He nodded. “We are, but we need to talk first.”
Dread had her stomach clenching. “About?”
Daniel closed his eyes. “I don’t know how to ask you this.”
“Just ask, Daniel,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Is the picture I found of Alicia . . . or of you?”
Alex shrank away. “No. It’s not me. How . . . why would you even ask me that?”
“Because you have nightmares and hear screams and there are things you can’t remember. I assumed that Alicia was raped the same night she was killed, but the MO is too different. I wondered if they’d happened at different times, by different perps. And then I started to wonder . . .” He opened his eyes, and they were filled with pain and guilt. “What if the victims were different, too? What if Simon and the others hurt you?”
Alex pressed her fingers to her lips and for a moment simply focused on breathing.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “So sorry.”
Alex dropped her hands to her lap and made herself think. Could it be? No. She’d remember something like that. Maybe not. Meredith had said so in response to her exact same declaration earlier in the day.
“You’re the second person today to ask if I’ve been molested. I don’t know how to answer you except to say I don’t remember it happening, but I don’t remember the night she died, either. I started feeling sick on the way home from school and went right to bed. The next thing I remember was my mother shaking me awake the next morning, demanding to know where Alicia was. But I wasn’t bleeding and I don’t remember any whiskey bottle. I would think details like that would be harder to forget.”
For a moment the two of them were silent. Then Alex lifted her chin. “You never showed me the picture of Alicia,” she said.
He looked horrified. “You want to see it?”
Quickly she shook her head. “No. But there is one feature we had that was different.” She lifted the left leg of her slacks. “Can you see it through the hose?”
Daniel leaned over the gearshift. “The sheep tattoo. You said Bailey had one. No, you said you all had one, on Monday morning when you were viewing Janet’s body.”
“It’s actually a lamb. We thought it was cuter than a sheep. My mother called us her little lambs. Bailey, Alicia, and Alex. Baa. On our sixteenth birthday, Alicia got the idea to get the tattoos. Looking back, I think she was a little high. But Bailey was going, too, and it was our birthday, Alicia’s and mine, and I didn’t want to be alone.”
“A tattoo parlor gave sixteen-year-olds tattoos?”
“No, Bailey knew a guy. She told him we were seventeen. I tried to chicken out at the last minute, but Alicia triple-dog-dared me.”
One side of his mouth lifted. “The dreaded triple-dog-dare.”
“I never did anything exciting or fun. That was always Alicia. So I went along. In the picture of Alicia that you have, can you see her tattoo?”
“I didn’t look at her ankle.”
“Then look, at her right leg.”
He lifted his brows. “You didn’t get the same leg?”
Alex’s mouth quirked in a tiny smirk. “No. Bailey went first, then Alicia, which was the usual way of it. They were admiring their tattoos when the guy started mine. I purposely gave him my left foot. I was tired of getting in trouble for Alicia’s wildness.”
“You wanted people to be able to differentiate. What did Alicia say?”
“By the time she noticed me, he was already halfway done and it was too late. But oh, was she mad. And my mom, she was livid. She punished all three of us and for the first time in a long time Alicia had to take responsibility for her own actions instead of blaming me. I finally felt like I’d gotten the upper hand for once.” But then, Alicia had been murdered and all their lives had gone to hell. Her little smirk faded. “Look at the picture again, Daniel, and tell me what you see.”
“All right.” He found the photo in his briefcase and held it so that she couldn’t see, then pulled a small magnifying glass from his pocket.
When he sighed in relief, Alex did, too, unaware until that moment that she’d been holding her breath. He put the picture away, then met her eyes. “Right ankle.”
Alex moistened her lips, then pursed them until she was confident her voice wouldn’t shake. “Then that’s settled at least.” It didn’t answer Meredith’s concern, but she’d cross that bridge when she came to it. “So let’s go.”
Chapter Sixteen
Dutton, Wednesday, January 31, 3:45 p.m.
Well, well. He stood in the bank’s vault staring into Rhett Porter’s safe-deposit box. His chuckle was bitter as he read the letter Rhett had left behind.
