C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-NINE
“
N
o, please—
please,
” she begged, her eyes wide with terror.
Edmund smiled and inhaled the musky scent of fear. They all had it, and it intoxicated him. He shook his whole body, as a dog might shake water from its coat, as the sweet sensation trickled through his veins, his nerve endings tingling with pleasure.
“Are you frightened of me?” he whispered, bending lower over his captive, until his torso formed a right angle with the wall.
“Yes, yes—I’m frightened,” the girl replied, her eyes scanning his face to see if that was the correct response.
But there was no correct response. No magic words to undo the spell, no incantations to save her from him. He liked them to think there was, of course, but there wasn’t. He enjoyed the begging, leaving the door to freedom open just a slit so they could see the light through it—just enough to keep alive that tiny spark of hope that they might escape, that he might have mercy on them and not kill them after all. If they just did what he wanted, said what he required, it could all be all right.
Except that it couldn’t. No one he took would ever get away. The last thing they would see would be his face—his scarred, hideous face. Hope was his to give and his to take away, just as their lives were his to give and take away.
He looked down at this one. She wasn’t as pretty as the last one—her features were coarser, and her skin didn’t have quite the same sheen—but she would do. Yes, she would do quite nicely.
He turned and selected one of his instruments from the assortment laid out on the table. Behind him, she whimpered.
“Please—
please
let me go.”
“Shhh,” he murmured. “It’ll all be over soon—you’ll see.”
He turned back to her. The steel gleamed briefly in the light from the bare overhead bulb, and he was drowned in the sound of her screams.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY
T
he storm turned out to be even more severe than expected. Lee came down the next morning to learn that trees had fallen all over the county, their branches weighed down by the heavy cascade of snow. It was warm enough that the snow had fallen wet and thick—“a packing snow,” as Fiona would say—good for snowballs and forts but not sledding. Phone lines were down too, and half of Hunterdon County had no electricity. Motorists were being cautioned to stay off the roads at least until the afternoon.
Unfortunately, the town of Stockton was in the grid where the power had gone out. That meant that Lee’s cell phone, which was dead, and its charger were useless, at least for the time being. The gas worked, though, and his mother insisted on making him breakfast on her gas stove.
After choking down a few bites of bacon and scrambled eggs, Lee gulped the rest of his coffee and rose from the table.
“I’m going to cross the bridge and see what’s happening in Pennsylvania.”
His mother raised an eyebrow. “Do you think it’s a good idea to go out? They said—”
“I need to get to a phone.”
She put her hands up in surrender. “You heard what they said about the roads.”
“I’ll drive carefully,” he said, kissing her on the cheek.
“Take my car—I have snow tires,” she said, handing him the keys. “Kylie will be sorry she missed you.” His niece was still in bed—like all the Campbell women, she was a sound sleeper.
“I’ll be back.”
He stepped out onto the porch and into a brilliant sunny day, the light intensified by the coating of white everywhere. The winter sun reflected hard and bright in his face, and he held up a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. The snow on the front walk was knee-high, and his feet sank deeply into it with each step. He was glad he had worn his Santana snow boots, though he could already feel the damp seeping in through the tops.
The snow was piled high on top of everything—the stone bench by the springhouse wore a perfect rectangle of white. The sounds of the outdoors were muffled by the drifts and snow underfoot, his feet making a soft crunching noise with each step. Stan Paloggia had already plowed Fiona’s driveway, so getting off the property would be easy. He imagined Stan, up at daybreak, chugging happily down the driveway in his yellow John Deere with the snowplow attachment. Stan loved being useful; he seemed happiest when doing favors for people, especially Fiona.
The question was whether the county plows had made it as far as her road yet. Lee brushed the snow from his mother’s big black Ford—she drove a Crown Victoria, just like the ones New York cops used. It started up on the first try; he backed it up and rolled slowly down the driveway. Luckily, Fiona’s road had been cleared, the snow piled high along one side of the narrow country lane.
He passed people bundled in down parkas shoveling snow from their driveways as he drove toward Stockton’s tiny main street, but he didn’t see another car on the road until he reached the bridge to Pennsylvania. An old blue station wagon rattled across the steel bridge, its rear wheels fishtailing as it hit the metal grate. The Delaware flowed sluggishly beneath him, the gray water curling in currents and eddies under the bridge. Lee crept across the short span to Pennsylvania, driving northwest on the River Road.
The beauty of River Road was startling. Tree branches bowed gracefully under a coating of soft snow as thick and creamy as the icing on a cake. Lemony rays of morning sun rippled and dipped into the hollows of the drifts in the deep woods on either side of the road, glinting on the windshield as the road wound and twisted along the banks of the Delaware. Out on the river, ice floes drifted lazily downstream; from time to time wisps of snow blew down from the trees overhanging the two-lane road. It was a scene of such captivating loveliness that Lee’s mood began to lift as he followed the curves in the road.
