"What? I don't believe it."
"I'm not lying, Trace. He wanted to know if I'd said or done something to good old Brian to make this happen."
"He couldn't have been serious. I mean, he's worried and all, Don. He's not thinking straight."
He wasn't sure, and was no longer sure he cared. "He was with the mayor, can you believe it? He was having drinks with the mayor while my mother almost died!"
"Mr. Falcone did," she reminded him softly.
"I know." He turned to her urgently. "And you know why she didn't die?"
Tracey shook her head, changed her mind, and nodded. "The park."
He leaned back and looked up at the sky, wondering what had happened to the rain, what had happened to the thunder. It had been all figured out, and now it was all changed. Even in his own world the Rules didn't stay the same.
"But they do," she said, and he blinked before realizing he had spoken aloud. "That ... that thing, Don. It's yours."
"But I didn't tell it to kill—"
"I know, I know," she said. "I know, but it's more than you think."
His eyes closed slowly; he was tired. Ashamed because suddenly he was so tired all he wanted to do was curl up in her lap and fall asleep.
"I shouldn't believe any of this anyway," she said quietly, as if talking to herself. "It's not possible. I know what I saw, and I know what you said, but it's still not possible."
"It is," he said, watching stinging colors swirl across his eyelids.
"Jesus, it is."
"I thought about it all the way home, and all the way over here. I thought about you making me see things that weren't really there. Like one of your stories. And I thought about how I wanted to help you so much that I'd even see King Kong if you told me to."
Her breath came in harsh pants; he didn't open his eyes.
"I thought about it, but Don, I saw it. So ... so I thought about it like it was real, and what you said about it—it isn't right, Don. It isn't right."
His head swiveled slowly. "It wants to help me, don't you understand that? It came because I needed help, and it helps me. But I swear to god I didn't say anything about—"
"No, Don," she said, turning her head as well. "No, it's protecting you, and that's not the same."
Norman didn't think he could take another nasty surprise. He slumped back on the couch and stared at the acoustical tiles on the ceiling, only a flutter of a hand or a slight jerk of his head letting the detective know he was still listening. Though why he should, he didn't know. Verona, for all that he was an obvious hard worker, wasn't anywhere near finding the answer to this mess.
"All right," he said finally, rolling to sit upright. "All right, Tom, I've heard enough. It's crazy and you know it." And: crazy, he thought, is getting to be the word around here.
"You're not telling me anything I don't already know." Verona rubbed at a dark pouch under one eye. "But what am I supposed to think? I know it's hard, especially now, but what in god's name am I supposed to think?" He held up one hand and pointed with the other to a finger. "The lab tests show that Don didn't hit that man with the tree branch like he said he did. There was nothing to indicate that Boston had been struck by a car. Adam Hedley looked just like them, and I'll be damned if I'll believe that a car drove into your school, down the aisle, jumped the stage, and ran him over. Then there's Falcone—"
"Oh, Christ, Tom, will you listen to yourself?" Norman picked up a magazine as if he were going to throw it. "One- you can't find the tests. Two- by your own admission there was nothing to show Boston hadn't been hit by a car either. And I refuse to believe that my son, through some mysterious means, managed to subdue two men and a kid and bash them to death, one of them right in the middle of Park Boulevard." He leaned back heavily. "Besides, he was home when Hedley was killed, and he was with Tracey Quintero when Falcone ..." He choked. He refused to say it one more time.
Verona threw up his hands, more in frustration than in defeat, and Norman almost felt sorry for him. In fact, he knew he did. The man was grabbing for any straws he could find, and only Don's encounter with the Howler and those elusive lab tests gave him any sort of connection.
"Joyce," Verona said, "spoke his name several times."
"Well, Jesus, man, he's her son!"
Joyce had slipped into a deep sleep at last, and Naugle had summoned them both into the room when she began muttering in a dream.
"She also said 'a horse,' if you recall." His smile was brief and mirthless. "Tell you what, I'll go for the car in the school if you'll go for the horse in my house."
