The Cypress House(132)

“You’ll make it,” Paul said, but his voice was shaking. “It went in below the ribs. That’s good, isn’t it? You’ll be fine. You’re going to be—”

He was talking too much and hearing too little. Arlen was trying to speak, trying so hard to get the words out, but it had become a terrible strain. Finally the boy heard him trying. He leaned closer.

“What?”

“Camden,” Arlen said.

“Camden?” Paul echoed, his face registering nothing, and then he looked away from Arlen again and back down at the wound, and his lips pressed into a grimace as he began to work with his fingers. He was no longer paying any attention to Arlen, but that was fine.

He’d heard the name.

Camden.

He had heard it. Arlen was sure of that. They would find each other.





Part Five


FAYETTE COUNTY





56


BARRETT WAS IN HIS GARAGE with five federal agents from Tampa, counting the hours until they moved on the Cypress House, altogether unaware of the bloody swath that had already been cut through the county, when Paul Brickhill arrived in Solomon Wade’s Ford with Arlen unconscious in the backseat.

One of those narcotics agents, a tough old-timer named Miller, had been a field medic in France. He took one look at Arlen and told Barrett and the others to shut the hell up and let him focus.

They did.

He was still alive when they got him to Tampa, which surprised everyone but Miller, who was confident in his work. Last thing he’d said before they’d started along the road was “We’re good. Just need blood.”

It was an accurate diagnosis. The internal damage was minimal; the blood loss tremendous. It was a day before he was conscious again. In Tampa, then, in a hospital with guards outside his room.

By then they thought they had the leak figured out. It hadn’t been Cooper, the man in charge of the planned bust in Corridor County, but one of his agents, who’d taken off as soon as word of the disaster came, leaving behind a bank account that was surprisingly well stocked. The manhunt for him ended five days later, when his body turned up in a Louisiana bayou, missing its hands.

All three of the McGrath boys had been arrested at their home. They didn’t put up any struggle. By the time the police got there, the oldest had his leg wrapped with blood-soaked blankets, and Tate McGrath’s body, bloated with venom, was resting on the front porch.

They told Arlen all of this amid their endless questions, and he didn’t care about any of it. What he cared about was missing. They asked about her hundreds of times, with techniques ranging from gentle prodding to outraged shouting, and he gave them nothing. What held him through it was one word, a word that became a talisman for him, a prayer: Camden.

It was Barrett who seemed most dubious of Arlen’s account of the fight in the swamp. He never questioned it in front of the others, but once, he stood at the foot of the bed and asked if Arlen was willing to tell him the truth of what had happened out there.

Arlen looked at him for a long time and then said, “It was a mighty strange journey, Barrett. And I don’t think you’d like to hear the details. Or that you’d believe them if you did.”

Barrett seemed unhappy, but he nodded. “I’ll give you this much,” he said. “I believe they are questions that don’t need answers.”

“You’re right about that,” Arlen said, and then he asked for his reward. Barrett told him he was crazy. Arlen said he didn’t believe that was the case. A lot of blood had been spilled in Corridor County because of the ineptitude of a federal police agency. Arlen could do some talking on that to the press, or he could not. He wasn’t sure yet. A certain reward, a bounty, could impact his decision.


* * *

It was only two days later that Paul came in to tell him the incredible news. They were sending him to Pennsylvania once all this was done. To the Carnegie engineering school. Someone had arranged it as a token of gratitude. Arlen did his damnedest to act surprised.


Arlen had been ten days in the hospital when Thomas Barrett returned to Tampa with an envelope in his hand. He tossed it onto Arlen’s bed.

“That was mailed to me direct. Inside another envelope. The one for me came with a note that said she’d trusted me once and saw what had come of it, but she was going to try it again. She asked that I deliver this to you unopened.”

It was unopened. Arlen’s throat felt tight, but he kept his eyes on Barrett.

“I should open it,” Barrett said. “You know that. There’s plenty of people who’d like to talk with her and are probably entitled.”

“I’m sure there are.”

Barrett nodded. “When you talk to her,” he said, “you tell her that I’m sorry.”