The Reckoning (5 page)

By the time they reached the bottom of the shaft and stepped out onto a rocky shelf under an arch of stone like an underground cathedral, they were dripping with sweat and fighting claustrophobia.

They looked around, thinking that they had reached the belly of the beast. The air hissing down from the surface sounded like an animal breathing, and the pumps made a deep and steady heartbeat sound. The effect was…unsettling.

“Jeez,” said Lacy. “Now I know how Jonah felt. They ought to set up tours, scare the hell out of a bunch of visiting Shriners. No wonder Jordan thought this place was nasty.”

“He got that right. I had no idea this was all down here,” said Nick, who was a newcomer to Niceville, having married into the town only a few years back. His hometown was Los Angeles.

“I did. The People knew about these caves back in the old days.”

“They use them?”

“Hell no. We were Cherokee, Nick, not those knuckle-dragging Choctaw bozos. My people never came near this shit. Let's get this over with, okay.”

At the far end of this cathedral space there was an entrance to a long tunnel that had been carved out of the limestone. A row of ancient bulbs inside wire cages led off into the dark, shedding a dim flickering glow, but they could see a cluster of halogen lamps about a hundred yards down the tunnel, and the yellow slicker of the firefighter and the blue jackets of the two EMT techs. Lacy looked at Nick, tilted her head, hesitating. Nick gave her a sideways grin.

“Hey,” he said. “I'm right behind you.”

Lacy shook her head, said something under her breath, and walked into the tunnel.

The roof was maybe two feet overhead, and the floor was lined with worn bricks slick with mold. The cutting was tall enough to stand up in, but for some reason they crouch-walked all the way down to the site, their boots echoing up and down the walls.

The crackle of radios got closer, and they could hear the murmur of voices, and that high-pitched buzzing whine was still there, faint but cutting, far out at the high end of hearing.

It sounded like a background radiation, the sound the universe makes, a continual stream of white noise and static and hiss. It worried Nick, but he didn't tell Lacy. Frank Barbetta saw them coming, pushed himself off the wall and came forward. He had taken his uniform shirt off and his white tee was soaked.

“Nick, Lacy. Hell of a thing.”

“How'd you find him?” Nick asked.

Barbetta told them about the movement in the saw grass, coming in to look, finding the tunnel open. “I could hear something, sounded like an animal in pain, trapped down here. I called in Fire and the EMT truck. When they got here, I went down with them—”

“You
hate
tunnels,” said Nick, who knew Barbetta pretty well. Barbetta flashed a brief grin, shrugged his shoulders.

“What're you gonna do? Everybody was standing around, staring at me, waiting for me to do something manly. I couldn't get out of it.”

“Could have peed yourself and fainted.”

“Nah, that might work for you Special Ops pussies. Us First Responders have to man up for real. Well, anyway,” he said, cutting a quick glance over at the EMT team working on Dutrow, “I followed the noises he was making. And there he was, stuck halfway into the rock face. I had to go all the way back up to the surface to call it in on account of the radios don't work down here.”

“Mavis said they were screwed up. What's wrong?”

Barbetta shrugged.

“I don't know. These new radios are supposed to work anywhere. Maybe some kinda low-level radioactive thing. You can get through, but the signal has a lot of…interference. Sounds like a dental drill or something. Hurts the ears. Anyway, I went back up and got onto Tig Sutter—we knew you'd wanna know.”

“Is he conscious?”

“In and out. They've doped him up. He comes and goes. Right now he's gone.”

“You find anything on him? Cash, maybe a big Kimber forty-five?”

Barbetta shook his head.

“Not on the part we can see. Maybe if it was in his pocket or something. It might be under that slab of rock sticking into him.”

Nick looked over Barbetta's shoulder at the two EMTs tending to Dutrow. He knew them—Barb Fillion and her partner, Kikki…what? Something Hispanic. They worked a lot of the bad ones, and Nick was often there for the bad ones.

Dutrow's head and shoulders were all that was visible. The rest of his upper torso was covered up in red EMT blankets. There was an IV of blood running into the pile, and another of what looked like saline.

