“Was on his daddy’s property.” Barry leaned his head back against the pole. “Never would have suspected this.”
“Did your brother?”
When Barry kept staring at the ceiling, Trudy replied, “It explains some things. Larry and Ryan were always close growing up. But a while back, things changed. There was more tension between them, not the same easy friendship. It got worse when Ryan was named chancellor, which didn’t make sense. Ryan had been working hard for that, we had this big party, and those two were in the kitchen fightin’.”
“Larry thought it would trigger him,” Barry said, righting his gaze. “That’s what y’all call it, right?”
Carter nodded. “He picks his victims at the hospital.”
Trudy gasped.
Barry explained this time. “He has Crohn’s. He’s there once a month for a support group.”
The prescription which he’d taken pictures of, which were on the phone he’d hidden for Lincoln to find. Assuming he had, Lincoln was brilliant enough to put all this together.
“He picks victims who are passing through,” Carter continued. “Follows them on to DC, where he escapes for a week as Dr. Fear.”
“Larry moving into the mansion is what did it this time, wasn’t it?”
“That would make sense,” Carter said. “The pressure to escape was too much with Larry there looking after him, which he can’t do every moment as chief.”
Barry coughed, a distinctly waterlogged sound. “Aw, Christ, Larry.”
“Ryan was his best friend, Bartholomew,” Trudy said, now trying to comfort him. “He was just trying to help. And after he’d lost so much the past few years, he didn’t want to lose?—”
Her words died as tires crunched over gravel, a car rumbling to a stop outside the barn doors. Time was running out.
“Listen,” Carter said, scooting closer to Barry and Trudy and lowering his voice. “I made a deal with him last night. Me and Lincoln first.”
“First?” Trudy said.
“We know who he is,” Barry said, mournful eyes turned to his wife. “He wasn’t gonna let us go.” He shifted those same sad eyes to Carter. “You think you can stop him?”
“I think Lincoln can.”
“He smart enough to figure all this out?”
He’d figured out part of it already. That Larry wasn’t Dr. Fear. He just had to make the connection to Ryan. He’d get there, Carter was sure of it. “He’s the smartest person I know.”
Metal clanked against metal. Someone outside was rattling a lock. Loosening a chain.
“Why you doin’ this, Georgia?”
“I’m an FBI agent.” He pushed up on his knees, shook off the last of the fog, and angled toward the door—in front of Barry and Trudy, between them and the killer just outside. “This is what I do.”
“He fucks with you,” Barry said. “Tries to get in your head.”
“He’s Dr. Fear. It’s what he’s known for.”
The barn doors swung open.
“You can’t let him. You have to stay strong, son.”
Carter swayed, the impact of those words hitting him in the chest and gut. Not the same swooping sensation Lincoln caused, but the same sense of rightness. Of belonging. He glanced over his shoulder. He owed these people the truth, his gratitude. “It’s not just my job. I like it here. I feel like I could belong.”
“You’d be welcome,” Trudy said, smiling through her tears.
Unhinged laughter drew their attention the opposite direction, to the man standing in front of Carter holding a baseball bat. The man with dark hair and gray stubble dusting his cheeks. Carter forced himself to still despite the terror coursing through him.
