Blowout

Guide lying precariously on top, a pool table, several easy chairs, and one ratty leather sofa that looked like it had been used for at least two generations.

There was only silence, thick and dead.

Whatever they had heard, no, whomever they had heard, was gone. Savich felt helpless, something he hated. He wondered if the man who’d made these noises had simply slipped out of one of the upstairs windows. Savich walked slowly back along the corridor, alert, his SIG steady in his hand. Suddenly he felt something, something that was close, something right behind him. Savich froze for an instant, then quickly, crouching low, he whirled around, his SIG up. No one was there, not even a dust mote, but the odd thing was that there was a heaviness in the air itself, as if something should be there, as if perhaps it was, just invisible to him. He shook his head at himself.

He had no idea what was really going on. The only one who could clear things up was the woman downstairs, seated on that flowered sofa, staring into the fireplace, wearing a dress more suited to summer than this bone-cold winter night. He could give her tea, calm her down, get her talking, convince her to let him take her to the sheriff.

He’d nearly reached the stairs when he heard another noise. It was above him.

CHAPTER

2

A N ATTIC . He’d heard the creak of footsteps overhead, as if someone were walking from one board to the next, carefully, slowly, so as not to fall, trying to move as quietly as he could. Savich got his brain focused and calm. So some fool was in the attic, trying to scare the bejesus out of him. The same fool he and the woman had heard before. He hadn’t gone out a window after all.

Angry now, Savich forced himself to stillness. He kept staring upward, waiting for another footstep to pinpoint where the man was, but there was nothing, only the quiet of an empty house.

He saw the attic pull cord nicely camouflaged against a window, down at the end of the long hallway. He trotted to it, unlooped it, and pulled it down. The stairs slipped smoothly down from the ceiling, their lowest rung touching the hallway carpet.

Darkness poured down. He pulled out his Swiss Army knife with its penlight and switched it on. It was better than nothing, though not much.

He climbed the stairs, every sense heightened. He kept his feet firmly planted on the wooden ladder when his head and chest cleared the attic opening and looked around him as far as the meager light from the penlight would penetrate. It was black as Sean’s pirate eye patch, with no windows to let in the moonlight. He remained on the ladder, unwilling to climb all the way into the attic. It was too dark and he knew himself vulnerable, even with his SIG. He continued to flash the penlight around him, but its range was so limited, he couldn’t make out anything more than ten feet away.

Finally, he spoke. “Is anyone up here?”

There was no sound, not a whisper of a sound. The air itself seemed old and dead, like breathing inside a mausoleum. He circled the penlight again.

He stopped once again, listened. “Is anyone up here?”

There was nothing, not even the scurrying of a mouse to disturb the thick layer of dust that was part of the air itself.

Suddenly, there was a loud whooshing sound, like something was sucking up all the air in its path. It seemed to come from all around him. It was something large, something black, moving like a dozen flapping wings, and it slammed hard into him, hurtling him backward. He lost his balance and fell back down through the opening, his feet not finding purchase on the ladder. He landed on his back on the carpet. He lay there just a moment, his brain stunned into inaction, wondering what damage he’d done to his body.

He had to get it together. Whoever had struck him could strike him again in the next instant. He aimed his SIG upward and listened, but he heard nothing at all from the black hole above his head. Slowly, still listening, he rolled to a sitting position and queried his body. He was aware of the lights around him, steady and bright. He seemed to be all right. He slowly rose, stretched, and stared up again into that black hole, wondering what had hit him. If not a person, and he was pretty sure it hadn’t been a man, then there were few logical choices. Bats, he thought, he’d probably disturbed a whole lot of bats. What would bats be doing in a beautiful house like this one? For the life of him he couldn’t think of anything else it could have been. And maybe the bats had made the noise. Perhaps bats were common up in the Poconos, particularly in the winter, when the cold drove them inside, to places where it was dark and warm.

Enough was enough. He strode to the top of the stairs, paused one final time, listening, fingers tightly wrapped around his SIG.

He had to get her to talk to him, had to calm her, it was the only thing left to do. He took the stairs two at a time and rushed into the living room, his mouth opening to tell her he hadn’t found anything.

The living room was empty.

He pulled out his cell phone, dialed Sherlock before he realized it hadn’t worked the last time he’d used it. But she answered immediately.

“Dillon? What’s up? You having problems with the car?”

“Sherlock, I’m glad I reached you. The last time I tried to use the cell, it was dead. Something’s happened.”

A brief pause, a touch of panic in her voice, then, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I promise, but something’s happened.”

“Tell me.” As quickly as he could, he took her through it. When he told her about something knocking him out of the attic, he kept his voice as calm as he could.

“She’s gone. I imagine she’s run away again. She was so terrified, so hysterical, that I couldn’t get anything out of her. We’ve got to find her. I don’t know if she’s still in danger, but she believes she is. It’s cold outside and she didn’t have on a coat, she wasn’t even wearing a sweater. She could freeze to death.”

“Dillon, I think you should go to the sheriff’s office in Blessed Creek. I remember passing it, right there in the middle of Main Street. I’ll be there with Sean as soon as I can. I’m going to call the sheriff, ask him to meet us at his office. You be careful, Dillon, drive slow and careful, keep your eyes open for that woman. Don’t worry. We’ll get this all figured out. I love you.” He could hear Sean singing away in the background. Now, that sounded normal. He smiled.

Ten minutes later, Sherlock climbed out of Jimmy Maitland’s old jeep, which he left at the cabin for his boys’ use. She was worried about Dillon, feeling more scared than usual, perhaps because they were on vacation and this was so unexpected. With Sean asleep in the backseat, snoring little puffs of cold air, she could let the worry show on her face. She stood a moment, looking into the sheriff’s small office, with its single light shining in the wide front windows. She saw an older man with a thick shock of white hair, fiddling with a coffeemaker. Good, he had to be the sheriff. He’d taken her seriously.

Sheriff Doozer Harms stood in the middle of his office, his back to his coffeepot, his arms crossed over his beefy chest as he watched a man pull up behind the woman’s jeep. The man opened the jeep’s passenger side, unfastened the child’s car seat strap, and lifted out a sleeping boy. They all huddled close, then turned, as one, toward his office.

The man pulled his I.D. out even as he stepped into the office. “Sheriff Harms? I’m Agent Dillon Savich, FBI, and this is my wife, Agent Lacey Sherlock. We have a problem and we need to move quickly. My wife is the one who called you.”

“Yes, she did,” said Sheriff Harms as he looked them over. Well, well, two FBI agents, and they were husband and wife, even had a little kid. What was this all about? Agent Sherlock had told him only that her husband had something important to tell him. Doozer wished he was finishing the Bud Light he’d left on top of the TV, and began tapping his foot.

He’d been the sheriff of Blessed Creek for nearly thirty-two years. He figured he’d heard every tourist problem anyone could think of, even if the tourists were FBI agents. But he knew the importance of being polite, knew how to listen even if he was thinking about how much he’d like to be home watching the 76ers.