"She could have been talking about drugs."
"For god's sake, get serious!"
He was tired. He wanted to go home. The only decent news he had had all evening was that John Delfield had gotten some of the neighbors to help him erect a temporary shield of plywood across the smashed bay window.
He reminded himself to drop the man a note, perhaps enclose a check to reimburse him for the materials.
A door squeaked open and Naugle came in, bringing Norman to his feet.
"I gave her an injection," the doctor said. "Otherwise, there's no change."
"A shot? What for?"
"She wasn't asleep deeply enough," Naugle said. "She's having some pretty hairy nightmares, and I don't want her any weaker than she is."
"Great," Norman said, dropping back to his seat. "That's just great."
"You might as well go home."
Norman almost agreed before shaking his head. He wanted to stay. If he left, he might check to see if Chris was still home, still in her bed, still ... He shook his head and shuddered, and Naugle patted his shoulder.
A car pulled into the parking lot, blinding them with its headlamps. Don threw up a hand and cursed softly, but Tracey only patted his shoulder and stood.
"I think it's Jeff," she said, squinting as the beams swung away from them and the car stopped.
"Jeff?"
She started off the grass. "Yeah. I called for a ride home. I sure wasn't going to ask my father."
"Well, I would have taken you, you know," he protested, following her to the door. "God, Tracey—"
She turned and put a hand to his chest. "Not now, Don, okay?"
"But what are we going to do? About—"
She sucked in her cheeks, bit down on the inside. "I don't know. I mean... I don't know."
The door opened and Jeff, his glasses catching the light and turning his eyes white, smiled ruefully when Don leaned down to peer in.
"Hey, man, I'm sorry."
"Yeah. It's ... yeah, thanks."
Tracey slid in and took hold of his hands, pulled him close and kissed him. "There," she whispered with a small satisfied smile. "So there."
"But I need you," he pleaded, ignoring Jeff's puzzled look. "What am I going to do now? I need you, Tracey!"
"I know. And I'll see you tomorrow, okay? If I don't go now, I won't get out of my house until my funeral." She kissed him again, quickly.
"Please, Don, just stay here, okay? It'll be all right if you just stay here. I'll be back tomorrow, first thing."
"Promise," he said tightly.
"Promise."
He didn't like it, but he could do nothing about it. She was right, and he knew it, but he didn't have to like it. As he didn't have to like giving a quick report on his mother to Jeff, who kept leaning over Tracey and asking him questions until, at last, she poked him on the shoulder back behind the wheel.
Then they were gone.
The car swung around and they were gone, and Don tasted the memory of her kiss, the touch of her hand, and felt the frustration begin to rise in his chest.
She should have stayed!
If she loved him ...
He looked away, looked back to the drive.
Love him?
But how the hell could she love him and still hurt him this way, leaving him when he needed her to keep from going crazy, leaving him when he needed her to help him escape?
His hands slammed into his jacket pockets and he watched his breath turn to fog.
She had to be right, he thought then. She had to be.
The wind tangled in the cherry trees, the thin branches snapping as if torn from their trunks.
But she should be here, he argued; she shouldn't leave me alone when I need her the most. She shouldn't! He raised a fist and only with an effort did he bring it to his mouth instead of shaking it at the image of Jeff's car on the drive.
Damn you, Jeff! God damn you, you're supposed to be my goddamned friend!
The wind keened over the hospital. A flare of water rose beneath a light, another on the drive, and he felt a raindrop on his hand.
And heard a hoof beat behind him, soft on the grass.
He looked down at the tarmac and saw the ghost of a fog slip between his feet.
Turning slowly, he watched the cherry trees dance, narrowing his eyes against the dust the wind raised.
Then he saw the spots of green floating in the air, saw the sparks rising, saw the shadow of the stallion as it stood there unmoving.
