The Hidden

by Bill Pronzini

  Brian Lomax.

  There was no expression on the man’s blocky, beard-stubbled face, but his eyes had a distended look, as if from some internal pressure. Crazy eyes. Crazy drunk, Macklin thought. They held briefly on him, then shifted and darted from one point to another, following the erratic, tracerlike patterns of the flash beam around the living room, over into the kitchen. Lomax wore a heavy mackinaw buttoned to the throat but no hat; rain glistened on his spiky hair and pink scalp, dribbled down around the edges of his mouth and off the tip of his chin.

  “Where’s my wife?” he said.

  It wasn’t what Macklin expected to hear. He pushed himself up gingerly until he was half sitting against the pillows. “How should I know?”

  “Has she been here?”

  “No. I thought she was sick, couldn’t leave the house—”

  “That’s right, she is, but she got out anyway. The front door … damn her, she must’ve found an extra key.”

  That sounded as if Lomax had been holding her against her will. Beating on her again, probably, keeping her prisoner—and now she’d managed to escape. If he found her, then what?

  Macklin said, trying to keep his voice neutral, “What makes you think she’d come here?”

  “No place else for her to go.”

  Except out to the highway. But if that thought hadn’t occurred to Lomax, Macklin wasn’t about to put it into his head.

  He said, “Then she must be hiding somewhere in the woods.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Lomax took the flashlight into the kitchen, then down the hall. The drumbeat of rain on the roof seemed to have let up a little; the gusts buffeting the cottage weren’t quite as strong as before. Macklin could hear him in the guest bedroom, then the master bedroom, banging closet doors. Probably down on all fours, too, looking under the beds.

  He sat up a little straighter, swung one leg off the couch. But he was afraid to try getting up. And what could he do if he did, against a healthy man of Lomax’s bulk? For all he knew, the bastard had brought that gun of his with him.

  When Lomax came stalking back into the room, Macklin said, “What’s the idea, barging in here like this? My wife told you I had a heart attack—”

  “Might be dying, she said. You look all right to me.”

  “You’re not an EMT.”

  “She’s the reason Claire got out.”

  “… What’re you talking about?”

  “Your damn wife. Trespassing on my property, pounding on the doors and windows, distracting me. It’s her fault.”

  Nothing would ever be Lomax’s fault, always somebody else’s. “Yeah, well, you’re the one trespassing now.”

  “No. She wanted me to come here.”

  “Not like this, she didn’t.”

  “Where is she?”

  “Where do you think, Lomax? Gone to bring help because you refused to do anything—”

  “Take Claire with her?”

  “What?”

  “Your wife. She took Claire with her when she left, didn’t she?”

  “No. Why would she do that? She wanted Claire to stay with me—”

  “Don’t lie to me. Has my wife been here or not?”

  “I just told you she hasn’t.”

  “And I told you I have to find her.”

  “Why? So you can beat on her some more?”

  Jerkily, Lomax moved a few steps closer to the couch. The pupils of his eyes gleamed like fragments of jet in the half light; fireglow struck sparklike glints from them. “So neither of you has seen her,” he said.

  “Not since Shelby ran into her on the beach.”

  “The beach? When? When was that?”

  “Day before yesterday.”

  “What time?”

  “What difference does that make?”

  “What time!”

  “Late morning, after your sister left.”

  “Late morning … yes, sure, all right. What’d Claire tell her?”

  “She didn’t have to tell her anything. Shelby has eyes—one look at what you did to her face was enough.”

  “Claire had it coming. If it wasn’t for her …” Lomax bared his teeth like a feral dog, smacked the flashlight hard into the palm of his other hand. The knobs of muscle along the sides of his jaw were the size of walnuts. Crazy, all right. Those bulging eyes … some sort of psychotic break? “I’ve got to find her before it’s too late.”

  “Too late for what?”

  “If she shows up here, you tell her she better go home and stay there if she knows what’s good for her. You understand?”

