“What address are we looking at?” Mack swallows.
When the communications dispatcher laughs, Mack pictures her pleasant dark-skinned face and equally dark eyes.
“Just tell me, Emily.”
“The address is the same as that of the Brook Trout Bridge along the George Road.”
Mack bites down on his bottom lip.
“Does Ray have his cell phone on him?”
“Cell phone service is overloaded and useless, Jimmy.”
The old Captain slides himself off the desk. With a pounding heart, he grabs his smokes, shoves the pack into his chest pocket. He barks, “Buzz Lt. Lino. Tell him to make a check on Lennox’s apartment. When he’s done I need him to locate some missing evidence.”
“What missing evidence?”
“Just have him radio me, please. I’m going out to make a check on my kid.”
36
Assembly Point Peninsula
Thursday, 8:21 P.M.
With a turn of the key, Jude kills the Jeep’s electric power.
Inside the garage’s near complete darkness, he begins to sense that both his wife and son are looking to him—the former cop—for answers. Ex-cop or no ex-cop, he has no answers or solutions to a problem he himself can barely comprehend.
Overloaded Electrical Power Grid System …
But that does not mean he’s lost the ability to work the immediate problem.
“Why not fire up the wedding candles, set them throughout the house?”
“Exactly my thoughts,” Rosie agrees.
Even Jack gets into the act.
“Can I light the matches?” he poses, Cheshire Cat grin painting a round face.
* * *
From back inside the living room, Jude peers out the floor-to-ceiling bay window onto a blacked-out Assembly Point Road. Over his right and left shoulders the candlelight flickers off the tall log walls while the clang of plates and silverware confirm that Rosie has started washing the dishes by hand in the kitchen sink.
“Take it easy, Rosie. It’s not worth all the strain.”
“I’m not an invalid, Jude. Besides, it’s my night to do them.”
Not far behind him, Nigel, Rosie’s pet canary is singing and chirping up a storm. Set on the coffee table not far from the bird’s perch, Charlie, the blue Betta fish, swims to and fro in his big translucent vase. Outside the window the rainy darkness is so thick and concentrated, Jude can hardly make out the gravel drive beyond the porch, much less any of the trees across the road maybe one hundred feet in the distance. He searches for Ray’s Jeep Cruiser. More specifically, the interior light that radiates from off the dash and from the old Lieutenant’s onboard laptop.
But from where he stands inside the log house, there is nothing to see.
No lights to cut through the darkness.
Turning, he heads for the kitchen where he grabs one of the two flashlights set on the table. Without a word, he heads out over the stone vestibule floor to the front door.
The simple action of opening the door, stepping outside causes Jude’s stomach muscles to tighten, throat to close up, mouth to go dry of its moisture. He descends the steps onto the stone walkway, all the time shining the flashlight towards the top of the long, uphill gravel drive. Though the light cuts through the dark and the rainy mist, he isn’t able to make out a thing. No unmarked Jeep Cruiser that is. Only the empty driveway, the equally empty road beyond it and a small illuminated circle of pine branches.
Well, I’ll be damned … Ray could have at least told me he was leaving …
Turning, Jude hurriedly makes his way back to the safety of the house, locking the front door behind him. Traversing the vestibule past the candle-lit living room to the kitchen beyond it, he feels adrenalin fill his head like blood inside a blister. His sternum grows tighter than tight, breathing becoming rapid and strained.
Rosie stands by the kitchen sink, a white dish towel folded over her right shoulder, a still damp dinner plate in her right hand. Seated at the table, Jack is chowing down on a piece of chocolate cake, seemingly oblivious to any real danger or dark monsters lurking in the dark corners.
Rosie reads Jude’s face for the tell-tale signs of distress. The scrunched brow, the wide unblinking eyes, the mouth that’s slightly ajar. That’s when Jude notices her own face taking on a hard, pressed-lip expression.
She says, “What’s wrong, Jude?”
“Ray’s gone.”
