The lump in his throat began to dissolve. “Your daughter...”
She nodded. “Dean’s. Born about three weeks after he was arrested.”
“Fuck,” he whispered. “Did Dean ever meet her?”
“Twice. Ian took Natasha with him once when he went up to the correctional facility at Indian River to see him. He was our mail carrier for that part of our lives. Then, when Dean escaped, the three of us spent four glorious days together. We were going to leave the country. But on the morning of the fifth day, he woke up and told me he was driving into Orlando and that he loved us and we couldn’t go with him. I knew. I knew what it meant. Two hours later, they found him sitting in a café in Orlando and arrested him.
“After he got sent to Raiford, I visited him several times. I got put on his visiting list as Ian’s sister. I wanted to appeal his case, to open the whole thing up again. I mean, I was Dean’s alibi the night of the accident out on the reservation, but because I was an underage runaway, he refused to let me testify. He was afraid my parents would take me away, force me to give up the baby for adoption, and that Ian would be indicted for forgery or something, because of my phony birth certificate. When I turned eighteen, I wanted to open the case up again, but he refused. He knew Allie might still intervene.
Then he escaped and it was all beside the point because he got stuck with another fifteen years.”
Curry felt as if a stake had been driven through his heart. ‘What a moron I’ve been. I was the worst kind of coward. I kept telling myself it was none of my business.”
“No. You saved us. You delivered our letters, Keith, during that horrible time right after his arrest. I can never repay you for that.”
Curry put his arms around her and drew her head toward his chest, and for a long time, they held on to each other, neither of them speaking.
“How did you find me?” he asked finally.
“The Internet. You wrote an article about the Balboa. There was a photo. I went to Panama twice before this last trip, looking for you. My timing was off. You were elsewhere. Then a guy at the Balboa told me you came when the snow flew and I left on the twenty-sixth and found you easily. I just wanted to meet you, to let you know the truth. It was something I had promised Dean.”
“Allie has.. . She’s killed some people.”
“I watch CNN, too. I figured that much out.”
“How?”
“It’s complicated,” she replied, then made her way slowly through a strange story about a set of predictions in Cassadaga. “We know these events end in a place near water or that has water in the name. For a long time, we thought the place was Spirit Lake in Cassadaga. That’s where we were married. But shortly before I left for Panama, some new predictions were submitted for the Book of Voices about these events. Ian no longer thinks that Spirit Lake is the place. Free will is always operative, that’s how Ian puts it. But all the predictions have been consistent about the reference to water, the violence, and that there’s some sort of manifestation.”
Curry was having a difficult time taking in any of this. “What’s a manifestation?”
“Well, it can be different things. But for these predictions—and I’m quoting now—’the living meet the dead.’”
Dean’s world hadn’t been his, but it seemed it was about to become his in a major way.
3
Mira came to suddenly, heart slamming hard and fast against the cage of her ribs. Monsters. Monsters everywhere.
But she saw only the familiar contours of the cabin living room, heard the comforting crackle of wood in the stove, and realized she’d been dreaming. My God, but she was thirsty. She threw off the blanket, swung her legs over the side of the recliner, and padded into the dimly lit kitchen for a drink of water. As she opened the fridge and reached for a bottle of water, an electric sensation tore through her and she straightened up and peered at the clock on the wall, above the sink.
The hands had stopped at 9:02.
She spun around and there stood Tom, alone this time, holding his hands up to the stove to warm them. She wondered why a dead man would have to warm his hands.
I don’t have to. But I like remembering what a fire’s warmth feels like. He didn’t speak the words aloud; they seemed to flow through the pores of her skin and into her head.
Do you miss it? Being human? Physical? she asked, going over to him.
He straightened and turned, facing her. Sometimes. But I miss you and Annie all the time. Tom took her in his arms and Mira clung to him as if a part of her believed that if she held him tightly, she would be able to make him flesh and blood again.
