Red Rain

  Lea wiped a tear from her eye. “I said it’s my fault. All of this.”

  Roz narrowed her eyes at her. “What are you saying? I don’t get it.”

  “Ira and Elena. I’ve put them in so much danger. I love them so much. I . . . couldn’t bear for anything to happen to them. They’re my children, Roz. My children.”

  “Lea, please—”

  “Mark warned me but I didn’t listen to him. I wanted those twins so badly. I mean, I thought I wanted them. And now, look what I’ve done, Roz. Look what I’ve done.”

  “Lea, you’re not making sense. Of course you’re upset. I’m upset. Look at everyone here. We’re all going out of our minds with worry. But how can you blame yourself? You didn’t—”

  “I brought them home. I should have known. Why didn’t I listen to Mark? To Martha? I can’t believe it, Roz. I tried to tell the police it’s the twins. I tried to show them the photos. But then Mark ran and they . . . they ran after him. They wouldn’t have believed me, anyway.” She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. Wrenching sobs escaped her throat.

  Roz let go of Axl and wrapped Lea in a hug. “Stop. Stop it. You’re saying crazy things. How can it be the twins? You know that can’t be true. Lea, no one blames you. Mark doesn’t blame you.”

  “He should. Don’t you see? He should blame me. When he knows . . . Oh, Roz, when he knows . . .” Another uncontrollable round of racking sobs.

  “Aunt Lea is sad?” Axl gazed up at Lea. He looked about to cry, too.

  She forced herself in control for his sake.

  “Yes, Aunt Lea is sad, but she’ll be happy again soon. You wait and see, honey.”

  “Evil. So much evil. I have proof, Roz. I have the photos. I wanted to show the police. But they wouldn’t look at them. I know you think I’m crazy. I know—”

  “I don’t think you’re crazy, dear. I just know you haven’t had time to recover from that horrifying hurricane.”

  “Recover?” Lea cried. “Recover?”

  “Take it easy, please, Lea. You’re frightening Axl.” She wrapped him in another hug.

  “Now here I am, I’m standing here helplessly while poor Ira and Elena are in there. My babies. They’re in such danger, and there’s nothing I can do. It’s—it’s too late!”

  “Lea, the police are here. The FBI. Look at them all. They’ll get the kids out. I know they will.”

  “No. You don’t understand. They’re helpless. They’re completely helpless. They can’t get them out. They can’t save anyone against so much evil. Martha warned me. Martha emailed me again yesterday. All the details. All the horrible details.”

  Holding Axl between them, Roz pressed her cheek against Lea’s. “Stop. Stop. It’ll be okay. You’ll see, dear.”

  They stood that way for a long moment. And then Lea pulled back when she heard cries and shouts of surprise from the crowd of parents.

  “The front door is opening. Someone is coming out!”

  66

  A kid appeared in the doorway. Then two. Two blond boys.

  It took Pavano a few seconds to recognize the Sutters’ twins. He struggled to recall their first names. Old-fashioned names.

  Everyone seemed to move at once. The feds and the cops stepped back from the window. The parents pushed toward the kids at the door. At first they cheered, but then a strange silence descended as the doors slammed shut behind the twins.

  When the parents realized that no more kids were coming out, the shouts and confused cries rose up again.

  The two boys stood rigidly side by side, hands balled into tight fists at their sides. They wore jeans and matching black T-shirts. The sunlight made the blue arrows on their right cheeks shimmer.

  At the side of the building, Franks tossed down the megaphone and went running toward the twins. “I’ve got you! Come with me! You’re safe!”

  One of the twins raised both hands in a halt signal. “Stay back! Don’t touch us!”

  “Don’t touch us!” his brother echoed.

  Franks stopped short. “Why? Is there a bomb? What did they do to you? Did the kidnappers put explosives on you?”

  “Stay back. Stay away.” Both twins motioned Franks to retreat.

  Pavano saw Lea Sutter push her way through the crowd. She stretched her arms out to the boys as she made her way toward them. “Daniel! Samuel! What are you doing?”

