at him. He walked slowly, carefully, Lissy six feet behind him, not taking any chance he could reach her.
He prayed they wouldn’t run into anyone. He didn’t want to see anyone else die.
He knew Sherlock had to be planning something. He’d been gone too long.
“You’re walking too slow. Move!” He limped faster between the thick trees.
“You know, Bernie’s got a real good body, and he’s old, at least thirty. I’m thinking you’re even better. I was watching you pushing down on the deputy’s shoulder, and I really like your muscles. You look meaner than Bernie does too, like a guy who’s bashed some heads together. I like mean and hot. When I was thirteen, there was this biker dude, he was twenty and he was meaner than a gator, real bad, and so hot all the girls wanted him.” She stopped, frowned at the memory, shook her head. “I had sex with him once, but then he left. Victor was eighteen and I got him instead, took his virginity while I was thinking about my biker dude.
“When I get you all settled down and tied up, I’ll see. Hey, you married? You got a wife who’ll miss you for maybe five minutes? You got little kiddies?”
“No, I’m not married.”
“That redheaded girl, she your partner? You screwing her?”
“Why?”
“I want to talk to her before I blow her head off. I really like what she’s done to her hair. I’m thinking I want to go red, get me some curls like she has.” She fluffed her hair. “Think she’ll tell me how to get what she’s got?”
“Probably not if she realizes you’re going to kill her. I mean, why should she?” Lissy Smiley was crazy and she was sixteen. He limped badly, even managed a big grimace of pain, which wasn’t all that much of a stretch.
“I’ll bet you’re lying to me. You are screwing her, aren’t you?”
“Nah. I don’t even like her much.”
“Well,” Lissy said and laughed, “she a lesbian?”
Savich didn’t say anything; he was listening. He heard something, a footfall. Was it Sherlock? Another deputy? He said quickly, to distract her, “About her hair, I’m thinking maybe she dyes it. But her eyebrows are a sort of dark red-brown, so maybe not.”
Lissy laughed again, high and manic. “I’ll be sure to ask her. Okay, lover boy, move it. We’ve got to get back to Victor. Hey, she any good with a gun?”
“Good enough.” His leg hurt bad, but he had it under control. Could he manage enough of his weight on the left leg and kick out with his right? He didn’t know. He knew if he tried and missed, he’d be dead.
He made his limp impressive.
“Wait, lover boy. Hold up a minute. I think I heard something. Maybe it’s that little redheaded partner of yours. That would be good.”
68
PEAS RIDGE, GEORGIA
When the door closed behind him, Ethan whirled around, but Caldicot hadn’t come in.
Ethan turned to see an old man sitting on an immense, beautifully carved golden chair that would have suited Queen Victoria. He had to be at least eighty. He looked frail and insubstantial, with wispy clumps of white hair on his head and a seamed face. All in all, he would have looked like a pleasant old geezer if not for his pinched mouth, small and mean. Despite the gentle voice, what Ethan saw was decade upon decade of pettiness and ill will toward others. The old man’s eyes were dark with intelligence, and with power, as he looked at Ethan. His body might be old, but his mind was fit. He wore a long white robe pulled together at his meager waist with a gold belt, like Whistler’s.
“Good evening, Sheriff Merriweather. You will be fine in just another moment. The gas is a special compound that acts very quickly and dissipates just as quickly. Caldicot told me about the clothes both you and Joanna used to try to keep out the gas. Very creative. Caldicot was amused, except for the fact that you killed poor Kjell. And of course Blessed is injured. He is on the floor of my study, weeping. He is inconsolable. What did Autumn do to him, Sheriff?”
“I don’t know.”
“Surely you must have an idea. You have been with the child and her mother for nearly a week now. I must know, Sheriff.”
“Where are Joanna and Autumn?”
“They are both fine at the moment. What did the child do to Blessed?”
“Who are you, Whistler’s father?” Ethan had the mad desire to laugh.
The old man didn’t say anything, continued to look at him, as if he was trying to figure something out.
Ethan said, “Who are you?”
“I, Sheriff Merriweather? Why, I am the Father, but I am not, however, related to Whistler. This is my home, and all those who reside here, for however long a time, are my children. They obey my wishes and in return are enlightened about powers beyond themselves.”
“So Caldicot doesn’t run things around here?”
“I’ll tell you what, Sheriff. It seems we need each other, and so I will answer your questions and then you will have no reason not to answer mine. Caldicot does not run things here. Caldicot is my fine first lieutenant. He fancied the name Master, and so I gave it to him. Sometimes, when he doesn’t realize I’m looking, he struts like he is the important one here, but he is not. I allow him his little conceits since he is something of a financial wizard, a blessing, since I find such things boring. He gathers our people from all over the world, and if he deems them worthy, he brings them here.”
He raised a gnarled hand, pointed a thin finger at Ethan. His fingernails were long and curved inward. His old voice quaked with anger. “I have answered your questions, Sheriff. Now you will tell me what Autumn did to Blessed. I must know.”
“I have told you, I don’t know what she did. As far as I know, she only looked at him, that was it.”
“I don’t believe you. All of this—the death of Kjell, my poor Grace shot by your hand, my wife calling me, desperate because they were taking her to jail, and it’s all your fault, Sheriff. But Blessed, we cannot do without Blessed!”
Ethan said slowly, “Well, if this doesn’t beat all—you must be Theodore Backman.”
The old man gave him a regal nod. “Of course. Autumn is my granddaughter. I have lost two of my three sons, Sheriff. I will not lose my granddaughter as well. She appears to have more power than Blessed, even at her young age. She belongs to me, to my family, to Twilight. Her gift will draw the devout from all over the world. She will be revered. Under my tutelage who knows what she will become, the power she will have.”
Ethan said, “Your wife said you died in a mugging in Reno some time ago. So, it didn’t happen. It was all a fiction so you would be free to set up this cult. It occurs to me you could have done this without dying.”
“I had no choice. I had to die. The gangsters who ran the casinos decided they didn’t want to lose any more money to me, that I was stealing from them, though I played by their rules. The mugger was an assassin they sent to kill me, but I killed him instead. I was forced to cut all ties to Bricker’s Bowl because of those vermin.”
The old man sighed.
Ethan said, “So that’s when you decided to open this place? Children of Twilight? I’m wondering, Mr. Backman, why all the white? And the robes—you wish to be seen as a prophet? Or perhaps as something more than that?”
“You speak so very simply, Sheriff, so unequivocally. You don’t know anything about it. All of this, it was a huge undertaking. I was not a young man, even then.”
“And Caldicot? What does he get from this?”
Theodore shrugged. “Shepherd and I found Caldicot one day in a strip mall in Huntersville, an out-of-the-way place we chose because we had to be careful. Caldicot was selling cars, can you believe that? He tried to con us. I admired his abilities, and we talked.
“Two months later we bought the old tobacco farm some twenty miles down the road, using his mother’s
