“You circled it, Samantha. You got so close. I’ll fill in the blanks.” She sat forward, collected herself. “I love my husband. But I’m not in love with him. My husband is also abusive.”
“Physically?”
“Sometimes. But mostly, verbally and psychologically.”
“Hold on,” I said, and now I did scan her thoughts, her memories. There he was, yelling at her. There he was, holding her against a wall by the throat. There he was, threatening her. There he was, weeping over his poor judgment and begging her to take him back.
“Did he ever hurt you?” I asked.
“Not really; he just scared me.”
“I think I understand now,” I said.
“Enlighten me,” she said, sitting back.
“You wanted out, but you wanted to punish him, too.”
“Very good, Sam.”
“You wanted him to always wonder what happened to you, to perhaps never find a moment’s rest again.”
“Very, very good, Sam.”
“And in the process, you could start a new life somewhere. Start over. I take it you had no kids.”
“None, and not a lot of family either.”
“Just your sister,” I said. “Who knew about the plot.”
“Yes, the plot. I like that.”
“And had you just walked away, hopped on a plane somewhere and started over...”
“My husband, more than likely, would have been arrested for murdering me. There were enough phone calls to the police to warrant that.”
“You could have just divorced him.”
“He threatened to come after me, to never let me go. To make my life a living hell.”
“But you loved him.”
“Enough to not want to see him rot in jail.”
“But not enough to not traumatize him.”
“I lived with similar trauma for many years. He was due. He loves me. I know that. But he is not a good man.”
I looked at her and suddenly appreciated the depth of her cunning. “So, you disappeared in such a way—a documented way—that your husband wouldn’t be a suspect. A true disappearance.”
“Yes.”
“And he would always wonder, perhaps until the day he died, what happened to you.”
A long, slow smile spread over her face. “Yes, Sam. Oh, yes.”
“And you would be free to start over.”
“That was the plan.”
“All while your husband suffered and drove himself mad.”
“It would serve him right.”
I drummed my fingers on the edge of drawer. “You are a devious woman, Lucy Gleason.”
“I’ve had many years to cook up my escape, Ms. Moon.”
“I assume you have fake passports, fake identities.”
“You name it,” she said, “and I have it.”
“So, you can truly start over somewhere.”
“Yes, at least, that was the dream.”
“There is, of course, the small matter of the dead homicide investigator,” I said. “Detective Renaldo.”
“Yes, I heard, from my sister, that he had passed. You think I had anything to do with that?”
I scanned her thoughts, scanned them deeply and completely, and saw that she hadn’t. Saw, in fact, that she would never commit such a heinous act. I felt her horror at just the thought of it. His death had been a true hit and run. Maybe I would throw in a freebie for the Corona Police Department and run down Renaldo’s killer. Maybe, we’ll see.
“No,” I said, finally. “I don’t think that at all.”
“So, what do we do now?”
“We don’t do anything,” I said. “You, on the other hand, would do well to disappear. I hear Borneo is nice this time of year.”
“Your tape...”
“Will be erased.”
“Would you mind if I watched you erase it? Sorry, but I’ve been on the run for a few weeks now, and I’m a little, ah, paranoid.”
“No problemo,” I said, busting out my Spanish. I showed her my phone, and then had her watch as I erased the latest audio recording, her audio recording.
“Thank you, Samantha Moon,” she said. She reached over the desk and shook my hand, flinching only slightly at my ice-cold touch. Then she nodded, thanked me again, and left.
I watched her leave, and then waited for Detective Sharp to come all the way over from Corona, before I gave him the bad news that it had been a case of mistaken identity.
Oh, and there was also the matter of wiping his memory clean of me finding her on the tape...and anyone else in his department he might have told.
I smiled at that...
And so did the demon inside me.
Chapter Forty-three
“Are you alone?” I asked.
I was sitting with my back against a brick wall. I held my phone loosely against my ear. I had to, because I was dripping sweat. I had gone for a long jog, and had done a lot of hard thinking while I ran.
My jog had led me to here, many miles from my home.
“I’ve been alone for a long time now, Sam,” said the deep voice on the other end. A voice that was deeper than most men, which made sense, since his lung capacity was much bigger, too. Much bigger by a lot.
“You mean from the parade of young, nubile women coming and going in and out of your house at all hours of the night and day?”
“Jesus, Sam. It was never like that. Well, maybe for a few years, but never like what you just described.”
“A full decade is more than a few years.”
“Not when you’re something like me,” said Kingsley, who always hated talking about who we really were on the phone.
“And me,” I said.
“Two freaks,” he said.
“That’s my line,” I said, and watched a moth flutter around the outdoor light. Now, two moths. They looked a tad confused. I wondered if they thought they were circling the sun.
“I miss you, Sam,” he said, and I heard his voice break. “I’ve missed you ever since my stupid mistake.”
“Stupid, stupid mistake,” I said.
“I’ve missed you every day, of every hour, and I have been empty ever since.”
“You’ve dated...”
“I’ve tried to date. Nothing’s worked out. Truth was, I didn’t want anything to work out. I wanted you back. I want you back now.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re my girl, Samantha Moon.”
“Am I now?”