Hour of the Hunter: With Bonus Material: A Novel of Suspense

by J. A. Jance

  Putting down the phone, he turned back toward her with his face contorted by anger or grief, Louella couldn’t tell which. She wondered who had been on the phone. From his look, the news must have been as bad or worse than what was going on beyond the swinging door of her husband’s room.

  “Brandon,” she said, reaching out to him. “What’s wrong?”

  He pushed her hand aside and shook his head. “Nothing,” he said irritably. “It’s work.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” Louella flared. “It isn’t nothing. It must be important. I can see it in your face.”

  To her dismay, Brandon exploded in anger. “You’re right. It is important. Terribly important, but what the hell am I supposed to do? I can’t be in two goddamned places at once!”

  With her child of a husband far beyond help, Louella searched her heart for strength enough to once more be a mother to her child. “It’s all right, Brandon,” she said, giving his shoulder a reassuring pat. “You do what you have to. Your father and I will stay right here. We’ll be fine until you get back.”

  As Davy’s hands came free, Rita’s heart overflowed with thanks to Understanding Woman for giving her granddaughter the owij, for teaching Dancing Quail to be an expert with it. There was no tool Rita knew better, nothing she had held in her hands longer.

  At once she reached down and went to work on the twine binding Davy’s feet. It was important that he be totally free and capable of running, even if her own knots were still securely tied.

  Breathing shallowly, the priest lay still, while no sounds at all came from the rest of the house. The ominous silence filled the old woman with misgiving. She knew some of what had been done to Gina, and she hated to think what that ho’ok, that monster, might be doing to Diana. Whatever it was, at least Davy wouldn’t see, not if he followed her directions and did as he’d been told.

  The twine around Davy’s legs tugged free at last. Rita turned her attention on her own bindings. With one arm in a cast, it should have been much more difficult, but her craftsman’s fingers quickly learned the secrets of Andrew Carlisle’s crude knots, which melted apart beneath the probing point of her awl.

  With Davy quaking beside her, Rita began to pray. First she addressed I’itoi, asking that the boy and his mother both be granted strength and courage. Then she spoke to Father John’s God, asking that the priest be spared from dying there on the root-cellar floor. Finally, to comfort herself as much as the boy, she took up the refrain of her song, crooning softly in the darkness.

  “Remember what I say, Little Olhoni,

  You must run swiftly and not look back.

  That is the only way to help your mother.

  That is the only way to help me.

  Be like I’itoi, little Olhoni.

  Hide in a crack and do not come out.”

  “Get dressed,” he whispered in her ear, snapping her head back with a savage pull on her hair mat loosened some of it from the roots. As tears sprang to her eyes, the ghost of an elusive memory fluttered briefly, but she couldn’t capture it. It required all her mental stamina to resist the temptation to cry out. Earlier, sinking his teeth deep into the tender flesh of her breast, he had elicited one involuntary gasp of pain. She had sensed his excited, eager response. She was grimly determined not to let it happen again.

  Carlisle let go of her hair, and she fell limply back to the bed. “I said move!”

  Diana had lost all sense of time. She might have been battling with him for minutes or hours or days. After his first, frenzied attack, he had dragged her from the living room to the bedroom, where he had assaulted her again. Survival instinct warned her to obey his commands, but her body refused. Bruised and bloodied, her flesh functioned at a level mat was somehow beyond whatever further violation Andrew Carlisle could inflict.

  Davy’s dead. The words ran through her head like a broken record. Davy’s dead, and so is Rita. Grappling with catastrophe, Diana lost all will to carry on. Whatever happened to her no longer mattered.

  Carlisle grabbed one ankle and twisted it until Diana was forced onto her back. She lay naked on the bed while he feasted his eyes on her. He particularly admired the series of angry bruises around her swollen nipples. He congratulated himself for his self-restraint for being able to let go once he had fastened his teeth on her. He was saving the nipples for later.

