“Wait here,” she said.
She left the room and disappeared down the hall. A moment later, the hallway light went out. She reappeared soundlessly, a shadowy figure in the gloom. She crossed to the bed and stood next to him, looking down. He could just make out the sheen of her tousled hair and the curve of her hip.
“Can you take the rest of your clothes off by yourself?” she asked.
He slipped off his walking shoes, socks, and jeans, then eased himself into the cool sheets, letting his head sink into the softness of the pillows. A profound weariness settled over him, and he knew that sleep would claim him soon. There was nothing he could do about it; he would sleep and then he would dream. But perhaps the dream would not be as bad as he feared.
“John?” Josie spoke his name softly in the dark.
He took a deep breath and let it out again slowly. “Yeah, I’m still here. I’ll be all right, Josie. You go on to bed. Thanks again for …”
He felt her weight settle on the bed, and then she was lying next to him, pressing close, her cool arms enfolding him, her bathrobe gone. “I think I better stay with you,” she whispered, kissing his cheek.
He closed his eyes against the smooth, soft feel of her body, against the soap scent of her skin and hair. “Josie …”
“John, do me a big favor,” she interrupted him, her lips brushing his cheek. The fingers of one hand stroked his arm like threads of silk. “Don’t say anything for a little while. I made it this far on raw courage and faith in my instincts. If you say the wrong thing, I’ll fall to pieces. I don’t want anything from you that you don’t want to give me. I just want you to hold me for a while. And to let me hold you. That’s all I want. Okay?”
Her touch made the pain in his body ease and his fear of sleep’s approach lessen. He knew the risk of what he was doing, but he couldn’t help himself. “Okay.”
“Put your arms around me, please.”
He did as she asked, drawing her close, and all the space between them disappeared.
* * *
Old Bob crossed the grassy expanse of Sinnissippi Park, heading straight for the pavilion and the crowd, his shoulders squared, his big face intense. Nest’s friends struggled to keep up with him, whispering among themselves as they marked the determination in his long strides. Someone was gonna get it now, he heard the Heppler boy declare gleefully. He ignored the remark, his brow furrowed, his eyes troubled. Something wasn’t right about all this. That Nest was missing was reason enough all by itself for concern, but this business about poisoning trees suggested a depth to the matter that he knew he didn’t begin to understand. Nor did he like the fact that a bunch of older boys were involved. But mostly there was the look in Evelyn’s eyes. Behind the worry and fear for the safety of their granddaughter, Old Bob had seen something else. Evelyn knew something about this, something that transcended the boundaries of his own knowledge. Another secret perhaps, or maybe just a suspicion. But the look was unmistakable.
He crossed the parking lot fronting the pavilion and slowed as he approached the crowd. The band was still playing and couples still danced beneath the colored lanterns and bunting. The humid night air was filled with the bright, clear sounds of laughter and conversation. He glanced over his shoulder for Nest’s friends, then waited for them to catch up.
“Which one is Danny Abbott?” he asked.
They glanced about without answering. His heart tightened in his chest. If the boy had gone home, he was in trouble.
Then Brianna Brown said, “There he is.”
She was pointing at a good-looking boy with dark hair and big shoulders standing in the shadows just beyond the tables where the soft drinks and lemonade were served. Some other boys were with him, and all of them were talking and joking with a pair of young girls dressed in cutoffs and halter tops.
Old Bob took a deep breath. “Stay here,” he said, and started forward.
He was right on top of Danny Abbott before the boy saw him. He smiled when Danny turned and put a friendly arm about his shoulder, drawing him close, holding him fast. “Danny, I’m Robert Freemark, Nest’s grandfather.” He saw frightened recognition flood the boy’s eyes. “Now, I don’t want to waste any time on this, so I would appreciate a quick answer. Where is my granddaughter?”
