The kid appeared to be consulting a book, or maybe a laptop. David couldn’t see from where he sat.
“I don’t have anything here. No Worthington,” he said. “When did you say they arrived?”
“Thursday, probably.”
“Did they have a reservation?”
David was betting Samantha had not made one. If she’d just found out about Brandon’s escape, there wouldn’t have been time. She’d have thrown everything they needed into the car and just taken off.
“I doubt it,” David said.
“Well, if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have been able to get in. All the sites had been booked ahead by Wednesday.”
David felt deflated. He’d played a hunch and it had been wrong. But just because Sam wasn’t here didn’t mean she couldn’t have tried another campsite in the area.
“Thanks,” he said to the kid. He drove out of the park, then pulled over onto the shoulder of the road to consult the Web browser on his phone, thinking he’d get the names and locations of other nearby campsites.
Except he couldn’t get online. He had no bars on his phone. He couldn’t get cell service here.
Maybe that was why Samantha hadn’t taken any of his calls, or tried to get in touch with him. He felt simultaneously discouraged and encouraged. He believed he was on the right track, but was still no closer to finding them.
He got out of the car and walked back to the booth.
“If you’re full up, where might you send someone to try next?”
The kid in the booth didn’t hesitate. “Probably Call of the Loon.”
“What?”
“I know, seriously. A pretty dumb name for a place. Call of the Loon Acres. About five more miles up the road that way. They try to squeeze in extras even when they’re booked solid.”
“Thanks,” David said, and ran back to the car.
FORTY-THREE
Duckworth
WHEN the alarm went off at six, I was dreaming. It was more a nightmare than a dream, but no one ever says they were nightmaring. But that’s a more accurate word for what I was doing when the clock radio started to beep.
I’m in the park by the falls. It’s dusk and I am standing on the sidewalk by the road that runs parallel to the park.
I hear screaming. It seems to be coming from all directions. I turn and look one way, thinking that is where the screams are originating. But I no sooner spin around than the screams seem to be coming from behind me. I keep spinning round and round, and pretty soon it’s as though the screams are coming from everywhere.
I am turning and turning to the point of dizziness. Finally I stop, pretty sure the screams are not all around me, but near the base of the falls. I start walking in that direction; then I feel a tap on my shoulder.
I spin around suddenly and there, directly in front of me, is Olivia Fisher.
She is looking at me quizzically, an almost naive expression on her face. She says, “Didn’t you hear me?”
“I did,” I say. “I just couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.”
“It was coming from here,” she says, opens her mouth wide, and points into it. But her mouth has opened unnaturally wide, as though her jaw is no longer hinged.
And blood begins to pour from her mouth, like water gushing from an opened fire hydrant. Blood spills over me, and I look down and see that within seconds it is up to my knees.
Even though her mouth is flowing with blood, I can still hear her speaking to me. “Do you know what my favorite number is?”
“No,” I say.
“Twenty-three. Do you know why?”
“Tell me.”
“You already know. You’ve figured it out.”
“No, I haven’t. I’m not sure. I-”
“Oh, dear,” Olivia says. Her mouth is back to normal now, no blood flowing from it. But she has her hands over her stomach, where her entrails are spilling out. She is attempting to stuff them back in.
“How will I explain this to my mother?” she asks.
The alarm wakes me before I can offer her a suggestion.
Maureen sat up in bed as I reached over to kill the alarm. “If that hadn’t gone off, I’d have woken you up,” she said. “You were starting to shout things. You were having a nightmare.”
“Yeah,” I said, throwing back the covers and putting my feet on the floor. I had a headache and my mouth was dry.
“I can make coffee,” Maureen said. “I got bottled water yesterday.”
“You went down to Finley’s circus?”
“I got it at the Stop and Shop.”
I checked my phone, which was recharging on my bedside table. I hadn’t muted it when I’d turned out the light, in case someone tried to reach me in the night. But there was a text message on the screen.
“I never heard this come in,” I said.
“You were out cold,” Maureen said. “When did it show up?”
I looked. The text was from Joyce Pilgrim, and she’d sent it at eleven forty-five p.m. About half an hour after I’d lost consciousness. I told Maureen.
“I hadn’t come to bed yet,” she said, “so I never heard it, either.”
I read the message: Call me when you get this. Might have something.
“Shit,” I said.
Maureen threw back the covers and headed downstairs as I texted back to Joyce: Just got this. If you’re up, phone me.
I took the phone with me into the bathroom, placing it on a shelf just outside the shower. And thought: Is it safe to take a shower?
I’d had one the morning before with no ill effects. Maybe water laced with sodium azide was enough to kill you if you drank it, but its effects were negligible when it washed over your skin. Those granules I’d touched the day before had made my finger itch, but hadn’t burned through my skin or anything.
I made a call to the station to see what the latest updates were. The state health officials believed the contaminated water had moved through the system, but to be on the safe side, they were recommending against drinking anything from the taps for at least another forty-eight hours. Water for nondrinking purposes was believed to be safe. In the case of a shower, they advised, let it run for a good five minutes before stepping in.
Well, that was a relief. The idea of taking a bath with several bottles of Finley Springs water did not appeal to me.
I turned on the water and let it run.
After five minutes, I stripped out of my pajamas and stepped
under the hot spray. I was rinsing shampoo out of my hair while soaping up my ample belly when my cell phone rang.
“Goddamn it.”
I turned off the shower while still soapy, reached out for a towel to get my hands dry enough to pick up the phone without dropping it, then, still in the stall, put the phone to my ear.
“Yeah?”
“It’s Joyce. I got your text.”
“Okay,” I said. “Sorry. I was asleep when you sent yours. Just saw it.”
“I figured.”
“So what have you got?”
“A witness. Maybe. Not a great one, but a witness.”
“Go on,” I said, using my free hand to wipe away some shampoo that was trying to find its way into my eye.
“So I did what you asked. I reviewed the surveillance footage.” She told me about seeing a car park near Lorraine Plummer’s residence around the time of her murder, a man getting out and returning.
“What did he look like?”
“You can’t tell a thing from the video,” she said. “And you can’t get any kind of a good look at the car, either.”
“Well, still, that’s something. Maybe we can get someone to enhance the video, or maybe there are some other cameras along the way to Thackeray we can check. But what’s this about a witness?”