It was his only escape.
This was not something Gracie Yum-Yum would understand. But she did understand when he clicked his teeth near her ear and said, “Call your boyfriend. Yell his name loud and convince him it’s safe. I’ve got a score to settle with that skunk—he disappeared on me.”
Shivering, wet in the darkness, she did it. Hollered, “Tommm-linson,” and wanted to warn him, All he’s got is a knife, but her courage failed before she was dragged down and scolded.
“Not just his name, shit-for-brains. Goddamn it, that he’s safe and you need him. It’s feeding time. Remember what that means?”
The whispering voice was so different in this tepid chamber that stunk of rot. Beneath the water, huge fingers explored her body. They intruded and applied pressure while the girl stammered, “I . . . I remember.”
“Then make him understand. Tell him to move his ass, and keep yelling until he’s in the water. You ready?”
Again, her body was turned. She was lifted. Gracie’s head breached an opening in the limestone that framed her neck like a yoke.
“Tommm-linson. Please. I need help!” Over and over, she hollered, afraid to pause even for a long breath . . . then had to pause, startled by something visible only from the water’s surface. Staggering toward her was a cloaked figure that, in starlight, she expected to be Tomlinson.
No . . . it was Hannah Smith. The woman’s size, her long legs, were unmistakable, but her posture was canted as if favoring her right arm, which hung at her side. Was she carrying a gun?
Beneath limestone, the long silence was noticed. Another scolding—or worse—awaited, so there was no time to think. “Run!” Gracie screamed. “Jesus Christ, he’ll kill us both if you don’t—”
The girl was dragged under, and held under, by massive hands that she clawed and scratched and battled with her teeth. Not until she was semi-conscious, floating faceup, in a chamber that smelled of rot, did she realize that something was terribly wrong with her body.
It was too dark to see, but her fingers understood.
Mr. Bird had used the knife.
—
Tomlinson was blown away by the flames and voices hammering inside his head. A demon, or the restless dead, had guided him to a railroad coach bearing the ornate name Sawgrass Clipper.
No idea why, but here he was, alone, carrying a five-pound pistol. Embossed golden letters on the car provided enough light to take stock. Finally. He’d been on the run since Vernon had tried to shoot him in the head. The struggle that followed was a blur, but a couple of details were as certain as the blood dripping down the side of his face.
Vernon was not in hot pursuit, as Tomlinson had believed. This was distressing. If he’d known, he would have ignored the voices and returned to Hannah’s SUV instead of trying to lead the crazy bastard away from the girls.
Something else: Vernon had shot off a piece of the Zen master’s right ear. His fingers confirmed it. The lower half was a pathetic stub. Cosmetically, no big deal, thanks to his indifference to ego, but the gunshot had rendered him deaf. Gad . . . the constant ringing, combined with flaming apparitions, might have driven him mad had the voices not taken control.
No time for that now—not with Hannah and Gracie in peril. He started back but soon had to heel over, battling stomach cramps. The drug, flakka, had begun another orbit through his brain. In waves, it came, a cyclical heat. With it, an overwhelming anger so intense, he had to employ a remedy from his experimental years in San Francisco: Inhale . . . exhale. Observe from the distance. Listen.
Insects, frogs, lit up the sky like sirens. A breeze soughed through the ferns and cypress, while the starry tree canopy remained motionless. It was an illusion. There was no wind—just like the first time he’d visited Chino Hole.
His eyes wandered among the black geometrics of railcars. Emanating from the old luxury coach came a pneumatic rasp amplified by steel walls. Steady inhale-exhale respirations vibrated through the soles of his bare feet and alerted his brain. Something, someone . . . a force was inside the railroad car hiding. Waiting. Breathing.
Pneumatic respirations became a familiar voice, then a chorus that crystallized in his ear.
You came to set us free.
Rage is fear untethered by caution.
“Goddamn right, just try and stop me,” he yelled, and strode through the brush to the Sawgrass Clipper. The car was huge, the size of a semi. Moving the door on rusty tracks should have required freakish strength. Maybe it did. He used his hands, then a shoulder, and the door skidded, true on rails, wide open.
