It would kill her, when it was done toying with her.
She looked up. It was gone. This time she didn’t cry.
Dorrie didn’t call the doctor, either. She didn’t need to.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Wanna talk about it?” Casey asked Erik. The sun was going down, and Erik had come home from work early in a strange and pensive mood, one he figured Casey knew by instinct meant he needed her just to be there with him, close to him, real and solidly and safely there beside him, without question or comment. They lay on the bed, her arm and one of her long legs flung over him as if to protect him, the rising and falling of her chest pressing against his arm, her breath coming in soft tickles on his neck. However, one of the understandings they’d come to over the last few months of reconciliation was that sooner or later, Casey would need some indication of his mood’s source, the seriousness of it, and the level of her participation in it. As his partner, she explained, she needed to know if it was something she should share the burden of worrying about, too. And if it was something that she was causing, she needed to know what steps to take to fix that. She’d give him space to brood if he needed it, so long as he gave her some gauge by which to involve herself or back away, in good conscience.
“Not really.”
She made a little huffing noise that came out as warm air on his neck.
He considered it for a moment, and then said, “It’s just my sponsee.”
“Is he using again?”
“No.” He rolled over to face her. “Do you remember, you know, back when things weren’t going so well? Remember what I told you, about, well, what I was seeing at the time?”
The smallest trace of pain flashed in her eyes. “I remember.”
“Well, I told you it wasn’t just me, that other people could see it, too.”
“You said that it looked like a man without a face, something like that? That it was…stalking you. Haunting you.” Her voice came tight through her lips, controlled and careful. He’d asked her to believe something wild and impossible sounding during a time when she probably had wanted to simply forget he ever existed. But she’d risen to the occasion; she’d at least given him the benefit of the doubt that he believed he was seeing something, and that he believed others could see it, too. She’d never asked him what happened that night he spent with Dave and the others, and he’d never told her. She’d just taken him to the hospital to get his wounds looked at (she hadn’t asked about those, either), and all she’d said about the whole thing on the way there was, “I hope that whatever happened last night means that this is over. I want us to start over, only better than last time.”
He’d nodded slowly and, squeezing her knee as she drove, he told her, “It’s done. No more, baby. I promise.”
After that, no more on the subject came up. From time to time, though, he’d catch her giving Dave or Cheryl or even DeMarco a funny look, not quite jealousy over something shared that she was in no way a part of, but…a little like that. A little mistrust, maybe, too, of their common craziness that she couldn’t—wouldn’t—share.
Now she reminded him, almost too soft to hear, “You promised it was done.”
“It is, for me,” he said in an apologetic whisper. “But not for him. He sees it, too. I’m almost sure of it.”
She turned over so that her back was to his chest and snuggled up against him. He slid an arm over her waist.
“I love you, Case.”
She stroked the arm that was draped over her. “I love you, too. But you know that talk like this reminds me of the bad times. Scares me. I can’t go through that again.”
“I know. And I wouldn’t expect you to.”
“I almost lost you.”
“I know.”
She sighed. “So what did you tell him?”
Behind her head, Erik frowned. “Nothing.”
She turned back to him, a surprised and not altogether approving look on her face. “What do you mean, nothing? Are you sure he’s seeing this…this…”
“Hollower,” Erik said.
She made a face like she was swallowing a bad taste. “This Hollower, you’re sure he’s seeing it?”
“Pretty close to absolutely.” He tried to look unaffected, but it wouldn’t stick.
“Then why would you leave him alone?”
“Huh?”
Casey shook her head. “Erik, I’ve always dreaded this topic ever coming up again. I hoped that…that night, whatever happened…I hoped you were done, even though from that very night on, there’s always been a part of me that’s been scared that you were going to slide back to that place, that dark place. And that the next time, I’d lose you forever. But, if it’s really like you say, and this guy is where you were, and you…if you’re in a position to help him—” Her eyes filled up with tears. “I don’t know if he has family, a girlfriend or a wife, but I wouldn’t wish those times we had on any couple. Erik, if you can help this guy…get past whatever it is you saw, then why wouldn’t you? You told me that it was safer in numbers. You’re his sponsor. How could you leave him alone?”
