“Don’t bother,” she said. “The last time it barely helped at all, and I don’t want to spend all day on it. It’s a waste of time.”
“And your stomach?”
“I’m starving.” She didn’t look at me. She just stared ahead. “I feel a little weak and disoriented, to tell the truth. I’m going to have to rely on you a little more than I would normally. Can I do that?”
“Yes,” I said. “I just killed a cop in cold blood for you. If that doesn’t prove I’m on your side…”
Right then I felt like vomiting. Thankfully, I hadn’t eaten in hours.
I pulled out of the parking space. I didn’t have anywhere to go, but I didn’t want to be near the scene of the fight any longer. I didn’t know where I was going, so I just drove.
Hammer Bay was pretty in the sunlight. I thought of all the people who were not going to see this sunshine, from the woman in the hospital morgue to the reverend to Sugar Dubois, and I felt a twist of cold anger. I tried to aim it at Charles Hammer, or his grandfather, or Eli Warren, who had brought the spells to this town in the first place, but in truth, I was angry at everything, including myself. The world seemed to be full of killers and those who stood by and did nothing about them. I suddenly wished I was one of those who stood by.
“If I don’t survive,” she said, “I don’t want you to go after Charles Hammer by yourself.”
“Why not?” I sounded a little indignant, but she ignored it.
“Because he’s too big for you, and I don’t want him getting a close look at the spells you’re carrying. If things go wrong, head out of town. One of the peers will track you down and debrief you.”
“I’ll be in jail by then, right? Will the society get me out again?”
She shrugged. She was dying, and she didn’t much care whether I went to jail or not. I’d have probably felt the same way.
I drove toward Cynthia’s house, glad that it was my left calf that was throbbing, not the one I drove with. Maybe we could get Charles’s location out of her. Something was nagging at me. There was something I should have remembered but couldn’t quite recall.
“You don’t think he left Hammer Bay, do you?”
“I hope not,” Annalise said. “I don’t think so. He started this whole thing for his company and his town. I don’t think he’d cut and run.”
I nodded. Cynthia had refused to leave, too. “What about a boat or something? He’s rich enough to have one.”
“He does. Karoly’s notes told me which one. I sank it last night. He wasn’t there.”
Then I remembered. “Cabot said that Charles has been spending all his time hiding in the tower.”
“There’s a high, round room at their house.”
“That’s what I thought, too, but no dice. That’s his sister’s bedroom.”
She didn’t react to that. “Did the sister tell you where he is?”
“She wouldn’t. Not her own brother.” This was the point where I could have told Annalise about Cynthia’s iron gate, but we had more important things to discuss. “I want to ask her one more time.”
Annalise didn’t say anything after that. I wondered what she would do to force an answer out of Cynthia. Had I saved Cynthia’s life so my boss could kill her?
Then it hit me-the gray stone wall in Emmett’s photo, Cabot’s remark that Charles had been hiding in the tower…
I switched off the turn signal and kept going south.
We passed out of the business district. I looked toward the ocean and saw the sunlight sparkle on the water. It was a beautiful sight.
And there, naked in the sunlight, was the light house. Except that with no mist or fog around it, it didn’t look like a light house at all.
I pulled over and shut off the engine. “Where’s that bad map?”
We searched the glove compartment and the spaces under the seats before I remembered that I had looked at the map in Ethan’s minivan. I found it in the inside pocket of my jacket, folded up into a tiny square. I unfolded it. The light house was marked with a number four. I turned the map over and found the entry for number four.
“What’s all this about?” Annalise asked.
“A light house that isn’t a light house,” I said. “Here it is: ‘In 1949, Charles Hammer the First bought a castle in Scotland and had it shipped to Hammer Bay, where it was rebuilt stone by stone. Sixteen years later, an earthquake toppled all but the southernmost tower, which still stands today.’”
I stared at the tower. It didn’t have the battlements that I saw in old movies. It was slightly crooked, but it was a tower. This was the “Scottish thing” Bill had mentioned.
“That’s where he is.”
Annalise nodded. “Let’s finish this job.”
“Boss,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to say what I wanted to say next, so I just blurted it out. “Do you think there’s a way to turn those worms back into kids? Do you think they can be cured?”
She did not like that question. “Anything is possible, Ray.”
I thought that, if I’d asked her if we could fly a candy-cane rocket to Jupiter, she would have given me the exact same answer in the exact same tone. “Boss, I had to ask.”
