"Perhaps you are overstating it, Mere."
"She took time enough to pose her boyfriend in that grotesque manner with his spirit guides-his animals."
"Okay, so what?" he asked.
"What is it you Cherokees believe in? Anima-the sacred spirit of animal guardians-the anima in man, the bear, the wolf, the fox, the turtle-all manifestations of the Great Spirit, all spirits put here to guide mankind."
"What does any of that have to do with-"
"Lauralie knows all about you, Lucas, and your heritage, the culture of the First People, and your penchant for blood vengeance on any who take the life of a family member. She knows you often make decisions based on passion, the heart."
"You're reaching, Mere."
"Am I? She also knows me, Lucas. All things Meredyth. For instance, she knows how long now I have put my heart on hold…like a heart in a jar on a shelf put safely up, out of harm's way. So for me, she left Mira's heart."
"I'm sorry, Dr. Sanger," said Jana, "but this all sounds just a little too far out there for me, and I've seen some strange shit in my eleven years on the force. Couldn't it just be that she rushed outta here just ahead of our coming and in her haste simply forgot Mira's preserved heart? I mean, it looks to me as if she'd prepped it for her next mailing to you."
"I thought you suspected that would be Arthur's balls," countered Meredyth.
They stood clearly sizing one another up now. "Did I say that, or was that Lucas's line?" asked Jana.
"Lauralie meant for us to have two silent non-beating hearts, Lucas," Meredyth said to him. "One male, one female…one for you, one for me."
Lucas went to her and put an arm around her, saying, "Enough. I'm taking you home." He pointed to the nearest exit, the kitchen door that looked out on the rear of the property where on the map the creek bottom ran. Standing open to the night, the door represented a welcome escape from this hell. "Come on. What do you say?"
She stared at the shattered creaking door that seemed to breathe in and out, swaying in response to the wind created by the hovering chopper-a breeze that eddied about the frame, marred by a torn screen door, partially ripped away, clinging to a single hinge. The black exterior of forest beyond the door made up a horizon that enveloped this horror house on all sides. The shadows created by men and dogs searching the grounds appeared in, and as quickly disappeared from, the rectangle of the door frame. The cloudless, onyx sky and the freedom of it beckoned Meredyth to step out, to dare the at-hand darkness of the Texas night, to abandon the safe walls of the brightly lit kitchen where, for days now, Mira Lourdes's remains had lain in cold storage. Meredyth had a quick sense of it, the need to act on her courage or to lose it entirely, here and now.
Under Lucas's guiding hand, she moved toward the door. All the true darkness in the world had come to visit this once-peaceful, uneventful farmstead, coloring it with the evil hues of dark spirits now haunting its deep corners, closed doors, cupboards, nooks, and crannies. While Lucas had been off examining the back rooms, Jana and Meredyth had braved with flashlights the grim darkness of the root cellar, a cubbyhole of a basement below the kitchen. Meredyth felt the cold fingers of the earth in the cellar close round her soul again now, the long fingers of tainted banshees saturated with the odor of mold and mildew that had washed the cellar's stone walls with a luminescent green.
Once a benevolent home, the farmstead was now forever stained by the violent danse macabre of Lauralie's insanity. The evidence of evil promenading in shadow-box fashion here would soon fill a murder book fleshed out with Perelli's film tape and Chang's observations, but the stains on the floors, the walls, the curtains, the very DNA of the two dead here, and the one who walked away would remain indelibly on this house no matter the amount of ammonia and bleach used to combat it. The ugly dark dye of evil this way had spread, Meredyth thought, and its palpable presence remained inside the farmhouse, as if on a phantom plane, yet here too on this quantifiable plane, reaching out to the living with ghostly fingertips that scratched the ethereal nerves of angels.
But worse than having turned this old farmstead into an eternally dark interior place, was the darkness let loose on the exterior world from here-as if spirited away on a black-hearted demon's back. She should have seen it while hovering over the chimney below, how the evil had swept up and out the chimney on a spectral beast. Worst of all was the darkness lurking free now, outside somewhere, and going by the name of Blodgett… Lauralie Blodgett.
Meredyth went ahead of Lucas, stepping through the doorway and out into the night air, breathing deeply of its clean purity, reclaiming it as her right, and daring the dark to descend upon her. Courageous, defiant girl, she told herself, remembering her father's words once when she had had to get stitches in her knee for a terrible gash.
"She's out there someplace, Lucas, with all that pent-up hatred and rage toward us all," she quietly said, sensing him beside her as she searched the darkness.
Lucas, his hand on her shoulder, replied, "You can't see it for the helicopter light, but just beyond is a harvest moon…the stars. Light in the firmament."
"Lucas, I want to look beyond tonight, beyond this case, and I want to make a future with you. I want to share your heart, and for you to share mine."
"Who knows what irony Lauralie has wrought, that she has inadvertently brought us closer than we have ever been before. All stemming from her hatred and lunacy. Ironic."
"She hates everyone she perceives has let her down, and all men have failed her miserably, as did we all, miserably. As far as she's concerned, all men are interested in only one thing, gratifying what's between their legs. So her emasculating Arthur is classic behavior; it fits with her worldview of currying favor with men for sex. But this thing with the hearts, I tell you, that runs even deeper. Her own heart has been turned to stone."
"Yet she was a child born of passion,"
"At least we see her coming. We understand her somewhat. Arthur didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell." She began walking toward the front of the house, Lucas at her side. "This dark in her soul, Lucas, it's a real black place, an abyss like the one the Biblical monster Abbaddon crawled up from. She's filled with this inky blackness. And she's out there someplace in the world lying in wait for us."
Six hours and too many cups of coffee to count later, Chang and company shut down the crime scene, and everyone left the farmstead while it was still dark, leaving yellow police-line tape over the doors and windows.
Chang had the two dogs transported to his lab along with Belkvin's body. Still the man's genitals had yet to be found. The two hearts were placed in separate coolers, each labeled and numbered. Each was also initialed with the supposed name of the owner: ADB and ML.
Meredyth and Lucas had remained until the end, and with the APB that had been placed on Arthur Belkvin's BMW and on Lauralie Blodgett, they felt relatively sure that someone somewhere soon must spot the vehicle and/or its occupant and call in for the reward.
Yawning, tired, headachy, Meredyth now lay her head on Lucas's shoulder as he drove for her ranch home. They had informed Captain Lincoln that since he intended on turning the case over to the FBI, they were taking some time away. Jana North could play host to the FBI, Lucas had told the captain, who, not wishing for any argument, had agreed. "You two have done a remarkable job of taking the case to first and goal, Lucas," Lincoln summed up in football terms. "Time others carried the ball into the end zone."
"Lauralie's the one who'll select the end zone. Captain. Watch out for her."
"She's eluded us, I'll give her that," Lincoln replied, "but not for long now. I think it's a good idea, you two stepping back, getting out of harm's way for the time being. Take a trip; get out of Texas altogether for a time. You are her primary target, Meredyth. Makes sense your not wanting to be a sitting duck here. When she learns she can't find you, she'll become frustrated, and she'll make a hasty, foolhardy move, and we'll be ready for the misstep."