Lumberville was the closest town, about three miles along River Road, and he swung into the parking lot of the General Store, a stone and clapboard building snuggled just a few feet off the road. The sign in front proclaimed the building’s construction date to be 1803; Lee imagined horses and wagons rattling up to its door in a time when River Road was little more than a mud rut.
The General Store was open for business, which was booming, judging by the number of cars squeezed into its tiny parking lot. A popular place for locals to gather for coffee, news and gossip, it seemed to be doing a brisk business. A couple of snowplows sat at the entrance to the lot, their engines still steaming.
The storm door slapped against its metal frame as he entered, stomping the snow from his boots. The great round walnut table in the front of the store was occupied by half a dozen men in lumberjack shirts, wool caps and knee-high Wellingtons—the snowplow crews. They were men with rough, callused hands and sunburned faces and crosshatched maps of lines under their eyes from years of squinting into all kinds of weather. A couple of them nodded at Lee when he entered before turning back to their conversation over thick white mugs of steaming coffee. A plate piled high with doughnuts sat in the middle of the table. The steam radiator in the corner hissed, mixing with the clatter of coffee cups and silverware and the hum of conversation.
“What can I get you?” asked the pixyish girl behind the counter. Her dark bangs came to a perfect point in the center of her forehead, and a pair of silver lip rings adorned the left side of her mouth. Her eyes were dark and heavily kohl-lined, and she wore a multicolored wool vest, obviously hand-knitted. He guessed she was a Solebury student, probably a senior art major.
“Coffee, please,” he said, inhaling the deep, rich aroma of an African roast. His mother was a fine cook, but she’d never quite gotten the hang of making good coffee. Spotting a pay phone on the back wall, Lee took his coffee to a small corner table and dug a handful of coins from his pocket. First he dialed Butts’s cell phone and reached his voice mail. He left a message telling the detective that he would drive back to the city as soon as the roads were cleared.
Then he dialed the voice mail to his own cell phone. When the recording told him he had two messages, he entered the four-digit code and waited. He heard the crackling sound of bad reception, then Brian O’Reilly’s voice.
“I didn’t hear the
(crackle)
. . . this thing recording?”
He covered his other ear and listened intently. The connection was bad—not on the pay phone but between O’Reilly and his cell phone. The detective’s voice came in and out, so that what he heard was: “. . . thought of something. . . might be . . . sister . . . if you get this . . . I’ll be here.”
The message ended in the sputtering of a bad connection; then a recording came on, ordering him to put more money into the pay phone.
“Damn,” he muttered, his hand trembling as he fumbled for more coins. He slid a couple of quarters into the slot and listened to the next message. It was from Kathy. This time the reception was better.
“It’s me,” she said, sounding both forlorn and irritated. “Look, I—I just want to say that I’m sorry if I’m being a jerk about this. I’m just not
sure
, okay? About anything, I guess. I just . . . oh, I don’t know. I suddenly wanted to hear your voice. But you’re not there, so—guess I’ll catch you later.”
He deleted the message; he didn’t need to deal with her right now. He wanted to know what Brian O’Reilly had said. He pressed the button to repeat the message again, but he caught even less the second time. A burst of laughter from the table of plow drivers obscured O’Reilly’s words. He put his finger into his other ear again and played it a third time, with no improvement. There was no way to tell when O’Reilly had called; cell phones were notoriously slippery about giving the time messages were recorded.
Behind him, one of the drivers, a short, black-haired man with tobacco-stained fingers, was waiting to use the pay phone, so he pressed the button to save the message and turned the phone over to the plow driver.
He returned to his table, where his neglected coffee sat cooling. He took a sip. It was good, but he had lost his interest in coffee. What he wanted more than anything was to know what Brian O’Reilly had said. His hand closed around his useless cell phone in his pocket. O’Reilly’s number would be on it, but that did him no good unless the phone was charged. His number was unlisted, and Lee didn’t want to hit up his source in the NYPD for the number a second time. He cursed himself for neglecting to bring the charger with him to the store.
Gulping down the rest of his coffee, he headed for the exit—maybe the electricity was back on at his mother’s house. A blast of cold air hit him in the face as he opened the door to the outside. Inside, another burst of laughter was cut abruptly short as the storm door slammed behind him.
C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-ONE
D
riving back on River Road, Lee felt a sense of urgency and tried to compensate by driving more carefully. The sun had melted the top layer of snow into a surface of slick ice, and he coached himself to slow down, but a gnawing in his stomach and a tightening in his right temple urged him on.
Too much damn coffee
, he told himself, but it was more than that. He needed to be back in the city, and with miles of snow-packed roads between him and his goal, his impatience grew with every passing minute.
The snow was beginning to topple from the branches now, as the heat of the sun made it wetter and heavier. The wind had picked up too, blowing great clouds of white mist across the road, obscuring it from view.
“Christ,” he muttered, shifting into low gear as he crept around a curve in the road. His cell phone let out an abrupt beep, and he swerved, startled by the sound. The rear tires lost their traction, sliding on the smooth surface of the road, and suddenly the car was traveling sideways.
