"Gracie?" Ella said beside him. "Is it you?"
"Mom," the girl said, almost impatiently, "I'm cold."
Ella grabbed hold of her husband and daughter both and dragged them into a family embrace, Grace practically falling out of the tub on top of them.
"Oh, God, thank you," Ella said.
TJ said a silent prayer of thanks as well, but his was not to God. He thought of all the things that he wished he'd thought to say to his mother and now never would. But he thought perhaps that was for the best.
"Hey," Ella said, reaching up to caress his cheek, searching his eyes. "It's gone quiet."
And so it had.
The only sounds in the bathroom were the hum of the overhead fan and the quiet dripping of water as the ice on the doorknob began to melt.
TWENTY
"Jake. Wake up."
Inhaling sharply, Jake sat up and found his head amid the clothes hanging in the closet. He gave an amused grunt and shook himself. Isaac shore a flashlight in his eyes and he squinted and turned away.
"I'm awake."
"Listen," Isaac said, nudging him. "Do you hear that?"
The boy might not have Isaac's face, but his voice sounded so genuine, so right, that it made Jake shiver. He wondered if it was just his imagination-twelve years had passed, after all; how could he really remember what Isaac's voice had sounded like back then? Maybe all ten-year-old boys sounded the same.
"I don't hear anything," he said.
But he frowned even as he spoke the words, because maybe he actually did hear something, a thumping noise that was not the sound of the shutter banging against the house. His heart skipped a beat, then began to race. He hadn't been completely asleep but he had definitely been drifting off, despite that it was hours earlier than he usually went to bed. Now he couldn't have been more awake. It felt like every cell in his body was on alert.
The sound stopped. He shifted, knocking over some shoes that he'd piled up to get them out of the way and tipping all the contents out of the open Monopoly box at his feet. His head hit the clothes again and some bare hangers jangled.
"Is that … ?" Jake asked.
Isaac shook his head. "I don't think so."
The muffled sound of voices reached them, impossible to understand but clearly human. The thumping came again and Jake exhaled, realizing how stupid he'd been. He started to get up and Isaac grabbed his arm.
"No!" the boy said.
"Someone's here. They're banging at the door."
"Don't answer," Isaac pleaded.
Jake hesitated, but he heard the muffled shouting again and thought whoever was out there didn't seem likely to give up. A terrible thought occurred to him.
"What if something's happened to Mom?"
Isaac glanced around the dark closet, forlorn, and then he nodded. "Okay, go. But don't go outside. And if you see anything weird, shut the door fast."
Jake smiled. "Promise."
He took the second flashlight and climbed out of the closet, groaning as he stretched his legs and back. He was only twenty-four but already his body didn't adapt well to being cramped in a closet for a few hours. Once upon a time he and Ikey could have camped in there for days, eating junk food and telling ghost stories. Now the idea of ghost stories made him nauseous. Fear had lost its entertainment value.
"Stay there," he told his dead brother, and he shut the closet door.
Clicking on the flashlight, he hurried through the house, realizing just how loud the banging and shouting was. As he hurried to the front door, he recognized one of the voices as Harley's, and then his other visitor identified himself.
"Jake, this is Joe Keenan, and this is your last chance. If you're in there, open the door. Otherwise we'll have to assume you're in some kind of trouble and we're coming in! I'll give you a count of ten!"
A heavy fist hammered on the door. Harley, he thought.
"Open the damn door, Jake!" his friend shouted.
Outside, Detective Keenan began to count loudly down from ten. As Jake reached for the dead bolt his hand wavered. If something had happened to his mother, he wanted to know, but what if they were there for another reason? Detective Keenan had been instrumental in the search for Zachary Stroud.
"Shit," Jake whispered to himself.
Harley shouted his name and banged again.
"Seven!" Keenan yelled. "Six! Five!"
Shit, shit, shit, Jake thought, and then he slid back the dead bolt and turned the knob, hauling the door open. They were coming in one way or another; better that they did so without destroying his front door. He stood in his foyer and shone his flashlight in their eyes.