Danny Abbott tried to back away, but Old Bob kept a tight hold on him, taking a quick measure of his friends to see if any of them meant trouble. No one looked anxious to get involved. The girls were already moving away. The boys looked eager to follow. “You gentlemen stick around a minute, please,” he ordered, freezing them in their tracks.
“Mr. Freemark, I don’t know what …” Danny Abbott began.
Old Bob moved his hand to the back of Danny’s neck and squeezed hard enough to make the boy wince. “That’s a bad beginning, son,” he said quietly. “I know your father, Ed. Know your mother, too. They’re good people. They wouldn’t appreciate finding out that their son is a liar. Not to mention a few other things. So let’s get this over with before I lose my temper. Where is Nest?”
“It was just a joke,” one of the other boys mumbled, hands digging in his jeans pockets, eyes shifting away.
“Shut up, Pete!” Danny Abbott hissed furiously, the words out of his mouth before he could think better of them. Then he saw the look on Old Bob’s face and went pale.
“One more chance, Danny,” Old Bob told him softly. “Give me a straight answer and we’ll put this behind us. No calls to your parents, nothing more between you and me. Otherwise, the next stop for both of us is the police station. And I will press charges. Are we clear on this?”
Danny Abbott nodded quickly, and his eyes dropped. “She’s in the caves, taped up inside a gunnysack.” His voice was sullen and afraid. “Pete’s right, it was just a joke.”
Old Bob studied him a moment, weighing the depth of the truth in the boy’s words, then let him go. “If she’s come to any harm,” he said to all of them, looking deliberately from one face to the next, “you’ll answer for it.”
He walked back to where Nest’s friends waited in a tight knot at the edge of the parking lot, their eyes bright with excitement. He surveyed the crowd, looking to see if there was anyone he could call upon to help. But none of the faces were familiar enough that he felt comfortable involving the few he recognized. He would have to do this alone.
He came up to Nest’s friends and gave them a reassuring smile. “You young people go on home now,” he told them. “I believe I know what’s happened, and it’s nothing serious. Nest is all right. You go on. I’ll have her call you when she gets home.”
He moved away from them without waiting for an answer, not wanting to waste any more time. He followed the edge of the paved road toward the west end of the park and the caves. He went swiftly and deliberately, and he did not look over his shoulder until he was well away from the crowd and deep into the darkness of the trees. No one followed him. He carried the flashlight loosely in his right hand, ready to use it for any purpose it required. He didn’t think he would be attacked, but he wasn’t discounting the possibility. He glanced around once more, saw nothing, no one, and turned his attention to the darkness ahead.
He followed the roadway to where it looped back on itself under the bridge and turned down. The streetlamps provided sufficient light that he was able to find his way without difficulty, keeping in the open where he could see any movement about him. He was sweating now from his exertion, the armpits and collar of his shirt damp, his forehead beaded. The park was silent about him, the big trees still, their limbs and leaves hanging limp and motionless in the heavy air, their shadows webbing the ground in strange, intricate patterns. A car’s headlights flared momentarily behind him, then swung away, following the road leading out of the park. He passed beneath the shadow of the bridge and emerged in muted starlight.
“Hang on, Nest,” he whispered quietly.
He moved quickly down the road toward the black mouth of the caves. The river was a silver-t
ipped satin sheet on his left and the cliffs towered blackly above him on his right. His shoes crunched softly on gravel. In his mind, he saw again the look in Evelyn’s eyes, and a cold feeling reached down into his stomach. What did she know that she was hiding from him? He thought suddenly of Caitlin, falling from these same cliffs more than a dozen years earlier to land on the rocks below, broken and lifeless. The image brought a bloodred heat to his eyes and the back of his throat. He could not stand it if he were to lose Nest, too. It would be the end of him—the end of Evelyn as well. It would be the end of everything.
He reached the entrance to the caves and flicked on the flashlight. The four-cell beam cut a bright swath through the darkness, reaching deep into the confines of the rock. He worked his way carefully forward, pausing to listen, hearing something almost immediately—a muffled sound, a movement. He scrambled ahead, plunging inside the caves now, swinging the flashlight’s beam left and right with frantic movements, searching the jagged terrain.
