by Nora Roberts
He gestured Bud inside, and the deputy took a strategic step so that the mayor was between him and Min. “I appreciate it, Mr. Atherton.”
“Our civic duty.” His eyes and voice were grave. “Can you tell me how things are going?”
“We ain’t found a trace. I’ll tell you, Mr. Atherton, the sheriff’s worried sick. Don’t think he’s slept more’n an hour at a stretch since it started.”
“It must be a dreadful strain on him.”
“I don’t know what he’ll do if we don’t find her. They were talking marriage, you know. Why, he’d even called up an architect about building Clare a studio over to his house.”
“Is that so?” Min’s gossip glands went into overdrive. “Could be the girl got cold feet and ran off.”
“Min—”
“After all, James, she already failed at one marriage. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman just up and took off when the pressure built up.”
“No …” Atherton stroked his bottom lip gravely. “No, I suppose you’re right.” He waved the thought away, hoping it had taken root. “We’re holding up Deputy Hewitt. Start anywhere you like. We have nothing to hide.”
Annie wasn’t in her trailer. Nor could Cam find her in any of her usual haunts around town. The best he could do was have a neighbor promise to see that she stayed put when she got back.
He was running in circles, he thought as he headed back to town. Chasing his tail just like they wanted him to. He knew more than they realized. He knew that the passbook with Kimball’s and Biff’s names had been a plant. What he didn’t know was whether Bob Meese had found it or had merely been following orders.
He knew that rituals were held on a regular basis. At least monthly, from what Mona had finally told him. But he didn’t know where.
He knew there were thirteen men involved, from Clare’s sketch and Mona’s corroboration. But he didn’t know who.
So when you added it all up, he thought as he pulled up in front of Ernie’s house, you still got zero.
The worst was that he couldn’t afford to share what he did know with anyone, not even Bud or Mick. Even in a town as small as Emmitsboro, thirteen men could hide easily.
He hoped Ernie would answer the door. He was in the mood to choke some answers out of the boy. But it was Joleen Butts who answered.
“Mrs. Butts.”
“Sheriff?” Her eyes darted behind him. “Is something wrong?”
“We’re conducting a house-to-house search.”
“Oh, yes. I heard.” She twisted her beads. “I guess you can get started. Excuse the mess. I haven’t had a chance to pick up.”
“Don’t worry about it. Your husband’s been a big help with the search party.”
“Will’s always the first to volunteer, the last to leave. I guess you’ll want to begin upstairs.” She started to lead him up, then stopped. “Sheriff, I know you’ve got a lot on your mind, and I don’t want to sound like an overanxious mother, but Ernie … he didn’t come home last night. The therapist says it’s a very common behavior pattern, given the way Ernie feels right now about himself and his father and me. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid something might have happened to him. Like Clare.” She rested her hand on the banister. “What should I do?”
Cam was on his way back out of town when he passed Bud’s cruiser. He signaled, then stood, straddling his bike as Bud backed up and leaned out the window.
“Where’s Mick?”
“Supervising the search on the other side of Gossard Creek.” Bud wiped his sweaty forehead with a bandanna. “I had radio contact about twenty minutes ago.”
“Did you finish the house-to-house?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Cam.”
Cam looked out, over a field of corn. There was a haze of heat hovering like fog. Above, the sky was the color of drywall. “You know that kid, Ernie Butts?”
Sure.
“The truck he drives?” “Red Toyota pickup. Why?” Cam looked back at Bud, steadily. He had to trust someone. “I want you to cruise around, keep your eye out for him.”
“Did he do something?”
“I don’t know. If you spot him, don’t stop him. See what he’s up to, but don’t stop him. Just contact me. Just me, Bud.”
“Sure, Sheriff.”
“I’ve got another stop to make.” He checked the sky again. It was the longest day of the year, but even that didn’t last forever.
