He watched his BlackBerry and his briefcase fall from his fingers in slow motion; saw himself stumbling sideways as the cars and the streetlights and the shadows swirled about him and grew blurry.
But Sam Markham stayed on his feet long enough to see the man in the ski mask stuff the smelly rag in his face.
Then everything went black.
Chapter 79
By ten o’clock that evening, the two blocks of Lewis Street between Third and Fifth had been cordoned off. The residents were ordered to evacuate, and the parking lot across the street from Bradley Cox’s apartment building was completely surrounded by marked and unmarked vehicles.
A SWAT team leader gave the signal, and he and two other officers, weapons drawn, cautiously approached the black TrailBlazer in tactical formation. They looked first into the rear window, then into the front seat. And after a tense thirty seconds, the officer on the driver’s side called out, “Clear!”
A collective sigh of relief was heard as the members of the SWAT team lowered their weapons.
Looking on from across the street, just a few feet from Bradley Cox’s front door, an FBI agent from the Greenville Resident Agency said to his partner, “Call it in to Raleigh.”
The other agent began dialing as the SWAT team leader tried the door handle. It was locked. Another signal, and a local police officer with a Slim Jim rushed up to the Trail-Blazer and slipped it down into the driver’s side door.
“The car’s clear,” said the FBI agent into his BlackBerry. “But there’s still no sign of Special Agent Schaap.”
The FBI agent listened to the tech specialist on the other end. Something about Schaap’s BlackBerry being off the grid; something about it taking time to get the tower records.
Then he saw the TrailBlazer’s door open.
Even from where he was standing he could hear the series of loud clicks across the street. The tech specialist had gone on to say something about Sam Markham being unreachable, too—when suddenly the explosion sent the FBI agent’s BlackBerry flying from his hand.
Chapter 80
Cindy was just stepping out of the shower when she felt the tiles rumble beneath her feet.
Fifteen minutes later she was in her pajamas, lying on her bed with her biology book, when her mother knocked on her door.
“Yeah?”
“You need to see this,” her mother said, entering. She was dressed in her nurse’s scrubs—graveyard shift this weekend, Cindy suddenly remembered.
“You’re going to be late,” Cindy said, and was about to complain that she needed to study, when the look on her mother’s face changed her tune at once.
“What is it, Mom?” she asked, but her mother had already clicked on the TV atop her dresser—immediately changed the channel from VH1 to a local station and sat beside Cindy on the bed.
“This happened near the Theatre building,” she said. “Over on Lewis Street.”
Cindy listened in shock as the reporter, a pretty woman with blond hair, recounted what the press knew thus far: something about a missing FBI vehicle, a parking lot, and an explosion; unconfirmed reports of at least four people dead, more people injured, shattered windows, a nearby resident said
“Bradley Cox lives on that street,” Cindy said suddenly.
“The boy playing Macbeth?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You don’t think this has anything to do with him not showing up today, do you?”
“I don’t know,” Cindy said.
“I need to get moving, honey,” her mother said, rising. “I’m late, and if what they’re saying is true, they’re going to need me in the emergency room. Promise me you won’t go down there, will you?”
“I promise.”
“I love you,” said her mother, kissing her forehead.
“Love you, too,” Cindy replied absently, eyes glued to the T V. She didn’t hear her mother leave; had no idea how long she’d been sitting there watching the news report, when her cell phone startled her from her trance.
She reached for it, saw that the call was from Amy Pratt, and let it roll over into voice mail—waited patiently for the ding, then listened to Amy’s message. Typical Amy blabbering and nothing more to add than what she’d already learned from T V.
“Edmund,” Cindy muttered. “I wonder if Edmund knows.”
She dialed his number—let it ring and ring—and felt her stomach sink when the call went into voice mail. She left him a message—sent him a text, too—and began pacing her room, faster and faster as the minutes ticked away with no reply.
She had to get out of there; couldn’t bear the idea of being alone and wanted nothing more than to watch the news with Edmund Lambert by her side. Something was wrong. The explosion of the FBI vehicle on Bradley Cox’s street, the young actor’s disappearance—it was all connected. Cindy could feel it.
“Fuck this,” she said, and changed out of her pajamas into a pair of jeans and a Harriot T-shirt. She was downstairs and ready to go in less than a minute—grabbed her keys from the kitchen table, her denim jacket from the den, and dashed outside to her car.
Once inside, Cindy accidentally dropped her keys, cursed herself for being such a klutz, and ran her hand back and forth between the seat and the shift column. She reached under the driver’s seat and found them—inserted the Pon-tiac’s key into the ignition—but the car refused to turn over.
“Come on, Daddy’s piece of shit!” she cried, turning the key and pumping the gas until finally the old Sunfire’s engine sputtered to life. She didn’t wait for it to warm up, just threw the shift into reverse and backed down the driveway.
As she drove out of her neighborhood and headed for the highway, Cindy felt not the slightest bit guilty about breaking her promise to her mother.
After all, she’d only promised not to go down to the scene of the explosion.
She’d said nothing about going to Edmund Lambert’s.
Chapter 81
The General had just pulled Sam Markham from the Mustang’s trunk and hoisted him over his shoulder when he felt his cell phone buzzing in his back pocket. He’d already destroyed the FBI agents’ BlackBerrys and tossed them along with Markham’s briefcase in a Dumpster on his way back to Wilson. They wouldn’t be able to trace anything to him now—at least not until his work in the farmhouse was finished.
The General let the call buzz into voice mail. Other than the alarm company, only two people had his cell phone number now. And since he couldn’t imagine why Doug Jennings would be calling him at this hour, he knew the call had to be from Ereshkigal.
The General closed the trunk and carried Markham from the horse barn—chained the doors from the outside with one hand, then reached into his pocket. He was about to check his message when the incoming text told him everything he needed to know.
Something’s happened, it read. On the news now, an ex- plosion near Bradley’s apt. Please call me back