  How totally fucking weird.

  Pavano stared hard at Lea. She stopped at the edge of the crowd. She didn’t run up to her two boys.

  How totally fucking weird. She didn’t ask if they were okay.

  Instead, she asked what they were doing.

  Wouldn’t a mother want to know how her kids are being treated? If they are in danger?

  “What are you doing?”

  Pavano watched her as she repeated the question. Was that concern on her face? A mother’s concern? No. The question seemed to be a challenge.

  “Boys, can you get over here?” Franks called. “You’re safe. We’ll make sure you’re safe.”

  The twins made no attempt to heed him.

  “Who’s in there?” Franks demanded, his voice amplified over the crowd, now hushed, tense faces watching the boys, watching the doors. “Were you kidnapped? How many are there? Is everyone okay in there?”

  Pavano saw Lea Sutter take several steps toward her twins.

  “Stay back, Mum,” the one with dimples called. They both motioned Lea back. They were twelve, but their voices hadn’t started to change yet. They had tiny angelic voices to match their faces.

  Franks turned to the cops and agents behind him. “Careful. Those two aren’t moving away from the school. I think someone planted bombs on these kids.” That comment drew gasps and horrified cries from the crowd of parents.

  “Get back, everyone!” Franks shouted. “Get back—now!”

  “This is fucking weird,” Pinto muttered. Pavano nodded in agreement. The twins didn’t appear frightened at all. In fact, they had grins on their faces.

  “We RULE!” the one named Daniel shouted. He thrust his fists above his head. “We rule the school!”

  The other boy—Samuel—shook his fists in the air.

  What the fuck are they saying?

  “WE RULE THE SCHOOL!” they declared in unison.

  Pavano saw Lea Sutter sink back into the crowd, her face pale with horror. Did she have tears streaming down her face? She turned away. Pavano couldn’t see.

  “We need you to step away from the building,” Franks shouted. He moved toward the twins. The four feds followed him, hands on their holsters. “Put your hands down, boys, and come over to me. Slowly.”

  “We rule! We rule!” The twins screamed. “Bright beginnings! Bright beginnings, everyone!”

  Franks tossed the megaphone to the grass. He motioned his officers forward. “Okay, boys. We’re not going to hurt you. We’re just going to take you to safety.”

  “I don’t think so,” Daniel replied. “We rule now. Bright beginnings!”

  Pavano glimpsed something strange about the other twin. Samuel. What was he doing with his eyes? His face was turned away from the officers.

  “Let’s get them!” Franks cried. Flanked by the other lawmen, he took off, trotting toward the twins, arms outstretched.

  Screams burst out as a blast of red light—like a solid flame—shot over the crowd of parents. Silent but blindingly bright, it bulleted over the cars, over the street, leaving a fiery trail against the pale blue sky.

  Startled, Pavano ducked. By the time he overcame his shock and turned to follow the fiery beam, he heard what sounded like the crack of a lightning strike—the hiss and crackle of a powerful electrical charge.

  He gasped along with others in the crowd as the dark-shingled roof of the house across the street burst into flames. The flames licked across the top of the roof, then spread quickly down the sides. A tall tree leaning over the right side of the house crackled as the top limbs caught fire.

  Andy froz
e in confusion. He saw Big Pavano running to his car, most likely to call the fire departments. Franks squinted at the fire, revolver raised helplessly. He had taken a defensive stance, as if ready to do combat.

  Screams rang out again as another beam of fiery light—like a laser rocket—soared high over the crowd. Seconds later, the next house on the block, a tall Tudor-style house rising high over a wall of green hedges, burst into flame. Windows shattered. Flames danced along the hedge tops.

  Pavano heard horrified shrieks as the front door burst open and people came running out of the burning house. The front of the house was lost behind a wall of fire now. Trees burned. A flaming limb came crashing down on an open convertible in the driveway.

  He saw Big Pavano, still on his radio, frantically waving people away from the burning car. The gas tank could explode at any moment.

  Quickly, the hiss and roar of the fires threatened to drown out the horrified screams and cries. And a strong breeze brought choking black smoke sweeping over the crowd.