“Is this visit part of our bargain?” she asked, pulling back slightly so that she could see his face.
“I’m not here to say good-bye, Mira. I’m here to warn you. You have to come to, okay? And you better do it fast. You’re going to need whatever time you’ve got.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to come to. Monsters are outside.”
As if to support her belief in monsters, the wind outside suddenly whipped into a howling frenzy. Branches slapped and clawed at the windows.
“There’s only one monster,” Tom whispered, cupping her face in his beautiful hands. “And you have to defeat her.” Then he pulled his arms in toward his body and clapped his hands twice, loudly, right in front of her face...
…and she was with Sheppard, reading a crime scene, and the rope burns on a victim’s wrist had materialized on her own. Sheppard had noticed. He had questioned her. He wanted answers...
…and she was inside the place in 1968 where Annie had been imprisoned, and as she moved through the room, her daughter’s injuries had appeared on her body, mark for mark, bruise for bruise. Her body had absorbed the injuries, released them, and the physical marks had faded. Yes, okay, she got the message. It was something that had happened to her off and on throughout her life. So what?
“You turn the injury inward,” Tom said. “But that same energy can be turned outward, Mira.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will,” he promised, and she fell back into a dream.
In the dream a phone was ringing and people she couldn’t see were shouting at her to answer it. Her eyes fluttered open. She was curled up on her side, on a bed.
A moving bed. The trailer. And it all rushed back to her, the basement and Nick and the truck. She heard the ringing again and realized it was coming from the cell phone in her pocket.
Nick’s phone.
She dug it out of the pocket with her free hand, her left hand. The name Keith came up in the window. Keith asked me to rescue you. She pressed the answer button. “Yes? Hello? Keith? Is this Keith whose house is on the river?”
“Yes, this is Keith. Who’s this?”
Mira raised up as far as the handcuff would allow and spoke so fast that she tripped over her own tongue. “Mira Morales. Your sister killed Nick, shot him. We’re on the road somewhere, don’t know exactly where. I’m handcuffed to a bed in a trailer. Get in touch with Wayne Sheppard.” She spat out Sheppard’s cell number. “Did you get that, Keith? Hello? Keith?”
“Still here, Mira. Hold on, just hold on. My friend is calling Sheppard now.”
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I just landed in Atlanta airport. Can you describe the trailer?” he asked again.
Atlanta airport. What was he doing there? He lived someplace warm, somewhere distant. The trailer, focus on the trailer. She shut her eyes, trying to visualize those moments outside the house, when she was fleeing. “It’s got a hitch. She’s towing it with her Land Rover. I think it’s silver, maybe twenty feet long.”
“Do you have any idea where you are?”
“None. It was dark, the middle of the night when she shot Nick and knocked me out Now it’s daylight.”
“Can you tell which direction you’re headed?”
Mira glanced at one window, then the other. Blinds covered them, the light was pale, murky, a
nd she guessed it was overcast outside. “Can’t tell.” But even as she said the words, information surfaced, impressions that had poured into her when she had grabbed Wacko’s ankles. “Wait a minute. I think she’s headed south, maybe into Florida, a place that was important in her childhood, before little Ray was born. And I picked up something about Plan B.”
“Picked up? What do you mean?”
She realized she’d been talking as though Keith Curry knew that she was psychic. He obviously didn’t know, and rather than tell him, she said, “I overheard it. And I know she intends to kill me to get back at Sheppard and then she’s going to leave the country.”
“Mira, Sheppard’s cell phone is busy. I need another number.”
Another number, quick, quick. But her brain felt sluggish and the base of her skull felt as though she’d been hit with a block of concrete. Be calm. Right. Calm. What a joke. She adjusted her breathing, shut her eyes, and Annie’s cell number clicked into place. Then Goot’s. She rattled off both numbers.
“Keep the phone on, but put it on vibrate,” Keith said. “That way she won’t hear it. Even if the battery’s running low, just keep it on.”