My key is being held by an attorney you’ve never met, in a place you’ve never been, along with a sealed letter detailing our sins. If anything happens to my wife or kids, the letter gets mailed to every major newspaper in the country, and my key will be turned over to the state’s attorney. See you in hell.
It was dated less than a week after he’d fed DJ to the gators. He guessed Rhett Porter wasn’t so dumb after all.
He pocketed the note and left the vault, nodding to old Rob Davis, who waited outside. Davis owned the bank and normally would have delegated tasks such as safe-deposit boxes to a lowly employee. But this was a delicate matter, and he’d come without a warrant. He’d known Davis wouldn’t question his request, because he knew more about old Rob Davis than Davis knew about him. That was power.
“I’m done.”
Davis gave him a look of contempt. “You abuse your position.”
“And you don’t? Give my regards to your wife, Rob,” he said deliberately. “And if Garth asks, tell him I have it.”
Rob Davis’s cheeks went hollow. “It?”
“Your nephew will understand. Garth’s smart that way.” He touched his hat. “Bye.”
Macon, Georgia, Wednesday, January 31, 3:45 p.m.
“We’re late,” Alex said as Daniel signed them in.
“I know. I wanted Fulmore and his lawyer to get here first. I want a grand entrance.”
“He’s just going to say he didn’t kill her, like he’s been saying for thirteen years.”
“Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Between your memory and the yearbooks we’ve gathered, we’ve identified ten of the fifteen pictures. Only Alicia was murdered.”
“And Sheila,” she corrected, “but I get your drift. Daniel, I’ve read about the trial. They had evidence on Gary Fulmore that tied him to Alicia’s body. Her blood was on his clothes. It’s not like they railroaded him for murder.”
“I know. One of the things I’m hoping to get out of this is some way to determine if that picture of Alicia was taken the same night she was killed or a different night. If it was the same night and the rapists followed the same MO, maybe they left her somewhere and Fulmore came along and found her.”
“I wish I remembered that night,” she gritted out. “Dammit.”
“It’ll come. You said you were sick that night.”
“Yeah. I had stomach cramps and went to bed. It was awful.”
“Were you sick often?”
Her step faltered and she looked up at him, wide-eyed and miserable. “No. Hardly ever. It’s another coincidence, isn’t it? Do you think I was drugged, too?”
He slid his arm around her for a hard hug as they arrived at the small room in which she’d come face-to-face with the man accused of suffocating her sister before beating her face with a tire iron. “Let’s take one thing at a time. Are you ready?”
She swallowed hard. “As I’ll ever be.”
“Then you walk in first. I want to watch him when he sees you.”
Her shoulders grew rigid as she took a deep breath. Then, with determination, she twisted the doorknob and pushed her way inside where a man in orange coveralls and a man in a cheap suit waited. The cheap suit was Jordan Bell, the defense counsel.
Bell stood up, annoyed. “It’s about time you—” He stop
ped at the clatter beside him. Gary Fulmore had shoved back from the table, his chair bouncing against the concrete floor and his shackles clanging. His mouth was open, his face instantly pale.
Bell’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell is this?”
Fulmore backed away when Daniel pulled out Alex’s chair and she slowly sat.
As pale as Fulmore was, Alex was paler. She was pale . . . as a ghost. Daniel felt like the biggest heel in the universe for putting her through this. But she’d wanted to find Bailey. She’d wanted to help him get justice for the three murdered women.
Somehow, some way, Alicia’s murder was the linchpin that held it all together.
“I said”—the lawyer hissed through his teeth—“what the hell is this?”
“M-m-make her g-g-go aw-w-way,” Fulmore stammered, his breath coming in shallow pants. “Go aw-way.”
“I came to see you,” Alex said, her voice calm. “Do you know who I am?”
Bell was frowning to beat all hell. “You never said you would bring her.”
Alex stood up and leaned forward, bracing her fists on the table. “I asked you a question, Mr. Fulmore. Do you know who I am?”
Who she was, was magnificent, Daniel thought. Calm, cool, and collected under extreme stress. Quite simply, she took his breath away.
