‘You can bet on it.’
Standing on the wooded slope with his back against the tree, Owen didn’t think he could wait much longer.
He was getting too scared.
He wished he had the courage to call out John’s name. But he was afraid of who might hear him – who might come looking for him in the darkness.
Anyway, calling out for John wouldn’t do any good.
Owen had already figured out the possibilities.
John might be playing a trick on him – ditching him or hiding nearby to enjoy Owen’s torment.
Or maybe he’d returned to the pool to spy on the gals for a while longer.
Or somehow, he’d gotten lost and wandered out of earshot.
Or maybe he’d had a bad accident, rendering him unconscious or dead.
Or he’d gotten attacked – abducted or killed.
Owen hadn’t been able to think of any other alternatives. One of them, he figured, almost had to be the truth. And no matter which it might be, he couldn’t see any benefit to calling out for John.
I can’t just stand here all night!
What’ll I do?
He knew one thing he could not do: ascend the hillside.
But what if John crashed into a tree and he’s out cold up there?
I would’ve heard it happen, he told himself. The guy was right on my tail.
And I didn’t hear anything.
How could that be? he wondered.
Wondering about it gave him goosebumps.
The bastard probably just stopped on his own, turned around and sneaked away.
He’s probably waiting for me down at the car.
Goosebumps still prickling his skin, Owen pushed himself away from the tree, turned around and started rushing downhill through the darkness.
He ran with his hands out in front of him in case of a collision.
As he ran, he thought he heard someone huffing behind him. But he looked back and nobody was there.
He thought he heard other quick, pounding feet.
Looking back, he saw no one.
Nobody’s after me!
But he looked back again.
And again.
He heard himself make whimpery noises as he panted for breath.
And thought he heard someone else whimpering in the night behind him.
Cut it out! Nobody’s after me!
I’m gonna get down to the road and find John’s lousy heap of a car and he’ll be waiting in it, laughing at me.
At last, Owen found a road.
And finally, he found John’s car.
Wheezing, whimpering, hardly able to stay on his feet, he staggered down the narrow road toward the rear of the old Ford Granada. He stumbled to the passenger door. Crouching, he looked through the open window.
Where the hell ARE you?
He opened the door. The overhead bulb cast a dim, yellowish light through the car’s interior.
No John in the front seat.
No John in the back seat.
No key in the ignition.
Where is he? What’ll I do?
Feeling confused, worn out and helpless, Owen climbed into the car. He sat down on the crunched copy of Fangoria and pulled his door shut.
The overhead light went out.
He waited in darkness for John’s return.
Chapter Forty-Four
Sandy’s Story – June, 1997
She drove down Front Street, looking for the blue Ford Granada. There were only a couple of cars parked on the street near Beast House, and neither fit Dana’s description.
So maybe its owner hadn’t vanished, after all.
But a lot of funny stuff had gone on recently inside Beast House.
Worth checking out, Sandy thought.
She turned her Range Rover around and drove back into town. A block past Beast House, she made a right turn and headed up a sidestreet. She parked at the curb. On both sides of the street, all the places of business were closed for the night.
This time, she didn’t leave her flashlight behind.
Though she carried it, she didn’t turn it on.
Staying a block east of Front Street, she made her way back toward Beast House.
She was shivering, but doubted that it had much to do with the chilly breeze or her damp hair or the fact that she’d just spent more than an hour in the steaming hot water of a spa. The shivers, she was sure, had mostly to do with Eric.
What if he’s in there?
Ever since the day he ran off, five years ago, she’d looked forward with terrible hope and dread to the time when they might meet again.
If he hadn’t fled, she would have shot him. She was pretty sure of that.
But now?
I’ll still shoot him, she told herself. For what he did to Terry. For what he did to me. To stop him from hurting anyone else.
I’ll kill him, all right.
If I find him.
At the rear of the Beast House grounds, Sandy came to the old iron fence with the spikes along the top. A lot had been changed over the years, but this section of fence remained the same.
Standing close to the bars, she scanned the area ahead.
She remembered a time when there’d been no paved patio area behind the house. No snack stand. No tables and chairs. No gift shop. No restrooms. None of this. Just the old gazebo – now on display in Janice Crogan’s museum – and a big, grassy lawn that Wick used to mow once a week. She remembered times when she would sit in the gazebo in the evenings, all alone. And times when she made love on the dewy grass late at night. With Seth. With Jason.
Eric might very well have been conceived on such a night, his father gleaming white as snow in the moonlight.
Sandy liked to think that Seth was Eric’s father. Seth was such a sweetheart. And gentle. Not like Jason. Seth probably was the father, but she couldn’t be sure.
Doesn’t matter, she told herself, suddenly feeling a pain of loss. They’re both dead, anyway. And Eric’ll be dead, too, if I find him.
Crouching, she slipped the flashlight between the iron bars of the fence. She set it on the grass, then climbed the iron bars. At the top, she imagined falling onto the spikes, feeling one or two of them drive up through her jeans and into . . .
Stop it!
