Page 101

Several days later, Lacey pulled her rented car into the parking lot of the Clear River County Detention Center.

She sat behind the wheel, staring at the stone-and-brick building.

Ever since Clay’s arrest, she hadn’t slept. Her world was a hurricane of shock, anger, pain and confusion.

For nearly two days Cobb and Mallory had questioned her, as if she were somehow involved. With her attorney, she cooperated, even submitted to a polygraph. Eventually cleared of suspicion, Lacey was not charged. But she was not allowed back into her home while it was being processed for evidence.

It didn’t matter—she never wanted to return.

Ever.

They couldn’t confirm how many women Clay had killed over the years she’d known him.

Over the years she’d loved him.

Fate had lifted a rock, revealing that the man she’d given her heart to since high school was a miscreation.

The Texas deputy serial killer.

That’s how the Dallas and Houston press served it up.

TV news cameras and reporters were everywhere.

Sarah Curtis, one of the women who worked for Lacey, took her in, helped her buy what she needed, helped her make arrangements for moving on. Then word got to Lacey, through her lawyer, that Clay had requested she visit him in jail.

Now, as she sat in the parking lot, with no media in sight, memories rushed through her: high school, their wedding, her first store, Clay making deputy. At the same time, she imagined the terror of the women he’d abducted and held prisoner on their property.

Tormented a few feet away while we laughed at dinners, celebrated Christmas and birthdays, made love.

Another great find , Clay would tell her driving home from a swap meet.

The underground cells in his garage.

Cobb and Mallory had shown her the photos. Tell us what you know, Lacey.

Sitting in the car now, reeling, she thought of all those women and their families.

Women I knew.

Erin, Abby and Carrie.

How many others?

Lacey picked up her phone and began writing the note. She’d drafted it in her heart a thousand times, words she wanted to send to all the families—and to Carrie.

I don’t ask your forgiveness. I never knew…

The words on her screen blurred.

Then, one by one, in reverse, they disappeared as she deleted them, her desire to erase her life with Clay taking over.

They don’t need to hear from me.

Staring at the detention center, she accepted a fact as hard as the steel bars inside.

She would not visit the thing in there.

Clay had ceased to exist.

We no longer existed.

Sitting a little straighter, she glanced at the rearview mirror and her luggage in the back. She’d told her lawyer that she was getting a divorce, selling the house and her salons, and moving to Austin, where she had a cousin.

Lacey started the motor, then pulled away in her rented Ford Escape.

Escape , she thought. That sounds good right about now.