Darkness First (30 page)

3:14
A.M.
, Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Gouldsboro, Maine

T
he sound of Beethoven woke Maggie with a start. Her first thought was that these middle-of-the-night phone calls were getting really old. Her second thought was it had to be Carroll wanting to know what she'd been doing in his apartment. She disengaged herself from McCabe's body and slipped out of the bed. She found her phone in the pocket of her jeans seconds before the message kicked in.
Unknown caller
. She sat down, still naked, on the couch and clicked Talk.

‘Who is this?'

‘Hello, Magpie.'

Maggie straightened. ‘Harlan? Where are you?'

‘Was Tiff Stoddard's cell phone found with her body?'

‘What?'

‘Was Tiff Stoddard's cell phone found with her body?'

‘No,' she said after a few seconds. ‘Nobody could find her phone. Not with her body. Not in the apartment. Why?'

‘No reason. Don't worry. I'll be in touch.'

‘Harlan, where are you?'

She heard only silence.

‘Goddamnit, Harlan, you brat, don't you dare hang up on me.'

Too late. He was gone.

‘Goddamnit!'

‘What is it?' asked McCabe, now sitting up in bed. He flipped on the light.

She ignored the question, clicked ‘Recents', found the last number that had called and called it back. It rang four times. No one answered. No message requested. It was only by sheer force of will that Maggie kept herself from throwing her own phone across the room in frustration. ‘Goddamn fucking little brat.'

Don't worry. I'll be in touch
. What the hell did that mean? When would he be in touch? And about what? And what in hell did he want to know about Tiff Stoddard's phone for? She took a deep breath. What she really wanted to do was get back in bed, snuggle up against McCabe and maybe see if he wanted to make love again. But the cop in her was too strong. She found her clothes and pulled them on and then started pacing around the room.

‘What's going on?' McCabe asked, her nervous energy rubbing off on him. ‘What did Harlan want?'

She stopped pacing and told him what her brother had asked about.

3:19
A.M.
, Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Moose Island, Maine

O
nce the throwaway phone stopped ringing, Harlan turned it off and put it back in the bottom of his backpack. Then he put the pack on the floor to serve once again as his pillow. He lay down on his ground cloth. He told Tabitha to get back in the sleeping bag and go back to sleep. She said she wouldn't be able to sleep. He told her to try.

She wriggled down inside the bag. ‘Trying isn't going to help.'

‘Okay. Then don't try. Just lie there and look at the ceiling. But don't talk. I need to work something out and I can't think straight when people are talking.'

‘Fine,' she said. ‘I won't talk.'

Harlan focused on what it was he had to figure out. A foolproof way to offer irresistible bait. He wished the bait could only be the drugs and money. But if Riordan knew Tabitha had seen him and could recognize him, she'd have to be part of the deal. He'd just have to keep her with him. No other way to keep her safe.

As a trained sniper, Harlan saw Toby Mahler's grandfather's house as about the worst place in the world for what he had in mind. If he sat all by himself in an open patch surrounded on all sides by brush and trees, the enemy could approach from any direction and, unless they were incredibly stupid or incredibly careless, he'd never see or hear them coming. He needed to find a better location. He could think of only one that was close enough for Tabitha to make it.

He got up and rummaged around the house until he found a pen and a piece of paper that still had one side blank. He went into the kitchen, where enough moonlight was coming in through the windows.

Tabitha pulled herself out of the sleeping bag and followed. ‘What are you doing?'

He lay the paper down on the same counter they'd used to operate on Harold. ‘Writing a script,' he said. Then he paused. Looked at Tabitha. ‘No. Actually, you ought to be the one writing it. Otherwise it'll sound phony.'

He handed her the pen. She took it.

‘Writing what?'

‘You're going to call Tiff's number on your phone and leave another message.'

‘What am I supposed to say?'

Tabitha put the point of the pen on the paper. Then she lifted it off. ‘If it's really supposed to sound like it's coming from me I shouldn't read it off a piece of paper. I should just talk it.'

Harlan thought about that. This kid was smart. Smarter than him in a lot of ways. ‘Okay. You're right.'

‘So what am I supposed to say?'

‘Remember you're talking to Tiff. Like it's just between you and her and you don't think anyone else can hear. Don't tell her where we are now. That's important. Just start by telling her about your parents being dead. Then tell her you've still got the package and you're with me but you haven't told me about it. That it's hidden in your teddy bear.' Harlan grinned. Hearing that really ought to piss Riordan off. If the stupid fuck had only picked the fucking bear up off the ground and felt inside instead of freaking out and shooting it, he'd have his goddamn drugs. And Tiff's money. And the only thing Harlan would have to lure Riordan out would be Tabitha herself.

