Bronwyn had told him she wasn’t seeing the boy, and Charlie had taken her at her word. But suppose she was lying? He’d be forced to take action. And that, he knew, would serve only to make Dante Lo Presti even more irresistible. Which could lead to … well, God knew what. The memory of what he and Mary had been up to at that age sent up a red emergency flare in his brain. No amount of punishment or restrictions, he thought grimly, could have kept them from one another.
A picture rose in his mind. Mary, at sixteen, her miserable expression telling him she was pregnant even before she said the words.
Jesus, was
that
what the kid wanted to see him about? Something Bronwyn couldn’t bring herself to tell him? He found himself praying it had nothing to do with his daughter, that Dante was here on another matter entirely: to recant his earlier story or provide information about the real culprit behind the town’s recent outbreak of vandalism. Even a holdup, Charlie thought grimly, would be preferable.
But the boy who was ushered into his office a few minutes later didn’t look dangerous. Just nervous. No, more than that,
scared.
This muscle-bound eighteen-year-old who could have passed for at least three years older, wearing jeans that were too tight and a faded denim shirt with its sleeves torn off that showed his tattooed forearm. He glanced at Charlie, then away, his gaze flicking over the walls dotted with framed awards—Charlie’s bronze plaque from the Lions Club alongside four years’ worth of citations from the New York State Press Association—before coming to rest on a photo of Bronwyn on his desk. Charlie felt his chest tighten with a sudden, inexplicable rage.
‘Have a seat,’ he said. It wasn’t so much an offer as an order.
Clearly seeing no need for introductions, Dante dropped into the chair opposite Charlie’s desk. ‘Mind if I smoke?’
Charlie was about to say no, but something about the boy’s jitteriness made him change his mind. ‘Sure, go ahead.’
Dante struck a match against the worn heel of a boot permanently creased at the toe. Briefly Charlie was reminded of someone he knew, but he couldn’t think who. Then the kid abruptly leaned forward, bringing his forearms to rest against his knees. The cigarette tucked between the first and second fingers of his loosely cupped fist sent up a lazy curl of smoke.
‘I guess you’re wondering why I’m here,’ he said.
‘The thought crossed my mind.’ It came out sounding more sarcastic than Charlie had intended, and he saw that it wasn’t lost on the boy, whose eyes narrowed briefly.
But there was a hardened resignation in his face as well, as if Dante Lo Presti was used to being judged by men in Charlie’s position. ‘Look, Mr Jeffers, I wouldn’t be here at all except…’ He paused, drooping his head in a way that left its nape vulnerable and exposed.
Why, he’s just a kid,
Charlie thought. When Dante lifted his head, Charlie noted with a small shock that his eyes were wet. ‘I think Bronwyn might be in trouble.’
Charlie tensed. ‘What kind of trouble?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that for the past few hours I haven’t been able to reach her.’
‘She’s home, where she always is this time of night.’
Dante shook his head. ‘No. I even stopped by, just to be sure.’
Charlie didn’t ask what business it was of Dante’s. He found himself volunteering instead, ‘She’s probably at a friend’s.’
‘Maybe, but I don’t think so.’
Charlie bristled at the boy’s proprietary air. ‘Look here, mister,’ he said coldly, ‘if you have good reason to think my daughter is in any kind of trouble, you’d better spell it out right now.’
Dante sat up, meeting his gaze squarely. Though Charlie caught a flicker of something he couldn’t quite read, oddly, the kid looked innocent of any wrongdoing. He took a hard pull off his cigarette.
‘It’s kind of a long story, but I’ll make it short. I used to work part-time for Mr Van Doren—odd jobs and stuff—but the thing is, I became friendly with some of his people. There’s this one guy, he’—Dante broke off. ‘It’s not important who he is. Just that he tipped me off about something going down tonight, over at the Methodist church on Grandview. Some heavy-duty shit that only the Man and one of his top people were in on.’
‘What does this have to do with Bronwyn?’ Charlie growled.
‘I let her in on it.’
The tightness in Charlie’s chest had become almost a cramp. So she
had
been seeing the boy, which meant she’d lied to him, goddammit. He felt a burst of anger, and for the first time since she was little it occurred to him that his daughter might benefit from being shown the broad side of his hand.
