The Christopher Killer Read online

  “Dead. Wow.” He sucked in a breath and blew it between his teeth. “That’s too bad.”

  “It was a long time ago, so I’m okay with it.”

  He looked at her sideways. “You’re seventeen, right?”

  Cameryn nodded.

  “How old were you when your mom died?”

  “What part of ‘I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it’ do you not understand?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “I will say no more.”

  The trees of Durango whizzed by, tall clusters of pine broken by yawning meadows, and then they began to ascend the foothills that led up the San Juan Mountains. She put a foot up on the dashboard and let her head rest to one side. Justin chattered on, occasionally flashing a smile, keeping the conversation breezy. For one thing, he was amazed by the wildlife in Colorado.

  “I mean, I’m from a place where a freakin’ dog is considered exotic, and then I come here and bam—I get bears and cougars and all kinds of wild things. Case in point—look out the window to your right.” Cameryn did and saw a herd of elk munching on stalks of wild grass, at least two hundred strong, strung out in a formation that stretched from one end of the field to the other. When she looked beyond the elk she saw the north side of the mountains, deep red, almost the color of blood. It was the same color that had pooled onto the autopsy table. She had to try to think through the evidence so she could stop the Christopher Killer. But where did Jewel fit in? Did he truly possess supernatural powers? If so, where did her faith, and her science, connect?

  “Are you even listening to me?” Justin asked. “I feel like I’m talking to myself.”

  Cameryn’s mind resurfaced. She looked at him and blinked.

  “Man, I wish you could see your eyes—it’s like you’re here but you’re not. You’re starting to freak me out.”

  “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

  “About…?”

  “The autopsy. The murder. What it all means. By the way, did you see the color on Rachel’s hand?”

  “Yeah.” Seeming to think better of it, he shook his head. “Well, not exactly. If I did it was barely there. But lividity can cause all sorts of funky things. It could have been due to that.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed. “But the other strange thing was that I smelled garlic. What can cause a garlic smell in a person? I mean inside them, like in their blood? Do you know?”

  “Besides the obvious, which is of course garlic itself, I can’t think of a thing. I bet we could look it up, though. I’ve got some books back at my place. We could go there and see what we could find.”

  Cameryn noticed the change at once. We. He’d said the word “we” as if the two of them would work the case together. She was about to ask him what he meant by that when her cell phone sang the lyrical notes from The Lord of the Rings. It was Mammaw.

  “Are you all right, girl?” was her grandmother’s greeting. “Your dad told me you’re coming back to town with the deputy. He’s not very happy you’re with the Crowley character, I can tell you that, so he asked me to make sure you’re safe. Are you?”

  Her eyes slid over to Justin. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she asked.

  “Just know your father doesn’t trust the man. Watch yourself, is what I’m saying.” Her grandmother’s voice became tremulous. “But oh, I have to tell you my heart is breaking with the news of poor Rachel. It’s a tragedy, it is, with the child dying at the hands of a devil.” Even though it was over the phone, Cameryn swore she could hear her grandmother cross herself. “And I want you to know it’s no shame, you leaving the autopsy because it was too much for you. You should never have been there in the first place.”

  “I left because Dr. Moore threw me out.”

  There was a pause on the line as Mammaw digested this. “Now why would he be doing a thing like that?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “When is it you think you’ll be getting home?”

  “Soon.”

  “Are you going to the store?”

  Trying to keep the impatience from showing, she asked, “What do you need, Mammaw?”

  “Don’t snap—it’s been a hard day for all the mothers in our town.” Her grandmother’s voice trembled again, like a vibrato on a cello string. “One of our own is dead and gone. Rachel was too young, too young.”

  “Look, I need to go. I’ll be there for dinner, okay? So…bye.”

  Cameryn didn’t wait to hear if her grandmother answered. She wanted—no, needed—to think. There was something swimming beneath the surface that she couldn’t quite see, clues she couldn’t quite put together. If she could just concentrate, maybe she could get it….