Then abruptly the light found her. He knew at once it was Nest, even though she was trussed up inside a gunnysack with only her ankles and feet showing. He scrambled forward, calling out to her, stumbling several times on the loose rock before he reached her.
“Nest, it’s me, Grandpa,” he said, breathing heavily, thinking, Thank God, thank God! He reached into his pants and brought out his pocketknife to cut away the tape and burlap from her ankles. When that was done and the sack was removed, he cut the tape from her hands as well. Then, as gently as he could, he pulled the last strip off her mouth.
Her arms came around him at once. “Grandpa, Grandpa,” she sobbed, shaking all over, tears running down her cheeks.
“It’s all right, Nest,” he whispered softly, stroking her hair the way he had when she was a little girl. “It’s all right, kiddo. You’re all right.”
Then he picked her up, cradling her in his big arms as he would a baby, and carried her back out into the night.
Jared Scott raced across the front lawn of his apartment building, dark hair flying, T-shirt laced with sweat. He caught a glimpse of the television screen through the curtained windows of his living room and knew his mother and George were inside. He picked up his pace, anxious to tell them what had happened, all about Nest and Danny Abbott and Mr. Freemark. He burst through the screen door already yelling.
“Mom, some guys kidnapped Nest and took her down to the caves, and we told Mr. Freemark to come help us …”
He drew up short at the living-room entrance, the words freezing in his throat. His mother lay on the couch with George Paulsen next to her. Most of their clothes were on the floor. There were beer cans everywhere.
His mother tried to cover herself with her arms, smiling weakly, ashen-faced as he stared at her.
“Jared, sweetie …”
Jared backed away, averting his eyes. “Sorry, Mom, I just …”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you little bastard!” George roared, scrambling up from the couch, lurching toward him in fury.
“George, he didn’t mean anything!” His mother was trying to slip back into her blouse, her movements cumbersome and slow.
Jared tried to run, but he caught his foot on the carpet and slipped. George was on top of him instantly, hauling him back to his feet by his shirtfront, yelling at him, screaming at him. Jared tried to say he was sorry, tried to say something in his defense, but George was shaking him so hard he couldn’t get the words out. His mother was yelling, too, her face flushed and her eyes bright as she stumbled across the littered floor.
Then George struck him across the face with his hand, and without thinking twice, Jared struck him back. He caught George flush on the nose, and blood spurted out. George released him and stumbled back in surprise, both hands going to his face. In that instant, something raw surged through Jared Scott. He remembered the way Old Bob Freemark had walked up to Danny Abbott and his friends and confronted them. He remembered the set of the old man’s shoulders and the determination in his eyes.
“You get out of here!” he shouted at George, bracing himself in a fighter’s stance, raising his fists threateningly. “This isn’t your home! It’s mine and my brothers’ and my sisters’ and my mom’s!”
For a moment George Paulsen just stood there, blood running down his mouth and chin, shock registering on his face. Then a wild look came into his eyes, and he threw himself on Jared, catching him by the throat and bearing him to the floor. Jared twisted and squirmed, trying to get away, but George held him down, screaming obscenities. George rose over him and began to hit him with his fists, striking him in the face with solid, vicious blows that rocked his head and brought bright lights to his eyes. He tried to cover up, but George just knocked his hands aside and kept hitting him. Then dark shapes swarmed out of the shadows, things Jared had never seen before, eyes cat-bright and wild. They fell on George with the raw hunger of predators, their supple, invasive limbs twisting about him, ensnaring him, molding to his body. Their presence seemed to drive George to an even greater frenzy. The blows quickened, and Jared’s defenses began to collapse. His mother began screaming, begging George to stop. There was the sound of bones snapping, and a warm rush of blood flooded Jared’s mouth and throat.
Then the pain froze him, and all sound and movement ceased, disappearing like a movie’s final scene into slow, hazy blackness.
