The Hidden

driven in this far; he’d have radioed for help and waited out there in the cruiser, dry.

Radio, she thought.

She pivoted back to the driver’s door and tried the handle, expecting to find it locked. It wasn’t. She let out a stuttery breath and stopped thinking about the missing deputy; pulled the door open and slid quickly inside, closing it after her.

The dome light showed her the position of the radio and its microphone. She’d used communications of this kind for ten years, the codes up here wouldn’t be much different from those she was used to; all she had to do was contact the dispatcher and report the abandoned cruiser, request immediate assistance and a medical response unit. She set her purse down on the passenger seat, caught up the microphone, flipped a toggle—

The driver’s door was suddenly yanked open from outside.

A hand reached in and snatched the microphone from her, a wind-bent voice said, “No, you don’t,” and before she could turn her head all the way around, a pair of powerful arms had encircled her body and were dragging her backward out of the cruiser.

T W E N T Y - O N E

MACKLIN LET CLAIRE LOMAX inside, shouldered the door shut behind her. And this time reached down to throw the bolt lock.

“Oh God, thank you.”

She stood trembling with her arms crossed over her breasts. She was wet through to the skin; the clothing she wore—a down jacket over some kind of shirt, a pair of Levi’s, and sneakers—were all drenched and streaming. The injuries to her face were worse than Shelby had described, probably the result of a second or even a third beating over the past two days. Her terror was as naked as any Macklin had ever witnessed.

“How long were you out there?”

“I climbed up just before Brian got here.” The words had a staccato sound because of the way her teeth were chattering. “If I hadn’t seen him before he saw me … I hid behind one of the sheds until I saw him leave.”

“Climbed up? You don’t mean from the beach?”

“Yes, the beach.”

“In this storm, with those big waves down there?”

“There wasn’t any other way. He had the front gates locked … I was afraid he’d catch me if I tried to get out there.”

“You could’ve been battered against the rocks, washed out to sea.”

“I almost was. A wave knocked me down, I lost the flashlight I had …” A tremor shook her, strong enough to create a rippling effect like an aftershock. “Never mind that now. We have to get away from here before he comes back.”

Macklin moved over to lean against the breakfast bar. He still felt pretty good, almost normal in fact, as if he hadn’t had a cardiac episode. Illusion. He’d had one, all right.

“We can’t do that,” he said.

“Why can’t we? You don’t understand, he’ll kill me if he finds me. He will, I’m not making that up—” She broke off, her gaze taking in the shadowy emptiness of the room. Most of the candles were out now, all except one on the counter beneath the bar top and another in the kitchen; the light from the waning fire tinged the murkiness with an eerie glow. “Where’s your wife?”

“Gone for help.”

“Help? In your car? Your car’s not here?”

“Outside somewhere, but the storm blew a tree down across the lane. There’s no way past it except on foot.”

She stared at him, disbelieving. “You mean we’re trapped?”

“Until Shelby gets back, yes.”

“No, no, no!” Claire’s head shook loosely from side to side like a bobble doll’s—an involuntary reflex that went on for several seconds. Then she made a little keening sound and said in desperate tones, “Have you got a gun?”

“No.”

“Not even a rifle?”

“Nothing like that.”

“Shit! He’ll shoot me if he comes back, don’t you understand that? He’ll shoot both of us!”

“He didn’t seem that crazy,” Macklin lied.

“But he is. You don’t know how crazy.”

She stumbled around the breakfast bar into the kitchen, began rummaging through drawers. He knew what she was after, saw two of them in her hand when she came back into the living room—butcher knives.

“Those won’t do any good against that automatic of his.”

“We have to have something …” She extended one of the knives, and when he didn’t take it she dropped it clattering onto the bar. She seemed to be seeing him clearly then for the first time, the blanket he held tight-wrapped around him; a frown put lines and ridges in her ravaged face. “You said Shelby went for help. Why? What happened?”

“I had a cardiac episode.”

“You … what?”

“Heart attack. Mild one, I hope, but—”

Laughter burst out of her, sudden and hysterical. Witch’s sounds to go with the witch’s face, like mad echoes of the storm outside. It lasted ten seconds or so, morphed abruptly into sobs that shook her whole body. She moved away from him, sank into one of the dinette chairs. Sat slumped there with the butcher knife in her lap, shaking and sobbing.

There was nothing he could do, no comfort he could give her. He said, “You’d better get out of those wet clothes. Shelby’s about your size—put on something of hers.”

Claire didn’t seem to hear him. Lost in the clutches of her fear.

He had to say it twice more before the words penetrated. “Go on. Take a candle into the bedroom, the one on the right. Her clothes are in the closet.”

Another tremor prodded her off the chair. He handed her the candle from the bar; she peered at it, peered at him. Illuminated by its flame, the whites of her eyes had the look of clabbered milk spiderwebbed with thin red veins.

When she’d gone to the bedroom, Macklin walked slowly across to the hearth. Among the set of black-iron fire tools was a heavy poker with a hooked protrusion at the end; he caught it up, hefted it. Not much of a weapon against a handgun, but better than a knife would be. He leaned forward gingerly to poke the fire, then brought the poker back to the bar and rested a hip on one of the stools. Still feeling okay. The last of the weakness in his legs had disappeared.

Claire seemed to have marshaled her defenses when she came back wearing one of Shelby’s sweaters and a pair of her jeans, the towel-dried blonde hair frizzed around her head like a fright wig. The terror in her eyes wasn’t quite as stark now.

She said in a scooped-out voice, “You don’t look like you’ve had a heart attack.”

“Maybe not, but that’s what happened.”

“But you’re only … what, forty?”

“Thirty-five. But age doesn’t have much to do with it,” Macklin said. “I have a blocked artery … need surgery after the holidays. Too much stress brought it on.”

Claire moved over by the fire. He told her to add another log from the dwindling supply in the woodpile; she did that, then stood off to one side, slumped and sag-shouldered with her arms hugging her breasts. Like a woman hanging from a nail.

“Everything happens at once,” she said. “Brian, the storm, lane blocked, medical emergency … it’s like a nightmare.”

Yeah, Macklin thought, only this is the real thing.