The fire guy, an older man with white hair and a grim expression, was standing clear, watching, nothing for him to do, but he was still there. He looked over at Nick, shook his head slowly. Nick knew him from around, remembered his name after a moment, Hennessey, Jack Hennessey, a captain in the NFD. Another Black Irish Mick just like him. Nick nodded, Hennessey gave him a WTF expression, lifting his shoulders, and Nick went back to the boy stuck into the wall.

Dutrow's eyes were closed, his lips blue and slack, his long blond hair streaked with blood and sweat. His breathing was a ragged rasping sound that they could hear over the beeping and thudding of the EMT gear. Now and then he'd arch and moan, his neck muscles popping up like cords, and then he'd subside again.

“Sweet Jesus,” said Lacy, looking at him, the words echoing off the walls. At the sound of her voice Dutrow's eyes flickered open and he picked her out of the shadows. His lips moved.

Barb Fillion, the EMT tech, her young face bone white, leaned in, listened, and then she looked over at Lacy.

“He wants you,” she said.

Lacy stepped in close, went down on one knee. Nick followed behind.

Fillion spoke to Lacy, a muted whisper.

“His signs are dropping. He's full of morphine so he's not suffering. Not too much, anyway. Are you his mom?”

Lacy shook her head, staring into Dutrow's eyes. They were packed with fear and pain. When he opened his mouth, a bubble of blood ran down his chin. The EMT wiped it off, touched his cheek, got out of Lacy's way.

Dutrow tried again.

“Miss Steinert…my mom.”

“You want her to come, Jordan?”

He managed to shake his head.

“No…no. Please, no. You got to keep her away. You all got to keep away from me. Leave me alone down here.”

“We can't do that, Jordan. We're gonna get you out of here—”

“No you're not. I know what's goin' on. These people think I'm out, but I can still hear what they're saying. I can't feel anything below my hips. I'm about chopped in two. I can feel the rock deep in my gut.”

He closed his eyes, flinched, and gasped, reacting to something that seemed to go through him like an electric shock. His eyes filled up and tears started running. His voice was tight and choked.

“No mom. No Cheryl. And please tell them to shut that camera off. My mom sees this shit, she'll die. You gotta make sure Mom doesn't see no pictures, video, in the news, shit like that. Please, Miss Steinert. You got to promise me.”

“I do,” she said, her voice tight. “I do promise.” She watched his eyes move up, widen, and saw the recognition in them.

He was looking at Nick.

“I know you,” he said. “You're the guy who pulled that kid out of a grave couple years ago.”

“Yeah,” said Nick, who wasn't in a mood to reminisce about the Rainey Teague kidnapping. “I need to talk to you, Jordan.”

Jordan closed his eyes again, seemed to go somewhere else. Lacy and Nick got the impression he was listening, but to what?

In the background the techs were silent. Barbetta's radio crackled—a burst of white noise so high-pitched it hurt—and he shut it off. Barb Fillion reached over and killed the camera. Kikki Something Hispanic flicked the monitor off and the beeping stopped. Hennessey shifted from one foot to another, made the sign of the cross. Quiet came down, the deathwatch.

You could feel it enter the cave and stand there, patient, silent, like a limo driver waiting for a passenger to come down the Arrivals staircase, he's holding a sign, says
DUTROW
.

The only sound was Dutrow's breathing, shallow and rapid, and under that, the high-pitched buzzing whine, right at the outer edge of hearing. It seemed to come right out of the rock face, out of the stone itself.

Dutrow opened his eyes, fixed on Nick. “I know why you're here. I know what I got to say. I got to confess. We did those people. Mr. and Mrs. Thorsson.”

“We?” said Nick, sharp and edgy.

“Yeah…us.
Her
.
She
…It was
her
idea, but she needed me to do it.”

“Who's
she
?” said Nick, closing in. “Your cousin? Your girlfriend? Who is
she
?”

Dutrow gave his head a shake, winced. “Not like that…She's in my head…and she can
sting
me. In the skull. In my brain. Like a wasp. Like a drill.
Hurts
.”

