Page 74 of The Grave Between Us
“Is there anything you can tell us about where Ingram is going? Anything from all of this that gives us any insight into what he’s planning next?” Michael was fuming, his voice getting tighter and tighter.
“Look,” the tech said, “You bring me evidence, and I can tell you what happened. I can tell you where your suspect was and what he did, but I can’t read the future. He didn’t drop his to-do list or his address book, and I can’t shake a Magic 8 Ball and tell you what he’s doing next. Maybe some of your other cases, you get leads to future acts, but with these?” He set his hands on the two case files. “These are like forensic islands. He did the crime, and then he vanished. There’s no blood trail going from the house to the side yard. There’s no unique pollen he tracked in on his shoes. No special fiber from some only-made-here manufacturer that I can run against a database. He’s hiding in plain sight by using common items. Wolverine shoes, common. Cotton fibers, common. Origami paper, Polaroid film, even, common. You can buy both at Walmart or a dozen other stores. I can’t narrow down where he gets his gear from for you.” The tech shrugged. “You’ve got great forensics for a conviction. All this will be great at trial. But I can’t help you beyond that.”
Michael glared, shook his head, and turned away. “C’mon, Cole. We’ve got work to do.”
Cole followed him up to another conference room that Michael had clearly taken over before pushing his way into Des Moines. He’d been in Omaha since Noah and Jacob’s shooting. Photos of their crash, along with the photos Ian had taken of Noah, were blown up to poster size and taped to the windows. Along the opposite wall were the forensic reports and photographs from the processing of Noah’s SUV and the big rig Ian had stolen, as well as the driver he’d murdered.
“Sit down.” Michael pulled out a seat across the conference table. He slid a pad of paper in front of him, uncapped a pen from his jacket pocket. “Let’s talk this out. Get everything we know down on paper.” He scrawled a single word across the top of the sheet:Ingram.
Cole collapsed in a chair and slumped forward, away from the table, scrubbing his hands over his face, elbows on his knees. His spine bowed. Gravity pulled on him, trying to take him to the floor. He was so fucking exhausted. His eyes were gritty, his eyelids like sandpaper running over his corneas every time he blinked. It had been days since he’d had any decent sleep. Michael didn’t have that problem. He’d knocked back an Ambien and a glass of bourbon when they got to the hotel, and he’d been out like a light.
Cole had watched the moon’s light arc across the hotel room’s ceiling. Memories had plagued him, like a silent movie on a loop. Ian and him, facing each other in the interrogation room. Ian and him, sitting side by side. Ian and him in the truck at the edge of a dark woods, Ian’s eyes gleaming, dark fire that burned ice cold. Ian’s voice in his ear, Ian’s lips on the back of his neck.We’re together forever.
The sweet smell of bones and wet earth. The hot copper tang of spilled blood on cold pavement, the fetor of McHugh’s cut-out guts. The odor of the grave and decomposition on his skin and under his nails and in his hair.
The scent of Noah, of his soap and laundry detergent, how his button-downs smelled like him after a long day, the starch and his skin and his hair mixing together, creating a fragrance that was all Noah. Cole loved to put his face in the back of Noah’s neck, breathe his lover in as he wrapped his arms around Noah’s waist. Kiss him above the collar, behind his ear. Kiss him lower as he undid Noah’s shirt buttons and stripped him.
Noah and him, facing each other across a bar in Vegas. Across a hotel bed, Noah’s first time with a man. He’d been so nervous, trembling like a leaf in a hurricane, but he’d bowled Cole over with the force of his desire—not just for sex, but for Cole. He’d watched the sunrise on Noah’s skin, and he’d decided there and then that that was the first of many sunrises he would see with Noah.
Noah and him, facing each other across the Des Moines conference room table. Noah scared out of his mind, Cole shocked down to his bones.
Noah leading him to his bed. Noah falling into his arms outside Katie’s hospital room. Noah crying in the Des Moines airport, sayingI love youandI don’t want you to go. Noah and the look in his eyes when Cole came back for good, transfer papers and his own beating heart in the palms of his hands, offered to Noah.I want forever. Forever with you.
Why was Ian back? Why was he herenow? What had brought him out of the darkness so fully, so suddenly? Why did he want to shred Cole’s life, destroy everything he loved and cherished?
There’s nothing as intimate between two people as a grave.
“Where has he been these past eight years?” Cole mumbled, sliding his hands down his cheeks. He stared at Michael’s pad of paper. “I don’t understand where he’s been hiding. And why he’s not hiding now.”
“We can ask him where he’s been when we catch him,” Michael said. “We’ve spent enough time looking backward. We’re going to look forward now. Find him before he hits his next target.”
His next target. Cole turned his head and stared at the wall, at the photos of Noah’s crashed and mangled SUV. At the poster of Noah’s agony, his own weapon pressed to his temple. “Noah. He’s coming after Noah.”
“We’ve got units watching Downing: the local police department and members of my team. He’s under constant surveillance.” Michael waited. He took a breath. “How do you think Ingram will strike?”
It was everything he never wanted to think of: Ian attacking Noah, Ian overpowering Noah, Ian subduing Noah. His arm around Noah’s throat, choking him out, getting Noah’s hands behind his back before he zip-tied them. Ian shoving Noah in the back seat of Noah’s car and driving away.
Ian and Noah, somewhere in a foggy woods, with a black-mirror lake nearby. Cranes overhead and an open grave carved into the earth. Noah screaming, Noah begging. Noah crying out for Cole, for God, for anyone, please, anyone to help him, as Ian tore into his body and ravaged the man Cole loved.
Cole heaved, turning his head just in time for the coffee he’d drunk on the drive to come up in a sour mash of bile and curdled milk at his feet. He spat and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Don’t ask me that,” he growled, not looking at Michael. “Don’t put that in my mind.”
“Noah Downing is Ingram’s next target,” Michael said. He was being more patient than Cole had ever heard him be. He didn’t even react to the stench of vomit as the fermented coffee and cream soaked into the carpet. “And if we’re going to catch Ingram, we’re going to do it when he strikes.”
Something in Michael’s voice made Cole hesitate. The truth hit him like a punch to the chest. “You’re using Noah as bait. YouwantIan to come after him!”
Michael’s lips thinned. “I want to catch Ingram.”
“How far back from Noah are those officers?” Cole cried. “Are they really there to protect him, or are they just watching to get his abduction on film?”
“They’re close enough.” Michael’s voice was maddeningly calm.
“Is that what you’d say if it was your wife or your child that Ian was targeting?”
“I’d want to catch the son of a bitch and get my life back to normal. That won’t happen without a little risk—”
“A little risk? You’re talking about the man I love!” Cole roared. “I cannot live in a world where Ian has tortured Noah to death—”
Michael stood, lunged across the table, and yanked his wrist. He tugged, pulling Cole halfway across the polished wood. “That’s why we’re going to get him. That’s why we’re going to beat him at his own game. He wants Noah. He wants to get rid of Noah so that, in his fantasy world, it can be you and him forever. For once, Cole—for the first time ever—we know who he’s going after. We use that to catch him. We use that to beat him. And then we throw him in a cell and lose the key, and he never sees the light of day again. Ever.” He pushed Cole back into his seat. His eyes were cold, almost as cold as Ian’s. “Talk to me. How will Ingram strike?”
