SUNDAY SET ASIDE THE video in his mind, stared at her, said, “That right? You’re done?”
Acadia almost nodded, but then seemed to think better of it. She took a sidelong look at Sunday. Their eyes locked, and her defiance gradually waned until she dropped her chin and looked away, saying, “Just a figure of speech, Marcus. Back there you treated me like I was …”
“Stupid?” he asked, softer now.
She glanced at him angrily, nodded.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “One thing you are not, Acadia, is stupid. And I’m sorry if I made it sound that way. There was just something off about that video.”
Acadia nodded again, this time with more confidence, and looked directly at him. “What was off?”
Sunday hesitated, thought about telling her, but decided against it. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“You don’t think the video’s real?”
“Oh, it’s real enough, as far as I can tell,” he replied. “You’d have to have a real expert to doctor something like that.”
She thought about that, said, “In any case, Marcus, just so we’re on the same page here, you’ve made your point, right? Turned Cross into a killer? Proved your hypothesis?”
“I think so.”
“So which one are you going to let go?”
Without hesitation, Sunday said, “None of them. They’re all sticking around just a little while longer.”
Acadia’s expression hardened, and she sat up. “That wasn’t the plan,” she said. “That wasn’t what you told—”
“Plans change, things evolve,” Sunday said coldly. “Until I figure out what Cross was up to with that tape, he gets no mercy. Absolutely none.”
“So what are you going to make him do?”
“Why, I’m going to make him kill again, of course.”
CHAPTER
45
FOR WHAT FELT LIKE the hundredth time, I watched myself shoot Atticus Jones at point-blank range, felt my stomach drop when the terminally ill man lurched and fell into the shadows, blood pooling on the floor.
“Don’t worry, Alex, Mulch will buy it,” Jones croaked. “Gloria’s friend is a genius. Mulch will absolutely buy it.”
Sitting in a chair beside the old detective’s bed at the nursing facility, the computer in my lap, I chewed on the inside of my cheek before saying, “Mulch doctored those photographs of my family. I’m just afraid he’ll anticipate me using the same tactic against him and respond accordingly.”
“He’d have to be a CGI expert to spot the flaws,” Gloria Jones said flatly. She was sitting on the other side of the bed, drinking yet another cup of coffee and eating the last of the burgers Ava had brought in.
Jones’s daughter was an award-winning news producer at WPXI, the NBC affiliate in Pittsburgh. The night before, after I’d told her what I had in mind, she’d bought into the plan and went far beyond what I’d hoped, contacting Richard Martineau, an old friend of hers who worked in computer-generated imagery out in Hollywood.
In fewer than six hours, Martineau had done a masterly job, taking the GoPro footage and inserting the fake head wound and the blood that ran from it so convincingly. But I was still uneasy, thinking I might have gone too far in agreeing to let Jones be the victim.
If Mulch did recognize the old detective, I had no idea how he’d react. We’d all discussed it, of course, and ultimately I’d come over to Jones’s point of view: that recognizing the detective would upset Mulch, maybe enough to throw him off his game, maybe enough that he would make a mistake.
But what if seeing the detective triggered a more brutal response? What if he decided I’d gotten too close, and he responded in the worst way? How would I deal with that? How could any man deal with that sort of loss?
For the most part, I’d been able to box off thoughts of Bree and Damon, except during those six hours when Martineau had worked on the video and I’d retreated to a nearby motel room to sleep. In bed, behind a locked door and before I’d collapsed into unconsciousness, I’d been unable to keep a lid on my roiling emotions. Though as far as I knew, there had been no definitive matching of Bree’s and Damon’s DNA with the bodies, I could not help fearing they were both dead and gone.
Bree could be gone.
Forever.