Gowdy looked up at the tower. "That was the idea behind this. Behind Godseye."
Dunne followed Gowdy's gaze along the height of the structure. "This is a bleeding edge multimedia Bible?"
"Are you sure you don't mean Babel?" Hannahlee's voice made Dunne and Gowdy jump. She'd popped up behind them like a phantom. "As in 'Tower of...?'"
Gowdy looked at her and grinned. "Yes, this is my new Bible."
"Why call it 'Godseye?'" said Dunne.
Gowdy fiddled with the ruby stems of his glasses. "Because I designed it to give people a God's-eye view of the world. I wanted them to experience His love of humanity...and His disappointment as we tear each other and the world apart."
"And that's going to save the world?" said Hannahlee.
"Maybe someday." Gowdy walked to a nearby niche in the tower base and sat down in front of a control console.
"Someday?" said Hannahlee. "Why not now?"
"Because," said Gowdy. "I had to make a modification."
"Modification?" said Dunne.
"For an emergency," said Gowdy.
"What kind of emergency?" Hannahlee sounded skeptical.
"To save someone." Gowdy turned to the console and hit a series of buttons. "Someone in trouble."
Dunne heard whirring sounds from the tower and quickly looked up at it. He saw lenses turn and zoom, shifting position in precise mechanical increments.
"Who is this someone?" said Hannahlee.
Gowdy typed rapid-fire commands on a keyboard as he spoke. "One of the most important people in my life," he said, "who I never knew existed until three months ago."
Dunne watched as the lights on the tower adjusted, sliding and twisting with a whine of servo motors. "I don't get it," he said. "You modified this to save someone? Save them from what?"
"From going under." Gowdy checked readouts on the screens in front of him, then typed more on the keyboard. "For the last time."
Hannahlee narrowed her eyes. "Who exactly are you talking about, Cyrus?"
"You'll see." Gowdy typed fast, then checked the readouts. He pressed a button, and the tower hummed fully to life.
The bright white light that always flooded the chamber dimmed suddenly...then faded to darkness. In that new and conspicuous shade, the brightest thing by far was the tower. Dozens of tiny status bulbs sparked like stars on the stacked equipment. Radiant light glowed from the seams, breaking into luminous, pulsing streamers. Spotlights flared along the tower's height, casting multicolored circles that danced on the walls, floor, and ceiling.
"What's it doing?" said Hannahlee. "What's going on?"
"A demonstration." Gowdy hit more buttons with a flourish, then got up from the console. "Prepare to experience the emergency modification."
Dunne looked all around, uncertain what he was supposed to see first. He looked up, then down, then right, then left, as swirls of light and color caught his eye in all directions.
He wondered what was coming—if he was about to watch a glorified planetarium light show, or if Gowdy had some kind of real surprise in store.
"Sit." Gowdy pushed up a chair behind him. "Make yourself comfortable."
As Dunne eased into the chair, the play of lights accelerated. Tilting back, he watched the multicolored beams flash faster, careening through the cave.
Then, suddenly, it all stopped dead. Just for a heartbeat.
And exploded into something new.
Dunne saw an image of a face before him, suspended in midair...projected on the walls and ceiling, too. The face of a child, a young boy, drifting and turning.
And that was when Dunne realized Gowdy had at least one surprise in store. One incredible surprise.
The child's face. He recognized it.
Dunne gasped and clenched his hands on the armrests of the chair. His pulse shot from zero to a zillion in .5 seconds.
What did it mean? What would come next?
The child's face in the hovering image was his own.
Before Dunne could say a word, the image of his childhood face exploded in a shower of glittering sparks. The sparks whirled around him in a cyclone...a storm so real he heard it roar and felt it lift him from the chair.
Then, the cyclone dissolved, releasing him...and became a curtain of rippling light, an Aurora Borealis of glowing rainbow colors. Shadows appeared on the aurora, the silhouettes of a man and woman in a passionate embrace.
