The Killing Moon: A Novel

Maddox could not believe it. His mind would not accept it, any of this. Not the hazy image on the screen. Not Ripsbaugh standing in his house wearing Sinclair's clothes.

"The smell will be long gone before anyone thinks to come around looking," said Ripsbaugh. "The rain is already smoothing out the dig marks in your yard."

Dig marks.

No.

Impossible.

In Sinclair's cut-and-stitched sneakers, Ripsbaugh walked to the open toilet. He flushed it, holding down the handle with his inhuman fingers until the bowl emptied.

The snake twitched as the rush of the water tugged on it.

On the display screen, the camera view trembled. Maddox could do nothing but watch.

Water splattered forth. Glowing green, it vomited from the mouth of the pipe, spraying Tracy's face.

She covered her nose and mouth and her eyes glowed wide as she screamed into the darkness.

Maddox heard a muffled cry, as from someone calling out from miles beneath the ground.

"There's air, but it's bad air, and going fast. No light. She doesn't know where she is."

"Get her out!" The chair shook beneath him, Maddox pushing with every muscle, eyes locked on Tracy on the screen. "Get her out! She has nothing to do with this!"

Tracy's hands stayed up near her muck-streaked face, eyes wild. Her screaming was so far away.

"You want to save her," said Ripsbaugh, turning on the sink, full power. "To deliver her from that place, from that pain." He ran water in the tub, opening the drain. "If only you could."

More water flowing past the camera, obscuring the view.

"That is why I am showing you this, Don." He walked away, back down the hall, to the kitchen. "Now you understand." Maddox heard him open the sink tap. "Now you know what I go through."

Maddox was underneath that bridge in Haverhill again. Standing over Casey's naked corpse, knowing it should be him lying there and not her. Knowing that no amount of vengeance would ever be enough, and going a little crazy inside.

Ripsbaugh returned. "They'll find her truck pulled over on one of the hill roads. Keys inside, though not your garage door opener. Thousands of young women disappear every year. They'll come here, they'll search your house with lasers and filtered vacuums. They'll search it good, the residence of a missing state trooper. But they'll never think to search the septic tank." Ripsbaugh brought his glabrous face close, so close that a few strands of wig hair brushed against Maddox's cheek before Maddox could jerk away. "They won't ever find her."

Maddox rocked the chair with everything he had. "Kill me, get it over with," he said. "But let her go!"

Ripsbaugh watched him struggle. "One problem with that, Don. With killing you. Sinclair's next murder will be his third. Do you know what that means?"

Maddox swelled his chest, pushing against the seat. He felt some separation in the wood beneath him. Or imagined he did.

"Three victims, that meets the FBI criteria for a serial killer. And I sure don't want the FBI here."

Maddox could bend his elbows a bit, giving him more leverage.

"So you're going to have to disappear. Sinclair will be suspected, of course. They'll find this kitchen chair pulled out from the table. Abrasions in its sides, some rope fibers. Rounds from your gun lodged in the wall and ceiling upstairs. Sinclair was in your house tonight. But, as with the girl, your disappearance will remain a mystery."

Ripsbaugh stepped into the parlor, pinching a bit of sleeve with his coated fingers and rubbing the fabric against the corner of the divan. Another Sinclair transfer.

"Sinclair's legend will only grow. Because he is going to disappear tonight with you. His work here is done. But Sinclair will live on, longer than you or even I, haunting the woods around Black Falls. A town needs a good bogeyman. Fear is like religion that way. It galvanizes a community. Makes them care. Black Falls is already coming back to life. You feel it, can't you?"

Maddox had earned just enough rope slack to lean forward onto the balls of his feet, tipping up the back legs. With all that he had, he rocked back down, driving the chair legs into the floor.

A good blow, but not enough. There was no crack, though his feet were looser, allowing him even more leverage. He rocked violently side to side, trying it again.

This time, the rope shifted, still holding him fast, but giving him a few more precious centimeters with which to work.

Ripsbaugh watched dispassionately. "If I've gone on too long, it's only because, as I said, Don, I always liked you." He looked at his smooth hands again, as though awaiting their command. "I always liked you."

Maddox sprang up with all his might, driving his hips down and hearing wood crack as a splat fractured behind his lower back, one of the legs on the left side giving way.

Maddox was on the floor. On his side, still lashed to the broken chair. But loose inside the ropes.