She leaped, dropped to the grass, and rolled. Then she retrieved her flashlight. Its ribbed casing was wet with dew. She wiped it with the tail of her outer shirt, then ran across the moonlit grass. She entered the paved patio through a gap between the gift shop and snack stand.
Warren’s snack stand.
If it was really teenagers that jumped him, she thought, why the big secret?
Because it wasn’t teenagers. It was a beast. It was Eric. And Warren was afraid somebody might find out Eric did more than just beat him up – so he concocted a lie.
That explains a lot, Sandy thought.
Explains why Warren quit being a Beast House guide and how he suddenly became the owner of the snack stand.
Janice must’ve bribed him with it.
Which would mean she knew the truth.
Which would mean she’s been letting the tours continue – even the Midnight Tour – knowing a beast was back.
How could she do a thing like that? Sandy wondered.
The answer came to her mind in the old, familiar voice of Maggie Kutch – ‘Easy: m-o-n-e-y.’
No, Sandy thought. Janice isn’t like that. She wouldn’t risk the lives of innocent people that way. So maybe she doesn’t know what really happened to Warren.
Or maybe it was teenagers.
Eric would’ve killed him.
Sandy climbed the wooden stairs to the back porch of Beast House.
Warren would be dead, she told herself, if Eric had attacked him. Dead like Terry and all the others. So obviously, Eric wasn’t responsible for . . .
He didn’t kill me.
That’s different, she thought. I’m his mother. He hardly hurt me at all – a few
scratches, a few bites, nothing major.
Everybody else, he rips apart.
He would’ve shredded Warren, killed him.
So maybe it was teenagers, after all.
The porch door was locked. Clamping the flashlight between her thighs, Sandy dug into a front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a folding Buck knife. She opened the four-inch blade and slipped it into the crack between the screen door and its frame.
A simple hook and eye secured the door.
She couldn’t see them, but she knew they were there. They’d been there in the old days when she was a guide. And they’d still been there the last time she’d secretly entered Beast House to search for Eric.
After first returning to Malcasa Point in early 1993, she’d gone into the house two or three nights a week. But that hadn’t lasted long. Soon, she’d tapered off to once or twice a month as she began to give up her theory that Eric would return to the town of his birth, the home of his ancestors.
He’s not a homing pigeon, she used to tell herself.
But then she would think of all the stories she’d heard about cats and dogs finding their way home from enormous distances . . .
Their cabin to Malcasa Point wouldn’t be any great trick. A person could walk the distance in less than a week, no trouble at all.
Eric, apparently, hadn’t.
Maybe he just wasn’t interested in returning to Malcasa Point. Or maybe he didn’t know how. Or he couldn’t return because he’d been injured or killed.
Maybe I’m the reason he hasn’t come. He might’ve figured that I’d be here, waiting to kill him.
Though Sandy could only guess at the reason, the fact was that she never found Eric – or any trace of his presence – during her clandestine visits to Beast House.
She’d made her last illegal entry near the end of 1994.
Here we go again, she thought.
With a flick of the knife, she tapped the unseen hook out of its unseen eye. She folded the knife, slipped it into her pocket, then took the flashlight from between her thighs and opened the screen door. Inside the porch, she eased the door shut. She fastened its hook.
Turning around slowly, flashlight off, she scanned the dark porch. During the day, it served as a makeshift lounge area for Beast House staff members. She knew there was a sofa, a card table, a couple of old lounge chairs and a small refrigerator. Now, they made a jumble of motionless shadows. She smelled a faint, stale odor of cigarette butts.
Facing the back door of the house, Sandy listened. She heard the quick thumping of her own heart. Off in the hills, an owl hooted. She also noticed a quiet shhhhh that might be the breeze or might be a car rushing down Front Street.
Nobody here but me.
She stepped to the wooden door. Again, she clamped the flashlight between her legs. Hands free, she removed a slim leather case from a breast pocket of her outer shirt. She opened it and drew out her pick and tension bar.
She felt for the door knob, found the lock hole, then slipped her tools into it.
She needed no light for picking the lock.
Inside the kitchen of Beast House – the door shut and locked behind her back – Sandy put away the tools. Then she took slow, deep breaths, trying to calm down.
This was another reason she’d given up the break-ins.
Too damn rough on the nerves.
Her heart was trying to smash its way out of her chest. Sweat trickled down her face and neck. The flashlight felt slippery in her hand.
With the tail of her outer shirt, she wiped her face.
Then she made her way slowly through the kitchen.
Nothing to be afraid of, she told herself.
I’m the baddest son-of-a-bitch in the Valley.
She smiled, but her smile trembled.
She knew that she wasn’t afraid of physical harm to herself . . . and she certainly didn’t fear ‘the beast.’ She had no reason to fear being caught trespassing, either; not only was she a police officer, but she was one of Lynn Tucker’s best friends. If taken for a prowler, she could simply explain that she’d entered to investigate something. Maybe she’d noticed a flicker of light in one of the windows . . .
She feared none of that. What terrified her was the possibility of confronting her son.
Her baby.
Eric.
