A Face at the Window

by Sarah Graves

  The scream echoed in her head. "Still, if Campbell wasn't watching the house, how'd he know to call right after Bob Arnold and Wade left? How could he, unless he—"

  Pierce cut in. "Think about it. Bob uses the radio in his squad car."

  He stopped, waiting for her to get it. After a moment she did, unsure at first whether it made her feel better or worse. "Scanner," she said, remembering the one at Hoke Sturdevant's. "Bob's radio calls…and the helicopter, ready to take Wade and the mechanic back out to the ship."

  "Uh-huh. I'm just guessing, but by covering your phone and local radio traffic a fellow could pretty much keep current on what everyone's doing. Where they are, when they're leaving…"

  He leaned over the seat to look at her, his expression puzzled. "But what I don't get is—I mean you know who this guy is, right? The guy you're going to meet? And you must've told him before that you wouldn't meet with him, so that's why he's making you do it, why he's got to make you, by—"

  The scream on the phone had risen to a shriek, then trailed off. She shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel. "I know him. But he's never asked for any meeting before. I have no idea what he wants. So I don't understand any more than you do why—"

  "Watch it," he cut in. "It's coming up on the left."

  The driveway was a pale cut in the dark undergrowth, barely visible until the car's lights hit it. "We're early."

  "Yeah, okay," he said. "Drive on, then, why don't you, you can turn around down at Shore Road or on Gin Cove."

  The road straightened along a bluff overlooking the bay. In the distance twinkled the Canadian tourist town of St. Andrews; beyond that lay the hazy glow of St. George and the intermittent strobing of the Cherry Island light, slicing through the night.

  "Is Jerrilyn okay?" he asked.

  Jake slowed for a family of skunks crossing the road single file, hit the brakes once more as a striped straggler hurried to catch up. Then without warning she felt her determination falter.

  "Jerrilyn was okay when I saw her," she said. "Or as okay as she could be. But…look, maybe we should call Bob Arnold. Or go get him. We could explain the situation to him so he understands, tell him no one can use their phones or radios, either, so—"

  Pierce's answering laugh was a short, sharp bark. "That'll work," he replied sarcastically. "How long you think it'll take before one of the good ol’ boys breaks radio silence? Calls his wife to let her know he'll be out a while longer?"

  When they reached Shore Road she made a U-turn in the deserted intersection, then stopped to let him get into the front seat. Pierce was correct that the cops couldn't function without phones or radios; except for Bob, they couldn't even be summoned without them. And if they went back to get Bob, they'd miss the agreed-upon appointment time with Campbell—she glanced down at her watch—twenty minutes from now.

  Not that Bob would do any of this without more cop backup, anyway, because what if it went wrong? If it did, and Bob hadn't told anyone, it would be his job on the line. Meanwhile, though, now that she'd begun having second thoughts, she couldn't stop.

  "So I guess we're stuck with this, then," she said, keeping her eyes on the road. "Just the two of us."

  "Uh-huh." They drove in silence for a few more miles. But a new idea had occurred to her, not a happy one: that if he'd heard the call the way he said, why hadn't he mentioned the screaming?

  "Helen doesn't like me much," he said. "Doesn't like all the outdoor stuff I make her do and learn. Survival stuff, first aid and water safety—she thinks I'm too tough on her."

  "Are you?"

  He stared straight ahead, watching the road. "Maybe I am. But that's all right. She'll learn later on what I've been trying to make happen."

  "Which is?"

  "Keep her alive, for one thing. You live around here, get back in the woods or on the water with somebody…Did you know that kid Helen was seeing has got a boat?"

  Maybe he hadn't heard it. The scream…maybe Pierce had been told what Campbell's guy would say on the phone. Time, place…but the scream could've been improvised on the spot, not planned, and in that case no one would've mentioned it to Pierce.

  Thought about who might be helping? Bob had asked. Somebody local, giving this guy the lay of the land… On top of that, who better for Campbell to get snooping equipment from than Pierce?

  A radio scanner, for instance, and a phone-eavesdropping device. Suddenly it all fit together.

  She wished she hadn't told him she had the gun. "Kid's so dumb," he was saying, "I'd be surprised if he could chew gum and keep his eyes focused, but they let him run a boat."