But his sense of betrayal was quickly replaced by another, more sobering thought. What if Bronwyn
was
in some kind of danger? Lately, he’d been so caught up with Noelle he hadn’t given a thought to the possibility that his younger daughter might be in jeopardy as well.
‘I made her promise not to go anywhere near there,’ Dante went on nervously, ‘but, Jesus, she can be so stubborn.’
The two men exchanged a knowing glance. Suddenly Charlie knew who Dante reminded him of: himself at that age. In the eyes of Mary’s folks, he’d been nothing more than the kid from the wrong side of the tracks who had gotten their daughter pregnant. He thought of an expression his own mother had used often:
You can’t judge a book by its cover.
Charlie shot to his feet. ‘Come on, we’ll take your car. You know the way, don’t you?’
Dante nodded as he rose from his chair. ‘I towed a car once for Reverend Clifford. Brakes went out on him. Lucky bastard, he could’ve been killed.’ He followed Charlie out into the newsroom, where the staticky sizzle of the ham radio tuned to the police band seemed to carry an air of unspecified menace. Charlie felt a hand on his arm, and turned around to find Dante eyeing him quizzically. ‘Hey, it don’t matter, but I was just wondering, why my car instead of yours?’
Charlie told him the truth. ‘Mine hasn’t been tuned in a while. Engine’s starting to knock.’
No further explanation was required. Stan’s Auto Repair wasn’t the only shop in town, but it was the best. Dante didn’t have to ask why Charlie had put off having it serviced. He merely nodded and said, ‘Bring it in next week. I’ll have a look.’
The drive out to South Grandview seemed maddeningly long but in reality took no more than fifteen minutes. Charlie was impressed by the way Dante drove, not recklessly or in any way showing off, but not purposefully cautious either. He steered his Camaro as if he’d been doing it half his life, which he probably had. Kids like Dante, he knew, were more often than not left to fend for themselves. An uncomfortable memory surfaced: He’d been fourteen, and his mother had taken him to Albany to buy school clothes. She stopped at a bar on the way home for ‘a quick one.’ Naturally she’d gotten shit-faced, and Charlie had been the one to drive them home. But the scariest part was that he’d known how.
Dante pulled to a stop in front of the church, and they got out. The night seemed very still except for the chirping of crickets and low, sibilant calls of night birds. Charlie glanced both ways down the sidewalk but saw no cars. Had Bronwyn ridden over on her bike? Unlikely. It would have been too far, especially at night. He felt stupid all of a sudden for pushing the panic button. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to have phoned Maxie instead? High school best friends almost always knew where to find each other.
Except Corinne. Mary hadn’t known about Corinne.
‘Let’s take a look around back,’ he suggested.
They cut across the lawn, the dampness of the grass seeping up through the soles of Charlie’s battered bluchers. He’d had the good sense, at least, to bring a flashlight. In the field behind the church its beam caught the rusted handle of an old pump. The well must have belonged to the original church that had burned down. He’d learned what there was to know about the fire from back issues on microfiche in the newspaper’s morgue. But this old place hadn’t seen excitement like that in more than a century. The quiet here was so pervasive it felt like a natural element, as tangible and pure as the water once drawn from that well.
Then his gaze traveled to the small fenced-in churchyard several dozen yards up the path. He started toward it, feeling a bit foolish as he called out, ‘Bronwyn! Are you there? It’s Daddy.’
No reply. Charlie had started to turn back when he was brought to a halt by a sudden commotion up ahead, a violent rustling of leaves that made him think of a wounded deer crashing blindly through the underbrush. Then a dark figure burst from the shadows to come streaking toward him. Charlie was so startled he nearly dropped the flashlight.
In the split second before she emerged into full view, he recognized his daughter’s slender build and the slight awkwardness of her gait, the result of her having been pigeon-toed as a baby. Her face glistened pale in the moonlight, and her bare arms were covered with bloody scratches. She didn’t even glance at Dante. She headed straight for Charlie. Something hard inside the backpack slung over her shoulder jabbed him in the ribs as she threw herself into his arms, crying, ‘Daddy, oh Daddy!’
