“ Sometime before next Sunday at midnight, I hope,” Donna thought.
“ You’re back?”
“ You didn’t think I wanted to stay with that maniac alone, did you?”
“ I thought you were going to die,” Glenna said, holding his damp head in her lap. “First you passed out, then you started moaning, and the moans started to get kind of loud, so I had to hold my hands against your mouth. I was afraid I was going to suffocate you. Then you started bouncing and moaning like you were having great sex. Then you tried to scream, but I held my hand tight, and then you went limp. I thought you were dead.”
“ She’s back.” He sat up, then told her everything that had happened while he had been away, leaving nothing out.
“ And you’re sure it wasn’t a dream? A strange nightmare? You’ve been through an awful lot.”
“ Tell her I know what it feels like to be tied down and abused. I’m not under the influence of any drugs now. Tell her how degraded I feel.”
He told her.
“ I want to believe you, I really do, but it’s all too fantastic.”
“ I think I know what he meant, when he said Manfred was going to feed her to his pet,” Jim said.
“ What?” Glenna gasped. “You mean-”
“ Yeah, that thing with the big teeth. I think that somehow it’s connected to her, or me, or both of us. It knows where we are. It can follow us somehow.”
“ That’s crazy talk, but I believe you. That thing is for real. That I know. And it followed us for over a hundred miles. It followed us and found us, but it was afraid of the cemetery. It wouldn’t come in after me. It’s not all powerful. We can find a way to kill it.”
“ Burn it. It’s the only way.”
“ She said it again, we have to burn it.”
“ How does she know?”
“ My mother told me stories about giant geckos and the underworld. They’re evil, and the only way to send them back to where they come from is to burn them.”
“ And you believe your mother’s stories?” Jim thought.
“ She’s Maori, she wouldn’t lie.”
“ She says she’s Maori and that her mother told her about giant geckos from the underworld. If you burn them, it sends them back.”
“ Then we’ll burn it,” Glenna said. “Us sisters have to stick together.”
“ Sisters?”
“ She’s Maori, that makes her black as far as I’m concerned. She’s a sister.”
He sat up and let the cool night breeze wash over his sweat drenched body.
“ We have to find my father,” Glenna said. “If anyone can find where she is and save her, he can. He’s the best.”
“ Isn’t he just an ordinary police officer?”
“ Would just any police officer have found you at that motel so fast?” She went on to tell him about her father and how he was the best homicide detective that ever lived. She thought a lot of him and if only part of what she said was true, then Jim wanted his help.
“ We need this man,” Donna thought.
“ I agree.”
“ How do we find him?”
“ He’ll go for Kohler. He’ll watch and wait. If we find Kohler, he’ll find us.” She stood up and offered him her hand. He gave it and she helped him up. “Did you get the keys?”
He nodded.
“ I can’t go back behind that garage, could you go and get my laundry bag? I have to change.”
“ Here? Now?”
“ I peed my pants when that thing was after me.”
He was gone less than half a minute. She took a pair of the jeans out of her bag.
“ Turn around,” she said, “so I can change.”
He turned away from her.
“ Okay, I’m ready,” she said after less than a minute. “Let’s go.”
“ We have to go back through the fence to get the car.”
“ But not behind the garage?”
“ Not behind the garage.”
“ What if it comes after us?”
He reached into his laundry bag, withdrew the forty-five and handed it to her. “Do you know how to use this?”
“ Of course. Daddy’s a cop and I’m Daddy’s little girl.”
He reached behind his back and brought out the other gun.
“ You took more than the keys?”
“ Yes I did.” He stood, listened to the night for a few seconds, then he walked the plank over the drainage ditch and went through the gap in the fence, holding the gun in front of himself, the bag behind. She followed, copying his moves. They slipped along the side of the garage, like ninjas in the night, both aware that there were people in the house.
There were two cars in the driveway now. The red Miata and a Chrysler LaBaron. He dropped his gun in the bag and went through the key ring till he found what he was looking for.
“ We’ll take the Miata,” he whispered. He unlocked the door and they put their bags behind the passenger seat. “We can’t start it here. We’ll have to push it down the street.” He was still whispering. “You get behind the wheel and I’ll push.”
Five minutes later they were roaring out of town, headed toward the Interstate, with Glenna driving. He was thinking about Donna. Donna back in his head again. Donna strapped to a hospital bed halfway around the world. She was part of him now. However evil the intent of the man that abused them, he had fused them. They were one. He could no more live without her than he could his heart. He still loved Julia, but like a sister. What he felt for Donna was what great poets wrote about. And he didn’t even know what she looked like.
“ I’m terribly pretty and I love you too,” she thought.
“ Hey, those thoughts were private.”
“ I love you,” she thought.
“ I love you too, more than anybody’s ever loved anything,” he thought back.
“ I want to be with you always, Jim Monday, always. Come to New Zealand. Come and get me and make me yours.”
“ Not even death itself could stop me. I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
“ No. First you must confront this man that killed your friend. I’ve felt your grief, this man must pay.”
“ We only have a week to find you. I can deal with Kohler later.”
“ No, if he’s the one responsible for your friend David’s death, your wife is in danger, too. If something happens to her and we could have stopped it, we couldn’t live with ourselves. Find this Dr. Kohler you hate so much and do what you must, but let’s do it quickly, because this man, Manfred, is coming soon. And who knows what else his wicked servant has planned for me.”
“ I hope her father’s half the detective she said he is and I wonder where he is now?” Jim thought, as Glenna braked for the stop sign by the Mobil Station just before the Interstate.
“ Penny for your thoughts?” Glenna said, interrupting his conversation with Donna.
“ I was thinking about your father. Wondering where he is right now.”
“ He’s in Tampico. I’m sure of it.” She popped the clutch, smoking the tires as she flew through the gears like a pro, making the Miata scream as they sped onto the freeway.
Chapter Sixteen
