The Face of Death

alternative.'

A long pause, followed by a deep sigh. 'Set things up at your end. Let me know when you want us to move.'

'Thank you, sir.' I hang up and look at Callie. 'It's a go.'

'I'm still having trouble believing it.'

'I know. Let's go nail down the last facts we need.'

The safe house Kirby had moved Elaina, Bonnie, and Sarah to looks unsafe. It's a house in Hollywood, old, beaten-down, ramshackle. I guess that's the point. Kirby opens the door as we approach and ushers us in. She has a grin on her face and a handgun tucked into the front of her jeans. She looks like a deranged blond pirate.

'The gang's all here,' she exclaims. She's stopped trying to cover up her killer's eyes. They roam over the outside and her fingers tap the butt of her gun. She closes the door.

'Hey, Red Sonja,' she says, grinning. She sticks out a hand. 'You must be Callie. I'm Kirby, the bodyguard. What do you do, exactly?'

Callie takes Kirby's hand, flashes her a smile. 'I brighten the world with my presence.'

Kirby nods, not missing a beat. 'Hey, me too. Coolness.' She turns toward the back of the house. 'Olly olly oxen free. Come on out.'

Sarah, Bonnie, and Elaina appear. Bonnie comes to me, hugs me around the waist.

'Hi, munchkin.' I smile.

She looks at me, at Callie. Her eyes fill up with concern. Callie gets the message. 'We're fine, just some dirty smoke. Nothing a little soap and makeup won't handle.'

'Tommy got hit by some shrapnel in the shoulder, babe,' I tell Bonnie. 'But he's going to be fine. It's not serious.'

She searches my face for the truth. Takes a moment to gauge the state of me. Gives me another hug.

Elaina is worried, but I can tell she's being strong for the girls. Or perhaps they're just letting her think so.

'I'm glad everyone is okay,' Elaina says, her worry appearing in the form of brief hand-wringing. 'But--why did we have to come here?'

'It was a precaution. It could have been a random act of terror. The FBI certainly has plenty of enemies. But the profile we've been considering suggested it's also the kind of thing that The Stranger might try. Turns out we were right.'

Sarah steps forward. Her face is calmer than it should be as she speaks.

'Who is he?'

'His name is Gustavo Cabrera. He's thirty-eight years old and he came from Central America. We don't know much more about him.'

Sarah looks down at the floor. 'So what happens now?'

I sneak a glance at Kirby and Callie. Both of them know. Elaina does not.

'Now,' I answer, 'you and I need to talk. Alone.'

Her head shoots up. Her look at me is wary. She shrugs, trying for indifference, but I can see the tension in her shoulders.

'Okay,' she answers.

I raise my eyebrows at Kirby.

'Two bedrooms in the back,' she chirps. 'The rest of us girls will stay right here and talk guns and makeup.'

I walk over to Sarah, touch her lightly on the shoulder. She looks at me and something deep and terrible and haunted stirs in those beautiful eyes.

Does she know? I wonder.

Not for sure, I think. But she fears.

I take her back to the bedroom and shut the door and we sit on the bed. I prepare myself to ask the question.

The hardest evidence to see isn't the evidence that's there. It's the evidence that should be there, but isn't. We miss omission because, by its nature, it is absent. This absence is what had troubled first James, and then me, after reading Sarah's diary.

Once we realized what was missing, and coupled it with what we knew of The Stranger, things became clear. It was only a suspicion not yet proved, true, but our confidence was high.

We'd felt him against our skin, James and I.

This made sense.

This made sense.

I ask her the question.

52

'SARAH, WHERE'S THERESA?'

The change in her is a lightning strike. Horror fills her face and eyes and she shakes her head, back and forth.

'No, no, no, no, no,' she whispers. 'Please. She's--' Her face twists, her whole face.

Like a towel being wrung tight.

'--she's all I have left. . . . If I lose her . . . it's all gone . . . gone . . . gone . . . gone . . .'

She hunches into herself on the bed, hugging her knees, her head down. She begins to rock back and forth. She's still shaking her head.

'He has her, doesn't he?' I ask.

The thing that had bothered James and me was a complicated amalgam of half-seens and missing grains of sand. The feel of The Stranger. Sarah's love of Theresa. The taking of a hostage. The path we'd been led down.

But most of all, the absolute absence of Theresa from the rest of Sarah's story.

Theresa had been told not to contact Sarah while she was at the group home. Fine.

But then what had happened? She loved Theresa, and she told us what hap- pened to everyone else she loved. What about her Theresa?

'Sarah, tell me.'

She keeps her face down, her forehead resting against the tops of her knees, and she begins to talk. Begins to run, even though these words aren't on paper. One more trip to the watering hole.

Sarah's Story

The Real Ending

53

SARAH HAD TURNED FOURTEEN AS SHE SLEPT AND SHE HADN'T cared. She woke up realizing she was another year older, and she didn't care.

Caring wasn't something she did much, anymore. Caring was dangerous. Caring could mean pain, and pain wasn't something she could deal with.

Sarah walked a tightrope these days. She had been for the last few years. The bad experiences had piled up and her soul had reached a tipping point. She'd realized that she was just a step away from going bonkers. One feather touch was all it would take to send her flying. It wasn't long from flying to falling.

She'd realized this one morning at the group home. She was sitting outside, looking at nothing, thinking of nothing. She was scratching an itch on her arm. She blinked, once, and an hour had passed. Her arm hurt. She'd looked down and found that she'd scratched herself until she bled.

The moment had pierced her numbness. It had terrified her. She didn't want to lose her mind.

Sometimes too, she'd get the shakes. She tried to make sure she was alone when it happened. She didn't