Dimly recalled driving advice darted through his head:
pump the brakes, and turn in the direction of the skid.
But what did that mean? Should he pull the wheel toward the direction the rear tires were headed in? Pumping the brakes, he wrested the wheel toward the center of the road, to avoid having the car swing in a full circle. It worked—to some extent. The rear of the car swung back in the other direction, but now the car was headed toward the opposite guardrail. He steeled himself for the impact, keeping his hands firmly on the wheel. He was grateful there were no oncoming cars as he braced his body for the impact.
The sound was louder than he expected. It rang like the report of a rifle through the wintry air, startling the stillness of the postcard landscape. His body was protected by the shoulder harness, but his head rapped sharply against the steering wheel with a
thunk.
Dazed, he sat staring at the snow cascading down from the tree branches overhead. He felt the ripple of adrenaline, thin and cold, as it drained from his veins. It was followed by a welcome sensation of relief that turned his limbs to lead and made him suddenly sleepy. He could see the Delaware through the thin layer of trees, the slate gray water sluggish, pockmarked with swirling currents and eddies. His anxiety melted like the top layer of snow in the afternoon sun, and peace settled over him like a blanket. He wanted nothing more than to stay there, in the warm car, staring at the river.
Just then he realized the car was sprawled over one lane of the road—anyone taking the curve too fast would surely hit him. He reached for the gear shift, his hand shaking. He put it into Reverse and pressed tentatively on the gas pedal; the rear drive wheel spun a little before gaining traction. The big car backed obediently into the road, the eight-cylinder engine humming quietly. He straightened up and pulled over to the side as much as possible, given the drifts of plowed snow along the road. He put on the emergency flashers and stepped out to view the damage.
When the frosty air hit his face, he was seized by a wave of dizziness, and he leaned on the door handle until it passed. To his relief, there wasn’t much damage to the car. There was a dent in the front bumper, and a deeper one in the metal guardrail, but other than that, the car looked sound enough. He sighed a prayer of relief for his mother’s old-fashioned ways; the Ford’s sturdy bumper barely showed any damage at all. She was right when she said they didn’t make cars like they used to. As he slid into the driver’s seat, it occurred to him that maybe the same thing was true of mothers. For better or worse, Fiona would always be Fiona.
He looked behind him to see if there was any oncoming traffic; not a single car had passed since his collision. Just as he was about to pull back onto the road, his cell phone chirped again. He snatched it from the dashboard and looked at it, wondering why it had suddenly come to life. The metal was warm to the touch. It had been sitting in the sun for some time now, the heat intensified by the effect of the car’s windshield. The battery must have revived a little, he thought as he flipped it open.
There was a new text message from Butts: CALL ASAP.
He tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and considered whether he should go back to Lumberville or continue on to his mother’s and hope her power had been restored. He decided to continue on. He swung the big car back onto the road, the packed snow crunching under its heavy tires. Gritting his teeth, he peered at the road ahead, forcing himself to crawl along at twenty miles per hour.
He maintained that speed all the way to his mother’s house. When he arrived, he saw Fiona, in a bright red parka, shoveling the front walk. He pulled into the parking spot and sprang from the car. Another wave of dizziness swept over him, and he almost fell, but he caught himself by leaning on the hood of the car.
“Mom!” he called to her. “Why don’t you leave that for Stan or me?”
“Don’t be silly,” she puffed, heaving a shovelful of snow over her shoulder. “It’s good exercise, and you have enough to do. Besides,” she said, with a sweep of her gloved hand, “Stan already cleared the path. I just want to make it wider.”
He started to argue but realized it was no use; at the same moment he was hit by a wave of nausea. He took two steps, sank to his knees and vomited. Dazed, he stared at the steam rising from the coffee-colored contents of his stomach splattered over the pristine white snow.
He looked up to see his mother standing over him, her cheeks blazing from the cold and exertion. She looked worried.
“What on earth happened to you?” she asked, reaching down to touch his forehead.
He drew back, his skin tender to the touch, and raised his own hand to feel the egg-shaped lump rising from his head.
“Shit,” he said.
He was so concentrated on trying to reach Detective Butts that he had forgotten hitting his head on the steering wheel. Two things were immediately clear to him:
1.
He had a concussion.
2.
He wouldn’t let it slow him down.
He looked up at his mother. She was leaning on her snow shovel, her breath coming in thin white gusts. He paused; he wanted to make sure whatever lie he formulated was a good one before speaking.
But she was too quick for him.
“You have a concussion, don’t you?” It was an accusation, not an expression of sympathy.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I just drank too much coffee, and it upset my stomach.”
“And this?” she demanded, pointing to the bump on his head.
That was going to be harder to explain, he thought as he rose unsteadily to his feet. But he was determined to get back to the city as soon as possible, even if it meant taking the bus. Whether he had a concussion or not, Butts needed him.