Page 116 of Line of Sight
“Monday.”
He frowned. “What happened to Sunday?”
Dan sighed. “That’s a long story. What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Going to the store. I think. It’s all kinda hazy.”
“Nothing after that?”
Gary did his best to recall any details, but nothing came to mind. “No.”
Dan nodded. “There’s a reason for that. You met Anthony King at the store, and I think he kept you drugged from that moment. They found fentanyl on him, but there were other drugs at the house. Rohypnol, for one. It could’ve been either of them.”
“House? What house?” Before Dan could answer, Gary hauled himself into an upright position. “Start at the beginning. And yes, I want the long version.”
He sat there listening as Dan recounted events from what sounded like twenty-four hours in Hell, leading up to finding Gary in the crypt.
“But King really is dead?”
Dan smiled. “To quote a line from one of my grandmother’s favorite movies, he’s ‘really most sincerely dead.’ Riley shot him, after a little misdirection from Lomax. I wish I could say the nightmare ended there, but he had one more surprise up his sleeve.”
Gary listened in silence as Dan told him about King’s final twist of a move.
“Is Matt okay?”
“The doc said without King there to stop it, the IV would have kept dripping, potentially delivering the whole bag of drug-filled fluid. So either that or the lack of oxygen would have killed him.”
Gary frowned. “But… he was going to kill you. What was the point of killing Matt too?”
“Who knows what went on in his mind?” Dan held Gary’s hand once more. “I counted on him being curious enough to want to know how much Icouldsee, given the chance.” He huffed. “I don’t think he expected me to see everything.”
“What did you see?”
Dan looked him in the eyes. “Scott McCarthy wasn’t King’s first victim.”
“What? Who else did he kill?” Gary stared at him in disbelief. “He was only twenty-two when he killed Scott and Brad.”
Dan nodded. “And when he was eleven, he drowned his brother, Robert.”
“Then it wasn’t an accident.”
“I think King always had a feeling his parents suspected. His father at least. King was certain that was why he was sent to Canada. They couldn’t prove he’d killed his brother, of course, but he was sure they felt uncomfortable around him.” Dan paused. “Which was probably why he had them killed too.”
Shock rippled through him. “But he was in Canada when they were murdered. An intruder killed them.”
Another nod. “A man he met at Logan, on his way to Toronto. King hadn’t even left the country, and he’d already arranged for their deaths.”
“Did he pay someone to do it?”
Dan shook his head. “Strangers on a Trainagain.” He shivered. “I will never read that book again, I swear it. Two guys meet, and they agree to swap murders. They exchange details before going their separate ways. Win-win. Except it didn’t work out so well for the guy who agreed to kill King’s parents. Once King was back in the US, where he inherited everything, he couldn’t allow his coconspirator to live. He knew too much. King wasn’t about to put his lifestyle in jeopardy. So he tracked him down and… well, you can guess the rest.” He fell silent.
Gary knew the signs. “What’s on your mind?”
Dan’s brow furrowed. “You know we speculated on why he killed while he was in Canada? We thought he was trying to hone his skills, or maybe he simply missed the thrill of murder. But thereisa third option. There might have been elements of boththose motives, but I think four of those murders were there to detract attention away from the one that mattered. Remember one of the Canadian victims was called Amelia Hall?”
Gary nodded.
“Well, she was the wife of the man who killed King’s parents. I think he planned her murder first, then added the others just for the fun of it.”
