Within two minutes, we were right behind him, honking our horn. Of course, the truck didn’t pull over.
“Dad-blastit,” Steve said. We angled across the double yellow line to pull alongside him, but the cube truck swerved, nearly smashing us off the road into the trees. Justy screamed, and Steve slammed on the brakes. I wished I could drag him out of his seat and jump behind the wheel.
“Esteban’s not answering his phone,” Justy said, snapping her cell shut. “I’m going to try Aaron now.”
We hung back from the truck for a few seconds. The gun in my pocket was out of bullets, and I didn’t think Steve would loan me his so I could shoot at the truck’s tires. Hell, I couldn’t hit the pastor’s tires when he was pulling out of a parking spot. There was no reason to think I’d do better now.
Of course, I also had my ghost knife. It would hit whatever I wanted it to hit, but it was just a piece of paper. Cutting into the edge of a moving tire would probably tear it apart, and I’d lose the last chance I had for killing the sapphire dog.
Steve gritted his teeth and stepped on the gas again. “Hold on!” he shouted. He rammed the back corner of the truck as we came to a sharp turn.
God, it was loud. We were jolted harder than the truck was, but we were expecting it. The truck driver overcorrected toward the left, swerved into the other lane, then swung back too hard to the right.
Steve slammed on the brakes. The truck struck a fence, then, skidding, hit a tree.
Steve’s car fishtailed to a stop. I opened my door and stepped out, ghost knife in hand. No one told me to stop this time.
I crept along the passenger side of the truck, half expecting the sapphire dog to jump on me. Instead, I heard the driver’s door open and close. I moved back to the rear of the truck.
Steve opened his door and stood behind it, his little revolver trained on someone I couldn’t see on the other side of the truck. “Drop that!” he shouted. “Esteban, you drop that or I will have to fire!” He sounded desperately afraid.
Steve didn’t change position. I moved toward the corner of the truck as quietly as possible. Not quietly enough, though. A Hispanic man with a sizable paunch and the biggest monkey wrench I’d ever seen turned toward me. He was smiling.
He had a white circle just below his left eye.
Esteban was a lefty, and when he swung that wrench, it came at me in a high, slow arc like a Frisbee. It was so slow that I actually caught it and tugged him off balance. When he stumbled, I hit him once, quickly, where his jaw met his ear. He dropped to the asphalt.
Steve holstered his weapon. He looked relieved.
I knelt on the plumber’s back while Steve handcuffed him. At least it wouldn’t have to be a citizen’s arrest this time. I jumped up and walked around the truck. There were no signs of activity in the cab and no dark circles on the sides. I hopped up to peek into the window.
Empty. I went around to the back. The latch was padlocked, but Steve had fished a fat, jangly key ring off Esteban’s belt and was fumbling with the keys. I could have cut the padlock off in a second, but I didn’t want to use the ghost knife in front of them. Instead, I stood and waited, holding my breath to hide my impatience.
He found a likely key and slid it into the lock. It sprang open. He drew his revolver and waved me back. I reached into my pocket and held on to my ghost knife.
Steve opened the door and shined a flashlight inside. The walls were lined with tools and shelves, and there was no place for the predator to hide.
“Esteban,” Steve said. “Where is it?”
The man on the ground had come around enough to laugh at him. He tried to get his knees under him, but he was still unsteady. He fell onto his side and kicked at me, still laughing.
Steve and Justy tried to pressure him into sharing more information, but it wasn’t going to happen. He laughed and jeered at everything they said, pleased that he had tricked us into following him.
I knelt beside him and held his face still. The mark was just a spot rather than a streak. The texture of his skin was unchanged—the pores and tiny hairs inside the mark were the same as outside—but the skin itself had become as white as a sheet of paper. I poked at it; it felt normal.
“Why has the sapphire dog decided to stay in Washaway?” I asked. “Why isn’t it trying to leave anymore?” He didn’t answer.
“He’s not going to help us, is he?” Justy said. She didn’t want to get close to him, and I didn’t blame her. Esteban cursed at us and laughed again.
