by CJ Lyons
"I do care about you. I am going to help you. That's why Lily sent you to me. Why she gave us last night."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Lily and the Thundergod. She went over the falls for his love. This time he'll be there to catch her. And just like before, he'll move heaven and earth, send the mountain toppling down on the serpent and the unbelievers."
She didn't like the sound of that. Not at all. "How? How will he move heaven and earth?"
His smile widened to a ghastly grin. He leapt off of her, rummaged under the bed for a large box. "With this. And more like it."
He opened the box and tilted it so that she could see inside. Neatly duct-taped together were half a dozen bricks of C-4 complete with a detonator cap.
Enough to blow a good-sized chunk out of a mountain.
CHAPTER 47
Sam allowed Sarah to lead the way. Instead of following the winding trail, she set off on a trajectory that seemed to lead straight up the side of the mountain. As they climbed, alternating between traveling through dense forest, shrouded in darkness, and scrambling over exposed ledges, the sun beating down on them, Sam decided Sarah had taken this route so he'd be so out of breath that they couldn't speak with each other.
Pain speared his side with each breath and his legs had gone past pain to a rubbery numbness as he forced them to keep moving. Finally he simply stopped, sank down onto a wind-scoured ledge, gasping for breath. Sarah didn't even notice until she was half way around the next bend in the trail, then she returned, standing over him her hands on her hips.
"Thought you said you were a lumber jack or something."
"I work in a lumber yard," he corrected her. He pulled out his Camelbak and took a deep drink then handed it to her. "But Superman couldn't keep up with you when you're in a mood like this."
Her eyes grew dark and stormy as she glowered at him. "Superman wouldn't have left me fighting for the life of my son."
Not a whole helluva lot he could say to that. He kicked life back into his legs, letting them dangle over the cliff edge. Dimly in the distance he could see Hopewell and the bright expanse of the reservoir above it. For the first time, his fear of heights didn't bother him. There were so many other fears overwhelming it right now that it was crowded out.
"I have something for you," he said. She was silent for a moment before joining him on the ledge. He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and slipped Josh's photo from it. Wordlessly, he handed it to her.
She took it, her fingers trembling. Her entire body began to shake. He circled an arm around her shoulders and was surprised when she tolerated his touch, allowed him to pull her close.
"We'll make it." The words were meaningless and they both knew it, but he felt better for having said them aloud.
Before she could respond, Julia's cell phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He grabbed it. "Hello?"
"Sam the man, how the hell are you? Where the hell are you?" Alan's chipper tones smacked him like a sucker punch.
"How'd you get this number?" Sam asked cautiously.
"From the fair maiden, Miss Julia. She's currently enjoying our hospitality up at the Colonel's cabin. Logan says hello, by the way."
"Don't you dare hurt her—"
Sarah yanked at his hand, pulling the phone away from his ear so she could listen as well.
"That's up to you, now isn't it? I'm figuring Sarah is with you, so don't try anything stupid. I want to see both of you here by nightfall. Leave everything except the clothes on your backs behind. Then you and Logan will take a ride down the mountain while I entertain the ladies."
"No. I'm not going anywhere until you let Julia and Sarah go."
Alan's laughter was his only answer.
"How in the hell did you get so much C4?" Caitlyn asked Hal.
"It's not too hard when you've got one of these." He fished in his back pocket and pulled out a leather wallet. He flipped it open. A US Marshal's badge and identification. Richland's. Only it was Hal's face now on the photo.
"You killed Richland. Why?" Keep him talking, establish rapport, make him see her as a person. All the lessons in hostage negotiation that she drilled into her new agents in training ran through her mind now.
He dropped the box onto the maps and walked over to the wall smeared in blood. His finger traced over several of the drawings and she realized now that the strange figures represented the story of Lily and her god.
