Flesh

She’s dead, whispered Jason’s mind.

But he didn’t find her body in the cellar. He didn’t find a pool of blood. He found none of her clothes. He found no signs of a struggle. He found nothing at all to indicate that Dana had ever been in the cellar, much less murdered there.

He was glad to get out of the cellar. He shut the door and leaned against it.

“What do you think?” Roland asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Why don’t we get out of here?” Without waiting for a reply, Roland walked to the rear door of the kitchen and swung it open. He stopped. “Hey.”

“What?”

“Take a look at this.”

Jason hurried over to him. Roland was fingering the edge of the door. The wood on its outside, near the latch, was gouged and splintered. “Someone broke in,” Jason said.

“Not me and Dana. We came in the front way.”

“Christ.”

Roland whispered, “There was someone else.”

Jason tossed the board aside and stepped through the doorway. Beyond the rear of the restaurant a vast, rolling, weed-covered field stretched to the edge of a forest.

He stepped down from the porch. He walked through the tall grass and weeds of what had once been a lawn. The edge of the lawn blended in with the start of the field, only different in that the lawn was flat and the field began with a small rise. He climbed the rise.

Roland came up behind him and stood at his side while Jason shielded his eyes against the sunlight and scanned the area.

“What now?” Roland asked. “Search in the weeds?”

“I don’t know.” There were acres and acres, and then the forest. The idea of trying to find Dana out there seemed overwhelming and futile.

If she’s in the weeds, he thought, she’s dead.

“Maybe the guy has a place in the woods,” Roland said. “A shack or something, you know? That Ed Gein I was telling you about—”

“We’ll never find her,” Jason said.

“Maybe…” Roland didn’t continue.

Jason looked at him. “Maybe what?”

Roland shrugged. “It’s probably a dumb idea. But if we go back to campus and she still hasn’t shown up and we figure maybe she really did get snatched by some kind of a nut…”

“Then we’ll go to the police.”

“Hell, shit, they’ll think I had something to do with it. Man, I was the last one with her last night. They’ll blame me, and then we’ll never get the guy that did it. I mean, she might still be alive. If some crazy guy got her, maybe he’s keeping her alive. Maybe he doesn’t want to kill her till after he’s done…messing with her. You know?”

“Guy sounds a lot like you,” Jason said.

Roland made a nervous laugh. “Yeah. Takes one to know one. Shit, though, I’d never do anything like that. I just think about it, you know? But that gives us an advantage, right? I can like imagine what he might do. And that’s why I’ve got this idea.”

“What idea?”

“How to get him. And how to find Dana.”

“Yeah? Let’s hear it.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“How you doing, fella?”

“Just fine,” Jake said into the phone. He didn’t feel fine at all, he felt depressed. As soon as he hung up, he would be taking Kimmy back to her mother. “Did Steve get in?”

“Sure did. He wants to talk to you. Hold on a sec.”

Moments later, Steve Applegate came over the line. “Jake? I finished up on Smeltzer. I want you to get over here.”

“Find something interesting?”

“Interesting? Yes, I’d say interesting. How soon can you be here?”

“Fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“Higgins should be in on this.”

The Chief? “What is it?”

“Whetted your curiosity, have I? Well, then you’d better get moving. I’ll phone Higgins.” Without another word, he hung up.

Jake put down the phone.

Kimmy was huddled in a corner of the sofa, watching television. The Three Stooges. Curly saluted his nose to block a two-fingered eye jab from Moe, then went “Nyarnyar-nyar!”

“Hon,” Jake said, “we’d better hit the road.”

“Do we have to?”

“You giving me back talk?” he snapped. “Huh?” He rushed over to Kimmy. Eyes wide, she clamped her arms to her sides. Jake pushed his fingers under them, digging into her ribs. She laughed and writhed. “I’ll teach you! Sass me, will you?” Rolling on her back, she kicked out at him. The sole of her shoe pounded his thigh. “Owww!” Clutching his leg, he staggered backward and fell to the floor.

Kimmy grinned down at him from the sofa. “That’s what you get,” she said, “when you mess with She- Ra.”

“Jeez, I guess so. You discombobulated me.”

She waved a fist at him. “Want some more?”

“No, please.” Jake stood up. “Anyway, we really do have to go.”

The joy went out of her face. “Do we have to?”

“I’m afraid so, honey. Mommy’s expecting you, and besides, I have to go to work.”

“I’ll go to work with you, okay?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I won’t make the siren go,” she assured him, looking contrite and hopeful. “Really I won’t. Can’t I go with you?”

“I’m sorry, honey. Not today. Besides, I won’t be using the siren car.”

“I want to go with you, anyway.”

“You wouldn’t want to go where I’m going. I have to see a guy who’s toes up.”

“Oh, yuck. Really?”

“Yep.”

She made the kind of face she might have made, Jake thought, if somebody stuck a plate of beets under her nose. “Well, don’t touch him,” she advised.

Stopping behind BB’s Toy, Jake got out and opened the passenger door for Kimmy. She watched him with somber eyes. When the safety harness was unsnapped, she didn’t throw the straps off her shoulders in a hurry to climb out. She just sat there.

“Let’s see a smile,” Jake said. “Come on, it’s Mommy’s birthday. She’ll want to see a smile on that mug of yours.”

“I don’t feel good.”

“Are you sick?”