Still Lake - Anne Stuart [84]
Someone had pried the boards off. The glass had been smashed long ago, and it was obvious that Grace had climbed through there. She was dustier than usual.
“Go ahead,” she said. “You’ve been trying to get in there since you came back.”
She sounded caustic, almost reasonable, but he reminded himself he was dealing with a woman who’d lost her mind. Funny, but she seemed saner than most of the people he’d been around lately.
“I’ve never been here before, Grace,” he said patiently.
“Sure you haven’t. And your interest in the murders is purely academic. You’re bigger than I am, but you can fit through the window. Mind the broken glass.” She turned away.
“Wait a minute!” he called after her. “Why were you wandering around in there?”
She looked back over her thin shoulder. “Same reason as you. I want to prove who killed all those girls.”
“All those girls? There were only three.” How could she possibly know about the others? How could she possibly know anything?
Grace’s mouth curved in a wry smile, and he could see a trace of the vibrant woman she’d once been. More than a trace.
“Don’t take everything at face value, Mr. Smith,” she said. And then she walked away before he could say anything else.
The window was a tight squeeze, but he made it through, dropping down on the littered floor lightly. It was dark—the one broken window let in only a little bit of light, but this time he’d brought his flashlight, and he turned it on, shining it down the hallway.
Twenty years ago the place had been a wreck. By now it was beyond repair. Interior walls had crumbled, exposing the Spartan rooms, and beneath the fallen plaster and debris the occasional hospital bed could be seen. He and Lorelei had used each and every one of those beds during the long summer. It seemed like another lifetime.
He moved through the dust and rubble, shining his flashlight into every corner, trying to open his mind to any lingering memory. They remained stubbornly elusive. He could recognize rooms, remember events prior to his last night in Colby. But the night of the killings remained a mystery.
Even the basement kitchen came up blank. He didn’t remember ever going down there, though he imagined he’d checked out every square inch of the place long ago. He’d been here that night, he knew it. But nothing, not even returning to old haunts, was going to bring back the past.
He wanted to slam his fist into one of the crumbling walls in frustration, but it probably would have brought the whole place tumbling down on him, and he wasn’t pissed enough to die. He’d wasted his time in coming here. The answers he needed just weren’t ready to be found, and the sooner he let go of it all, the better. Maybe when he was as old and dotty as Gracey he’d suddenly remember what happened that night. Or maybe he never would. He could live with it. He had for twenty years.
He headed back to the broken window, throwing one leg over the sill. His shirt caught on something, and he heard a ripping sound. He looked down, and his sleeve was torn open, caught on a protruding nail. A long line of beaded blood followed the scratch.
Lucky he’d had a tetanus shot recently, he thought. And then froze, as the drops of blood swelled on his arm and began to soak into the torn shirt.
There’d been blood everywhere. On the ground, in her hair, in her torn clothes. Blood on her hands and even in her wide, staring eyes. He’d tried to stop the bleeding, but she was already gone, and he’d knelt on the ground, holding her body, howling in grief.
Not in the hospital. In the inky dark interior of the toolshed. It was no wonder there was no sign of blood anywhere here. He’d found her in the toolshed.
Someone else was there, watching them. He’d known it, but he’d been too drunk and stoned to remember it. He’d held Lorelei’s limp body until he’d passed out, and when he awoke he was alone, lying on the grass in the dark.
He’d stumbled back to his bed, convinced he’d imagined it. Even the blood smearing his body the next morning hadn’t jarred his memory. Nothing had. Until