But it was too late. He had been standing behind her, behind the door, and within two steps across the carpet he had the barrel of a pistol pressed behind her ear.

‘Don’t turn around,’ Teddy Lancaster said.

67

‘Hands on your head,’ Lancaster said to Darby. ‘Nice and slow, that’s it, you know the drill … Good girl. Sarah, be a dear and unzip Miss McCormick’s jacket for her and remove the handgun inside her shoulder holster.’

Kelly had staggered to her feet. Her fingers trembled as she gripped the zipper of Darby’s jacket.

‘Careful, Sarah,’ Lancaster said. ‘This one likes to punch, especially when you’re not expecting it.’

Why is he calling her Sarah? Darby wondered. Then she remembered: Sarah was the familiar name for Sally, and vice versa.

‘You still got a chance to get out of this alive, Teddy,’ Darby said. ‘Coop, Williams and the others will be here any moment.’

‘What others?’

Darby didn’t answer. Let him stew in it, she thought.

Kelly had unzipped the coat; Darby could feel the woman’s fingers fumbling on the strap for the shoulder holster. Kelly’s head smelled of shampoo, and her ratty pink robe reeked of bacon and burned toast.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kelly said under her breath. ‘I didn’t –’

‘No talking, Sarah,’ Lancaster said. ‘Darby’s got an important decision to make, and I want her head clear so she can focus on the matter at hand, understand?’

Kelly nodded compliantly. For a moment Darby had the distinct impression the woman was going to apologize to him.

Then Lancaster pressed the barrel deeper into the base of Darby’s skull. ‘I asked you a question, missy.’

‘The agents from the Denver office,’ Darby said. ‘They’re here in Red Hill.’

Kelly removed the SIG. She dropped it to the floor and kicked it over to Lancaster.

Lancaster grabbed Darby by the back of the collar. ‘Keep your hands on your head, understand? I’m not fooling around here,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’ll prove it to you.’

Then he marched her towards the archway leading into the kitchen. Darby had just crossed the threshold when Lancaster yanked her collar again, forcing her to stop.

Ray Williams sat in the middle of the tiny kitchen, between the stove and the sink, his hands tied behind a rolling wooden desk chair. His mouth was covered in duct tape and his head was slumped forward, against his shoulder; his nose had been broken; his face was swollen and bloody from the cuts along his cheek, temple and forehead.

‘Ray?’ Lancaster said. ‘Wake up, Ray, your sexy lady friend is here.’

Williams moaned behind the tape. His head twitched but he didn’t look up.

‘That’s okay, Ray, you two can talk later. Go ahead and rest.’ Then, to Darby: ‘Ray was unco-operative, so I had to use this on him.’ Lancaster held up a short billy club, the kind patrolmen use, only this one was made of leather instead of wood. ‘I can honestly say the rude son of a bitch completely deserved it. Oh, and the patrolman who drove you here, Whitehead? You can forget about a rescue from him. He called to tip me off before you left the station.’

Darby felt her stomach sink. How many people did Lancaster have on his payroll? Did these people know he was the one killing the families? Or did they, like Laurie Richards, simply turn a blind eye to it?

‘I’ve got friends everywhere these days,’ Lancaster said, and marched Darby back into the living-room. Kelly sat on the couch, her hands folded on her lap and her head bowed, looking like a woman attending church. ‘People do all sorts of things when they need a few extra bucks. Lucky for me it’s a buyer’s market.’

‘That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? Money.’

‘It’s what makes life go ’round, darlin’. Get up, Sarah, you’re not done working.’

‘The families you killed were standing in the way of the incorporation, weren’t they?’ Darby said. Her clothes were damp with sweat, her mouth and throat as dry as bone. ‘I’m guessing they wouldn’t sell their properties to the state because they were offered pennies on the dollar, and the state needs their properties to secure developers.’

‘Bingo. Hurry up, Sarah.’

‘And in order to receive government funding, the state has to find the money to pay for additional infrastructure and additional services. Money has to come from somewhere, and the state can’t raise taxes because no one living here can afford to pay more – they can hardly pay now. The only way the state can meet its costs is through money from developers.’

Lancaster grinned. ‘See, it’s not that complicated, is it, sweetheart? Now –’

‘And when the families said no, you decided to come on in and speed up the process, maybe even encourage the other holdouts. If the incorporation didn’t go through, you wouldn’t be part of the new regime, now, would you?’ ‘I don’t really want to play the question and answer game any more. Thanks to you, I’ve got a full plate today. Now keep those hands on that pretty little head of yours, or it’ll get messy.’

Lancaster let go of her collar and quickly stepped away, to her right, to gain some distance. His arm was extended, as straight as a board, and Darby could see the silencer attached to the end of what looked like a Glock. His free hand reached into a jacket pocket.

‘You staged all the murders to make them look like the work of a sexual sadist,’ Darby said. ‘You wanted everyone thinking that a deranged psychopath was running all over town, when it was really about money.’

Lancaster came back with a pair of plastic ties. In her mind’s eye Darby saw the Downes family bound to the dining-room chairs.

‘Once the families are out of the way,’ Darby said, ‘all the pieces are in place for the incorporation. When that happens, Red Hill PD goes away, and you’re the man in charge.’

Lancaster handed the plastic ties to Kelly.

‘You set up Eli Savran as your scapegoat,’ Darby said. ‘You already had him picked out before you started this. You crushed a tablet of neomycin on the floor, knowing we’d find it, and then you had Kelly tell me about a man who smelled like garbage who was possibly stalking Samantha Downes, then you followed it up by having Rita Tuttle tell us all about Timmy.’

‘Clever girl. Hands behind your back.’

‘Why’d you shoot at us last night?’

‘I’m into theatre. That, and I didn’t have a clear shot of you in the bedroom. Tie her up, Sarah.’

Darby kept her hands clasped on her head. Something nagged at her, but the thought or feeling or whatever it was had been washed away by surging tides of adrenalin. Her mind, though, was busy cataloguing all the ways the Red Hill Ripper – Lancaster – had remained several steps ahead of them: the iPad in the Downes bedroom, the audio bug she found in her hotel room, the GPS tracker on her rental and the USB spy device stuck inside the back of Williams’s office computer.

‘That was a nice trick with the pictures,’ Darby said. ‘How’d you manage to pull that off?’

Lancaster smiled, his eyes dancing with a bright and joyful light. Like every garden-variety sadist, not only did he get off on controlling a situation, he loved to showcase just how intellectually superior he was to everyone around him.

‘While you and Hoder were educating us backwoods folks on the Ripper, I slipped my hand inside my pocket and hit the send button on the burner I was carrying. Then, while the troops were enjoying your titty pics, I removed the SIM card, placed it in the spare burner I keep in my glove compartment and then left the phone on the front windshield of that fat broad who sleeps in her van.’

‘You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’ Darby said.

‘Don’t pin this on me, Missy. You were given fair warning at every turn. First the pictures, then the texts – I even had our AG call to tell you to stay away. But did you listen? Nope. A normal person would’ve packed up and left. But not you. Then you show up here and my Sarah told you to go away – she even tried to close the door on you – but you barged your way in because you’re an annoying, meddlesome bitch. What’s about to go down now is on your shoulders. Hands behind your back.’