“Oh, I love it. How was your day at school today?”
Eva sighed. “I know, Daddy. Mommy already talked to me about it.”
“About what?”
“About hiding in the closet and not going home with Miss Beth.”
“Yeah, she told me. Wanna talk about it?”
“Not really. I don’t know why everyone was so scared.”
He pretended to pour water from the pitcher into the basin. “You weren’t where you should have been, and they didn’t know where you were. They thought you were lost or that maybe someone had taken you.”
“But Jacob told me not to go with Miss Beth. He said something bad would happen if I did, and I thought everyone would be more scared if that happened.”
Downstairs a cupboard door opened and pots clanged. Molly was starting dinner.
“Well, that was very considerate of you. Do you do everything Jacob tells you to?”
“He’s my friend. He would never tell me to do something bad.”
Sam leaned sideways so he could meet Eva’s eyes. “Even if it goes against what Mommy and Daddy tell you to do? Like to go home with Miss Beth?”
She seemed to think about that one. She didn’t answer.
He put his hand on Eva’s head and stroked her hair. “Sweetie, is there a reason you didn’t want to get in the car with Miss Beth?”
“I said, Jacob told me not to. He said if—”
“Eva, Jacob is just an imaginary friend—”
“No, Daddy, he’s not. He’s real.”
“He’s imaginary. Pretend. Like the water in this pitcher.” He held up the miniature pitcher and turned it upside down.
Eva’s eyes filled with tears. “You don’t know. He’s real, and he tells me to do stuff, good stuff. He’s worried about you, Daddy. Why is he so worried? Is something wrong?”
A knot twisted in Sam’s throat. “Baby, there’s no need to worry about me. I’m getting better and better all the time.” A twinge of guilt stabbed at him. He wasn’t getting better; he was losing his mind.
Twenty-Seven
NED COLEMAN’S SUSPICIONS HAD BEEN STIRRED. AN HOUR and a half before his shift started, he’d been informed by Chrystal at the 911 Center of a call made by Lou Godin over at Lincoln Elementary School. She thought he’d like to know that a little girl, Eva Travis, had gone missing for almost an hour after school. The mother’s name was Molly. Molly Travis. The name from his residential call the other night.
Yes, that was information he wanted. First an alleged home shooting, then the daughter went missing at school. Something was beginning to smell.
Almost time for his shift, the graveyard. After brushing his teeth and throwing on jeans and a pullover, Ned dialed the Gettysburg station. “Hi, Lynette, this is Ned Coleman. How’re you this evening?”
“Just fine, Ned. What can I do for you?” Lynette, the secretary, was a middle-aged grandmother who sounded tired over the phone.
“Who was the responding officer at Lincoln El today? The missing Travis girl.”
“Well, hang on there just a minute and I’ll see.” There was a short pause. “Looks like it was Glenn.”
Glenn Richardson. Good, Ned liked him. He wasn’t one of those cocky young Gettysburg guys that Ned butted heads with. “Thanks, Lynette. Is he still on?”
“Uh, yes. His shift ends at eleven.”
“Thanks again.” And thanks for not calling it a “ride.”
He reset the phone and punched the buttons. Two rings later Officer Richardson picked up.
“Hey, Glenn, Ned Coleman here.”
“Coleman. I shoulda known you’d be calling me right before my shift ended. You better not ruin it for me.” Richardson’s voice was gruff, but it didn’t match his personality.
“Actually, I was hoping to meet you at the tracks for some late-night chatter. Want to ask you about the missing Travis girl.”
“She wasn’t missing at all. They found her hiding in the utility closet.”
“Hiding? Sounds like a story there. Can we meet in, say, fifteen, and you can fill me in? I may have something of interest for you too.”
“Fifteen at the tracks?”
“Yeah.”
“I can do that.”
Twenty-Eight
AT THE TRACKS” WAS POLICE TALK FOR THE LINCOLN DINER, a local gathering place for cops and blue-collar types. It wasn’t much to look at, just a no-frills, nothing fancy, railcar diner, but it served great food and treated cops right.
