Adam pushed back from the table. “Man, that coffee tastes good. We had real weak stuff at White Rose. But I’m not used to this strong stuff. Runs right through me. May I use your bathroom before we leave?”
“Sure.” Maria pointed him toward it. “Why don’t you shower and change while you’re at it? I’m sure you want to get rid of that gown and pants.”
“Good idea. That okay with you, Levi?”
“Yes. Just please be quick.”
“Thanks.”
When she heard the bathroom door shut, and was sure he couldn’t hear them, Maria leaned close to Levi.
“You know he’s bat-shit crazy, don’t you?”
“Oh, he’s certainly disturbed. Unbalanced.”
Maria smirked. “That’s putting it mildly. He changes emotions like some women I know change clothes.”
“He’s mentally ill. But regardless, he’s telling the truth about what happened the night of the fire. About the satyr and the rest.”
“Doesn’t matter if he is—he’s still nuts.”
“Yes,” Levi sighed. “He is. The strain of what he’s been through was too much, I suppose. I’ve heard the expression ‘the mind snapped’ before, but I never really saw it in action until today.”
“So what are we still doing with him? We’ve got the book and the pages. Why keep him around? Why not just cut him loose before he freaks out on us again? The longer he’s with us, the better our chances of getting caught.”
“We can’t just let him go,” Levi explained. “He’s like a child in some ways. And those mood swings. He could hurt someone—or himself.”
“Then we make an anonymous tip. Drop him back off at the hospital.”
“And what happens when he tells them it was us who helped him escape?”
“What? That we burned a hole in time and space and broke him out? They’ll increase his medication and think nothing more about it.”
“Maria.” Levi sighed. “The truth is, we can’t let him go yet. We still need him.”
“For what?”
“I can’t say. The less you know, the better.”
“Why? Is it something bad?”
“God forbid you get engulfed by the entity. As soon as it leeches onto you, it not only drains your energy—it also siphons your thoughts. I can’t risk it learning of our plans before I have a chance to defeat it.”
“So what are our plans?”
“Like I said, I can’t tell you all of it. But the first thing we need to do is finish up here. Then we need to contact the own er of the Ghost Walk. This Ken Ripple. We need to ask him to consider not opening.”
Maria shook her head. “No way. He’ll never go for it.”
“We can’t let those people go into the woods. Isn’t there some way you can convince him?”
“I can try,” Maria reluctantly agreed, “but I don’t think it will do any good.”
She walked into her office, retrieved her cell phone, and scrolled through the recently called numbers. Finding Ken’s, she hit redial. On the first ring, it automatically put her into his voice mail.
“He’s not picking up,” she said. “Probably has a million things going on. They open in like four or five hours.”
“Four hours?”
“Well, yeah. When did you think it would open?”
“I assumed an attraction like this would open well after dark—eight or nine at the earliest. That gives us less time than I’d planned for. There must be another way to stop people from going into those woods.”
“We could call in a bomb threat,” Maria suggested. “Phone the police and tell them there’s a bomb somewhere on the trail.”
“Do the regional police usually react to such a situation?”
“No,” she admitted. “Takes them an hour to arrive on the scene when there’s shots fired. I can’t imagine they’d take a bomb threat seriously. If Al Qaeda ever wanted to wipe out a place with no re sistance or preparation, York County would be a prime target.”
Levi’s expression was grim. “This is my fault.”
“Maybe I could call the evangelical church. Convince the pastor and some of his parishioners to go down there and protest. Slow things down a little. Tell them the Ghost Walk is the devil’s work.”
“No,” Levi said. “Then we just put more people in harm’s way. Something like that will attract more attention, not less. We need to get going. Now.”
Maria wolfed down the rest of her breakfast while Levi told Adam to hurry up. By the time Adam was showered and dressed, the two were ready to go. Adam pulled his ball cap down low and readjusted his sunglasses.
“Think anybody will recognize me?” he asked.