"You sound like you're about to blast off," he said, scratching his head and pretending to yawn.
Harley and Keenan looked surprised that he'd opened the door and he saw them straighten up. They'd actually been prepared to break in.
"Where the hell have you been?" Harley demanded.
Jake scowled at him. "Sleeping. In my house. The house of an idiot who did not buy a generator after the last two times he lost power. Not a lot else to do in the middle of a blizzard … except, I guess, for going around hammering on people's doors when you should be home. What is with you guys? It's kinda late, don't you think?"
Detective Keenan visibly shifted gears, going from friend to cop in half a second. "Can we come in?"
Jake shrugged and stepped out of the way to admit them. "Of course. Sorry, still half asleep."
As they entered, he glanced out the door, searching the snow-streaked darkness for inhuman things.
"What are you looking for?" Detective Keenan asked. "We're alone."
Jake's heart skipped. He hadn't thought about it, but that was a good sign. They'd come without the cavalry.
"Just wondering how you got here. Did you park out on the street?"
"Not like we could get into your driveway," Harley said. "Even getting up your street wasn't easy. If the plow doesn't come by soon-"
"If the plow comes by soon, your car is probably going to get demolished," Jake said. He gestured toward the living room and they followed his lead. "Wish I could offer you guys some coffee. I might have some beers, but-"
"We're good," Detective Keenan said wearily.
Jake could barely breathe as he picked up a matchbook from the coffee table and lit two candles he'd left there earlier, in preparation for the storm. There were also two empty mugs on the table, left from when he'd made hot chocolate earlier for himself and Isaac, and he saw Keenan eyeing the mugs. You didn't have to be a detective to count to two.
From the moment Jake had let them in, Harley had been watching him with open curiosity, not quite accusatory but definitely suspicious. He hated to have his friends look at him that way, but the idea of trying to explain the truth to them seemed absurd.
"So, I assume you guys didn't pay me a visit just because you were bored."
The sarcasm didn't earn even a smile, and that was when he knew he was in real trouble. These guys weren't going to content themselves with asking him; they were going to want to search. Of course they were. He'd been stupid not to realize it right away. If they didn't have strong suspicions, they would never have come all the way out to his house in the middle of a blizzard.
"We didn't," Detective Keenan said, sitting forward on the sofa and studying him, trying to look casual but ready for whatever Jake might do.
This is really happening, Jake thought.
"Last time I was out here, you wouldn't let me in," Harley said. "The shades were all down. Most of 'em are still down. I had the idea you had a woman here, maybe a new girlfriend or something."
Detective Keenan looked pointedly at the two mugs on the coffee table. Jake faked a smile and he knew they saw its falseness. Both cops stiffened a little, sensing his panic. He knew it, but he could not get the thin, fake smile off his face.
He struggled to think of some way to get rid of them. If they wanted to arrest him, to take Isaac away, they could do that, but only if they waited until the storm had passed. The idea of Isaac out there in the blizzard with the ice men hunting for him … Jake couldn't let that happen.
"I know I must've looked like a wild man that day," Jake said. "But I've been having trouble sleeping. That's why I had the shades down. I didn't fall asleep till dawn. I hadn't even been up long when you-"
"Bullshit," Harley interrupted.
Jake almost expected Detective Keenan to protest. He was the detective; he was the one who should have been asking the questions. But Keenan just watched.
"It's not bullshit," Jake said, allowing himself to look irritated. "Seriously, what the hell's going on with you guys? Why are you here?"
"Pokémon," Detective Keenan said.
Jake flinched. "What?"
"You had Pokémon cards in your hand," Harley said. "Spread out, the way you would if you were playing, so don't tell me you were getting ready to sell them on eBay or some shit. You've got about five seconds to explain yourself, Jake. Convince me you're not some kind of … "
Harley glanced away, shaking his head, not wanting to speak the words.
Jake hated it. At twenty-four, he was old enough to know that the older people got, the harder it was to make close friends, and he and Harley had been close.