It was a good question, a noble one, and he had a whole bunch of answers to it, not a single one nearly as noble. He subscribed to Dave’s and Cheryl’s idea that to acknowledge the presence of the Hollower, to talk about it, think about it, remember it too much, would be to send up a red flare pinpointing his location and all the tasty insecurity it could eat. He also thought, as Dave had once, that the responsibility of having brought Jake into contact with the Hollower was too much a burden to accept. Sobriety, even now, was a struggle. A simpler struggle than it had been, maybe, but additional stresses made the rock you kicked in front of you more of a boulder you needed to roll up hill. And in spite of all the progress he’d made inside and out, that fear that the boulder would roll right back down on top of him and crush him never quite left him. He remembered the night he’d helped kill the first one, and the fight had nearly crippled him. When he’d talked to Dave on the phone, his friend had referred to this new Hollower as a Primary, that watcher from the rip, a higher breed of cruelty. The distasteful idea of fighting another one—a stronger one, according to Dave—made his entire body and soul groan inwardly. And if all that could be avoided by pretending nothing was going on…
…except he couldn’t. Thus, the pensive mood, the worry about Jake, the nagging supposition that he should call Dave and give him a heads-up. What kind of a man was he that he could do to his own sponsee exactly what he’d convinced Dave and the others would mean sure death? He had, in a manner of speaking, Jake’s life in his hands every time Jake was faced with temptation and called him, every time the resolve weakened and Jake needed a pep talk. The wrong word could send Jake back to using. And although Erik wasn’t sure if he’d ever feel good enough or strong enough to speak to Jake without that fear hanging over his head, he still thought he’d done a passable job of keeping Jake straight, keeping him alive. Leaving him to fend off the Hollower on his own, though…
Erik stumbled through a long, uncomfortable silence before he swallowed the lump in his throat. “Because I’m scared,” he answered finally. “Scared of going back to that dark place, too. Scared of dragging you down with me, or leaving you behind. Scared that even if I reach out to Jake, I won’t be able to help him. I don’t want to make it worse. I’m supposed to keep the guy off drugs, not off the radar.”
She shook her head. “You don’t believe that. I can hear it in your voice.”
Erik settled back down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Call him.”
“And say what?”
“Whatever that guy Dave, who called you, said to you.”
Erik thought about Dave and that phone call all those months back. “I need to talk to you about the Hollower…I think you’re right. About it being safer with all of us together, I mean.” It had been Erik’s idea to fight together. Safety in numbers. No dividing and conqueri
ng on his watch.
“You really think I should call him?”
“I don’t think you should let him handle this alone. No one,” she said in that same tight voice, “should have to go through things like that alone.” She put her head back down on his chest.
“And what about you, baby?” He reached out and stroked her hair.
“What about me?”
Erik didn’t answer. He wasn’t sure how to word what he wanted to ask. He needed to know if she’d bear with him, if he got involved. The truth was Erik was already thinking of how to kill the Hollower, where to find it, and whether Casey would still be there when and if he came back from another mysterious night out with Dave, bruised and cut and beat to hell.
That instinct for knowing him, he supposed, prompted her to say, “Do what you have to do. I love you. If this puts it to rest once and for all, forever and ever and ever Amen, then do it. See him through this. But you come back to me, Erik McGavin, when this is finished. Don’t come back until it’s finished, because after it’s done, I never want to talk about it again. I want you back. Do you understand?”
He did. He kissed the top of her head and murmured an acknowledg ment.
This time, they’d finish it.
Over the course of his shift, Steve had gotten the idea in his head that Ms. Dorothy Weatherin had seen something very similar to what Ms. Duffy, Ms. Carrington, Ms. Henshaw, and Mr. Peters had seen. Something maybe exactly like what he’d seen in the cell. The idea took root and germinated. But it wasn’t until he’d accidentally come across another missing persons file in doing a computer search that the idea became an imperative need to confirm.