‘What are you laughing about?' Tabitha asked him. She really didn't think this was an appropriate time for anybody to be laughing.

‘Nothing. I'm sorry.' Harlan didn't want to tell her he was laughing about Harold getting his head blown half off. ‘Next thing to tell Tiff is we're moving fast from place to place so the cops won't find us. Tell her I said tomorrow night we'll be hiding out starting after midnight in the old sardine cannery at Parnell Point …'

Tabitha stared at Harlan like she couldn't believe what he was saying. The old cannery was about the last place in the world she'd ever pick to hide. It was scary and smelly and full of rats and cobwebs. It stunk of fish. And poop. She'd gone in there once with Toby and they'd both run the hell out as soon as they got inside. None of the kids in school, not even the eighth graders and certainly not a sixth grader like her, had enough nerve to set foot in the place more than once.

But then she thought about Tiff being dead and her parents being dead and how she wanted to kill the December Man for killing her family and how Harlan was the only person she knew in the world who could help her do that.

So she didn't say anything about how she felt about the cannery. She just asked him what else he wanted her to say on the message.

He told her. She listened. To make sure she didn't leave out anything important she asked him to tell her again. And then a third time. When she was sure she had it all straight and didn't have any more questions she closed her eyes and thought about Tiff and her mother and how Donelda had given up her own life to save Tabitha's. She even thought about Pike, who, in Tabitha's view, was probably better off dead than alive.

Then Tabitha opened her eyes and told Harlan she was ready. She dug into her pocket and pulled out her iPhone. She speed-dialed Tiff's number. After four rings she heard the familiar voice: ‘Hi, this is Tiff. You know the drill. Leave your number and I'll call you back.'

Hearing Tiff's voice again brought tears to Tabbie's eyes. She took a deep breath and started. ‘Hi, Tiff. This is Tabitha. I know you're still dead so you can't hear anything I'm saying. But I just wanted you to know how much I miss you and I always, always will. I just hope Mrs St Pierre is right and you and Terri and maybe Mom are all together in the arms of Jesus and maybe if you ask Jesus real nice maybe he'll let you check your messages. I hope he does because there isn't anybody else I'm allowed to talk to about the package you gave me. Yes, I still have it. I put it inside Harold. You remember? Your old teddy bear. That's what I call him. I think you called him Doofus. Anyway, I haven't told anybody about Harold, not even Harlan, who says he was your boyfriend. I hope Harlan is telling the truth about that, 'cause I like him a lot, except when he's telling me to shut up and go to sleep.'

There was a click. Tabitha looked at the phone.

‘The message stopped,' she said. She hadn't gotten to any of the important stuff yet.

‘That's okay,' Harlan sighed. He didn't want to rush or rattle her. This was good. He thought she sounded exactly like a slightly weird eleven-year-old kid ought to sound and not like some pissed-off sniper with an agenda. ‘Just call again and pick up where you left off.'

Tabitha hit the button and called Tiff's phone again.

‘Sorry,' she said. ‘We kind of got cut off there. Anyway, like I was saying, I still have the package and I haven't said anything to anybody about it. Like I always say, a promise is a promise. Right now it's four in the morning and Harlan's asleep. He keeps dragging me around from place to place 'cause he says the police are looking for us and we've got to keep moving. Tomorrow night … that's Wednesday I think … Harlan says we're gonna be at the old cannery at Parnell Point, which I'm a little scared about. Actually, I'm a lot scared about it. Nobody ever goes inside that place except rats and spiders and dead fish. But he says that's a good thing. Nobody'll want to go in there looking for us. Harlan says we'll get there after midnight. Stay for a day. Then he wants to leave again. But I'm not leaving with him. Parnell Point's near home so I've pretty much decided I'm going home. Anyway, I'm going to leave your package inside the cannery, 'cause I'm really, really tired of carrying Harold around with me. If you really are with Jesus maybe he'll let you fly down and get it if you want. That way I can just stop worrying about it and nobody will ever know what you put inside. Including me.'

When she was finished, Tabitha clicked off her phone, then shut it down. ‘Okay?' she asked.

‘Perfect,' he said and kissed the top of her head. ‘You were fabulous. Amazing.'

Harlan's praise was the first thing that made Tabitha feel even a little bit good since she'd heard about Tiff being dead. She put her arms around Harlan and hugged him. ‘Thank you,' she said.

