Page 37 of The Grave Between Us
Cole nodded, sliding the drawings to the side. Ian had set a drawing of Cole’s face on top, a close-up study in which it seemed Cole was staring out from the page. Ian had drawn Cole with a come-hither look to his eyes, a fullness in his lips. Cole fought not to turn the paper over.
“I also have a name for you.” Cole passed the driver’s license photo to Ian, holding on when Ian reached for it. “Paul Mason. Last seen backpacking into the Ozarks ten years ago for a week-long camping trip.”
Ian stared at Paul Mason’s photo, then slid his eyes up to Cole’s. Cole held his gaze, refusing to blink.Show me the truth. Show me you know him.
Ian’s pupils dilated.
“This is the man you told me about.” Cole let go of the photo and sat back.
Ian set the image on the table and hunched over it. He stared at the man, his eyes tracing his smile, the dimples in his cheeks. The way the skin crinkled at the corners of his eyes. Cole pulled out the photos of Paul Mason’s campsite, taken by the forest rangers who’d found it that decade-ago fall, and his car, recovered twenty miles away.
“And did you find him?”
“Not yet.”
“You realize that when you find one of my graves, you’ll be taking a part of me inside of you, like I took their lives inside of me. Think about the significance: the last person to touch these men was me, and the next to touch them could be you.”
“I want your men. I want to bring them out of the ground where you put them.”
“If you open up my graves, we’ll be bonded forever. There’s nothing that can link two people quite as intimately as a grave. So are you willing to take me inside you?”
“Show me. Let me see you, the way you want me to see you.”
Ian’s eyes flashed, darkening as his pupils dilated even further. His nostrils flared, and his gaze dropped, traveling down Cole’s face, lingering on his lips before sliding to his chest. “It’s as if, perhaps, I was waiting for you to give them to, in a way,” he murmured.
Cole bit his tongue.Wait, wait. Don’t push. Let the silence work on him.
Ian folded in one edge of the paper with Paul Mason’s photo, creased it sharply, and tore it off, making a clean cut down the right-hand side. Cole’s jaw dropped, and he stood—
Ian held up the near-perfect square left behind, arching his eyebrow. “I needed this,” he said. “Relax, I’m not desecrating his remains any further than they already were.”
Slowly, Cole sat.Already were.A partial confession, to murder and more that he’d done. After.
Ian’s fingers worked quickly, making folds in the photo, flipping it back and forth as he spoke. “You’ve stayed away from my childhood, which I am, frankly, thankful for. Leave that nonsense to the quack.” Ian licked one edge of a fold, then pushed the paper against the table, sharpening the crease with his fingernail. “You won’t find anything especially illuminating there. I’m sure I fall into those statistics you’re so fond of.” He winked over his paper folding. “There was one teacher who took an interest in me when I was a boy. She thought she could save me. I was already amassing quite the collection of dead cats by then, so she was a little off the mark. But I liked the attention she gave me. I liked when she’d bring me to her house, and especially when her boyfriend came home from his construction job. I used to steal his filthy underwear.” Another salacious grin. Another fold. “She taught me this. Something she said she used to do when she needed to steady her mind. Origami.”
A final fold, and then Ian held up the finished product: A crane, made out of the face of his victim. Paul Mason’s eye stared at Cole from one wing, the curve of his smile wrapping around the delicate neck.
“She told me if I made a thousand of these things, my wishes would be granted. I was young enough to still believe in that crap, so I tried it.”
“What did you wish for?”
“Nothing as boring as wishing I could change. I liked who I was, even then. No, my wishes were always more practical. For example, I wanted my father to die.”
Ian offered Cole his origami creation. After a moment, Cole held out his hand. Ian set the crane delicately in his palm.
“I made my own wish come true when I was in high school. I nailed my thousandth crane to his forehead before I buried him in the woods in Montana, where we were living then. I enlisted and shipped out two weeks later.” Ian smiled. “You want to know me, Cole? Go to Beury Mountain in West Virginia. Find the small lake on the east slope. You won’t find it on maps. You’ll have to go there. Bring your bathing suit.”
“Someone is in the lake? One of the men you took?”
Ian leaned back. He was still smiling.
“Who is it, Ian? Who will I find there?”
“That’s entirely up to you.”
Chapter Eleven
Noah was dischargeda few days later, to a standing ovation by what felt like the entire Des Moines law enforcement community—including Jacob, who’d gone home two days earlier. A parade of police and sheriffs’ cruisers escorted Noah, Cole, and Katie home. Sophie drove, leaving the SUV in the driveway for Noah before hitching a ride back to the office with the sheriff.
