Jonah frowned, and then said, “Oh. The Barrow bit?”
“Yeah. It’s only cops that ever ask about it.” Clyde shrugged. “There were files everywhere, but in fairly neat stacks. Sarah said it’d probably be a few hours before they were relieved by you and the other two agents. Ask me, they need to be relieved now. Even though it’s obvious you should have slept longer.”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, yeah. Eat your eggs, Jonah. Jean asked that you check in at the station before joining Sarah and the feds. I take it she’s fielded some calls this morning.”
“Great.”
“She didn’t sound too bothered, so maybe the worst hasn’t got out yet.”
Jonah nodded, though not with much hope. “Okay. Thanks, Clyde.”
Clyde returned to his kitchen, and Jonah concentrated on eating his breakfast, ignoring the holes being bored into his back. Nobody approached to question him, though he wasn’t at all sure that was a good thing. Maybe they were afraid to ask.
Maybe they were afraid he wouldn’t have an answer.
Or maybe they were afraid he would.
—
NESSA HAD NO real sense of time passing. She concentrated on keeping her mind still and quiet, so the blacker-than-black snake wouldn’t find her. Somehow, without really being sure how she was able to do it, she pictured a smooth, dark pond with no ripples at all in the black water, and made that the quiet, motionless surface of her mind.
And she slipped beneath that. Hid beneath that.
She didn’t know how long she’d have to hide, but she knew if she came out too soon, the black snake would find her. And if it found her, if he found her, she had an awful feeling that he would make sure she could never get away.
She’d be lost forever, unable to ever find her way out of the dark to get back home.
—
JONAH WALKED INTO their makeshift command center just in time to land in the middle of a conversation.
“I don’t see how he’d be able to get his hands on enough drugs to keep them all sedated this long,” Robbie was saying. “All the doctors and nurses in Serenity checked out. The pharmacies and drug stores checked out. Hell, even the veterinarians did.”
“Okay, then, where do you hide six people who’re either tied up and gagged or else making a hell of racket? Could be a basement or cellar,” Dante offered.
Sarah pondered, looking at Jonah almost absently, then said, “There aren’t many downtown, even under industrial buildings. We aren’t close to the New Madrid fault line, but this town was built after some pretty rough earthquakes hit the state a couple hundred years ago, the kind that rip apart structures and create brand-new lakes.” She shook her head. “Bad storms, being underground is a good idea. Earthquakes, not so much. The underground structures I know of hold necessary equipment for the buildings. Furnaces, pipelines for water and gas, junction boxes for electricity. Like that.”
“What are we talking about?” Jonah asked.
It was Robbie, pacing restlessly back and forth at the opposite end of the table, who answered. “We were trying to come up with possible holding places for six people in the general area of downtown. Can you think of a place in town where you could do that and be absolutely sure no one would discover your hiding place, even with the whole town being searched?”
“No,” Jonah replied immediately. He sat down at the table in the chair closest to the door, adding, “Sully took his dogs all over town, did a grid search. That was after Sean Messina disappeared. We checked every building, residential and commercial, from the roof to the foundation.”
“Shit,” Robbie said.
Sarah frowned at Jonah. “Why didn’t you bring us coffee?”
He lifted his own cup in a small salute. “Because you three are about to be relieved; I talked to Luke a little while ago, and he and Samantha will be here shortly. The last thing you need right now is more caffeine. You need sleep, all of you.”
“Did you get any?” Sarah demanded.
“I did. I’ll admit it wasn’t the best sleep I’ve had, but probably the best I could expect under the circumstances.”
“How about Luke and Sam?” Dante asked.
“Luke said Sam always sleeps like the dead after using her abilities that . . . powerfully. Or words to that effect. And he said he slept as well. They had a late breakfast at the hotel. Clyde’s a better cook, but the hotel kitchen is pretty good. Just so you know.”
“We’re full anyway,” Robbie told him. “Pancakes for me. Wow.”
Dante said, “And I want to hear him sing to his hens. Because those seemingly plain scrambled eggs tasted like manna. Really. Food for the gods.”
Jonah shook his head slightly. “Okay, now I know you all need sleep. Hours of it.”
“That did sound weird, didn’t it?” Dante frowned.
“Will it do me any good to ask if you found anything in the files so far?”
Seriously, Robbie said, “We didn’t find anything that raised a red flag. And no solid connections between the six missings. I mean, citizens of the same town, and there was some overlap here and there. Two go to the same church. Two others the same school. Three have the same dentist. Three used the same real estate agent to find their apartments or condos. All the adults use the same bank. Small towns are just—not good for victimology.”
Sarah pushed a legal pad toward him. “I wrote down some stuff. Us speculating, mostly. A few questions we had. Whatever we really felt was useful or potentially useful is up on the evidence boards, which isn’t a lot, mostly just the facts we all knew anyway.” She looked at the file box in the chair beside hers, and added, “Sam needs to go through Annie’s files and notes. If she had some kind of realization that could help us catch this guy, I couldn’t find it in that box. Maybe I just didn’t know what to look for.”
“Okay. Look, you guys go ahead and take off. Sarah, don’t go home alone.”
“Tim’s waiting at the station. He’s supposed to work first shift today, but we didn’t think you’d mind.”
“I don’t. You should all know that, in case you haven’t already felt or sensed it, the whole town is beyond tense. Miles beyond tense. They had more hope before. Annie’s murder made them face the possibility that all the missings could be dead. Just because we haven’t found any bodies doesn’t mean they’re still alive.”
“And if they are still alive,” Sarah said, “we can’t figure out how he’s doing it. It’s more than three weeks since the teenagers disappeared; if they’re still alive, he must be feeding them, somehow taking care of them, even minimally. One of our questions was the possibility of nutrition through an IV, but that means medical training of some kind, never mind the supplies needed.”
“You can get anything online,” Dante said. “If you know where to look and what to ask for, you don’t have to be a doc, a nurse, or have any medical training at all.”
“Yeah, so we should probably be checking with all the delivery drivers who may or may not have noticed an unusual amount of deliveries. On the other hand, if he’s been planning this, then I’m guessing whatever he needed, he got a little along, ahead of the abductions, so as not to arouse suspicion.”
“Which is where we keep getting stuck,” Robbie said. “If they’re still alive, and if he’s taking care of them—why? What the hell is the point of it all?”
Jonah was about to respond, then shook his head at her. “Enough for now, at least for you guys. You three go get some sleep. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to help Luke and Sam with the psychic stuff, but I know how to be a cop, so I’ll do that.”
Sarah opened her mouth to say something about not leaving even Jonah alone, but then she realized. “Dammit, you’ve been bopping all over the place alone, all the while telling the rest of us not to be.”
“I don’t know about bopping,” Jonah said gravely. “But I’m not really worried about this guy coming after me.”