It wasn’t working. Yet. Between yoga sessions, Grace would lie on her bunk, close her eyes and try to conjure up an image of Lenny’s face. He was the reason she was living, after all, the reason she kept fighting. At Bedford Hills, and later when she was on the run, she’d found it easy to summon his kind, loving features at will. Grace talked to Lenny the way that other people might pray to God. His presence was a great comfort to her. But here, in this awful, mind-numbing place, she was distressed to find that his image was fading. Suddenly she could no longer remember the exact sound of his voice, or the look in his eyes when he made love to her. He was slipping away. Grace couldn’t shake the feeling that once he was totally gone, her sanity would disappear with him.
The one face she could conjure, ironically, was Mitch Connors’s. A few nights ago, for the first time in many months, she had an erotic dream, one in which Mitch was the lead actor. She woke up feeling embarrassed, guilty even, but talked herself out of it. You can’t help what you feel when you’re unconscious. Besides, at least it proves I’m alive. I’m still a woman, still a human being.
The door of the cell opened. Grace startled. It wasn’t time for her daily exercise. The guard said brusquely, “Come with me. You’re being transferred.”
They were the first words anyone had spoken to her in over a week. It took Grace a moment to unearth her voice.
“Where?”
The guard didn’t answer. Instead he slapped handcuffs on her wrists. Grace followed him mutely along a maze of corridors, trying to contain her elation.
This is it. I’m getting out of here. I knew they couldn’t keep me here forever.
She wondered if Mitch Connors had had a hand in her release, and was curious as to where they were taking her. Wherever it was, it couldn’t be worse than this place. The guard punched a seven-digit code into a heavy metal door. It swung open. Grace followed him outside into a courtyard.
“Hello again, Grace.” Gavin Williams smiled. “We’ve a long journey ahead of us. Shall we get going?”
THE COUNTRY ROADS WERE ROUGH AND RUTTED. Each bump and jolt tore through Grace’s frayed nerves like a razor. Williams was a madman. She thought back to the last two times they met—once at the morgue, when he’d grabbed her like an animal—and once in the infirmary at Bedford. That second time Grace was sure he meant to harm her. The feral hatred in his eyes…she would never forget it. Of course, she had been heavily sedated at the time.
“Where are you taking me?”
Without taking his eyes off the road, Gavin Williams took his right hand off the steering wheel and slapped Grace hard across the cheek.
“Do not speak unless I tell you to.”
In mute shock, Grace put her free hand up to her throbbing cheek. Her right hand was cuffed to the passenger door. The handcuffs chafed painfully against her wrist. She sat as still as she could, trying not to move against the metal. Gavin Williams began talking, mumbling to himself like a junkie.
“I thought things would be different at the FBI. But of course they weren’t. The cancer is everywhere: ignorance, stupidity. That’s why the Lord sent me. He blessed me with the gifts of intelligence, of wisdom. He gave me courage to act.”
Grace felt her heart rate quicken. I have to get out of here. Since they left Dillwyn, they seemed to have been driving deeper and deeper into the wilderness. It was a sinister landscape. On either side of the unmade road lay dense thickets of stinking sumac, broken only by an occasional black walnut tree. Darkness was closing in.
“Of course Bain trusted him. They all did. He was smarter than Bain. Smarter than Brookstein, too. But he wasn’t smart enough for me.”
I have to engage him. Keep him talking till I figure out what to do.
“Who wasn’t smart enough?” Grace braced for another slap, but this time Williams seemed eager to talk.
“Merrivale, of course,” he spat contemptuously. “He tried to humiliate me. In Geneva. He’d been there before with Lenny. Got Bain to throw me off the task force. But my work wasn’t done yet. I uncovered his secret.” John smiled. Madness blazed in his eyes.
“What was his secret?”
Gavin Williams laughed. “He killed your husband, my dear. Didn’t you know?”
GRACE SAT IN SILENCE. WILLIAMS KEPT TALKING.
