He hung up one line and another blinked to life. “Sheriff’s”—the full greeting had been abandoned hours ago.
“This is Matthew Carradine, Field Operations Manager, FBI. Is Sheriff Hauser in the building?”
“Who did you say you were?” Wohl asked.
“Jake Cole’s boss. Can you tell me if Sheriff Hauser is available?” There was urgency in his voice.
The world outside overloaded again and the cracks flashed white. “Hauser’s out. I can try to bring him up on the radio but with the lightning nothing’s working. We’re lucky we still have phones.”
“Who’s next in charge?”
Wohl looked around the station and all he saw were junior officers. Scopes and Spencer were still gone. “I guess I am,” he said.
“Then you better listen to me.”
75
Frank was secured to one of the kitchen stools, ankles duct-taped to the legs, waist fastened with a length of curtain cord, hands cuffed behind his back. Frank didn’t struggle, wasn’t angry or shocked—he simply sat in grim silence, staring at Jake.
“Where’s my wife? My son?” Jake asked, yelling to be heard above what was left of the storm.
“You’re the guy who thinks like a murderer, Jake. You do the math.”
Jake leveled his pistol at Frank’s face. “I’m not going to kill you, Frank, but I am going to make you beg me to.”
Frank shook his head sadly. “Jake, this is me—Frank. The guy who’s been here for you whenever you asked. Like I am now. You’re distraught, Jakey.”
“Do I look distraught?” His voice was even, calm, and his eyes had reverted to those two black spots that looked like they were on loan from a snake. “I passed distraught when my son went missing, Frank. By the time you took Kay, I was well into angry. When I found the top of Emily Mitchell’s head sitting on the newel post in her entryway, I entered murderous. And I think you know me enough to understand that I can be dangerous—but I will do this as my last act as a compassionate human being: if you tell me where my wife and son are—even if they are dead—I will shoot you in the heart. It will be quick.” Jake leaned forward, his hands on his knees, the pistol gleaming bright in the weird dark. “But if you don’t, Frank—if you fuck around and try to plead the fifth and try to step by this, I am going to take that Ka-Bar—” he jerked his head at Frank’s big knife, sticking out of the top of a table a few feet away beside the box of spray-foam insulation and caulking the handyman had left behind—“and I am going to drive it into your eardrum. Just one, because I need you to hear me on the other side while I ask you questions and pry parts of your body off. I have learned from the masters, and it is going to hurt.” He stood up and backed away a little. Outside, the rain was still coming in and he stopped at the edge of its spray. “You won’t believe the toolbox of torture I have in my head.” He tapped his temple with the pistol.
Frank’s eyes were now frightened. “Jakey, Jakey, it’s me. Okay? Why would I want to hurt you or your family?”
“It wasn’t me, Frank. I thought it was, but it wasn’t. I didn’t figure it out until a few minutes ago and I should have. You were in love with my mother, Frank.”
Frank nodded. “Sure I loved your mother, Jakey. Sure I was a little jealous of your old man. So what? Everybody’s jealous of something.”
“Where is my wife? Where is my son?”
Frank shuddered in the chair, testing the restraints. “That’s your territory, Jake. You know all this shit better than any of us—you’re the guy who speaks the language, who reads the signs, who understands the dead. Aren’t they talking to you?”
“Are they dead, Frank?”
Frank shrugged. “Would we be having this conversation if they weren’t?”
There was a crash and the screech of wind as the front door erupted and for a second Jake thought the wind had forced it open. Then it closed and a voice called, “Jake, you here?”
Jake went to the entry. Spencer stood there, beside the welded-steel polyhedron. He was soaked through and had a flashlight in his hand. “What the fuck are you doing here, Jake?” he asked.
“Waiting. You?”
“I wanted to make sure you were all right, that you got the tape out, that the storm didn’t take this place away.”
“I’m busy, Bil—”
The front door kicked in with a massive gust of wind that tore a painting off its hook by the door. There was a bright burst of light as a billion volts rattled out of the sky and hit the Hummer in the driveway. The house rocked on its foundation.
Jake’s CRT-D shorted and he grabbed his chest. He felt his heart stop and he went to his knees.
Spencer lunged, caught Jake before he hit the ground.
Jake wanted to tell him to leave Frank in the chair.
Maybe even to run.
All he managed was a dry croak.
Then passed out.
76
To Hauser, Southampton looked like a junkyard. He hadn’t realized that there was this much plastic lawn furniture in the world. He was finished with the call on Myrtle Avenue—had taken the woman and her little girl to the ER. They had rushed her in and the doctor said that her vision would probably bounce back—most of the blindness had been from blood in her eyes. Score one for the good guys, Hauser thought as he headed back to the station.
He swerved the Bronco around a sailboat jammed into an intersection, sails snapping like cannon fire, when the walkie-talkie on the dash bracket flared to life.
“Unit twenty-two, Emergency. Please respond.” Twenty-two had been Hauser’s number during his four-game career with the Steelers. The voice was garbled by the storm, but discernible.
Hauser picked up the unit and keyed the mic. “Yeah, Wohl. Hauser here.”
“Sheriff,” the voice crackled. “…need…ou…back here…gency.” Even in the static, Hauser could hear that there was something wrong.
“On my way,” he said as the brush guard on the front of the Bronco took out a lawn umbrella that skittered across the road.
Why the hell would they need me at the station? he wondered. If there was an emergency, Wohl should have told him where it was and sent him on his way.
What was going on?
77
The first thing to hit him was the silence. The blare of the storm had gone and all he could hear was a soft wind and the distant sound of waves breaking somewhere nearby. A few seconds later his sense of touch returned. And with it the realization that he was lying in a puddle of water and shivering.
He opened his eyes to black and wondered if his pacemaker had survived the surge—his fingers were still tingly and the unmistakable stench of fried circuits accompanied the dull ache in the middle of his chest. Without moving any of his other muscles he blinked a few times and realized that there was something in front of his face. The shape clarified into the sole of a shoe. No, not shoe—boot. Heavy-treaded. Size thirteen. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and he saw that the boot was on a foot. Attached to a leg. He pushed himself higher, fought to his knees. And saw that the leg belonged to Spencer.