‘Bron, honey, what the hell—’
She didn’t let him finish. ‘I hid from him. In the woods. But there was no time to warn her.’ Her breath came in gulping bursts, her voice a high, nearly soundless shriek. ‘Daddy, you’ve got to find him. He’s got Noelle!’
‘Bron, what’s this all about?’ Charlie attempted to pry her upright, but she wouldn’t let go. The same stubbornness that had brought her out here in the middle of the night was causing her to cling to him now like a terrified cat. He felt his own chest constrict with panic.
‘Who’s
got Noelle?’
It was Dante who answered in a flat, dead voice, ‘The Man.’
Noelle woke to find herself lying on the ground, gazing up at the milky blind eye of the moon. On all sides was utter darkness. She groaned, rolling onto her stomach. The movement sent a spike of agony smashing through one temple and out the other. Nausea rolled up from her middle. She’d barely managed to raise herself onto all fours, wobbling like a newborn calf, when she threw up.
Lifting her head, she peered about in frightened confusion.
She was in a rectangular pit as deep as a swimming pool that looked to be roughly twelve feet wide and about twice as long. But where
was
she?
Memory came sluicing back in an icy rush.
The image of Buck’s violated grave rose in her mind: a horrid, gaping hole with whitish tendrils of root poking through the earth like the webbed fingers of some ghastly half-formed creature. And Robert’s voice in the dark, taunting her
… Happy anniversary, darling.
Somehow Noelle managed to struggle to her feet. With one hand braced against the damp wall of the pit, she waited until the ground beneath her had stopped swaying. She cocked her head, listening. But the only sound was the far-off whisper of the wind through the trees. If her husband was out there somewhere, he certainly wasn’t making himself known.
Little by little, as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw that the sides of the pit weren’t entirely even. With a little luck and a lot of determination, she might be able to climb out. But what then? Was Robert up there, waiting to pounce?
Noelle broke out in a clammy sweat and felt as if she might throw up again. Her head throbbed with each tiny movement. She gingerly probed an egg-size lump on the back of her skull, wincing at its tenderness. It felt sticky. Pulling her hand away, she stared in horror at the blood smeared over her palm. In the darkness it looked black as India ink.
Reality hit home with the force of a blow.
This isn’t just one of his mind-fuck games. He means business.
The thought propelled her into action. Kicking off her shoes, Noelle sought purchase in the slippery clay-like earth rising before her in what seemed an insurmountable wall and after several anxious moments at last gained a foothold on an inch or so of jutting rock. Reaching high overhead, she managed to grasp hold of a tuberous root that made her think of a thick, fleshy finger. She cringed and nearly let go but forced herself to hang on, pulling herself up, outstretched arms quivering, bare toes scrabbling for purchase, until her fingers closed over another root. Painstakingly she inched her way toward the top, the image of Buck’s unearthed grave flickering behind her eyes all the while.
Was that what
this
was? A grave?
Oh, God, please no.
She was getting that grainy, loosey-goosey feeling again, as if she were going to pass out. Her head swam, and her arms and legs began to spasm uncontrollably.
With a final grunting heave, she hauled herself up over the edge and held herself braced with her elbows, feet dangling below, like a swimmer debating whether or not to climb out of the pool. Taking several deep breaths, she waited for her buzzing head to clear, then looked about to get her bearings.
In the silvery moonlight, a queer lunar landscape stretched on all sides, dotted with the huge hulking shapes of earthmovers. Gradually her eyes made out a pale stretch of dirt road and a dark line of trees in the distance. A billboard, its outline faintly illuminated, stood directly opposite the road, too far away to make out. But she didn’t have to read it to know what it said:
PROJECTED SITE OF CRANBERRY MALL OPENING NOVEMBER 2000
Other familiar landmarks began to materialize. The trailer serving as Robert’s field office. A pair of Portosans. Her eyes began to pick out the individuals shapes of the Cats as well. Excavators and track loaders. Bulldozers and backhoes. Graders with long-toothed blades that glittered in the moonlight.
Terror beat like a heart at the center of a vast numbness.
I’m not alone,
she thought.
He’s out there somewhere.
She felt it in each of the tiny hairs prickling on the back of her neck and in her innermost belly, where the seat of all true knowledge lies. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t see him. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? To trick her into believing she was alone, that all she had to do was walk to the highway and thumb a ride from the first good Samaritan to happen along.