  “They’ve got a weapon!”

  The two blasts forced Franks to stop his pursuit. But it didn’t take him long to recover. “The kid’s got a weapon!” he bellowed. “Get ’em! Grab ’em! Get that weapon away from them!”

  Ducking his head like a running back, Franks took off toward the twins.

  “Oh my God. Oh shit. Oh my God!” Pinto cried. He grabbed Pavano by the arm as the red laser smacked Franks in the chest, sending him sprawling backward.

  A sploosh sound escaped Franks, like someone diving into a swimming pool, and a gusher of bright scarlet blood gurgled straight up from his body. Pavano saw bright flames scorch a deep hole in Franks’s chest, a hole at least as big as a cannonball. And before Pavano could move, the big cop was down on the grass, roaring and rolling and writhing in an agony of blood and fire.

  67

  Lea turned her eyes from the big black police captain. He had finally stopped writhing and moaning. At the end, he had flung his arms in the air, flung them up again and again, as if he wanted to take off and fly away from the burning pain.

  Now he lay on his stomach in a lake of dark blood. The FBI agents were down on their knees beside him, shaking their heads.

  Lea saw the twins—her twins—edge back into the school building. The doors slammed hard behind them.

  Sirens squealed on the street as three hose-and-ladder fire engines, flashing bloodred lights, roared onto the block. Lea turned to see the wall of fire. She couldn’t see the houses behind them. Trees burned, swaying under the weight of the roaring flames.

  The whole block is on fire. Like hellfire. They’re turning Sag Harbor into Hell.

  “They killed a cop!” an old man in a gray sweatsuit was screaming, his eyes bulging, waving his arms like a madman. “They killed a cop! They killed a cop!”

  Lea coughed and covered her face as waves of thick smoke rolled over the schoolyard. Two more fire trucks screamed onto the block. One bumped over the curb, nearly smashing the back of an SUV.

  They must have called other towns, Lea knew. The Sag Harbor firefighters were mostly volunteer, not up to battling a fire this big.

  “They killed a cop! They killed a cop!”

  The police seemed in disarray now. Several dark-uniformed cops ran to the front doors of the school building and began to pound with their fists.

  Lea spotted the two officers who had come to her house. They had moved to face the crowd of terrified parents. They were shouting something, but Lea couldn’t hear them over the shrill squeal of the sirens and the shouts of firefighters as they leaped off their trucks into action.

  Were the cops trying to get parents to leave the school grounds? They were shouting and motioning frantically as wave after wave of charcoal smoke, thick as cotton candy, rolled over everyone, turning the world dark and making people choke and gasp for air.

  Like one of those black-and-white horror movies Mark likes so much.

  “They killed a cop! They killed a cop!”

  Couldn’t anyone shut the poor guy up?

  Lea turned and realized she’d lost Roz and Axl. They were right beside me. Maybe Roz wanted to get Axl out of the smoke.

  Someone had covered the dead officer with a canvas tarp. The FBI agents were conferring in a circle with the uniformed cops.

  As Lea watched, her panic swelled. She thought about Elena and Ira. A sob escaped her throat. She clenched her jaw. Bit her tongue, hoping the pain would force back her panic.

  Without realizing it, she had moved up the lawn, toward the circle of law officers. She stopped when she heard the FBI agent’s voice, raw and raspy: “They killed a cop. Prepare your weapons. We’re going in.”

  Lea stifled another sob. She stumbled back.

  Ira and Elena must be terrified.

  She spun away, choking from the smoke, her throat burning as if she was on fire. She strode toward the street, toward the flames, the crackling trees trembling their limbs as if pleading for help, the frantic men hooking up long hoses, the flames, the flames, such a horrifying twitch and dance of the flames.

  She walked quickly toward her car at the end of the block, fumbling in her pocket for the key.

  All my fault. All my fault.

  I have no choice. I have to find Mark.

  I’ll wait in the car, away from the choking smoke. As soon as the kids are safe, I’ll find Mark.