‘You're welcome. Now go back to sleep.'

She decided not to tell Harlan she didn't feel sleepy. Just slid back into his sleeping bag, thinking how much she really liked her sister's boyfriend. She wondered if maybe, after this was over, Harlan would let her stay with him in his house. Since she was an orphan now he could even adopt her, though she had to admit he was probably a little young to be her father so maybe he could just be a big brother. That'd be nice.

3:31
A.M.
, Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Machias, Maine

U
pstairs, in the small bedroom that had once been Harlan's, Emily Kaplan briefly debated whether or not to take a pill to help her sleep and decided not to. She'd never liked taking drugs. Did so only as a last resort. The headaches hadn't gone away and her whole body still hurt, particularly the two cracked ribs. Every time she shifted even slightly in the bed, pain from the ribs made her gasp. She had given in an hour earlier and had taken 800 milligrams of ibuprofen but it wasn't helping much and she didn't want to take anything stronger. Certainly not Oxycontin, though the hospital had offered it.

Finally, Em decided it might hurt less to sit up than lie down. She got out of bed, wearing a pair of pink cotton pajamas a couple of sizes too small that had once belonged to a much younger Maggie. Detritus from a life left behind when Maggie went off to Orono and then Portland. She dragged a straight-back chair from the corner over to the window. She opened the slats in the blinds wide enough to allow her to look out into the night and to enjoy the feel of the cool air on her skin.

Savage had brought her back from Bangor late that afternoon and settled her in a room still filled with mementos of the Savages' youngest son's childhood. Team pictures. Sports trophies. Harlan in a white dinner jacket with a light-blue shirt with a frilly front, his arm around a pretty redhead who must have been his date for the senior prom.

At the hospital, John Savage had told her there was no way he was going to let her go back to her place in Machiasport. Not tonight. Not for several nights. Not with no one to watch out for her. Hell, he said, she'd had a cop guarding her hospital room in Bangor and she'd damn well have a cop guarding her here, even if the cop in question did happen to be a seventy-four-year-old sheriff suffering from lymphoma and feeling the after-effects of chemo. ‘No damned arguments,' he told her. ‘You're staying with us.' She didn't argue. The idea suited her fine. Through the open window she watched and listened to the swaying of leaves as the wind picked up. She wondered if a change in the weather might be approaching.

Suddenly, a dark figure dashed from behind the big maple to the side of the house. There was something familiar in the way he moved. Yet, try as she might, even though the memory was almost there, like words on the tip of her tongue, she couldn't get it to fall into place. Then, suddenly, it
was
there. Just like that. The fog of amnesia lifted and she
knew
. The man had already disappeared around the side of the house but she
knew
. A tremor of fear passed through her. Emily listened hard through the open window. With the leaves swaying it would have been easy to miss the nearly imperceptible sound of rubber soles squishing on the wooden floor of the porch below. But she didn't. She went to wake up Savage.

Anya and Savage lay side by side in their queen-sized bed. Anya on her back snoring softly. Savage on his side. By the faint glow of a night-light Emily examined his lined face. A man she loved almost as much as her own dead father. Savage had told her about the cancer on the way home from Bangor. Sworn her to secrecy. He needn't have worried. She wouldn't tell anyone. But anyone looking closely enough, certainly any doctor, might well guess. Perhaps not the specifics. But the presence of illness. After a heavy round of chemo the old man would be as weak as a cat. Better, she decided, nervous as she was, if she was the one to confront the intruder. Emily crept silently to the hallway. Closed the bedroom door behind her. She moved to the landing and then down the stairs.

She heard movement on the porch. Through the glass oval she watched a dark shadow raise one hand and run it along the top of the door-frame. Looking for the key she supposed. He'd find it soon enough. She hurried to the kitchen. Went to the cabinet, where she knew Savage kept his gun, hoping against hope it wouldn't be locked. It wasn't. She pulled out the Peacemaker, made sure it was loaded and cocked. Savage had taught her to use the weapon years before, the same time he taught Maggie, when they were both ten years old. Still, she'd only ever fired at targets, never at a human being. She was hoping she wouldn't have to.

She heard a key turn in the lock and hurried back and positioned herself facing the door in a two-handed firing stance. The door swung open. At first she saw only the dark porch. Then a man appeared moving fast, a black silhouette against a dark sky. She watched the movement of his body as he entered. Watched him peer into the dark room.

‘Freeze,' she shouted. ‘Or I'll shoot.'

He fired first.