With Jacob Panther’s voice speaking to her, Gracey rode through the late afternoon with hunger crawling cold and irritable in her belly, smelling herself, the scent of Gracey Monroe, her true nature seeping past the layer of deodorant, the dab of cologne, the fabric softener in her blue cotton top, the stink of her own humanity rising into the air all about her.
She rode into the heavy gray dusk, the bus leaving the straight four-lane interstate and going into the mountains, where the road began to snake upward and on every other turn she was rocked against the black man, her shoulder bumping his and every time he said “Excuse me” and again on the next bump “Excuse me” until his voice became music in her head, a bass accompaniment to Steven’s and Mr. Underwood’s and Jacob Panther’s and her own mother’s voice, too, chiming in, begging her get off the bus and call her and tell her she was all right, which Gracey knew was the right thing to do, but she wasn’t about to do it, she was so mad at her mother, at all the rules, at the way she’d tried to capture Jacob, send him to prison without even knowing who he was, Gracey thinking about her mother, all the time with the music going in the background, the black man like a deep bass, excuse me, excuse me.
Excuse me, as the highway twisted back on itself and the bus seemed way too big for the narrow, snaking road and the night darkened and then she was dozing, still swimming in voices when the bus stopped again, and Gracey opened her eyes and looked at a small outpost in the cool, damp mountains, a lit store with bugs swirling at the lamps and men standing around doing nothing, a general store with a sign out front that was the sign Jacob Panther had mentioned, the name of the little town, and the black man said “Excuse me” as she climbed across his legs and dragged her knapsack and she said “Excuse me” back to him and walked down the aisle with the others, mostly gamblers going to the casino, for she’d heard them talking about slots and blackjack for the last hour, and she followed them down the steps, the bus driver saying “Good luck” to each of them as they stepped down, but Gracey didn’t reply because she was listening to Jacob Panther’s voice, what he’d said in the hallway in her house in Coral Gables, about a specific location where he could be found, a place that she had to keep very very very secret, could tell no one about except her dad, only her dad, because if anybody else found out about it, the men with guns would come for him and handcuff him and send him away to the gas chamber.
She wanted to see him again. She wanted to hear his voice in the flesh. “Excuse me,” she said to one of the men standing doing nothing, “excuse me, could you give me directions?”
“I can give you more than directions,” the man said.
The other men chuckled. Gracey looked at the man carefully. He didn’t seem dangerous. He was short and dumpy and had sideburns down to his chin. He chewed on something in his cheek.
“More than directions?” she said.
It was dark and cold. Nippy, her father would say, sweater weather. Up in the mountains in June with bugs swirling at the lights, battling to be warm, to burn themselves up in the electric glow. She looked around at the men doing nothing. Men in overalls and baseball hats and sweatshirts that didn’t cover their big bellies, a couple of them holding small paper sacks, some sitting on benches outside the general store. No women she could see. But no one looked dangerous. Not really. Not like dangerous men looked in Miami. These men looked lazy and slow and slightly comical.
“You need a lift?” the man said.
“She ain’t even told you where she’s aheaded.”
“Don’t matter,” the man said. “I’m going that way.”
The men chuckled.
“I’d sure as shit head that away if I had me a fucking car,” a younger man said. “I’d head that way in a red-hot minute.”
“Don’t be talking like that, Seth. Don’t be spoiling his fun.”
“You can just point the way,” Gracey said. “I don’t mind walking.”
“Suit yourself,” the man said. “But if it’s around here, I’ll be knowing where to find it. Don’t listen to these nitwits. Trying to put worrisome ideas in your head.”
Gracey decided the man was okay and followed him to his truck and climbed inside. A green Chevy that smelled like mud and wet dogs and stale cigarettes with trash on the floor at her feet.
She told him where she was going, the place Jacob had told her, and he thought about it a second and said, sure, he knew where it was. Kind of out of the way spot, but it wasn’t more than ten, fifteen minutes.
He drove her up a dark, winding road, his headlights were dim like they were filmed with crud, and he drove slow, looking over at her as they went, Gracey keeping her eyes forward, the man whistling to himself, the man driving slower and slower, peering into the dark at each of the narrow lanes that disappeared into the trees like he was choosing the place to take her and do what he wanted, with Gracey hearing silence in her head, no one talking to her, no one advising or warning or anything, like they’d all gone off together, Steven and Jacob and Mr. Underwood, Joan and Barbara, to gossip among themselves and left her alone with this man who hadn’t told her his name, and kept glancing over at her.
“You in some kind of trouble with the law?”
Gracey said no, not that she knew of. “Why do you ask?”
“ ’Cause I think that’s Johnny Law on our tail right now. It’s one of them cars they drive.”
Gracey looked back and could see only a single set of headlights.
“You want me to stop, see what they want?”
“No,” she said. “I want to go where I said.”
“All right, then. I’d best lose these peckerwoods.”
As the road swung hard to the right, the man shut off his headlights and swerved his wheel the other way and bumped onto a gravel road. Gracey hadn’t seen it coming. She saw no sign out on the road, listening hard now to her own head, to catch any shred of voice that might be counseling her what to do. Jump out of the door, run? What?
