Page 48 of Broken Hearts

“So then I had to look through about a hundred different records to try and get a match from that partial plate number, and see if any of the car owners might match the little profile I’d come up with. Finally found Magnusson. He seemed innocent at first, but something about him gave me a weird feeling. As if he was almost too perfect. Then I remembered something a previous victim’s wife had mentioned—long story, we’ll get into the details another time—which made me think our guy just might be a doctor. So I looked deeper into Magnusson, and the more I looked, the more sense it made.”

“Wow. That’s pretty impressive,” I said softly, still unable to believe that West had actually tracked me down with so little to go on.

“Damn straight,” Dwyer said, taking his eyes off the road for a split second. “Can’t believe he actually pulled it off, to be honest.”

West gave me an embarrassed, humble smile. “I was just doing my job, which is basically analyzing stuff and making connections,” he said with a shrug. “And that’s exactly what I did. I put stuff together. The main thing that really clinched it for me was an old article.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “Article?”

“When I was looking into it all, I found an old news piece about Magnusson’s mis—”

“Fucking Christ!” Dwyer cut West off midsentence with a loud shout as he suddenly swerved the car too far to the right. We almost went directly into a snowbank, but he corrected our course just in time, and we ended up right on the edge of the road. “Shit! Did you see that?”

“See what?” I craned my neck, my pulse racing at what felt like a million miles an hour. As if I hadn’t gone through enough lately, now I’d almost been in a damn car accident.

“That thing!” Dwyer gesticulated wildly at the dark road ahead. “Some sort of animal, maybe? We almost ran right into it. God, I almost had a fucking heart attack.”

“You almost gave me one too,” West said, holding one hand to his chest. “You okay back there, Celeste?”

I nodded, even though my whole body felt like jelly and my heart felt like it was about to give out from shock. “I’m okay. You didn’t hit the animal, did you?”

Dwyer frowned and took the key out of the ignition. “Shit, I hope not. I’ll go and check the road.” He went to open his door, but it seemed to be jammed. “What the hell is wrong with this door? Can’t get it open.”

“It’s fine, I’ll get out and check,” West offered. “I need to take a leak anyway.”

“You sure? It’s colder than a witch’s tit out there, and I’ve got more insulation, if you know what I mean,” Dwyer said with a self-deprecating smile as he touched his belly. He tried the door again, but it didn’t budge.

“It’s fine, sir. I’ll go.” West smiled, got out of the car, and slowly trudged over to the middle of the road.

I watched him walk around and scan the area with bated breath, afraid that any minute, Alex might pop out from behind a snowbank, drag him away and brutally gut him, tarnishing the pristine white ground beside the road with splashes of crimson.

Dwyer seemed to sense my fear, and he turned and looked at me. “Don’t worry, Celeste. I promise you, there’s nowhere safer you could be right now than with us. Magnusson’s not gonna get you again. Our team back at his house will have him by now, and I bet he’s being taken in as we speak. I’ll get that call any second now, you mark my words. Wish I could’ve been there myself to see ‘em take the bastard down, but we had to get you out of there.”

I nodded and gave him a tight smile, but I knew I wouldn’t feel okay until West was back in the car and we were all on the road again, driving back to safety in the city.

Dwyer turned back to face the front again while we waited for him. “Now, where did I put that key….” he muttered. He fumbled around the seat, then stuck a hand in what looked like his lower jacket pocket. I turned away and looked out the window again, scanning the road for West. My heartrate began to slow when he finally returned to the car.

“Didn’t see anything,” he said. “Whatever it was, it got away.”

“That’s good.”

“It really is freezing out there, though. I swear the temp dropped by another ten degrees in the last half hour.” He glanced at the clock. “And it’s not even that late yet. Only eight.”

Dwyer shrugged. “Late enough. Hey, speaking of the time, you told your wife you aren’t coming home tonight, right?”

West looked at him and nodded. “Yeah, she knows not to expect me home anytime soon. Couldn’t tell her why, of course, but she’s aware.”

Dwyer smiled. “Good.” He removed his hand from his jacket pocket, held a pistol out, and pressed it directly to the center of West’s forehead. Then he pulled the trigger.

West didn’t even have time to register any surprise as the gun went off, sending him flying backwards, slamming against the front passenger side door as blood sprayed all over the window.

My mouth dropped open in what felt like an endless scream, loud and gut-wrenching. My brain spun, my guts twisted and knotted with adrenaline, and my heart hammered so hard I felt my pulse pounding in my fingertips. I could hardly breathe, and I had a sudden vertiginous sensation, as if I were hanging in the air above, watching everything unfold in slow motion as Dwyer leaned over, wrenched open West’s door and shoved his motionless body backward, out onto the snowbank beside the car.

This isn’t real. This isn’t real. This isn’t real,I chanted in my head. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was aware that I was still screaming. The sound didn’t even seem to come from me; it felt like I was somewhere in the distance, hearing another girl shriek and cry.

I snapped back to reality a moment later as Dwyer pulled the front passenger door shut again with a loud thump. “No, no, no,” I moaned softly, trying to make sense of what I’d seen. Darkness, the car spinning off the road, casual small talk, a gun, a bullet in the brain, blood spattering, a dead agent on the freezing ground just outside…. This wasn’t some messed up nightmare. It all happened, mere seconds ago.

I felt like I’d been punched in the gut, and I spluttered and wheezed in shock as my lungs struggled to take in air. I tried my door, my hands trembling like mad. It was locked. Dwyer must’ve made sure of it.

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