Parker grabs his arm. He turns with a frenzied glare.
And five minutes later, the longest minutes of her life, Allison Parker is lying on her back, sobbing, in a drift of delicate snow — white spattered with red. The seahorse is bleeding too. She is pressing the flaps of skin torn from her face above her cracked cheek.
“Why are you doing this to me? Why...?”
Allison Parker now stepped out of the shower in room 306 of the Sunny Acres Motor Lodge.
The shower stall as blue as the blue wall the seahorse rose from.
Tears mix with the hot steam.
And she told herself sternly what she had just that morning. A half-dozen times.
Don’t think about it.
Drying herself. A towel turbaned around her hair. Another enwrapping her body.
Thinking of the SpongeBob boob towel.
The calculus problems that her genius daughter nailed.
The plans for pizza and learning about Kyle.
The final moments before the world exploded.
Was it yesterday, or ten years ago? Or a hundred?
She stepped into the chill room. She’d left Hannah snoozing but the girl was up now, channel surfing.
How would her mood be?
Warming Parker’s heart, Hannah smiled. “Hey!”
“Morning, sleepyhead.”
Parker noted that the chain was off the door.
“You went out?”
“Just the front office. For breakfast. They don’t have any here.”
Parker hadn’t expected Sunny Acres to offer up gourmet fare, though she’d hoped they could score coffee, tea and pastry.
“But the clerk? He said there’s this diner up the road. It’s, like, famous. And they deliver.” She handed her mother a menu and announced, “I want waffles.”
40
Moll undid his tie and opened his shirt. He navigated the Benadryl up under the cloth and blasted his shoulders, which were the itchier parts today.
The burning migrated. Neck and arms yesterday. Chest a few days ago. What the hell was it, and how did it happen?
He felt some relief thanks to the miracle substance.
“Allergy’s getting worse?”
“Just will not go away,” he told Desmond.
Moll had asked himself the where-did-it-come-from question a number of times. He finally believed he’d hit upon the answer. He had had a job six weeks or so ago — killing a truck driver. The man had done something he shouldn’t do or was going to say something he shouldn’t say or had pissed off the wrong man, and he had to go. Good money. Desmond was busy so Moll handled it solo. He’d killed the man where he was working on his truck, which was stuck in a tributary to the Kenoah. He’d dragged the body out and then schlepped it miles away to an industrial site, long abandoned, for disposal. Either it was the Kenoah or the reservoir where he sank the corpse that was polluted with some really bad crap. One of the two had to be the source. He never had the problem until then. He resolved to be more careful about the sites he picked in the future. Then reminded himself to also check with his paint supplier.
The men, coffee cartons in hand, were in the front seats of the Transit. Desmond had put down the willow branch and was on his computer, online, searching for mama bear and baby bear.
Merritt was looking for them too. Nobody was having any luck.
Moll sighed. “Hurry up and wait.”
“What?” Desmond asked.
“That’s what they said in the Army.”
“You weren’t Army.”
Moll said, “My dad. ‘Hurry up and wait.’ You bust your ass, you get somewhere, then you just hang. Funny, I do not mind hanging tight in a blind, waiting for duck or elk.”
“Or hog.”
“Or hog.” Moll sipped. “But this is getting obnoxious. Too long, too long.”
“Hurry up and wait.” Desmond smiled at the sentence, as if he’d found a shiny quarter on the sidewalk.
More coffee. Moll whispered, “Dawndue...”
Desmond asked, “So. You really think Merritt’s crazy?”
“Oh, I would say yes. Certifiable.”
“I never knew what that meant. Who certifies you crazy?”
Moll considered this. “Probably the government. They must have a mental department.”
Desmond scoffed. “Somebody on state payroll, our taxes, with nothing better to do than say, ‘Sane, insane.’ Stamp their file. Put ’em in a padded cell or let ’em go. Next.” Thonk, thonk. “So, the wife? What exactly’s the scoop him wanting her dead so bad?”
“She pressed charges. Went from a cop with a cushy deal to detention. Ruined his life. She did not stand by her man,” Moll said.
“That’s a song, right?”
“I think. And there is something else. The story is she has something on him he doesn’t want out.”
“Women.” Thonk, thonk.
VapoRub would not do it, Moll decided. He’d need a mask and oxygen for Edgar’s surgery up in Ralston. He had a tank somewhere. Maybe—
“Holy shit.” Desmond sat up straight. He was staring at the computer screen.
“What?”
“Look.” The man swung the laptop toward him.
A picture on Instagram.
Moll said, “Cannot be.”
But it was.
Desmond added, “We can be there in twenty. Let’s get psycho boy there.”
Moll was about to ask who he meant, then realized: certifiable Jon Merritt.
41
“Colter.”
It was Marty Harmon’s voice and Shaw could hear dismay.
“Yes?”
“Merritt got Alli’s lawyer.”
Shaw, at the dining table in the Winnebago, set down the cup of coffee he’d just brewed. He had yet to sip.
The CEO explained that the man had not arrived home last night. His car was found abandoned in a park beside the river, a mile from his office.
“Details?”
“I don’t know. God. Dave was a friend of mine too. We were Rotary Club together.”
Did Merritt torture him, then kill him when the man could reveal nothing about Allison’s whereabouts?
“How’d you hear?”
“Police called, asking if I’d heard from Alli, if she had any information about it.”
“I’ll talk to them.”
After the men disconnected, Shaw called the main FPD number, dropped the CEO’s name and three minutes later he was on the line with Dunfry Kemp.
“Detective. It’s Colter Shaw.”
“Yessir.” The voice was burdened. Because of this call or had more files arrived in the night?
“I understand that Ms. Parker’s lawyer has disappeared.”
A moment of debate. Then: “You’ll keep this to yourself.”
Meaning from the press.
“Yes.”
“Security video in a storefront on Fourth Street showed a man, dark windbreaker — what Merritt was wearing earlier in the day — getting into Mr. Stein’s car. Had a gun. Then it drove off. The car was found abandoned by the Kenoah about six this morning.”
“So he’s armed.” Adding quite the complication. “Any sign of a struggle? Blood?”
“I don’t know at this time.”
“Have you talked to anyone in his office? They see anything?”
“His paralegal-slash-secretary. She never heard from him after she went home about five.”
“Can I speak to her?”
Kemp’s cooperation wouldn’t extend there. “She doesn’t know anything. Anyway, she’s taking a few days off. She’s scared of Merritt.”