  He sighed, turning to her in the dim passenger compartment. "Anyway, things happen. Accidents, all kinds of things. And most girls, they get to be fifteen or so, they'll turn around and tell you to shove it, but Helen hasn't, yet, and I just want her to be able to handle ‘em if bad things happen to her, that's all."

  It sounded believable, Jake had to admit to herself. But now that one of the bad things had happened to Helen, Pierce didn't seem disturbed enough. And the scream on the phone, so horrific it had driven her out here to meet Campbell…

  Pierce still wasn't saying anything about it. "So what's his story, anyway?" Pierce asked. "This guy doing all this?"

  In as few words as possible, she told him. Maybe Pierce knew all about Campbell already. Maybe he'd heard the whole story-Jake's mother, her long-ago murder, and the upcoming trial— from Campbell himself.

  But if he had, she didn't want him knowing that she was onto him. "All I can think of is that something in my victim's impact statement set him off," she finished. "But I don't know why. The only detail in it isn't the kind of thing that could hurt him, things like what my mom wore that night. Her hair ribbon, black velvet. Her dress: flowered, silky material. And…"

  The ruby earrings, bloodred in the firelight. She let her voice trail off as the old, familiar lump invaded her throat. "I don't see why he'd care," she finished. "It doesn't make sense."

  She slowed the car, drove it onto the sandy shoulder. She could pull the .22, but if his intentions were bad he'd probably try to go for it; he was bigger than she was, after all, and he'd already put a local kid in the hospital with his fists.

  On the other hand…oh, the heck with it. If he got grabby it was his funeral. She aimed the .22 at him. "Get out."

  His eyes widened; he hadn't been watching for this. Women like her didn't point guns at people.

  "Sorry. I had to let you in the car when I thought he was watching. But he isn't, you've convinced me. So if you're on the level, I apologize. If not—"

  His lips pursed ruefully. "Listen, this having a gun aimed at me is kind of…"

  Startling; that was the idea. Be forceful, or be forced; she wasn't sure if she'd learned it first as a financial whiz in an office in Manhattan, or years earlier in a small candlelit room in a house in Greenwich Village, seeing her mother strangled.

  Either way, it seemed to be working now. "I can't trust you. So I need to unload you." If she could get him out of the car she could drive in ahead of him, get to the house alone.

  "Okay. I understand," he said. "But here's the thing: Either you shoot me now, or I'm going in. I'm here to get Helen back and I mean to do that, with you or without you."

  He looked at her. "Your choice. But make it snappy, because we haven't got all night." He glanced down at his own watch. "In fact, we've only got about fifteen minutes now. And…"

  "What?" she demanded.

  "Well," Pierce replied, "first of all, when I get Helen out of there I'm going to give her that new iPod she's been fussing at me for. Already ordered it, rush-express, so it ought to get here soon…"

  He spoke earnestly. "I mean a girl deserves some foolishness once in a while. Don't you think? And not for nothing," he added, "but if you can't trust me you're better off keeping me in sight. No offense, but your only other option really is to shoot me, and I just don't think you're going to. You're not the type."


  Nice try, she thought, though the part about the iPod had been very persuasive. "You have no idea what type I am. And when you find out, it might be too late. Now, why don't you—"

  "Nice job on Hoke's deck step," he said suddenly. "Canoe, too. Though at the time I thought you'd never leave."

  That closed hallway door at Hoke's, she recalled. The old man had said it was to hide his sloppy housekeeping, but now she realized: He'd been hiding Pierce. And that meant…

  If Hoke had needed help, he could've told Jake so. While she and the old man were out by the canoe, or while they'd worked on the deck repair together.

  And he hadn't. "I could've ambushed you in your driveway," Pierce added, "if I wanted."

  But by now she'd made her decision: He could have taken the gun from her, too. She lowered it.

  "Christ." He let a breath out, rubbed his palms on his pants legs. "Never had one pointed right at my head like that, before. Just out of curiosity, what convinced you?"