Suddenly, bolts of lightning cascaded from every direction, crashing into the silhouettes with shattering force. The aurora vanished in a blast of blinding light and heat so real Dunne felt it scorch his flesh.
A cloud of smoke billowed out of the heart of the blast and enveloped the room. It wasn't a digitized image; the smoke smelled and tasted so real, it made Dunne cough and choke. He heard Hannahlee cough, too.
A sea of faces appeared in the smoky haze, each one haloed in golden light. They were really just faces of the same two people, repeated over and over with different expressions and poses.
Dunne knew those two people. He recognized Hannahlee right away, years younger and damage-free. Every shot of her was a window on her days as Kitty Willow, as Lianna Caprice—all smiles and flaming red hair.
Dunne took a little longer to recognize the other person, the middle-aged man with the thick, black, bristle-brush hair. That was only because the man didn't wear his glasses in every shot; as soon as Dunne spotted the ruby-red frames in one of the pictures, he knew who it was.
Cyrus Gowdy circa Weeping Willows.
They filled the room, repeating endlessly—Hannahlee and Gowdy, thirty years younger...and from the looks on their faces, thirty years happier.
As Dunne watched, the photos started to spin, leaving trails of phosphorescent stardust as they picked up speed. The entire sea of faces revolved, turning in a monstrous wave around the inside of the domelike cave.
And then, the wave rushed away all at once, every face receding infinitely fast into nothingness. A split-second later, a single giant image flickered over the wall...an enormous block of rolling film. A home movie, complete with jumpy camerawork and bits of dust and hair on the negative.
It starred the two people whose faces had filled the cave a moment ago, and it was set on the deck of a yacht. Gowdy manned the wheel, grinning under a cockeyed captain's hat; Hannahlee's arms were wrapped around him, her chin resting on his shoulder. She wore an emerald green bikini, and huge, white-framed sunglasses were perched in her fiery hair.
While the camera rolled, Gowdy let go of the wheel and turned to take her in his arms. They kissed passionately.
And it didn't stop there.
Another block of rolling film appeared, pushing the first one aside...where it peeled from the wall and drifted through the air like a kite. The new scene on the wall featured young Gowdy and Hannahlee on a beach, rolling romantically in the sand. Again, they kissed.
And then there was another home movie, nudging the second one off the wall. The new one was shot at a backyard barbeque. Gowdy clowned around at the grill, wearing an apron and chef's hat...until Hannahlee knocked off the hat and ran away, laughing. Gowdy chased her, and he kissed her when he caught her.
There were more, many more—one movie after another. Soon, the air was full of them, turning in a carousel of laughter and kisses.
Then, new images popped into the mix, leaping from the tower to land in the floating blocks of film. Within seconds, every home movie had one of these new images attached...always smack in the middle of the kissing couple.
Always a photo of Dunne as a child.
It was then that the idea first occurred to Dunne...mostly as an errant thought that couldn't possibly be true. That he didn't take seriously.
But that point of view didn't last.
As Dunne sat there, staring at the drifting home movies, the idea began to seem less crazy. Just a little.
He thought about saying something. The urge grew stronger as the photos of him as a child started to change ...metamorphosing into p
hotos of him as a teen, then a young man...then him as he looked now, as he looked today.
He saw a resemblance, or imagined he did, to young Gowdy in the films.
Dunne opened his mouth to speak...but someone beat him to it.
"No." For the first time since he'd met her, Hannahlee sounded surprised. "It can't be!"
"Yes, it can," said Gowdy. "He's our son."
"What?" said Dunne. "You mean..."
"You're our son, Dunne Sullivan." Gowdy patted his shoulder. "We're your parents."
CHAPTER 52
"You're my mother?" Dunne flashed a look at Hannahlee.
Her emerald eyes blazed in the darkness. "I had a child." She looked at Gowdy. "We had a child."
"Which you never told me about," said Gowdy.
"You were married. You wouldn't leave your wife," said Hannahlee. "I put the baby up for adoption."
"And the baby was me?" said Dunne. "I spent most of my life in foster care."
