There was a cruel note in the doctor’s voice that chilled Carl’s soul. “But you said—”
Warren Phillips cut him off before he could finish. “If you want to live, you know what you have to do.”
Ted Anderson came into the kitchen, stopping short when he found no one there except his wife. “Where’s Dad?” he asked.
Mary shrugged. “He must have gotten up early. He wasn’t here when I came down, and the truck’s gone.”
Frowning, Ted went to the door leading to the garage. Save for his own worn Chrysler, the garage was empty. Puzzled, he moved to the stove and poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the back burner. “Where the hell would he go this early?”
Mary glanced archly at her husband. “I’m afraid he didn’t leave a note. Would you call Kelly?”
Ted went to the bottom of the stairs leading to Kelly’s room, calling out, then went up and knocked on the door. “Kelly? Time to get up.” There was a silence, then he heard his daughter’s voice.
“I’ll be down in a second.”
Returning to the kitchen, he sat down at the table just as Mary slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him. A minute later, wrapped in a robe, Kelly appeared. Ted glanced up at her, then looked more closely. Kelly’s face was pale and her eyes were edged with dark circles, as if she hadn’t slept at all. “Honey? Are you okay?”
For a moment he wasn’t sure Kelly had even heard him. She was staring off into space, lost in some world of her own. Then her expression changed, as if a veil had dropped over her eyes.
“I guess I didn’t sleep very well last night,” she said, her voice flat.
Mary, hearing the strange vacant note in her daughter’s voice, looked worriedly at her. “Do you feel all right?”
Kelly said nothing. What would they say if she told them what had happened last night and what she’d seen this morning? What would they think if she told them that her grandfather had stolen her soul from her?
They’d think she was crazy.
And yet she wasn’t crazy. She knew what had happened in the swamp, knew what Clarey Lambert had told her.
This morning, at dawn, she’d seen her grandfather, and finally understood the terrifying vision that had tormented her for as long as she could remember.
And knew that it wasn’t a vision from her imagination at all.
It was a vision of the truth.
A truth she couldn’t speak of to anyone except Michael Sheffield, because no one else would believe her.
“I–I’m fine,” she murmured at last.
But she wasn’t fine at all.
In the bright light of a perfect summer morning, when she should have been feeling good about everything, she felt only a dark terror.
A terror she realized might never leave her.
• • •
Ted pulled the Chrysler through the gates of Villejeune Links Estates and was relieved to see his father’s pickup truck parked in front of the trailer that served as a construction office. Ted was early himself this morning, and except for his father’s truck, the site was still empty. He pulled the Chrysler alongside the truck, shut off the engine, and went into the trailer.
“Dad?” he called out. “Dad, it’s me!”
He glanced toward the closed door of the office at the far end of the trailer, then turned the other way, toward the small kitchen where he and his father usually sat conferring with the site supervisor over Cokes, feeling more relaxed around the Formica table than they did around the desk in the office.
“Dad?” Ted called again as he stepped into the kitchen, half expecting to find his father already at the table, poring over drawings, checking specifications against lists of supplies on hand.
The kitchen was empty.
He gazed out the window, over the golf course that was in the first phases of construction.
Nothing.
He turned away from the window, moving back through the trailer toward the closed office door.
• • •
Hearing his son’s heavy tread, Carl Anderson realized it had been a mistake coming here. He should have simply driven on past the site and kept going until he’d come to a motel.
He could have checked into one of those anonymous tourist courts along the highway, staying out of sight for a few hours until the shot Phillips had given him did its work.
But it was early, and the site had been deserted, and he’d decided to stop for a few minutes to leave some instructions for Ted.
And now Ted was here.
“G-Go away, Ted. I need to be alone right now.”
He heard the sound of his voice, rasping, rattling in his throat like that of an old man.
“Dad?” Ted called through the door. “What is it?”
“Nothing! Will you just get the—”
The door opened and he saw Ted step in, then stop short, staring at him.
“Jesus, Dad,” Ted whispered. He hardly recognized the old man as his father. Carl’s strong features were all but hidden under the slack skin of his face, and his frame had taken on a stooped and shrunken look. Carl’s eyes, burning deep in their sockets, were fixed on Ted, and as the younger man gazed at the ancient figure, he had the feeling he was facing the countenance of death.
“I told you not to come in here,” Carl rasped.
“Dad, we’ve got to get you to the hospital—”
“No!” Carl barked, stepping behind the desk.
“Dad, you’re sick—”
“I saw Phillips this morning. I’ll be all right.” The fingers of his right hand curled around the handle of the drawer, and he pulled it open. Glancing down, he saw the familiar shape of the butt of the gun he kept there. “Go away, Ted. Just leave me alone.”
Ted shook his head. “I can’t do that, Dad. Whatever’s in those shots, it’s not working.”
“He’s running out,” Carl said without thinking.
Ted’s eyes bored into him. “So they’re not vitamins,” he said. “What are they, Dad?”
Carl’s jaw tightened. “It’s something he makes himself.”
“Then he’ll make more,” Ted said, his voice taking on a note of desperation. “Whatever it is, he can make more, can’t he? Dad, what is it? What’s wrong with you? If we don’t get you to the hospital, you’re going to die!”
He took a step toward his father, but stopped short when Carl’s hand suddenly came up from behind the desk, holding a gun.
“I want you to leave, Ted,” Carl rasped coldly. “I want you to get out of here and forget about what you’ve seen. I’ll be gone for a few hours, and when I get back I’ll be fine.”
Ted shook his head in disbelief. “You’re dying, Dad,” he whispered,
“No, goddamn it!” Carl roared, his son’s words triggering a fury in him that overcame the fear that had all but paralyzed him since he’d left Phillips’s house. “I’m not dying! I’m not ever going to die!”
He raised the gun, grasping it with both hands now, pointing it at Ted. Though his hands trembled violently, he was so close to his son that he knew he couldn’t miss.
Ted knew it, too. His hands came up slowly and he backed toward the door. “Take it easy, Dad,” he said. “If you don’t want to go to the hospital, I won’t make you.”
“Just leave me alone,” Carl rasped. “Get out of here.”
Ted had reached the doorway. A moment later Carl saw him dart out of the trailer toward his car. But instead of going to the Chrysler, Ted jerked open the door of the truck and pulled the keys from the ignition where Carl habitually left them. Pocketing them, he got into his own car and drove away.
Carl stood where he was, his mind racing.
The men would be arriving soon, and Ted would be coming back, too.
Ted thought he’d gone crazy, and when he came back, he’d bring help.