“She got out safe. I saw her talking to Fireman Mike. She’s probably at some hotel.”
“Okay. One note at a time. I’ll call you from Kate’s.” Joey started the car.
“Hey. Don’t go.”
Joey rubbed his eyes, dreading what might be next. He wasn’t up for The Conversation right now. “I’m here.”
“Last night—you said…”
“I know what I said.”
“… if I came out to my dad then you and I…”
“Stop. Not now, remember?
“Sorry. I’ve been thinking about you all night.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s great. You came out. I’m proud of you. But… hold that thought, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Save it for later.”
“How much later?”
Joey hesitated, mired in mixed feelings. He’d been chasing Zef all year. Now he was the one being chased. He was the proverbial puppy who caught the fire truck and didn’t know what to do with it. And he was scared. Not of Hadewych, though that was part of it. He was scared to get his hopes up. The last time he got close to Zef he’d been punched in the nose for it.
“You there?” Zef said.
Joey sighed. “What was that? I can’t hear you! CHHHHH!” He ended the call, pulled out, circled the park, and turned north on Broadway, headed for Kate’s house. He’d figure Zef out later. What’s the saying? Once burned, twice shy, right? He’d been burned enough for one day.
Besides, what sane person could think about their stupid love life at a time like this?
Valerie Maule rolled over and opened her eyes. She lay naked in a strange bed, under unfamiliar sheets, and a man’s arm lay across her body. The back of his hand was black but the palm had been rubbed clean. His arm and shoulder bore smudges, as if someone had finger-painted the taut muscles with charcoal. Valerie peeked under the sheet. Her own body was similarly smudged. She grinned helplessly and covered her face.
Fireman Mike snored.
She gazed at him, with simple wonder, trying to remember the night before. The fire, how Mike had saved her, had stayed with her after. (“Who wants ice cream?”) Her first time at a McDonald’s restaurant since childhood. She and Mike on the playground outside, Mayor McCheese watching over them as they licked vanilla soft serve lumpy as snowmen. Her sooted hand reaching over and wiping drizzle from his chin, making a clean spot there. How it had tasted, how they’d shared it…
Soot smudged Mike’s cheeks like the eyeblack of a football player. He slept fitfully. Having a bad dream. His blond hair was dark with sweat and hung over his eyes. He looked like a kid passed out in the back seat after a road trip. But Mike was no kid. He had at least three days of stubble. His back was broad and strong, slightly freckled. The skin bore a few pink patches. Old burns long healed. A black handprint lay on his shoulder blade. She held her own palm to it.
Busted. Call the crime lab. We’ve got a match.
She sat up.
The room was simple, comically testosterone-y, but spotless. No trace of pizza boxes or newspapers. Only a dark blue T-shirt lay on the floor, next to a pair of sooty boots, frayed jeans, two wadded socks, and a pair of boxer shorts. A few feet from these lay her own pale blue summer dress and matching underclothes, grey with soot and ash. The décor could only be described as Early American Dorm Room. The TV sat on cinderblocks and plywood. A jogger’s sweat jacket hung over a chair that looked dragged in from the curb on recycling day. A guitar squatted in a corner, next to a grinning Buddha. A stereo trailed power cords across the carpet. This was the complete opposite of her own home—lacking taste or style, lacking her elegant chenille and Waterford crystal and Chippendale chairs.
It was the most beautiful room she’d ever seen.
All her possessions had burned away, she realized. Today was a fresh start. She’d been stripped of everything, including her clothes. Feeling embarrassed and panicky, she lifted Mike’s arm and set it aside, slipped to the floor and grabbed her dress. She climbed into her underwear, found a plastic bag, and shoved her hose and bra inside. She collected her tracheostomy valve from the dresser, tiptoed across the room with her Mary Janes in one hand, caught a glimpse of herself in the door mirror, and suppressed a laugh. She looked like a Dalmatian. The traditional fireman’s pet.
She opened the door, fighting an urge to turn around and climb back into bed. She turned and kissed the air as if it were his cheek.
You saved my life last night. Twice.
