Darkness peering (34 page)

He relaxed against her, finally realizing she had a deeper
psychological need to hold him.

"I'm scared."

"I know." He sighed, looking at her with off-duty eyes. "So am I,
sweetheart, So am I."

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT WHEN RACHEL TOOK HIGHWAY 71

at Bent Fork and headed south past the sprawling mall on the short
drive home. She could barely keep her eyes open. Approaching the
Wible Road exit, she caught a cluster of red taillights up ahead and
hit the brakes. A big rig had jackknifed across the center divider,
blocking all northbound and southbound traffic. Rachel radioed for
help, then got out to assess the damage and offer assistance if
necessary.

She quickly approached the confusion of sideswiped cars and voices
raised in panic. The slick black road was eerily lit by the
crisscrossing headlights of idling cars, and at the bull's-eye of these
intersecting high beams was a body. A boy's body, sprawled faceup on
the asphalt. Naked. Duct tape covering his eyes. More duct tape
binding his wrists. Over a dozen onlookers clustered around, staring
solemnly down, and Rachel noticed right away that no one had touched
the body, a strong indication he might be dead. She ran the last few
yards and bent over the boy, ripping duct tape off his eyes. The shock
of recognition ricocheted around inside her skull like a pinball--it
was Dinger Tedesco.

Leaning down, she checked for a pulse. His face was drained of blood,
his lips a theatrical blue, eyes open to the night sky, the irises like
fogged glass. The body was already growing cold. There was a wide
tread mark across his chest and she was almost certain he was dead, but
she checked his airway for obstruction anyway and tried to start his
heart. Tried with a fervent, futile hope-against-hope. She straddled
his legs and, placing the heel of her hand one finger-breadth above the
intersection of the ribs

and sternum, began the compressions, and a thick gob of blood shot out
of his mouth and hit her smack in the forehead.

The onlookers gasped and stepped back, but Rachel continued
administering CPR, asking between breaths, "How long has he been lying
here?"

"Five minutes, give or take."

She continued with the CPR until paramedics arrived and took over, and
only then did she start taking down names. It helped her to keep busy,
to have something to do. She didn't want to remember the living,
breathing boy she'd just met, with his soft features and awkward
disposition.

Now a bald burly man wearing earmuffs and a Bulls jacket approached
her. "That's my rig," he said, pointing at the jackknifed truck. "I'm
the one who hit the kid."

She pulled him aside and he gave her his statement. "I was on the road
for about five hours, heading for Augusta, when all of a sudden this
kid jumps out in front of me. I stomp on my brakes, blast my air horn,
nothing. It's like he doesn't see or hear me. He's just stumbling
around in the middle of the road, singing."

"Singing?"

"Like he's drunk or something."

"You could hear him singing?"

"I couldn't hear him, no, but I pinned him in my headlights, and he
looked like he was singing. You know, drunk and dancing around and,
like ... singing. So I'm trying to avoid the kid, you know ... but
it's too late." He shook his head. His mouth was tight. "Damn, I'm
all shaky."

"You said he jumped out in front of you? Where did he come from?"

"There." He pointed at the woods.

Cautiously, she approached the edge of the forest while police sirens
sounded in the distance. Standing on the soft shoulder of the highway,
she squinted into the woods and thought she detected movement, ghostly
and receding.

The voices behind her grew distant as she waded into the thickets.
Twigs snapped underfoot. She paused for a moment, eyes adjusting to
the darkness, ears alert to any sound. She'd seen something seconds
ago--the flash of a face in the soft moonlight, a human silhouette.
Now she cocked her head and listened. Behind her on the highway, two
cruisers pulled up simultaneously, and the big rig's engine made a low
relentless rumble. She moved deeper into the woods, further away from
the noise and the lights, her service weapon drawn.

And suddenly she heard it... the sharp snap of a twig ... the sound of
branches slapping back ... about twenty yards ahead. She couldn't see
a thing. The woods were dark as pitch.

