Chapter Sixteen
Dexter and Moloch left Carl Lubey’s burning house behind them, traveling southwest until they came to a road, banks of firs standing like temple columns at either side.
“You want the map?” asked Dexter.
“I know where we’re going,” said Moloch. He sounded distracted, almost distant. “We need to spread out, take them from every angle.”
Dexter stared at him.
“Spread out how? There’s just you and me.”
Moloch acted like a man suddenly awakened from a strange dream. Once again, the sensation of worlds overlapping came to him, but it was accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling of separation. Moments earlier, he had been surrounded by men, men willing to act at his command. He had strength and authority. Now there was only Dexter, and Moloch himself was weakening. Increasingly, he was troubled by the sense that he was less alive here than he was in the past, that each time he flipped between worlds he left more of himself behind in an earlier life.
“They haven’t come back yet?” he asked.
“Who, Shepherd and Scarfe? No, they ain’t back yet.”
Moloch nodded, then pointed. “Her house is just over that rise. Shouldn’t take us more than-”
He glanced at his watch. It had stopped.
“You know what time it is?”
Dexter wore a Seiko digital. No numerals showed on its face.
“I don’t know. It’s not working right.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Moloch, but again Dexter detected a wavering note in his voice. Don’t fall apart on me now, man, he thought, not after all this time.
The wind was dying down now, the snow falling a little less thickly. They leaped a small ditch that ran along the side of the road, now almost entirely filled with snow, and stepped out onto the trail. In doing so, they almost ran into the woman. She let out a little yelp of surprise, then saw their guns and started to back away.
“Now, where are you going?” said Dexter. He advanced upon her, gripped her by the hair, and dragged her back to Moloch.
Bonnie Claeson had given up on the phone, on her car, and on Joe Dupree. She had given up on everything. Something had broken inside her when she’d heard her son’s voice echoing down a dead telephone line, and so she had retreated into a beautiful illusion. Richie, her sad, troubled, loving son, was out in the snow alone, probably tired and afraid. She had to find him and bring him home. She wore only an open coat over her sweater and jeans, and her clothing was now crusted white with flakes Her cheap boots had not protected her feet, yet she did not feel the cold. She was lost to herself, and now she only wished for her son to appear out of the darkness, his orange jacket bright against the snow, his face filled with relief and affection as his mother came for him and drew him to her.
“I’m searching for my boy,” she said. “Have you seen him?”
She looked first at Dexter, then at Moloch, examining their faces. They seemed familiar to her. Briefly, her clouded mind was illuminated by a flash of clarity. She shook her head and moved away from the two men, never allowing her eyes to leave their faces.
They were Richie’s bad men, the men from the TV. She heard her son’s voice crying out its last words to her.
Momma! Momma! Bad men. Badmenbadmenbadmenbadmenbad-
Dexter saw the recognition in her eyes.
“Shit,” he said, “now we’re gonna-”
The gunshot came from so close to his head that he recoiled in shock, his ears ringing. The woman crumpled to the ground and began to bleed on the snow. Beside him, Moloch holstered his gun.
“We could have taken her with us,” said Dexter. “She could have helped us.”
“You going soft on me, Dex?” came the reply, and Dexter was sure now that Moloch was mad. In the unspoken threat he heard the death sentence being passed on Willard, the abandonment of Powell, Shepherd, and Scarfe to their fates, and the single-minded obsession that had brought them to this place. It was no longer about money, or a woman, or a child. Moloch might once have thought that it was, but it wasn’t. He had come here for some unknowable reason of his own, and those who stood alongside him were expendable.
We’re going to die here, Dexter realized. I think I always knew, and just hoped that it wouldn’t be true, but it will end here. I have no choice now but to follow it to its end, and to embrace it when it comes.
“No,” said Dexter. “I ain’t going soft.”
He walked over to where the woman lay and looked down on her. She was lying very still. Her eyes blinked and he saw her chest rise and fall, blood spreading from the wound on her left breast. Her lips formed a word.
“Richie,” she whispered, for the boy was beside her now. He had always appeared wondrous to her, always kind, but now he seemed transformed, his features perfectly sculpted and his eyes alive with an intelligence that he had never known in life.
“Richie,” she repeated. He reached out his hand to her and took it in his own, and he drew her to him and carried her away so that she would not feel the pain of the final bullet.
Marianne was on her doorstep when she heard the shots. They came from close by. Two overnight bags, crammed full of clothing, lay by her feet, and the knapsack hung over her shoulder. Danny sat on top of one of the bags, still drowsy. When he heard the shots, he looked up briefly, then resumed his previous position, his head cupped in his hands, his eyes nearly closed.
“Come on, Danny, we have to go.”
“Where?” There was that whining tone to his voice, and for the first time she lost her temper with him.
“We’re going to Jack’s. Now get up, Danny! I mean it! You get up or I’m going to give you such a spanking that you won’t be able to sit for a week. Do you hear me? Get up!”
The boy started to cry, but at least he was on his feet. Marianne took a bag in each hand, then gave him a little swipe with one of them, propelling him toward the door. She pulled it closed behind her with her toe, then urged him on down the path to Jack’s house. Once they got to Jack’s, she could convince the old man to take them off Dutch. Even if they got only as far as one of the neighboring islands, it would be enough. All that mattered was that they get away from here. The weight of the gun in her coat pocket slapped painfully against her leg as she walked, but she didn’t care. It had been in the knapsack with the money. She had cleaned and oiled it only twice in the years since she had fled, following instructions from a gun magazine, and had never fired it, not even on a range. She would use it, though, if she was forced to do so. This time there would be no fear. She would take his dare. She was stronger than he had ever suspected, stronger than even she had known. She would kill him, if she had to, and some secret part of her hoped that she would be given that opportunity.
From the top of the rise, Moloch and Dexter watched them leave the house, but they were not the only ones. Far to their right, almost at the edge of Jack’s property, a pretty man with blond hair stood among the trees and admired once again the shape of the woman’s legs, the swell of her breasts beneath her open coat, the way her jeans hugged her groin. In her way, she was to blame for all that had happened to him, for his rejection and abandonment by the man he admired so much. She had deceived him, betrayed his beloved Moloch, and he would make her pay. He vaguely recalled Moloch’s warning that she was not to be harmed, but he had the hunger upon him now. He would first make her tell him where the money was, and then he would finish her.