She dressed in the bathroom and cleaned her valve. For once, the procedure didn’t bother her. She threaded the tube back down through the hole in her neck and twisted the little ‘X’ inside the little ‘O’. The kiss and hug from Mama. She stared at it. What had Mike said to her? “Don’t you be ashamed of that. Be proud of surviving. Everybody’s got injuries. Inside, outside. Doesn’t matter. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, right?”
Valerie engaged her valve, and her voice came out soft and gravelly.
“Right.”
There’s that beautiful voice, she thought. I’m not dead. I’m stronger.
She would never be able to forgive her mother for what she’d done—for being too weak to break free of Agathe. She couldn’t forgive Mama for allowing herself to be possessed, for dragging her little girl into the woods to gouge out her voice with a car key. No. Valerie could never forgive someone like that. Never. But she could forgive herself. Accept herself a little more.
At least she could try.
She slipped on her shoes and crept through the living room.
A voice called sleepily from the bedroom, “Baby?”
She bit her lip. She couldn’t answer. If Mike asked, she would climb back into his bed, helplessly, and make love to him until the world ended. She wouldn’t be able to resist him, or her own need to be held. Who can resist that need? Maybe some people, but not her. She wasn’t that strong. Not yet. But Mike was a normal, everyday man. A man she would always have to hide from. She wanted to stay, but it would end in disaster.
She took her necklace from a pocket—the red-gold seashell on a leather thread—and hung it around her neck. The token of her father. The father she’d cursed. A reminder of another tragedy she would carry with her always.
I’m saving you now, Mike. I wish I could explain, but I can’t. Goodbye.
“Baby, where are you?”
Before she slipped out the front door, she left a note on Mike’s refrigerator. A square of pale blue stationery held by a magnet in the shape of a fire hydrant.
It read:
Thank you for the ice cream.
Joey got lost on his way to Kate’s. They’d never been friends, really, and he wasn’t entirely sure where she lived. He didn’t know her address so he couldn’t Google her. He knew what her house looked like, though, and the general neighborhood—east of the Sleepy Hollow Country Club, where Zef and Kate’s father had played tennis and squash and polished each other’s golf clubs, back when Zef was in the closet and still Usher’s prospective son-in-law.
Ladybug drifted past mansion after mansion. Joey was dripping sweat. His air conditioner had died again. He was about to give up when he saw Kate’s house at the end of a side street: a smart two-story colonial with a broad front porch. He hit the brakes, backed up, and drove onto her block.
Three black sedans sat parked in the road, one with its wheels on the Usher lawn. A knot of men in tactical gear and paramilitary uniforms stood in the driveway, huddled in animated discussion.
Joey parked on the opposite side of the street, got out, and climbed the path. A man knelt on the porch, scrubbing at a puddle of blood. The door hung open, and beyond, Joey caught a glimpse of men carrying a gore-spattered painting of a woman. As they passed, they unveiled the Usher entrance hall. A fat man lay on the walnut floor, shot through the head and wrapped in a shower curtain. Joey gasped and stumbled from the porch. The man scrubbing the blood puddle looked up, shouted, “Guys!” and pointed. The
security men fell on Joey. One pulled his arm back painfully. They half-pushed and half-carried him around the side of the house and up the driveway.
“Get off me! Get off!” Joey shouted, but their grip tightened and a gloved hand came over his mouth. They bum-rushed him across the grass to a separate building behind the house, spun him around, and pulled him backward through a door. He landed in a hard plastic chair. A bare bulb ignited above, and the men stared down at him with thinly veiled menace. A real interrogation room.
The men barked out questions. “Who are you?” “What are you doing here?” “What did you see?”
“(hic!) I’m looking for Kate!”
“You’re a friend of hers?” said one.
“Yes, sir.”
“When did you talk to her last?” said another.
“Yesterday afternoon.”
They circled him. “Who was she with?” “Who else was there?” “Do you know this boy?” A man stuck out a school photograph of—
“That’s Jason.” He looked dopey and his auburn hair hung in his eyes.
“Jason Crane? You know him?”
