Page 77 of The Final Vow (Washington Poe #7)

Poe didn’t scare easily, and he desperately wanted Clara Lang to find the peace she deserved, but this was giving him the heebie-jeebies. The woman on the other side of the Rubicon was looking at him like he was food.

‘Who am I speaking to?’ he said. ‘Clara or Bethany?’

‘Clara doesn’t live here any more,’ Bethany said in a singsong voice.

Poe nodded. Good. He said, ‘I gather you’ve been in the wars?’

Bethany grinned. ‘My therapist says I’ve defiled myself.’ She opened her mouth. Showed Poe her sharpened teeth. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think you need a different therapist.’

‘That’s what I said!’ She leaned against her tether and stretched out an arm. Clenched her hand. ‘Fist bump?’

Poe saw that Doctor Gray was right to be apprehensive about the Rubicon being untested.

At full stretch, Bethany could reach halfway across the painted red line.

If they’d miscalculated the length of his wire rope by even an inch, they’d be able to touch each other.

He suspected they hadn’t considered how much new wire rope could stretch.

Poe knew this from his work at sea. Most of the boat’s equipment was secured with wire rope.

When a load was applied – for example, someone pulling it – the dimension became smaller causing the rope to become longer.

It was known as constructional elongation, and it remained in place until the wire rope had been subjected to a load several times.

‘I’m happy where I am, Bethany,’ Poe said.

‘It’s usually Clara you want to see, Sergeant Poe. Yet, unless I’ve misjudged this, it’s me you’re pleased to see today.’

‘It is.’

‘May I ask why?’

‘Do you consider yourself to be a bad person, Bethany?’

‘You know I don’t.’

‘I do know,’ Poe said. ‘Yet you have done bad things.’

‘For her.’

Poe nodded. It was true. Bethany had murdered three people, injured several more, but, in her mind at least, it had all been to protect Clara Lang.

‘For her,’ he agreed.

‘What do you want, Sergeant Poe?’

‘Your help.’ Poe had found that the only way he could get through to Clara or Bethany was by being open and honest. They both saw through subterfuge.

Clara because of her training as a trauma therapist; Bethany because of what she’d been through as a child.

‘There’s a killer outside and he’s causing havoc.

I can’t get in his head. I know why he’s doing it, but I don’t know how to stop him. ’

‘And you think I might?’

‘I do.’

‘Why?’

‘Because this man is pure spite.’

Bethany raised her eyebrows. ‘You think I’m driven by spite, Sergeant Poe?’

‘No. I think your parents were driven by spite. It’s why I think you’ll have a unique insight.’

‘But I don’t want to think about my parents.’

‘And in ordinary times I wouldn’t ask you to. But this man has killed twenty people and he isn’t stopping any time soon. These are not ordinary times.’

‘And if I help you?’

‘What do you get?’

‘Everything’s transactional in a secure hospital, Sergeant Poe.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Nothing.’ She smiled. Waited for him to ask the right question.

‘OK, what does Clara want?’

‘The hospital can’t afford the academic books she needs to stay up to date. If she gets too far behind, she’ll find it difficult to requalify when she gets out.’

‘I’ll see she gets everything she needs,’ Poe said. ‘I’ll pay for it myself, including registration fees, lapsed or otherwise.’

‘That isn’t cheap, Sergeant Poe.’

‘I’m marrying a very wealthy woman.’

‘OK then,’ Bethany said. ‘Clara trusts you, so I will too. Tell me everything you know about this man.’

Poe did. It took two hours. And when he’d finished, Bethany asked just one question: ‘Who would you run into a burning building for, Sergeant Poe?’

Poe didn’t have an immediate answer. He wasn’t even sure he’d understood the question. But after Bethany added context, he did.

And then he knew exactly what he had to do to catch Ezekiel Puck.

He had to do what others wouldn’t.

He had to file down his teeth.

‘Thank you, Bethany,’ Poe said. Distracted, his mind on the calls he’d have to make the second he got his phone back. He stood, readied himself to leave.

‘Oh, one more thing, Sergeant Poe,’ Bethany said.

‘What is it, Bethany?’

‘I know you mean well, and I know that you genuinely care for Clara.’

‘I do.’

Poe stared at the door. There was a commotion outside. Raised voices. Urgent.

‘But, when the scores are tallied,’ Bethany continued, ‘Clara is incarcerated because of actions you took.’

‘Is everything OK?’ Poe shouted. He took a couple of steps forward.

‘You know everything is accounted for on this wing, Sergeant Poe?’ Doctor Gray shouted from the other side of the door. ‘Down to the last plastic paperclip.’

‘I do,’ Poe said. ‘What’s the problem?’

Doctor Gray said, ‘We’ve lost something,’ at the exact moment Bethany lunged for Poe. A wild stab that with empty hands would have missed him by an inch. But her hands weren’t empty.

‘I think I’ve found it,’ Poe said, looking at the fountain pen sticking out of the back of his hand.