The plate falls from her hand, bounces against the pine floorboards, sending an instant shockwave throughout the otherwise silent and dark log house.
“What was that?!” a startled Jack barks.
“Sorry,” Rosie nervously speaks, while awkwardly bending at the knees, picking the plate back up. The fact that the plate hasn’t shattered is a big relief. Or so it seems. But then, this isn’t about broken plates. It’s about the Parish’s immediate safety; their immediate protection.
“What about the patrol boat?” Rosie begs.
Stepping closer to the picture window, Jude peers out onto the lake.
No green or red running-board lights. No white lights.
“Gone,” he whispers.
The hard rain blows, spatters against the kitchen window.
“Is dad in trouble?” asks Jack from the kitchen table where he’s now washing down the slice of chocolate cake with a glass of milk in the semi-darkness.
“No honey,” Rosie is careful to answer, candlelit eyes set not on the boy but on her husband. “Dad and I are just making adult conversation.”
His cake gobbled up, Rosie orders Jack to head upstairs for a “tubby by candlelight.”
The boy is so bright-faced and enthralled by the idea—the distraction—he jumps out of his chair, sprints for the upstairs bath.
First Rosie folds and sets the dish towel neatly over the near edge of the kitchen sink. Then she adjusts the waist on her skirt so that it more comfortably conforms with her hips and pregnant belly. She flips long dark hair back behind her ear.
“Let’s not get bent out of shape,” she offers. “If Ray is gone it’s probably just to help out with the blackout emergency. Same with the police boat.”
Jude tries to swallow. But his mouth is too dry. As usual Rosie makes perfect sense.
“I’m sure they’ll be back soon,” she adds. “If not then we’ll get in the Jeep, head out to the police station.”
Breathing deeply, Jude recalls Mack’s warning of that very afternoon. No matter what happens, he’s not to leave the house. But then Jude can’t imagine that the old Captain had a blackout in mind when he said it. Who anticipates a blackout?
Coming from upstairs: the happy sounds of Jack filling his bath.
“I’m still going to contact Mack,” Jude says. “Just for peace of mind.”
“He’s on the other side of the lake,” Rosie reminds him. “Forget the landline and I doubt internet works either.”
“Cell phone,” he smiles, pulling the small Verizon unit from his jeans pocket.
As his wife heads for the upstairs, Jude pulls his mobile from his pocket, dials the number for the Lake George Village Precinct.
37
Assembly Point Peninsula
Thursday, 8:29 P.M.
Jude stands alone inside the kitchen with the rain coming down outside the big window. He waits for a connection … and waits. But he gets nothing. The wireless telecommunications signal simply produces a repeating beep.
But that doesn’t stop him from trying.
He pulls the phone from his ear, speed dials his father’s private office number, again holds the device up against his head … and again waits.
This time he gets even more nothing. Not so much as an electronic beep, beep, beep. All he manages is a huge helping heap of dead air and following that, termination of the call.
“Damn!”
Jude pockets the mobile phone. Taking the flashlight in hand, he walks back through the vestibule to the front door, opens it. He
takes another look outside, shines the beam of light in the exact spot at the end of the drive where the Jeep Cruiser should be parked.
Still nothing there.
Once more he descends the porch steps, walks out to the drive. Out beyond the exterior log wall of the two-car garage, he sets his eyes upon the lake. Still no sign of the police boat.
Back up on the front porch, the overhead shields him from the now light rain. It only makes sense that his personal witness protectors must have been called back in to assist with the blackout emergency. Even from where he stands he can make out the distant sound of cop sirens blaring from the Jeep Cruisers that shoot down the village Main Street all the way on the other side of the lake.
Funny how sound travels over water …
Jude knows that along with the massive blackout comes the possibility for numerous automobile accidents, acts of vandalism, looting sprees, injuries, accidental deaths, random acts of violence, not so random acts of violence.
Should I pack up the family, move them to the village until the blackout is over?
