Page 72 of The Grave Artist (Sanchez & Heron #2)

Damon’s head was still throbbing from the blow. His thoughts were clouded, and he struggled to make sense of the whole thing.

“I don’t understand—Lauren . . . Brock?”

She peered down at him. “You didn’t go to the wedding, did you? No, you just went to the hotel and waited for a chance to find a victim—my brother, it turned out—alone after the reception ended. So you never saw the wedding party.”

True. He’d caught glimpses.

Bad music and worse toasts ...

Hadn’t paid much attention. He just wanted the bride and groom alone. He’d thought of killing the bride but decided Allison’s bereavement would be more exquisite than Anthony’s.

“I was a bit persona non grata,” she continued, “and so I wandered off—to the upper garden. I didn’t see you attack him.

I didn’t even know it had happened until later.

But I did see you wearing latex gloves and acting suspicious as hell.

Then I heard the screams and sirens. I went down to the koi pond and saw him. ” The last word was a whisper.

“And I saw you there too. In the crowd, watching. Everybody was shocked. But not you. You were almost smiling. Who the hell were you? Why had you killed him? I was about to tell the police right then, but I changed my mind. Decided I wanted you for myself. After you left, I got your license plate and paid a private eye to give me your name and address. Then you became my project. I started following you, trying to figure out what you were about.”

“The blue car,” Damon gasped, some from the shock, some from a parched throat.

“Oh, you saw me?” She lifted an eyebrow.

“It’s a junker of mine. I mostly drive a white Camry, but that day, I wanted something not connected to me.

” She was sweating too and wiped her brow with the back of her hand.

“Damon Garr ... You were a question mark. A professor of art, solitary and pretty damn strange. I was trying to figure out your fate when I saw you again. At the funeral! I went to say goodbye to my brother—keeping some distance from Allison and the others. Non grata, remember? And there you were. Just like watching the people at the koi pond where Anthony died, you were watching the mourners. That fucking half smile on your face! Why on earth? To gloat? I had no idea.” A faint scoff.

“You have me to thank for your escape, by the way.”

“What?”

“The hearse. You think it moved by divine intervention? No, it was my intervention. I needed you free from custody.”

He struggled to keep up with her logic. “For revenge. It was that important to you?”

She stretched and looked around the deserted farm, the shed, the broken posts and rails of the fences, the chassis of an old tractor sun-bleached from red to pink.

“Revenge. You killed the man who saved my life.” Her eyes snapped back to his, the anger inflating the sorrow and dismay and fear that seized him.

“I lied about killing my rapist, but the assault was real, and I never quite recovered. Therapy was bullshit, but I liked the meds, and then when the doctors wouldn’t prescribe them anymore, I went out on the street.

Lost my job—and to keep myself supplied, I sold the one thing I could. ”

Maddie—Lauren—started to pace. He was twisting his hands in the tape bindings to see whether he could loosen them. No luck.

“My first john was my dealer,” she said matter-of-factly. “He trained me, then sent me out to work off the drug debt. He kept me supplied, and I kept him solvent.

“I found out that if you’re rich, people say you have a substance-abuse issue .” She air-quoted the phrase. “But if you’re poor, they call you a junkie.” Her lips lifted in a smile that held no humor. “That was me. Now you see why Allison wanted to hide me in a broom closet at the wedding?

“Then I hit bottom this spring. One of the working women in our circle died, a friend of mine. A john punched her. Some argument about money. She hit her head and died. Guess what? He never got arrested. She’s dead and he waltzes away.

That’s when I realized how my life would end if I didn’t do something. So I went to see Anthony.”

She slowed and leaned against a fence rail.

“He had a plan that would save me, and it was going to happen when he got back from his honeymoon.

The one he never took. So I lost twice. The brother I loved .

.. and a chance for a new life ... I have nothing, Damon.

A boring job, a cheap rental. That fifty thousand dollars? Yeah, I wish.

“You were going down. But I had to figure you out first, so I let you talk me into going to your house. And I sure got an eyeful in that weird den of yours. All that art full of sadness and misery. Then you tell me you’re an artist who finally found his true medium, but you wouldn’t say what it was.

“Well, I figured it out when I remembered you at the funeral with that creepy smile. You’re a sick fuck who gets his jollies watching people grieving.

My brother’s death was nothing to you. You could have killed Allison.

You could have killed anybody. It was just a way for you to create a bunch of mourners to prey on. ”

He felt her words as body blows, as welts from a whipping. Yet, it was true. She had just defined Serial Killing 2.0.

And it was all shattered, the perfect union they had. All that remained was an abiding sorrow. Far worse than what he’d felt when his fiancée died.

He whispered, “Everything about you was so perfect. We were made for each other. But it was a fucking trick. You created the perfect woman for me. And then you killed her.”

She’d turned him into a mourner, just like he’d done with Serial Killing 2.0.

“How does it feel, Damon? Shoe. Other foot.”

Still, something didn’t add up. “But I saw you half murder that man.”

“Ah, you’re so gullible, Damon.”

He inhaled at the stinging words.

“You saw somebody I paid a thousand dollars to. Somebody I knew from the old days. We followed you to that address in Fullerton, whatever the hell you were doing there—spying on that girl, I guess. And faked the attack. He got hit a few times, mostly I missed. We had a baggie of fake blood. He’s an addict. He needed money. I needed a victim.”

Studying him once again. The way he might study the Lamentation of Christ .

“You know, Damon, we’re like opposite sides of the same coin.

Your medium is grief, but mine is revenge.

” She paused while her words sank in. “You could call us grave artists. You enjoy people standing around a grave. I’m going to enjoy burying you in one.

Only I do it for justice. You’re just like any other second-rate sociopath. ”

Tears stung in the corners of his eyes.

She noted this with apparent satisfaction.

“I’m sure that’s a tough thought to live with. But you’re not going to have to endure it for very long.” She picked up a rusty shovel that rested on the ground nearby and with the joy of a devoted gardener began to scoop dry, sandy earth onto his body.