  He enjoyed the look of wary watchfulness in her eyes. She must be wondering, dreading to learn what might come next. He regretted that he couldn’t get it up again right that, minute, but there was plenty of time. He would show her that, hard-on or not, he was still full of surprises.

  Her gritty silence annoyed him. Diana Ladd was one tough cookie, but he knew she wouldn’t be able to deny him forever. He’d find her weakness eventually. In the face of his carefully focused efforts, she wouldn’t always keep quiet. When the agonized sounds finally escaped her tips, they would be music to his ears. You’ll come around, he thought, smiling down at her.

  Carlisle had begun the complicated process of subjugation. Having once established dominance, it was important to consolidate his control, to show Diana Ladd exactly who was boss.

  Stepping from the foot of the bed to the side of it, he reached down and yanked ruthlessly on the exposed mound of auburn pubic hair, pulling out a handful of the stiff, curly stuff. She winced and gritted her teeth, but again she refused to cry out. Damn her! She was deliberately spoiling his fun.

  He moved to the head of the bed and stood looking down at her, hoping that she’d shrink away from nun and try to get away, but she lay beneath his gaze without moving, staring brazenly back at him, daring him to hit her.

  And so he did, slapping her hard across the face. He smiled at the rewarding droplet of blood that appeared almost instantly at the corner of her mouth. Maybe now he’d start getting through to her. He hit her three times in all—twice openhanded and once with the back of his hand. He didn’t have to put much effort into it. The blows were gratuitous, stinging slaps, administered mechanically and without emotion, calculated more to humiliate than hurt. Andrew Carlisle hit the woman primarily for effect and for his own amusement. He hit her because she dared stare back at him. He hit her because he could. It never occurred to him that hitting her was a tactical blunder. That thought never crossed his mind.

  Diana tasted blood in her mouth where a tooth had cut through her cheek. She focused on the salty taste, and that, combined with the teeth-rattling blows, shocked Diana out of her stunned lethargy and forced her to remember that other man who had once hit her like this, who had pulled her hair out by the roots. The sudden surge of memory galvanized her in a way Carlisle couldn’t possibly have foreseen or predicted. It rekindled the spark of her old anger, relit a raging fire that lost hope had almost extinguished.

  Without a word, she sat up.

  “Get dressed,” he ordered again, flinging a pair of shorts and a tank top in her direction. “Wear these, but no shoes. I like my serving women dressed but barefoot.”

  She stared blankly at the clothing. They weren’t what she’d been wearing before. Those, torn from her body in his initial fierce attack, still lay in a heap on the living-room floor.

  Carlisle leered at her from the doorway, savoring the marks he’d left on her sore and naked body, but she refused to turn away from him while she dressed. “Hey,” he said jokingly, “except for a few stretch marks here and there, you’ve got a pretty good bod. Anybody ever tell you that?”

  A flush of embarrassment crept up her face. She said nothing. He came over to where she sat on the edge of the bed and shoved the muzzle of the gun hard into the tender flesh of her already bruised breast.

  “Don’t you have any manners at all?” he demanded. “Didn’t your mother teach you that when someone pays you a compliment, you’re supposed to say thank you?”

  “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “That’s better. Now, get moving. We’re going to the kitchen. I want you to fix me some dinner or, better yet, brea
kfast. Sex always makes me hungry. How about you?”

  Without answering, she started for the kitchen at once, hoping he would read defeat and submission in her every action. But Diana Ladd knew she was fighting him again, and Andrew Carlisle was far too pleased with himself to notice.

  There were two sounds in the room—the priest’s breathing and the mouse-like twitchings of Rita’s owij picking at the twine. Davy wished Bone were there. He longed for the dog’s comforting presence, but Bone was at the vet’s or dead now, too, along with everybody else.

  Forbidden to make a sound, Davy thought about what Rita had told him, for him to run away, to find a crack, to hide. A crack.

