The Edge

Chapter 79

Devine didn’t make it to the funeral home. Not at first.

On the way he looked to his right and saw something blowing around in a field on the side of the road.

He parked the Harley, jumped off, and snagged the item. He recognized it instantly. It was the jacket Guillaume had been wearing at dinner. He looked around and saw a path through a stand of woods. He hustled down it. Then his training kicked in and he stopped. Devine listened as he crouched there in the pitch-dark Maine woods. He kept his target silhouette as narrow as possible and his viable sight lines the opposite of that. He checked his breathing and willed his heart rate to ratchet down to a level where he could do what might need to be done.

He moved forward, clearing every square inch in front of him, and not forgetting to sweep his rear flank every few seconds. He could hear nothing and he could see no one. And that was not making Devine feel good about anything.

He made it to the edge of the bluff without encountering anyone, then steeled himself and looked down. His heart sank as he saw the body splayed against the rocks.

He slowly took his optics out of his pocket and drew a magnified bead on the body.

It was Françoise Guillaume.

He pulled his gaze from her and closed his eyes for a moment.

You need to slow down for a minute and think. Running around like this and being solely reactive is what they want. You need to get ahead of them, not stay behind.

From the jumble of facts and theories and suppositions swirling in his head, Devine forced himself to focus on finding some concrete conclusions. He thought back to his theory that the sniper scenarios had been different. Jenny and the attempt on his life had been undoubtedly done by a pro, someone who knew what he was doing. The person who had shot Dak? Not a pro, not even close. Then and only then did all the puzzle pieces fall into place for Devine.

Why would the Palmers have been surprised to see Benjamin Bing in a police cruiser before they found Alex? Answer: They wouldn’t. He was a cop. What other car would he be in?

No, they were surprised because it wasn’t Benjamin Bing driving the police cruiser.

Benjamin Bing didn’t rape Alex. He was just the cleanup guy.

He took out his phone and called Harper and told him about finding Guillaume.

“Oh my God!” said the police chief. “You think it was Ben who killed her?”

“I don’t know. But I think he was the person who shot at me and killed Jenny.”

“And Dak?”

“Another Bing. And that same Bing raped Alex.”

“But there’s only one—”

“I know.”

“I’ll be there in five minutes with a retrieval team.”

“I won’t be here.”

“Wait, why not?”

“My job is to find Alex. I haven’t finished that job yet.”

“Devine, wait—”

Devine had already ended the call and was running for the Harley.

Ten minutes later he pulled into the parking lot of the funeral home and saw two cars there. One was Guillaume’s big Bimmer. The other was a tan Jeep. The Jeep’s driver’s side door was unlocked. He checked the registration.

Fred Bing. Of course.

I’ve been looking at this whole case upside down and sideways.

The funeral home was, of course, dark at this hour. He could see or hear no one else in the vicinity. He tried the front door but it was securely locked.

He jogged around to the back and noted several outbuildings. Two were large garages where he assumed the hearses and other vehicles used by the funeral home were housed. And then there was the large crematorium facility at the very rear.

That’s when he heard a scream and then a gunshot and another scream. A cluster of more shots followed. All from the main building.

Devine started to combat-breathe as he ran back there.

He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

But in his world it almost always did.

A moment later he got a text from Harper.

Guillaume strangled. Where the hell are you?

Devine put his phone away and kept right on walking.

There was a window that yielded to his ministrations with the Swiss Army knife he always carried. Fred Bing was in there. He hoped at least two other people were in there too. And that one of them was still alive.

Alex.

He slid inside and knelt on the floor, then surveyed each end of the hallway he was in.

People had been born with all the necessary tools for survival in most situations. Senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch. And amygdala glands that would stimulate your body to do amazing physical feats when threatened. And a brain that could figure out most things in order to keep you upright and breathing.

And he was using every one of those senses now plus his brain, all the while keeping his amygdala at bay, because he didn’t need it, at least not right now.

He moved forward in a crouch, his breathing slow and even, his heart beating around sixty pops a minute, his brain as focused as it was possible for human gray matter to be.

Devine knew very little of the interior setup of the funeral home. He’d seen the front reception area, the chapel on the video, Guillaume’s office, and the room they had used to show him Jenny’s and Earl Palmer’s bodies, plus the embalming space. But that left a lot that was completely unknown to him. And unknown terrain was always a problem. But there was no alternative, at least that Devine knew of.

The muzzle of his gun poked into the first room on the right. He flicked on the light. It was empty. So were the next three spaces behind doors. He turned right and one of his senses picked up something. A foul odor. Not so unlikely in a funeral home, but there was something about this one that was giving him pause.

Next, he heard a groan. It was male, guttural and prolonged. Devine had heard such sounds before. They all had the same cause: pain, and closer to life-threatening than not.

He edged forward and eyed the closed door. The moan came again. On the floor he saw the source of the foul odor. A pool of vomit was next to the door. And mixed with it was blood.

He eyed the pool of sick and the blood and tried to calculate how much blood had actually been lost. From the sounds of the groan it was more than a little.

He stood to one side and slowly reached out and touched the doorknob. He turned it quickly and then pulled his hand away, right before multiple bullets tore through the wood.

The voice screamed, “I will fucking kill you. Just give me the chance, you little prick.”

Devine didn’t recognize the voice, but he knew who it was anyway.