A hand grasped hers. A real hand, its grip solid around her wrist. Noah, she thought. I’ve found my son.
Now the hand dragged her upward, out of the murk. She stared in wonder as the light blossomed brighter, and then her head surfaced and she saw the face staring down at her. Not Noah’s face, but a girl’s. A girl with long hair, bright as silver in the moonlight.
Mitchell Groome poured half a can of gasoline over Max Tutwiler’s body. Not that destroying the corpse really mattered. This cave had lain untouched all these millennia; Max’s remains would not be found anytime soon. Still, as long as he was destroying the worm colony, he might as well dispose of a dead body as well.
Wearing a mask against the fumes and a headlamp to light the dim cave, he took his time emptying the contents of the three gasoline cans. He had no reason to rush; the doctor’s submerged vehicle would not be found until daylight, and even if it was found before then, no one would link Groome to her death. If anyone were to draw suspicion, it would be Max, whose sudden disappearance would only solidify those suspicions. Groome didn’t like being forced to improvise; he had not planned this move, had not planned to kill anyone. But then, he hadn’t counted on Doreen Kelly stealing his car, either.
One murder sometimes necessitates another.
He finished splashing the walls and tossed the last empty container into the shallow pool of gasoline at the center of the cavern. It was right beneath the thickest colony of worms. Already they seemed to sense impending disaster, for they were wriggling frantically in the rising fumes. The bats had long since fled, abandoning their invertebrate companions to the flames. Groome took one last look around the cavern, assuring himself he’d forgotten no detail. The last box of specimens, as well as Max’s scientific log books, were in the trunk of his car, parked at the trailhead. With the strike of a match, everything in this cave would go up in flames.
It would be instant extinction of the species, except for the surviving specimens now being nurtured in the labs at Anson Biologicals. The hormone these worms secreted was worth a fortune in Defense Department contracts, but only if it stayed out of the hands of Anson’s competitors.
With the destruction of this cave, only Anson would possess the species. To the rest of the world, the reason for this epidemic of violence, and for all the epidemics that came before it, would remain a mystery.
He crawled up the passageway leading to the exit, dribbling a fine line of accelerant as he backed toward the opening. Crouching in the entrance chamber, he lit a match and touched the flame to the ground. A line of lire licked all the way down the tunnel, and then there was a whoosh as the cavern below exploded in flames. Groome felt the inrush of air as oxygen was sucked in to feed the conflagration. He turned off his headlamp and watched the fire burn for a moment, imagining the worms turning black, their charred carcasses dropping from the ceiling. And he thought of Max’s corpse, reduced to unidentifiable bone and ash.
He backed out of the cave, his feet dropping into the icy stream, and pulled the branches over the opening. Beyond these thick woods, the glow of the fire in the cavern would be invisible. He waded to the streambank and stumbled onto land.
His eyes were still dazzled by the fire, and he had not yet readjusted to the darkness. He turned on his headlamp, to light his way back to the car.
Only then, as his beam flared on, did he see the policemen standing among the trees, weapons drawn.
Expecting him.
Warren Emerson opened his eyes and thought: At last I have died. But why am i in heaven? It was a discovery that greatly surprised him, because he had always assumed that if there was existence after death, he would find himself in some dark and terrible place. An afterlife that was merely an extension of his despairing existence on earth.
Here there were flowers. Vases and vases of them.
He saw blood-red roses. Orchid blossoms like white butterflies fluttering on stalks across the window. And lilies, their fragrance sweeter than any perfume he had ever inhaled. He stared in wonder, for he had never seen anything so beautiful.
Then he heard a chair creak beside his bed, and he turned to see a woman smiling at him. A woman he had not seen in years.
Her hair was more silver than black, and age had left its deep engraving in the lines on her face. But he saw none of this. Looking into her eyes, what he saw instead was a laughing girl of fourteen. The girl he had always loved.
“Hello, Warren,” whispered Iris Keating. She reached out to take his hand in hers.
“I’m alive,” he said.
She heard the question in his voice, and with a smile she nodded. “Yes. You most certainly are alive.”
He looked down at her hand, grasping his. Remembered how their fingers once had entwined all those years ago, when they had both been young, and they had sat together by the lake. So many changes in our hands, he thought. Mine are now scarred and leathery; hers are knobby with arthritis. But here we are, holding hands again, and she is still my Iris.
Through his tears, he looked at her. And decided he was not ready to die after all.
Lincoln knew where he would find her, and there she was, sitting in a chair at her son’s bedside. Sometime in the night, Claire had climbed out of her own hospital bed, had shuffled down the long hallway in her robe and slippers, and found her way to Noah’s room. Now she sat hugging a blanket to her shoulders, looking very tired and pale in the afternoon sunlight. God help the soul who dares to come between a mother bear and her cub, thought Lincoln.
He sat down in the chair across from her, and their gazes met over Noah’s sleeping figure. It hurt him to see that she was still wary, still untrusting of him, but he understood the reason for it. Only a day ago, he had threatened to take from her the one thing in the world she loved most. Now she was watching him with an expression that was both fierce and, at the same time, afraid.
“My son didn’t do it,” she said. “He told me, this morning. He swore it to me, and I know he’s telling the truth.”
He nodded. “I spoke to Amelia Reid. They were together that night until after ten. And then he drove her home.”
By which time, Doreen was already dead.
Claire released a breath, tension melting from her body. She sank back in the chair and placed her hand protectively on Noah’s head. At the touch of her fingers stroking his hair, his eyes flickered open, and he focused on Claire.
Neither mother nor son spoke; their quiet smiles conveyed everything that needed to be said.
I could have spared them both this ordeal, thought Lincoln. If only he had known the truth. If only Noah had come right out and confessed he’d spent the evening with Amelia. But he had been protecting the girl from her stepfather’s wrath.
Lincoln knew of Jack Reid’s temper, and he understood why Amelia would be afraid of him.
Afraid or not, the girl had been ready to share the truth with Claire. Last night, just before J.D.’s rage had exploded in murder, Amelia had slipped out of her house and walked through the clear, cold night, toward Claire’s house. Her route had taken her along Toddy Point Road.
Right past the boat ramp.
The girl’s fortunate journey had saved Claire’s life. And in the process, Amelia had saved her own.
Noah had once again fallen asleep.
Claire looked at Lincoln. “Is Amelia’s word going to be enough? Will anyone believe a fourteen-year-old girl?”
“I believe her.”
“Yesterday you said you had physical evidence. The blood-”
“We also found blood in the trunk of Mitchell Groome’s car.”
She paused as the significance of that fact sank in. “Doreen’s?” she said softly.
He nodded. “I think Groome meant to implicate you, not Noah, when he smeared the blood on your pickup. He didn’t know which car you’d been driving that night.”
They were both quiet for a moment, and he wondered if this was how it would end between them, with
