Blessed called, “Nurse, come here, please.”
Cindy opened the door and came in. She never looked away from his face. He said, “I need you to help me into this shirt.”
She did. He swore the whole time. They could see the pallor, the beads of sweat on his forehead. “He’s in pain,” Dr. Hicks said, “but he’s still functioning. Amazing.”
Blessed asked Cindy, “Where are my shoes?”
“I left them in the closet.”
“Get them for me.”
She did. She went down on her knees and helped him into his shoes.
“All right. I want you to ask the deputy to come in here, tell I you’re concerned that I might be getting free and you want him to check on me.”
Cindy nodded and turned to leave the room.
“That’s it,” Ethan said, and he and Savich were out of the room in a second flat. “You will stay outside,” Savich told him. “No arguments.” Savich walked past Nurse Maybeck into the hospital room to see Blessed reaching for his watch on the side table.
It was all on film.
“You!”
“Yeah, it’s me, your worst nightmare, Blessed. Go ahead, give me your best look, come on, give it a try. Sorry, not going to happen. Party’s over. That was some performance you gave us.” He nodded up at the camera, Blessed’s eyes following his. Savich didn’t think he could hypnotize people on the other side of the camera, but he wasn’t about to take any chances. He blocked his view. He looked over the nurse, who was looking blankly at nothing at all, simply standing outside the doorway. Savich said to Blessed, “Get your clothes back off and I’ll help you with the gown.” Savich stripped him down because Blessed was cursing him, trying desperately to stop him and not succeeding. Blessed yelled to Nurse Maybeck, “Help me, Nurse. Help me!”
“What is that agent doing to him? Let me go!”
But Ox grabbed the nurse by her arms and lifted her bodily onto his shoulders to get her away from the room.
Savich got Blessed back into the hospital gown and flat on his back. Blessed stared up at him, panting with pain, his eyes burning wild and hot in his white face. “I’m going to kill you. I’m going to skin you and make a lamp out of your hide. I’m going to bury you so deep no one will ever—”
“Yeah, yeah.” Savich forced the straps around his wrists, clipped them to the bed railings, and slipped the blindfold back over his eyes.
“It’s okay Ethan, you can come in now.”
“This is amazing,” said Dr. Hicks, who stood in the doorway beside Ethan. He stared from Savich to Blessed, who was still panting from the pain. “That was the most incredible psychic phenomenon I’ve ever seen.”
Dr. Truitt appeared next to him in the doorway. “They paged me. What’s happening here?”
A half-dozen hospital personnel were soon clustered around Dr. Truitt, looking from Savich to Blessed Backman, who lay on his back, moaning, blindfolded, his wrists strapped down.
Ox stood beside the bed, staring down at Blessed Backman like he could kill him and enjoy it. Savich turned to the hospital staff. “It’s over now. We do have a little something to show you, Dr. Truitt, you and the staff. It’s a video in the next room. You’re in living color, Blessed. Maybe this will help keep you in solitary confinement for the rest of your miserable days.”
Ethan said, “I don’t suppose there’s a prayer of keeping all this away from the media?”
“We can try,” Dr. Hicks said. “Some of these people won’t want to confess to another soul that they saw a man take over another per-son’s mind so easily. Some simply won’t believe it. But the media will sensationalize any hint of psychic powers. Even if no one believes it, they’ll come like locusts.”
But Savich knew it would get out, knew Blessed’s family would find out fast that they had him. What would they do?
Cindy Maybeck stood beside Ox, rubbing her arm where he’d hit her. She’d recognized him when he’d first arrived with Sheriff Merriweather. He’d given her a parking ticket last year. She looked up at him. “Why did you hit me?”
“Because that nice old codger took away your brain for a while. You’ll okay now. Do you have a headache?”
She shook her head, frowned. Ox knew she didn’t understand, but maybe she would when he explained it to her over dinner at Marlin’s Mexican if she said yes. He’d also teach her how to parallel park.
39
BRICKER’S BOWL, GEORGIA
Wednesday afternoon
“Joanna described Backer’s Bowl well,” Sherlock said, staring around her. “It’s like the whole town’s at the bottom of a gigantic soup bowl. Very cool. It makes me want some chicken noodle. How many people live in this valley?”
“Around five hundred souls,” Savich said.
“It looks like nobody’s come or gone in a lot of years. It should be in black-and-white, like that old movie Pleasantville. Look, Dillon, there’s a cell tower, power lines, all the modern conveniences. Some-how they look out of place. I’m thinking the Backmans would have to be careful about what they do around here, you know, not soil their own backyard.”
“Joanna did say she saw Blessed stymie the young guy taking pictures the day they buried Martin Backman’s urn in their cemetery.”
Sherlock said, “And his brother Grace stopped him.”
Savich picked it up. “Blessed did tell the young man he wouldn’t remember anything. Neither did Ox or Glenda or that nurse at the hospital. Blessed would have to be very careful, though, or sooner or later he’d face a mob.”
Sherlock nodded. “And we’re talking years upon years living here, Dillon. Look there, cows grazing, goats munching away. Makes me feel better. But what I don’t understand is why Blessed doesn’t simply walk into a bank and stymie a teller and walk out with a gazillion bucks. No one would remember he was even there.”
“Maybe he’s tried it. They could have a lot of cash stuffed in those graves. We’re going to find out, I promise you that.” Savich turned the rented Camry into the first filling station, Miley’s. A young boy with buzz-cut wheat-colored hair was putting air in a couple of tires on an ancient Honda. A heavyset woman was seated inside the Quik Mart, the cash register in front of her, staring at them through the Sherlock said, “That woman’s looking at us like we’re trouble. Fact is, though, if I lived anywhere near the Backmans, I wouldn’t just be paranoid, I’d move. We don’t need gas, Dillon. Why’d you stop?”
Sherlock said, “That woman sitting at the register was looking at us even before we pulled in. I want to sit here awhile before I get out of the car and fill the tank. We’re two strangers, doing nothing, and she looks like she’s on red alert. This might end up being interesting.”
“I hope we luck out and find Caldicot Whistler here. He’s probably the key to this Children of Twilight cult, maybe to all of it.”
“I finished putting together what MAX could find about him this morning,” Savich said. “He’s thirty-seven years old, a graduate of Harvard Law who worked for four years in a private law firm in Manhattan, then took off without a forwarding address after he was turned down for a partnership. No wile, no kids. Actually he has no living relatives that MAX could locate.
“We have a four-year gap until we pick him up again here in Georgia, leading this Children of Twilight cult. Surprisingly, it’s the only mention MAX could find about him.
“Ah, look. Our subject behind the glass is giving us the evil eye, probably wondering if we’re criminals or we’re using Bricker’s Bowl as a hideaway to cheat on our spouses. And that boy’s putting too much air in that tire. If he’s not careful, it’s going to explode.”