Lungs on fire, Rachel ran back to her car, grabbed a flashlight from
the glove compartment and headed into the woods again. The bottoms of
her shoes slipped on moss-covered rocks, but she righted herself and
tried to get a bead on his direction. His ... subconsciously, she'd
assumed it was a he. She fought her way furiously through the
thickets, flashlight beam dancing and bobbing, creating jumpy shadows
as she ran. Her hand clutched the checkered grip of her gun while her
flashlight played over gnarled tree roots, sword ferns and blackberry
bushes. Above, the sky was starless because of the haze, but you could
see the moon--a soft glow like a mother's admonition. Small, she felt
small.

She had lost him, whoever he was, lost him in the time it'd taken her
to run back to her car. She was chasing phantoms.

Her foot caught on something, the sound of roots being ripped from the
ground, and she flew forward, landed with a dull thud, flashlight
hurtling from her hand. It rolled downhill a short distance,
highlighting a small patch of forest floor--brambles and moss and
stones as big as fists and golden leaves freshly fallen. Something
shrieked, a startled bird. An owl hooted in the distance. She picked
herself up, brushed herself off, retrieved the flashlight and stood a
frozen beat.

Above her head, the hazy moon roosted in a nest of tree branches. For
the first time in forever, she wanted a cigarette. She wanted to be
home in a hot bath. She wanted to get good and drunk. She didn't want
this to be happening in her town. She wanted to stop suspecting her
brother. She wanted her father back. She wanted a safe world, a just
world, not this horrible, complicated quagmire where lonely women like
herself sought out the company of married men.

A twig snapped yards in front of her. Clutching her revolver, she ran
toward the sound but didn't see anything up ahead, just tree trunks,
straight and imperious as nuns in her flashlight beam. "Police! Don't
move!" she shouted, and her heart made a dull, bad beat.

There was no reply. She glanced back the way she'd come, a naturally
occurring path the forest had already swallowed up. Where was she? She
didn't have a clue.

"Police! Don't move!"

Wrestling her way through another tangle of thickets, she burst out of
the forest, every inch of her wide awake and throbbing, and stood on an
incline overlooking the back of Lincoln Street in the downtown
district. It seemed like the saddest, deadest place on earth. A
raccoon was prying the lid off a garbage can in some dank alleyway.
Several buildings stood abandoned, their windows boarded up. Nobody
went out anymore. People were scared. During the day, children walked
in groups of two or more. Parents watched until their kids were safely
on board the school bus. The hardware store had had a run on dead-bolt
locks. An evil psychopath was snatching people off the streets. Women
were jumping at shadows.

Now a car pulled onto Main Street, driving slowly at first, then
gaining speed. A forest green Plymouth Breeze, just like Billy's. Just
like Billy's.

BILLY'S FACE WAS FLUSHED, BUT HE MANAGED TO REIN IN HIS

rabid indignation. "What the hell are you talking about?"

They stood in the front hall of his rented house, family pictures
adorning the walls. Their father and mother, the four of them
together. Ten-year-old Billy with his arm around Rachel, her face
tilted trustingly toward his. It broke her heart, and for a moment the
words wouldn't come.

"What?" he demanded to know.

"You were driving up Main Street..."

"Yeah, so? I was at the hardware store." From a pine sideboard, he
picked up a small paper bag imprinted with Dale's Discount Hardware's
logo. "Since when is it a crime to shop at the hardware store? And
what the hell happened to you?"

She suddenly realized she was covered with dirt, wet leaves and grass
flecking her coat, pine needles lacing her hair. Blood smeared across
her forehead. "A boy was killed on the highway. I chased somebody
through the woods."

"Jesus, Rachel, what's going on?" His eyes were hard on her. "Are you
saying I'm a suspect?"

She steeled herself. "Where were you tonight, Billy?"

His eyes grew incredulous. "Where was I?" Defiant, he ripped open the
bag and several dozen picture hooks scattered across the needlepoint
area rug. "At the hardware store buying picture hooks!"

"And before that?"

He shook his head numbly. "I can't believe this. You actually think I
killed Claire? That I... sewed her up? You think I'm some

kind of psychopath? That I'm capahle of something so twisted and
perverted? Am I hearing you correctly?"

His words had a corrosive effect. She felt terrible. Despicable. What
kind of person was she? What on earth could she be thinking?