When Ned arrived, Richardson was already sipping coffee in a booth that faced the door. He saw Ned and nodded.
Ned approached. “You’re quick. What, you live here or something?”
“Pretty much. I don’t even have to order. Claudia over there just serves up the coffee and keeps it coming. How ’bout you? You want a cup?”
Ned figured Richardson to be at least fifty, but he’d managed to stay in decent shape, unlike some of the other local uniforms. Ned was amused, however, by the man’s mustache, one of those Wyatt Earp jobs that had grown so long it covered his entire mouth.
“Sure.”
Richardson waved at Claudia, the busty waitress who usually worked the evenings. “Coffee for Coleman here.” Then he turned to Ned. “Glad to see you still drink the real stuff. Lotta the young guys drink that Red Bull battery acid. Gets ’em all hopped up like a buck in season.”
Ned shrugged. “We all do what we gotta do to stay alert.”
Claudia set the coffee in front of Ned. “Creamer?”
“No, thanks. Just black.” He watched her leave, then scanned the clientele. The place was more than half full, mostly locals he recognized. The smell of cooked grease thickened the air. “Man, I can feel my arteries hardening just sitting here. I’m gonna have to take another shower when I leave. The Stinkin’ Lincoln—you know that’s what they call this place, right?”
“I’ve heard it,” Richardson said. “Hey, the food is good, the price is right, and the staff is friendly. I’m not complaining. So, what is it you want to know about the Travis girl?”
“How ’bout what happened. From the top.”
“Sure.” Richardson took a sip of coffee, then swirled the black liquid in the cup. “I got a call saying a second-grader was missing. Teachers didn’t think she’d left the school, but when they lined up for the carpool, she wasn’t there. By the time I got there, they had cleared the building and were searching each room. The mother arrived shortly after I did and found the kid hiding in a utility closet.”
Ned thought for a moment. He remembered the girl sitting on the house steps. Blonde hair, freckles. Cute kid. Quiet too. Didn’t seem like the type to cause trouble. “Kid say why she was hiding there?”
Richardson’s frown dropped his mustache almost to his chin. “That’s where things get kinda weird. She said Jacob told her to hide. Said Jacob told her if she went home with the carpool mother, Beth Fisher, something bad would happen.”
“Who’s this Jacob? A friend? Please don’t say a teacher.”
“Nope,” Richardson said. He snuck another sip of coffee and wiped his mustache with a napkin. “Mom says he’s an imaginary friend. Something little Eva just started.”
“So this imaginary friend tells her not to go home because something bad will happen if she does, and she hides in a closet.”
“Not to go home with ‘Miss Beth.’ She was very specific about that.”
“Did you check Miss Beth out?”
“Yep. She’s clean as a new car. Been friends with the family for some ten years.”
“And any Jacobs at the school? Any teachers?”
“One kid, Jacob Burnah. Fourth-grader. Swears he’s never even talked to Eva Travis.”
OK, so the kid had an imaginary playmate. Not that unusual. What was a bit disconcerting, though, were the things this friend was telling her. Ned was no psychologist, but his instincts told him that if Eva was hiding in broom closets to avoid going home, she must have a good reason. Wh
at was going on in that Travis house?
“Why the interest?” Richardson said.
Ned took a long draw of coffee. “Two days ago I get called out to a residential shooting. Man says he woke up, went downstairs, opened the front door, and heard a gunshot. The front window explodes. The man? Samuel Travis. Little Eva’s dad. Both mother and daughter were sleeping when it happened. Both said they heard the glass shatter but not the shot.”
“Not that unusual. ’Specially if the shooter was some ways away. Anyone could sleep through a distant shot, small caliber, doesn’t make that much noise.”
Ned shook his head. “Travis said the shot and the glass were instantaneous, boom-boom. Had to be a close shot. And in the country like that, minus the sounds of the town? It’d be loud enough, even a twenty-two.”
