“He’s taking no chances this time,” Oslett said. “Going after Stillwater as if it’s war.”
They had to stop the boy—and fast. If he killed the Stillwater family or even just the writer himself, he would make it impossible to implement the murder-suicide scenario which would so neatly tie up so many loose ends. And depending on what insane, fiery spectacle he had in mind, he might draw so much attention to himself that keeping his existence a secret and returning him to the fold would become impossible.
“Damn,” Oslett said, shaking his head.
“Sociopathic clones,” Clocker said, almost as if trying to be irritating, “are always big trouble.”
4
Sipping hot chocolate, Paige took her turn at guard duty by the front window.
Marty was sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with Charlotte and Emily, playing with a deck of cards they’d gotten from the game chest. It was the least animated game of Go Fish that Paige had ever seen, conducted without comment or argument. Their faces were grim, as if they weren’t playing Go Fish at all but consulting a Tarot deck that had nothing but bad news for them.
Studying the snowswept day outside, Paige suddenly knew that both she and Marty shouldn’t be waiting in the cabin. Turning away from the window, she said, “This is wrong.”
“What?” he asked, looking up from the cards.
“I’m going outside.”
“For what?”
“That rock formation over there, under the trees, halfway out toward the county road. I can lie down in there and still see the driveway.”
Marty dropped his hand of cards. “What sense does that make?”
“Perfect sense. If he comes in the front way, like we both think he will—like he has to—he’ll go right past me, straight to the cabin. I’ll be behind him. I can pump a couple of rounds into the back of the bastard’s head before he knows what’s happening.”
Getting to his feet, shaking his head, Marty said, “No, it’s too risky.”
“If we both stay inside here, it’ll be like trying to defend a fort.”
“A fort sounds good to me.”
“Don’t you remember all those movies about the cavalry in the Old West, defending the fort? Sooner or later, no matter how strong the place was, the Indians overran it and got inside.”
“That’s just in the movies.”
“Yeah, but maybe he’s seen them too. Come here,” she insisted. When he joined her at the window, she pointed to the rocks, which were barely visible in the sable shadows under the pines. “It’s perfect.”
“I don’t like it.”
“It’ll work.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You know it’s right.”
“Okay, so maybe it’s right, but I still don’t have to like it,” he said sharply.
“I’m going out.”
He searched her eyes, perhaps looking for signs of fear that he could exploit to change her mind. “You think you’re an adventure-story heroine, don’t you?”
“You got my imagination working.”
“I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.” He stared for a long moment at the shadow-blanketed jumble of rocks, then sighed and said, “All right, but I’m the one who’ll go out there. You’ll stay in here with the girls.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way, baby.”
“Don’t pull a feminist number on me.”
“I’m not. It’s just that . . . you’re the one he’s got a psychic bead on.”
“So?”
“He can sense where you are, and depending on how refined that talent is, he might sense you’re in the rocks. You have to stay in the cabin so he’ll feel you in here, come straight for you—and right past me.”
“Maybe he can sense you too.”
“Evidence so far indicates it’s only you.”
He was in an agony of fear for her, his feelings carved in every hollow of his face. “I don’t like this.”
“You already said. I’m going out.”
5
By the time Oslett and Clocker left the Stillwater house and crossed the street, Spicer was getting behind the wheel of the red surveillance van.
The wind accelerated. Snow was driven out of the sky at a severe angle and harried along the street.
Oslett walked to the driver’s door of the surveillance van.
Spicer had his sunglasses on again even though the last hour or so of daylight was upon them. His eyes, yellow or otherwise, were hidden.
He looked down at Oslett and said, “I’m going to drive this heap away from here, clear across the county line and out of local jurisdiction before I call the home office and get some help with body disposal.”
“What about the delivery man in the florist’s van?”
“Let them haul their own garbage,” Spicer said.
He handed Oslett a standard-size sheet of typing paper on which the computer had printed a map, plotting the point from which Martin Stillwater had telephoned his parents’ house. Only a few roads were depicted on it. Oslett tucked it inside his ski jacket before either the wind could snatch it out of his hand or the paper could become damp from the snow.
“He’s only a few miles away,” Spicer said. “You take the Explorer.” He started the engine, pulled the door shut, and drove off into the storm.
Clocker was already behind the wheel of the Explorer. Clouds of exhaust billowed from its tailpipe.
Oslett hurried to the passenger side, got in, slammed the door, and fished the computer map out of his jacket. “Let’s go. We’re running out of time.”
“Only on the human scale,” Clocker said. Pulling away from the curb and switching on the wipers to deal with the wind-driven snow, he added, “From a cosmic point of view, time may be the one thing of which there’s an inexhaustible supply.”
6
Paige kissed the girls and made them promise to be brave and to do exactly what their father told them to do. Leaving them for the uncertainty of what lay ahead was one of the hardest things she had ever done. Pretending not to be afraid, in order to help them with their own quest for courage, was even harder.
When Paige stepped out the front door, Marty went with her onto the porch. Blustery wind hissed through the screen walls and rattled the porch door at the head of the steps.
“There’s one other way,” he said, leaning close to her to be heard above the storm without shouting. “If it’s me that he’s drawn to, maybe I should get the hell out of here, on my own, lead him as far away from you as I can.”
“Forget it.”
“But without you and the girls to worry about, maybe I can deal with him.”
“And if he kills you instead?”
“At least we wouldn’t all go down.”
“You think he won’t come looking for us again? He wants your life, remember. Your life, your wife, your children.”
“So if he finishes me off and comes after you, you’d still have a chance to blow his brains out.”
“Oh, yeah? And when he shows up, during that little window of opportunity I’ll have before he gets close to me, how would I know whether it was him or you?”
“You wouldn’t,” he admitted.
“So we’ll play it this way.”
“You’re so damned strong,” he said.
He couldn’t know that her bowels were like jelly, her heart was knocking violently, and the faint metallic taste of terror filled her dry mouth.
They hugged but briefly.
Carrying the Mossberg, she went through the porch door, down the steps, across the shallow yard, past the BMW, and into the woods without looking back, worried that he would become aware of the depth of her fear and insist on dragging her back into the cabin.