  He thought about cracks, about the jagged one in the lumpy plaster beside his bed. He always examined mat crack in great detail when he was supposed to be taking a nap, wondering if it had grown bigger or smaller since the last time he saw it. But a fly could never hide in there. Davy couldn’t even put his thumbnail in it. Flies were bigger than that.

  A crack. The verse came to him, singsong, the way he had heard it at school. “Step on a crack, and you’ll break your mother’s back.” But that was a sidewalk crack. Again, not big enough.

  There was Fat Crack, but he wasn’t a crack at all. He was a person.

  Then, finally, Davy remembered the cave he and Bone had found, the chimney in the mountain behind the house. Now that he thought about it, maybe that cave wasn’t a cave at all. It was a crack—a crack in the mountain. That was where he would go, where he would run to hide if he ever got a chance.

  Suddenly, there were voices on the other side of the door. Davy’s heart pounded, wondering how soon the door would fly open again, how soon before he would have to make his dash for freedom.

  At first, Davy heard only the man’s voice, talking on and on, but then he heard another voice, that of a woman, softer and higher. Straining, he recognized his mother’s voice. She wasn’t dead after all.

  Rita had finally managed to free herself. Davy tugged at the old woman’s hand, wanting to tell her the news, but she laid her fingers on his lips, warning him to silence. Carefully they moved into position. A sliver of light had appeared under the door. They used that as a guide.

  They stood on either side of the door for what seemed like forever. Eventually, the smell of frying bacon came wafting into Davy’s nose. It was a long time since he and the Bone had shared their last tortillas. The smell of that frying bacon filled Davy’s nostrils and made his mouth water. His feet itched. He needed to go to the bathroom. Davy began to doubt that the door would ever open. He fidgeted a little, but Rita clamped her good hand down hard on his shoulder, poking him painfully with the awl in the process. After that, he stood quietly and waited.

  A hundred yards or so from the turnoff, Fat Crack doused the lights and parked the truck. He had kept the lights flashing almost the entire way, but as they neared the house, he turned off everything, flashers and headlights included.

  “Now what?” he asked, shutting down the ignition and parking the truck just beyond a curve mat concealed the house from view.

  “We go down there and try to take him by surprise.”

  “Good luck,” Fat Crack returned. “What about the dog?”

  “Rita has a huge dog named Oh’o. When I was here earlier, he almost tit my leg off.”

  “He must be inside,” Looks At Nothing said.

  Right, Fat Crack thought. Sure he is. Famous last words. With a disgusted shake of his head, the younger man hurried around to the passenger side and helped Looks At Nothing climb down. Moving as quietly as possible, they headed for the driveway mat led down to the house. The dark made no difference to the blind medicine man, but when they stepped off the pavement, Fat Crack had some difficulty negotiating the rocky terrain.

  They’d gone only a few steps when Fat Crack saw, a mile or so away, the approaching headlights of another vehicle. That other car worried him. What if Looks At Nothing was wrong? What if the ohb was only now coming to the house, only now beginning his attack? If he drove up right then, they would be trapped in the open driveway with no means of retreat or defense.

  “I have my stick,” the old man was saying. “What will you use for a weapon?”

  “A rock, I guess,” Fat Crack replied. “I don’t see anything else.”

  “Good,” Looks At Nothing said. “Get one.”

  Fat Crack was bent over picking one up when he heard the dog. This time there was no warning bark, only a hair-raising, low-throated growl. The night was black, and Bone was a black and brown dog, totally invisible to the naked eye. Fat Crack straightened up and looked around, expecting to fend off an all-out attack. Instead, Looks At Nothing spoke forcefully into the darkness.

  “Oh’o, ihab!” the medicine man commanded. “Bone, here!”

  To Fat Crack’s astonishment, the dog obeyed at once, materializing out of the brush beside the road. He went directly to the old man, tail lowered and wagging tentatively.

  Preoccupied with the dog, they failed to notice the other car again until it braked at the head of the drive. Too late Fat Crack tugged at Looks At Nothing’s arm, trying to pull him down the hill toward the meager cover of a mesquite tree.

