In the Dark of the Night

him, it began bobbing madly up and down, cawing and flapping its wing.

“Shhh,” Logan hissed, but the bird paid no attention, its scolding far from over. As the man headed for the door, the bird hopped off the stump and scuttled to the cabin, pushing through the door as soon as Logan cracked it open. As it disappeared into the cabin, the bird fell silent, and Logan felt a grim foreboding.

He pushed the door wider, and the sunlight flooded in.

His dog lay dead in a pool of black, sticky blood, his chest blasted open.

For more than a full minute Logan stood silently in the doorway, his eyes fixed on the corpse of what only yesterday had been his best friend.

A trick, he told himself. Has to be some kinda trick. Who’d want to shoot a harmless old dog?

But even as he formed the words in his mind, he knew they weren’t true. “No,” Logan whispered, finally moving into the cabin and dropping to his knees. He lifted the cold, limp corpse and held it to his chest, cradling and rocking the remains of the animal as gently as if it were a baby. “Why’d they do that?” he murmured. “What’d they think you could do to them?” He buried his face in the dog’s fur and breathed in the pungent smell of the only real friend he’d known in years. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”

Tears began to stream down Logan’s face, and his gentle rocking turned violent. A moment later, still clutching the bloody corpse of the dog to his breast, his balance failed and he was rolling on the floor, his grief for the loss of his one true friend igniting the worries and fears and terrors that had been building up inside him ever since he’d discovered that Dr. Darby’s demons had once more been set loose.

And now they’d killed his dog.

His poor, harmless, deaf and crippled old dog.

For a long time — he had no idea how long — Logan lay on the floor, sobbing. But slowly the emotional storm faded, and at last he sat up and wiped his sleeve across his face.

Everything, he knew, had changed.

Everything was wrong.

His most precious secrets were strewn across the cabin floor, and he knew he could never live here again.

His eyes fixed on the crow, who was pecking at the last of the bread crumbs Logan had left for it on the floor yesterday.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, only partly to the crow. Now images were flitting through his mind. Images of the girl he’d killed so long ago, the girl he’d wanted only to love.

And Dr. Darby, who had tried to help him.

And the girl that Dr. Darby had killed. Logan reached deep into the dim recesses of his memory and found her name.

Hanover.

That was it. She’d looked like the other girl — the girl he’d loved — and he had been afraid she might die, too. But Dr. Darby had told him she wouldn’t.

Dr. Darby had told him he was all right.

But then Dr. Darby had killed the girl and told him to make sure the demons stayed locked up.

Logan had watched Dr. Darby drown that night. He’d been out in his boat, fishing in the moonlight. He’d even tried to save Dr. Darby, but the water was too deep, and he hadn’t been able to get to him.

He’d failed.

And now he’d failed again.

The demons were loose, and now even his dog was dead.

And soon the men would be back, and they’d take him away.

But maybe it wasn’t too late! Maybe there was still something he could do — something that would make up for all his failures.

Struggling back to his feet, Logan picked up the ruined body of his dog. “Come on, dog,” he muttered. “Maybe we’re not through quite yet.”

Leaving his cabin for what he knew would be the last time, Logan carried the body of the dog down to the lake, never once looking back.

The crow, as if somehow knowing it would never see Logan again, uttered one final caw and then fell silent.

Logan settled the dog down on its bed of rags in the bow of the boat, just the way he had a thousand times before. The old dog looked as if he might simply be taking a moment’s nap.

Logan stepped into the boat and pushed off, heaving the bow loose from the mud.

He rowed quickly but silently, hugging the shoreline, as he made his way toward Pinecrest.

The lake was almost unnaturally quiet; deserted of even a single other boat this morning.

When he came to his goal thirty minutes later, Logan slid the bow of the boat into the weedy cover twenty yards from the Pinecrest lawn and tied the painter to the branch he’d used so many times before.

“Shhh,” he said to the dog. “Wait here.”

Quietly, Logan moved through the woods that bordered Pinecrest until he was as close to the carriage house as he could get without leaving his cover. Already the voices were whispering to him, but this time he knew he could not fail.

He had one last thing to do, and this time the voices would not deter him.

He moved quickly from the safety of the woods to the carriage house door, but hesitated before he touched the doorknob.

What if he failed again?

Perhaps he should turn back now, go back to his boat, and follow where Dr. Darby had led.

But that was failure.

And this time, he was not going to fail.

This time he would do exactly as Dr. Darby had wanted him to do.

He gripped the doorknob, and as the voices grew louder he felt a new energy flowing into him from deep inside the building.

It was going to be all right!

This time he was not going to fail!

Shivering with anticipation, Logan opened the door and stepped into the darkness.

Chapter 33

RUSTY RUSTON WAS on his third circuit around the expansive lawn that sloped gently down to the pavilion beneath which Ellis Langstrom’s body had been discovered only a few nights earlier. This evening, though, it was almost as if the tragedy had never happened. The pavilion itself was twinkling with thousands of tiny lights as dusk settled, and fireflies were starting to blink as well. A four piece band — the latest in a series of musical performances that had been going on all afternoon — was playing to a nearly full dance floor that was getting more crowded by the minute. The lawn itself had been transformed into a colorful patchwork of blankets as families from all over the county had settled in to eat the picnic supper provided by the Lions Club, then watch the best fireworks display north of Chicago, at least if you believed what Mayor Richmond had to say.

Under a huge oak tree near the edge of the lawn farthest from the pavilion, Derek Anders was throwing a ball to his toddler son, having apparently decided he’d had enough of the long day of constant surveillance. Two other deputies had obviously taken their lead from Anders, and were waiting for the fireworks with their families.

At least one of them looked as if he’d had one beer too many, but Rusty couldn’t blame him; all of them had been on duty since early in the morning, and it was long past time for everybody to take a break, including himself.

Besides which, everything had gone off without a single hitch so far, and this was shaping up as the best Fourth ever, at least for the merchants in town.