“I have a charger. If I can reach the outlet, I’ll plug it in.”
“I’ll call you back in five minutes. If I can’t get through for some reason, here’s my number.” He ticked it off, had her repeat it. “I’ll give Sheppard this number, Mira. Is there anything in the trailer you can use as a weapon?”
“Nick had. . . a Swiss Army knife in the glove compartment. I have that.”
“Good. That’s good. Now listen. I don’t think she’ll do anything to you until she gets where she’s going. She has a plan, she’ll stick to it. But at the first opportunity you get, use that knife. It could spell the difference for you. I’m going to get off now and call one of these other numbers. Don’t worry, Mira. We’ll find you.”
But can you do it fast enough?
The line went dead.
Chapter 22
Lakeview definitely lay at the expensive end of the nursing-home spectrum. Its location on a lake ringed with trees was no less impressive than its electronic doors and a lobby that spoke tomes about the income bracket of the residents.
Sheppard pulled up in front and got out. The chopper had landed on the rooftop of the FBI building in downtown Savannah and he’d been given a car to use and an offer of backup if he needed it. At the moment the only thing he needed was information.
He rang the doorbell and the electronic doors slid open. Even the air in here smelled rarefied, of fresh flowers and wood smoke from the fireplace. A large plasma-screen TV caught Sheppard’s eye as soon as he entered; six or eight grand, he thought. The couches and chairs, all hardwoods with colorful cushions that matched the rug, had come from a designer showroom. The four speakers mounted on the walls looked like they had been made in some distant future and brought back through time. They emitted such exquisite sound that Sheppard felt as though music were rising up through the tile floors that graced the entrance and wide corridors. Original artwork decorated the walls, all of it as boldly colored as the pair of macaws in the cage near the far windows. There was also a cage with a pair of doves in it, and two black-and-white cats strolled the area with all the grace of jungle cats. It made it seem as if Alzheimer’s was a disease of the wealthy, the privileged.
He stopped at the desk and the young woman behind it flashed a charming smile. “Mornin’,” she said in a chirpy Southern drawl. “What can ah do for you?”
He set his bureau ID on the counter. “I’d like to speak to Mrs. Norcross.”
She glanced at his badge and immediately got flustered. “She’s, uh, not in yet, Agent Sheppard. Ah mean, she was here, but she had to run out to interview a prospective resident. She should be back shortly.”
“Could you please call her? It’s urgent. And in the meantime, I’d like to speak to William Curry.”
“Ah’ll have someone take you upstairs.” She quickly punched out two numbers on the phone, spoke quietly to the person on the other end. “David’s on his way down. He’s Dr. Curry’s primary caretaker. Ah’ll call Mrs. Norcross right away.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
Within a few minutes, a large, muscular, and very dark black man strode over to Sheppard. “I’m David, Agent Sheppard. Dr. Curry is with his memory-enhancement class right now. I’ll take you up there.” He had a quiet voice, with a crisp, precise way of speaking. “Have you ever dealt with Alzheimer’s patients before?”
Sheppard shook his head.
“They’re easily excitable. Some of them go through emotional extremes in the span of just a few minutes or even seconds. I’ll introduce you, but Dr. Curry probably won’t remember your name. He can be very lucid at times, but most days he can’t even remember who he is, much less who anyone else is.”
Would Curry remember him as the man who had arrested his son thirteen years ago? He didn’t know. But just in case, he asked David to simply introduce him as Wayne. “Tell me about his family,” Sheppard said as they waited for the elevator.
“His wife, youngest son, and middle son are dead. His other son, Keith. . . I’ve only seen him once in three years. I understand he lives outside of the country. His daughter is here regularly.”
Sheppard tried not to sound too excited. “His daughter. That would be Allison?”
“Dr. Hart. Yes. She’s an ER doc here in Savannah.”
“Do you know her address or phone number?”
“I don’t know her home address, but her phone numbers are posted on the wall in Dr. Curry’s room.”
