“So you’re saving up to go to a private school?”
“A special school. Away from here.”
Lou knelt down to bring himself eye level with the boy. “Why do you want to go away from here, Sid?”
He pursed his lips. “Bad air,” he said. “Can’t you tell?”
Lou frowned, then sent a quick look behind him at Max. She barely restrained herself from gasping at those words. So close to the way she’d described the feeling she got here. “Yeah. I thought there was something wrong with it.”
“Most grown-ups don’t notice till too late.”
“Too late?”
He nodded. “Makes ’em stupid. It’ll make you stupid, too, you stay long enough.”
“What about you, Sid? Does the bad air get to you, too?”
He shook his head from side to side, rapidly.
Lou took out two tens and two quarters. He took the pizza box and handed the boy one of the tens and the two quarters. “This is for the pizza,” he told Sid. “And this—” he handed him the other ten “—is for you.”
“Thanks!”
“That’s okay. You know, if you want another job, I might be able to find you something.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I need a guide. I don’t know my way around here yet.”
The boy’s wide smile grew even wider. “I finish with the pizzas at two o’clock.”
“Will you meet me back here then?”
“I sure will.” The boy looked up at the door. “Room four. I’ll be here.”
“I’ll see you then.”
“Bye!”
Lou closed the door and turned, pizza box in hand. “That was freaking surreal.”
“Something’s wrong here,” Max said. “There’s something contaminating this place. Affecting our minds, dulling us.”
“Making us stupid,” Lou added with a frown. “Listen, right now, right here, we need to agree to spend a few hours outside this town every day. See if it helps with this thing—whatever the hell it is.”
“You think Sid’s immune?” Jason asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know. Hell, I don’t even know if there’s really anything to this ‘bad air’ theory. Maybe we can learn more from our new friend Sid this afternoon,” Lou said. He set down the pizza box. “Let’s chow down and head out. We need to get moving.”
Stormy had put up with Jason’s hovering, pacing and reading over her shoulder just about as long as she could stand it. It was too damn distracting, the way he kept looking at her. She found an article, a follow-up piece on one of the missing women saying that she had been found alive and well a week after her disappearance. Her eyes skimmed the lines as she sought details. Where the woman was found, and how and by whom, and—
“So you’re feeling all right today?”
His voice intruded on her focus. She shifted her attention away from the computer and onto Jason. He’d finally stopped pacing and settled down in one of the chairs, where he had a clear view of the computer screen.
“So far,” she said. “You don’t need to worry that I’m going to pass out on your watch, Jay. I’m actually feeling pretty good this morning.”
He nodded. She went back to reading. There it was.
Theresa Mulroy, 24, a woman reported missing by her Maryland family more than a week ago, has been found. Mulroy turned up sleeping in her car along the side of a gravel road in Culliver County, some fifty miles inland from the coastal New Hampshire town where she was reportedly last seen. A county sheriff’s deputy, checking out what looked like an abandoned vehicle, found her instead….
“It gave me a real scare, seeing you like that.”
She turned again, a frown etching itself between her eyebrows at Jason’s tone. It was…a little on the tender side.
“I mean, it’s been a long time, Storm, but you know I still care about you.”
“That’s sweet, Jay. When you’re as close as you and Max and I were, I don’t think it changes just because of time and distance. I think you always care about one another.”
He nodded.
“I mean, that’s why we came rushing out here when you needed us, right?” she went on. “And I know if it had been the other way around, if it had been me or Max needing help, you’d have come running.”
“I would,” he said. “I really would.”
“I know.”
He sighed. “I always hoped…there could be more between you and me than, you know, friendship.”
She lowered her head. “I know you wanted there to be.”
“Have you ever wondered what might have happened if you had given me a chance, Storm?”
She turned her chair around to face him. “I have. I’ve wondered about that a lot of times.”
“Really?”
She gave a small smile, nodded once. “But I figure there’s not much use dwelling on it. It’s in the past.”
“That doesn’t mean it has to stay there.”
Stormy let her gaze slide over Jason’s face. She had always found him attractive. He had great bone structure, and that milk-chocolate skin begged to be kissed. His lashes had always struck her, thick and dark around velvet-brown eyes.
“Jay, I know what you’re saying. But…look, I’ve got a lot going on right now. A lot…happening in my head. Things I don’t even understand. And you’ve got issues now, too, with Delia missing.” He lowered his eyes. “Have you called your brother yet?”
“No. I can’t. I can’t do that until I have something more solid to tell him.”
“How about Janie’s parents?”
He shook his head. “They’re in Europe. I tried, but I couldn’t find a way to reach them.” He swallowed hard. “I hope I won’t have to.”
She nodded. “What if we table this discussion about us, hmm? Just for now.”
“Then…you’re not ruling it out?”
She met his eyes, felt them pulling at her just as they always had. “I’m just saying now is not the time. We need to focus on the girls.” And frankly, she thought, she was surprised Jason wasn’t. He should be champing at the bit, pushing harder for action, pacing the floor in frustration. But he wasn’t. It was as if he were just…waiting.
