AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even in her pain, he saw her smile. He reclined the seat slightly so she could be more comfortable. There were smudges of blood and grease on the sheet wherever it made contact with her skin. “What did Surrette do to you, Felicity?” he asked.
“Everything,” she said.
“Do you know where he might have gone?”
“He’s here,” she replied. “He won’t leave. He thinks he’ll prevail over all of you. That’s what he calls it, ‘prevailing.’ He thinks that’s his destiny.”
Alafair and Gretchen had walked up behind Clete. “Why are we his enemies?” Gretchen asked.
“He’s psychotic. He says the earth must be conquered by prevailing over its ordinary people. He says the leaders aren’t important. They can always be bought.”
“Watch Felicity for me,” Clete said.
“Where are you going?” Gretchen said.
“To break every bone in this guy’s body,” he replied.
I FOUND A PIECE of pipe on the floor behind the boiler and pried the lock off the cage where the girls were held. Both of them had the haunted expression that I have seen only twice in my life, once in army footage taken of the Dachau inmates on the day of their liberation, and a second time in Vietnam, when I looked into the faces of people who had survived the snake-and-nape bombing of their village.
I slung the M-1 on my shoulder and climbed the ladder that Surrette and Jack Boyd had used to escape the basement. It protruded through a trapdoor into a pantry just off the kitchen; the trapdoor looked like it had been sawed and hinged recently. I went through the first floor of the house, then climbed the stairs and searched the same rooms Clete had searched. Surrette and Boyd were gone. But where? We hadn’t heard a vehicle drive away or any sound of a motorized boat on the lake.
I went out on a balcony that allowed a fine view of the grounds and the work sheds and the cherry trees, heavy with fruit. I realized a surreal phenomenon had taken place while we were in the basement, one that seemed to have no cause. I had heard about the northern lights, although I was never sure what they were. I also had been in parts of the world—the Bermuda Triangle and a similar nautical area off the coast of Japan—where the laws of physics didn’t always apply and electromagnetic influences seemed to have their way with compasses and gyroscopes and radar and even the creation of whirlpools and tidal waves.
This was different. The moon had disappeared, either behind a mountain peak or in a bank of thunderheads pushing down from British Columbia. By all odds, the lake and the mountains that surrounded it should have been submerged in darkness. That was not what happened. There was a ubiquitous glow from the other side of the mountains. It was cobalt blue and seemed to emanate from the land into the sky, rather than the other way around. The lake itself, which was vast and deep and, even in July, cold enough to pucker your skin, was absolutely black and yet brimming with nocturnal radiance.
I wondered if my fatigue and adrenaline and revulsion had impaired both my senses and my ability to think. I was convinced that was not the case. I’m also convinced that all the events I was about to see and participate in happened just as I will describe them. I have never set much store in psychological stability or what we refer to as normalcy. I don’t believe the world is a rational place; nor do I believe that either science or the study of metaphysics can explain any of the great mysteries. I have always fled the presence of those who claim they know the truth about anything. I agree with George Bernard Shaw’s statement that we learn little or nothing from rational people, because rational people adapt themselves to the world and, consequently, are seldom visionary.
I went downstairs holding the M-1 at port arms and walked through the French doors into the yard. The lights were off at the marina, but the hulls of the sailboats in their slips were white and sleek in the chop, rocking softly against the rubber tires hung from the mooring posts. Had not at least one person inside a cabin on one of those boats been alarmed by the gunfire and used a landline to call in a 911? Perhaps they had. Or perhaps no one was in the boats. Or perhaps they couldn’t have cared less.
I saw Clete walking toward me, Gretchen’s jungle-clipped AR-15 slung over his ri
ght shoulder. “Where are Molly and Albert?” he asked.
“With the girls on the back steps. Molly was opening up some canned food,” I replied.
He nodded and looked around, his eyes sweeping the lakeshore and the shadows by the work sheds and the cherry trees puffing in the wind. “It’s cold,” he said. “None of them have wraps.”
“You want to pack it in?”
“Surrette is still out here. If we leave, he skates. Let Molly and Albert take Felicity and the girls to the hospital in Polson.”
“I don’t like them being on the highway by themselves,” I said.
“You’ve got a point.”
“Let’s search the sheds and the orchards and the cottage where the wrecker is parked,” I said.
He nodded again, then I saw his expression change as he gazed up the slope toward the two-lane. “Fuck,” he said.
Three sets of headlights were coming down the grade from the southern end of the lake. The first vehicle slowed and turned into the driveway that led down to the two-story stone house. The other two turned with it. None of the vehicles had emergency flashers. The drivers cut their headlights before they reached the stone house. In seconds, the three vehicles had disappeared among the work sheds and orchards.
“You were right,” Clete said. “It’s Caspian Younger. He’s about to inherit billions, and we’re the only thing standing in his way. How did we let these motherfuckers get behind us?”
Because I didn’t listen to my old friend the line sergeant, I thought.
“What do you want to do, Streak?”
“Like you said.”
