“Before?”
“Like a baby,” he said, an embarrassed smile creasing his lips. “I kind of thought I was getting tougher. You know, getting used to almost dying about once an hour, but . . .” He looked at the opening and finished his sentence in his head:
Man, that was bad.
He shook his head, perplexed by how quickly he had crumbled. “I wasn’t even in there that long.”
“The chamber?” Keal said. He was dragging a huge wooden steamer trunk toward the opening. Something in David’s expression made him stop. He set the trunk down and sat on it. He said, “Sensory deprivation. It’s one of the worst forms of torture. Can’t hear, can’t see. No contact at all. It usually takes a couple of days for the full effects to kick in, unless—”
“See?” David said, disgusted with himself. “I was flipping out in two minutes.”
Keal held up his index finger. “I said
unless
.” He waited until he saw he had David’s attention. “Unless you don’t know how you got there or how long you’ll be there. Most prisoners of war understand the tactic, and they know it won’t last forever. Mentally, they’re prepared. For them, it’s not a matter of being scared, it’s . . . something else. But you had no idea where you were. The bones told you other people had died in there. You’re a smart kid. You calculated the horror of your situation quickly. Given all that,
of course
it got to you fast. I think you handled yourself better than most people would have.” He leaned down and slapped David’s knee.
David smiled. “Thanks, Keal.”
Keal got to his feet, then tapped David’s head. “What say you help me cover this up?” he said, pointing his thumb at the chamber.
“A trunk?” David said. “That’s not going to keep anyone out.”
“I’ve got some plywood sheets upstairs,” Keal said. “Some two-by-fours and rebar. Everything we need to button this thing up good. But I’m not going to leave you guys down here alone while I get them, and I’m not going to leave that hole the way it is, unattended. Someone could come through and hide in the basement until we leave again.”
“Yeah, but . . . the
trunk
?”
“Trust me,” Keal said. “Okay?”
They stood the trunk up on its side. It was taller than David. As they scooted it in front of the opening, David caught the backsplash of Toria’s light skittering around the walls inside the chamber. His stomach flopped over on itself. The room wasn’t a chamber; it was a crypt. For a while, it had been
his
crypt.
The trunk blocked all but thin gaps on the sides and top of the opening. Keal reached into his pocket and pulled out some coins. “Okay, watch,” he said. He placed a quarter on the top edge of the trunk, barely hanging over. He did the same with a dime and two pennies. “Now if anyone even nudges it, the coins will fall off, and we’ll know someone was here.”
“They’ll hear them hit the floor,” David said. “They’ll know what you did and put them back.”
“Ah,” Keal said. “But I put each one facing a different direction, and only I know exactly how they were placed. Like a combination lock.”
David smiled and nodded. “Smart.”
Keal gave him a little push. “You thought I
wasn’t
smart?”
As they backed away from the chamber toward the stairs, David thought again how much it resembled a crypt. He wondered how much time he had before it wanted him back.
THURSDAY, 7:31 P.M.
Having reached town—cars driving around, people going about their business—Xander and Dad stopped looking over their shoulders for Taksidian every two seconds. They were about to cross a driveway into a business’s parking lot when Taksidian’s black Mercedes pulled off the main road into the drive and stopped in front of them.
Dad threw his arm across Xander’s chest and took a step back. Their fear was reflected back at them in the car’s black-tinted side windows.
Xander swiveled his head, looking to see if Taksidian’s accomplices, his henchmen, were moving in on them. The sun cast an orange tinge into the western sky, leaving the rest sapped of color; the twilight left too many shadowy places to hide for Xander to be sure of anything.
He imagined a car full of hulking creatures like the ones who had attacked David, Toria, and him the day before. They would spring out like trapdoor spiders and pull them in. The image gave way to another less dramatic but equally lethal scenario: Taksidian with a silenced pistol.
“Dad?” he said.
“Get ready to run,” Dad whispered.
The driver’s window slid down, revealing Taksidian’s gaunt and supremely smug face. His gaze took in Xander, then moved slowly to Dad. Words rolled out of his mouth like swells on an ocean, deep and smooth: “Join me for a piece of pie?” He nodded at something through the windshield. They were in front of the diner the Kings had eaten at on their second day in Pinedale.
“You tried to kill me!” Xander said, straining against Dad’s arm. “And my brother! You stabbed Jesse, took his finger!
You kidnapped my mother!”
Taksidian pursed his lips and swirled his hand in the air, as if to say,
I know, I know . . . get it all out, if it makes you feel better
.
“Xander,” Dad said. He turned his back to Taksidian and placed a firm hand on Xander’s chest. “Not here.”
Xander snapped his face toward his father, the blazing hatred for Taksidian now directed at him. “What’s with you?” he said. “How can you
not
want to tear him apart? Who else has to be kidnapped, who has to die before you do something?”
Taksidian watched them with those bored eyes—but Xander knew they were
alert
eyes. His high forehead and long kinky hair reminded Xander of the creepy undertaker in the movie
Phantasm
.
Taksidian shook his head. With the precision of a skilled actor, he managed to focus whole soliloquies of contempt and disdain into a single word: “Teenagers.”
Dad’s muscles tightened, but he ignored the man. He hooked his fingers around Xander’s bicep and said, “Come with me.” He led Xander away from the car.
“I don’t get you,” Xander said. “You know what he’s done!”
“I know what our goals are,” Dad said. “Do I
want
to tear him apart? I do. Is it the best way to get your mother back? I don’t think so. He may be the only person who
can
bring her back to us.”
“Him?” Xander said. “
We
can find her!”
“I think we can too,” Dad said. “But let’s find out what he wants. Maybe we’ll learn something that’ll help us.”