  No use arguing with him. You couldn’t reason with a man like Lomax when he was half drunk and worked up like this. Be a mistake to go on trying.

  “Yeah, I understand.”

  Lomax spun on his heel, stalked across the room, vanished as quickly as he’d appeared.

  But he didn’t pull the door tight shut behind him. The wind hurled it open, set it banging against the closet door behind it. Candle flames guttered, blew out in the swirls of moist air.

  Son of a bitch!

  Macklin had no choice; he had to get up, walk over there, shut that door before the cold ate up all the room’s heat.

  He threw the comforter down and swung both legs off the couch, planted his slippered feet flat on the floor. Slow, deep breath. Both hands on the couch arm, turn his body, shove up … slow … that’s it, up, all the way up … and standing, half turned, leaning on his hands.

  A little weak in the knees, but not too bad. Another deep breath. No pain or dizziness, his breathing under control. Okay. Weight off his hands and arms … straighten, slow. Experimental step to make sure of his balance, holding the blanket tight around him with both hands. Okay.

  Walk.

  Left foot, right foot, fighting the urge to hurry. Straight ahead into the wet and cold, teeth gritted, the blanket and the tails of his robe flapping against his legs. Half expecting the squeezing to start again, but it didn’t happen. Still breathing without difficulty. And surprisingly steady on his pins, despite the still-sharp prod of the wind, the icy drops blowing into his face.

  Three more steps, two, one … there. He caught hold of the door, tried to throw it shut; the wind threw it back at him. Come on, Macklin. Get a grip on the knob, lean your shoulder against the door and shove it closed. Even with a bad heart you’re stronger than the goddamn wind—

  He was turning his body, starting to push on the door, when the face appeared out of the roiling darkness outside.

  Witch’s face: slick-sheened and pasty white, one cheekbone bruised, lips split and cracked, tangled strands of hair stuck down or streaming in all directions, eyes like black holes. Startling him—his heart thumped and skipped a beat, his breath caught in the back of his throat.

  A dripping hand clawed a hold on the edge of the door, the face loomed closer. Not a witch’s face—the face of terror. And a voice to match: “Let me in … please, please, before he comes back.”

  First Lomax and now his wife.

  T W E N T Y

  SHELBY DROVE DOWN TO where the fallen tree blocked the lane, even though the distance was only fifty yards or so. The need for urgency was a constant prod. Jay’s condition didn’t seem to be as bad as she’d feared initially, but there was no way to tell for sure without a battery of hospital tests. All too often heart attacks came in pairs or bunches, spaced minutes as well as hours apart. He could have another at any time, go into cardiac arrest. And even if that didn’t happen tonight, the damage that had already been done might be severe enough to be life-threatening at some point in the future.

  Mad as hell at him for withholding Dr. Prebble’s diagnosis from her. Didn’t want to spoil the holidays for either of them. Jesus! If he’d only told her as soon as he found out, none of this coastal horror show would have happened. Right now her love for him was tempered with a thinly diluted hostility. I’ve been a burden on you so long, it can only get worse … Yes, it probably w
ould get worse before it got better, if it ever could.

  Shelby Hunter Macklin: wife, caregiver, angel of mercy, her husband’s keeper.

  The fallen tree was bigger than she’d expected, thick-boled, its jutting limbs and branches like fragmented bones in the rain. She eased the Prius to a stop close to the vine-choked trunk. Switched on the flash before she shut off the engine and headlights and got out into the squall.

  She tracked the beam to the upper end of the tree. There was a spot near the collapsed section of the estate fence where she thought she could climb over, but too many snags and splintered edges forced her back. Damn! She took the light down to the snapped-off end, found a way to get around it there by plowing through some sodden undergrowth.

  On the far side, the pavement and what bordered it on both sides were indistinguishable beyond the light’s reach. Shelby aimed her gaze and the shaft downward a few feet in front of her, focusing on the moving circle of radiance as she followed it along the lane.