"I don't know! I never saw the child again!" Hannahlee scowled.
"He's our son." Gowdy nodded and patted Hannahlee on the back. "I found out about him three months ago, when Luanne Diego tried blackmailing me."
Dunne scowled. Things were moving too fast for him to process. "Whoa! You mean Bella Willow was blackmailing you?"
"Oh yes," said Gowdy. "I hired people to check your background, and they confirmed the story. So did our DNA check. I'm your father." Gowdy pointed a finger at Hannahlee. "She's your mother."
Dunne got up from the chair and started to pace. "I don't believe this. It can't be true."
"It's true," said Gowdy.
Dunne glared at Gowdy. "So you never knew?" He turned his glare to Hannahlee. "But you did know and never tried to find me?"
Hannahlee's fiery emerald gaze faltered. "I've never forgiven myself for what I did." She looked at the floor. "It's a mistake I've paid for every day of my life since."
"By growing up in shitty foster homes?" said Dunne. "Getting bounced from one so-called parent to the next, always wondering why my real parents didn't love me enough to keep me? Because that's how I paid."
Hannahlee shook her head. "I always knew you were out there somewhere. My own child, my own flesh and blood. I knew you could be suffering, and it was all because of me. And there was nothing I could do about it." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "That was how I paid."
"How awful that must have been for you." Dunne's voice was thick with sarcasm. "What a nightmare."
"Well, the nightmare ends now, with a second chance," said Gowdy. "We're starting over. It's the reason I brought you here."
Dunne met Hannahlee's stunned stare, then fired a look at Gowdy. "You brought us here?"
"Yes." Gowdy grinned. "Who do you think sent you to find me?"
"Thad Glissando," said Hannahlee. "Producer at Halcyon Studios."
"Yes," said Gowdy, "and he did it as a favor to me."
"What?" said Hannahlee.
"It was a way to bring you together and bring you to me." Gowdy adjusted his ruby glasses as he gazed up at the passing home movies, which were still revolving around the tower. "It was a way to bring the family back together without you suspecting anything."
"Oh my God." Dunne felt like his head was about to explode from all the shocking revelations. "You mean...there's no big-budget Weeping Willows movie?"
"I'm sorry," said Gowdy, "but no."
"And all of it was for nothing?" said Dunne. "This whole trip to find you?"
"Not for nothing." Gowdy gestured at the drifting squares of film overhead. "We're saving someone."
"From going under for the last time." Hannahlee's voice had an angry edge. "Which someone are you talking about, Cyrus?"
"You." Gowdy pointed at Dunne. "You're the one I modified Godseye to save."
The flickering light from the home movies played over Dunne's face. "Save from what?"
"You'll see," said Gowdy. "Keep watching."
With that, he hit a button on the control console, and the home movies disappeared. The room went dark.
A new voice echoed through the chamber. A man's voice. "My name is Abe Stillwagon."
As soon as Dunne heard it, the hairs on the back of his neck fluttered and stood straight up. His heart began to beat faster.
There was something about that voice.
"I am a prisoner on death row in Texas," said Abe.
Dunne turned to Gowdy. "What is this? What's going on?"
"Just listen." Gowdy placed an index finger against his lips. "And watch."
Abe's voice continued to boom through the chamber. "I've killed fifty-seven people over the past twenty-five years."
Dunne looked at Hannahlee, but she offered no insight or support. She was too busy staring into space with her fist pressed up against her mouth. Dunne thought she might be crying.
"My trademark is this," said Abe. "I always leave the husband alive."
At that instant, Dunne's attention was fixed on the voice as if by magnets. His heart pounded as he got the slightest inkling of what this was all about.
"That's why they call me 'the Widowermaker,'" said Abe. "I only kill the wife and kids. But here's the catch."
Suddenly, a giant image leaped to life in front of Dunne—video projected in an enormous square as high as the ceiling. Video of a bony, craggy man in an orange jumpsuit, sunken-eyed and emaciated behind prison bars.