Behind them out on the highway, the headlights went flying past.
The man continued to drive down the gravel lane. Then another one that was even narrower. He made two more turns and then stopped in the middle of the muddy road and looked all around.
“Are we lost?” She heard her voice, how shrill it was and that frightened her more.
“No, ma’am. I don’t get lost. These are my woods back here.”
He drove on for a while, making more turns down bumpy roads, deep potholes sending paper cups and crushed beer cans tumbling off his dashboard onto her lap.
“Where we going?”
“I reckon this is where you said.”
He turned down an even narrower lane, branches clawing at the truck’s sides, rocks kicking up against the bottom of the truck.
Then she saw the sign, hand-painted and nailed crooked to a tree, the name of the campground Jacob had told her.
And the dumpy man, her driver, helped Gracey find the exact camping spot, shining a flashlight out his window at the silver numbers nailed to wooden posts. It took him ten minutes more, and Gracey knew she couldn’t have done it without him. She would’ve gotten lost, been attacked by bears, she would have died of cold and fright and loneliness, withered up in a pile of leaves and blown away in the first winter gale. The man in the truck wasn’t dangerous. She’d been right, her instincts about him. He was a good man. She’d trusted him and he was good.
“I expect that’s it, yonder. Right there in the headlights.”
It was a camper, like a Winnebago only half the size. There was a stone pit next to it with the last of a smoldering fire. Dim lights shone inside the camper, and someone moved behind the curtains. It had started to sprinkle, smearing the dirty windshield.
“You going to be all right out here in the dark, little girl?” the man asked.
“I’ll be fine,” Gracey said. “Thanks for the lift.”
“Name’s Earl. You need any help while you’re in these parts, ask anybody. Ain’t but one Earl for
miles around. You hear me now?”
“I hear you.” And she shook his offered hand. He held on a little too long, then let go and smiled at her with something sad in his eyes. Like he’d been scared, too, but couldn’t admit it. Scared of himself, what he wanted to do.
Gracey walked to the camper and stepped up to the door.
Earl waited till her knock was answered and the door opened a crack.
It was a woman. Dark hair cut short, pretty face with dark, glossy eyes. Her slender hand holding the door.
“I’m looking for Jacob Panther.”
“Are you now? Then that makes you one of many.”
“My name’s Gracey Monroe,” she said.
The woman frowned and look past her into the night.
“Where’s your dad?”
“It’s just me. I’m alone.”
Earl tapped his horn and called out to see if she was in the right place.
“Am I in the right place?” Gracey asked the woman.
The woman waved at Earl and he backed his truck into the night.
“You were supposed to tell your dad to come, not come yourself.”
“What?”
“Did you tell your father where to find this place?”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to.”
“Goddamn it,” the woman said. “I told Jacob it wouldn’t work.”
“You wanted my dad? I thought Jacob asked me to come.”
“Hell, no,” the woman said. “You’re just a girl. What good are you?”
Tears burned Gracey’s eyes. She took a backward glance at Earl’s taillights disappearing through the trees.
“Aw, hell. It’s all right, don’t sweat it,” the woman said. “We’ll work something out.”
The woman opened the door a few inches and Gracey could see she wore blue jeans and a black tank top. She was beautiful in a dark-eyed, foreign way like Cuban women sometimes were, but this woman wasn’t Cuban. A Cherokee maybe. A little too old to be Jacob’s girlfriend, but pretty enough for the job.
“I’m Lucy,” the woman said, putting out her hand out for a shake. “Lucy Panther. Come on in out of the damp.”
Twenty-One
They parked the rental car—another Toyota—at the entrance to Camp Tsali. Parker’s key wouldn’t work the rusted padlocks, so they climbed over the gates and tramped up the steep path. It was half past nine, but dim yellow light filtered through the trees from a security lamp burning out on the two-lane road.
“You’re not going to tell me where we’re going?”
“Why? So you can call Sheffield, tell him where to meet us?”
“Maybe you should pat me down, check for a wire.”
“Are you wired?”
“Jesus. You really don’t trust me, do you?”
“I trust you to act in accordance with your beliefs.”
They trudged in silence. A layer of pine needles coated the trail. Cool rain drizzled from the black heavens.
After another hundred yards the roadway light faded to gloom, and Parker halted and held up his flashlight, pointed it into his face, and switched it on to check the strength. Looked pretty weak to Charlotte.
The odor of pine and hemlock was heavy, and there were birds fluttering in the high branches and a stream running somewhere nearby.
Parker set off and Charlotte put herself in motion, found a steady pace, heart thumping, a layer of sweat building beneath her three layers, despite the chill. Maybe mid-forties.
Parker settled in beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“I love you,” he said. “It’s been a while since I said it. But I do. I love you, Charlotte. Pisser that you are sometimes, I still love you.”
“I love you, too. Pisser that you are.”
“This shit we’re dealing with,” he said, “Gracey running off, Mother’s murder, Jacob Panther showing up, a son I didn’t know about. This whole war thing, whatever the hell’s going on with that. It’s a goddamn avalanche of major catharses. Only natural we’d be at each other.”