At the beginning of the roadway leading up under the bridge to the cliffs, Nest asked her grandfather to set her on her feet again. She had stopped crying, and her legs were steady enough to support her. Once righted, she stared out across the river for long moments, collecting herself, trying to blot the memory of what had happened from her mind. Her grandfather stood next to her and waited in silence.
“I’m all right,” she said finally, repeating his words back to him.
They walked up the road side by side, the old man and the girl, no longer touching, saying nothing, eyes lowered to the pavement. They passed under the bridge and came out of the darkness onto the park’s grassy flats. Nest glanced about surreptitiously for the feeders, for their eyes, for some small movement that would signal their presence, but found nothing. She could still feel their hands on her, feel them worming their way beneath her skin, into her blood and her bones, past all her defenses, deep inside where her fear and rage roiled and they might feed.
She felt violated and ashamed, as if she had been stripped naked and left soiled and debased.
“How did you find me?” she asked, keeping her eyes lowered so he could not see what was reflected there.
“Your friends,” her grandfather replied, not looking at her. “They came to the house, brought me out to look for you.”
She nodded, thinking now of Danny Abbott and the demon, and she was about to say something more when they heard the heavy boom of a shotgun. Her grandfather’s white head lifted. Both stopped where they were, staring out into the darkness. The shotgun fired again. And again. Six times, it roared.
“Evelyn,” Nest heard her grandfather whisper hoarsely.
And then he was running through the park for the house.
CHAPTER 25
Evelyn Freemark walked out onto the big veranda porch and watched Robert and the children disappear around the comer of the house, headed for the park in search of Nest. Even when they were no longer in sight, swallowed up by the night’s blackness, she stared after them, standing in the yellow halo of the light cast by the porch lamp, motionless as her thoughts drifted back through the years to Nest and Caitlin and her own childhood. She had lived a long life, and she was always surprised on looking back at how quickly the time had passed and how close together the years had grown.
The screen door started to swing shut behind her, and she reached back automatically to catch it and ease it carefully into place. In the deep night silence, she could hear the creak of its hinges and springs like ghost laughter.
After a moment, she began to look around, searching the shadows where the
lawn lengthened in a darkening carpet to the shagbark hickories fronting the walk leading in from Woodlawn Road and to the mix of blue spruce and walnut that bracketed the corners of their two-acre lot. She knew already what she would find, but the porch light was blinding her. She reached inside the doorway and shut it off, leaving her in darkness. Better, she thought. She could see them clearly now, the gleaming yellow eyes, dozens strong, too many to be coincidental, too many to persuade her she had guessed wrong about what was going to happen.
She smiled tightly. If you understood them well enough, the feeders could tell you things even without speaking.
Her eyes were fully adjusted to the darkness now, able to trace the angular shapes of the trees, the smooth spread of the lawn, the flat, broad stretch of the roadway, and the low, sprawling roofs of the houses farther down the way. She gave the landscape a moment’s consideration, then turned her attention to the porch on which she stood—to its eaves and railings, its fitted ceiling boards, and its worn, tongue-and-groove wooden flooring. Finally her eyes settled on the old peg oak rocker that had been with her from the time of her marriage to Robert. She could trace the events of her life by such things. This house had borne mute witness to the whole of her married life—to the joy and wonder she had been privileged to experience, to the tragedy and loss she had been forced to suffer. These walls had given her peace when it was needed. They had lent her strength. They were part of her, rooted deep within her heart and soul. She smiled. She could do worse than end her life here.
She gave the feeders another quick study, then slipped through the screen door and walked to the back of the house. She would have to hurry. If the demon was coming for her, as she was certain now he was, he would not waste any time. With Robert out of the way, he would hasten to put an end to matters quickly. He would be confident that he could do so. She was old and worn, and no longer a match for him. She laughed to herself. He was predictable in ways he did not begin to recognize, and in the end they would prove his undoing.