Page 175 of 1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Forty-Two

“We worried about protecting the woman who caused the wholething. And now she knows Owen Whittaker is alive, and her shooter is alive. Sheneeds both of them dead. But why Angela?”

“She’s been a target. I don’t know why, but she’s been atarget all along,” Patrick said.

“There has to be a reason. Andthere has to be some connection to the other victims.”

“Angela testified against the one man, but he’s among thedead. Maybe she didn’t want him to be. This girl, though...” Patrick said.

Jackson put through a call to the team at the hospital andthen called the office, asking for the tech department and saying it wascrucial. They needed everything they could get on Debbie Nolan. Immediately.

They reached the safe house, and Jackson headed straight forthe computerized lockbox. But before keying in his code, he noted that the gatewasn’t fully closed.

He drew his gun. Patrick did the same. With Brybo running ahead of them, they approached the house.

The front door was also ajar.

Jackson stepped inside.

“Angela!” There was no answer.

“Upstairs,” Patrick told him, running up the staircase.Jackson tore into the kitchen. Cups had been set on the table, and a teapot wasthere with sugar, creamer, and plates.

A kettle sat on the stove.

But there was no one to be seen.

He grabbed a chair and hopped up to see inside the cupboard.A nail protruded—one he was sure didn’t belong there. One that had been set inplace, likely by Debbie Nolan.

“Clear!” Patrick shouted from upstairs.

“Clear!” he shouted in return.

Patrick came back into the kitchen with Brybo.The dog whined, sitting anxiously.

“She got her out somehow. Just like she must have druggedWhittaker and got him out of her house,” Jackson said. “It got tougher here,but beg for a specific agent, be the poor terrified victim desperate for help,and you could play the game again. Though she has toknow now that we know, so...”

“She’s doubly dangerous,” Patrick said. “But, Jackson, whatwe have to do is find Angela. Debbie doesn’t shootpeople. She slices throats, but she hasn’t played with her victims. If she’sthe one doing the killing. She figured the tree would kill Whittaker—”

“So she won’t make the same mistake again,” Jackson said.“Except if she has a thing with Angela, she won’t want to kill her too quickly.I’m betting she can’t believe Angela found Whittaker in the tree. She’ll needto prove she’s cleverer. So...”

“Angela is definitely alive,” Patrick said. “We just have tofind her.”

“And she’s in that cemetery—or the woods. Somewhere,”Jackson said. “Brybo! We’ve got to go. Find Angela!”

Brybo barked, and they headed outof the house.

Jackson got a call back from Michael Banyan in the techdepartment and put the phone on speaker.

“We couldn’t find anything on Debbie Nolan,” Banyan toldJackson. “But I thought about Angela and what Debbie would likely do next. Irealized she would have looked for a name change a while back. We researchedthat and struck gold. Debbie Nolan is really Jennifer Tanner. Her father was adrug runner the Krewe played an essential part in putting away. In fact, Angelawas the one to figure out that he was heading into a Miami harbor, and theKrewe and the Coast Guard caught up with him there.”

“It’s revenge,” Jackson murmured. “It’s revenge, plain andsimple. All right, put an APB out on her and Angela. Video fromeverywhere—"

“On it, sir,” Banyan promised.

Jackson looked at Patrick and gunned the car as he took inthe day.

The sun was already setting.

And they were returning to the old cemetery surrounded bywoods. They’d have an hour of dying sunlight left if that, beautiful golds and mauves already streaking across the heavens.