"She got real quiet toward the end," he said, his voice a low sing-song. The voice of a man who no longer knew what reality was. "Stopped eating, would only drink when I forced her to. Lay there, wide awake for days but not moving. We both knew the end was coming."
He spun around, his eyes blazing in the lamplight. "You know they did this to her, you know that don't you? They poisoned her and when she tried to fix the problem they ridiculed her, ignored her. They gave her the tumor." He was pacing now, voice raising. He swept the maps from the table. The box of explosives skidded across the floor. "They killed my Lily. They deserve to die."
"Of course they do," she said in a calm voice. He was more than high. He was in a full-blown meth-fueled psychotic break. "But not like this. It's too fast, too quick and easy. Why don't you let them keep drinking the water? Then they'll die of the same poison Lily died from."
His gaze darted around the room and locked on hers. "That's exactly what I told Lily. I knew you and I were kindred spirits, meant to finish this together."
He stopped pacing, perched on the edge of her bed, his body twitching so hard the bed frame bounced with his movement. He reached a hand out to stroke her jaw and she had to force herself not to flinch at his touch. "But Lily said we need to end it once and for all. Kill the serpent and destroy the poisoned well. She said a god must show more compassion than a man."
"What did Richland have to do with it?" she tried a different tack.
He laughed. His mouth opened wide enough for her to see his stained teeth, another symptom she had missed. She knew the statistics. Over a third of meth addicts held down steady jobs, quite a few of them in law enforcement. Hell, how could she have been so blind?
"Lily sent Richland to give me the means to deliver us all!" He leapt up again, began pacing once more. His speech revved up until it was almost incomprehensible. "That last day, I got a call. Bunch of kids partying up by the reservoir. I almost didn't go—hell, they'd abandoned us, I was about ready to lose the house, I knew Lily wasn't going to last long. But she spoke, for the first time in days, she looked at me and she spoke. Told me to go, do my duty." He hung his head low. "And I did."
Silence filled the room for several long moments. "I left her in here but she was so calm, so quiet that I didn't restrain her. That's when she used her own blood to leave me her final message. She jumped through the window, took the truck up to the upper falls. It was a full moon that night. A blue moon, just like tonight. She folded her clothes, set them on the hood of the truck, climbed out over the edge, and flew.
"But I wasn't there to catch her." A ragged sob choked through him. "This time I need to do it right."
Caitlyn lay there, uncertain if she should try to steer him back on topic or just let him keep rambling on. Best thing was to let him keep talking, forget she was there.
"The bank gave me a ninety day extension, but I was still drowning in unpaid medical bills, so come the end of August I knew I was going to lose the house—and with it all that was left of Lily. Then Sam came, told me about some pervert following his kid around. I called the FBI, reported it. Before I knew it, some asshole named Logan is calling me back, telling me to sit tight, make no move on Wright, that he was sending a US Marshal to assess the situation. He ordered me to give full cooperation. Said no Mayberry hick was going to screw up his operation."
Sounded like Logan and his winning ways. Hal slumped down on the bed once more, his foot tapping a staccato rhythm on the floor.
"Richland showed up, I took him to Sam's place. He said Sam was in witn
ess protection and it was his job to get him out of Hopewell before any reporters caught on, leaked his name and face to the wrong people. He told me to start surveillance on Wright, do nothing until he told me the coast was clear.
"I had the feeling something was up, it just didn't feel right." His face twisted into a wry grin. "Not even to a Mayberry hick like me. So when I saw Sam running from his house and Richland following, waving a gun, I went after them. I saw Richland shoot Sam, Sam fought back, hit Richland on the head, took his gun and got away.
"While Richland was out, I searched his pockets, found ten thousand in cash. I was waiting when Richland came to. Told him I could find Sam for him if he told me the truth and cut me in on the deal. He was woozy and angry but he told me everything. Said he'd give me the ten thousand if I'd help. I held out for twenty and when he agreed, I knew there had to be a lot more cash. It was my chance to save the house—all that I had left of Lily."