  When she’d gone a hundred yards or so, around a jog in the lane, a tracery of lightning showed her a dark shape on the side of the road ahead. She lifted the flash, hurrying now, not quite believing her eyes until the beam reached far enough to reflect off streaming metal and glass surfaces.

  Car.

  Better than that, a county sheriff’s cruiser.

  Finally, a piece of good luck!

  She half ran to the cruiser. Its flasher bar was unlighted, the interior also dark. At the driver’s window she laid the lens close to the glass, cleared it with her palm and squinted to peer inside. The front seat was empty, the barrel of a Remington shotgun jutting up like a phallus from its vertical mount. She moved back to shine the light through the rear window. The area behind the separating mesh partition was as empty as the front.

  Where was the deputy?

  Why would he leave his cruiser parked here like this?

  She swung the torch around in a slow circle. Vague shapes jumped out, vanished again. Rain-heavy tree branches bobbing and weaving in the wind. The verge-flooded lane. The estate fence and closed entrance gates. All of it storm-tossed, barren, like pieces of nowhere.

  Maybe there was something wrong with the cruiser and the deputy had pulled it in here and then gone on foot to the highway— No, that couldn’t be it. The highway was several hundred yards from here. He wouldn’t have driven in this far; he’d have radioed for help and waited out there in the cruiser, dry.

  Radio, she thought.

  She pivoted back to the driver’s door and tried the handle, expecting to find it locked. It wasn’t. She let out a stuttery breath and stopped thinking about the missing deputy; pulled the door open and slid quickly inside, closing it after her.

  The dome light showed her the position of the radio and its microphone. She’d used communications of this kind for ten years, the codes up here wouldn’t be much different from those she was used to; all she had to do was contact the dispatcher and report the abandoned cruiser, request immediate assistance and a medical response unit. She set her purse down on the passenger seat, caught up the microphone, flipped a toggle—

  The driver’s door was suddenly yanked open from outside.

  A hand reached in and snatched the microphone from her, a wind-bent voice said, “No, you don’t,” and before she could turn her head all the way around, a pair of powerful arms had encircled her body and were dragging her backward out of the cruiser.

  T W E N T Y - O N E

  MACKLIN LET CLAIRE LOMAX inside, shouldered the door shut behind her. And this time reached down to throw the bolt lock.

  “Oh God, thank you.”

  She stood trembling with her arms crossed over her breasts. She was wet through to the skin; the clothing she wore—a down jacket over some kind of shirt, a pair of Levi’s, and sneakers—were all drenched and streaming. The injuries to her face were worse than Shelby had described, probably the result of a second or even a third beating over the past two days. Her terror was as naked as any Macklin had ever witnessed.

  “How long were you out there?”

  “I climbed up just before Brian got here.” The words had a staccato sound because of the way her teeth were chattering. “If I hadn’t seen him before he saw me … I hid behind one of the sheds until I saw him leave.”

  “Climbed up? You don’t mean from the beach?”

  “Yes, the beach.”

  “In this storm, with those big waves down there?”

  “There wasn’t any other way. He had the front gates locked … I was afraid he’d catch me if I tried to get out there.”

  “You could’ve been battered against the rocks, washed out to sea.”

  “I almost was. A wave knocked me down, I lost the flashlight I had …” A tremor shook her, strong enough to create a rippling effect like an aftershock. “Never mind that now. We have to get away from here before he comes back.”

  Macklin moved over to lean against the breakfast bar. He still felt pretty good, almost normal in fact, as if he hadn’t had a cardiac episode. Illusion. He’d had one, all right.

  “We can’t do that,” he said.

  “Why can’t we? You don’t understand, he’ll kill me if he finds me. He will, I’m not making that up—” She broke off, her gaze taking in the shadowy emptiness of the room. Most of the candles were out now, all except one on the counter beneath the bar top and another in the kitchen; the light from the waning fire tinged the murkiness with an eerie glow. “Where’s your wife?”

  “Gone for help.”

  “Help? In your car? Your car’s not here?”

  “Outside somewhere, but the storm blew a tree down across the lane. There’s no way past it except on foot.”

