Yates's eyes flash to her. 'Not officially, no.'
Sue blinks. The answer doesn't make sense. Then she realizes it's because it's only half the answer. And the rest of it hits her with the clarity of winter light.
'Your child,' she says, 'was one of his victims.'
Yates's silence confirms more than any words. All at once Sue feels a connection to the tired old man across the table. They've both lost a child-permanently in Yates's case, more immediately in her own-to a force that they're both still struggling to comprehend. It explains why a detective in his late sixties would refuse to retire, she thinks, just as it explains the unhealthy intensity burning behind his weary face. Out of the blue she thinks this cannot be a coincidence. Not because someone planned it: How could they? But simply because she is on the route, and there is something about this combination of back roads and towns, something ancient and frightening and explicitly unreal, wherein certain connections happen because they must.
'Her name was Rebecca,' Yates says finally, the name seeming to take everything from him as he speaks it. 'She was eleven years old that summer. That was almost his cutoff, you know. He never killed anyone older than twelve.'
'I'm so sorry.'
Again he doesn't seem to hear. 'I'll never forget how my wife sounded when she called me at work that afternoon to tell me she was missing. It didn't even sound like her.' Yates is shaking his head slowly, not looking at Sue, not looking at anything, really. This featureless, white-walled room is perfect for that. 'Then three days later some hikers found Rebecca just outside of town. Most of her, anyway. He'd shot out her eyes, like he did with all the others.' He pauses for a fraction of a second. 'Like the body of the woman we found in your car, your nanny. And do you know the worst part?'
She waits.
'After we buried her? Someone dug her up. They dug up her coffin and took my daughter's body. Since then I've discovered that that's what happened to a lot of the kids from that summer. Nobody knows where they went, they're just gone.'
Sue just nods. She's thought all of this already. Then the question pops out of her mouth before she even knows it's there. 'Who was Isaac Hamilton?'
Yates-if it's possible-becomes even paler than before. 'Isaac Hamilton?'
'The name on the statue, the one with one leg and no arms.'
'Who told you about him?'
'Nobody. His statue's in every town along the route, starting with Gray Haven, and each time he's missing another extremity. Does that have anything to do with the Engineer?'
'No,' Yates says definitively, but his eyes have wandered away from her. Then, in a softer voice: 'Not unless you believe in a lot of superstitious bullshit.'
'What kind of superstitious bullshit?'
'That's not important right now.'
'I think it is.'
Yates sighs. 'We spent a long time following up the idea that the Engineer was somehow influenced by Isaac Hamilton. There's obviously a connection: the Engineer only killed children in towns where Hamilton's statue was erected, and Hamilton himself was a historic child-murderer, two hundred years ago. Even now there are a lot of nuts out there who think that…'
'Think what?'
'Who seem to think that Hamilton was controlling the Engineer from beyond the grave,' Yates says. He does a pretty good job of keeping the inflection from his voice, all things considered. 'Putting voices in his head or something. They come out of the woodwork with these theories, thinking that local police, state troopers, and the FBI haven't noticed the connection. But frankly we're a little hesitant to accept that the Engineer was only a tool for Isaac Hamilton's eternal evil.'
'How come I never heard any of this before?' Sue asks.
'You wouldn't,' Yates says, 'unless you were an avid reader of theNational Enquirer and theWeekly World News. The mainstream media couldn't do much with it, except to make the comparison and let it drift. The supermarket tabloids, though, had a field day.'
Sue opens her mouth to say something and snaps it shut again. The words she was about to speak, and whatever happened to them before they reached her lips, have eluded her entirely now, leaving a mortal coldness in their wake. Somewhere in the police station, a drawer slams shut, and she jumps so suddenly it hurts.
Yates clears his throat, sounding like he could use another cigarette.
'We don't traffic in horror stories and speculation, Ms. Young, we deal in facts, and in this case, the facts are pretty plain. There were two dead bodies in your car and a lot of unanswered questions. You'll forgive me if I'm not completely convinced you're telling me the truth about why you're involved in all this. You have to realize you're only hurting yourself by holding back. Why would whoever kidnapped your daughter want you to go and dig up a body, and then place another body in your car?'
Sue feels her voice slipping a bit. 'I told you, I don't know. All I know is that my daughter's in danger, she's going to die in three hours if I don't do exactly what they told me, and we're wasting time sitting here talking about it.'
'We'll do absolutely everything we can to get your daughter back-'
'That's not enough.' She's on her feet now, though she doesn't remember standing up, and she's practically yelling. 'What if it were your daughter and you had another chance to save her, what would you do?'
'Itisn't me,' Yates says, not sounding particularly offended by her outburst. If anything his voice, his whole demeanor, has softened, become more sympathetic. 'Itisn't me, Ms. Young.'
'But if it were? Wouldn't you do whatever it took to get her back safely?'
Yates, to his credit, seems to weigh the question seriously. 'If it were my daughter? My Rebecca?'
'Yes.'
'I never would've let them bring me in. I would've drivenover those two officers before I let them stop me from doing what I had to do.'
She nods, wearily. Getting him to admit this doesn't make her feel any better. It only makes things worse.
'But youdid let them take you in,' Yates says, 'and now you're here. And regardless of how I might feel about the matter personally, it's my job to make sure you stay here until some of these questions are answered. I'm sorry. If you want to make a phone call, you're entitled to one.' He too stands up, makes an oddly gentle lifting motion with his palm; it is an invitation, she realizes, to make the call. Sue goes to the door, and Yates taps on it once. Another police officer's face appears outside, an absurdly young-looking man with the wispy beginnings of a blond mustache, as the door swings open so Yates can guide her to the phone mounted on the wall. He gets a line out and hands her the receiver.
Sue dials the first number that comes to mind, her attorney David Feldman, and gets his answering service. She leaves the number at the station and hangs up, then lets them take her back to her little white room. She half expects Yates to follow her in, but he only gives her a nod and says he'll be right back.
The door closes; the door locks.
Sue sits and stares at it, trying not to think of the minutes as they dribble past. She starts to visualize Veda in the dark interior of the van and deliberately snaps the thought off. She can see her daughter just as clearly as before, but it no longer provides even the most fleeting succor.Dear God, get me out of here.
Ten minutes later she hears the screams.
4:41A.M.
They coincide with a series of slamming sounds, like kitchen cupboards banging shut. The silence that comes afterward is seamless. After a span of seconds it's interrupted by a distant but distinct tumbling noise, something falling down heavily-it'sgot to be heavy if Sue can hear it here, at the end of the hallway. Then from somewhere in the guts of the police station she hears a man's voice yell:'Holy shit!' There are two more flat