“He’s my friend too. What’s happened?”
The men stepped away and huddled. Two of them left, moving like Siamese twins joined at the shoulder holster. A bolt slid shut. The remaining man stood scowling, arms crossed. He had brown hair and one bent ear, like a bulldog who’d seen too many scraps. Joey leaned forward, but the man raised a finger to his lips. Joey fidgeted like a hummingbird awaiting biopsy results.
After a few minutes, a bolt clattered aside and a familiar figure appeared: an impeccably dressed black man with purple eyes and a blue boutonnière in his lapel. Mather. Paul Usher’s right hand. The Gift-Catcher.
“Please accept my apologies,” Mather said. “I’m afraid our boys are on edge.” He turned to Bent-Ear Man. “That will be all, Brian.” The bulldog scowled and loped from the room, his footsteps strangely heavy.
Joey’s anger evaporated at the sound of Mather’s voice. The man’s English accent was straight out of My Fair Lady. Joey fought an urge to adopt the thick cockney accent he’d perfected as a Redcoat Zombie at Horseman’s Hollow. “I don’t know anything. I didn’t see anything. I’d like to leave.”
“Certainly. If you would… shake my hand first?”
“Why?”
“Don’t you know?”
Joey did know. If he shook Mather’s hand he’d be revealing his Gift. Not what he could do, but that he could do something. He considered refusing, but… he needed answers, and, well, he was curious to see what would happen.
He took Mather’s hand. A wave of disorientation and nausea passed over him. Mather sighed, his eyes fluttered, and his corneas shifted color, becoming icy pools of cornflower blue, the exact shade of his boutonnière.
Now that’s color coordination.
“Good,” said Mather. “We can speak freely then. Miss Kate has disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“She told her father over the phone that she was running away and that he was not to look for her. Paul and I returned from Lexington last night. We found two security men dead and a bullet hole in Kate’s dresser mirror. Her mobile phone was smashed, but we’ve been able to retrieve her last texts. She was in communication with Mr. Crane and we suspect that they may have run off together.”
Joey frowned. “No. He would have told me first.”
“We’re at a loss. Senator Usher would consider it a personal favor if you’d assist.”
“Of course. If I can.”
“Excellent. Come inside and tell me what you know. I have a kettle on.” He held the door open. “There’s no need for us to be brutes, is there?”
Joey stood and shrugged. “Lay on, Macduff.”
“Ah! And damned be him who first cries, ‘Hold! Enough!’ You know your Shakespeare.”
“Verily.”
“That’s exceptional in a young person.”
“I sing too.”
“I remember. You performed at New Year’s. I said to Paul, ‘Who is that young Caruso?’ The senator has many associates in the New York theater. Perhaps he could put in a word for you. Do you dance?”
“I do!”
“I knew it. A triple threat! You and I are going to become fast friends.”
“Coolness.”
“Coolness indeed. This way.”
“After you, guv’nor,” said Joey, slipping into his zombie voice.
Mather beckoned, and Joey allowed the Gift-Catcher to lead him into the house.
CHAPTER FOUR
“The Telepaths”
Jessica turned her throat to the light and pulled down the collar of her hospital gown, exposing the bruises there—painted grapes along the vine of her carotid artery, finger-bruises, round and florid, haloed by a pale blotch like a spill of cabernet. Zef circled her hospital bed, documenting her injuries from multiple angles.
I want lots of pictures, she said, telepathically.
“Stop it, Mom,” Zef muttered. “I can’t concentrate.” He raised his smartphone and tried to focus.
It hurts to talk, baby.
She coughed, pulled her blond hair back, and presented the other side. This bruise was arced and less distinct, like a rainbow shading from blue and burgundy to olive. The whites of her left eye were sequined by burst blood vessels. “I want it all documented.” Images poured into his head from hers. Images of Hadewych’s hands around her throat, lurid fantasies of strangling him in return, of Hadewych in prison, roommate to a three-hundred-pound car thief with a fondness for blonds.
“Mom. I can see that.”
He deserves worse.
