Madeline nodded. “My cell’s up by my bed. I’ll be right back.”
Bob was shaking his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Madeline ignored him and kept on walking. Bob turned to make his case to Gloria. “You have to trust the man to do his job.’
It was Gloria’s turn to have a drink. She’d opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of white wine. She filled a glass nearly to the top and took a sip as Bob watched disapprovingly.
“Look what’s happening to us,” he said.
She eyed him with wonder. “Are you surprised? After what we’ve been through? After what I’ve been through? Letting the lot of you humiliate me on a world stage?”
She took a large swallow. Her eyes misted over and her lower lip trembled. “I’m so ashamed. I’m just so, so ashamed.”
“Gloria,” Bob said tiredly. “Go back to bed. Take your drink with you if you want.”
Madeline returned to the kitchen, cell phone in hand.
“Did you get him?” Gloria asked.
“I’m just trying now,” she said. She studied the screen, tapped it with her thumb, put the phone to her ear. “It’s ringing.”
Gloria and Bob went silent, stared at Madeline.
“Still ringing,” she said. “Maybe he’s got the phone muted.”
“Yes,” Bob said. “That makes sense.”
“No,” Gloria said. “That doesn’t make any sense. Not under the circumstances. Like, if the police had to call him, like the detective who was here. Mr. Weaver’d have to leave his phone on in case there was an emergency.”
“Then — that’s six rings — maybe they’re just sleeping through it,” Madeline said.
“I’m sure it’s been a very long day for them,” Bob said. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“That’s eight rings,” Madeline said. “Now it’s going to — Hello, Mr. Weaver? It’s Madeline Plimpton. Please call me the moment you get this. We’re desperately worried about Jeremy. Please call.”
She brought the phone down where she could see it, ended the call, and gazed hopelessly at Gloria and Bob.
Gloria put down her glass and placed both hands over her mouth. “Oh God,” she said.
Bob said nothing.
Sixty-one
Cory Calder, on the floor, blinking blood out of his eyes, looked up at Craig Pierce and said, “Where’s the girl?”
“What girl?” Pierce said.
Cory put a hand to his temple, felt blood, then moved it to his neck. The pain was excruciating.
“You were too clever by half,” Pierce said.
“I don’t... I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t you want to know how I found you?” Pierce offered him half a smile with his grotesque, partially eaten face. “It was actually so fucking easy.”
“I... I...”
“It was revenge. Revenge with a J. Your clever little signature on the Just Deserts posting. I mean, you can’t spell worth a shit, but that was deliberate, right? Thing is, if the only place you’d ever used it was on that site, you’d have been fine. But I did a search, found you’d used it on other sites. With your real name attached. Looked you up, found you lived right in my own backyard.”
“Please, you’ve made a mistake.”
“Drove by your house, kept watch on you, stuck a little tracker to your van. You’ve been hunting that Pilford kid, haven’t you? He was next on your list.”
“I need a doctor,” Cory said, starting to cry. “Please, please get me some help.”
Craig clucked his tongue sympathetically. “Is it all hurty?”
“Everything... It all went wrong,” Cory said, a bloody tear running down his cheek. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair.”
“Ahh, who’s the big baby now?” Pierce asked, wrapping both hands around the poker and driving it straight down, like a spear, through Cory Calder’s heart.
Sixty-two
Cal
I let Jeremy sleep on the way back.
He nodded off next to me a couple of miles out of Sandwich, even before we went over the Sagamore Bridge. There was a McDonald’s on the other side. I did the drive-through and grabbed coffee and a couple of breakfast sandwiches. Jeremy woke up long enough to wolf one down, then went back to sleep. We’d never gotten to bed the night before, and what with all the commotion that followed, there’d been no opportunity to nod off.
I hadn’t had a chance yet, but I was far from sleepy.
I was anxious to get going. I had an appointment to keep with the man who’d answered Kiln’s phone, and I was going to have to drive flat out to get back to Promise Falls in time to keep it.
A lot had happened since the phone call.
First, there’d been that woman running up the road, who turned out to be Carol Beakman. As soon as she told me her name, I recognized it from my chat with Barry Duckworth. She told me she had been kidnapped by Cory Calder but had managed to free herself while he was out of the cabin. She’d wandered up North Shore in the other direction, banging on doors, failing to find anyone home. Then, when she saw all the commotion at the other end of the road — fire trucks and ambulances and police cars — she started running that way.
I identified myself, told her I had just recently been speaking with Barry Duckworth, that he’d been trying to find her. She burst into tears at that point and said she had to let his son Trevor know she was okay.
Before I offered her my cell phone to call him, I had to assess whether Calder remained a threat.
“I don’t know,” Carol said. “I don’t know where he is.” She glanced back down the road and said, fearfully, “Unless he’s gone back to the cabin.”
I hailed Higgins, told him in as few words as possible that Carol Beakman had been abducted and that her kidnapper, a man named Cory Calder, might be found a short distance down the road.
He rounded up another officer and together they booted it down the road and stormed the cabin while Carol and I watched from afar. A few seconds later, lights came on, and a few seconds after that, Higgins emerged and shouted at the top of his lungs: “Weaver!”
I left Carol in the care of another officer and ran.
“Have a look and see if that’s your Calder character,” he said, pointing his thumb inside.
I took three steps into the cabin and looked at the bloody, beaten body on the floor in front of me. A poker was sticking straight up from his chest. It was hard to be one hundred percent certain, given that much of his face had been turned to pulp, but this looked like the man Jeremy and I had met on the beach.
I came back out. “I think so,” I said.
“This is turning into one clusterfuck of a night,” Higgins said.
I went back to see how Carol Beakman was doing. Another team of paramedics had arrived and were checking her out. At that point, I gave her my phone so that she could call Trevor Duckworth.
There was a lot of crying.
Not long after she’d handed the phone back to me, it rang.
Barry.
“Name a favor,” he said. “Whatever it is, it’s yours.”
Once we were done, the phone rang yet again, and I saw that it was Madeline Plimpton. I nearly answered, then decided against it. Maybe I was being paranoid. But she’d just have to worry until later.
Police Chief Bertram arrived moments later, and appeared dismayed that between the time of our conversation and his arrival, a mere shit show had turned into a disaster movie.
There were so many questions to be answered, and statements to be made, that I was worried we wouldn’t get away in time for my meeting in Promise Falls. But around five thirty in the morning, Jeremy and I were allowed to leave.