Steve sighed. “Help me put him into the back of the car.”
I did, slamming the door shut. Esteban didn’t fight me and didn’t try to break out. He just sat and smiled.
“What do you think?” Steve said.
“Let me check something.” I went to the truck and climbed into the cab. Hunting Cap had seen the pastor get into the truck with something in his arms. If Esteban had attacked him, it would have happened in here.
There was no blood. There was no evidence of a fight at all. And I didn’t believe for a minute that Esteban could have taken that quick little pastor in a fight. I climbed out of the cab.
“Something’s changed,” I said. “The sapphire dog’s previous victims fought one another over it, but this guy left it with someone else to lead us on a wild-goose chase, and he’s happy about it.”
“And the mark is different,” Steve said.
“Either it’s learning how to control us better, or it’s eating more carefully. Probably the latter. I bet it’s still with the pastor.”
“But where is he?”
A car whooshed by us. There were two people inside, but they were gone before I could catch a glimpse of them. “Pretty much anyone in town would offer a ride to the pastor, right?”
Steve sighed and rested his hand on the roof of his car. He looked tired. “Yes.”
“We should see if he doubled back.”
“What if he didn’t?” Justy asked.
“Then we’ll drive around town, looking for him or anyone else with marks on their faces.”
Steve’s car rattled and clicked as we drove back to the fairgrounds. He kept looking into the rearview mirror and talking to Esteban, trying to pry cooperation from him with reason and social connection. I watched Esteban’s ironclad serenity and knew it was wasted effort. The sapphire dog had taken away the parts of him that Steve could appeal to.
The men and women working at the fairgrounds swore up and down that Pastor Dolan hadn’t returned and that none of their cars were missing. They had to shout at us while we talked; a snow-making machine on top of the field house was running, and it was loud. We found the church and the house dark. We broke down the doors and searched together. Steve clucked his tongue over the mess in the house, but we didn’t find any signs of life. Even the cats were gone.
We walked out into the yard. Steve offered me a ride back into town, but I declined. He drove away.
The Neon was parked in the same spot. Catherine opened the door for me.
“How are you?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, to my tremendous relief. “Thank you. I’m sorry I tried to shoot you.”
She still had that look. I didn’t like it and I had no idea how long it was going to last. She gave me the keys and slid into the passenger seat. She clicked her seat belt in place and folded her hands in her lap.
I started the engine. “Keep an eye out for hitchhikers. And for the predator.”
“All right.” Her voice sounded dull and thin. All the fire and sharp intelligence were missing. The ghost knife had done just what the sapphire dog did—it took away every part of a person’s personality but one. In that way, we were alike.
But who gave a damn about that? The predator was feeding on people, and it was my job to stop it.
I drove toward the campgrounds, the school, and the possibly mythical highway feeder road. My high beams lit the greenery around me, but I didn’t see any movement. I saw blackberry vines, ferns, and
moss-covered trees, but no people hiding in the greenery. Certainly no pastor.
I rolled down the window. The air was bracing but Catherine didn’t complain. I drove quietly, radio off, listening and watching.
Nothing.
After a couple of miles we came to the campground entrance, a wide dirt path leading off the main road. I decided to pull in.
“What’s that?” Catherine asked.
The headlights had flashed on something bright red in the bushes. I put the car in park and stepped out. Immediately, I could see that it was a dead man.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I leaned close to him. It was Stork Neck. He’d been shot once through the chest and then fallen into the hedge. Had the sapphire dog gotten loose among the Fellows, turning them against one another? Or was something else going on?
I touched his hand. It was cold, but so was mine. I lifted the bottom of his ski jacket to feel his belly. It was still warm.
That was a bad sign. I glanced around quickly but didn’t see any other bodies. I had no idea how close the shooter was or whether he was coming back. I should probably have gotten out of there, but I didn’t. Instead, I got back into the car.
