“You’re not?”
“Of course I am. But going nuts over it is a waste of time. Like most situations in life, there’s only one question that matters: What do we do now?”
Kyle watched him, waiting for him to go on.
“I guess one thing we could do now is turn off as many inside lights as we can, and lower the blinds in any room where we want to keep a light on. I’ll check the bathrooms and bedrooms. You turn off the kitchen and mudroom lights.”
Kyle went out through the kitchen to the mudroom, while Gurney headed for the staircase. Before he got to it, Kyle called to him.
“Hey, Dad, come here a minute.”
“What is it?”
“Come here, look at this.”
Gurney found Kyle in the hallway by the side door, pointing through the glass at something outside.
“You have a flat tire. Did you know that?”
Gurney looked out. Even in the dim light cast by the forty-watt bulb over the door, there was no doubt that the front tire on the driver’s side was dead flat. And there was no doubt in his mind that the tire had been perfectly okay when he drove up to the house half an hour earlier.
“You have a jack and a spare in the trunk?” Kyle asked.
“Yes, but we’re not going to use them.”
“Why not?”
“Why do you think the tire is flat?”
“Because you ran over a nail?”
“That’s possible. Another possibility is that it was punctured by a bullet while it was parked there. And if that’s the case, the question is why?”
Kyle’s eyes widened again. “To keep us from driving away?”
“Maybe. But if I were a sniper and my goal was to keep someone from driving away, I’d shoot out as many tires as I could—not just one.”
“Then why …?”
“Maybe because one flat can be dealt with—with a jack and a spare, like you said.”
“So …?”
“A jack, a spare, and one of us kneeling out there for five or ten minutes to do the job.”
“You mean, like a sitting duck?”
“Yes. Speaking of which, let’s kill the mudroom light and get away from the door.”
Kyle swallowed. “Because that weird little hit man you just told me about might be out there … waiting?”
“It’s possible.”
“The guy I saw with the rifle down in the pine woods—he wasn’t that small. Maybe it was your neighbor after all?”
“I’m not sure. What I do know is that a very provocative message has been running on TV, a message designed to get Peter Pan to come after me. I have to assume that it might have worked. It would also be smart to assume—”
He was interrupted by his cell phone ringing in the den.
It was Esti. She sounded stressed. “Where are you?”
He told her.
“Why are you still there? You better get the hell out before something happens.”
“You sound like Jack.”
“I sound like Jack because he’s right. You have to get out now. I called you twice today after I found out about the screwup on TV. I called to tell you to get out.”
“It might be a little late for that now.”
“Why?”
“Someone may have put a bullet in my front tire.”
“Oh, shit. This is true? If this is true, you got to bring in some help. Right now. You want me to come, I can be there in maybe forty-five minutes.”
“That’s not a good idea.”
“Okay, then call 911.”
“Like I said, you sound like Jack.”
“Who the hell cares what I sound like? The point is, you need help now.”
“I need to think it through.”
“Think? That’s what you’re going to do? Think? While somebody’s shooting at you?”
“At my tire.”
“David, you are a crazy person. Do you know that? Crazy! The man is shooting, and you’re thinking.”
“I have to go, Esti. I’ll call you back in a little while.” He ended the call the same way as he had with Hardwick—breaking the connection in the middle of a cry of protest.
That’s when he remembered the message that had come in right after he’d broken off his conversation with Hardwick. He’d assumed it was the man trying to finish what he had to say, but now, as he checked, he saw that the call’s origin wasn’t Hardwick’s phone but an unknown number.
He played the message back.
As he listened to it, a chill crept up his back, raising the hairs on his neck.
A falsetto voice, shrill and metallic, a voice not quite human, was singing the most bizarre and least-understood of all children’s nursery rhymes—an inanely lilting allusion to the roseate skin sores, the flowers used to stifle the stench of rotting flesh, and the ashes of burnt corpses during one of Europe’s deadliest plagues.
Ring around the rosies,
Pocket full of posies.
Ashes, ashes,
All fall down.
Chapter 56. A Fatal Rage
“Dad?”
Kyle and his father were standing uneasily near the fireplace end of the living room—the end farthest from the kitchen area, and well away from the doors. The blinds were lowered at all the windows. The only light came from a small table lamp.
“Yes?”
“Before the phone rang, you were starting to say that we should assume that the Peter Pan guy might be out there somewhere?” Kyle shot a nervous glance at the glass doors.
Gurney took a long moment to answer. His mind kept going back to the creepy, singsong nursery-rhyme message—and how its words reflected not only its grotesque bubonic plague origins but also the Flowers by Florence and arson elements, Panikos’s own MO.
“He might be out there, yes.”
“You have any idea where out there?”
“If I’m right about the flat tire, he’d be on the west side of us, and Barrow Hill would be his likely choice.”
“You think maybe he’ll sneak down here by the house?”
“I doubt it. If I’m right about the tire, he has a sniper rifle with him. In that game, distance gives him a major advantage. My best guess is that he’ll stay—”
There was a startling flash of light, a sharp explosion, and something came smashing through one of the kitchen windows, flinging shards of glass everywhere.
Kyle cried out, “What the fuck …?”
Gurney grabbed him and pulled him to the floor, then drew the Beretta from his ankle holster, extinguished the lamp by yanking the cord out of the wall socket, and scrambled across the floor to the nearest window. He waited a moment, listening, then parted the bottom two slats of the blinds and peered out. It took him several seconds to comprehend what he was looking at. Scattered over a broad area out beyond the patio were the remains of the henhouse materials, many of the pieces burning.
Kyle’s voice behind him was a rasping whisper. “What the hell …?”
“The lumber pile … it’s … blown up.”
“Blown … what … how?”
“Some kind of … I don’t know … incendiary device?”
“Incendiary? What the hell …?”
Gurney was absorbed in scanning the area as best he could in the near-darkness.
“Dad?”
“Just a minute.” Adrenaline surging, he was squinting out at the perimeter of the area, checking for any movement. Also checking the little fires, many of which now seemed to be dying out in the damp treated lumber almost as quickly as they were ignited.
“Why?” There was a desperation in Kyle’s question that made Gurney respond.