The Dark (A Detective Alice Madison Novel)(97)

“I’m sorry,” Nathan whispered. “I’m so sorry.”





Chapter 42





Alice Madison ran the shower and then stepped under it, washing away mud and the scent of smoke from her skin. She had driven home at dawn and peeled off her clothes. Her shoulder holster was empty, and she missed the familiar weight. Fynn meant well, but there was no way she could grab a few hours of sleep unless she knocked herself out with a sedative. Which, she reflected, after that kind of night, was probably what doctors were giving to each and every former patient of the Walters Institute.

Madison wrapped herself in a towel and lay back on her bed. The uncertain light was chasing the shadows of the magnolia tree on her ceiling. So much death, so much destruction. It seemed there was little that Peter Conway and his crew were not prepared to do. Fred Kamen’s file had painted a terrifying portrait: they worked for anyone who could pay for their services and were driven by twin hungers: greed and cruelty. Thomas Reed had been shot in the chest: they knew he wasn’t their target; it wasn’t mistaken identity. They’d killed him because he was there. He killed him because he was there. Dead Eyes. And he could have shot her, too. One day she would have to ask him why he didn’t. One day there would be a conversation about what had happened last night, and Madison would make sure he knew just how close they had been to Vincent Foley.

She didn’t feel lucky to be alive; she felt ticked off and wired and buzzing with restless energy that had absolutely nothing to do with rest and a good night’s sleep.

Madison threw on some clothes and got back into her car. Her neighborhood, Three Oaks, was slowly waking up to a colorless morning, and she wished for either hard rain or a blue sky. Anything but the pale, washed-out nothing that seemed to drain all the energy out of the world.


CJ’s Eatery on 1st Avenue opened its doors at 7:00 a.m. for the early breakfast crowd, and Madison found a table to herself. She ordered a lox, egg, and onion scramble with toast and a large black coffee and took out her notepad. People around her were beginning their day—some would go to an office nearby; some would spend time in Pike Street Market and enjoy their vacations—and Madison watched their flow as her thoughts arranged themselves and the memories from the previous night slotted themselves into place.

The food was the fuel she needed, and the coffee helped to clear the cobwebs from the lack of sleep; she jotted down everything Vincent Foley had said and filled five pages of notes. When she reread them, it seemed that most of them were questions.


The shift was present and accounted for, and everybody looked like three hours of sleep and too much caffeine. Madison had great hopes for the traffic cams: they must have picked up Conway’s vehicle speeding away from the Walters Institute, and if they were extremely lucky, he wouldn’t know he had been spotted and torch the vehicle.

Health and Safety had been crystal clear about processing the building, and there was no way that the Crime Scene Unit would be allowed in to seek trace evidence to link Reed’s murder to Lee’s and Gray’s. It had been too dark on the roof; however, Madison was reasonably sure that the men she had seen were wearing black clothing and probably gloves: there would be no fingerprints from the doors or the fire escape. If the gods were smiling on them, Ballistics might connect the gun that had killed Ronald Gray and Thomas Reed. Then again, there hadn’t been a whole lot of smiles lately.

Madison put in a call to the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department to keep the line of communication open and to find out whether any evidence had been recovered at Jerry Wallace’s place. Conway’s crew had had a busy week.

“Nothing much,” Deputy Walbeck said, sounding brisk and capable. Madison heard her flipping through a pile of reports. “The house was clean: no prints, no evidence, locks intact on all entries. They probably saw him through the windows at the back and took him before he could so much as make a peep. Must have kept the back door open.”

“Yes,” Madison said, “I think that’s what happened, too. Any trace evidence from the victim?”

“No, but South Prairie Creek is very close. If they wanted to get rid of a body, they had ways and means. We’ve been searching the banks in both directions.”

Madison thanked the deputy and left her her cell number. Had Jerry Wallace seen Dead Eyes through the glass as she had done, just moments before his death?

Madison saw Kelly approach. Everybody looked tired today, but he also added a twist of sullenness to it that worked better than a KEEP OUT sign.

“You talked to Quinn, right?” he started.