His legs nearly gave way, but the stallion tossed its head, and he staggered toward it, ignoring the pressure growing in his chest, ignoring the needled stinging building in his eyes. He stepped onto the grass, and he reached out a hand.
And the neck was warm, and it was smooth, and the nose when it nuzzled into his palm was the comfort of velvet.
"God," he whispered, neither a prayer nor a name.
It whickered softly, and when he turned his head sideways, he looked into the emerald fire that glowed out of the fog.
"He took her away," he said. "He took her away, and she's supposed to love me." He slipped his hands into the mane untouched by the mist and stroked the neck again. A bubble in his chest around a nugget of fire. "You know what?" he said softly. "Dad thinks I did it, the house, Mr. Falcone." He laid his cheek against the warm black mane. "The creep." The bubble grew, and there was heat in his lungs. "The bastard. And you know what else? Do you know what else? That cop is back, and he keeps looking at me like I'm some kind of freak." It was hard to breathe, and there in the dark were swirling spots of red. "It was my medal, my time, and Brian ruined it. Donny the fucking Duck!" He backed away, and the bubble burst. "I can't even get a stupid medal without somebody taking it away! What the hell do I have to do, huh? What the hell do I have to do?"
He turned to walk away, turned back and pointed at the street, his arm so rigid it began to tremble.
"And she goes away with him, just when I need her! What the hell kind of love is that, huh? What the goddamned hell kind of love is that when you...?"
The fog. And the red. And the black shadow in the trees.
"What am I going to do?" he asked. "What am I going to do?"
A hoof pawed at the ground (greenfire), the eyes narrowed, the head raised.
He stepped away, and blinked, and suddenly knew what he had said when the red vanished and the fire died away.
"No, wait a minute," he said, and stretched out a hand. "God, no, I didn't mean—"
It was gone.
Don's mouth opened, and no sound came out.
It was gone, the fog swirling around black laced with fire, and there was no question, now, about what Tracey meant.
It wasn't helping him at all. It was protecting him against hurt, and it didn't make any difference whether he willed it or not. When he hurt, he was rid of whatever had caused it. Imagined or not.
Tracey? Oh Jesus, please not Tracey!
Anguish twisted his features, fear jerked him around, and whatever he cried was lost in the wind, and the sheeting cold rain that bore down on his head.
Chapter Twenty
She saw it in the outside mirror.
The sudden downpour had startled Jeff into slowing, the store- and streetlights broken into kaleidoscopic shards that smeared on the blacktop and ran down the windshield. The wipers worked as fast as they could, but it was nearly impossible to see where they were going, and she was about to ask him if he'd pull over and wait when she rubbed the back of her neck and glanced to her right.
And saw it.
And suddenly it was too late to talk, too late to turn around, and too late to explain why the air in her lungs was suddenly barbed and the rain had suddenly grown intolerably loud.
Twisting around, a hand braced on the dashboard, she saw the empty street behind her, reflections and distortions and blossoms of water short-lived on the tarmac. And the pocket of dense fog that moved steadily toward them, ragged edges ripped away by the wind, its bottom spilling under parked cars to the gutters to mingle with the rain. It reached no higher than the telephone poles, did not spread to the sidewalk-it followed them as though being towed, and when they slipped through a stretch of unlighted shops, she saw in its center the greeneyes, the greenfire, the suggestion of shadow darker than itself.
"Jeff," she said fearfully.
"Boy, he looked terrible," Jeff said, fighting with the wheel to keep the car from sliding on the oil-slick avenue. "God. I don't know how he keeps it together, y'know? If I was him, I'd probably look for the nearest cliff, you know what I mean?"
"Jeff, please."
"Trace, I'm doing the best I can, but I can't pull over here. There isn't any room. You want a bus to come up and bash us into New York? Take it easy, we're almost there."
Thunder was the rain that slammed on the roof; lightning was the flare of swinging traffic signals straining against their wires.
"Jeff, go faster."
He looked at her, amazed. "What? In this? But you just told me to slow down, Tracey!"
