'You didn't pull any favors. Didn't shake anybody's hand too hard.'
'No, no, no.' Pinty didn't know what he was after here. 'I may have gone around to a few of your teachers, sure, just letting them know what you had riding on your midterms, how hard you were studying. That a full scholarship for the son of a police officer killed in the line of duty was at stake. Future of the town, and all that.'
Donny blinked, getting quiet, looking at his hands on the blue armrests.
Form. Function. Simplicity. A chair, a bed, a window. Old man, younger man. Weak and strong.
Pinty went on. 'I never begrudged you that, by the way. I always held out the hope, maybe even the knowledge, that you'd find a way to make good on your pledge. And now look. Years overdue, but you've given Black Falls a new start. Given it a fighting chance. That scholarship turned out to be worth every penny we raised.'
Donny was squinting into his lap now, like he was working over some puzzle Pinty could not see. 'Righting a wrong is the closest thing we have to going back in time.'
Pinty agreed. 'That's as good a way to put it as any.'
Donny looked up as though he'd been poked. He shifted in the big chair and slipped a device out of his back pocket, that pager he carried around with him everywhere. Pinty heard it buzzing.
Donny read the display and looked charged. He got to his feet.
'What?' said Pinty.
'Sinclair,' Donny said, reaching for the telephone on the bedside tray. 'Wants me to meet him on Hell Road.'
59
HESS
THE RAIN CONTINUED in earnest after the thunder and lightning had moved off, drumming on the roof of the Hummer. The windows stayed cracked because they couldn't run the defrost, because they couldn't run the engine, because they were hiding in a turnout a thousand yards from the Borderlands trailhead. The Special Tactics and Operations team leader sat beside Hess in the wide backseat, his head tipped back, eyes closed but nowhere near sleep. Hess kept swiping water off his own face from the drops smacking the top edge of his window and spitting into his eyes.
The wire in Hess's ear sizzled.
The STOP team leader lowered his chin and opened his eyes. 'What do you mean? Just walking out? Alone?'
The leader looked at Hess. Hess frowned, shook his head.
'Bring it in,' said the STOP leader. He reached forward and patted his driver's shoulder, the Hummer's engine roaring to life.
They were the first ones back to the trailhead, pulling in next to Maddox's parked patrol car. Hess got out in the rain, watching a man in a poncho exit the fire road entrance, walking determinedly toward him through the puddles. Maddox stopped in front of Hess, shrugging back his glistening hood.
Hess said, 'What gives you the authority to pull the plug on this thing yourself?'
'I stood in there for an hour and a half,' said Maddox. 'He's not coming. Not going to let himself be trapped like that.'
Light beams came bobbing out of the trees as the mud- soaked STOP team emerged from the fire road behind Maddox, faces camo-painted, assault rifles outlined beneath their vented ponchos.
'He's playing with us,' said Hess. 'Seeing how high we'll jump.'
The STOP leader came over, his driver holding a black umbrella. 'Air Wing's still on standby, on the ground,' he reported. 'Rainfall messes with heat imaging anyway.'
'He was never here,' declared Maddox, stripping off the assault vest beneath his poncho.
Hess said, 'It's time we sent him a return message. Give me an hour to huddle, think about what to say.'
'Here,' Maddox said, handing over the pager. 'I'm done. Knock yourself out.'
Hess watched Maddox climb into his car and pull out. Maddox's headlights briefly illuminated Bryson crossing the lot, looking ridiculous in galoshes and a rain hat knotted under his chin, as though his mother had dressed him.
'Another missing-person report,' Bryson said. 'A young woman this time.'
The sixth such alert of the day. The first five had each ended happily, products of miscommunication and town hysteria. But the MSP would respond as they always did, quickly and conscientiously.
Hess started toward Bryson's car through the thumping rain. 'Who made the call?'
'No call,' said Bryson. 'Woman came straight to the station.' He tapped his ear. 'She's deaf.'
60
MADDOX
MADDOX PULLED INTO his driveway, hitting the button on the visor-clipped remote control and watching the door go up on Tracy's Ford truck parked inside.
He had completely forgotten about inviting her over. He tipped his head back against the headrest, cursing himself, then jumped out and ran through the rain into the garage. His peace offering had turned into an insult. Now he had to salvage this somehow. He shook out his soaked legs but didn't even take time to remove his wet boots, walking through the door into the first-floor hallway.
'Tracy?'
The house was dark. He hit a light switch and continued down the hall toward the closet.
'Tracy?' he called out, louder. 'Trace?'
Must be upstairs. He slid his holster off his belt and was reaching to store it up on the top shelf when something made him stop. The silence in the house, certainly. Also, a smell now, one he had been in too much of a rush to notice before. An odor deeper than the coppery smell of the rain. Earthy, like that of the llama farm, but less pleasant, more stinging.
Maddox stopped calling her name. He went quiet, sliding his revolver out of the holster and moving to the intersecting end of the hallway. He looked to the locked front door, rain spilling off the gutter outside.
He went to the bottom of the stairs and stood there looking up.
He did not turn on the light.
He started up. At the top landing, he just listened and let his eyes adjust.
He heard breathing.
Someone was standing at the far end of the hallway. Not hiding there. Just standing. Waiting.
It wasn't Tracy. Maddox held his gun ahead of him, trying to see.
The figure moved, shifted its weight. Maddox made out long hair. The wig.
He lowered his gun and took an angry step forward.
Dill started toward him. With the darkness throwing off Maddox's depth perception, he did not until too late see how fast Dill was coming. He was further distracted by the shovel that Dill held in his hands.
As Dill closed the distance between them, Maddox got his gun up and fired two quick shots. Both rounds rang off the back of the shovel, ricocheting into the ceiling and the wall.
Dill's body crashed into him, the shovel headfirst batting back the revolver, then swinging up to crack him near the temple.
Maddox fell hard. A warm feeling spread inside him from his head and neck through his back, relaxing him against his will. The house tipped as Dill stood over him, wild hair swaying. Then everything closed up and went dark.
IN THE DREAM THAT wasn't a dream, Maddox stood in the trees beyond his backyard, the spot from where Sinclair had snapped the photograph. He saw his house exactly as in the picture, except for the presence of his mother, sitting alone on the back deck in her housecoat. Maddox yelled to her but she could not hear him. Then Tracy appeared in a second-floor window, banging on the glass with both arms, screaming, but Maddox heard nothing. A twig cracked and he turned and saw Sinclair next to him, drawn and dopesick, wearing his wig and a Black Falls patrolman's outfit, the camera glowing around his neck like an amulet.
MADDOX AWOKE MOANING. He could not hold his throbbing head straight, a pulsing pressure on his skull. He was dizzy and on the edge of nausea.
He could not move. He thought he was still in the dream.
His mother's kitchen was set before him like a still life, a picture in a frame he could step into. He expected her to walk in, smile, say hello.
He was shivering. Wet clothes.
Someone moved in the room behind him. Someone not his mother.
He was tied to one of the kitchen chairs with blue nylon line from the garage. His hands were numb behind him, his ankles knotted tight to each front leg of the chair. He could turn his head, but not enough to see behind him.