  She told him. "Hoke trusted you. And…the iPod. Because if it were my son, Sam, that'd been taken, that's what I'd be…"

  Thinking. Praying. That I'd get the chance to surprise him with some silly gift. Pierce nodded solemnly. "Yeah. What you'll do for them, huh?"

  "Anything," she agreed, noticing for the first time that he was dressed in fall hunting camouflage, green and brown mottled canvas jacket and pants, sturdy black lace-up boots on his feet. Slowly he produced his own weapon, a Glock 9mm, small and pricey.

  She'd seen them at gun shows, recalled now the good rifles in the gun case at his house. "Semiauto," she said, unable to keep the appreciation from her voice.

  She let the car roll back onto the road; soon the pale dirt driveway to the Jiminy Point house showed once more between the evergreens. He tucked the gun away. "Beats a twenty-two pistol for firepower, with not much more size and weight. And if you don't mind my saying so, I've got a better idea than you do, too," he added.

  As the car pulled to a stop he shoved the car door open and got out. Smart-ass, she thought, absorbing the mine's-bigger-than-yours jab. But then she heard the rest of what he'd said.

  "Hey." She rolled the window down. It hadn't occurred to her that he might go in without her.

  "Nose the car into the trees," he called back softly. "You leave it in the road, it'll be pretty obvious to anyone who—"

  Headlights appeared behind them. Hastily she got the car in gear, eased it forward, and doused the lights. A truck roared by without slowing, its muffler clanking as it disappeared uphill.

  When it was gone, Pierce leaned in. "Here. You carry this." He shoved a flashlight at her. "Are you okay?"

  "No," she said furiously, pulling off her seat belt. "And this wasn't the plan. I'm supposed to see Campbell, to get him to let the girls go. I don't want you to…"

  Screw things up. Brief chuckle from Pierce; what she wanted or didn't want wasn't entering into his calculations at all.

  Never had. "They'll see your light, focus on that, and with any luck not think to look for anyone else," he said.

  The two guys from the security tape, he meant, who'd taken Helen and Lee. Assuming that was who they'd be confronting, the operative phrase here being "with any luck."

  "By the time you get spotted, I'll have gotten behind them," he went on. "I'll drop one of them real quiet-like, and…"

  His tone chilled down to the bone-cracking temperature of a February night. "We'll see about the other one," he finished.

  Wrong, she thought as he turned and walked away from her. This was all going wrong; she never should've let him…

  Just as he was about to disappear among the trees, he turned back. "Jake. I know what he wants."

  This bossy little prick thought he knew it all, didn't he? Her fists clenched. Even if she could trust him, even if he had as good a reason to be out here as she did, he was still way more trouble than he was…

  "What who wants, Campbell? That's ridiculous, how could you possibly know what he—"

  "You. Think about it. All he wants is you."

  He vanished into the woods.

  The dirt driveway, Pierce informed her as they started down it, was about two miles long; he'd been here before, to put in an intercom system when the Jiminy Point house was being built.

  "But the path through the woods is better for us," he said, striding into what looked like a puckerbrush thicket but was in fact two massive cedars growing up out of a single root.

  They'd gone a hundred yards in silence when he stopped and pulled a flask from his pocket. "Snort?" he offered. "We're still a few minutes ahead of ourselves."

  I am, she thought clearly, out here in the woods late at night with a guy I don't know, getting ready to sneak up on some other guys who I definitely don't.

  And ambush them. Which had emphatically not been part of her plan.…The stuff in the flask was Allen's; swallowing some, she made a face.

  "Coffee brandy, cures what ails you," he said. "Did you know that of the ten best-selling alcoholic beverages in the state of Maine, Allen's is four of ‘em?"

  He had another gulp, offered it to her again. She tipped it; in her opinion, the taste was right up there with the smell of burning rubber, but the warmth it produced was welcome.

  " ‘Cause there's four different bottle sizes is why. You gotta watch it, though," he added. "Calories. Some folks call the stuff ‘Fat Ass in a Glass.’ "

  It was unbelievably dark in these woods. "You're just full of fascinating information, aren't you? But don't you think we should be quiet?" She found a big rock by feeling around for it, lowered herself onto it.