She had always loved him. Even before his birth, when he was an unseen force slumbering in her womb, she’d loved him. After his birth, she’d cherished him even more. She would’ve done anything for him. She would’ve died for him. She did kill for him, and he had killed for her.
But Eric had also murdered Terry.
And he had taken Sandy by force and made her pregnant, and caused all that.
She had to kill him. For what he’d done to Terry. For what he’d done to her and what she’d had to do because of it. But she still loved him. She would never be able to stop loving him, no matter what he might do, but she had to kill him nonetheless.
He probably isn’t here, anyway, she told herself.
But maybe he is.
Something had scared the kid in the attic.
While still in the spa, Sandy had decided to try the attic first.
She left the kitchen and walked slowly along the narrow passage to the foot of the stairway. Then she stepped around the newel post and began to climb the stairs. She made no attempt for silence. Her western boots clumped against the wood. The old planks creaked and moaned under her weight.
The noises seemed very loud in the silence. Sandy figured they could probably be heard throughout the house – except perhaps in the attic and cellar.
They might warn Eric of her approach.
Good.
Be smart and run for your life, honey. Momma’s here to gun you down.
At the top of the stairs, she turned to the right and walked heavily down the hallway. She stopped at the attic door. It was shut. With her left hand, she unhooked one end of the cordon and let it fall. Then she gave the knob a twist. The door wasn’t locked. She swung it open.
The stairway to the attic was as black as a mine shaft.
Sandy switched her flashlight on. Its beam drilled through the darkness, slanting upward all the way to the shut door at the top of the stairs.
She changed the flashlight to her left hand.
With her right hand, she unholstered her 9mm Sig Sauer semi-automatic. A hollow-point in the chamber and the hammer down, the double-action pistol was ready to fire. A pull of the trigger would do it.
The bright beam trembling on the attic door, Sandy began to climb the stairs. The stairwell was hot and stuffy. She panted for breath. She blinked sweat out of her eyes. She could feel her T-shirt clinging to her back. Sweat dribbled down her inner thighs. The moist seat of her jeans pressed against her buttocks as she climbed.
Don’t let him be up here, she thought.
Please, God, I don’t want to kill him. But I will. You know I will. If you don’t want me to, don’t let me find him.
At the top, she clamped the flashlight between her thighs. Then she used her empty hand to turn the knob and shove the door. It swung open, hinges squealing, and the beam of her light tunneled into the attic.
Reaching down, she pulled the flashlight free. She held it low and off to the side as she stepped over the threshold. Just inside the doorway, she began to move the flashlight slowly. The pale beam, aswirl with specks like miniature snowflakes, drifted at hip level from one side of the attic toward the other.
It lit the steeply slanted roof, thick support beams, the broken-faced mannequin of Officer Dan Jenson . . .
The kid didn’t run into any beast, just caught a glimpse of poor Dan!
Mystery solved.
Though Sandy felt her tension start melting away, she continued to move her light across the attic. It revealed old steamer trunks and suitcases, cardboard boxes, dummies of the two Zieglers, framed paintings stacked against a wall, a few rolled rugs, an ancient wheelchair, a tattered sofa,
a rocking chair, a pedestal table and other odds and ends of old furniture.
Then her flashlight illuminated a hunched, furry creature with wild eyes and teeth bared in a mad snarl.
Vincent, the stuffed monkey. A nineteenth-century umbrella stand, it used to reside in the foyer.
Sandy smiled, recalling how it often freaked the kids out.
Maybe that’s why Janice stored it away.
Though Sandy had been in the attic several times, on her own and with the Midnight Tour, she hadn’t seen Vincent in years. Not since her old days as a guide.
She smiled at the hideous monkey. ‘How you doing, Vincent old pal?’ She stepped closer to him and squatted down – grimacing as her buttocks and crotch pushed against the sweaty denim of her jeans. ‘You’re looking a bit the worse for wear,’ she said.
His short brown fur looked a lot more ratty and filthy than she remembered. If she dared to pat him on top of the head, a cloud of dust would probably rise.
He seemed to be glaring into her eyes.
In the old days, to test her courage, Sandy used to dare herself to insert her forefinger into his open mouth. She’d always been sure that Vincent, though dead and stuffed, wouldn’t miss the opportunity to bite her finger off. She’d also known that he couldn’t. He was dead and stuffed. If he tried to bite her finger, his jaw would probably break off.
Still, she’d never been able to do it.
Sandy hadn’t feared the fangs of living beasts, but the teeth of poor old Vincent always terrified her.
‘You don’t scare me now,’ she whispered.
She set her pistol on the floor.
‘You wouldn’t bite your old friend, would you?’
Vincent glared at her.
‘You better not,’ she warned him.
Then she eased her forefinger into his mouth.
And gasped out a yelp of fright as she was clutched from behind by her crotch and neck and jerked high. The flashlight flew from her hand. Her head pounded against a roof beam. As the light blinked out, she felt herself slam against the attic floor.
Chapter Forty-Five
Rude Awakening
Dana woke up feeling chilly. She was curled on her side, covered only by the top sheet. She supposed she must’ve thrown off the blanket.