd known for a long time that people weren't always what they appeared. But Ratcliffe had been a minister. A man with a squeaky-clean reputation. Nick had always assumed Nat's marriage to him had been solid. Until now, she'd never given any indication that the relationship was troubled.
"Did the police know?" he asked. "Did they talk to her?"
"After the fact."
"Was she ever a suspect?"
Nat shook her head. "From what I understand, she was questioned, but never a viable suspect. I've met her several times. Nick, she's no killer."
"People have been known to snap."
"Not in this case. I think she loved him."
"What about her husband? Could he have done it?"
"Maybe. He has a temper. But I don't know ....”
"At the very least, both Sara and Reno are worth talking to."
Rising abruptly, she walked to the kitchen to stare through the window above the sink. Her shoulders were square, her chin high. But Nick could see it was only a facade. He knew better than to go to her. He knew touching her now would bring into the moment something neither of them wanted. But she was hurting in the worst possible way a human being could hurt. There was no way he could stand there and do nothing while she carne apart right before his eyes.
Shoving away from the table, he walked to the kitchen and stopped several feet from her. "Nat."