Drawn Into Darkness(66)

“Were you invited in?”

“No! There’s nobody home. I’m trying to tell you—”

“So you’re trespassing and interfering with evidence.”

“Officer, whoever lives here—”

“Is none of your business. I’m the investigator. The last thing I need is buttinsky civilians littering fingerprints all over the case. You and your brother exit that residence immediately, leaving everything the way you found it. That’s an order.”

“But—”

But Trooper Willet had terminated the call.

“Son of a bitch,” Quinn said, snapping his phone shut with more than necessary force. “He said—”

“I know what he said,” Forrest interjected. “I could hear him as if you had him on speaker.”

He and his brother faced each other, exchanging a long look with an unspoken question in it: now what? And Quinn felt tectonic plates shift in his world because he saw Forrest as never before: not his younger-sibling rival, but an equal, a strong ally, his brother on whom he could depend.

Quinn said, “That cop thinks this is a case, a puzzle for him to solve. He doesn’t care whether Mom is alive or dead.” Emotion sneaked up on him, causing his voice to break on the last fatal word.

Forrest simply nodded. “We stay. Look around. Find out who lives here. There’s got to be an electric bill or something.”

“And if Trooper Willet shows up?”

“If Trooper Willet shows up, that means he got his ass out from behind his desk and he has to take a look at this creepy place.”





NINETEEN





I took care of him, Stoat had said. He meant he had killed Justin. The words staggered me like a blow, yet I could not comprehend or react. Instead of responding, I stood gawking at the place where Schweitzer’s mortal remains should have been. Stoat must not have liked this, because he jabbed his duct-taped shotgun into the back of my duct-taped neck so hard I gasped with pain and felt something wet: my own blood.

“Now you listen, bitch.” Stoat’s rasping voice sounded as hard as the shotgun barrel. “You know I’m an orderly man. That means if I let you loose of this here duct tape, you follow orders. I aim to learn you the meaning of complete obedience, Miss Lee Anna. Say ‘Yes, sir.’”

I could not think of a single wise thought ever generated by any philosopher, anytime, that seemed relevant to this situation. I said, “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He yanked the duct tape off my neck so suddenly that I staggered with shock and pain. For a moment I stood swaying with my eyes closed, and when I opened them, Stoat stood too close in front of me, his favorite large, wickedly sharp knife in one hand, the shotgun in the other, and nothing had ever been as ugly as his distorted face. Nothing had ever smelled quite as sickening as his breath, and he grinned like a skull would. With all his rotten teeth showing he said, “I want some toast and two eggs over easy. If you break either of the yolks, I’ll slit your throat.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, get moving!”

“Yes, sir.”

He stood guard until I got out the things I needed: eggs, margarine, frying pan, spatula, bread for toast. The bread showed hints of green mold, but Stoat didn’t have to know about that. He sat down at the table and propped his shotgun against it. “Don’t break them yolks, now,” he remarked, thumbing his knife’s razor-sharp point and edge.

Talk about pressure. Two eggs over easy, what Pennsylvanians called dippy eggs. I’d cooked them a zillion times and the occasional broken yolk hadn’t been the least bit important. Now it had become a matter of life or death.

Crack eggs against a flat surface, I’d heard somewhere, sometime, for a clean break and no jagged edges to tear the yolk.

I cracked the eggs on the stove top and managed to plop both of them into the hot frying pan without mishap.

Lounging with his booted feet on my kitchen table and his shotgun in his lap, Stoat added, “I might do it anyway. Slit your throat when you go to sleep.”

This did not seem to require an answer. I kept my eyes on the frying pan and said nothing, but my mind jotted frantic memos. Offer coffee. Stay awake. Not tired anymore. Not.

Stoat demanded, “What you think, Miss Lee Anna? You like the idea of the knife?”

“No, sir.”

“Neither did Justin, but that’s the way I done him.”

Sick, not just heartsick but all of me scared sick, must not let it show. Must not show emotion. Must not cry. Not. Cry.

With commendable steadiness I asked, “When?”

“Just before I found you.”

Damn, it was plausible. Even though—had he asked where Justin was when he first came into the fishing shack, or hadn’t he? I couldn’t remember. The spatula shook in my hand as I lifted it to flip the eggs.