Petrocelli spread his hands helplessly. “She says she doesn’t know.”
“What the hell does she mean, she doesn’t know?”
Holding his hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of a pair of headlights that had appeared at the foot of the driveway, Pullman shook his head impatiently. “Find out who that is, and make them go away,” he growled. “And make sure nobody else comes in here, okay?” As the deputy moved toward the car that had pulled to a stop just behind the ambulance, Pullman shifted his attention to Joan Hapgood.
“Joan?” He took her arm and gently drew her to her feet, only seeing the blood on her clothes as she stepped into the glare of the ambulance’s headlights. “Are you hurt?”
Joan shook her head but said nothing, her eyes fixed on Matt, who was still lying exactly as he had been when she found him a little while ago.
“I–I don’t think so,” she stammered.
As she finally tore her eyes away from Matt and looked at the police chief, Pullman could see the confusion in her face. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Joan shook her head.
Pullman frowned. Was it that she didn’t know, or didn’t want to tell him? “Would you like me to call Trip Wainwright?” he asked. For a moment he didn’t think she’d heard him, but then she shook her head again.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. Her gaze went back to Matt. “I’ve killed him, haven’t I?” she asked, her voice breaking. “I’ve killed my son.”
Suddenly Gerry Conroe appeared at Pullman’s side. “What the hell is going on around here?” he demanded. “Tony Petrocelli just tried to order me off the — ” His eyes fell on Joan Hapgood’s bloody clothing. “Jesus! He tried to kill you too, didn’t he?”
“We don’t know what happened, Gerry,” Pullman said before Joan could respond. “And I was the one who told Tony to keep you out of here.”
Conroe’s face flushed with anger. “I’ve got every right to be here. My daughter is still — ”
“Not now, Gerry,” Pullman said, deciding he’d had enough. “Stay if you want, but keep out of my way. If you don’t — ”
“We need to get him into the ambulance,” one of the medics called out to him. “Is that okay?”
Pullman moved to Matt and looked down at him. The shovel — no longer in his hands — lay on the driveway at his side, and in his other hand was a scrap of blood-soaked cloth.
“We’ve already taken pictures of everything,” the medic said as Dan crouched down next to the boy.
Reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket, Pullman pulled out one of the Ziploc bags he always carried. Touching only a single corner of the scrap of cloth, he carefully drew it out of Matt’s hand and put it in the bag. As he was sealing the bag he noticed the monogram on the material: FAT.
He recognized it right away, for he had been with Frank Adams the first time his friend ordered a monogram on his shirt. A monogram that had subsequently appeared on every shirt Frank Adams owned, including the ones his daughter had taken to wearing a year ago. “Oh, Jesus,” he whispered, and though his words were barely audible, they caught the attention not only of the medics who were about to transfer Matt to a stretcher, but of Gerry Conroe as well.
“What is it?” Conroe demanded. “What did you find?”
Pullman ignored him, concentrating instead on Matthew Moore. “What did you do?” he asked the unconscious boy. “What did you do to Becky Adams?”
With Tony Petrocelli’s help, the two EMTs lifted Matt onto the stretcher. “Careful,” one of the medics told the deputy as a low moan escaped Matt’s lips. “It looks like his shoulder might be broken.” They eased Matt onto the stretcher as gently as they could, then lifted the stretcher onto the waiting gurney. As one of the medics began strapping Matt down, he groaned again.
“Hold it!” Pullman snapped, stepping to the head of the gurney and looking down into the boy’s face. “Talk to me, Matt!” he said, still clutching the Ziploc bag containing the scrap of material from Frank Adams’s shirt. “Tell me what happened!”
“Take it easy, Chief,” one of the medics said. “He can’t hear you.”
Pullman’s eyes didn’t leave the boy’s face. “Come on, Matt!” Another moan drifted from the boy’s lips, and Pullman thought he saw a twitch. “Talk to me!”
Then Joan appeared next to the stretcher, looming over Matt. “Leave him alone,” she cried. “Just leave him alone!” Her gaze shifted from Dan Pullman to her son. “I’m here, Matt,” she whispered. “I’m here. And I’ll never leave you. I’ll never leave you again.”
As she uttered the last words, Matthew Moore’s eyes snapped open, and a different sound erupted from his throat.
It was not a moan. It was a scream, an anguished scream carrying so much pain that it froze everyone who had gathered around the stretcher.
CHAPTER 28
The blackness was even deeper than before, the walls of the chamber so close around him that every breath was a painful struggle. The stench of death was in his nostrils, and every nerve in his body felt as if it were on fire. From somewhere in the darkness he thought he could hear the wailing of the dead.
But he’d gotten away from the root cellar! He’d stood on Becky’s shoulders and —
Suddenly he was there again, pushing up, struggling to raise the trapdoor. The wailing had stopped, and he was almost out — almost free — almost —
He grunted as the shovel crashed down on him, stunning him.
Now he was stumbling through the darkness, running down a driveway that seemed to go on forever toward gates that never appeared any nearer. Then something was behind him, some unseen menace, coming closer and closer. He struggled to run faster, but his feet seemed mired in mud, and now the gate — the gate that was his only escape from the menace closing in behind him — was farther away then ever.
The car struck him with no warning, and he moaned as a sharp pain shot through his shoulder.
He stumbled, then felt himself falling.
He tumbled through the blackness, sinking deeper and deeper into it.
A voice.
His mother’s voice.
“I’m here, Matt…”
* * *
HIS SCREAM WASHED away the nightmare of memories that had held him in a prison of blackness, and his eyes blinked open.
She was there!
His mother was there, next to him, staring down at him, reaching out to him.
“No!” he screamed. “No! Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me.”
His mother’s hand froze, and for a moment her eyes met his. Once again he seemed to be caught up in the nightmare, for suddenly he was no longer looking at his mother.
He was looking at his aunt.
Another scream rose in his throat, but before it could erupt into the night he heard a man’s voice: “Talk to me, Matt. Talk to me!”
Matt tore his eyes away from the strange visage of his aunt, and saw Dan Pullman looming above him. “B-