My headlights shone down the dirt path into the campground. Down the slope, I could see the tops of three motor homes, each with a dark SUV beside it. I’d found the Fellows’ camp.
“Stay low,” I said. Catherine ducked below the dash. I pulled all the way into the grounds, which seemed like a better option than parking on the shoulder of the road.
There was a second body beside the entrance to the nearest trailer. It was Fat Guy. He was sitting against the trailer wheel, his head slumped down over a bloody red hole in his breastbone. He didn’t look so dangerous anymore, but no one did once a bullet or two had run through him. There was a third body, one I didn’t recognize, beside the next trailer. Blood spatters from the exit wound had sprayed onto the white siding.
The shooter had fired from somewhere behind me, on the hill across the road. Someone was using a long gun and using it well.
I parked as far from the trailers as I could. Maybe the shooter, if he was still around, would assume I was alone in the car. Of course, the sniper had had plenty of time to take a shot while I’d stood over Stork Neck’s body. Maybe he wasn’t in position anymore. Maybe he was creeping closer in to inspect his handiwork.
“Stay as low as you can and keep out of sight. You’re safest if no one knows you’re here.”
Catherine nodded and I climbed from the car, walking quickly away from it. I took the ghost knife from my pocket.
The closest trailer was dark and all the curtains were drawn. I didn’t get any closer than ten yards as I trotted past. The second trailer was not lined up with the others—someone had hooked it up to a Yukon and tried to pull away. There was a bullet hole in the driver’s window and blood on the windshield, but I couldn’t see a body. I didn’t look for it, either.
I did see the red-and-white card on the dashboard. It was a parking permit for the campgrounds. Damn. I’d told Regina exactly where to find them.
The last of the trailers was parked beneath the trees. It was also dark, but the curtains were open. Everyone still alive must have fled. Then I heard a woman shout a warning, saw movement in a darkened window, and heard the shot.
Strangely, I felt something tear at the front of my shirt before I saw the window burst open. It took a moment to realize I’d been shot in the chest and should play dead. I toppled sideways, letting my right hand fall across my chest to hide the spot where the bullet hole should have been.
I tried to stay completely still, although my heart was racing—in fact, my heart was speeding up as I lay there. Some asshole had just taken a shot at me, and if he’d gone for my head, I’d be as dead as Stork Neck.
It scared me, and being scared pissed me off. The freezing mud soaking into my clothes pissed me off. Somebody was going to have something unpleasant happen because of this.
For now, though, I put that out of my mind. I heard a thin screen door smack shut and the squish of approaching footsteps. I held my breath and kept still. Through my half-closed eyes, I could see the trailer. A figure with a white ski mask and a white sleeve peeked around the front of the RV and aimed a rifle at me. My arm was curled and ready to throw the ghost knife, but the gunman was twenty-five or thirty yards away. By the time the spell reached him, he’d have put two or three bullets into my brain.
After a few seconds, the figure decided I was dead and aimed at the car. I hoped Catherine was still keeping low.
The sniper stepped out from behind the truck. Despite the ski mask, I recognized her. It was Ursula. She was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she held a gun on me in the guesthouse behind the Wilbur estate. I could even see the cuts the ghost knife had made in her white jacket.
I’d been thinking of the shooter as “he”; I should have learned better by now.
She walked directly toward the car, rifle to her shoulder like a soldier. She stepped around my feet and out of my line of sight. I counted four squishy, muddy steps after she’d passed, then a fifth and a sixth before I decided I was being a coward. I rolled over and threw the ghost knife.
She turned toward me, swinging the rifle around. The ghost knife cut through it, and the weapon came apart in her hands.
She gaped at the broken rifle for a few precious seconds while I rolled to my feet. Then she threw the halves aside and reached into her waistband.
There was no time to be gentle. I charged her and hit her once in the same spot I’d hit Esteban. She staggered but didn’t go down. I did it again.
She fell into the mud, arms waving vaguely in the air, still trying to defend herself even though she was out. I pulled her handgun out of her belt and dropped it into my pocket.
