Fuck that, she told herself.
She stopped in front of the rock. It was a broken chunk of concrete with no business in a farm field. It had never been there before. She reached down and tried to pick it up, but it was surprisingly heavy and just rolled over on its side. Underneath, nestled in the earth, was another phone. The screen winked at her, a message appearing.
PICK ME UP. USE THE ROCK TO SMASH YOUR PHONE. I’LL KNOW IF YOU DON’T.
She stole a glance into the distance, saw nothing, then leaned down and pried the new phone out of the ground. Carefully, she pulled hers out of her pocket with two fingers. There wasn’t time to talk to anyone, wasn’t time to send a text. The only thing that might work was to dial the shortest possible number. As she placed the phone on the ground, when the light from the screen would be facing directly upward, her thumb made a practiced swipe, unlocking it, and then flicked open the keypad and pressed three numbers.
911.
The call started to connect. She wouldn’t be able to say anything, but there would be a record of it at least. Someone would know she needed help.
She pretended to struggle with the rock, which didn’t require much of a performance, and bought a few seconds. A tinny, almost inaudible voice issued from the phone, sounding as though it were at the end of a long tunnel. “What’s your emergency?” Then she was out of time. No point in stalling anymore. She let the rock drop, and heard the crunch of glass and plastic.
The new phone chirped at her.
HIDE THE NOTE UNDER THE ROCK. GO TO YOUR CAR. USE THE EXTRA KEY IN THE GLOVE BOX. DRIVE TO THE SPEEDWAY.
She pinned the newspaper cutting under the chunk of concrete. The phone chirped again.
NO TRICKS, I’LL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU.
If he knew about the extra key, then he’d been in her car. He’d been watching her more closely than she’d previously imagined, picking apart the details of her life, waiting and planning. A knot of cold fear began to congeal in her gut. But she did have one more trick up her sleeve, and as she turned to go, in one smooth motion, the toe of her boot traced a long, thin oval in the dirt.
* * *
The Dart started right up. She flicked on the headlights and turned right onto the highway. Driving with one hand, she examined the phone. It looked like a cheap pay-as-you-go device, not much bigger than two Post-its stuck together. The screen demanded a four-digit passcode, without which there was no way to place a call. If the phone had an emergency calling function, it had been disabled.
The lock screen flashed blue: INCOMING CALL.
She didn’t need the code to pick up.
“Laura.” He stretched the vowel sounds out, taunting her. “Are you excited, Laura?”
She pressed the phone between her shoulder and ear, focused on keeping the Dart on the road. “That’s not the word I would use.”
“Turn left here.”
She pulled the wheel to the left, checking the rearview mirror, but couldn’t see anyone behind her. “You’re following me,” she said.
“For a long time now,” the voice replied in its childish singsong lilt.
“Want to tell me your name?”
The voice paused. She could hear the wet sound of his breathing. Then: “Soon. Pull into the second parking lot, the service lot. The gate will be open. Park at the back, under the trees. Walk down to the track. I’ll be waiting for you, Laura.” He giggled. “I can’t wait to meet you.”
Laura touched the butt of the pistol still stuck in her coat. “Me too,” she said.
But the line was already dead.
CHAPTER
35
SNOWFLAKES FELL LIKE daggers through the dark. Heavy with damp, they lanced straight and true out of the blackness above, torpedoing gravel as Laura pulled into the speedway parking lot.
She’d been here as a girl. Even at that point it had been closed for years, but she and her friends would traipse down the footpath to the bend in the Eno. The warm summer memory rubbed sharp against the ice forming on her windshield. The gate to the parking lot had been open, but another metal bar prevented cars from driving the last quarter mile down to the track itself.
There was no choice but to walk.
She wrapped a scarf around her neck and pulled a hat down onto her head. On her hands she wore thin calfskin driving gloves, all she could find on short notice. She checked the load in the Browning, made sure it was secure in her right-hand coat pocket, and climbed out onto the thin layer of snow. The fat flakes spattered on her neck, warmed on her skin, melted, and ran down her spine.
She shivered in the darkness.
The racetrack hadn’t had electricity in a long time, and with the cloud cover she could barely see three feet in front of her face. She moved past the metal bar and started walking down the footpath. Pines surrounded it on either side, making the night seem even darker. They had a coating of snow. The whole world was covered in a layer of thick velvet, sucking up the slightest sound before it could be heard.
Laura glimpsed the truth with sudden certainty: if she screamed, no one would hear it.
The path was steep and unfinished, and the last twenty years of disuse hadn’t improved things. Erosion had pitted the slope with holes, and more than once she slipped. At the bottom of the hill stood the remains of a ticket booth, the metal turnstile long ago pulled out for scrap. The roof of the hut had collapsed along with two of the walls. The front wall, the one with the little ticket window, still stood.
Was this where Patty Finch had come on her final day in Hillsborough? Had she handed her ticket through the window? Had she touched the wooden shelf underneath?
Laura ran her own gloved hand across the shelf, feeling the calfskin catch on the splinters, and the sensation shot a thrilling tingle through her hand.
Or what about Hobbes? Had he touched this spot?
