'No, no. Not after you've ratted on another cop.'
'If the cop was anyone but you, that might be true.'
Mondale bristled. 'I have friends!'
'You're well liked by the high brass,' Dan said, 'because you always tell them what they want to hear. You know how to manipulate them. But the average cop on the beat thinks you're a jerk-off.'
'Bullshit. I have friends everywhere. You'll be frozen out, isolated, shunned.'
'Even if that's true — and it isn't — so what? I'm just a loner, anyway. Remember? You said so yourself. You said I'm a loner. What do I care if I'm shunned?'
For the first time, more worry than hatred was evident in Ross Mondale's face.
'You see?' Dan said. He smiled again, more broadly than before. 'You don't have any choice. You have to let me work on this case the way I want to work on it, without any interference, just as long as I want. If you mess with me, I'll destroy you, so help me God, even if it means problems for me too.'
* * *
The overhead lights grew even dimmer. But the radio's eerie green radiance was now so bright that it hurt Laura's eyes.
'… STOP… HELP… RUN… HIDE… HELP…'
The Plexiglas that shielded the radio dial suddenly cracked down the middle.
The Sony vibrated so violently that it began to move across the counter.
Laura remembered the nightmarish image that had come to her a few minutes ago: crablike legs sprouting from the plastic casing…
The refrigerator door flew open again all by itself.
With a hiss and squeak of hinges, with scattered thumping sounds, every cupboard door in the room abruptly and simultaneously flung itself wide open. One of them banged against Earl's legs, and he almost fell.
The radio had stopped emitting selected words from various stations. Now it was simply spewing out a shrill electronic noise at higher than full volume, as if attempting to shatter their flesh and bones as a perfectly sung and sustained high-C could shatter fine crystal.
* * *
Ross Mondale sat on a shipping crate and buried his face in his hands, as if weeping.
Dan Haldane was startled and disconcerted. He had been certain that Mondale was incapable of tears.
The captain didn't sob or wheeze or make any other sounds, and when he looked up again, after half a minute or so, his eyes were perfectly dry. He hadn't been weeping after all — merely thinking. Desperately thinking.
He had also been putting on a new expression, a conscious act not unlike exchanging one mask for another. The fear and worry and anger were completely gone. Even the hatred was fairly well hidden, although a dark rime of it was still visible in the captain's eyes, like a film of black ice on a shallow puddle at the edge of winter. Now he was wearing his patented friendly-and-humble face, which was transparently insincere.
'Okay, Dan. Okay. We were friends once, and maybe we can be friends again.'
We were never really friends, Dan thought.
But he said nothing. He was curious to see how conciliatory Ross Mondale would pretend to be.
Mondale said, 'At least we can start by trying to work together, and I can help by acknowledging that you're a damned good detective. You're methodical, but you're also intuitive. I shouldn't try to rein you in, because that's like refusing to let a natural-born hunting dog follow its own nose. Okay. So you're on your own in this case. Go wherever you want, see who you want, when you want. Just try to fill me in once in a while. I'd appreciate it. Maybe if we both give a little, both of us bend a little, then we'll find that we not only can work together but can even be friends again.'
Dan decided that he liked Mondale's anger and unconcealed hatred better than his smarmy appeasement. The captain's hatred was the most honest thing about him. Now, the honey in his voice and manner didn't soothe Dan: in fact, it made his skin crawl.
'But can I ask you one thing?' Mondale said, leaning forward from his perch on the packing crate, looking earnest.
'What's that?'
'Why this case? Why're you so passionately committed to it?'
'I just want to do my job.'
'It's more than that.'
Dan gave nothing.
'Is it the woman?'
'No.'
'She's very good looking.'
'It's not the woman,' Dan said, though Laura McCaffrey's beauty had not escaped his attention. It did indeed play at least a small role in his determination to stay with the case, though he would never reveal as much to Mondale.
'Is it the kid?'
'Maybe,' Dan said.
'You've always worked hardest on cases where a child was abused or threatened.'
'Not always.'
'Yes, always,' Mondale said. 'Is that because of what happened to your brother and sister?'
* * *
The radio vibrated harder, faster. It rattled against the counter with sufficient force to chip the tiles — and abruptly floated into the air. Levitated. It hung up there, swaying, bobbing at the end of its cord as a helium-filled balloon might bobble at the end of a string.
Laura was beyond surprise. She watched, immobilized by awe, no longer even terribly afraid, simply numb with cold and with incredulity.
The electronic whine became more shrill, thin, spiraled up, like the tape-recorded descent of a bomb played in reverse. Laura looked down at Melanie and saw that the girl had at last begun to rise out of her stupor. She hadn't opened her eyes yet — in fact, she was now squeezing them shut — but she had raised her small hands to her ears, and her mouth was open too.
Snakes of smoke erupted from the miraculously suspended radio. It exploded.
Laura closed her eyes and ducked her head just as the Sony blew up. Bits of broken plastic rained over her, snapped against her arms, head, hands.
A few large chunks of the radio, still attached to the cord, fell straight to the floor — the invisible hands no longer providing support — and hit the tiles with a clank and clatter. The plug pulled from the wall, and the cord slithered across the counter; it dropped onto the floor with the rest of the shattered Sony, and was still.
When the explosion had come, Melanie had finally responded to the chaos around her. She erupted from her chair, and even before the flying debris had finished falling, she scurried on hands and knees into the corner by the back door. Now she cowered there, head sheltered under her arms, sobbing.
In the silence following the cessation of the radio's banshee wail, the child's sobs were especially penetrating. Each, like a soft blow, landed on Laura's heart, not with physical force but with enormous emotional impact, hammering her alternately toward despair and terror.
* * *
When Dan didn't respond, Mondale repeated the question in a tone of innocent curiosity, but his undertone was taunting and mean. 'Do you work harder on those cases involving child abuse because of what happened to your brother and sister?'
'Maybe,' Dan said, wishing he had never told Mondale about those tragedies. But when two young cops share a squad car, they usually spill their guts to each other during the long night patrols. He had spilled too much before he'd realized that he didn't like Mondale and never would. 'Maybe that's part of why I don't want to let go of this case. But it's not the whole story. It's also because of Cindy Lakey. Don't you see that, Ross? Here's another case where a woman and child are in danger, a mother and her daughter threatened by a maniac, maybe more than one maniac. Just like the Lakeys. So maybe it's a chance for me to redeem myself. A chance to make up for my failure to save Cindy Lakey, to finally get rid of a little of that guilt.'
Mondale stared at him, astonished. 'You feel guilt because the Lakey kid was killed?'