“I know,” whispered Zef. “But stop broadcasting. I’m not used to it.” He backed away, feeling their psychic connection break with distance, thankfully, their minds pulling apart like a handshake on a train platform.
“Then get used to it,” she rasped aloud. “I think it’s nice. It’s been years since I’ve had another Pyncheon to talk to. I didn’t think I ever would again. You don’t project your thoughts at all. You’ve got an airtight brain, baby. Got a lot of secrets?”
“No,” he lied.
She climbed out of bed. “Where are my clothes?”
Zef tossed the bag of laundry to her. She took it into the bathroom and shut the door. Zef sat, feeling agitated. Yes, he had secrets. He still hadn’t come out to his mom. Or repeated the things Hadewych had confessed to him last night: how he’d killed Jason’s grandmother to get control of Jason’s money; how he’d intended to kill Jessica, then Jason, so that Zef would inherit the Pyncheon Legacy. He’d told her none of this. He was afraid to, as if to name Hadewych’s crimes aloud would make his dad truly guilty of them.
Damn it.
Zef couldn’t give his father the benefit of the doubt, no matter how ingrained the habit had become. How had he not seen what his dad was turning into? They ate meals together, watched TV together, shaved side by side and flossed elbow to elbow. Hadewych had faults, sure. But—burning Joey? Strangling Mom?
And what about Jessica? Did he know his mom any better than he knew his dad? She’d abandoned him when he was seven. She was practically a stranger. But he’d chosen her. A knee-jerk choice. Hadewych had forced him to choose, and he’d chosen his mom. So this was his life now. He couldn’t go home. He’d crossed his bridges and burned them.
“This won’t work!” Jessica emerged from the bathroom wearing denim shorts and a man’s T-shirt, tied off. “I look like Li’l Abner’s prom date.”
“They’re clean. I put them through twice.”
“I have to look better than this.”
“Why?”
She sighed. “How much money do we have?”
Zef checked his wallet. “Twenty-three bucks and some quarters from the laundromat.”
“That won’t put a roof over our heads.”
“You’ve got nothing?”
“My clothes were at the apartment. My money—not much—is in
the bank, but I have no purse, no ID, not even an address for a replacement debit card. So. We’re just a tiny bit screwed.” She produced her nebulizer, a device like a sippy cup with a periscope, and inhaled from it. She pressed her forehead to his, merging their thoughts. I’ll do what I have to, baby.
“Ms. Bridge?” Dr. Tamper entered, scratching his cheek and scanning some papers. “How are we feeling?”
Like shit, Jessica thought.
“Better,” said Zef, translating.
“I’m glad you’ve decided to report your ex-husband. We encourage abuse victims to come forward.”
“Oh, I’ll come forward,” Jessica croaked. “No man puts his hands on me. Unless I want him to.”
Zef frowned. She was imagining Dr. Tamper… tampering. He circled the bed, putting distance between their brains.
Tamper extended papers. “Bring these forms back and we’ll forward a report. I want you to use the nebulizer for three days at least. The lining of your throat is pretty burned. And—by the way, uh, we’ve had some difficulty with your insurance information. See Brenda in billing?”
“I will.” Jessica seemed to… twinkle. She was turning on the charm in some psychic way. Exuding glamour like perfume. “Thank you, doctor. I hope I can count on you when I take my ex to court?”
Tamper blinked. “Of course.” He glanced at her legs—her femurs attractively dressed in lithe muscle and soft epidermis. “Good luck.”
“No lollipop?”
He grinned stupidly and left.
“How do you do that?” Zef asked.
“Don’t you know? Paul says you charm his donors out of their socks.”
“Sometimes, I guess. But how do you just—turn it on?”
She produced a brush and went to work on Zef’s hair. I should start training you, shouldn’t I? she said, mentally.
To do what?
Oh… lots.
Jessica bought cough drops in the gift shop, and they stopped in billing on their way out. A chubby admin in her late thirties sat behind a curving partition of turquoise tile, frowning at her computer screen like a banker discovering evidence of embezzlement.
SLEEPY HOLLOW: General of the Dead (Jason Crane Book 3) Page 4