“Only natural,” she said.
They plodded on for a half-mile, then Parker said, “I do love you.”
But it sounded like he was speaking more to himself than her, so she didn’t reply. She reached into the backpack slung over one shoulder, touching the hard plastic gadget Sheffield had given her. The nubby button on one end.
Decision time.
She dug around in the pack and found the Beretta. She’d filled out the forms at airport check-in, showed her badge, but still was relieved to find the pistol made it through in their checked luggage without being stolen or confiscated.
“You worried?” he said.
“About what?”
“Gracey might not be here. We might have this all wrong.”
“Are you determined to jinx this?”
“I’m just saying I might be mistaken about what Jacob meant.”
“All right then, let’s turn around, go back, call the FBI, like we should’ve done to begin with.”
“They’re bunglers, Charlotte. The other night, going to the wrong address, that whole scene, you want to repeat that?”
“The other night was sloppy, yeah, but this is different. We have no idea what we’re walking into. Stumbling around in the dark, we could be putting Gracey in more danger. Not to mention ourselves.”
“If that’s what your conscience says, then go back to the car and wait. I won’t be upset. But I have to do this, Charlotte. And I have to do it this way.”
“This guy’s a killer, Parker. I’ll back you up on this, but if it starts going bad, it doesn’t matter if he’s your son, I’m not hesitating.”
She shifted the holster so she could draw the Beretta smoothly, then hitched her backpack over her shoulder and settled into the dark climb.
He got their flight number with one phone call, pretending to be an FBI special agent working the Panther case, fooling Parker Monroe’s big-city secretary with ease. Their plane arrived in Asheville on time, and he followed them from the rental-car parking lot out to the interstate.
For the last hour he’d been looking for the right moment. Running their car off the road was too uncertain. They might survive the crash. He might be seen, might even crash himself. Dying didn’t worry him, but he had more to accomplish than just killing these two.
So he followed at a distance, thinking they might stop for something to eat, or a bathroom break, and he could take them against a well-lit background. But they didn’t stop. Instead they led him through the town of Cherokee and then out the narrow country lanes toward the old summer camp. Where everything had happened. The fire, the deaths, the cowardice.
When the Monroes pulled over at the front gate of the summer camp, he passed by and parked down the road on a narrow cattle path.
He got the Heckler & Koch rifle from its case and hiked back down the highway and climbed the gate, then headed up the path after them.
He couldn’t have designed a better killing ground. So remote. But even better was the possibility that the two of them should die at Camp Tsali—a delicious synchronicity.
Moving off the trail, he angled into the woods, treading lightly and moving with ease through the dark. He could hear them talking up ahead, taking no precautions as they moved across the ghostly landscape.
The path up to the camp was steeper than Charlotte remembered, and by the time they got to the main grounds she was winded and her butt muscles burned. She was trying not to think about Gracey—where she was, her condition—trying to keep her face out of her mind. But it kept surfacing. Little snippets of their heated exchange the night Jacob appeared in their house. Replaying Gracey’s remark. Rules, rules, rules.
“You sure you can find this place in the dark?” she said.
“I used to get there in the dark all the time. Get back, too.”
“Thirty years ago, you mean.”
“I grew up here, Charlotte. I spent my first fifteen years in these hills.
It’s hardwired in my head. The layout of the camp, the trails, the smells. Like I never left.”
Stumbling along, she could just make out the vague shapes of buildings, low cabins, a long, open pavilion. More rain was coming, as light as mist but without pause. She felt her hair clumping, cold dribbles down her neck.
“You hear that?”
Parker halted. Charlotte came up beside him, trying to keep her breath quiet. Not easy after that climb.
“Shhh.” Parker raised his hand. Then motioned behind them, at the road they’d just traveled.
They stood for several moments listening. But she could hear only the light breeze and the rain pattering from the branches and the rustle of last year’s leaves across the ground.
“You’re spooked, Parker.”
“It was something,” he said. “I’m not spooked. A raccoon maybe.”
“You know where we are? Can you see?”
“I know exactly where we are. The dining hall’s over there. The lodge.” He waved into the dark. “The ceremonial ring that way.”
“We could break a leg out here.”
“Listen to you. Are you with me or not?”
“Goddamn it,” she said. “I’m not saying stop. But maybe you could use the flashlight once in a while. You know where you are, but I’m at the bottom of a goddamn well.”
He lifted his head and listened again.
“Aw, shit, Parker. Let’s just get there, okay? Let’s just move.”
She followed his back through the murkiness, stumbling now and then, grateful she’d worn the heavier clothes. The temperature was plunging and even the heat she’d generated from the climb didn’t balance out against the chill.
The trail got steeper and narrower, then grew as rocky as an old creek bed. Branches whipped her face, and something stung her cheek an inch from her right eye—a nettle, a thorn. She wiped away the ooze of blood and licked the remains off her fingertip.
Now and then Parker stopped and listened to the dark woods. The rain had stopped but still dripped from leaf to leaf.
“If I lived up here,” Charlotte said, “all this uphill, downhill, my butt would be tight as a fourteen-year-old’s.”
Forests of the Night Page 16