As Cam parked in front of Annie’s trailer, Clare tried to claw her way out of the sticky mists the drug coated over her mind. She recited poetry in her head, old Beatles lyrics, nursery rhymes. It was so hot, so airless in the room. Like a coffin. But you were cold in a coffin, she reminded herself. And she’d already soaked through the sheets that day.
She wasn’t certain how much longer she could take lying in the dark. How much time had passed? A day, a week, a month?
Why didn’t someone come?
They would be looking. Cam, her friends, her family. They wouldn’t forget her. She’d seen no one but Doc Crampton since the night she’d been brought there. And even then she wasn’t certain how many times he had sat beside the bed and popped a drug in her veins.
She was afraid, not only for her life but for her sanity. She knew now that she was too weak to fight them, whatever they did to her. But she was desperately afraid she would go mad first.
Alone. In the dark.
In her more lucid moments, she plotted ways to escape, then expose them all and clear her father. But then the hours would pass in that terrible, dark silence, and her plans would turn into incoherent prayers for someone, anyone, to come and help her.
In the end, it was Atherton who came. When she looked up and saw him, she knew she wouldn’t spend another night lying in the dark. It was the shortest night of the year, for everyone.
“It’s time,” he said gently. “We have preparations to make.”
It was his last hope. Cam stood in front of the empty trailer. His last hope centered on the chance that Crazy Annie knew something. And if she knew, she would remember.
It was a crap shoot, and he wouldn’t even have the chance to roll and come up seven if she didn’t get home.
It came down to this, him and a sixty-year-old woman with an eight-year-old’s mind. They weren’t getting a hell of a lot of outside help. He hadn’t been able to prove conspiracy or ritual slayings. All he had proven was that Carly Jamison had been held in a shed, murdered, buried, and exhumed to be placed in a shallow grave in a hay field. The fact that a dead man had had an accomplice didn’t prove cult killings—not as far as the State boys or Feds were concerned. They’d helped in the search for Clare, adding men and helicopters. But even with them, he’d turned up nothing.
Time was running out. He knew it. The lower the sun dipped in the sky, the colder he became, until he wondered if by nightfall his bones would be brittle as ice.
He couldn’t lose her. And he was afraid because the thought of it was so abhorrent that he had rushed and fumbled in his search for her and made one tiny miscalculation that could cost Clare her life.
Three steps behind, he thought, and falling through.
He hadn’t forgotten how to pray, but he’d taken little time for it since his first decade, when there had been CCD classes and mass on Sunday, monthly confessions with strings of Our Fathers and Hail Marys to cleanse his youthful soul of sin.
He prayed now, simply and desperately as the first streaks of red stained the western horizon.
“ ‘Beyond the sunset, O blissful morning,’ ” Annie sang happily as she toiled over the hill. “ ‘When with our Savior heav’n is begun. Earth’s toiling ended, O glorious dawning; Beyond the sunset when day is done.’ ”
She dragged her bag behind her and looked up, startled, when Cam raced the last yards toward her. “Annie, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’ve just been walking. Gosh Almighty, it’s a hot one. Hottest day I remember.” Sweat had stained her checkered dress from nec
k to hem. “I found two nickels and a quarter and a little green bottle. Do you want to see?”
“Not right now. There’s something I want to show you. Can we sit down?”
“We can go inside. I can give you some cookies.”
He smiled, straining for patience. “I’m not really hungry right now. Can we just sit down on the steps there, so I can show you?”
“I don’t mind. I’ve been walking a long way. My dogs are tired.” She giggled at the expression, then her face lit up. “You brought your motorcycle. Can I have a ride?”
“Tell you what, if you can help me, I’ll take you out real soon, all day if you want.”
“Really?” She petted the handlebars. “You promise?”
“Cross my heart. Come on, Annie, sit down.” He took the sketches from the saddlebag. “I have some pictures to show you.”
She settled her solid rump on the yellow stairs. “I like pictures.”
“I want you to look at them, look at them very carefully.” He sat beside her. “Will you do that?”
