Just that.
She bowed again.
He nodded. It was the best he could do.
She turned and ran into the changing room, changed as fast as she could, and then hurried out of the dojo before they could see her cry.
“Dana,” called Sensei, “wait.…”
She didn’t wait. She ran.
CHAPTER 53
Hale Residence
8:47 P.M.
“Jeez,” said Ethan when he opened the door, “you look awful.”
Dana pushed past him and went into the house.
“Your uncle’s not coming back, is he? He’s not going to leave early ’cause he’s sick?”
“No, we’re good,” said Ethan, closing the door.
Dana glanced at him. “Lock it.”
“What? Why? He has a key.”
“No. Just … just lock it, okay?”
Ethan did it, then paused and also turned the dead bolt.
“Thanks,” she said, greatly relieved.
She followed him into the kitchen, where he poured them each a glass of chocolate milk from a half-gallon jug. He handed her one. “My aunt Louise always said that chocolate was the first line of defense against any case of the heebie-jeebies, and you look like you’ve got them in spades.”
He smiled and then searched her eyes. His smile turned into a frown. “You’re high,” he said.
“No, I’m not,” snapped Dana. “I never do that stuff.” She saw the doubt on his face.
“Then what’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you sick? Your color sucks, and your eyes are weird. All red and bloodshot, and your pupils are huge.”
“How many times do I have to say it?” growled Dana. “I. Am. Not. High.”
“Okay, okay, don’t bite my head off. I’m a friend, remember?”
Dana turned away and looked out the kitchen window at the black night. “It’s been a really bad day, okay?”
“No,” he said, “it’s not okay. You need to tell me what’s going on.”
He led her to the small office and they sat down on the overstuffed chairs, balancing their glasses on their knees. Ethan closed the door to that room, too, and for the first time all day, Dana felt like she was safe. Or at least as safe as possible.
Ethan wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and it somehow made him look older. Stronger. More solid, which mattered because the rest of the day seemed to have been made up of different levels of trippy transparencies. Nothing until now seemed quite real.
Dana sipped her chocolate milk, then set the glass down and held out her hand. After only a tiny hesitation, Ethan took her hand, held it. His fingers were warm and real.
She told him everything that had happened. It took a long time, and he never let go of her hand.
CHAPTER 54
Sycamore Street
8:59 P.M.
A lone figure stood, hands in pockets, in the utter blackness under the heavy boughs of a maple tree.
The street was empty except for a yellow dog that walked a crooked path from front lawn to front lawn, pausing every now and then to pee as if replying to messages left by friends. When the dog reached the maple tree, he froze, then backed away slowly, growling. The figure under the tree said nothing, did not move, merely waited for the dog to turn and run away.
Overhead, the clouds were rolling in, blotting out the stars, intensifying the darkness.
There were lights on inside each of the houses along Sycamore Street. From a few came the tinny sounds of muffled television. At one house, the one directly across from the big maple, a light burned in the window of a side room on the first floor. It was that window that the figure stood and watched with dark, intense eyes. He could see the silhouettes of two teenagers— a tall boy and a short girl.
When a cold wind blew down from the storm clouds, the figure shivered but did not move away. He barely moved at all, except for the slow clenching and unclenching of the folded knife in his pocket.
CHAPTER 55
Hale Residence
9:35 P.M.
Her curfew was up by the time Dana was finished with her story, and she and Ethan sat in silence for almost five minutes, each of them absorbed in the details. While he was still thinking, Dana went into the kitchen to phone home and apologize for being late, but it was Melissa who answered.
“Hey, nice of you to call to tell us you’re not dead.”
“Don’t joke. It’s been a very, very weird day. I’ll tell you about it when I get home.”
“Where are you now?” asked Melissa.
“Ethan’s, and—”
“Ooooooh. Nice.”
“It’s not like that, Missy, and you know it,” said Dana.
“Sadly, I do. It’s tough being the sister of Dana the Pure Light of Virtue.”
“Oh, shut up and cover for me, Missy. Tell Mom I’m still at the dojo or something.”
“This late?”
“Tell her it’s some kind of ancient samurai thing and I’ll be home by ten. No, ten thirty. Tell her Sensei will drop me off.”
Melissa snorted. “Oh, yeah, that sounds plausible.”
“Come on, I already covered for you.”
“Yeah, yeah, okay,” said Melissa.
“You’re the best.”
Melissa paused. “Be careful, Dana,” she said. “And I’m not talking about Ethan.”
“I know,” said Dana, and hung up.
When she went back, Ethan had Uncle Frank’s case files out, and Dana could see that the folder was thicker than it had been before. She watched as Ethan made his sketch of the rubber bands and then carefully removed each one. He brought the folder over to the couch.
“Todd’s stuff is in there?” she asked, sitting down next to him.
“Yes. It’s pretty nasty, too,” said Ethan.
“After today,” she said, “I can handle anything.”
It was a big honking lie and they both knew it, but they were each smart enough not to mention it.
Dana opened the folder and looked at what had been done to Todd Harris.