She had the same effect on Fulmore, who was nearly hyper- ventilating.
Daniel moved so that he stood between Fulmore and Alex. She was still as pale as death, her eyes wide and intense, and he realized she wasn’t calm and collected. She was only cool, which meant she was terrified. But she was holding it together.
“Alicia Tremaine was my sister. You killed her.”
“No.” Fulmore shook his head vehemently. “I did not.”
“You killed her,” Alex continued as if Fulmore hadn’t spoken. “You put your hands over her mouth and smothered her until she died. Then you beat her face again and again until even her own mother didn’t recognize her.”
Fulmore was staring at Alex’s face. “I didn’t,” he said, desperation in his voice.
“You did,” she spat. “Then you dumped her in a ditch like she was garbage.”
“No. She was already in the ditch.”
“Gary,” Bell said. “Stop talking.”
Alex jerked her face to glare at Bell with loathing and contempt. “He’s serving a life sentence. What more can I possibly do to hurt him?”
Fulmore hadn’t taken his eyes off Alex. “I didn’t kill her, I swear. And I didn’t dump her in that ditch. She was already dead when I found her.”
She turned back to him, her contempt now focused and cold. “You killed her. Her blood was on your clothes. On that tire iron they found in your hand.”
“No. That’s not what happened.”
“Maybe you could tell us what did happen,” Daniel said softly.
“Gary,” Bell warned. “Shut up.”
“No.” Fulmore was trembling. “I see her face, still. I see her when I try to sleep.” His eyes locked on Alex’s, filled with misery. “I see her face.”
Alex made no move to comfort, her expression now set in stone. “Good. So do I. Every time I look in the mirror, I see her face.”
Fulmore swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his bony throat.
“What happened, Gary?” Daniel repeated, and when Jordan Bell would have protested, Daniel froze the lawyer with a look. Alex was trembling, and he gently pushed her back into her chair, Fulmore’s eyes following her down.
“It was warm,” Fulmore murmured. “Hot, even. I was walking. Sweatin’. Thirsty.”
“Where were you walking?” Daniel prompted.
“Nowhere. Anywhere. I was high. PCP. That’s what they told me anyhow.”
“Who told you?” Daniel asked, still softly.
“The cops that took me in.”
“Do you remember who took you in?”
Fulmore’s lips thinned. “Sheriff Frank Loomis.”
Daniel wanted to ask more about Frank, but held those questions back. “So you were high and you were walking and you were hot and thirsty. What then?”
He gave a facial shrug. “I smelled it. Whiskey. And I remember wanting some.”
“Where were you?”
“On the side of some road outside of some bumfuck town in the middle of nowhere. Dutton,” he spat it out. “I wish I’d never heard of the place.”
That makes two of us, Daniel thought, then looked at Alex. Three of us. “Do you remember what time it was?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t never carry a watch. But it was bright again, all the time. I could finally see where I was. I’d wandered . . . I guess I was lost.”
Bright again? Daniel made a mental note to check the phase of the moon on the night Alicia was murdered. “All right. So you smelled whiskey. And then?”
“I followed my nose to the whiskey down into this ditch. There was a blanket and I thought I’d take it. My blanket was nasty.” He swallowed hard, his eyes still focused on Alex. “I grabbed the blanket and yanked. And she just . . . fell out.”
Alex flinched. Her skin was ashen, her lips bright pink from her lipstick, and Daniel thought of Sheila, dead in the corner, her hands still gripping her gun. He considered stopping the whole interview and rushing Alex out of this place where she’d be safe. But they’d come this far and he knew she was made of sterner stuff. So he swallowed the emotion and kept his voice level. “What do you mean, Gary, ‘she fell out’?”
“I grabbed the blanket and she rolled out of it, naked. Her arms were all limp and rubbery and they flopped, all spread out. One of her hands landed on my foot.” His tone had gone hollow. His eyes never left Alex’s face. “Then I saw her face,” he said, pain in every word. “Her eyes were starin’ at me. Empty. Like empty holes.” Just like Alex’s stared at him now. Empty and blank. “I was . . . wild. Scared out of my mind.”
