It was so silent that Lily could hear the barn groan as the rising wind hit it. Then Lily heard a scream, a woman’s scream, Tammy’s scream and two gunshots, loud, sharp.
Dillon ran out of the tack room toward her, his SIG Sauer in his hand, yelling, “Lily! Oh my God, are you all right, sweetheart? Everything’s okay. I got into the tack room, shot her before she saw me. Oh God, are you hit?”
She felt such relief she thought she’d choke on it. She yelled, “Dillon, you came! I kept her talking, knew I had to keep her talking. Oh God, she’s so scary. Then she started shooting at me and I thought it was all over-”
Lily stopped cold. Dillon was nearly to her, not more than six feet away, when suddenly Lily didn’t see her brother anymore. She saw Tammy. She wasn’t holding Dillon’s SIG Sauer; she was holding that same little ugly gun that was hers. Her brain froze. Just simply froze. She couldn’t accept what she was seeing, what was right in front of her, she just couldn’t. Oh, God.
“Honey, are you okay?”
It was Tammy’s voice, no longer Dillon’s.
Then Lily realized it really was Tammy. She thought she’d seen Dillon because she wanted to so much, and Tammy wanted her to. And Tammy thought it was working.
Oh God, oh God.
Lily said, “I’m okay. I’m so glad you’re here, Dillon, so glad.”
Tammy dropped to her knees beside Lily and turned her onto her side. “Let me get that tape off you, sweetheart. There, let me just slip the knife under the tape. Good, you’ve already loosened it. You could have gotten yourself free and away, couldn’t you?” Then Tammy Tuttle pulled Lily against her and hugged her, kissed her hair. Stroked her single hand down her back. Lily felt Tammy’s slight breasts against hers.
Tammy had laid the gun on the ground, just a hand’s length away from her, not more than six inches. “Just hold me, Dillon. Oh, God, I was so scared. I’m so glad you came so quickly.”
She cried, sobbed her heart out, felt Tammy squeeze her and kiss her hair again. Lily’s hand moved slowly toward the gun, slowly, until her fingers touched the butt.
Tammy swept up the gun, tucked it into her waistband, and said, “Let me help you up, honey. That’s right. You’re okay now. Sherlock is just outside with the other agents. Let’s go see them.”
Tammy was holding her tightly against her side, walking toward the barn doors. No, not really toward the doors. She was swerving to the left now, toward that big black circle.
Just as Tammy flung her onto her back and into the circle, Lily grabbed the gun from Tammy’s waistband, raising it at her.
Tammy didn’t seem to notice that Lily had her gun, that she was pointing it at her. She’d turned toward the barn doors, raised her head, and yelled, “Ghouls! No young bloods for you this time, but a soft, sweet morsel, a female. Bring your axes, bring your knives, and hack her apart! Come here, Ghouls!”
The barn doors blew inward. Lily saw whirling snow blowing in, and something else in that snow. A dust devil, that was it. That was what Dillon had seen as well, wasn’t it?
The snow seemed to coalesce into two distinct formations, like tornadoes, whirling and dipping, coming toward her. But they were white, twisting this way and that, in constant motion, coming closer and closer. Lily felt frozen in place, just stared at those white cones coming closer, not more than a dozen feet away now, nearly to the black circle now. She had to move, had to.
Tammy saw that something was wrong. She pulled a knife out of her boot leg, a long, vicious knife. She raised that knife and ran toward Lily.
Lily didn’t think, just raised the gun and yelled, “No, Tammy, it’s over. Yes, I see you. The minute you got close, I saw you, not my brother. The Ghouls won’t help you.”
Just as Tammy leaped at her, the knife raised, the blade gleaming cold, Lily pulled the trigger.
Tammy yelled and kept coming. Lily pulled the trigger again and again, and Tammy Tuttle was kicked off her feet and hurled a good six feet by the force of the bullets. She sprawled on her back, gaping holes in her chest. Her one arm was flung out, the empty sleeve flat on the ground.
But Lily didn’t trust her. She ran to her, breathing hard and fast, nearly beyond herself, and she aimed and fired the last bullet not a foot from Tammy’s body. Her body lurched up with the bullet’s impact. She fired again, but there was only a click. The gun was empty, but Tammy was still alive, her eyes on Lily’s face, and Lily couldn’t stop. She pulled the trigger, like an automaton, again and again, until, finally, only hollow clicks filled the silence.
Tammy lay on her back, covered with blood, her one hand still clenched at her side. Even her throat was ripped through by a bullet. Lily had fired six shots into her. Lily dropped to her knees, put her fingertips to Tammy’s bloody neck.
No pulse.
But her eyes were looking up at Lily, looking into her. Tammy was still there, still clinging to what she was. Her lips moved, but there was no sound. Slowly, ever so slowly, her eyes went blank. She was dead now, her eyes no longer wild and mad, no longer seeing anything at all.
There was utter silence.
Lily looked up, but the Ghouls were gone. They were gone with Tammy.
30
Washington, D.C.
FBI specialists from the evidence labs went over every inch of the barn at the Plum River in Maryland.
They found candy wrappers-more than three dozen-but no clothing, no bedding, no sign that Tammy Tuttle had been there for any time at all.
There was no sign of Marilyn Warluski.
“She’s dead,” Savich said, and Sherlock hated the deadening guilt in his voice.
“We can’t be sure of anything when it comes to that family,” Sherlock said matter-of-factly, but she’d moved closer and put her hand on his shoulder, lightly touching him.
Two Days Later
It was late afternoon, and the snow had stopped falling. Washington was covered with a blanket of pristine white, and a brilliant sun was overhead. People were out and about on this cold, crystalline Sunday even as the national media announced the shooting death of the fugitive killer Tammy Tuttle in a barn in Maryland.
Lily came into the living room, a cup of hot tea in her hand. “I called Agent Clark Hoyt in Eureka, on his home number since it’s Sunday. I just couldn’t help myself, couldn’t wait. Bless him, he didn’t seem to mind. He said that Hemlock Bay was rife with gossip over the deaths of Elcott and Charlotte. The mayor, the city council, and the local Methodist church are holding meetings to plan a big memorial service. No one, he said, really wants to delve too deeply into why they were killed, but it’s possible that the floating rumors could even exceed the truth.”
Lily paused for a moment, then added, “I also called Tennyson. He’s very saddened by his parents’ death. It’s difficult for him to accept what they did, that they used him-used both of us-to gain their ends. He said he knows now that his parents were feeding me depressants all those months and that they had been the ones to arrange for my brakes to fail when I was driving to Ferndale.”
“But how did they know what you would be doing?” Sherlock asked.
“Tennyson said he called them from Chicago, just happened to mention that he’d asked me to drive to Ferndale, and when. I feel very bad for him, but I wonder how he could have been so blind to what his own parents were.”
“They fooled you as well,” Savich said. “At least enough. No one wants to see evil; no one wants to admit it exists.”
Lily said, “I’ve decided to fly to California for the memorial service. I’m going for Tennyson. He’s been hurt terribly. I feel that I must show him my support now, show everyone that I believe he was innocent of everything that happened. He knows I’m not coming back to him, as his wife, and he accepts it.” She sighed. “He said he was leaving Hemlock Bay, that he never wants to see the place again.”