Tomlinson got a hallucinatory glimpse of what was inside—ankle chains, bits of bone, coolie caps—then was forced back by a lucent spinning wind that arced skyward. The spiral brightened. It sparked a bolt of lightning and cascaded on a comet’s path toward Chino Hole. Impact from an uncertain source echoed with the thump-thump-thump of gigantic wings.
Wings . . . ?
Demon Crow. Geezus, had he allowed the monster to escape?
He took off running—too deaf to hear a distant, desperate wail that was Gracie’s final plea for help.
—
Hannah’s SUV was empty when Tomlinson arrived. Doors closed, lights off. No cell phones or keys to make use of when he peeked in, only some scattered boating gear.
Christ, he’d been a fool to run off and leave them. He was berating his cowardice when he did hear a voice . . . Hannah’s voice. She was arguing with someone, a man who didn’t sound like Vernon, but it could be no one else. He sprinted through the trees, leapt the rock wall, then moved quietly, carrying the old revolver in its sack.
Overhead, the sky hissed. The persistent thumping of wings assumed a motorized rhythm while sparks rained down. They twirled and drifted with the lazy indolence of a parachute. Tomlinson’s mind skipped back to childhood: fireworks on the Fourth of July.
Darkness was hollowed by an eerie glow that led him closer to the pond. There they were: Hannah, arms extended, hands cupped around a gun, saying, “Damn you, where’s Gracie? I’m not gonna ask again. If you haven’t figured out who dropped that flare, you should, and do what I say.”
A flare? Vernon ignored the showering light and faced her from only a few strides away. He had huge sloped shoulders and a chest that would take more than one bullet to stop. It made him cocky. “Hell, girl, you’re about to pass out, and your face is something a rat might eat, but that’s all. Think I’ll just wait here and let it happen.” He stepped toward her.
Hannah, looking woozy, instead of stepping back, said, “Last warning.” She spread her feet and crouched.
Shit. Tomlinson ran out of the trees, yelling, “Stop, stop, stop! I’ll shoot you myself, you sonuvabitch. Hey . . . look at me. Where’s the girl?”
Hannah turned toward the familiar voice. At the same instant, the man charged her and was shocked when she actually did it, pulled the trigger—ker-WHACK—but not in time to spare herself a bone-jolting impact.
“Get off her . . . stop this bullshit.” Tomlinson ran until he was close enough to square himself like an old-time duelist. He reached into the sack. “I’ll do it, by god—look at me, you crazy bastard! Hannah, are you okay?”
Vernon had the woman’s shoulders pinned. “She won’t be when I get done.” He had ripped her gun free and was holding it to Hannah’s forehead. From his knees, told Tomlinson, “Drop that Colt or I’ll kill her.”
It took a drug-addled moment to understand. He meant drop the pistol, a long-barreled Peacemaker once owned by the deputy who Walter Lambeth had murdered before butchering the man’s wife and children.
Tomlinson’s resolve wavered as a strange new voice came into his head; a voice he did not recognize as Mr. Bird’s. A professorial whisper, saying, Butchered them all, that’s right, so pull the trigger. You know who he really is. It’s him—Walter.
Hannah beg
an to struggle beneath Vernon’s weight. He slapped her hands away and hollered, “You don’t got the balls. An old wheel gun like that, you’re more likely to hit her than me. If you want to see Gracie alive again, slick, you got no choice.” His head, pumpkin-sized, turned in the gilded, cascading light.
Christ . . . it was true. It was the same face in the photo Tootsie had shown him, broad nose and cheeks like Babe Ruth. All that was missing was an old-timey straw hat and suspenders.
The voice whispered, He split them women open like quail, their babies, too, and put them in the furnace. That’s what Walter does. He’ll never stop unless you shoot him.
Tomlinson blinked the voice away, took a breath, and tried to focus on what was real. “Where’s the girl?” he hollered. “If you prove she’s still alive, and get the hell away from Hannah, you can walk out of here. I’ll give you an hour’s start before I call the cops.”
