Page 67 of Dirty Valentine
Her eyes rolled back slightly, and she began to recite in a singsong voice that made my skin crawl: “Whitman, Mills, Hughes, Morton, Blackwood, Lawson, Randolph.Seven who bore witness.Seven who must fall.”
Judith blinked, seeming to come back to herself.Jack and I stood frozen, neither of us sure what to say next.
A nurse appeared in the doorway.“She needs to rest now.It’s going to take a while for those drugs to get out of her system.”
In the parking lot, rain still fell in sheets that turned the world beyond the hospital into an impressionist painting—all blurred edges and uncertain shapes.Jack was already on his phone checking messages, the screen’s blue glow making his face look carved from stone.
“She’s traumatized,” I said.“Half of what she said might be hallucination from the fear and whatever was in that smoke.”
“Maybe,” Jack said.“But she named seven families.Whitman’s dead.Mills is dead.She was attacked.Morton went to his sister’s.Blackwood we have in custody as a witness.That leaves?—”
“Randolph, who’s already dead.And Lawson.”I looked at him.“Your family.”
“Mom checked in earlier today,” Jack said, already starting the engine.“I’ll try calling them, but it’s nine o’clock.They usually have their phones turned off this late.”
Jack tried calling both of his parents, but true to form, both of their phones went straight to voicemail.“I can call the sheriff’s office on Martha’s Vineyard and ask them to do a welfare check.”
Once he talked to the lieutenant in charge of night shift and the situation was explained, the lieutenant assured him they’d send someone out right away and he’d get back with Jack as soon as they had information.
“We still need to figure out what parts of Judith’s testimony was hallucination and what part was reality,” I said when he hung up.
The pieces were there, scattered like broken glass, but every time I tried to put them together, they shifted into a different pattern.Someone strong enough to overpower victims but small in stature.Someone who knew the family histories.Someone with access to Evangeline’s stolen herbs.Someone who could stage elaborate scenes without being noticed.
The killer was close.Had been close all along.But in the storm-soaked darkness of King George County, shadows and truth had become indistinguishable.
And somewhere out there, someone was preparing for the next act of their twisted justice.
CHAPTERTWENTY-TWO
The storm had turnedour driveway into a river by the time we made it home, water cascading down the slope toward the cliff edge where it disappeared into darkness.Jack killed the engine under the shelter of the garage, and we sat for a moment in the sudden quiet, just the sound of rain drumming on the roof and our own breathing.
“You okay?”he asked, his hand finding mine in the dark.
“Just thinking about Judith,” I said.“All that terror, and she fought back.Drove her knee into the attacker’s ribs and escaped.”
“Strong woman,” Jack agreed.“And lucky.If she hadn’t known those woods…”
I sighed as I climbed out of the Tahoe.“I feel like I’m starting to mold with all this rain.Maybe we could ask Evangeline and Leena to do some kind of rain voodoo and get it to stop.”
“I’d be good with never seeing either of them again,” Jack said, ushering me toward the mudroom door.“All this witch stuff is freaky.We should go to church on Sunday.”
“You afraid the witchy stuff rubbed off?”I asked, laughing.
“You can never be too careful in our line of work.”
We made our way through the mudroom, peeling off soaked jackets and leaving wet shoes on the mat.The house felt empty at first—that particular quiet that usually meant we had it to ourselves.But as we headed toward the kitchen, I saw light spilling from Jack’s office doorway.
“Doug’s back,” I said, unable to keep the smile out of my voice.
Sure enough, we found him in Jack’s office, surrounded by what looked like the contents of our entire pantry.Empty bags of chips, three soda cans, a plate that had clearly held multiple sandwiches, and a mixing bowl with brownie batter remnants.Oscar was passed out at his feet, occasionally twitching in dreams that probably involved chasing squirrels.
Multiple monitors glowed with data, and I could hear Margot’s familiar synthetic voice as we approached.
“—statistical analysis suggests a sixty-seven percent probability of precipitation continuing for the next four hours,” she was saying.
“Nobody asked about the weather, Margot,” Doug replied, spinning in his chair when we entered.
“I was merely providing contextual information that might affect your evening plans,” Margot said with what sounded suspiciously like sniffiness.“Good evening, Jack and Jaye.You both appear to be experiencing elevated stress levels based on your vocal patterns and movement signatures.”