"Billy..."

"This is about Dad, isn't it?" His eyes flashed with a slow burning
bitterness. "This is about him putting that gun in his mouth and
pulling the trigger."

"No, Billy ..."

"Just because Dad and I didn't get along ... I mean, I loved him, man,
with all my heart. But sometimes it's easier to love a parent when
he's dead."

"I'm sorry, Billy. I'm exhausted. This case has got me all turned
around ... I don't know what to think anymore."

"Bullshit, Rachel." The hurt in his voice came from a really miserable
place. "How can you say you love me and then turn around and accuse me
of something so vile? This is fucking unbelievable."

"Billy, I'm just doing my job ... I'm trying to figure out--"

"You're killing me!" Tears sprang to his eyes. His features
contracted as he bit back his rage and pain, and suddenly she recalled
how, all during their childhood, he would fly into rages, thinking
everybody was against him, even her. "Dad struggled with his own
private demons, we'll never know what was going on inside his head that
night. Doesn't matter what kind of a hot shit detective you think you
are, Rachel, you will never find the missing piece to that puzzle.
Trust me."

"Billy, I didn't mean to accuse you ..."

"I'll take a lie detector test."

"What?"

"I want to. In fact, I insist on it. I'm not having my kid sister
running around thinking I'm Ted Bundy." Crossing his arms, he

shut her out, his lean, handsome face drained of all emotion. "I'll
take a polygraph."

"Billy, I don't think that's advisable."

"Yeah, whatever." His eyes were streaked with hatred, and she felt the
rebirth of a deep, impenetrable sorrow, like a scab being peeled off
before the skin underneath has had a chance to heal. "I'll cooperate
with the police."

"I think you should hire an attorney."

He stood there, waiting for her to leave, only she didn't want it to
end this way.

"I can't help wondering," she said softly, "what it was like for him,
Billy. Billy? I have a gun. But I'd never turn it against myself.
Just a few days before he killed himself, he seemed so happy. He
seemed like himself, y'know?"

Billy uncrossed his arms, coolly polite.

"And I keep hoping ... that it was a clean shot, you know? One clean
shot to the head. No pain. Because I couldn't bear the thought,
Billy"

"I know, Pickle." His voice was suddenly forgiving.

Tears sprang to her eyes. "I'm sorry, Billy ... I really am."

"I'll take a polygraph. Then maybe you'll believe me."

"Billy ..."

"It's okay."

"You know," she said, wiping her face with wet hands, "I used to see
Daddy's ghost in the house. Just the whisper of him, y'know? And I'm
thinking ... maybe I was chasing a ghost in the woods tonight? Maybe I
wasn't chasing a human being at all?"

RACHEL FINALLY ARRIVED HOME AT 2:00 A.M. AND DRAGGED

herself upstairs to the bathroom, where she somehow managed to strip,
draw a hot bath, and climb into the tub. A hard knot had formed in her
left leg, and she worked it between her fingers. She soaked for what
seemed like days, wanting to erase all the bad thoughts racing crazily
around inside her brain. Stupid thoughts, jumbled thoughts.

She'd snagged a bottle of wine on her way up but had forgotten to grab
a glass, so now, wrapped in a pleasant haze of steam, she chugged
directly from the bottle. Just as she was beginning to feel human
again, the doorbell rang.

Downstairs, wrapped in a thick terry cloth robe, she answered the door.
It was McKissack, looking haggard. He said nothing, just raised an
eyebrow.

She stepped aside and he came in, his agitated energy wrapped in a
blanket of cold air. She didn't want him there. Shutting the door
against the bitter wind, she stood with her arms folded protectively
across her chest.

"You were there?" he asked.

"I was."

"So tell me about it."

"I was driving home and spotted the accident and pulled over. I
administered CPR until the paramedics arrived, then jotted down some
names. Then I thought I saw something in the woods."

"Like what?"

"Like a person, maybe. I'm not sure. Anyway, I chased him through the
woods and quickly lost him."

"Him? It was a 'he'?"

"I didn't actually see anything other than maybe the flash of a face
initially ... I heard twigs snapping. I saw branches moving."

"So where'd you lose him?"