“By most standards, I was.”
“Wonder who lives there now.”
“The Meads,” the Lady said. “Tom and Alice, and their daughters Selena and Emily.”
“Can you tell where anybody is at any given time?” Jack said. “I mean, do you keep track of all of us?”
She shook her head. “The noosphere is a unified consciousness. No identities there. However, when I am near enough to individuals here, I know identities. After all, they help keep me here.”
Jack noticed with a start that the lightning tree was still standing-how had it lasted so long?-and then they entered the Pine Barrens, the million-plus acres of mostly uninhabited woodland sitting in the belly of New Jersey. Jack steered onto one of the firebreak trails that crisscrossed the area. He experienced the same creepy sensation he’d get when riding his bike into the trees as a kid. The forty-foot scrub pines got thicker and thicker, their crooked, scraggly branches leaning over the path as they crowded its edges. He remembered imagining them shuffling off the path ahead of him and then moving back in to close it off behind.
Dumb question, but he asked Weezy anyway: “You remember the route?”
“I think so.”
He hadn’t expected that. “ Think so?”
She smiled. “Just kidding. I remember it exactly.” She tapped her forehead. “The map’s right here.”
He followed her directions on which way to turn as the firebreak trails forked left and right. The NO FISHING / NO HUNTING / NO TRAPPING / NO TRESPASSING signs posted along the way confirmed that they were on land owned by “Old Man Foster,” known to them now as Glaeken. But that was about all he knew for sure. He was thoroughly lost by the time she told him to stop.
He scanned the surrounding trees, which looked pretty much like all the myriad others they’d passed.
“You sure this is the place?”
“You remember it as burned out. That was decades ago.”
The Lady had already stepped out of the car and was starting into the trees. Jack and Weezy hurried after her.
“You know where you’re going?” Weezy said.
“Of course.”
Yeah, well, of course.
Somewhere in all the revived undergrowth-winter bare now-lay the remnants of a burial mound he and Weezy had explored as kids. What they’d found had set a whole deadly chain of events in motion. Sometimes secrets were better left secret.
The Lady, wearing only a housedress, forged ahead, moving easily through the brush, with nothing snagging her clothing that wasn’t clothing. Clouds had moved in and the temperature had dropped, but as usual she didn’t appear to notice.
Then they broke into the pyramid’s clearing and Jack had to stop and take it in, just as he had the first time he’d seen it at age fourteen.
Six huge, elongated triangular megaliths stood in a circle, their bases buried in the sandy soil with their pointed ends jutting skyward and leaning toward each other.
Godzilla pizza slices…
One had broken off halfway up, but the points of the other five met at the pyramid’s apex, fifteen feet above the ground.
The Lady’s new home.
3
Dawn checked her gas gauge. Getting low. She’d never guessed she’d be driving all the way out to Long Island’s South Fork. But no way she could stop. She’d lose Dr. Heinze and never find him again.
If she’d had unlimited funds she could have bugged his car-was “bugged” the right word?-with some sort of transmitter that would have allowed her to follow him on a GPS map.
She wondered if he was at all concerned about being followed. He didn’t seem to be. No big deal on the LIE, but here on the narrower, slower Montauk Highway, he might notice the same Volvo behind him mile after mile. So she kept a car or two between them.
She followed him through all the Hamptons-West-, South-, Bridge-, and East-and Amagansett as well. She was wondering if he was going all the way to Montauk Point when his left blinker started flashing and he turned off at someplace called Nuckateague. She started to follow him into the hairpin turn but stopped herself. No. Too, too obvious. She had to be totally careful now because hers was the only other car in sight.
It killed her to keep driving but she did. But only for an eighth of a mile or so, then she made a U-turn and raced back. Her heart thumped out a dance beat. She’d never heard of Nuckateague and had no idea how big it was. Couldn’t be too big because the South Fork was so narrow out here, but Dr. Heinze could be checking on a summer place he owned and have his car garaged before Dawn caught up to him. Then what?
She turned off at the Nuckateague sign and raced up a narrow blacktop called Nuckateague Drive. She slowed as she came to a street that ran off to the left-Bayberry Drive. Nothing moving there. She pushed on and stopped when her street ended at a T intersection with Dune Drive. She looked right and left-again nothing moving in either direction. She tossed a mental coin and turned right.
Her tension increased as she ran the length of the waterfront homes with no sign of a silver Lexus. She reached the east end of the road and raced back to the intersection. Only a few houses on the west end of Dune Drive, one of them dominating the waterfront with its own lagoon cut in from the bay. The houses she’d seen so far were just that-houses. This was totally a mansion.
She drove past it and spotted a silver Lexus with MD plates, parked near the lagoon by what was either a garage or boathouse.
Gotcha.
Either pediatric surgery was a very lucrative specialty or Dr. Heinze had some rich friends or relatives.
Or-hope-hope-hope-he was making a house call.
Dawn kept moving, then made a quick left into the driveway of a house two lots west and across the street. She twisted in her seat and checked out the mansion. She had a clear view of the front door, the lagoon dock, and the Lexus from here. Perfect.
Now… if she could only stay here.
She checked out the house before her: a two-story saltbox clad in weathered cedar shakes. It looked empty.
She left her car running and stepped to the front door where she rang the bell and waited. If someone answered, she’d ask if they knew where so-and-so lived.
No answer, so she rang again.
Still no answer.
Cool.
She tightened her coat around her against the buffeting wind off the bay-they kept talking about a big storm coming-and checked out the neighbors. Only half a dozen houses down here on the west end of the street, and they all looked deserted. The Lexus was the only car in sight.
No surprise. Some of these were summer homes, some were year round. But if you could afford to live out here, you probably spent the winter months someplace warm. Like Key Biscayne or Naples, or the Keys.
She returned to her car, pulled out, then backed in close to the garage so she was half hidden but still had a view. She turned off her engine-save that gas-and settled down to watch.
Not ten minutes passed before she saw movement around the far side of the house.
A boat was bobbing down the lagoon toward the dock, moving backward. A small white cabin cruiser, twenty-five feet long, with a couple of fishing rods poking up from the rear and a lone man at the helm. As it eased against the dock, the driver-captain? pilot?-hopped out and grabbed the lines. A big man, bundled up and wearing a slicker against the cold and wet. Something familiar about him…
After he’d tied the lines, he went to a compartment by the transom and pulled out a string of four flat fish. He’d had his head down or turned away since he arrived, but now he raised it. He wore a satisfied grin on a face Dawn knew all too well.
“Oh… my… God!” she said aloud.
Her mouth went dry as her heart doubled its rate.
Georges… Mr. Osala’s driver and general gofer.
If he was here, and Dr. Heinze was here, that could only mean her baby was here too. Probably inside with that bitch Gilda. And maybe Mr. Osala as well.