In his heart he knows that it’s a bad idea. The village will be as crazy and dangerous as a jungle—a drunkard’s paradise. Jude is a former cop. It doesn’t take a whole lot of thought to come to the conclusion that the safest place in any blackout is right here, inside the walls of one’s home-sweet-home.
* * *
Stepping back inside, he closes the wood door behind him.
Inside the living room to his immediate left, the white wedding candle suddenly goes out, reducing the space to blackness. It’s like a giant wind has suddenly whipped through the big log home.
Aside from the smoldering, glowing ember of a candlewick, he can’t see a thing. Nights on the lake are always dark, but with an overcast sky and the lights from the village extinguished, the blackness seems all-consuming.
Jude steps into the living room, walks the walk of the blind man, right arm extended out before him like a pointer, like a replacement for the eyes. He moves slowly, a snail’s pace, sliding the soles of his boots along the hardwood in the direction of the wick instead of lifting them one at a time.
But when the wick burns out completely, he can no longer be guided by its orange glow. He has to instead rely on the candle’s smoky fragrance. The smell guides him across the living room floor. That is, until he jams his knee into the coffee table.
The collision startles him more than the sharp, yet delayed pain in his kneecap.
“It’s okay,” he calls out almost by instinct, even though neither Rosie nor Jack have voiced their concern. “Just tripped is all.”
Moving sightlessly around the table, he makes it to the candle, pulls the pack of matches from his jeans pocket, fires it up. As he relights the candle another emergency siren can be heard coming from outside the log home.
His chest grows tight.
The demon is awake and wants to play.
Turning, Jude limps his way around the couch, makes for the stairs, heads straight into the master bedroom. Bending down, he takes a painful knee beside the bed, reaches under for the long black plastic case that houses his shotgun.
38
The Molloy Gravel Pit
Thursday, 8:40 P.M.
Deep night inside the abandoned pit.
The heavy rain has slowed to a gentle mist, while flashes of lightning are visible half a mile to the southeast in the direction of Lake George. Black Dragon stands outside Fuentes’s Jeep Cruiser which was delivered to him by his student, T-Bred, only moments ago. Gripped in his right hand is a white plastic bottle of lighter fluid. He’s squeezing the bottle, soaking the interior of the Jeep Cherokee with the flammable liquid until there’s nothing left to spray.
Black Dragon appears as an opaque silhouette against an already impenetrable night. Black bodysuit, black face paint, black gloves, black shin-high boots. Tossing the empty can into the open driver’s side window of the Jeep Cruiser, he pulls a pack of matches from a pouch attached to a Velcro waist belt. Just an average looking pack of cardboard matches, the words Linda’s Blue Bayou printed on the cover in large blue letters above the silhouette of a voluptuous, naked lady.
Black Dragon wipes the mist from his eyes. He glances over his right shoulder at the brilliant jagged lightning. He listens for the rumble of thunder, but hears nothing. Surrounding him on all sides is the barren rock face of the carved out pit. Nothing alive for miles around. Only dead, hard shale; only his own throbbing heart.
Nothing alive inside the Jeep either.
Or, nothing alive anymore that is. Only the remnants of what once upon a time was a supercop. Black Dragon pictures his student and the one job, or test, assigned to him. A simple but oh so gruesome task that resulted in murder and yet another scream in his collection of screams. And what a job T-Bred has done eliminating the 23 Assembly Point Road protector. What an astounding accomplishment, the evidence of which is now recorded on his iPhone app, which he brings to right ear. Even at a low volume, he can hear the distressed scream of Supercop Fuentes as his throat was cut. Not a scream really. More like a gurgle. But it’s enough to raise the hairs on the back of the Black Dragon’s neck. What a kill game sound bite it will make. What a super piece of realistic audio.
Scream. For. Me.
Now that the future kill gamer has completed his assignment, it is time for T-Bred to blend back into the blacked-out night where he is to report to the Glens Falls Wild Bill’s All Day/All Night II arcade. He will know what to do once he gets there.