  “So,” Justin said, drumming his fingers against his steering wheel, “who’s Mammaw?”

  Sighing, she answered, “My grandmother.”

  “Father’s mother or mother’s mother?”

  “Father’s. She lives with us. Well, I guess I should say we live with her. It’s her house.”

  “How long have you been with her?”

  “Awhile.”

  “Not very specific, are we?”

  “I already told you I don’t want to talk about my family.”

  “You said you didn’t want to talk about your mother. You didn’t say your family.”

  “All right, I’m saying it now.”

  She twisted so she was facing him and noticed in the light the hairs on his arms were golden brown instead of black like the hair on his head. Sitting this close she could smell him, a mix of shampoo and aftershave that was probably supposed to suggest the outdoors but instead smelled musky.

  Cameryn leaned closer. “Okay, it’s my turn to ask a question,” she told him.

  “Great—fire away.”

  “Why does my dad hate you?” She asked this quickly. It was like a snap from a rubber band, and Justin flinched, almost imperceptibly. He pressed his lips together. His eyes were on the road, laserlike, and Cameryn realized he was not about to answer.

  “Why does he hate you so much?” she pressed. “What did you do to him? Did you know him before you came to Silverton? Did you rob him? Are you his illegitimate child?”

  “It’s not my place to tell,” he said at last. “Your pop made that much clear, anyway. I went to talk to him because I thought it was the right thing to do—I found out fast that I made a big mistake. But I’m not your brother if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m making it your place to tell.”

  “You can’t do that. Look, Patrick set me straight a couple of days ago and you know what? Maybe he’s right. I don’t know anymore—this whole thing’s crazy. I think I got in way over my head.”

  “Got in what?”

  “Don’t ask me to…Look, if you want answers, ask your family.”

  Frustrated, she blurted, “That’s not good enough.”

  “It’s gonna have to be,” he replied.

  A giant bug splattered against the windshield, a wet star in a dried constellation. Above her, mountains rose while the trees receded. Thready vegetation thinned until the peaks became completely bald. In some spots the rich iron ore turned the soil an orangey-red; Cameryn remembered that when she was little she’d thought the Silverton summit looked like the board of her Candy Land game.

  “Those mountains are giant candy corns,” she’d told her father years ago. She remembered she’d been small enough to be hoisted in his arms, and how she’d pointed to a splashing creek the color of caramel. “I want to taste some candy water.” To which her father had replied, “Well, honey, things aren’t always what they seem. You got to look way up the mountain to where the water comes from. See the waterfall up there?” He’d pointed to a powerful spray of water shooting off a cliff, and she saw the water was clear white, not orange. “It’s not candy at all! Always look for the source.”

  Look for the source. A thought pricked her now, a connection as tenuous as the thinnest thread, one piece of information linked to another. All the beads slid onto it as s
he focused her whole mind on its pattern. Go to the source. Justin’s source.

  “What part of New York are you from? Originally, I mean?” she asked nonchalantly.

  “Albany. It’s a great place. But I moved to New York City after school.”

  She flipped down the visor and pretended to check her hair in the mirror. “How’d you afford to live there? I thought the city was really expensive.”

  “My oldest brother’s a doctor so I moved in with him and helped take care of the kids. His wife’s a doc, too. I just don’t like to put ‘nanny’ on my résumé.”

  They had reached the summit and were now beginning their descent, winding down the mountain on a road so narrow it looked like a sliver of ribbon tossed on the mountainside. Below her, the cliff fell away into a sheer valley. Pines struggled to grow against gravity, stretching thin arms to the sun in worship while deep crevices, filled with granite rock, tumbled into the abyss like marbled water, more perfect than an artist’s painting.

  “There’s an artist who lives in New York that goes by the name Hannah,” she said, and then remembered the maiden name. “Hannah Peterson. She paints abstract flowers or something. Have you heard of her?”

