Evie might be able to stop it. Evie might be able to wake Lila up. She might be able to wake all of them up. Clint might get her to see reason. The world might be returned to normal. Despite everything that Clint knew about the science of medicine—everything that said that Evie Black was just a madwoman with delusions of grandeur—too much had happened for him to entirely refute her claims. Madwoman or not, she had powers. Her lacerations had healed in less than a day. She knew things she couldn’t know. Unlike every other woman on the planet, she slept and woke.
The big man, Geary, slipped his fingers through the fencing of the front gate, and gave it an experimental shake. Then he crossed his arms and peered at an electronic lock the size of a boxing glove.
Clint saw this, noted how Terry had wandered off to toe the dirt at the roadside and nip at the flask, and concluded that serious trouble might be brewing down the road. And maybe not that far down.
He tapped the intercom. “Hi there. So are we all set? Terry? And Frank? You’re Frank, aren’t you? Nice to meet you. You got the picture?”
Instead of responding, the new deputy and the acting sheriff went back to their police car, climbed in, and departed. Frank Geary drove.
There was a scenic turnout halfway between the prison and the town. Frank swung in and cut the engine. “Isn’t this a sight?” he said in a low, marveling voice. “You’d think the world was just the same as it was last week.”
Frank was right, Terry thought, it was a fine view. They could see all the way to Ball’s Ferry and beyond—but it was hardly time to admire the countryside.
“Um, Frank? I think we should—”
“Discuss it?” Frank nodded emphatically. “Just what I was thinking. My take’s pretty simple. Norcross may be a psychiatrist or whatever, but his advanced degree must’ve been in bullshit. He gave us a classic runaround, and he’s going to keep on doing it until we refuse to accept it.”
“I guess.”
Terry was thinking of what Clint had said about drinking on the job. He was probably right, and Terry was willing to admit (if only to himself) that he was close to being drunk right now. It was just that he felt so overwhelmed. Sheriff was no job for him. When it came to law enforcement, he was strictly deputy class.
“What we need here is closure, Sheriff Coombs. Not just for us, for everyone. We need access to the woman in the picture he sent, we need to cut open the webs over her face, and make sure it’s the same face as the woman in the ID photo. If that turns out to be the case, we can go to Plan B.”
“Which is what?”
Frank reached into his pocket, produced a pack of bubblegum, peeled a piece out of its wrapper. “Fuck if I know.”
“Cutting the cocoons is dangerous,” Terry said. “People have died.”
“Which makes it damn lucky that you’ve got a certified animal control specialist on your team. I’ve dealt with some mean dogs in my time, Terry, and once I got called out to deal with a very pissed-off bear that managed to wrap himself up in barbed wire. To deal with Ms. Black, I’ll use my biggest catch-pole, the Tomahawk ten-foot. Stainless steel. Spring lock. Drop the noose around her neck before snipping the shit over her face. Yank it as tight as I have to when she starts to buck and snap. She might lose consciousness, but it won’t kill her. The stuff’ll grow back, and when it does, she’ll go sleepy-bye again. All we need is a look. That’s all. A quick look.”
“If it’s her, and all the chatter turns out to be bullshit, everybody’s gonna be disappointed,” Terry said. “Including me.”
“Me, too.” Frank was thinking of Nana. “But we have to know. You see that, don’t you?”
Terry did: “Yeah.”
“The question is, how do we get Norcross to give us access? We could raise a posse, and we might have to, but that’s a last resort, don’t you think?”
“Yes.” Terry found the idea of a posse unpleasant bordering on stomach-churning. In the current situation, a posse might well turn into a mob.
“We could use his wife.”
“Huh?” Terry stared at Frank. “Lila? Say what?”
“Offer a swap,” he said. “You give us Eve Black, we give you your wife.”
“Why would he go for that?” Terry asked. “He knows we’d never hurt her.” When Frank didn’t reply to this, Terry grabbed Frank by the shoulder. “We would never hurt her, Frank. Never. You get that, right?”
Frank shook loose. “Of course I do.” He showed Terry a smile. “I’m talking about running a bluff. But it’s one he might believe. They’re burning cocoons in Charleston. Just panicky social-media-driven bullshit, I know. But lots of people believe it. And Norcross might believe we believe it. Also… he has a son, right?”
“Yeah. Jared. Nice kid.”
“He might believe it. He might be persuaded to call his dad and tell him to give the Black woman up.”
“Because what, we threaten to burn his mother like a mosquito on a bug light?” Terry couldn’t believe the words he was hearing himself say. No wonder he was drinking on the job. Look at the kind of discussion he was being forced to have.
Frank chewed his gum.
“I don’t like it,” Terry said. “Threatening to burn up the sheriff. I don’t like it a bit.”
“I don’t like it, either,” Frank said, and this was the truth. “But desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.”
“No,” Terry said, for the moment not feeling drunk at all. “Even if one of the teams find her, it’s a flat no. And hell, for all we know, she’s still awake. Put on her boogie shoes and blew town.”
“Left her husband and son? Left her job, with things messed up like they are? You believe that?”
“Probably not,” Terry said. “One of the teams will find her eventually, but using her that way is still a no. Cops don’t make threats, and cops don’t take hostages.”
Frank shrugged. “Message received. It was just an idea.” He turned around to face out through the windshield, started the engine and backed Unit Four onto the highway. “I suppose somebody checked Norcross’s house for her?”
“Reed Barrows and Vern Rangle, yesterday. She and Jared are both gone. Place is empty.”
“The boy, too,” Frank said thoughtfully. “Babysitting her somewhere, maybe? Could have been the shrink’s idea. He ain’t dumb, I’ll give him that.”
Terry didn’t reply. Part of him thought having another nip was a bad idea, but part of him thought one more couldn’t hurt. He fished the flask out of his pocket, unscrewed the cap, and offered it to Frank first, which was only polite, since it was his.
Frank smiled and shook his head. “Not while I’m driving, amigo.”
Five minutes later, as they were passing the Olympia Diner (the sign out front no longer attempted to entice passersby with the promise of egg pie; now it read PRAY FOR OUR WOMEN), something the headshrinker had said over the intercom came to Frank. Since Hicks walked off on Friday morning, I’m the only administrative officer this prison’s got.
His big hands clamped down on the wheel, and the cruiser swerved. Terry, who had been dozing, snapped awake. “What?”
“Nothing,” Frank said.
Thinking about Hicks. Wondering what Hicks knew. Wondering what Hicks had seen. But for now, he would keep these questions to himself.
“Everything’s fine, Sheriff. Everything’s fine.”