“John flew to Boston on the day of the storm. But of course, the police were too lazy to check the Cape Air records. I had to do it myself. As soon as Merrivale landed, he turned around and caught the next plane back. He took a helicopter out to Lenny’s boat. This was early, mind you, before the bad weather set in. They had a couple of drinks—your husband’s was drugged, of course—and then dear John did the deed. Lenny was decapitated, by the way. Not cleanly either. Merrivale must have gone at him like he was a tree stump, hacking away. Did your investigator boyfriend tell you that?” He was taunting her, delighting in her horror like a kitten playing with a mouse before the kill.
Grace felt dizzy.
“It was John who took the money, diverting all those funds from Quorum. After he dispatched your old man, he got you out of the way—that was the easy part—then buddied up with that brainless popinjay Harry Bain.” Gavin parodied Harry Bain’s gravelly baritone: “‘John’s our key asset in this investigation. You must stop alienating him, Gavin.’ Fool! All this time the truth was right under his nose. Stinking, like your husband’s corpse. But Harry couldn’t see it.”
Grace tried to process what Gavin Williams had just told her. Clearly the man was unhinged. And yet she knew in her bones he was telling the truth about John. He had checked those flight records. It was John who stole the money, John who killed Lenny, John who stage-managed her trial and sabotaged the investigation. Her instincts had been right all along. Why hadn’t she trusted them?
The good news was, if Williams knew the truth about John, it stood to reason he must also know that she was innocent. That she and Lenny had never stolen anything. That they were victims. He’s not abducting me. He’s rescuing me!
She opened her mouth to thank him, but she never got the chance.
Leaning over, Gavin Williams punched her so hard, she blacked out.
SHE WAS WET. SOAKING WET. GAVIN Williams was pouring a bottle of ice-cold water over her head. She was still in the car. The a/c had been turned up full blast. Grace shivered with cold.
Williams pushed her seat back as far as it would go, then climbed on top of her. Grace screamed and struggled, waiting for the inevitable, but Williams didn’t try to rape her. Instead he pinned down her legs with his forearm so she couldn’t move, closed his eyes and began reciting what sounded like some bizarre form of liturgy.
“The wicked shall gnash with his teeth and melt away…the desire of the wicked shall perish…even in darkness, light dawns for the righteous…Lord, deliver me from evil…”
“I’m innocent,” Grace pleaded. “You know I am.”
“You are guilty!” spat Gavin, his face grotesquely contorted with hatred and lunacy. “All of you—you, your disgusting husband, Merrivale. You’re all the same, you rich parasites, you bankers, thinking yourselves so much better than the rest of us. Better than me. You’re vermin. Depraved, sick vermin. But don’t despair. I have been sent to cleanse you.” Reaching across to the driver’s seat, he grabbed a second water bottle, emptying it over Grace’s head.
“I baptize you with water for repentance.” The liquid was freezing. Grace shut her eyes and gasped for breath. When she opened her eyes, she saw Williams unscrewing a plastic gas can. Slowly, he began to pour a snail’s trail of the viscous liquid over Grace’s clothes and hair. “But a second baptism is at hand. A baptism by fire. The winnowing fork is in the hand of the Lord. He will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn.” Gavin’s voice grew louder, more excited. He climbed off Grace, flinging open the passenger door and clambering to safety. Grace’s arm was still handcuffed to the door. As it swung open she roared in agony, feeling her shoulder joint dislocate. Williams was still incanting. “He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a book of matches.
Grace didn’t think. On instinct, she propelled herself forward, kicking Williams hard in the groin. He bellowed in pain, dropping the matches.
“You bitch!” He ran at her like a maddened bull, throwing himself back into the car, hands clawing her face, fingernails gouging deep, bloody grooves in the skin. Grace sank her teeth into his arm. Gavin yelped and let go of her for a moment, but his anger was stronger than his pain. I must destroy her. I must rid America of the wicked, cut out the cancerous scourge of greed before it devours us all.