Richardson’s eyebrows arched, and the corners of his mouth dipped. His Wyatt Earp went with them.
“Wait, there’s more. When I get there, I see glass everywhere in the living room. But no entry point. No slug. Nothing disturbed on the opposite wall or side walls. Like the bullet hit the window then just disappeared. Poof.”
“Or there was no bullet. No gunshot.”
“Bingo.”
Richardson ran a thumb along the rim of his mug. His nail was partially torn, exposing some of the pink nail bed underneath. He took a sip, wiped his mouth. “Anything else that struck you as strange? The girl’s behavior? Travis’s relationship with his wife or kid?”
“Not that I noticed. They all were obviously shaken, nothing out of the ordinary. I think I’ll pay them another visit tomorrow. I work a turnaround.”
“Let me know what comes of it, OK?”
“Of course.”
Twenty-Nine
THAT NIGHT SAM DREAMED OF WAR. SLEEP CAME IN FITS, disturbed by images of the maimed and dying. Men pleading for death, calling for their mommas. Sounds of battle haunted him, and more than once he cried out in his sleep.
Finally he climbed from his bed and stumbled down the hallway to Eva’s room. She was sleeping soundly on her stomach, covers at her waist. The night-light cast the room in a moody glow, like a dusting of snow. He smoothed her hair from her face, pulled the comforter to her shoulders, and tiptoed out. Downstairs the house was quiet. No voices beckoning from the grave.
Into the study he went. He crossed the darkened room to the window and peered out.
The groundhog. The shot. It was a good shot. And it felt right. The rifle felt like it used to in his hands. Natural, comfortable.
Outside the world was dark and lonely. The sky, starless. The leafless maple stood in the backyard, silhouetted like the raised makeshift weapons of an angry horde of peasants. Pitchforks and rakes and sickles of all sizes.
The floor, the ground itself, began to shake under Sam. Disoriented, he grabbed the windowsill to steady himself and watched in horror as the earth at the base of the house split and crumbled away in huge chunks. His mind reeled, thinking an earthquake—which was most unlikely—had struck the Gettysburg area. But then he noticed something pushing its way through the dirt.
A giant hand emerged, at least the size of the Explorer, clawing upward, bent and curled. At the fingertips, long, broken nails were crusted in black soil. The hand stopped level with the window. Sam, paralyzed with fear, dug his own nails into the sill. He told himself to run, run from the room, gather his wife and child and beat it out of the house, but his feet were stuck to the floor. His heart banged hard and fast within its bony cage.
The hand uncurled to reveal a bloody and dirt-smeared palm. Sam noticed a series of cuts in the skin and, looking closer, realized they formed letters. A capitalized K here, an I there, an L, an N, and others. His mind assembled the letters into words.
Two words: KILL LINCOLN.
Sam awoke with a start. He was sitting in his study, both arms crossed on the desktop, his head resting between them. Drool connected his mouth to a sheet of paper. He lifted his head, wiped at his lips, and found a pen in his hand.
How had he gotten here?
The dream. The hand. Kill Lincoln. It was a dream, wasn’t it?
Still muddled with sleep fog, he dropped the pen and rubbed his eyes. Through the window he saw the sunrise lighting the sky. The maple was there, twisted branches reminding him of that hand, that awful hand. The rest of the house was quiet. Molly and Eva were still sleeping.
Sam Travis looked down at his desk. “Oh, c’mon,” he mumbled.
A piece of paper lay there, filled with writing. His writing.
About 10:00 p.m. some fighting from Culp’s Hill broke out. General Greene held them. It’s not likely the enemy will attack here tomorrow, but we wish they would! We are ready and will belch death their way.
The cries of the wounded are sicKening. Thousands of men are now mangled, twisted, crying beings asking death to take them!
Took better stock of my battery. Lost a lot of good men, young and old, today. I was lucky or with grace. One slight scratch on my neck, about three inches long.
I have two guns left out of four. The third was left but spIked, the fourth cracked its barrel from the work we did.