"Jesus, Jeff, don't argue!"
He saw her looking out the back and checked the rearview mirror, frowning at the white that filled the back window. "What the hell is that? It can't be spray, I'm not going that fast."
Greenfire that licked and curled toward the car.
Tracey closed her eyes and prayed. Even in talking with Don she didn't believe it, was more inclined to think she had been infected by his own fantasy, his understandable and unnecessary need to get away for a while. She'd known those moments herself, but never so intensely, never so importantly that she'd thought them real.
A white ribbon drifted over her window and she rubbed at it frantically, hoping it was only condensation from her shallow breathing. It didn't leave, she couldn't banish it, and she turned to Jeff and urged him to hurry.
"Tracey, look—"
The fog dropped a strand over the windshield and she muffled a scream, jammed her foot down on his, and pressed the accelerator to the floor.
Jeff yelled in alarm and shoved her away, and the car began to slide from one side of the street to the other, narrowly missing a parked car, a tipped garbage can, the point of a curb. He sawed at the steering wheel, touched and released the brake, his mouth open and swearing while he stared at the road ahead.
Alongside, then. It was coming up on her side and she whimpered Don's name.
"Tracey," he said nervously, "what's going on?"
She had to look away. She had to look at him because of the abrupt fear that pitched his voice high and pulled his lips away from his teeth. His glasses were slipping down his nose, and he kept tossing his head back because he didn't dare release his hands. He was pale, and in the stuffy car his face was running perspiration.
The wind buffeted them, shoved them, and the wiper on her side stuck midway to the top.
"I gotta stop," he said. "We're going too fast, I gotta stop or we'll crack—"
"No!" she screamed, and lunged for the accelerator again.
He swung out a frantic arm and caught her across the throat. She gagged and fell back, gulping for a breath, shaking the tears from her eyes, turned her head slowly and inhaled a scream when she saw the stallion's left shoulder even with her door.
It lowered its head, and she saw the green unwinking eye.
Jeff yelled then and the car swung into a skid, helped by the wind and pummele
d by the rain. Tracey slapped one hand to the dashboard to brace herself, put her right hand over the door handle in case she had to leap out.
The car slewed, spun, and they were thrown to the roof when it thumped over a curb, were thrown back, then snapped forward when it crashed into a tree that loomed out of the fog. Tracey's arm took the shock to her shoulder, and she moaned but kept her head from striking the windshield.
Jeff, however, had been knocked into the wheel and he was slumped over it when she was able to clear her vision, a sliver of blood at the corner of his mouth, his arms limp at his sides.
"Jeff! Oh, Jeff, please!"
She tugged at him, pushed him, but he only sagged back and slid over, landing partially on her lap. The fog seeped through a crack in his window.
"Jeff, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She eased him upright, kicked open her door, and fell to her knees into the street. The car was half up one of the boulevard islands, a maple cracked over its top and scraping the roof with its branches. Shading her eyes against the rain, she tried to see how close she was to home, how close the stallion was. But there was only the mist being shredded by the rain and the dark bulk of the car rocking slowly in the wind.
On your feet, she ordered, and did it; find yourself, she demanded, and she did it, gasping when she realized they were far past her street, had jumped the island across from the park's entrance.
The boulevard was empty.
She staggered around the back of the car and held her hair away from her eyes as she reached for the driver's door. The wind kicked her against it, and hot needles of pain spun around her shoulder and spiraled her back. She gasped. Her mouth opened and filled with rain. She spat and reached again, and uttered a short cry.
The boulevard was empty, except for the stallion galloping down the east-bound lane-neck stretched and greenfire, ears back and greeneyes, billows of smoke-fog filling the air around it, the sound of its hooves replacing the rain's thunder.
Which way? Oh Jesus, which way?
There was no escaping, but there could be stalling, long enough, she hoped, for Don to understand and come after her. And the only place she knew that he would think of right away ...
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