"So you took Richland up the mountain?"
"Yeah, it was easy. Man didn't know his way around the woods at all. Kept whining the whole way. It was a pleasure to shoot him, put him out of his misery. I dumped him into Snakebelly, hiked back down to the clearing, stashed the camera card I'd taken from Damian Wright's room there, and kept going down to Richland's car. In the trunk I found 90,000 cash. I drove the car over to the quarry in Merrill, ditched it in the deep water where no one would find it, and came back here."
He shook his head. "My only regret is that I didn't make it back in time to stop Damian Wright from running. He must have realized someone had been in his motel room, messing with his camera, skipped out before I could get back. I was just starting a search for him when Logan and you showed up that first time, throwing around orders like we were a bunch of buffoons. Then the rains came..."
He shrugged, still smiling. "Lily sent them, I'm sure of it. Without the rain messing with the crime scene evidence, I might not have got away with it."
"It was you. The lights by the dam, that was you?"
"Had to find the right spots. Lily led me to them." He looked down at her with fondness that made Caitlyn's stomach roil with disgust. "Just like she led me to you. Everything is in place."
The radio at his belt squawked. He ignored it, his gaze centered on hers, both palms framing her face as if she was the center of his universe. Caitlyn held her breath, trying to decide if she should break the spell or not. He had obviously just used, was twitching with the meth, what could she say to convince him to let her go?
The radio squawked again. "Come in, Chief. We have an urgent situation at the station."
He grabbed the radio, his gaze never leaving hers. His hand moved to cover her mouth, squelching any sound she could make. "I'll be there in ten," he said into the radio. He touched one finger to her lips, a bittersweet smile twisting his mouth. "Afraid I'm going to have to leave you for awhile, Caitlyn. You look tired." He stroked her forehead. "Wouldn't want to risk another migraine. Don't worry, I've got something that will put you right to sleep. You won't feel a thing."
CHAPTER 48
JD looked up in relief when Hal Waverly came storming into the police station, breaking up the knot of people who had crowded inside. Martin Fletcher, the officer on duty, was trying to write down what the Colonel was telling him while also fending off questions from the Colonel's wife and JD's father. Julia's folks worked down in Merrill and Martin had decided to hold off on notifying them until he knew what was going on.
Which would take him till about next century, JD decided after getting fed up with the officer's stupid questions. In the meantime anything could be happening to Julia.
But Chief Waverly would fix everything. He came in, took control, got the vital information from JD—actually listened to JD instead of blowing him off like Martin had. Hal had immediately begun to dispatch his men as well as the Sheriff's deputies and sent out a call for volunteers from Search and Rescue to accompany them.
"I'll need a few people to stay here and coordinate things," he said as he prepared to leave to coordinate the search himself. "Any volunteers?"
"I want to go with you," JD said as all eyes turned to him.
"I need you here, you're my only witness. Can the rest of you stay with him?" Hal asked.
"Of course we will." As usual the Colonel's wife spoke for both of them. JD's dad just nodded, his face paler and tighter than JD had ever seen it before.
"All right then. We're all on Channel 4 if you need or hear anything."
The search for Julia had begun. JD sank down to sit on the floor, his knees pulled up to his chest. Outside, in the afternoon sunshine kids were playing hopscotch, riding bikes, wasting time. But just like two years ago when he realized he'd let a killer go, JD had no interest in any of those childhood activities. He squeezed his fingers around his knees, tight enough to leave furrows in his jeans, but he felt nothing.
Grigory licked his lips after finishing a delicious lunch of leftover pasta courtesy of Sarah Durandt. She kept a well-stocked kitchen, had an admirable set of well-used but sharply hone cutlery and a cache of climbing equipment that created a myriad of interesting possibilities.
"I don't think she's coming back," Max said as he entered the kitchen.
"Why not?"
"Alexi's monitoring the police scanner. Some kid is missing and everyone's going out to look for her. She'll probably be with the rest of the others."