  And tell him everything.

  68

  Pavano joined the tight formation of agents and cops as they moved toward the open classroom window. Birds squawked, circling crazily overhead. He glanced back. The fire had spread to the next block. People ran screaming from burning houses.

  Smoke and fire as far as he could see. The trees were being consumed by the roaring flames. On the street, five or six cars burned. People ducked and tried to cover their heads from the choking waves of black smoke, swirled by sharp gusts of hot wind from the fire.

  The crowd of parents appeared to have been blown apart, people running frantically in twos and threes, in all directions. He saw some ducking low as they ran, covering their heads, making their way to the back of the school. Andy knew they might be in the way if the law enforcement people needed to use the back entrances, but there was no time to warn them or move them away. The FBI guys seemed determined to go in there and confront whatever awaited them without any further delay.

  “Maybe we all get mowed down,” Pinto said, sweat drenching his forehead. “That kid had a fucking laser blaster like in a movie. Did you see his eyes light up? Fucking weird.”

  Pavano struggled to hear him over the wail of sirens as more firefighters poured onto the block, adding to the snarl of the fire, the screams of the frenzied onlookers and the cries of terrified people fleeing their burning homes.

  How could a quiet neighborhood erupt so quickly in such screaming terror?

  “Did that blast really come from his eyes?” Pavano asked Pinto. “That’s impossible, right?”

  Pinto shrugged. “Beats the shit out of me. But I think we know how those three murder vics got burned. And it wasn’t Mark Sutter.”

  They followed the backs of four FBI agents. The front row stopped under the window and ducked beneath the stone window ledge. Pavano could see their features tighten, their faces unable to hide their fear. He knew they were picturing Franks screaming and writhing on the ground as his body flamed and burned.

  Suddenly, Pavano knew what he was going to do. He had known it for a while. It was there in the back of his mind, waiting . . . waiting for the moment he knew would come.

  He pushed through the agents and cops to the window. He could see inside the classroom. It was empty and dark.

  His heart suddenly beat so hard, he had spots flashing in his eyes. His mouth instantly became as dry as straw. He took a deep breath, willing himself to go ahead with this.

  Because it was time to do something brave. Time to do something in his life that he wouldn’t regret later no matter the outcome. Time to do
something.

  He couldn’t remember which of the agents was in charge. Was it the good-looking guy with the steel-gray eyes and the short blond hair and the high movie-star cheekbones? Or the short, stern-looking older dude?

  Pavano decided to try them both. “Let me go in.”

  They squinted at him as if he was speaking Martian. “Say again?”

  “Let me go in first. Alone.”

  “Why?”

  Because I’ve screwed up everything else in my life. Maybe I can be an actual hero today.

  “I know those boys,” Pavano said. “I’ve spoken to them before. They’ll remember me. I can talk to them. I can reason with them. They’ll listen to me.”

  They reacted with hard stares. Like he was totally mental.

  “Maybe I can find out what’s happening in there,” he heard himself say. “Without any more casualties. If I go in by myself, maybe . . .”

  The two agents exchanged glances. Behind them, Pavano glimpsed Pinto, casting him questioning looks, like, What the hell are you doing?

  “Go ahead,” the short bald one said. “One shout and we’ll be there behind you.”

  Pavano blinked. “Really?”

  The agent motioned to the window. “Better you than me, Sergeant. I hate the smell of burning meat.”

  69

  It took Samuel a moment to realize that the gray-haired woman in the hairnet and crisp white uniform was a cafeteria worker. She carried in two plates heaped high with scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash brown potatoes, just as the twins had ordered. Like all the workers, she had a blue arrow stenciled on one cheek.

  Daniel motioned for her to set them down on the teacher’s desk, where the twins had settled after returning from their triumphant moment in front of the school.

  Samuel lowered his face near the plate and inhaled. He loved the aroma of scrambled eggs. He could eat eggs all day long.

  The cafeteria worker stopped to gaze at the poster hanging on the wall behind the twins. It was a portrait of the president of the United States, and someone had painted a blue arrow on his cheek.