(Give me a break. Bromm Bones wanted Katrina for himself. Romantically.)
(Lord Halloween still wants you for himself. He just wants to kill you instead of marry you. But the point is that Ichabod never faced up to Bromm or the Headless Horseman. All he did was flee.)
(Quinn, you are just upset.)
(I know.)
He sat down in Kyle’s chair. Quinn felt like he was betraying his old colleague even by doing that. Hadn’t he always wanted Kyle’s beat? Hadn’t he tried to…
(Stop it.) Kate said.
Quinn put his head in his hands.
(We have no plan. We have no idea who Lord Halloween is and we don’t know how to beat the Horseman to tap whatever powers we might gain. We have nothing.)
(That’s not true.)
(It isn’t? Lord Halloween could be anyone. He’s probably Buzz. Whoever killed Janus was in that house and used Buzz’s car.)
(Who would be stupid enough to use their own car?)
(It could be Josh, or Laurence, or Redacker. It could be Ethan for all we know-or Brown or Bill. Hell, it could be Rob or Steve who work over in the eastern Loudoun office. Or it could be no one we know.)
(We’ve been through this.) Kate thought. (This seems personal, that’s why we are assuming it is someone we know. Someone wanted to get Janus because they either knew him or wanted to hurt us. Probably both.)
(Was that true of Fanton? Or Kilgore? Did he know them?)
(Lord Halloween has had a thing about this paper from the beginning, Quinn. Of all the papers that mentioned him, he only sent letters to ours. He killed several employees. Why would he be so focused on the Chronicle? Because he either works here or has some reason to hate us. It’s the only thing that makes sense.)
(None of this makes sense.)
But Quinn’s mind was turning now. He saw Buzz’s jacket in the security video. The crime scene at Kyle’s house, the conversation with Anderson.
(My God) he thought.
It wasn’t there yet, but he was on to something-pieces of a puzzle he should have put together.
(What if Lord Halloween does have a motive?) Quinn thought. (What if it wasn’t random?)
(There was nothing linking all the victims) Kate responded.
(Not all of them, no. But you said it yourself. It was about this paper. What if it was always about the paper? From the beginning?)
(You mean it’s Ethan? He’s the publisher. He’s doing this for publicity?)
(No. No. The man in the dream said we were over-thinking it. Lord Halloween is just a man, he said. So who gained from the murders the first time around? Who got something he wanted?)
(Jesus) Kate said.
And they knew. They both knew. It clicked into place. All of their looking and it had been right in front of them.
(How do we find him?) she asked. There was fury in how she asked it. (He’s hiding.)
Quinn’s mind was racing furiously.
(Even the girl. He killed the girl downstairs in the basement. It wasn’t random. Anderson said everyone thought she was hitting on them. What if Lord Halloween thought it too? What if that was just petty revenge, not really about Anderson at all?)
(Never mind that now.) Kate said. (How do we find him?)
(We go to the police.)
Kate laughed out loud and it startled them both.
(With what? A half-baked theory? They will laugh us out of town, for obvious reasons.)
(What do you suggest?)
(We call him.)
(He’s going to pick up his phone?)
(We leave a message for him to meet us.)
(Where?) Quinn asked, and Kate flooded his mind with photos. Pictures of a field, a road and a covered bridge-the Old Phillips Farm.
(Are you crazy?) he asked. (I can’t do that. That’s where my dream takes place.)
(That’s where the Horseman will meet us.)
(And you want Lord Halloween there as well?)
(Yes) she said.
(This is an awful risk) he thought. (What if Lord Halloween doesn’t show? Or what happens if I can’t beat the Horseman? There’s too much that could go wrong.)
(T ime is almost up. Halloween is almost here. This is our one chance. Even if we’re right, and it is who we think it is, who’s to say he won’t get away?)
Quinn thought of all the reservations he had. Even if they won, what would they be then? What kind of power would he have? And wasn’t that also a risk?
But Kate took his hand.
(Whatever this is, it bound us closer together.) she said. (It can’t be all bad. I want this to happen. And so do you. You said it yourself. You’re tired of being afraid all the time. Do this and you will be the thing others fear.)
Quinn slowly nodded his head.
(I have to take the Horseman first) he thought.
(We, Quinn.)
(No, last time we tried that, I ended up shot. The Horseman is my fear. I have to be the one to face him.)
(Do you know how to defeat him?)
(No. But I’m beginning to have an idea. Not running from him would be a start.)
(I’ll help you if I can) Kate said. In the dark of the Chronicle building, she pulled his head towards her and kissed him. It felt good, and that overpowering sense of lust started creeping back in.
(We have to stop) Quinn said. (If we win, we will have plenty of time for that.)
(You have to promise me something) Kate thought. (If you beat the Horseman, and Lord Halloween shows up, you wait for me.)
(If I’m as powerful as you said I would be, do we need to risk it?)
Kate shook her head.
(It’s not that) she said. (I want to be there when you face him. I want to watch him die.)
Chapter 24
“ Fear is your salvation, my friends. Do not shy from it. Do not run from it. If you do, it will control your path. It is only by grasping it and absorbing it that we can truly understand it, that we can revel in it and turn its power into our own. Fear is not the enemy. Fear will set you free.”
— Letter from Robert Crowley, Oct. 31, 1873
Tuesday, Oct. 31
All Hallow’s Eve
Quinn pulled onto the road feeling the butterflies in his stomach. He eased the car back from his not-very-fast speed of 15 miles an hour. It was tough even to go that fast without feeling like the car was shaking all around him. Easy does it, he thought. Easy does it.
Some part of him still wanted to run. No matter how angry he was, no matter that he wanted to face this thing once and for all, it was hard to put himself in a position where two bad things were liable to happen, maybe at the same time. Even if ol’ Headless didn’t show up, Kate and Quinn had made sure someone else would.
My God, we are desperate, he thought. There must have been another choice or some other way. But they couldn’t think of any. The Horseman would be here. To defeat Lord Halloween, Quinn must destroy the Horseman. And Quinn could think of no more worse spot than here, heading into a trap of his own making.
And what did Quinn have to protect him? Nothing. Not a gun, which he had no idea how to use and would probably end up in the hands of his assailant anyway. Not a knife or a sword. Nothing.
He had come empty-handed, unless he counted Janus’ lighter, which he still carried in his pocket. It was the only thing he had of Janus. And if he was going to do this, he needed all the support that he could get. He hoped it would be his good luck charm.
Not that he was entirely alone. Kate was waiting a couple of miles away. When he needed her, she would be there. He just wondered if it would be in time.
(I’ll be in time) she thought.
(I know.)
The road got bumpier and Quinn knew he was only a mile from the bridge. Not that he believed it would keep him safe, as it had in the dream. Quite the contrary, given whom he thought would be waiting for him. But it was one of the few landmarks he knew on the road.
A large popping noise came and Quinn felt the car shift violently to the left. He pressed the gas to keep it steady, but knew immediately one of the tires had blown.