Grigory considered that. "All right then. Let's go speak with her father."
The drive to the café took less than ten minutes even though the SUV never made it out of second gear on the twisting road. "Looks empty," Max observed as they idled in front of the Rockslide. "Whole town does."
There was a sign on the café's door. Grigory rolled down his window and peered out. "Says they're closed for some kind of emergency—searching for a lost kid."
"What do we do now, boss? Want us to see where the searchers are based, try to find her there?"
"No need. We'll go straight to the top."
"How's that?"
"We'll ask the police." He ignored Max's look of panic and gestured for Alexi to continue driving. The squat, ugly building that housed the police station and the post office was only two blocks away. "I'll handle this. You two stay out of sight."
Without waiting for their answer, he jumped out of the Tahoe. Before he could reach the building, he spotted the police chief inside the post office. He turned the Open sign to Closed, stepped outside, then pulled the door behind him, jingling it to see if it was locked. The door stood fast.
"A little early to be closing, isn't it Chief?"
Waverly jerked up as if he'd been caught doing something illegal. Or worse. "There's been an emergency. Can't be helped." He strolled towards Grigory, one hand resting on his gun. Grigory took no offense. Police officers had a tendency to respond to him that way. "Do I know you?"
"Korsakov, Grigory Korsakov. I believe you may have done some work for one of my associates a few years ago. Jack Logan."
Waverly squinted, then nodded. "Yeah, I know Logan. Why are you here?"
"I'm looking for a few old friends. Sarah Durandt for one."
"Sorry. Can't help you there. She's gone for the weekend. To Montreal with a friend. Who else you looking for?"
Grigory gave a casual shrug as if it didn't matter if he found Sarah or not. "A few other members of her family. I believe her father owns the café down the street?"
"The Colonel? Sure. He and his wife are inside. You got business with them?"
"I was hoping they could lead me to Sam Durandt. I believe he may still be alive."
That got a reaction. Waverly's squint narrowed until his eyes were barely visible while his mouth stretched into a warped grin. "So you know Sam's alive?" A breathy whistle escaped his lips. "That changes a few things."
"How so?" Grigory was totally improvising, ready to gun down the lawman if he posed a threat, but this conversation was becoming more interesting by the minute.
> "I got a grudge to pick with Sam. As well as the folks inside." He jerked his head in the direction of the building behind them. "Be nice to flush him out. Before tonight."
"I might be able to help with that."
Waverly scrutinized him and gave a slow nod. "You might at that. But I want to leave Sarah out of it. Deal?"
Grigory extended his hand. "Deal."
CHAPTER 49
"We have to do what he wants," Sam was insisting as they hiked the last hundred yards to the Colonel's cabin.
Sarah ignored him, trying to puzzle out alternative options. She wanted so badly to stop Alan and Logan that she dreamed up scenarios more fanciful than any Hollywood could ever devise.
For once, Sam had been the voice of reason, pointing out each of her plan's flaws.
"How can you be so calm?" she snapped.
"Josh is safe. If I get them their money, you and Julia will be safe too," he said in a confident tone. "That's all I care about anymore."
She stopped short, grabbed his arm. "You'd better care about more than that. You'd sure as hell better care about getting out of this alive." She swiped away unbidden tears as he stared down at her with a sorrowful expression. "Damn you, Sam Durandt, don't you give up on me, not after all the shit you've put me through. It's going to take me a lifetime to pay you back for the hell I've gone through and I want you to suffer every minute!"
He threw his head back and laughed. "That's my Sarah. You sure know how to make me an offer I can't refuse."
"If you won't fight for me, then fight for your son. To see Josh again."
"I am fighting for Josh," he said, one finger tracing her cheekbone, wiping the single tear that escaped her eye. "And you. No matter what happens, promise me you'll remember that? And maybe tell Josh that his old man wasn't as bad as everyone says."