“How dumb you think I am?” Vernon was getting tired of dealing with the hippie, and this pissed-off woman who wasn’t nearly as pretty as Raven Girl casting in the videos. “You’re running out of time, slick, and so’s your girlfriend. She’s drowning, if you give a damn.”
“Gracie? You sick excuse for . . . Tell me where she is!”
The voice whispered, She’s already dead, while Vernon gestured toward the shoreline. “There’s a special place I got her hid. You want to see her, better drop that goddamn Colt. She ain’t got long, but that’s up to you. I’ll give you to the count of five.”
“Wait, this is crazy. Look, man, no one has to die. Why don’t we—”
“One,” Vernon hollered.
Tomlinson squinched his eyes closed, opened them, and peered down the barrel. His hands were shaking.
Do it, the voice urged.
The Peacemaker’s hammer clicked back as if by an invisible thumb.
“Two.”
The pistol’s rear sight floated beneath his eye and framed Vernon’s chest. The vicious voice continued to badger. Tomlinson blocked it by allowing his senses to probe something inexplicable: a single dazzling green eye had appeared in the cypress gloom that hugged the pond.
“Three.”
The blazing eye emitted a beam of light, thin as a laser. It panned the water, attached itself to Vernon’s chest, then moved to Vernon’s forehead and painted a third eye. In a drug haze, Tomlinson noted the purity of its color, a radiant celestial green, and decided: A sign!
His finger cupped the trigger. His finger tightened.
“Four, dumbass. Oh hell, I’m gonna kill her anyway, so—” Vernon scrambled to his feet, extended the pistol, then was jolted backwards by a puff of wind . . . or the blazing green eye that had leapt to his knee.
“Sheee-it!” he yelled. He looked down, shocked to see a shard of bone and black seepage. His eyes moved from Hannah to his shattered knee. “You bitch. Didn’t even feel it when you shot me. By god, I’ll—” He raised the pistol.
Tomlinson pulled the trigger—BOOM-BOOM-BOOM—three times. Smoke billowed from the barrel.
The last thing Mr. Bird would ever say to him was, “Shit-for-brains, you missed.”
“Fuck you, Walter” was the reply. Tomlinson remained fixated on what was happening, ready to fire again.
Vernon staggered back as if on wooden stilts and turned toward the pond, unaware of the green eye on his temple. He managed several Charlie Chaplin strides before seeking sanctuary in the water. He splashed, facedown, pulled himself along the bottom, and swam toward the cypress gloom, dog-paddling, not kicking much.
The blazing green eye blinked off. A shadow emerged from the cypress. The shadow glided into the water, and continued to glide, carving a soundless wake on an intercept course, Vernon still unaware.
Tomlinson walked toward the slow, inevitable collision. Crocodile, he thought. Vernon, from the way he jolted upright in shock, then screamed, possibly feared the same. He went under, came up, then was taken down again in a thrashing frenzy.
After that, all sound was blotted by a low-passing helicopter. The helo pivoted sharply, and was circling back, when a searchlight spotted Hannah, standing, waving her arms.
A voice boomed from the chopper’s PA system, “This is the United States Coast Guard. Cross your arms if you activated a maritime EPIRB in the area.”
Hannah did it: formed an X with her arms. The emergency transmitter she’d activated was on the life jacket that Gracie had tossed to the front of the SUV while making room.
“Wave your arms if you need immediate medical attention.”
Tomlinson, on the run, waved, too, then tended to the woman while they waited for the chopper to find a clearing in which to land. There wasn’t one, but distant sirens told them help was on the way.
“I think I’m okay, I’m just so worried about Gracie . . . and my baby.” Hannah, fingers on her abdomen, said variations of this many times yet refused to break down in tears. Tomlinson remained positive, and, buoyed by her bravery, pretended to ignore the drug horrors still going on in his head. What was real, what was a monstrous illusion? The girl had been right about that. It was impossible to differentiate—except for one nightmare that came true.
During a lengthy search, the helo made another pass. On the turn, its spotlight revealed Marion Ford slogging down the shoreline, the body of Gracie Barlow limp in his arms.
