He felt a blade of ice slice into him. “Bud.”
Joe held the faltering light steady on the second horse from the left, a blue roan. Bud and Cam were starting to climb the railing to get out of the corral.
“BUD.”
Bud stopped as he straddled the top rail, and turned back to Joe.
“What is it?” “Look.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Bud Longbrake whispered. Cam said, “My God,” his voice cracking.
The horse Joe shined the flashlight on raised its head from the trough. Excess water shone on its thick lips with growing beads of bright red. A thin stream of blood ran from the chin of the animal into the trough, changing the color of the water to pink. The eyes, much larger than they should be, bulged obscenely from the sides of its head. They were lidless.
Most of the roan’s face had been cut away, and it hung in a strip from its jawbone, looking like a bloody bib.
n their way home, Joe listened in as Sheridan and Lucy described what they had seen, felt, and heard at the corral. He knew it was important for them to talk it out, even though they had told him everything after the mutilated horse was first discovered.
Bud had been kind enough to put the rifle back in the house until the Picketts were down the road, Joe had observed. When they were gone, the rancher would destroy the injured animal before it bled to death, out of the sight of Missy’s grandchildren. Joe appreciated the gesture.
Bud hadn’t said whether he planned to call Sheriff Barnum or Hersig before the morning.
“Dad, I just thought of something,” Sheridan said from the back. “What’s that?”
“Remember that feeling we had when we found the moose in the meadow?”
“Yes,” Joe said cautiously.
“I felt the same thing during my falconry lesson with Nate, when the falcons wouldn’t fly.”
“Okay.”
“Well, this time I didn’t feel anything at all. What do you suppose that means?”
Joe drove for a few miles but couldn’t come up with an answer.
n the driveway, he waited outside until Marybeth and his daughters were inside. Then he leaned against the hood of the van and crossed his arms, looking up. The sky was clear and milky with stars. It didn’t look threatening, but it did appear endless and immensely complicated. There was a sliver of a moon. Over the mountains to the west was the fine chalkline of a jet trail. He saw nothing else up there that shouldn’t be there. He didn’t know what exactly he was looking for, or what he would do if he saw anything unusual.
This thing was beyond him, he thought.
Unless . . .
Marybeth opened the front door and looked out. “Joe, are you coming in?”
“Yup.”
Later that night, at 3:30 a.m., Joe was jolted awake when Marybeth suddenly sat up in bed.
“Are you all right?” he asked her.
She was breathing deeply, trying to calm down.
“I had a bad dream,” she said. “I heard that horse screaming again and again.”
“Are you sure it was a dream?” he asked. “Yes,” she said. “Positive.”
“Do you want me to check our horses?”
She eased back down into bed. “That’s not necessary. I know it was a dream.”
He pulled her close and cupped her breast beneath her nightgown. He could feel her heart thumping. He held her until the beating slowed and her breathing flattened out. When she was asleep, he untangled himself from her and slid out of the bed.
Pulling his boots over his bare feet, clamping on his hat, and cinching the belt on his robe, Joe went outside to check the horses. He took his shotgun with him. The horses were fine, and he sighed in relief.
He was wide awake when he came back into the house. He entered his small office and closed the door, leaning the shotgun against the wall. It was so quiet in the house that he flinched at the noise his computer made as he booted it up.
Opening his e-mail program, he sat back and waited while mail flooded his inbox. Directives and press releases from the Cheyenne headquarters, spam, a message from Trey Crump with the subject line “How’s it going?,” nothing from Hersig or Dave Avery, nothing from the lab, and a very large file that took a few moments to download.
There was no subject line in the large e-mail. But the return address was “deenadoomed666@aol.com.”
He clicked on it.
As the e-mail opened, Joe felt his breath stop. “Oh, no,” he whispered.
17
Ready and waiting for Joe Pickett . . . it said in a stylized color font.
Beneath the header was a digital photo. As he scrolled down, Joe noticed how cold he suddenly felt, and cinched his robe tighter.
The photo was of Deena. She was posed on top of the metal table in the Airstream he had sat at with Garrett that morning. She was nude except for thick-soled Doc Martens boots. She sat on the table with her legs spread open, smiling coyly. She had a light blond wisp of pubic hair, and her vagina was pink and slightly parted. Her breasts were small and her nipples were pierced with silver rings and erect. Her skin was so white it hurt to look at it, except for the tattoos on her inner thighs and upper arms, and the bruises that mottled her ribs and neck. There was a compress bandage the size of a hand on her left shoulder. The bandage looked moist, the skin around it glistening. The ointment he had smelled in his coat, he thought. Across her abdomen was a tattoo that said abductee.
“Oh, no,” he said again.
She looked so young, so unbearably thin and unhealthy. He was not aroused. He was sickened.
Beneath the photo was another stylized caption.
Strong, tall, and silent, he tries to save her. But she doesn’t want saving. She wants him inside of her like an animal. She wants him to know he can do anything to her. . . .
I’m not that strong, not that tall, not that silent, Joe thought, feeling his face flush.
A second photo. On her hands and knees on the table, her buttocks aimed at the camera, her face peering back at him with a grin.
Whatever he wants, however he wants it, she is agreeable. There is nothing he can do to her that hasn’t been done. She likes his hat and wants to wear it. . . .
Another photo. This time, she is clothed. Standing outside of the Airstream wearing all black except for blood-red lipstick. She’s mugging for the camera, head tilted forward, mouth parted, trying for a seductive come-hither look.
He knows where she lives, and he can’t stay away. She won’t be there forever, he knows. She will be gone soon, permanently out of here. She knows things, and she does things. . . .
Then, of all things, a graphic of a garish, yellow, smiley face.
Will he write back soon?
oe slumped in his chair. The air in his office seemed oddly thin. He could hear the clock ticking in the living room, and Maxine snuffling outside the door to be let in.
What, he wondered, could create a girl like this? What had happened to her that resulted in this? Deena wasn’t that much older than Sheridan, but she was so different.
What had caused the horrible bruises, or the wound? Had Cleve Garrett hurt her? Or were the injuries self-inflicted? Joe shook his head. He didn’t understand why she had approached him this way. Is this what she thought all men wanted?
He rubbed his face hard with both hands, inadvertently knocking his hat off. His hat. She liked his hat.
“Joe?”
He nearly pitched out of his chair.
“Joe, what are you doing in here?” Marybeth asked, squinting from the light but looking at his computer screen.
He turned in his chair toward her. “It’s not what you think,” he said.
“And what is it I think, Joe?” Her voice had a sharp edge. “That I’m looking at pornography.”
“Well?” She jutted her chin toward the screen, her arms crossed in front of her chest.