  All the way from TMC, Brandon had cursed himself for being in his mother’s car instead of the Galaxy, for being cut off from all communications. If only he had talked to Maddern again, they might have coordinated some kind of game plan. As it was, the only thing he’d thought to tell Hank was for him to call Diana and warn her.

  He reached down and checked the .38 Smith & Wesson Special in his ankle holster. Police officers were required to be armed at all times. Ankle holsters were the only feasible choice when wearing ordinary clothing.

  Brandon’s car sped over the top of the rise and roared down the long canyon road. Ahead and to the right, he could see lights glowing peacefully in the windows of Diana Ladd’s solitary house. Maybe he and Farrell were pushing panic buttons for no good reason.

  Walker slowed and switched on his turn signal. As his tires dropped off the hard surface onto the dirt driveway, the headlights caught two shadowy figures dodging into the underbrush ahead of him. Walker felt a rush of adrenaline. He had surprised them, caught them in the act.

  He jammed on the brakes, cutting the motor, turning off the lights. Expecting gunfire, he ducked down on the seat and drew his weapon. Heart pounding, he lay there waiting, with the desert night still and expectant around him.

  Two of them, he thought. So who had that bastard Carlisle brought along with him? Whoever it was, Brandon thought, they’re going to get more than they bargained for. Not only was he here, Geet Farrell was on his way with plenty of reinforcements. In addition, there was that godawful dog. If those two jokers ran into Bone out there in the dark somewhere, they’d have yet another rude awakening.

  Carlisle scrounged through the refrigerator and came away with a pound of bacon and half a dozen eggs, which he handed over to Diana. “Bacon, crisp. Eggs, over easy. Toast Orange juice and coffee. Think you can handle that, honey? You know, if you’re a good-enough cook, maybe I’ll keep you around awhile. We’ll play house, just the two of us—cooking and fucking—and not necessarily in that order. What do you think of that?”

  Diana said, nothing. Carlisle, enamored with the sound of his own voice, didn’t notice. While he continued with his rambling monologue, Diana gathered what she needed for cooking—frying pan, salt and pepper shakers, the spatula. What would happen if she turned on the gas in the oven and didn’t light it? Would enough propane accumulate to cause an explosion, or would the oven just come on eventually when the gas seeped out far enough to reach the pilot lights on top of the stove? Anything was worth a try. Diana turned on the control.

  She worked mechanically, trying not to think about Rita and Davy. That would divert her, take her mind away from the problem. She put a few pieces of bacon into the frying pan, started the fire under it, and loaded coffee and water into the percolator.

  St
ill talking, Carlisle had meandered into a long self-pitying dissertation about prison life. “Do you know what they do to people like me in places like that?” he was saying. “Do you have any idea? Answer me when I speak to you.”

  “No,” she said, “I have no idea.”

  A spatter of hot fat leaped out of the frying pan as she turned the bacon, stinging Diana’s wrist. She jumped back, but the pain on her bare wrist gave her the beginning glimmer of an idea. Quickly, she dumped the rest of the pound of bacon into the frying pan and turned up the heat.

  “How do you like your eggs?” she asked.

  “I already told you. Over easy, same as I like my women. Get it?” He laughed. “Pay attention, girl. You pay attention to everything I say, and maybe I’ll let you hang around a little longer.”

  She nodded, knowing it was a lie, and stirred the sizzling bacon, willing the fat to render out of it, welcoming the painful spatters that found their way to the bare skin of her arm and wrist.

  “That was Gary’s problem, you know,” he continued offhandedly. “He didn’t pay attention. That’s why I had to get rid of him.”

  Trying to shut him out, Diana almost missed Carlisle’s throw-away admission. Then, when she did understand, the what of it if not the how, she fought off the temptation to react It was still too soon.

  Ducking down on the seat to make himself less of a target, Brandon waited for the bark from Bone that would signal the dog’s attack or at least alert those in the house to their danger. The expected bark never came.