Don Peters and Eric Blass had yet to be relieved at the West Lavin roadblock when a banged-up Mercedes SL600 came trundling toward them from the prison. Don was standing in the weeds, shaking off after a leak. He zipped up in a hurry and returned to the pickup that served as their cruiser. Eric was standing in the road with his gun drawn.
“Stow the cannon, Junior,” Don said, and Eric holstered his Glock.
The driver of the Mercedes, a curly-haired man with a florid face, pulled to an obedient stop when Don raised his hand. Sitting beside him was a good-looking woman. Make that astoundingly good-looking, especially after all the zombie chicks he and Eric had seen the last few days. Also, she was familiar.
“License and registration,” Don said. He had no orders to look at drivers’ IDs, but it was what cops said when they made a stop. Watch this, Junior, he thought. See how a man does it.
The driver handed over his license; the woman rooted around in the glove compartment and found the registration. The man was Garth Flickinger, MD. From Dooling, with a listed residence in the town’s fanciest neighborhood, over on Briar.
“Mind telling me what you were doing up at the prison?”
“That was my idea, Officer,” the woman said. God, she was good-looking. No bags under this bitch’s eyes. Don wondered what she’d been taking to keep her so bushy-tailed. “I’m Michaela Morgan. From NewsAmerica?”
Eric exclaimed, “I knew I recognized you!”
It meant jack shit to Don, who didn’t watch network news, let alone the blah-blah crap they put out 24/7 on the cable, but he remembered where he’d seen her. “Right! The Squeaky Wheel. You were drinking there!”
She gave him a high-voltage smile, all capped teeth and high cheekbones. “That’s right! A man gave a speech about how God was punishing women for wearing pants. It was very interesting.”
Eric said, “Could I have your autograph? It would be something cool to have after you…” He stopped in confusion.
“After I fall asleep?” she said. “I think the bottom may have fallen out of the autograph market, at least temporarily, but if Garth—Dr. Flickinger—has got a pen in his glove compartment, I don’t see why n—”
“Forget that,” Don said harshly. He was embarrassed by his young partner’s lack of professionalism. “I want to know why you were up at the prison, and you aren’t going anywhere until you tell me.”
“Of course, Officer.” She spotlighted him with her smile again. “Although my professional name is Morgan, my real name is Coates, and I’m from right here in town. In fact, the warden is—”
“Coates is your mother?” Don was shocked, but once you got past her nose, which was arrow-sharp while old Janice’s honker was crooked, he could see the resemblance. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but your mother isn’t with us anymore.”
“I know.” No smile now. “Dr. Norcross told me. We spoke to him on the intercom.”
“The man is an asshole,” the Flickinger guy said.
Don grinned, just couldn’t help it. “I’ll double down on that.” He handed back the paperwork.
“Wouldn’t let her in,” Flickinger marveled. “Wouldn’t even let her say goodbye to her own mother.”
“Well,” Michaela said, “the complete truth is that wasn’t the only reason I persuaded Garth to take me up there. I also wanted an interview with a woman named Eve Black. I’m sure you’ve heard the chatter about how she sleeps and wakes. It would have been quite a scoop, you know. The outside world doesn’t care about much these days, but it would care about that. Only Norcross said she was inside a cocoon, like all the rest of the inmates.”
Don felt compelled to set her straight. Women—even women reporters, it seemed—could be painfully gullible. “Pure bullshit, and everybody knows it. She’s different, special, and he’s holding onto her for some crazy reason of his own. But that’s going to change.” He dropped her a wink ponderous enough to include Garth, who winked back. “Be nice to me, and I might get you that interview once we spring her.”
Michaela giggled.
“I better look in your trunk, I guess,” Don said. “Just so I can say I did.”
Garth got out and wrenched open his trunk, which rose with a weary squall—Geary had taken a few swipes here, as well. He hoped this clown wouldn’t check beneath the spare tire; it was where he had sequestered the Baggie of Purple Lightning. The clown didn’t bother, just took a quick look and gave a nod. Garth closed the trunk. This produced an even louder squall, the sound of a cat with its paw caught in a door.
“What happened to your car?” Eric asked as Garth got back behind the wheel.
Garth opened his mouth to tell the lad that a crazed animal control officer had laid into it, then remembered the crazed animal control officer was now, according to Norcross, the acting sheriff.
“Kids,” he said. “Vandals. They see something nice and they just want to destroy it, don’t they?”
The clown bent down to look at the pretty lady. “I’m heading down to the Squeak when my shift is over. If you’re still awake, I’d love to buy you a drink.”
“That would be wonderful,” Michaela said, just as if she meant it.
“You guys drive carefully and have a good evening,” the clown said.
Garth dropped the transmission into drive, but before he could turn onto the main road, the kid shouted, “Wait!”
Garth stopped. The kid was bending down, hands on his knees, looking at Michaela. “How about that autograph?”
There was a pen in the glove compartment, it turned out—a nice one with GARTH FLICKINGER, MD stamped in gold on the barrel. Michaela scribbled To Eric, with best wishes on the back of a drug rep’s business card, and handed it over. Garth got rolling while the kid was still thanking her. Less than a mile down Route 31 toward town, they spotted a town cruiser coming toward them, moving fast.
“Slow down,” Michaela said. As soon as the cruiser disappeared over the hill behind them, she told him to step on it.
Garth did.
For two years Lila had pestered Clint to add her various contacts to his own, in case of trouble at the prison. Six months ago he had finally done it, mostly to get her off his case, and now he thanked God for her persistence. First he called Jared and told him to sit tight; if all went well, he told his son, someone would be along to pick him up before dark. Possibly in an RV. Then he closed his eyes, said a brief prayer for eloquence, and called the lawyer who had facilitated Eve Black’s transfer to the prison.
After five rings, as Clint was resigning himself to voicemail, Barry Holden answered. “Holden here.” He sounded uninterested and exhausted.
“This is Clint Norcross, Barry. Up at the prison.”
“Clint.” No more than that.
“I need you to listen to me. Very carefully.”
Nothing from Barry Holden.
“Are you there?”
After a pause, Barry replied in that same uninterested voice. “I’m here.”
“Where are Clara and your daughters?” Four girls, ages twelve to three. A terrible thing for the father who loved them, but maybe a good thing for Clint, awful as that was to think of; he didn’t have to talk about the fate of the world, only about the fate of Barry’s female hostages to fortune.
“Upstairs, sleeping.” Barry laughed. Not a real laugh, though, just ha-ha-ha, like a dialogue balloon in a comic book. “Well, you know. Wrapped up in those… things. I’m in the living room, with a shotgun. If anybody shows up here with so much as a lit match, I’m going to blow them away.”