“Bury it,” Beau had told him. “Stick it in a box and study it later. It’s the only thing you can do.”
Finch had, but the crawling sensation, the darkness inside had never left him. It felt like a parasite, feeding off the negative energy, and every time he was called upon to kill, it grew bigger, until it had its hooks in his mind, forcing him to question what kind of creature he was and what kind of future might possibly exist for such a thing. Before, he’d thought the enemy an almost mystical thing, an entity whose very nature meant they would not look remotely human, would be faceless, and therefore easy to destroy.
The eyes of the woman had changed his mind.
And then he’d been called upon to kill again and again, and despite what he’d been told, he had remembered every one of the faces, every glint in the eyes of those who’d fallen before his gun.
Why then, had he thought this would be any different?
“You scared six shades of shit out of that Sheriff,” Beau said. “Me too, by the time you were done.”
Scared myself too, Finch thought. Everything he’d done to the Sheriff had been governed by the same automatic impulse that had driven him in Iraq after the death of the woman, the knowledge that—as Beau had said—though it would not always be pretty he was fighting for more than his own survival. They’d needed McKindrey’s knowledge to have any hope of seeing the operation through and he had switched on a dangerous part of himself to ensure they got what they came for. But perhaps “switched on” wasn’t the right way of saying it because it suggested control, and that was something he most certainly did not have over the more frightening aspects of his character. Often, it came unbidden.
Tonight, he knew it would come again.
He looked out the windshield at the dark shadow of a mountain a few miles ahead of them. In the fading light, it looked crimson, alien, something from a Martian landscape.
“Hood Mountain, I assume” Beau said and unfolded a map, his finger tracing a line from Columbus all the way down to Alabama and further, to where a thin thread turned away from highway and entered a geographically barren area.
He looked at Finch. “Looks like we found ’em.”
When he stepped inside and Claire had the door shut behind him, her demeanor changed completely. Gone was the weak weepy girl who had hugged him, kissed him right on the lips, and sobbed her delight at the sight of him outside. Now her face was serious, her eyes intense as she shoved him aside, moved to the small narrow window beside the front door and peeked out. After a moment, she let the curtain fall and offered him an apologetic smile.
“Sorry about that. I wanted to make sure she was gone.”
“Who?”
“My sister. The woman you met. Her name is Kara.”
“She seemed nice,” he lied.
“Yeah, she usually does. Then you get to know her.”
She turned and walked ahead of him to the kitchen. Helplessly he stood, awaiting instructions on what to do next. The abrupt change in her manner confused him, and now he wasn’t so sure she really was all that glad to see him.
In the kitchen doorway, she turned. “C’mon.”
He followed. “I’m glad to see you,” he said, with an uncertain smile.
She had moved to the sink and was filling a glass with water from the faucet. She nodded, tossed back a pair of white pills and noisily drained the glass. Afterward she closed her eyes and sighed.
Pete still stood at the threshold to the room, feeling awkward.
“Why did you come?” she asked him in a coarse tone.
“I said I would, ’member?”
“Not really.”
Pete’s smile faded. He wondered what had happened between the driveway and the house to bring such a sudden change upon her. “The night I drove you to the hospital,” he explained. “We was talkin’ about singin’.”
“I don’t like to sing,” she said.
Encouraged, Pete stepped further into the room. “That’s right! You said that, then you told me come see you soon’s you was better.”
“Then you’re early,” she said.
He wasn’t sure what that meant, and so said nothing, just watched as she set the glass down and turned, leaning against the edge of the sink, her arms folded as she appraised him. “Pete.”
“Yes Ma’am?”
“Why did you come?”
“I said I would. I promised.”
“You already told me that. I want to know why else you came.”
“To see how you was. To see if you was all right.”
“And?”
“What?”
“And how am I? How do I look?”
“Tired, I guess,” he said truthfully. “And different.”
“Different how?”
“Your hair,” he said. “And the patch.”
Absently, she fingered a lock of her dyed hair. “Do you like them?”
“I dunno,” he said. “I like the patch I guess. Makes you look like a pirate.”
She gave him a slight smile. “You want something to drink?”
“That’d be nice.”
“What do you want?”
“Coke’s fine, or hot chocolate.”
“Haven’t got hot chocolate.” She jerked open the refrigerator hard enough to send some of the myriad magnets on the door flying. Wide-eyed, Pete followed their trajectory, then looked back to Claire.
“Are you mad at me for comin’?”
“Nope,” she said and withdrew a liter of Coke from the fridge. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Only slightly relieved, he said, “Okay.”
“Because,” she continued, unscrewing the cap from the bottle, “You’re going to drive me to Elkwood.”
She slammed the bottle down on the table, and didn’t offer him a glass.
“Drink fast,” she said.
-33-
Thunder grumbled over the city. Kara parked the car and looked out at the drab gray building in which she worked. The clock on the dashboard told her she was already an hour and fifteen minutes late, but she couldn’t care less. Her mind raced with thoughts about the boy who’d showed up at their door. He’d wanted to see Claire, and it was clear by her sister’s reaction that the visit had been a welcome one, eliciting more emotion from her than Kara had seen in months. So, though she’d been against the idea, maybe it would work out to be a positive thing in the end.
You don’t really buy that, do you?
She couldn’t help but grin at her own pessimism, but it was true. She didn’t buy it. The kid’s connection to the events that had chewed Claire up and spit her out would only justify her dwelling on them for another while, and that was counter-productive to their cause.
Cause. What cause? she asked herself. Naturally she wanted Claire to recover, and soon. But how much of that was for Claire’s benefit, and not her own? How much of it was simply a selfish desire to be as free of her sister and all her emotional baggage as Claire wanted to be of her? Kara felt cruel even thinking it, but no reassuring mental voice hurried to debate the theory.
Kara had a life. Granted, not much of one, and even Claire couldn’t be blamed for the worst of its deficiencies, but the idea of being her sister’s keeper forever made her chest tighten. It couldn’t happen. It wasn’t fair to either of them. And what good was she really doing anyway? Trying to curb her sister’s self-destructive impulses of late seemed to be having the opposite effect. Claire appeared to be waiting for the opportunity, the right moment before she took that final step over the precipice into the abyss where the demons she had escaped would welcome her back and rend her asunder.