Sally Kohlar, the dead woman from the assisted living place, had been missing for some time. There was a connection to Ms. Duffy, who, Steve discovered on his lunch hour, had moved to California. Evidently, Sally Kohlar’s brother had dated Ms. Duffy for a time. But more interesting still, Ms. Kohlar had been a friend of Max Feinstein, the suicide whose file Mendez had snatched from him. That in and of itself wouldn’t have really raised an eyebrow, as both Feinstein and Kohlar were in group therapy sessions together, except that when Kohlar went missing, Detective DeMarco had gone to the hospital to talk to a Mrs. Saltzman, a supposed witness. DeMarco had scribbled notes about a doctor all in black, who made it snow in the hallway of the hospital right before Kohlar disappeared. Real wacko stuff, most of it making no sense. But there had been a note appended to that, a Post-It afterthought, really, which read, “See Feinstein file—tape.”
The Feinstein file. And there was mention of a tape, maybe a videotape?
Steve thought of the crime scene photos, of the black hat.
He needed that file. So he approached Bennie Mendez at the close of the shift.
“Mendez, I need to see the Feinstein file.” Steve, standing next to Mendez’s desk and trying to find a way to stand that was both casual and assertive, just came out and said it, and it sounded neither casual nor assertive to him. But after the visit from Dorothy Weatherin, kicking around the things she’d said, the little things, and looking over the files, Steve had to know. If he sounded desperate, fuck it. Any possibility that what he’d seen in the basement was some hiccup in nature, maybe an anomaly of some sort, or a hallucinatory effect of some shared bacterial infection or even some kind of mass hypnotic hysteria—if it was possible that the Feinstein file tied all the pieces together, including Ms. Weatherin’s aborted attempt to explain her situation, Steve wanted to know.
He needed to know.
Mendez continued to ignore him, his back bent over some phone list. He was making little checks and cross-throughs next to various numbers on the list.
“Come on, man. It’s important.”
“Why?” Mendez didn’t look up.
“Because,” Steve said, thinking fast, “I know that De-Marco saw something. And I want to know how she put it in the file.”
“You don’t know jack shit about DeMarco.”
But he had Mendez’s attention now. The detective put down his pen and looked up at him.
“I know she made some important notes, pertaining to a videotape—”
“It’s gone. Disappeared from evidence three months ago.”
“Other notes, then, about what was on it,” Steve persisted.
“Nothing you need to worry about, Corimar.”
“Then there’s no reason you can’t give me Feinstein’s file, right?”
“You’re a pushy bastard, you know that?” Mendez turned around again, and Steve took the chair next to Mendez’s desk. “You got no business poking around through that shit. We’re behind with things as it is. We don’t need no Columbo bullshit.”
“Look, I may be new, but I’m not stupid. I’m not wasting time. I need to know how you guys handle the weird stuff. And not just for shits and giggles.” He left it at that; let Mendez think whatever he wanted. Steve wasn’t backing down.
“What do you mean, weird stuff?” Mendez finally closed the file he was working on. His eyes darkened for a moment, but the stubborn set of his mouth never faltered.
“I mean like, something you couldn’t explain. Something you couldn’t sign off on the line and file neatly in a folder and stamp ‘Case Closed’ because it just didn’t tie up like that.”
“Whaaat, you mean, like, a Kolchak kind of thing?”
Steve nodded slowly, vaguely aware of the reference, which was, if he recalled, a hell of a lot closer to what he meant than he’d intended to suggest. “I guess so. I mean, in the course of police business, things that you…maybe…”
“Reword for the report.”