  She stared at him, disbelieving. “You mean we’re trapped?”

  “Until Shelby gets back, yes.”

  “No, no, no!” Claire’s head shook loosely from side to side like a bobble doll’s—an involuntary reflex that went on for several seconds. Then she made a little keening sound and said in desperate tones, “Have you got a gun?”

  “No.”

  “Not even a rifle?”

  “Nothing like that.”

  “Shit! He’ll shoot me if he comes back, don’t you understand that? He’ll shoot both of us!”

  “He didn’t seem that crazy,” Macklin lied.

  “But he is. You don’t know how crazy.”

  She stumbled around the breakfast bar into the kitchen, began rummaging through drawers. He knew what she was after, saw two of them in her hand when she came back into the living room—butcher knives.

  “Those won’t do any good against that automatic of his.”

  “We have to have something …” She extended one of the knives, and when he didn’t take it she dropped it clattering onto the bar. She seemed to be seeing him clearly then for the first time, the blanket he held tight-wrapped around him; a frown put lines and ridges in her ravaged face. “You said Shelby went for help. Why? What happened?”

  “I had a cardiac episode.”

  “You … what?”

  “Heart attack. Mild one, I hope, but—”

  Laughter burst out of her, sudden and hysterical. Witch’s sounds to go with the witch’s face, like mad echoes of the storm outside. It lasted ten seconds or so, morphed abruptly into sobs that shook her whole body. She moved away from him, sank into one of the dinette chairs. Sat slumped there with the butcher knife in her lap, shaking and sobbing.

  There was nothing he could do, no comfort he could give her. He said, “You’d better get out of those wet clothes. Shelby’s about your size—put on something of hers.”

  Claire didn’t seem to hear him. Lost in the clutches of her fear.

  He had to say it twice more before the words penetrated. “Go on. Take a candle into the bedroom, the one on the right. Her clothes are in the closet.”

  Another tremor prodded her off the chair. He handed her the candle from the bar; she peered at it, peered at him. Illuminated by its
flame, the whites of her eyes had the look of clabbered milk spiderwebbed with thin red veins.

  When she’d gone to the bedroom, Macklin walked slowly across to the hearth. Among the set of black-iron fire tools was a heavy poker with a hooked protrusion at the end; he caught it up, hefted it. Not much of a weapon against a handgun, but better than a knife would be. He leaned forward gingerly to poke the fire, then brought the poker back to the bar and rested a hip on one of the stools. Still feeling okay. The last of the weakness in his legs had disappeared.

  Claire seemed to have marshaled her defenses when she came back wearing one of Shelby’s sweaters and a pair of her jeans, the towel-dried blonde hair frizzed around her head like a fright wig. The terror in her eyes wasn’t quite as stark now.

  She said in a scooped-out voice, “You don’t look like you’ve had a heart attack.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s what happened.”

  “But you’re only … what, forty?”

  “Thirty-five. But age doesn’t have much to do with it,” Macklin said. “I have a blocked artery … need surgery after the holidays. Too much stress brought it on.”

  Claire moved over by the fire. He told her to add another log from the dwindling supply in the woodpile; she did that, then stood off to one side, slumped and sag-shouldered with her arms hugging her breasts. Like a woman hanging from a nail.

  “Everything happens at once,” she said. “Brian, the storm, lane blocked, medical emergency … it’s like a nightmare.”

  Yeah, Macklin thought, only this is the real thing.

  “I don’t want to die,” she said.

  “You’re not going to die, not tonight.”

  “He’s coming back.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “He is. You don’t know him.”

  “There’re dozens of places you could’ve gone, could’ve hidden. He can’t look everywhere in the dark. He won’t know you’re here.”

  “He’ll know. He’ll be back.”

  “If he does, we’ll be ready for him.”

  “Stab him? Beat his head in with that poker?”

  “If we can catch him by surprise.”

  “I’m hurt, you’re sick, we won’t stand a chance. He’ll kill us.”