It was as bad as Dana imagined it would be. And it was strange. When his car supposedly crashed, he had been thrown through the windshield, but the collar of his heavy jacket had caught on a broken piece of the crumpled hood. In the crime scene photos, the smashed car was perched on a pair of rocks at the bottom of a steep hill, and Todd hung suspended, his toes inches above the ground. It was grotesque and looked like pictures Dana had seen of criminals hanging from a gallows.
She closed her eyes for a moment as the room took a spin. The dizziness from earlier was still with her, and seeing this kind of horror did not help.
“You okay?” asked Ethan.
“No,” she said.
“Me neither.”
There were a lot of photos in Todd’s file. Because the car had rolled down the hill, the crime scene investigators had needed to photograph every piece of debris. She flipped through more than eighty pictures, going fast through the ones that showed a fragment of a red taillight lens or a blown-out piece of tire. Then she stopped at one that showed the ground below Todd’s feet. The photoflash had caught the gleaming surfaces of a bunch of pocket change that lay scattered among the torn weeds. The photographer had taken three photos of the coins. Dana paused there, caught by the image without knowing why. An accompanying note gave an inventory of the coins. Fifteen nickels, eleven dimes, three quarters, and one silver dollar.
“What is it?” asked Ethan, leaning over to see what pictures held her interest.
“Nothing, I guess.” She replaced the photos and went through the rest of the folder. She almost closed the cover, then stopped, frowned, and went back to the photos of evidence and debris found at the scene. She bent and examined one picture in particular, and her blood turned instantly to ice. “Ethan! Look at this.”
He leaned closer. “What?”
She handed him the photo, which showed bits of broken glass, a few metal splinters, part of an orange brake light lens, and several co
ins scattered across a stretch of stony ground below where the body had been hanging. “See what they found on the ground below his feet?”
“What?”
“The coins,” she said, tapping the picture.
It took Ethan a moment. “Sure, some change that fell out of his pocket.”
“No,” she insisted. “I think those coins were placed there.”
“What? Why?”
“Count them.”
“Okay. Fifteen nickels, eleven dimes, three quarters, and one silver dollar.” Ethan did some quick math. “Three dollars and sixty cents? Three-six? Are you going to tell me that it’s a Bible reference? Chapter and verse, something like that?”
“No,” she said. “Fifteen, eleven, three, and one. Add that up.”
He did. “Thirty coins.”
Dana shook her head. “No,” she said. “Thirty pieces of silver.”
He stared at her. “What…?”
“How did Judas die?” she asked.
Ethan took the diagram of Todd Harris’s injuries and ran his finger across the line that had been drawn across the throat. “Judas ‘went and hanged himself,’” he murmured, repeating a biblical quote, one of the few that had ever stuck in his head. “Oh, man…”
“It all fits,” Dana said, slapping the file closed. Ethan took it from her, added it to the big folder, replaced the rubber bands, and locked it in the drawer.
They sat together, and this time Ethan took her hand in his. His smile was gentle and he curled his fingers around hers. There are times to talk and times to say nothing. This was a time to let silence wrap itself around them. They were behind locked doors, safe inside, together, and all the storms and darkness were outside.
When she finally got up to go, he said, “I should walk you home.”
“No,” Dana said quickly. “It’s not far. I’m okay.”
“No one’s okay.”
The image of Saturo sprawled on the dojo floor with a broken nose filled her mind. Remembering that didn’t fill her with pride. It made her feel like an animal. But a tough one, at least.
“Really,” she said, “I can take care of myself. Besides, if I come strolling up with a guy, my dad will kill both of us.”
“But he’ll be cool if you walk home alone?”
“I’ll tell him I got dropped off at the corner,” she said. “Really, I’m good.”
At the door, Ethan said, “What do we do with all this? With those visions, with the file? I mean, we both think that somebody’s out there pretending to be an angel and killing people. We know it, but we can’t prove anything. So what do we do?”
Dana leaned her shoulder against the door frame. She was still holding Ethan’s hand, and she looked down at it, at the way their fingers intertwined. It felt good. Safe. And something more than that. The moment stalled, though, because Dana felt like she should say something and, clearly, so did Ethan. Neither of them seemed to know what, though.
Ethan nodded. “What about what that lady Corinda said? What do you think about that?”
“I don’t know what to think. I mean, I can’t believe I know anyone who would do something like this.”
“They’d have to know some things,” he said. “They’d have to know the religious stuff. They’d have to know about cars. It can’t be easy to fake all those accidents so well the cops think they are accidents.”
“And he has to know about anatomy.”
“Why?” asked Ethan. Then he said, “Oh, right. To be able to make the other injuries look like they happened in accidents.”
“He’s smart,” she said.
“He’s an animal.”
“Sure,” said Dana, “but animals can be smart.”
Ethan looked past her out into the night. “Sure you won’t let me walk home with you?”
She smiled. “I’m sure.”
Then, without thinking about it, she stood on tiptoes and kissed him. Neither of them expected it to happen, but it happened anyway. Dana suddenly realized what she was doing and immediately backed away, shocked, embarrassed beyond words, her hand rising to hide her mouth.