“I sure will.”
“And I want you to tell me, after you’ve looked at them, if you recognize the place. Okay?”
“Okeedoke.” She was grinning widely when she looked down. But the grin faded instantly. “I don’t like these pictures.”
“They’re important.”
“I don’t want to look at them. I have better pictures inside. I can show you.”
He ignored his rapidly beating pulse and the urge to grab her by her poor wrinkled neck and shake. She knew. He recognized both knowledge and fear in her eyes. “Annie, I need you to look at them. And I need you to tell me the truth. You’ve seen this place?”
She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head.
“Yes, you have. You’ve been there. You know where it is.”
“It’s a bad place. I don’t go there.”
He didn’t touch her, afraid that no matter how he tried to keep his hand easy, his fingers would dig right through her flesh. “Why is it a bad place?”
“It just is. I don’t want to talk about it. I want to go in now.”
“Annie. Annie, look at me now. Come on. Look at me.” He forced himself to smile when she complied. “I’m your friend, aren’t I?”
“You’re my friend. You give me rides and buy me ice cream. It’s hot now.” She smiled hopefully. “Ice cream’d be good.”
“Friends take care of each other. And they trust each other. I have to know about this place. I need you to tell me.”
She was in an agony of indecision. Things were always simple for her. Whether to get up or go to bed. Whether to walk west or east. Eat now or later. But this made her head ache and her stomach roll. “You won’t tell?” she whispered.
“No. Trust me.”
“There are monsters there.” Her voice continued to whisper through her wrinkled lips. An aged child telling secrets. “At night, they go there and do things. Bad things.”
“Who?”
“The monsters in the black dresses. They have animal heads. They do things to women without clothes on. And they kill dogs and goats.”
“That’s where you found the bracelet. The one you gave to Clare.”
She nodded. “I didn’t think I should tell. You’re not supposed to believe in monsters. They’re just on the TV. If you talk about monsters, people think you’re crazy, and they lock you up.”
“I don’t think you’re crazy. And no one’s ever going to lock you up.” He touched her then, stroking her hair. “I need you to tell me where the place is.”
“It’s in the woods.”
“Where?”
“Over there.” She gestured vaguely. “Over the rocks and through the trees.”
Acres of rocks and trees. He took a deep breath to keep his voice even. “Annie, I need you to show me. Can you take me there?”
“Oh, no.” She got up, spry from panic. “No, indeedy, I don’t go there now. It’ll be dark. You can’t go there at night when the monsters come.”
He took her hand to still the jingling bracelets. “Do you remember Clare Kimball?”
“She went away. Nobody knows where.”
“I think someone took her away, Annie. She didn’t want to go. They may be taking her to that place tonight. They’ll hurt her.”
“She’s pretty.” Annie’s lips began to tremble. “She came to visit.”
“Yes. She made this for you.” He turned the bracelet on her wrist. “Help me, Annie. Help Clare, and I swear to you I’ll make the monsters go away.”
Ernie had been driving for hours. Away from town, in circles, out on the highway, and back on the rural roads. He knew his parents would be frantic, and he thought of them, for the first time in years, with real regret and need.
He knew what tonight would mean. It was a test, his last one. They wanted to initiate him quickly, finally, so that he would be bound to them by blood and fire and death. He’d thought of running away, but he had nowhere to go. There was only one path left for him. The path that led to a clearing in the woods.
It was his fault that Clare would die tonight. He knew it, had agonized over it. The teachings he had chosen to follow left no place for regret or guilt. They would wash him clean. He craved that, thought only of that as he turned his truck around and headed for his destiny.
Bud passed the Toyota, glanced at it absently, then remembered. Swearing under his breath, he turned around and reached for the radio.
“Unit One, this is Unit Three. Do you copy?” He got nothing but static and repeated the call twice. “Come on, Cam, pick up. It’s Bud.”