Questions from the chopper’s PA were ignored. The biologist spared the girl indignity by telling Tomlinson, “Take her into the woods and find something to cover her with. They’re shooting video. It’s required on a mission like this.”
My god . . . the horror of what a knife had done to Gracie’s stomach. Tomlinson battled nausea, and whispered inaudibly, while Ford ran to Hannah, who managed to stand and allow herself to be taken into his arms. “Oh, Marion . . . please tell me she’s not—”
“I was an idiot not to figure it out sooner, I’m sorry.” He took out a small flashlight and winced at what he saw. “Turn your head so I can have a look.”
“Maybe you’re wrong.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh god. Where’d you find her? I don’t understand why you’re here. There was a man. I shot him. Now I’m afraid he might come back and—”
Ford said, “Get that out of your head. You didn’t shoot him and he’s never coming back. Maybe this will convince you.” He produced Hannah’s phone in a waterproof case. “It was in his pocket.”
She stared. “Then . . . you must have . . . Did you . . . Are you sure he’s—”
“Don’t ask. We need to get you closer to the road, then I want you to lie down, okay? An ambulance and the police will be here soon. I called a detective friend after I found your vehicle and saw . . . well, what I saw in the back.”
Vomit, a spattering of blood, and coils of chewed duct tape were enough to convince Ford that he had to act fast and possibly from long distance. Two laser-guided acrylic darts had shattered when they shattered Vernon’s knees.
The last thing Ford said to Hannah before she was wheeled into the ambulance was, “Your baby’s going to be fine, and everything else can wait. We’ll have plenty of time to talk later.”
He hoped it was true. The woman’s slurred speech, and the concern on the faces of the EMTs, caused him to wonder.
None of this was shared when he found Tomlinson, but he did say, “You’re closer to Captain Barlow than anyone. It’s better if he hears about Gracie from you, so you know what you have to do.”
The sun was almost up, and it was several calls later before they learned why the famous fishing guide didn’t answer his phone. The dockmaster at Marina Del Ray shared the grim news. Tootsie had been struck and killed by lightning outside his double-wide on Key Largo.
Tomlinson finally gave in and wept. “I should have never told him to go out in that storm. Tootsie warned me, this is a bad, bad place. Doc, please don’t
do it. Your cop pal said the same damn thing—don’t go back in the water.”
True, which is why the biologist was hurrying to get into his scuba gear before a police dive team arrived. It was a way of burning time while awaiting word about Hannah, but there was another motive.
“No choice,” he said. “You were right. There’s something big down there.”
Maybe there was.
Ford returned to the same shallow grotto where he’d found the girl. He had left her killer there, the man’s head wedged in a crevice until a deeper, safer spot could be found. But, when the murk cleared, a flashlight confirmed that the body of Vernon Lambeth was gone.
Where? Ford surfaced and scanned the pond. Nothing to see but strobing blue lights above the tree line. He cleared his mask and explored the shallows thinking he’d returned to the wrong chamber, but there was the only one large enough to conceal a three-hundred-pound man.
No need to panic, but an underwater search seemed prudent. For twenty minutes, he crosshatched the area. Aside from a mild carom of downward current, there was nothing to explain what had dislodged a body from a chamber roofed with rock.
That was okay. If Lambeth was found, much of what the coroner saw could be explained, or evaded with lies. The insane sometimes fell and shattered their knees. Homicidal killers sometimes drowned.
Ford returned to where he had started and poked his head into the chamber for a last look. A column of sunlight breached the limestone striations from above. He augmented visibility with an LED flashlight. The combination revealed something he hadn’t noticed before, and shouldn’t have touched. But he did.
“The skull of a prehistoric crocodile,” he told his pal after surfacing, then described the animal’s incredible size while he took off his gear.
Tomlinson stared at the crater called Chino Hole and nodded, saying, “Finally. They’re all free.”
28
The day Hannah Smith was released from the hospital, Ford drove her home. They sat for an hour on the deck of her boat, not saying much because, along with a concussion, she had a broken jaw that was wired shut.
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