‘We’re going to need a list of the contractors, painters – whoever was working on the house during that time, I want their names,’ Scott said. ‘One of them might’ve seen Savran there at some point.’

‘We can ask Savran when we find him.’

‘If we find him. A mook like Savran isn’t going to surrender. Guys like him exit the planet one of two ways: a blaze of glory or the noose route. We’ll need to establish a timeline for when he was inside the house with Hubbard.’

Then Scott was gone, and Coop was alone with his thoughts again. As he drove down yet another cold and bone-white tunnel, thinking about Darby and all the blood waiting for him, the wind whipped against his car as if wanting to shove him in another direction, any direction but the one in which he was heading.

A pretty EMT named Leila is stitching up the laceration near my mouth when the back of the ambulance door swings open, letting in a blast of cold air and the blinking merry-go-round of police and emergency lights.

Agent Cooper’s hair is windblown, and his cheeks look sunken and hollow.

‘Could you please give us a minute?’ he asks Leila, yelling over the outside voices shouting orders to one another through the wind and crackle of handheld radios.

After she leaves, Cooper sits on the gurney across from me, elbows on his knees, his satellite phone gripped in one hand. When I see the crushing terror in his face, I can’t conceal my delight. Fortunately, my face and lips are swollen and numbed by Novocain, so my true expression and emotions are withheld from him.

His gaze roves over the various cuts and lacerations, the stitches and Steri-Strips.

‘Savran did that to you?’ he asks.

I nod, slowly. ‘He was waiting behind the front door.’

The words come out in a slurred, wet mess. Cooper doesn’t understand me. I use the pad pinched between my fingers to gently wipe at my lips. They feel as thick as a bicycle tyre.

Cooper leans closer, straining to hear.

‘The front door was unlocked,’ I tell him. ‘I stepped inside and saw Kelly and Lancaster dead on the floor. But it was too late. Savran must’ve been standing behind the door, because that’s when he attacked me. I didn’t see him.’

I feel myself drooling and wipe at my mouth again. ‘When I woke up, he had me tied down to the chair in the kitchen. He wanted to know how we found him. Savran. Wanted to know what we knew. He was using a billy club on me when we heard someone pull into the driveway. Then he hit me again and I was out. Next thing I know, patrol is inside the house, cutting me from the chair.’

‘And Darby, where was she?’

‘I’m not following.’

‘Did you see her come inside the house?’

‘No. What’s going on?’

‘I think Savran took Darby.’

He didn’t, Agent Cooper. I did. And after I’m done playing with her, Sarah and I are going to move far, far away and start a new life together.

‘Did you hear Savran say anything?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘Nothing.’

Cooper looks like a man who has been forced out of a plane without a parachute. I want to smile. Instead, I stare at him blankly, pretending to be horrified.

‘We’ll find her,’ I say.

‘What were you doing at Kelly’s house?’

‘Teddy called me.’

Which is entirely true. Teddy did call me while I was on my way to the river. Up until that moment, I too believed Eli Savran was, in fact, the Red Hill Ripper. I knew that the Red Hill Ripper had surreptitiously recorded himself killing the families – had, in all probability, recorded me down on my hands and knees, wiping down the wall and floor in the corner of the Downes bedroom. When I tossed Savran’s MacBook and computer paraphernalia into the water, I truly believed I was halfway home to saving myself. All I had to do was to find Savran before anyone else did and, God-willing, kill him – a definite long shot, which was why I had Sarah shadowing me in case we needed to run. I had finally shared with Sarah the horrible truth of the mistake at the Downes house that morning.

‘Teddy wanted me to talk to Kelly,’ I say.

‘About what?’

‘Kelly said she had something on Savran, but she would talk only to me.’

This too is true. Teddy called and used those exact words. When I arrived at Kelly’s house, I had no idea Teddy Lancaster was the Red Hill Ripper – that it was he, and not Savran, who had been recording the families. Teddy greeted me warmly at the door, and when I entered, on my way to the kitchen to talk to Sally Kelly, he smacked me over the head with his billy club. Kept hitting me until I blacked out. It wasn’t until after I woke up and found myself bound to the chair that I learned of the monster living inside Teddy Lancaster.

‘I walked inside and then this happened,’ I say, and point to my face. ‘That’s all I remember.’

‘Think for a moment. Maybe you thought you heard Darby or Savran talking.’

I heard all sorts of things, Agent Cooper. I can tell you that Teddy Lancaster killed the families because they were standing in the way of the town’s incorporation. The state had developers all lined up, but the families refused to sell their properties for well below fair market value, and unless they sold the incorporation wouldn’t go through. The state was in thrall to the developers, who would help it to meet all its costs – and line any number of individuals’ pockets as well of course. Teddy’s power base would expand as a result, and he and his state cronies – the ones who had made all the financial arrangements – would receive kickbacks galore. Teddy disguised the murders to look like the work of a serial killer, so he and his politician friends could get rich turning Red Hill into a strip mall. Oh, and Eli Savran is dead. Teddy killed him, and I heard him say where Eli’s body is.

‘Can you tell me anything?’ Cooper asks. He’s barely able to conceal the beautiful hopelessness in his voice. ‘Anything at all?’

Yes, Agent Cooper. I can tell you I made a mistake that morning. I fully admit that. When I stepped inside the Downes bedroom and found them all dead, my first thought was to protect Sarah. I couldn’t risk your finding any lingering traces of Nicky Hubbard’s blood because you and I both know that forensic DNA identification has evolved light years since 1983.

‘Ray?’

Teddy doesn’t know about Nicky Hubbard or what I did to her in that bedroom a long, long time ago. About how, when I was strangling her, she cut her head and started to bleed everywhere – you know how cuts on the head are. But Teddy knew I was up to something, because he had recorded me cleaning up that area – which is why he wanted me to go to Kelly’s house, why he tied me up to the chair. He wanted to know all about the fingerprint because he had run out of time – because you and the FBI refused to leave, and Teddy didn’t want to leave any loose ends. I refused to tell him, which is why he tried valiantly to redecorate my face. He doesn’t know about Nicky Hubbard or any of the others – and neither will you, Agent Cooper – neither will you.

‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ I say.

His crestfallen expression makes my heart surge. I can smell the fear and desperation bleeding from his pores.

I grab his wrist and squeeze. ‘We’ll find her.’

His satellite phone rings. As he answers the call, he removes a pen from his shirt pocket.

‘Go ahead,’ he says into the phone. He’s patting down his pockets, searching for his notebook, when I hand him mine. He writes down an address and then hangs up.

‘Did you find her?’ I ask.

‘Maybe. The guys in Denver traced the signal on her satellite phone.’

I make a show of trying to stand.

‘No,’ Coop says. ‘You’re still bleeding.’

‘I’m coming with you.’

‘You’ve suffered a major concussion, Ray.’

‘I want to help. Darby, I don’t want anything to happen to her.’

70