He jerked, a spasm that was almost a convulsion, and that electric pain flashed across his features. He struggled against it, caught his breath, focused on Nick again. “She's doing it now. She doesn't want me…to be talking…but I still can…The morphine helps—she stings but it's…I can deal with it.”

Lacy looked up at Nick.

“What's he
talking
about, Nick?”

“So it was
both
of you,” said Nick, after giving her a warning glance. “The
two
of you did the Thorssons?”

A quick glance at Lacy—a law enforcement officer, a legal witness to a dying declaration. She got it at once, nodded, said nothing.

Dutrow nodded.

“We did them. I'm sorry…so sorry…Should have fought her…I tried, I'm sorry.”

Nick was still, seeing the Thorsson crime scene in his head. There was only one killer, that much had been obvious.

“The
two
of you?”

“Yeah…She gets…she
needs
it. She'll
sting
you until you…give it to her…”

“And who is this
thing
in your head? A woman? Give me her name, Jordan.”

Dutrow shook his head. “Not like that. No name. Not a woman. But a
she
. A bitch. The
bitch
in my skull,” Dutrow said, and then he flinched, a flicker of agony arcing across his features. “There…she's stinging right now…She…
likes
it. What we did to those people. She tells you what she wants and then…she
feeds
on it…I came down here…to get her out of my head. She got in when we did the storm drain tour…with the school…”

Nick flashed back to Dutrow's notebook. “How did she get in?” he asked, in a softer voice. “Tell us how she gets in your head?”

“Starts with…
whispers
…You think it's just that noise…I hear it now…it's everywhere down here…just that buzzy sound…but then you hear the
words
in it…Soon as you start to hear the words…soon as you
listen
…you're done…She got into my head…She's talking to me…right now…You should all get out of here—all of you—she's…thinking about all of you right now…”

His voice faded, and a silent tremor ran through everyone there. They could all hear that electric buzz—
no, the kid was just crazy.
Dutrow's eyes stayed on Nick, and his expression changed. Shock. Surprise. A sudden realization.

“You know! You
know
. I can see it in your face. You know about
her
.”

Nick shook his head, but Dutrow bored in, a sudden rush of power. Death was coming. He struggled with it, blood running over his lips, his red teeth showing, but the skull face was rising up out of the skin. His lips worked, a sound coming from his throat now, like gravel running down a tin pipe. His eyes stayed on Nick.

“She…she says she
knows
you. She says she
knows
your wife. She knows about that kid, got kidnapped—”

He went inward, seemed to listen, opened his mouth, struggling for the words, fighting for them as if something was trying to choke them off.

“She knows about the
mirror
…in your house…she
knows—
”

Then he just…stopped, like a clock stops.

Nothing changed.

There was no sigh, no shudder, no last breath. His expression was the same, his mouth open, eyes focused on Nick, the next word right
there
…but he was dead.

Nick stepped away, put his back up against the wall. Lacy stood up, came over. He shifted his attention to her, an accusing glare. “Lacy, did you talk to this asshole about Rainey Teague? About the mirror?”

Lacy got pretty hot pretty fast. “Nick,
everybody
in Niceville knows that story! The mirror in Moochie's window. Rainey going missing. Where you found him. The coma. It was all over town. Jeez, Nick!”

“She's right, Nick,” said Barbetta, shocked at his anger. “They're
still
talking about it. This sick little fuck was playing you. The voice in his head, that's complete
horseshit
. He went out lying and…and fuck him. It's FIDO, Nick. That's all this is.”

Fuck It, Drive On.

But Nick wasn't hearing them.

Everybody knew about the
mirror
. But nobody other than Kate knew where it was
now
. In their house, locked away in an upstairs closet, wrapped in a blue blanket.

He was trying to work this out when Barbetta's radio crackled into life. It was Mavis Crossfire, up top, and although the static was brutal, what she was saying was clear enough.

“Frank, tell Nick to get back up here.”

Barbetta keyed
TALK
. “What's up?”

“Got another ten-forty-three.”