Xander glared past Dad at Taksidian’s profile. The man was staring through his windshield, drumming his fingernails against the steering wheel. Xander shook his head. “He wants to have
pie
with us? Come on!”
Dad whispered, “He wants to make sure we’re not going to the cops. There’s a lot of evidence back at his house. I’ll bet those body parts can be traced back to, I don’t know, missing people . . . murders.”
“Then let’s do it,” Xander said. “Let’s turn him in.”
“Not until we find Mom,” Dad said. “Talking to him might lead to something, a nugget of information we can use.
Xander, I’ll try anything.” He looked directly into Xander’s eyes.
“Anything
.
”
Xander lowered his eyes to stare at a button on Dad’s shirt.
He said, “I should just go home.
You
deal with him.”
Dad leaned closer. He whispered, “I need you, son. Help me figure this guy out. Maybe you’ll catch something I miss.”
Xander ground his teeth together. He said, “You can’t trust him. It’s a trick or a trap.”
“So we go into it with our eyes open,” Dad said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” Xander said. “But if he tries anything . . .”
“Then we’ll put him in his place. Together.”
Xander still didn’t like it. Would Abraham Van Helsing have gone out for
pie
with Dracula? No way. Just a quick stake through the heart, get it done. Then again, if Dracula had Van Helsing’s mom . . .
“Yeah,” Xander agreed. “Let’s see what he wants.”
THURSDAY, 7:37 P.M.
Their booth was in the back, where the neighboring tables were empty. The waitress who seated them kept looking back at Taksidian, as though she sensed something not right about him. The kind of guy you hated to turn your back on.
They took their seats—Dad and Xander on one side, their adversary on the other—and Taksidian waved away the menu the waitress offered. “Slice of pecan, please,” he said.
“What?” Xander said. “No children baked in a pie here?”
Dad poked his leg under the table. Without taking his eyes off Taksidian, Xander said, “Nothing for me.”
Noticing Dad’s forehead, the waitress’s face flashed a grimace of horror. He ordered coffee. When she was gone, he said, “What’s this about?”
Taksidian began tapping his fingernails on the table.
Tick-tick-tick . . . tick-tick-tick.
Flesh-colored Band-Aids covered the bases of two fingers. Blood had seeped through. A thread-thin rivulet ran from under one of them and over three knuckles. His eyes, the olive color of army fatigues, turned from Xander to Dad. He said, “Let’s deal.”
Xander leaned forward, pressing his stomach against the table. He said, “How about this? You stop trying to hurt us and give my mother back. Now.”
Tick-tick-tick
. “Okay,” Taksidian said.
Xander shifted uncomfortably on the bench. He glanced at Dad, who seemed to be doing nothing more than studying the other man’s features—the way Roy Scheider had eyed the shark before blowing its head off in
Jaws
. He cleared his throat. “Okay?”
“Okay,” Taksidian repeated.
Dad said, “What do you want in return?”
“The house. Free and clear. And you gone.”
Dad shook his head. “It’s not that simple—”
Taksidian raised his hand, stopping him. “It is that simple, Ed. I know the property is held by an irrevocable trust, which means it cannot be sold, and the only people who may legally live in it are those in the King bloodline. However, I am a man of many resources. My attorneys assure me they can break the trust—with your consent, of course.” The long fingers of the hand not ticking against the table pushed the hair up off his forehead and smoothed the tangle of curls that covered his scalp.
Tick-tick-tick . . . tick-tick-tick.
Taksidian smiled. “Yes or no?”
“How do we know you have my wife?” Dad said.
Xander thought Taksidian’s smooth demeanor cracked a little. He wasn’t sure what made him think so: a twitch of his mouth or a blink that wasn’t calculated and timed. Taksidian said, “I thought that was a foregone conclusion.”
It was Dad’s turn to lean forward. He said, “
Nothing
about that house is conclusive.”
Taksidian glared at him. The ticking stopped.
The waitress returned. As she lowered the plate with Taksidian’s pie, he pushed it away and said, “To go, sweetie.”
She pulled it back as though he had slapped her hand. She set down a cup, saucer, and coffee decanter, and stormed off, her shoes loudly spanking the floor.
Taksidian broke eye contact with Dad to glance absently around the room. “Well,” he said. “You think about it. In the meantime, let me extend a hand of good faith.” He gripped Xander with his freaky, intense stare. “The two of you destroyed my house, young man.”
“You attacked me!” Xander snapped.
The man’s gaze flicked to Dad, back to Xander. “You misunderstood my intentions. Regardless . . .”
Tick-tick-tick . . .
Again with the ticking. It was driving Xander nuts.
Taksidian continued: “You also demolished a vehicle, a car I believe does not belong to you. It’s owned by a Dan Rainey, correct?”
Xander looked at Dad. The car, the house . . . it was all a mess that would bring in the cops. How were they going to explain it without their whole bag of secrets spilling open?
Was this just the trouble the police were looking for to arrest Dad—not on some trumped-up charges paid for by Taksidian, but for real and for good this time? Then Child Services would step in and take him, Dae, and Toria away, leaving the house for Taksidian to do with as he wanted.
Dad must have been thinking the same things. He was trying to play it cool, but Xander knew his father. The concern was in his eyes, in a few beads of sweat that had broken out at his hairline.
When Taksidian spoke, his voice was softer, affecting a graciousness Xander knew the man was incapable of feeling.
“To demonstrate my sincerity about wanting to resolve our differences,” he said, “I’m willing to overlook this afternoon’s incident. What’s a little bricks and mortar among—”
He stopped. Xander knew he had been about to say,
among friends
, but realized that using that word would have sent Xander over the edge.