Just as quickly, she pulled her hand back.
Patty Finch.
Somehow, without thinking about it, she’d gone back to calling the little boy Patty. It was how he had first entered her mind. She pictured her walking into this very place, wearing a dress and patent leather shoes, with long hair twisted into a braid, the image so lifelike that Laura couldn’t shake it.
She slipped and went down on one knee, the gravel and the damp biting through her jeans. The air seemed colder. It burned as she pulled it in and out of her lungs. All she could feel in her feet were a thousand tiny needles sliding back and forth under the skin. Shivers wracked her body, and she pulled the sheepskin coat close.
No time for that now.
She forced herself to stand, checked the Browning again, and put one foot in front of another. In two minutes she emerged from the pines next to the ruins of the old stands. All the wooden parts had rotted away, but the stands themselves were large steps of poured concrete. They were undamaged after fifty years and would probably last another hundred and fifty. Along the base ran a small footpath, and beyond that lay the large open swath of ground that had been the track and infield.
She walked out onto the track in front of the stands, her boots crunching now in the snow. Right here—this would have been the starting line, a hundred cars letting their engines rumble and then roaring off toward the first turn.
She spun in a circle, looking forward and back down the length of the track, examining the infield, gazing up into the stands, looking for any sign of life.
Nothing.
No light, no sounds, no footprints. She felt like the last person on earth.
And just then, the snow stopped. She looked up in time to see the dark ragged edge of cloud move out across the horizon, leaving behind only the stars and a thick heavy moon, huge-looking near the horizon, the color of rust and flame. The shade of it shocked her; so did its brightness. The pines cast shadows on the pristine white snow. They looked like a sharp-fingered black hand creeping across the glittering ground, reaching out for her, and when it got hold—
Laura whirled around.
H
eadlights slashed out toward her, shuddering and waving as the car crossed rough terrain.
Every fiber of her being screamed out: Run! Hide! Take cover! Get away! Anything to avoid the man coming toward her. He’d made sure at least one little girl was in the ground. Why would things be any different this time?
Everything at the cabin had happened to her, even her own actions. There hadn’t been time to think, only to react, and her body had taken care of that. She had made no conscious decision to run down the hill, or to go inside the door, or to walk out the back. When she thought back on it now, it was like being in a fog, and in the fog there had been no such thing as fear or pain or doubt.
This was different.
Now all she had was time. The beams of light tracked toward her at a snail’s pace and the urge to flee clawed her insides like a beast. She forced herself to take deep breaths, to stand her ground. She touched the butt of the Browning like it was a talisman and willed herself to be still.
As the vehicle got closer, she could make out details. The headlights were too high for a car. This had to be a truck, which also explained how it could move in such rotten conditions. It had a roll bar on top and mud spatter down the sides. Rust stains pitted what had once been a dark paint color, maybe black.
Flee! the voice said. But it was too late. The headlights finally reached her, nailing her in place. The light hit her eyes and her body tensed. Even her shivering stopped.
A black truck. Mud-stained. Rusted.
An inkling of recognition dawned somewhere in the back of her mind. The truck pulled up next to her, and the window rolled down, and all the fear that had been building up inside her drained out through her toes like someone had pulled the plug in a bathtub.
A black, rusted truck.
Jasmine DeVane’s truck.
Jasmine leaned over toward the open passenger-side window.
“Need a lift?”
* * *
Laura almost couldn’t find her voice. “What are you doing out here?” she choked.
“What the hell do you think I’m doing? You called nine one one. The police came and found your phone smashed out back and you gone. Not only that, you were supposed to meet Don Rodgers. You didn’t return his calls, no one at the Gazette had seen you, so he showed up at your house. And once he heard about the police visit from Diane, he called me.” She paused. “Are you okay, Laura? Because the real question is: what are you doing out here?”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I was worried you were feeling overwhelmed, that you smashed your phone out of some frustration with everything that’s been going on. After our last conversation”—she shrugged—“it seemed like a good guess where you might go.”
Laura tried to think how to explain what was happening. Words swirled in her head, but they refused to come together and make any kind of sense. “He called me,” she said finally.
“Who called you? Can we at least talk in the truck?”
“If I leave, he’ll kill Samantha Powell.”
Jasmine’s mouth hung open, then snapped shut like a bear trap. “Get in, we’ll talk. I won’t drive away unless you say so.”
Laura stood there for a second, shivering, trying to remember what it felt like to have sensation in her feet.
“You’re shaking like a leaf. Just get in the damn truck,” Jasmine said, then rolled up the passenger-side window.
Laura felt the last breath of warm air escape the inside of the cab, gave one last look around the empty track, and climbed into the cab.
“I thought you’d wait out there all night.”
Laura didn’t say anything. The vents were set to full blast, and she just held her hands up to the stream of hot air.
“He called you again,” Jasmine said. It wasn’t a question.
“Worse. He was outside my house.”
She gasped. “You saw him?”
“Not exactly. But he saw me. He left me a note, made me destroy my phone and drive down here.”
“Made you?”
“Or Samantha Powell dies, and Teresa Mitchem stays missing. He told me not to contact anyone. He’s expecting me here. Alone. You need to leave.”
