"The thief in the afternoon," he intoned dryly as he picked up the receiver, turning as he did to scan the room he was in again.
The dial tone was unnervingly loud, and he winced as he leaned over to punch Garve's number. He had three done when he saw the movement at the window.
"Bob?"
Stupid, he can't hear you.
He put the receiver back and walked to the television, put his hands on the polished top and leaned close to the pane. The fog had thickened in several patches on the street, hiding the house directly across the way. Through it he could see someone moving up the street as he had. He stared for a moment, then hurried to the door and flung it open.
The wind had died.
"Bob! Hey, Bob!"
He moved to the top step and took hold of the railing, one hand pushing his jacket back as it hooked into his hip pocket. A spiderweb of mist tangled over his face and he brushed at it impatiently, wishing Cameron would get a move on so he could make the call and get back to town.
"Bob, come-"
The fog puffed like woodsmoke and peeled away, and his hand suddenly tried to pull the railing from its mooring.
Theo Vincent staggered to a halt in the middle of the road, pivoting slowly until he saw Colin at the house. His suit jacket was missing, his white silk shirt shredded to the waist, and the legs of his pegged trousers were ragged and torn and stained with wet grass. Colin saw the pink-rimmed bone that used to be the man's left knee, saw the way the man's shoes were dark and gleaming.
"Vincent? My God," he said, thinking suddenly of Tess, "what the hell happened to you?"
Vincent only shuddered, his bald scalp glittering as the fog settled over him, curled up and settled again. A piece of his shirttail beckoned in the wind.
It had to have been a car accident, he thought as he started down the steps; Vincent driving, maybe, and veering off the road and somehow hitting Tess. It was a reasonable answer, one that provided solutions to even more questions. It was trauma, fear; something had sent her away from the scene, into the woods, to the cliffs where she had tried to get help and had only succeeded in dying. Vincent seemed less badly injured, though it had to be the anesthesia of shock that kept him walking on that leg.
Just as Colin reached the last step, the injured man moved to the lip of the drive and shuddered again, the tattered flaps of his shirt pulling away from his chest at the insistence of the wind. Then he looked up and blinked slowly, wiped a hand wearily over his eyes and down to touch gingerly at the wounds on his breast.
"Bastard," he said.
Colin stopped in mid-stride.
A groan rose curiously high-pitched, and Vincent glared at Colin. "You goddamned bastard."
"Now wait a minute," Colin said, his temper ready to flare before he reminded himself sternly that the man was seriously hurt and needed a doctor.
"Bastard," Vincent said a third time, his voice cracking to a sigh. "Couldn't fight like a man, huh?"
He frowned his confusion and started forward again. "Look, Vincent, I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. Now let me help you inside, and we'll call-"
The man's hands came up and doubled into fists. He swayed, shifted his weight, and a run of fresh blood began pooling at his foot. "Couldn't fight on your own, could you, bastard? Sent your little army out, right? Couldn't do it on your own." He raised his head, aimed his chin at Colin's chest. "Whose idea was it to get me, huh? Yours? Cameron's?"
"Get you?" he asked stupidly. "Get you? Are you saying you think… my God, you can't mean that." He vacillated between concern and righteous anger, wanting to strike him, wanting to hold him until the blood stopped flowing.
"I'll kill you," Vincent said, spitting blood at the grass.
"Somebody's already had a pretty good start on you," he said coldly. "Why don't you do us both a favor and let me get you inside so I can call the doctor."
Another groan, and one arm lowered slowly. "Jesus, Ross, it hurts."
And before Colin could reach him, he toppled. His knees remained locked, his hands stayed at his side, and his forehead struck the sidewalk with a soft, watery thud. Colin was at his side in a half dozen long strides, kneeling, rolling the man over while whispering his name. Vincent's eyes were open, his face laced with blades of grass. Blood stained his teeth, and a bubble of red shimmered in one nostril. "Vincent?"
The man blinked, snorted the blood from his nose, and took a long minute focusing.
"Vincent, where was the accident? Was Lombard with you? Is he hurt?"
"No accident, bastard," and he tried to lift a hand to grab for Colin's throat.
It was unpleasantly easy to brush the arm aside, and worse when a tear slid from the corner of the man's eye.
"I didn't send anyone after you," Colin said gently. "Now you have to tell me if your buddy was with you."
"Kid," Vincent said, the deep voice so soft Colin had to lean close to understand, and could smell the bittersweet phlegm that stained the man's breath. He tried to sit up; Colin easily forced him down. "Kid."
"A kid was with you? What kid?"
"You know."
His own hand fisted, and he took a deep breath. "Vincent, this is bullshit. I didn't send anyone after you, okay? You're only making it worse for yourself. You've got to lie still or something else will go wrong. And, Jesus, will you please tell me if Lombard was in the car too?"
"Kid."
Colin lost his patience. "Goddamn it, what kid are you talking about?"
Vincent sighed through a drooling of pink saliva. "You know him, bastard. The kid with the freckles."
His eyes widened. "What? Frankie Adams?"
"The kid, you bastard. Oh, Jesus, it hurts."
Colin stripped off his jacket, and bunched it into a pillow he eased under the man's head. He leaned back and was about to ask him what he meant by accusing
Frankie Adams, when he realized that Vincent's open eyes weren't seeing a thing. "Oh… hell."
The ocean raised a cannonade high above the jetties.
He touched two fingers to the side of the man's neck, rocked back on his heels and looked over his shoulder. He knew he should have been shocked, or at least moved to some sort of decisive action, but he could only crouch there and watch the fog, half-expecting Lombard to come stumbling up the street after his friend. Then he realized that if Tess Mayfair and Vincent had survived the accident this long, Lombard might have too. He launched himself out of the crouch then and raced for the steps, banged through the door and grabbed the receiver.
He stared at the buttons, at the cradle, and stiffened as a surge of winter cold replaced all his blood. His teeth began to chatter. His hands began to tremble, first slowly, then violently, and he dropped onto the couch and closed his eyes until the delayed reaction had passed. The dial tone burred loudly. The molded plastic was ice in his palm. He shook his head once and hard, then tried to punch Tabor's number.
It took him four times before he finally got it right.
The line was busy, and he stared at the window while he counted to fifteen.
The telephone rang and Peg grabbed for it, juggled the receiver clumsily, laughed softly and self-consciously when she heart Matt giggling from his place by the door. She listened, then, and sighed with a martyred lift of her eyebrows. No, she told Hattie Mills, Chief Tabor wasn't here, but she really didn't think Reverend Otter was trying to kill her poor dog. She nodded. She grabbed the coiled cord in her right hand and squeezed it as tightly as she could. She nodded. She suggested that Hattie bring the dog inside the library where it wouldn't bother the minister, and regretted the mistake when she spent the next five minutes taking the brunt of a brusque lecture on civil liberties and the causes of the American, the French, and a dozen other revolutions whose purposes were to permit her to keep her aging dog where she damn well pleased. That in turn led to a survey of precedents for such actions leading all the way back to Saturn's revolt against the Titans. Peg agreed several times, making faces at Matt, and when she finally hung up she looked at the clock, then at her son who was closing the door against the wind.