  He was silent now. A flush crept up his cheeks, spreading to his temples, and she knew then she’d scored a hit. When it came down to it, it wasn’t really that difficult. There was only one subject she’d ever seen her father get angry about, and that was her mother, the person who’d disappeared into the art world of New York, the one who never called. It was that knowledge that had made the connection in her mind. She should have guessed it from the beginning. Once, she’d been on a Web site called “Six Degrees of Separation” and their ad said that any two people in the world can be connected in six steps, but she hadn’t believed it. Now she did.

  “So you know my mother.” It was a statement instead of a question. “That’s why my father hates you. You told my dad and he freaked out.”

  “I thought you said your mother was dead.”

  “She’s dead to me,” she said, feeling as cold as her words.

  Justin tightened his jaw so hard his muscle twitched. “Man, you are smart.”

  “So they say. Why did you ask me about Hannah when you already knew the answers?”

  “I just wanted to know what you really thought about her—what you’d say.”

  “How did you guys meet?”

  He paused, then answered, “At a party at my brother’s—he and my sister-in-law love to host big soirées with artists, musicians, writers. Anyone artsy. She was there and we started to talk. Hannah’s a beautiful woman, Cameryn—she looks a lot like you. The two of us really hit it off. We spent some time together. She’s pretty amazing.”

  Cameryn stared at him as his words ricocheted through her mind. “Oh my God.” She could barely get out the words. “Oh my God! Were you dating my mother? Because if you were dating Hannah, we are done! I mean it, Justin!” She sliced her hand through the air. “Done!”

  “No—it was nothing like that,” he stammered. “We were—are—just friends.”

  “You moved all the way out to Silverton to deliver a message for a friend? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  “Cameryn, listen to me—you’ve got it all wrong! I got this job in Silverton before I knew anything. Then I told Hannah where I was going and she freaked. That’s when she told me about you—not before! I swear. You’ve got to believe me. Believe her—she really cares about you.”

  “Well I don’t care about her.”

  His foot hit the brake, so hard that Cameryn felt herself pitch into the shoulder harness. Jerking the wheel, he pulled into an overlook, and the car, still running, shuddered. “Don’t say that!”

  For a moment she sat there, stunned. Was he defending Hannah? “You don’t know what she did to me. She just left. And this is none of your business, Justin. None of your business!”

  “Calm down. I think you need some air. Let’s just get out of the car….”

  “No! I don’t want to even think about Hannah today. You do realize your timing sucks!”

  Suddenly, his voice was full of apology. “You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “You’re dealing with Rachel and it’s way too much. I’m sorry. This isn’t the way it was supposed to happen. I was going to bring you her letter and explain. She wanted me to explain.”

  “Explain what?” The hurt inside threatened to burst its dam, but Cameryn managed to say, “Explain why she abandoned me?”

  He lifted his chin, and when he did the tiny sliver of scar shone in the light. “I think you should give her a chance. Don’t judge her before you hear her story.”

  And then Cameryn did want out of the car because it felt as though she could no longer breathe. Jumping out, her feet crunched in gravel until she stopped at the edge of the overlook. She hugged herself hard. The mountainside beneath her had been cut away, as sheer as a wall, and she felt the cool October breeze wrap around her like a shroud. Justin came up behind her but stood apart, unsure, it seemed, of what to do. Finally he spoke.

  “You have to understand, Hannah had it all planned out. I was supposed to give you a present from her first. After you opened it, I was supposed to give you a letter. That’s how it was supposed to go down.”

  Cameryn refused to look at him. In the distance she could see the mountain open up and the roads of Silverton stretch across the valley like a necklace. From her vantage point she could see the tiny houses dotting the grid of Silverton’s unpaved streets. Solid, simple, and safe. She longed to be there, back at home, where her life made sense.