Cupping his right hand over the lit match, Black Dragon strikes it against the sandpaper edge of the pack. Inside the shelter of his hand he watches the sulfur burn and spark. At the appropriate time Black Dragon approaches the Jeep, tosses the lit match into the fuel-soaked interior and the large, lifeless torso that’s laid out flat in its open back space.
Taking a quick step backwards, he feels the immediate eruption of the red-white flame.
* * *
Lake George Village
Thursday, 8:42 P.M.
Mack drives out of the parking garage, pulls a sharp left onto the main Lake George Road. This stretch of narrow, curving Adirondack highway will take him from the village L.G.P.D. precinct around the northern point of the lake to the Brook Trout Bridge, which is where he arrives in a matter of minutes.
Driving the Jeep Cruiser onto the metal bridge he pulls over, gets out. Leaning over the railing he stares down into the fast moving whitewater.
Nothing but white foam and mist.
Not far on the east side of the lake, lightning strikes. The thunder concussion shoots across the water. Its reverberation is violent enough to rattle the seventy-year-old steel-framed bridge. Pulling a miniature Maglite from his raincoat, Mack heads to the opposite side of the bridge. He hooks a right-hand turn, makes his way onto the soft shoulder and then down the semi-steep embankment until he comes to the head of the Brook Trout stream. It’s there he shines the bright white beam of Maglite into the water. At first he sees nothing that might garner his attention. Nothing but the swiftly moving heavy water and the rocks that impede its path. Soon enough it becomes apparent that water and rock is all he he’s going to see.
But then he’s about to kill the light, head back up to his Jeep when he spots something else in the water. Coming closer to the bank, he shines the round beam of Maglite onto a small object that’s caught up on a tree branch. The closer he comes to the water the more he can make out the object. In his mind he’s able to see that it’s doughnut shaped, not at all like a dead bird or a stick or a tree branch. The closer he comes to the bank, the more he makes out the object for exactly what it is: the Electronic GPS Surveillance Bracelet.
I’ll be a dumb son of a bitch …
Turning, he heads back up the embankment, goes straight for his Jeep. Slipping back behind the wheel, he thumbs the radio transmitter.
“Emily,” he spits, “this is Mack. Over.”
“Yes Captain Mack, I’ve got you. Over.”
“I’ve located our surveillance bracelet underneath the Brook Trout Bridge just like the GPS said it would be. And at present, it is without its owner. Over.”
“I read you Captain. Do I alert all vehicles? Over.”
“All vehicles are occupied with the blackout. Contact the Staties immediately with the sit rep. Over.”
“Copy that. Contact the Staties. You go check on your son, Captain. Over.”
“I’m on my way. Over.”
* * *
Heart in throat, Jimmy Mack drives, speeding past the miles of State-protected pine forest that lead to his son’s Assembly Point home. He knows that at this point nothing should prevent him from seeing to his family. With Lennox free it’s quite probable that a new kill game is about to begin with Jude, Rosie and Jack acting the part of the victims. It’s exactly what Profiling Agent MacSweeny predicted. It’s been his worst fear all along: that Lennox would somehow slip out of the ankle bracelet; that once free he would use the opportunity to begin another kill game, this one motivated by revenge and aimed at the man who is to testify against him in court. Even the blackout feels too much like a coincidence.
It has to be a part of the game. As will be the recorded screams of his son’s family.
* * *
Mack drives pedal-to-the-metal.
But it’s at the intersection of Lake George Road and Fort Anne Road that the old Captain spots the pillar of flame. The red-orange fire is coming from approximately two hundred yards up on his left, not far from the rear entry to Sweeney’s Boxing Gym.
Maybe it’s out of pure call-of-duty, or maybe it’s out of pure instinct and cop intuition, but Mack immediately finds himself driving onto Fort Anne Road in the direction of the large fire and what he knows in his bones will be Lennox’s location. Motoring all the way down into the manmade cavern, he sees what looks to be a white and blue Jeep Cherokee 4x4 consumed in flame. The exact model and make of all L.G.P.D. cruisers.
Scream Catcher Page 15