Steve couldn’t tell anything from Mendez’s expression, but from the tone, he clearly understood. Mendez sighed and leaned in with a conspiratorial glance around the room. To Steve, he said in a low voice, “Under any other circumstances, I’d tell you to go screw yourself. But you hit a nerve, either by happy accident on your part, or because—and I sure as hell hope this isn’t the case—you’ve got a real reason for asking. And around here, sometimes that isn’t out of the realm of possibility. So since I think I know where you’re going with this, I’ll tell you a story. You hear me out, and if you’re still not convinced to give up on this useless shit, I’ll give you the damn file, okay?”
Steve nodded. They did a subtle glance around the room. Shirley was up front, out of earshot. Some of the guys were in the locker room, a couple in the break room, and the rest out on patrol. The mostly quiet station afforded them some privacy.
Satisfied that no one else could listen in, Mendez continued. “Years ago, I was on patrol out in Wexton, filling in for a guy I knew whose kid’s christening was that afternoon. I got a call to respond to a disturbance on one of the back roads that led out toward Serling Lake. You familiar with that area, up there?”
Steve shook his head.
Mendez frowned, that shade coming back into his eyes for a moment, then continued. “Apparently, from the report of one of the few folks who lives out on that road, an older man, kind of dirty and disheveled, was wandering the road, screaming out a girl’s name and waving a gun. According to the report, he’d even fired the gun a few times into the woods. So, I and another officer, Jenkins—he got me the job over here, eventually—roll down this road, going slow, keeping an eye out for the man in question, and we find him sitting on the side of the road, crying, the gun right there next to his feet.
“So Jenks and I stop the car and get out real slow, guns drawn but down, and approach the man. He’s a wreck; crazy gray hair sticking up all over, dirt worked into his skin. I remember he had his arms wrapped over his head. He was all bent over, crying into his knees. And his hands…” Mendez shook his head. “The old man’s hands were shaking something awful. There was dirt beneath the fingernails, but there was something else. Raw meat, man. He had raw meat all over his fingers, like he’d just squished them all through hamburger patties. I don’t know why it should have struck us as so…” Mendez seemed to searc
h for the right word.“…unsettling. But it was. Unsettling. Very much. That’s the thing we kept coming back to, in spite of every lunatic thing he said after—the raw meat on his hands, like it backed up every word he said. Like every word of it was true. Or at the very least, that he believed it so wholeheartedly to be the truth.
“He sat there just bawling, his hands shaking, his whole fucking body shaking, and he kept saying something we couldn’t make out. So Jenks and I exchanged looks. We were thinking, likely the man’s just distraught, maybe not even clinical crazy, just at the end of his rope. Didn’t mean he wouldn’t be dangerous, though, so we were careful. But I crouched down, all easy and slow, and I said, ‘Sir? Excuse me sir, I—sir, my name is Officer Mendez, and Officer Jenkins here and I would like to help, if we could. Please—please, if you could tell us—’
“And he picked up his head, Steve, and the look in his eyes, Jesus. It was such a lost look, such a haunted look, like he’d lost everything that ever mattered. Which, according to what he told us, he had.
“He rambled a lot, so it was hard to catch everything. A lot of talk about wacky things, mostly. But we gathered that he’d been raising his granddaughter after the death of his son and daughter-in-law, and with his wife gone, the little girl was all he had. The night before, she’d run off into the fog, into the woods. He lost sight of her the minute she’d left the yard, and he’d been searching for her for hours, screaming her name until he’d gone hoarse. It was the first solid, real world kind of thing he said, so we jumped on this, helping him stand, explaining to him that we would bring him to the Wexton station to file a missing persons report. With kids, every minute of those first couple of days is absolutely critical, you know, so we didn’t want to waste any more time. I assured him I’d recommend the case went to Avery in Special Victims, because Avery had probably the highest recovery rate in the county. And this guy sort of nodded at me, looking miserable, all hope gone from his eyes. He looked down at his hands, turning them over as if seeing the raw meat for the first time, and he said—I’ll never forget this—he said to me, ‘Officer, I’m afraid that when you find her, it won’t really be her anymore. I don’t know if the thing that ran off was her, even then.’
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