“I’d like to see those phone numbers.”
“Sure thing. I’ll take you to his room, then I’ll get him.”
The elevator doors opened and two women, arms linked, got off. The one with wild white hair wore a robe and Bugs Bunny slippers and the other looked as though she were dressed for an evening on the town. “Hi Jane, Lillian,” David greeted them.
“Honey,” said the woman named Jane. “Is our cab here yet? We’re off to dinner in the Village.”
“I haven’t seen a cab yet, but you’d better ask at the front desk.”
Lillian whispered something to Jane and they both giggled. Jane looked Sheppard up and down, then met his eyes. “Lillian says you’re about the tallest man she’s ever seen. She thinks you’re mighty handsome and we’re wondering if you’d like to join us for dinner.”
Sheppard, somewhat flustered, managed to smile. “Thanks very much for the invitation, but I’m afraid I can’t join you tonight. Maybe some other night.”
“You two honeys take care, “Jane said gaily, wiggling her fingers in the air, and she and Lillian wandered off into the lobby.
“Two of our more colorful residents,” David remarked with a smile. ‘They’re always on their way into downtown New York to go to dinner or the theater.”
“I thought these facilities were locked wards.”
“We don’t take escape risks. From time to time, residents forget where they are, but they can’t get out unless the person behind the desk opens the electronic doors.”
“Does Dr. Curry get many visitors?” Sheppard asked.
“In the three years I’ve worked here, I’ve only seen Dr. Hart, his son, Keith, and a young woman who’s a friend of the family. She’s only been here twice that I know of.”
“Who is she?”
David thought a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t recall her name, Agent Sheppard. I assumed she was a friend of Dr. Hart’s, but I honestly don’t know.”
“You said Dr. Curry’s youngest son was dead. Tell me about that.” Refresh my memory.
“I don’t know all that much,” David replied. “It was a drowning accident in the family pool in Miami, when little Ray was around five.”
“Does Dr. Curry talk about it?”
“He cries about it. Sometimes he thinks Ray’s alive, sometimes he knows he’s dead. I know that Dr. Hart found the b
oy. I believe she was a resident then. She gave Ray mouth-to-mouth, but he was too far gone. Here we are. Dr. Curry’s room.”
Room 33 had a large wooden plaque on the door with Curry’s name on it and shadow boxes on either side of it with a collage of family photos that spanned the years. In the pictures Sheppard picked out Dean, Keith, little Ray, even Mrs. Curry, but no Allie. Interesting omission, he thought, and followed David into the room.
“Here’re the phone numbers, Agent Sheppard.” From a corkboard on the wall, David removed a sheet of paper with a list of names and phone numbers. “I’ll be right back with Dr. Curry.”
As David left, Sheppard looked down at the sheet, his excitement so palpable now that his fingers left perspiration marks on the sheet of paper. Four numbers were listed for the daughter, who was referred to as Allie: home, cell, two work numbers. She undoubtedly had caller ID both at home and on her cell phone, so Sheppard picked up the receiver on Curry’s desk and called the home number. The voice on the answering machine shocked him—soft, pleasant, with a seductive charm. The message ended with: “If this is an emergency, please call Dr. Yarborough, who is filling in for me during my absence. Thanks and have a great day.”
He called one of the work numbers next and was told that Dr. Hart—her professional name, finally, Hart, what a joke—was on vacation and wouldn’t return to work until January 3. When he called the cell number, he got a message that the subscriber had traveled out of range or wasn’t available. Next to Keith’s name was a cell number with a South Florida area code and a long number that looked to be an overseas exchange. He called the cell first and got a message that the number was no longer in service.
The door opened and David came in with Dr. Curry. He looked greatly changed from the man Sheppard remembered from thirteen years ago. He was completely gray now, with stooped shoulders, a shuffling gait, and vacant blue eyes. “Dr. Curry, this is Wayne.”
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