Shit on a stick, he thought, the sheriff was off the air, and he was stuck following some kid in a truck. God knew where, God knew why. Annoyed or not, Bud followed procedure and kept a safe distance back.
It was dusk, and the taillights of the pickup gleamed palely red.
When the truck turned off the road, Bud pulled over and stopped. Where the hell was the kid going? he wondered. That old logging trail led straight into the woods, and the Toyota wasn’t a four-wheel drive. Hell, the sheriff had said to see what the kid was up to, so that’s what he’d have to do.
He decided to go on foot. There was only one road in and one road out. Grabbing the flashlight, he hesitated. The sheriff might say it was cowboying, Bud thought as he strapped on his gun. But with everything the way it was, he wasn’t going into the woods unarmed.
When he reached the start of the logging trail, he saw the truck. Ernie stood beside it, as if waiting. Thinking it would be his first-time-ever genuine stakeout, Bud crept back and crouched low in a gully.
Both he and Ernie heard the footsteps at the same time. The boy stepped forward, toward the two men who came out of the woods. Bud nearly betrayed himself by calling out when he recognized Doc Crampton and Mick.
They hadn’t bothered with masks, Ernie thought, and was pleased. He shook his head at the cup with drugged wine.
“I don’t need that. I took the oath.”
After a moment Crampton nodded and sipped from the cup himself. “I prefer a heightened awareness.” He offered the cup to Mick. “It will ease that twinge. That chest wound’s healing well enough, but it’s deep.”
“Damn tentanus shot was almost as bad.” Mick shared the drug. “The others are waiting. It’s nearly time.”
Bud stayed crouched until they had disappeared into the trees. He wasn’t sure what he had seen. He didn’t want to believe what he had seen. He glanced back toward the road, knowing how long it would take him to go back and try to contact Cam again. Even if he succeeded, he would lose them.
He crawled out of the gully and followed.
They’d taken her clothes. Clare was beyond embarrassment. She hadn’t been drugged. Atherton had told her, privately, that he wanted her fully aware of everything that happened. She could scream and beg and plead. It would only excite the others.
She’d fought when they dragged her to the altar. Though h
er arms and legs were stiff and weak from disuse, she’d struggled wildly, almost as horrified to see the familiar faces surrounding her as to recognize what was happening.
Less Gladhill and Bob Meese tied down her arms, Skunk Haggerty and George Howard her legs. She recognized a local farmer, the manager of the bank, two members of the town council. They all stood quietly and waited.
She managed to twist her wrist so that her fingers gripped Bob’s.
“You can’t do this. He’s going to kill me. Bob, you can’t let it happen. I’ve known you all my life.”
He pulled away and said nothing.
They were not to speak to her. Not to think of her as a woman, as a person they knew. She was an offering. Nothing more.
Each, in his turn, took up his mask. And became her nightmare.
She didn’t scream. There was no one to hear, no one to care. She didn’t cry. So many tears had been shed already that she was empty. She imagined that when they plunged the knife into her, they would find no blood. Only dust.
The candles were placed around her, then lighted. In the pit, the fire was ignited, and fed. Shimmers of heat danced on the air. She watched it all, eerily, detached. Whatever hope she had clung to through the days and nights she had spent in the dark was snuffed out.
Or so she thought, until she saw Ernie.
The tears she hadn’t thought she had now sprang to her eyes. She struggled again, and the ropes scraped harmlessly against her bandages.
“Ernie, for God’s sake. Please.”
He looked at her. He’d thought he would feel lust, a raw and needy fire inside the pit of his belly. She was naked, as he’d once imagined her. Her body was slender and white, just as it had been when he’d caught glimpses of her through her bedroom window.
But it wasn’t lust, and he couldn’t bear to analyze the emotion that crawled through him. He turned away and chose the mask of an eagle. Tonight, he would fly.
However immature her mind, Annie’s body was old. She couldn’t go quickly, no matter how Cam urged, pleaded, and supported. Fear added to the weight of her legs so that she dragged her feet.