"The more the husband fights," said Abe, the man in the video, "the more I torture his wife and kids before I kill 'em."
Dunne kept watching, unable to believe what he was seeing and hearing. Unable to control the fear racing through him like a wildfire.
Because he recognized Abe Stillwagon.
The giant square of video flashed, and a new scene appeared—a middle-aged man with curly black hair and a mustache. His eyes were haunted and dead.
"He said he was going to shoot them," said the man. "I jumped him...tried to wrestle away the gun.
"When he was done kicking my ass, he killed my wife and daughters. He..." The man choked back a sob. "He did terrible things to them."
The video flashed and changed scenes again, this time to show a young man with blond hair and the same haunted eyes. "My sons died screaming. He cut them into pieces." The young man took a deep, shuddering breath and released it. "He said he tortured them...because I fought back."
A new face appeared, this time a man with broad shoulders and a crew-cut. "I'm a trained policeman, so of course I didn't just sit there." Instead of anguish, his face was etched with rage. "But Stillwagon was a fucking maniac. Beat the shit out of me, then tied me up and made me watch while he did it."
"Did what?" said a man's voice off-camera.
"Autopsied them with my power tools," said the man with the crew-cut. "My wife and my son. While they were still breathing.
"Because I tried to save them. That's what he said."
The video lingered for a moment on the man's simmering rage...until it dissolved into tears. Then, the scene changed again.
Back to the bony man in the orange jumpsuit. His eyes weren't anguished or angry at all...just cold. Expressionless as chips of stone.
It was the same look Dunne remembered from the first time he'd seen him—two years ago in Dunne's living room, murdering Dunne's wife and daughter. Vicky and Ella.
While Dunne, paralyzed by fear, had failed to act.
This was the very same man from that night. Abe Stillwagon was the man who had killed Dunne's family.
An off-camera interviewer—a woman—asked a question. "How many times did you not torture a family when the husband fought back?"
"None." Abe said it matter-of-factly and scratched his knobby nose. "It's my trademark, right? And it's a matter of principle. I want people to know they shouldn't put up a fight. The harder they make it for me, the harder I make it for their families."
Dunne kept watching, mesmerized by the sight of the man who had haunted his nightmares for so long. Hanging on
his every word.
Engulfed by the implications.
The interviewer asked another question. "Do you remember Dunne Sullivan?"
"Who's he?" said Abe.
"Two years ago, in Los Angeles, you shot and killed his wife and daughter," said the interviewer. "Dunne didn't fight back."
Abe thought for a moment. "Oh, him. One of the few."
"The few what?"
"Smart ones," said Abe. "I thought he was gonna fight me, but he didn't. So his family died in peace."
"If Dunne had fought back and couldn't beat you..."
"He couldn't," said Abe.
"if he couldn't beat you," said the interviewer, "what would you have done to his wife and daughter?"
"Instead of just shooting them, like I did," said Abe, "I would've killed them slow. While he watched. Tortured them every last second of their lives. Then cut them to pieces."
"Instead of just shooting them," said the interviewer.
"That's right," said Abe.
"No peace," said the interviewer.
"None at all," said Abe. "Not the tiniest bit."
With that, the video ended. The ceiling-high square of light in which it had played suddenly collapsed into a single, glowing dot...and then that collapsed, too.
And Dunne was left standing in darkness, mind reeling from what he'd just seen and heard.
CHAPTER 53
Warpath Journal
Dateline: New Justice, New Mexico
"Who's Amos?" Quincy's voice is the first thing I hear as I come around.
"What?" My eyes flutter open, and I see Quincy on the ground, just a few feet away. I'm lying on the ground, too, on my side. My mouth tastes like dirt.
"I was just talking to Amos." Quincy's face is still bruised and bloody from when I beat him, but he looks amused. "Or should I say, I was talking to you, and you said you were Amos."
"You're a riot, Quince." As I pry myself up from the dirt, I wonder how I ended up there. One minute, I was threatening to blow us all up...and the next minute, I was passed out on the ground.
Day 9 Page 24