He said nothing, lapsing back into a memory that still obviously had the power to scare him out of his mind. “Gary, what did you do?”
“I don’t know. I wanted her to . . . stop lookin’ at me.” His clenched fists punched at the air twice, hard and fast, sending chains jangling. “So I hit her.”
“With your hands?”
“Yes. At first. But she wouldn’t stop lookin’ at me.” Fulmore was rocking now, and Alex continued to stare at him blankly.
Daniel poised himself to hold Fulmore back in the event he became unable to distinguish Alex in the now from Alicia in the then. “Where did you get the tire iron?”
“In my blanket. I carried it with me always, in my blanket. But then it was in my hands and I was smashing her face. I hit her again and again and again.”
Visualizing it, Daniel drew in a quick breath. And in that moment knew this man had not killed Alicia Tremaine.
Tears streaked Fulmore’s face, but his clenched fists stayed frozen in front of him. “I just wanted her to stop lookin’ at me.” His shoulders sagged. “And then, finally, she did.”
“You’d beaten her face.”
“Yes. But just her eyes.” He looked childishly beseeching. “I had to close her eyes.”
“So then what did you do?”
Fulmore wiped his face with his shoulder. “I wrapped her up. Better.”
“Better?”
He nodded. “She was kind of loose in the blanket before. I wrapped her up tight.” He swallowed again. “Like a baby, only she weren’t no baby.”
“What about her hands, Gary?” Daniel asked, and Fulmore nodded absently.
“She had pretty hands. I folded them across her belly before I wrapped her up.”
They’d found Alicia’s ring in his pocket. A glance at Bell from the corner of Daniel’s eye told him the lawyer was thinking the same thing.
“Did she have anything on her hands?” Bell asked him, using the same soft tone.
“A ring. It was blue.”
“The stone was blue?” Daniel asked, and watched Alex stretch
out her hands and stare at her fingers, then slowly curl her hands into fists.
“Yeah.”
“And you wrapped her up with the ring on her hand,” Bell murmured, and Fulmore’s eyes shot up to meet Daniel’s, panicked and angry.
“Yeah.” The faraway tone was gone. “They said I took it, but I didn’t.”
“Then what happened, Gary?”
“I don’t remember. I must have taken some more PCP. The next thing I knew, I had three guys on top of me and they were beating me with their clubs.” Fulmore’s chin jutted out. “They said I killed her, but I didn’t. They wanted me to take a plea, but I wouldn’t. I did a terrible thing to that girl, but I did not kill her.” His final words were evenly spaced and very deliberate. “I did not.”
“Do you remember going to the autobody shop?” Bell asked him.
“No. Like I said, I woke and three guys were holding me down.”
“Thank you for your time,” Daniel said. “We’ll be in touch.”
Fulmore looked to Bell, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Can we get a new trial?”
Bell’s eyes met Daniel’s. “Can we?”
“I don’t know. I can’t make promises, Bell, you know that. I’m not a DA.”
“But you know the DA,” Bell said cagily. “Gary’s told you what he knows. He’s cooperating without guarantee of recourse. That should mean something.”
Daniel’s eyes narrowed at Bell. “I said I’d be in touch. Now I have to get back to Atlanta for a meeting.” He urged Alex to her feet. “Come on, let’s go.”
She came willingly, more like a doll than a live person, and once again Daniel’s mind was assaulted with the memory of Sheila’s dead body in that corner. He put his arm around Alex’s shoulders and propelled her from the room.
They were almost to Daniel’s car when Bell shouted for them to wait, then jogged the length of the parking lot, breathing hard. “I’m going to file for a new trial.”
“Premature,” Daniel said.
“I don’t think so and neither do you, or you wouldn’t have driven all the way down here and put her through that.” He pointed to Alex, who lifted her chin and gave him a cool look. But she said nothing and he nodded, satisfied he’d hit the truth. “I’ve been following the news, Vartanian. Somebody’s re-creating these murders.”