Jasmine shook her head. “Listen to yourself. Meeting him alone? For the people who care about you, that is wholly unacceptable. You must understand that.”
“It’s my choice. You can’t make me leave.”
“Okay, fine—but that’s a double-edged sword. I’m staying.”
“You can’t—”
“I absolutely can. You can’t make me leave either.”
Laura twisted in her seat to face her. “Please. What if Teresa or Samantha is still alive? What if this is our one chance to find them?”
Jasmine shook her off. “Maybe this is just his plan to snatch you up, to make you disappear.”
“I’m willing to take that risk,” Laura said.
“I’m not. Look, it’s not like the place is surrounded by cops. There’s not a helicopter flying through the trees. It’s just you and me out here.”
She bit her lip. “Might still be enough to scare him off.”
“Perhaps, but this is as good as it’s going to get. I’m not leaving.”
Laura looked out the truck’s back window, then turned back to Jasmine. “We need to be ready when he shows up.”
“If he shows up.”
“He called me, Jasmine. He’s real.”
“And what did he sound like?”
She closed her eyes and tried to remember. “Soft, low, and kind of rumbly. Maybe he had a trace of an accent, but it was hard to tell. He spoke softly, but it was intense. Does that make sense?”
She opened her eyes.
Jasmine gazed back at her. “Yes, but does it tell you anything about his identity?”
Laura shook her head. “I’ve been over that a thousand times in my head. He didn’t say anything that could lead back to him.”
“Interesting.”
“How so?”
“Well, why does he take the time to contact you, and to arrange a meeting, if he doesn’t want you to know who he is? Those two goals seem opposed.”
“Maybe it’s somebody I know. Maybe they want to surprise me.”
Jasmine gave her a strange look. “Don’t drag me down the rabbit hole. I didn’t come here to discuss specifics with you. If he’s really coming, then sitting out here is genuinely dangerous.”
“There’s a little girl out there. She could still be alive.”
Jasmine reached up and touched the cross she wore. “I pray she is.”
“And if your prayer comes true, we’re the only ones who can help her. That alone is worth taking the chance.”
Jasmine shook her head. “When will it be enough? Your perspective is warped. When they’re coerced out into the woods under a blood moon, most people find their limit.”
“I—”
A blood moon.
Laura froze. The entire field of snow had turned into a glittering mirror, the moonlight reflecting off the ground and up through the windshield. A dark veil obscured Jasmine’s face. The lower half was visible, the jaw, the lips, the teeth. The eyes were shrouded in shadow.
“I shouldn’t have come out here,” Laura said, almost to herself.
Jasmine’s jaw moved. “It’s nice to hear you say that out loud. It’s good you can admit your mistake.”
Laura rubbed her hands once more in front of the vents, then returned them casually to her lap. She willed her right hand to start moving toward her pocket. It stayed put.
The disembodied jaw licked its lips.
Laura’s gaze tracked downward. There, hanging just below the collar bone, was the cross. It shimmered in the moonlight, revealing every detail. The emaciated form of Jesus. The spots of tarnish. The loops of ivy winding down across its arms.
“Tonight is the full moon,” Laura said. “Tonight is the night for sacred transformations.”
Jasmine turned her head, and
the crimson lunar glow splashed across her entire face. Clenched jaw. Nostrils flaring. Corded tendons like rope around the neck. The skin seemed drawn and emaciated, the face cast in bone, a skull dipped in blood. The eyes were black liquid pooled in their sockets. She blinked once, and some hidden inner working refracted through their depths: raw, primal, somewhere between rage and ecstasy.
It was the sheen of madness.
Laura plunged her hand into her jacket pocket, fingers scratching, hunting for the Browning’s grip.
But she couldn’t reach it in time; Jasmine DeVane moved with inhuman speed.
In a heartbeat, she was upon her.
CHAPTER
36
THE BROWNING’S HAMMER caught the pocket’s edge. It snagged for only a fraction of a second, but that was enough.
Laura’s eyes flicked down, focused on the hunk of metal inexplicably fused to wool. She opened her mouth to yell.
Jasmine launched across the truck and landed on top of her, knocking the air out of her lungs. One hand clamped down, vicelike, across her mouth before she could get a breath, and the other ripped the Browning out of her grasp and tossed it away. She could hear the air whistling in and out of her nose, the sound reminding her of prey on the plains of the Serengeti. The wildebeest or the gazelle with a lion locked on one leg, eyes pinwheeling in terror, air pistoning in and out of their nostrils. Those fights always ended the same way.
And now she was such an animal. Her eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. She whipped her body back and forth, slamming her head into the passenger window.
“Stop struggling,” Jasmine murmured in her ear. “I’ve been preparing for this my whole life. Fighting back won’t do any good.”
She tried to move, but the seat and the window and the weight of Jasmine’s body pressed her into a narrowing triangle.
A hoarse whisper: “You saw me at the cabin.”
The man in black, oh god oh god oh god, killer, child-murderer, a visitor from hell sent here to drag her back with him. True panic set in and she threw her entire body into the struggle, arching her back and screaming into the salty palm pressed into her mouth.
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