But for what?
Jason smiled, leaned down and pressed his mouth to hers, a hand sliding around to cup the back of her head. He kissed her tenderly, gently, very briefly. Her eyes fell closed and…
Traitor!
Stormy jerked her head back, and her eyes flew open. She looked frantically around the room while Jason searched her eyes.
“What’s wrong, Storm?”
She swung her gaze back to his. “Didn’t you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“A voice—a woman’s voice, I think.” She looked around some more, saw no one.
“No,” Jason said. “I didn’t hear a thing. Maybe because my heart was pounding so hard.” He smiled at her, but worry lingered behind his eyes.
Stormy understood then. The sound—the single, shouted, accusatory word—hadn’t come from outside her but from within. And she needed to smooth this over. She didn’t want anyone to start questioning her sanity, because, God knew, that would be the next leap of logic. If odd things kept happening to her and a physical cause had been ruled out, that only left a mental one.
She smiled back at him a little. “Maybe that’s what I heard. But I think more likely it was the old woman in room twelve. She’s been yelling a lot at that young man who’s staying with her.”
“Her son?” Jason asked.
“I don’t think so.” She smiled and wiggled her eyebrows. Then she turned back to the computer, fought to find her place in the article again. There it was.
The missing woman had no explanation for where she had been. She claimed to have no memory at all of the days since she was reported missing. Deputy Welsh refused to speculate, though his official report made mention of empty bottles and the smell of alcohol permeating the vehicle.
“Storm, would yo
u like some more coffee?” Jason had come to stand behind her chair, his hands closing on her shoulders in a gentle massage. “I could run over to the diner.”
Yanked out of her concentration yet again, she tried not to let the irritation show on her face as she turned and looked up at him. After all, the guy was being as attentive as he could, and it was kind of flattering. “You know what I really need, Jay?”
“What?”
“A printer. I can save all this information on the hard drive, but a printer would let me put it right at our fingertips.”
“A printer.”
“You can buy cheap printers for thirty bucks these days. Isn’t there a Kmart or anything around here?”
“Well, I could ask Gary, I suppose.”
“That would be great. Get an extra ink cartridge, too—the ones that come with the printers never hold very much. And some paper, and don’t forget the cable. Wait, I’ll make you a list.”
She got up and moved across the room to the nightstand, snatched up the complimentary pad and pen, and started scribbling her list. “While you’re out, you might as well pick up some snacks.”
He nodded.
“Here, take my card.” She rummaged in her purse for the business credit card that had her name on it.
“I’ll use my own,” he said. “I ought to pick myself up a change of clothes and stuff while I’m at it. I didn’t bring a damn thing. Had to get a complimentary toothbrush from the motel office this morning.”
She was surprised this motel office even had them.
“I’ll bring you the receipt, and you can deduct the applicable things from my bill when this is over,” Jason said.
“Okay.”
“Okay.” He hovered for a moment, but finally turned and left.
She sighed, wondering how she should handle his attraction. She wondered if it was mutual. It always had been. She’d been attracted to him in the past. That had never been an issue. But she’d decided, as a barely twenty-year-old, that he was too staid for her, too conservative, too practical. She was older now—old enough to know that dependability was not a bad thing. But she couldn’t tell how she felt. There were too many things twisting around in her head—too many emotions, thoughts, feelings. Sometimes they seemed almost foreign. She didn’t know how the hell she felt about anything right now.
She returned her attention to the computer screen, reread the implication that the missing woman had been on a drinking binge. She’d been taken to a hospital, checked out and deemed unharmed.
“Hey, Storm?”
She snapped her head up to see Jason poking his head back through the motel room door. She pasted a smile in place and forced her voice to be kind when she asked, “What is it, Jay?”
“Gary says it’s a good ninety minutes to the nearest store that might carry printers. You sure you want me to go?”
Thank God.
She frowned and silenced the foreign voice in her head. “Yes, I still want you to go. In fact, it’s vital.”
“But are you sure you’ll be okay here alone?”
“Don’t worry, Jay. This thing is looking more and more like one of those ‘things-that-go-bump-in-the-night ’cases. And so far, all those things tend to go bump only in the night. I’ll be fine.”
“What if it’s a thing that goes bump by day?” he asked.
She smiled, lifted up her shirt, and patted the pancake holster that rested snugly against her side and the .38 revolver it held. Lou had insisted on leaving his spare gun with her. “Then I’m gonna bump back,” she said.
He nodded, seemed reassured.
“You have your list?”
“Got it,” he said. “I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Bye, Jay.”
He backed out and closed the door. She made sure it was locked this time, chided herself for being irrationally eager to be rid of him, then went back to the Internet, relieved that she would be able to proceed uninterrupted.
Max stapled the poster to a telephone pole. She’d stapled so many now that her hand was sore. And Lou had managed to put up twice as many. They’d covered the surrounding towns first, stapling the posters up on every corner and stopping at every place of business along the way to ask if anyone had seen the girls. And maybe it was nothing more than the power of suggestion, but she swore her head had cleared and her energy was restored by the time away from Endover.