  “So, what now?” he asked softly.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  Although she hadn’t meant it to, her answer seemed to encourage him. Justin took a step closer and she could see his shoes, scuffed and covered with dust, and the hem of his jeans breaking over knotted laces.

  “The gift and the letter are back at my place,” he said. “I’ll give them to you as soon as we get to town. The point is your mother is ready to reconnect with you again. She wants to be in your life.”

  “She wants it? So now I’m supposed to pretend that it’s all okay because she’s ready? That’s not how it works. Five years ago, maybe, but not today.”

  “Cameryn, don’t—”

  She faced him now, feeling her eyes going wide as she looked into his face. “Why didn’t Hannah just mail the letter?”

  “She thought you wouldn’t get it—”

  “Why didn’t she call?”

  “She said she tried—”

  “Why didn’t she come here herself?”

  “Because she thought you’d reject her just like you’re doing now.”

  “She rejected me first.” And then the dam broke and she was crying, sobbing angrily, humiliated that she couldn’t stop herself and more embarrassed when Justin tried to comfort her. She felt his hand lifting the hair from her face, but she jerked away, sobbing, “Don’t! Just leave me alone. Please.”

  He pulled away, disappearing somewhere behind her, the car, maybe, or the woods. She didn’t know and didn’t care. Moving even closer to the outlook’s edge, she stood and wept, and as she did time itself seemed to absorb into her misery. Where is all this coming from, anyway? she asked herself fiercely. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known about Hannah. But before today everything had been kept neatly under wraps, and it had been better that way. Here, in the wild, there was no hiding from the reality of murder or resurrection. Life insisted on happening.

  With her palms, Cameryn rubbed beneath her eyes, hard, gulping cool air. Justin had returned to the car and she could see him, looking down the road instead of at her. And then finally she joined him. Two cars roared past the outlook before he looked at her. “Where to?” he asked.

  “Home.”

  The blinker clicked and soon they were back on the Million Dollar Highway. They drove the rest of the way in silence, past the visitors’ center with i
ts Victorian scrolled woodwork hanging from the rooftop like wooden eyelet, past the old-fashioned stores and the jelly bean-colored houses. When he pulled up to her house, she opened her car door before they had rolled to a complete stop. She was about to leave but, thinking better of it, she leaned back in to apologize. “I’m sorry, Justin,” she said in a husky voice. “It’s not you, it’s Hannah. I’m sorry if I killed the messenger.”

  His green-blue eyes pierced through her. “Your mother still loves you,” he said.

  “I gotta go.” Then, running as fast as she could, she opened the front door and disappeared into her grandmother’s house.

  Chapter Ten

  THE SIDEWALK LEADING TO SCHOOL was cracked beneath Cameryn’s feet, uneven rectangles of cement with gaps sprouting a few hardy weeds. It felt good to walk, to stretch her muscles and move her body, to feel she could at least physically go forward even if she was frozen mentally. Nothing had been settled in the past twenty-four hours. Not the issue of her mother (her father had stayed overnight in Durango, so she’d been unable to talk to him) and certainly not Rachel’s death, the tragedy of which had triggered a media frenzy. Silverton was filling up with newspeople from as far away as California. Dr. Jewel himself was on the way. Trucks and vans had already rumbled into town, their tops bristling electronic spikes, their microphone cords coiling along Greene Street, snakelike. The Grand’s restaurant was bustling, so much so that last night her boss had called her in to work.

  “I’m sorry, I just can’t,” she’d told him, and he hadn’t pressed. Then Lyric had called with the news that some Silverton residents, some of whom had never talked to Rachel in life, had suddenly become her best friends in death. “Everyone’s lining up to be interviewed. The only one not running a freak show is Jewel—he’s going to be here tomorrow! Did you hear he’s staying at the Grand? Don’t worry, he’s going to find Rachel’s killer. He was on the news, and he said this time the energy’s really strong. Jewel will get whoever did this—wait and see.”