“Ethan, I’m … I mean I—” she began, but before she could get anything else out, he bent forward and kissed her.
One-millionth of Dana’s mind tried to make her back away. The rest of her leaned in. She was no expert on the subject of kissing, but she was pretty sure this was a very good one, and it lasted a good, long while.
When they finally stepped back, they grinned at each other as if the world were a happy place and they weren’t dealing with murder, conspiracies, and horror.
“Well,” said Dana breathlessly, “I guess there’s that.”
“Um, yeah,” he said.
They stood there, awkward and uncertain. Then they kissed again. And again. Afterward, Ethan looked dazed and glassy-eyed. That made her laugh. It also made her feel warm inside.
“Bye,” she said, and then she was gone into the night. When she looked back from halfway down the block, Ethan was standing exactly where she’d left him. That made her smile, too.
CHAPTER 56
Scully Residence
10:17 P.M.
The porch light was on, and she moved toward it like a lost ship drawn to a lighthouse beacon.
The day had gone from frightening to surreal to broken, and Dana didn’t quite know who she was. Or what she was. After leaving Ethan’s, she had been happy for almost three blocks, but then the dizziness came back, and with it came her doubts and all the various fears that seemed to define her life here in Craiger. Those fears brought with them a strange, huge, complicated depression that settled heavily on her shoulders and made each step as difficult as if she were wading through mud. All the happiness leaked away.
Nothing about her seemed to fit right anymore. Ever since they’d moved here from San Diego, Dana felt like she was losing the connection with her own identity. She used to be an orderly person. Good in school, always on time, didn’t run with the wild crowd, went to church. Prayed. All of that.
Now she was having psycho dreams, hunting a mass murderer, going on mind trips, and beating the crap out of people.
Was this still her? Still Dana Katherine Scully?
Or was Sunlight right, and she was transforming into someone and something else? If so … what?
The porch light was rich and warm and safe-looking. Then she paused when she saw a figure sitting there.
“Dad…,” she murmured.
She stood a hundred feet away, in a pool of shadows beneath a big tree across from the old church, watching her father. Dad was a big man. Blocky and hard, with a bullet head on a bull neck. He looked as tough as he was. But now she saw him in an unguarded moment. Dad was sitting on the porch swing, head bent as he read a book. Not being tough. Not being Captain William Scully of the United States Navy. Not being anything except a middle-aged man relaxing on a spring evening. Wearing a soft flannel shirt. The red-and-black one that he liked so much. It was old and worn, and Dana knew every place where it had been patched and stitched, and she knew that Dad wouldn’t let Mom throw it out. Not that shirt. It was familiar, and he loved wearing it when he wanted to step out of the skin of his job and responsibilities. He was wearing that shirt in so many of Dana’s best memories. Family camping trips. The day Dad taught her how to ride a bicycle, and when he’d taken her to the ice cream shop at the big old hotel in Coronado after she’d broken her arm falling out of a tree. He’d been wearing it the day they brought Charlie home from the hospital as a tiny baby. He’d worn it the first night they’d started reading Moby-Dick together when Dana was nine.
That shirt.
Dad.
She stood there and buried her face in her hands and started to cry.
“Dana…?” said a voice. Dad. She looked through her fingers and saw him come down off the porch. “Dana, is that you?” he growled. “Melissa said you were out studying, but you’re seriously pushing it, young lady. It’s after ten. What could you be thin
king? With everything that’s happening in town, I think we need to talk about your judgment and common sense.”
She wanted to run away right then. Instead Dana broke and ran toward him, racing the rest of the way to her house, and her dad came down the steps and jogged forward, arms out, to gather her in. He hesitated for a fragment of a moment, and then he pulled her to him and held her close in those strong arms, kissing her hair as she clung to him, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Daddy … oh, Daddy.”
William Scully held his daughter firmly as if he were the anchor that held her to the world. Stopped scolding and did not ask her what was wrong. He did not pollute the moment with questions. They would come later. Instead he held her and whispered her special, secret name.
“Starbuck,” he said, and there was the thickness of tears in his voice, too.
* * *
Later they sat together on the porch swing. She had her sweater on and lay with her head against his chest. Silence was a friend to both of them, and they welcomed it.
It was only when it was getting late that her father spoke.
“You know you can tell me anything,” he said gently.
She said nothing.
“Is it a boy?”
“What? No.”
“School?”
“No.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Dana, is it the kids who have been getting themselves killed?” When she did not answer that, her father sighed, deep and heavy. “I know it was hard on you when that teacher died back in San Diego.”
Dana pushed away the memory. “That was sad, but this—” This is different.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” he said.
“I know.”
In the yard a lonely cricket chirped. Suddenly a second one chimed in. They pulsed out of sync and then gradually fell into harmony. It was nice. It screwed one of the loose bolts back into place on the machinery of the world.
“Ahab?” she said.
“What is it, Starbuck?”
“I know it’s late, but can we read for a little? We haven’t done that in a long time.”
She felt a spasm in his chest, as if the request hurt him somehow. But he said, “Sure. Go get it. It’s on the coffee table.”