  "On account of them?" he answered. "Don't worry, they're not out here, yet. I'd hear ‘em. They're up at the house; neither one of ‘em's any good at rompin’ around in the forest."

  "You sound awfully sure of things," she said. Not the least of them being yourself, she. added silently.

  "Saw ‘em on the tape," Pierce explained. "Before I slipped in an’ dropped it on Bob Arnold's desk while all the lawmen"—he gave the word a sardonic twist—"were over at the Waco Diner for coffee, I had a look at it."

  He drank from the flask again. "That camp on the Shore Road I got the boys jobs cleanin’ out an’ paintin's got a VCR in it. That's how I know both our pals, here, are dumber'n flounder."

  He held out the flask; this time she shook her head. For one thing, after a couple of swigs, Allen's brandy had improved; now it just tasted like old coffee grounds soaked in cough syrup. Besides, warm and energized was one thing; drunk and stupid was another.

  "In a minute you'll get on the driveway with that lamp," he said. "Start walking. I'll stay on the path, get ahead of you."

  She got to her feet. "What'd you mean before, about Campbell wanting me?"

  He shrugged. "Obvious, isn't it? I mean, why didn't this guy just offer to make some kind of a trade on the phone with you? Say what he wants?" He tucked the flask away. "Whatever it is, he knows you'd do it. It's why he picked ‘em, the little girl Helen was taking care of, especially. He's done his homework on you."

  They began moving forward together. "That's why I think the deal was just the carrot, you see. And the scream…"

  So he had heard that, too. Faint light showed ahead.

  "… the scream was the stick." At the gleam from between the trees he put out a silencing hand, stopping her sharply, and in the next instant he was gone, slipping away into the forest.

  The light went out.

  Helen Nevelson stumbled like a sleepwalker through the dark, cold night, barely knowing what she was doing, much less in what direction she was managing to keep going.

  Her head hurt and her mouth was still agonizing. Scary, too; bleeding. Every so often it filled with hot, coppery blood, and she opened it just barely enough to spit. Anything more made her injured head feel as if it might split wide open, while her safe, cheerful home, her family, and her warm, safe bed all seemed like things that might have existed, once, on some other planet in the di
stant past.

  Or in a dream. Here, though, all she knew was that if she gave in and lay down on the cold ground as she desperately longed to do, she would die.

  Move. Walk. Don't give up.

  Never. Helen kept reciting this to herself as well as she could, which was not very well. Somebody kept hitting her in the side of the head with an enormous hammer; somebody else pushed her down, giggling each time she struggled up again.

  After a long while, through a window of lucidity she slammed shut in a reflex bolt of terror almost immediately, she knew that the madly giggling person was herself. Losing it, I'm starting to… Unwilling, or possibly by this time unable, to admit that she already had.

  Suddenly, lights snapped on all around her, blinding her and making her cry out in terror. Huge, yellowish lights like the ones at an airport or jail yard flared mercilessly from…She put her hands to her face, peered squintingly through her fingers—

  A cabin. Small and shaped like a child's drawing of a house, two square windows and a door, pointy roof and crooked chimney; she moaned at the sight of it. Scrambling toward it, falling and getting up again, she struggled on bare, wounded feet that stuck bloodily to the stones in the dirt road.

  "Help," she whispered, because the men who'd done this to her might still be out here somewhere. "Help, please."

  Staggering onto the deck that stuck out plain and unpainted from the plain wooden front door, she fell once more, caught the doorknob in one hand and gripped it. "Please…"

  But it was locked, and now she realized that no one was here. The yard lights had been set up to go on automatically, triggered by motion detectors. They illuminated a small shed, a rack with a pair of kayaks chained to it, and a white stone path leading down alongside the locked cabin to a dock.

  The locked cabin…Helen began to cry. With her hand still clutching the unmoving doorknob she felt what little fight she had left go streaming out of her; it wasn't fair, after all she'd just been through, it wasn't fair at all.

  When she was done crying, though, mostly because it hurt too much, the door still didn't open. It doesn't care, she thought in her wretchedness, gazing around wildly for help but not seeing any as she contemplated this dreadful notion. The door doesn't care, the trees don't care, the sky doesn't care, the water down there at the end of the dock doesn't care.…