She also had a knife, which I threw onto the top of the nearest trailer. Then I took her wallet and keys, just because she was annoying. In her inside jacket pocket, I found three pairs of handcuffs with keys.
I dragged her by the heel to the nearest trailer, wrapped her arms around a tire below the axle, and cuffed her.
I pressed my ear against the wet, freezing shell of the trailer. Someone had shouted a warning to me, and it sure hadn’t been Ursula. I didn’t hear anything, so I circled around to the door. One of the tires was flat. I knelt and saw a bullet hole in the rim. It was almost the same spot as the one on the tire of the overturned delivery truck on the estate. Ursula was quite a shot.
The trailer door was wide open. I reached in and felt for the light switch, flicked it on, and stepped back.
No gunshots zipped by me. I looked in, leaning farther into the doorway until I saw a woman’s fur-trimmed leather boot and the leg that went with it.
I went inside. The boot belonged to Professor Solorov; she was slumped against the wall in the little booth that served as a dining area. Her eyes were half closed and her mouth was hanging open. Blood had soaked through her blouse on the lower left side. She did not look like the same woman who had taken Kripke at gunpoint, or who had threatened to kill his whole family if he didn’t turn over his spell book.
The window above her had a bullet hole in it. I was standing where Ursula had stood when she shot at me. Solorov must have shouted the warning, although I doubted she knew who she was shouting at.
She looked at me, blinking sleepily as she tried to focus. “Did you kill her?”
“No. I’m going to call an ambulance, okay? Where’s the phone?”
“Right there.” She didn’t have the energy to point, but I did follow her gaze to the cell on the floor. It had been smashed.
“Hold on,” I said. I went outside and knelt beside the nearest corpse. It was Horace Alex; I took his cellphone again. The campground got one bar, but that was enough. I dialed 911. My headache flared and I said what I needed to say. I didn’t give my name, but I didn’t kid myself that it would be a secret for long. My headache faded as I went back inside. “Someone will be
here soon.”
“Let me out,” a new voice said. “I don’t want to be found here.” It came from the back of the trailer. Through a tiny hallway I saw Stuart Kripke handcuffed to a narrow bed.
“Yes,” Solorov said. “Get out. Both of you get out.”
I went into the back. His cuffs matched the ones I’d taken off Ursula. I took the keys from my pocket and freed him. He rolled over onto his wide ass and sat rubbing his wrists. He looked me up and down. “You look like crap.”
Charming. I went back into the other room and leaned close to Solorov. She had ordered Biker killed and tried to do the same to me, but I still felt sorry for her. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” she answered weakly. “Go fuck yourself. I don’t need your pity. Wait! Wait.” She worked her carefully painted mouth, trying to call up enough spit to keep talking. “If you kill that Norwegian cow, I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars.”
“Why did she do all this?”
“Why do you think? That tattooed bastard told her we had the package. Of course it was a lie, but she didn’t want to hear it.” Solorov raised her other hand from beneath the table. Her fingers had been smashed crooked. “On second thought, don’t kill her. I want to do it myself.”
Kripke squeezed through the narrow hall. “I’ll pay you five hundred dollars if you can get me out of town before the police arrive.” His voice was too loud and too blunt. “Everyone else here is dead.”
I didn’t have time to deal with him. “Just a minute,” I said.
He leaned over Solorov and flipped open her sport jacket. The professor didn’t like that but couldn’t do anything about it. “You keep your hands off, you fat creep.”
“Hey!” His voice was bullish and thick. “You don’t get to tell me what to do! Not after all this. You’re lucky I don’t fuck you right here and now.”
I grabbed hold of his shirt. “That’s enough out of you! You keep running your mouth and I’m going to cuff you again.”
“And give up five hundred bucks?” he said, as if he was calling my bluff. There was something off about the guy, but I didn’t know what it was. He seemed like a brainy guy who wasn’t very smart. It wasn’t until he looked at my face that he backed down, muttering something about jocks.
Game of Cages Page 21