When they returned to town and began hanging up posters, the streets were quiet. A few people walked past but didn’t seem the least bit interested in what they were doing. Just kept walking, not even looking twice. The people they questioned didn’t seem surprised or troubled when Max and Lou showed them the posters, the way those in the neighboring towns had.
The fifth person who passed by her while she was stapling up a poster was a middle-aged man walking a scrawny Chihuahua. Max stopped stapling and stepped into his path.
“Hi, there. I’m Maxine. And you are?”
The man looked surprised. She saw Lou glance her way from across the street, saw him stop what he was doing and frown.
“I’m…Hadden Stoddard,” the man said. He sidestepped, as if to go around her. She sidestepped, too.
“Mr. Stoddard, aren’t you even curious about what I’m doing here? Why I’m hanging up these posters?”
He glanced up at the poster she had just hung. “Looks like you’re lookin’ for those girls.” Then he shrugged. “None of my concern.”
“But they vanished from right here in this town. You live here. It’s your town. Don’t you think that makes it your concern?”
“It’s not my town. It’s his.”
She frowned. “Whose?”
The man blinked, shook his head, sidestepped again. Again she moved with him.
“Whose town is it, Mr. Stoddard?”
“You should go home. Those girls will show up again.”
“So I’ve been told. Tell me, why is everyone in this town so sure of that?”
He shrugged. “I have to go.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what you know about their disappearance,” she said. She saw, from the corner of her eye, Lou hurrying across the street. She would have to make it fast.
Stoddard looked her in the eyes. His seemed dull, lifeless, almost as if a thin film were lying over the blue. “You shouldn’t ought to be poking around here, young lady. You ought to just wait. Be smart.”
“Who’s really in charge around here, Mr. Stoddard?”
“You ought to talk to the chief.”
“I’ve talked to the chief. He’s no help. But he’s not the top dog in this town, is he? Who does he work for? The man they call ‘the prince’?”
Stoddard lowered his head. “Let me be, woman.”
“Jesus, don’t you want to help us? Don’t you care what’s happened to Delia and Janie? They’re only seventeen. Just a couple of innocent girls who—”
“Leave him be, Max.” Lou put a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry, mister. She’s just upset. I’m sure you understand.”
The man gave Lou a glance, a nod, then walked past Max and continued on his way. She turned to glare up at Lou. “Why didn’t you let me grill him?”
“Because you catch more flies with honey. Besides, how do you know he knows anything?”
“Because he mentioned this town being ‘his.’”
Lou’s brows went up. “His?”
“Just ‘his.’ Couldn’t get him to elaborate. Might have, if you hadn’t butted in just now.”
“Hell, Max, I could see by your eyes you were getting ready to break out the bamboo for his fingernails, and I just couldn’t watch.”
“Next time, cover your eyes.” She knew he wasn’t being entirely honest. As a cop, he couldn’t be squeamish about the occasional “hard interview.” He was protecting her again, probably afraid she would piss off some local who might decide to retaliate.
He grinned. She smiled back, but it wasn’t heartfelt. It went like that
for the rest of the morning. People passed but didn’t ask. Didn’t seem to care. If she called them on it, she was advised to go home and wait for the girls to return.
As if they all knew something she didn’t.
Just what the hell was up with this place?
It was after one o’clock, and she was starved, by the time they hung the last of their posters and hopped in her VW to head back to the motel. She let Lou drive because she was feeling unreasonably tired, and rested her head against the seat.
“I managed to question dozens of locals. But I feel as if I was talking to the same one, over and over again. Just with a different face and body.”
Lou glanced her way, flipped on the AC and drove out of town. “Glazed eyes, kind of unfocused, sort of a monotone voice that just drones on.”
“That’s the one,” she said.
He nodded. “I think I met several versions of him myself.”
“Hell.”
He kept driving, past the motel, taking her out on the highway another five miles, before pulling over along the roadside, in a spot that looked out on the rocky shore below. He opened his door and got out. She couldn’t seem to drum up the energy, but it didn’t matter. A second later he was opening her door, tugging her arms until she was on her feet. He walked beside her, a hand draped casually over her shoulders, and led her to the wooden rail that had been placed along the very edge, where the pull off became a drop-off. Then he stood there, holding her up, more or less. The ocean breeze washed over her face. She closed her eyes and sucked it into her, blew out the bad air of Endover and sucked in some more of the good.
“Better?” Lou asked.
“Yeah.”
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Whatever it is. Yeah. Or maybe it just seems worse ’cause we were in the middle of Endover proper most of the day. Maybe it’s…denser there. Or more potent or something.”
“I’ve got a call in to a friend of mine who works for the EPA. He hasn’t returned it yet, but I’m gonna give him another call before we head back into the dead zone.”
“Dead Zone,” she said. “Good name for it. Creepy, but good. What can your friend do?”
Lou shrugged. “I don’t know. Tell me if the Environmental Protection Agency is aware of any known leaks or contamination issues in the area. Maybe come out here and take an air sample or something.”
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