Forty men, twenty horses, full load of ammunition.
God bless these men. I do love them all!
Tired. Must get some rest.
John M. Baker III lost his life in the service. Let it be said that there was no braver man on earth. My dear John went down while pulling a double canister. This gave us time, a precious fifteen to twenty seconds, during which we stalLed the enemy and saved the day. I will put him in for a medal for his family.
He was my friend!
I curse this war more every moment. The dead and dying are testimony to its evil. Good men lost, and for what? They could be living lives of contentment and happiness, home with their famiLies. And yet they are here, dying meaningless deaths. Horrible deaths.
I can no longer support this effort. I will fight for my men and for them only, and to return to my dear Emma, but I can no longer support President Lincoln and his bloodthirsty government.
In fact, right or not, God forgive me, if that man were across the line from me, I would not hesitate to point my weapon his way. I am fully aware it is treason to even write such words, but given the opportunity I would kill him for all the lives lost on his watch. I am drowning in darkness. It is swallowing me, and I would take him with me.
I would kill Lincoln.
I would kill Lincoln.
Kill Lincoln
Kill Lincoln
Kill Lincoln
Thirty
SAM STARED DUMBLY AT THE PAPER. THE BEGINNINGS OF A killer headache throbbed behind his eyes. What was happening to him? He felt himself slipping, losing ground, sliding into the abyss that Samuel Whiting had entered and written about.
No, that he had written about.
Gradually, like a tide creeping up the beach, his mood changed. A great shadow moved over him, and Sam Travis felt the weight of despair. It wouldn’t be long before he had completely lost it, and that would be bad, very bad. Whether the brain injury was to blame or the feelings of uselessness or these cursed writings, he did not know. But it was happening. That dark tide’s undercurrent gathered him in its powerful arms, dragging him toward a watery death. All he had to do was let go and let it have its way. And he wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to. He was tired of fighting it. Tired of resisting.
Now that he thought of it, he realized he’d been dealing with this since before that night of Tommy’s voice and the sounds of battle outside his home. This had been going on for weeks. The darkness had been stealing its way toward him, like the night overtaking daylight, inch by inch, minute by minute. And now it had reached him. He was half in, half out, and had a decision to make. Would he retreat into the light and only prolong the inevitable, or would he allow the darkness to overcome him as it had Samuel Whiting?
For Sam, it should not have been a difficult decision. He had Molly and Eva to think about. Especially Eva. She ne
eded her daddy. But he was so tired of running. And where had it gotten him? The darkness had still wormed its tentacles into his mind.
In the same way, it had engulfed Tommy. His had also been a slow descent. He’d grown weary of resisting—and look at the outcome.
You did what you had to do, son.
Sam shoved the paper across the desk and pressed his hands against his temples. A headache was beginning. He needed to talk to someone. Needed to bounce this off another man. He opened the desk drawer and retrieved the other writings. He would take them to Thad Lewis for his take on the whole thing. Thad always shot straight with him.
Quietly, so as not to disturb his sleeping wife, Sam crept back into the bedroom, slipped out of his sweatpants and into some jeans, the old ones with the hole in the right knee. The ones Molly kept telling him to get rid of. He grabbed his sneakers and left the room, easing the door shut behind him.
Downstairs the kitchen was bathed in honey-colored sunlight, the stainless steel appliances tipped with gold. He got a Coke from the refrigerator and a granola bar from the pantry. His headache was worsening. Molly kept Motrin in the drawer next to the stove. He downed one and gulped half a glass of water.
Sam snatched the truck keys from the hook and looked at the clock on the microwave: 6:37. Thad would be up now. He was an early riser. Careful to avoid the creaky floorboards, Sam moved toward the front door and reached for the dead bolt.
“Where’re you going?”
Molly.
Sam turned and found her at the top of the steps, robe wrapped tightly, sleep still smudged across her face.
“I’m going out.”
“I can see that,” Molly said. If she was trying to keep her voice to a whisper, she wasn’t being very successful. “Where?”
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