“In the bedroom on the dresser somewhere,” Mike said, searching frantically. “It’s not here!”
“Maybe they missed it,” Frank said. Yet the more they searched, the more he realized that whoever had broken into the house and taken Carol by surprise had probably also gotten the key.
Fifteen minutes later they abandoned the search. Mike looked frustrated and scared. “Oh my God what are we going to do?”
Frank felt just as frantic and stressed but he was trying not to show it. “Okay,” he said, running a hand over his dark hair. “Let’s think about this for a minute.”
“She’s gone, the key’s gone, they got her and they know about us!” Mike said, poking through the rubble again.
“They don’t know about us.”
“Yes, they do!” Mike whirled around, his face red with tears. “Look at this place! They knew what they were looking for, and they got Carol in the process. Now we’re fucked! This whole thing is just fucked!” Mike breathed heavy, his features showing his anger and frustration.
“First things first,” Frank said, trying to be calm. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
“Suppose they have it?” Mike asked, looking at Frank frantically. “What are we going to do? Suppose they came here… the evening we left and—”
“Stop it!” Frank grabbed Mike’s shoulders and shook him. Mike flinched, as if afraid the bigger man was going to throw him against the wall. Frank leaned his face close to Mike’s. He could have kissed him if he wanted. “Calm the fuck down. If we panic, that’s going to expose our weakness. So just calm… the fuck… down!” Frank interjected menace in the command, punctuating it by shaking Mike as he enunciated each word. Mike got the message.
“Okay, okay,” Mike said, the anger and frustration deflating a moment. “Okay, we gotta do something, though.”
“First we gotta get the hell out of here.”
Mike looked up at Frank, his eyes wide. “You think we should call the cops?”
“Fuck no!”
“But what about…”
“I’m sorry, buddy,” Frank’s resolve was strengthening him, empowering him to take charge. He grabbed Mike by the shoulders again and spun him around, marching him out the door to the bedroom and down the stairs. “But right now we’re getting the hell out of here. And I’m leaning very strongly in favor of going to Billy Grecko with this shit as soon as possible. Like tonight.”
“But Carol—” Mike protested, starting the merry-go-round of grief again.
“We’ll find Carol,” Frank said, herding Mike outside. He closed the door behind him, made sure it was locked, and then led Mike to his car. “We’ve gotta get back to my room and think about this, talk a new strategy. Where’s the shit we brought back from PA? The box Maggie Walters had all those newspaper clippings in that Reverend Powell gave us?”
“Still in my car.”
“Get it.” Frank steered Mike to his car and waited while the older man fumbled to disarm it with his key fob. He rummaged in the backseat and grabbed it as Frank stood guard, watching the neighborhood silently. Nobody was observing them.
Once the back door to Mike’s sedan was closed and the vehicle was locked, Mike turned to him. His face was ashen. “We’ve got to find Carol,” Mike said. The shock was finally settling into his system. He was limp, hollow-eyed, haunted.
“That’s part of the plan.” Frank helped Mike into his car, then got in and drove away from the house. As he got on the 405 Freeway heading south to Irvine, he thought about calling Vince but decided against it at the last minute. I’ll call him later if we have to. Right now I’ve got to get Mike the hell out of here.
And as he drove to the motel, taking back roads, driving in a way to shake-off pursuers, Frank kept checking his rearview mirrors to make sure they weren’t being followed.
TWO HOURS LATER, Mike Peterson was asleep. Thank God for Valium, Frank thought.
Frank was seated at the small table by the bed. A lone sixty-watt bulb lit the room, providing enough illumination for him to work by. He’d been writing notes to himself since he got Mike to sleep. The Valium Frank had slipped into his soft drink was enough to put him out all night.
He picked up a can of coke and drank from it. He needed the caffeine to keep himself going. He would get some sleep later. Right now he needed to think.
The minute he got Mike to his motel room he’d told him to lie down on the queen sized bed. Mike had protested at first, repeating the same mantra. “Carol’s gone, they’ve got her, my God I’ve got to call the kids, the police, I’ve got to do something—”
Frank knew he had to knock Mike out. The guy was driving him bugfuck and he couldn’t think while Mike was wigging out. He couldn’t afford to have Mike bring everything crashing down. One call to the cops and everything would be destroyed—their investigation, their secrecy, their security. The cops would automatically suspect Mike in Carol’s disappearance and would haul him in for questioning. Without Mike, Frank and Vince would be sitting ducks. The Children could then move in and do whatever the hell they wanted… kidnap Vince maybe, kill Frank. And in the meantime, whatever information Mike had gathered on the cult would be locked away. Anything he or Frank told the police would be met by healthy skepticism. They’d be damned lucky if they could get anybody to take their story seriously, even Mike’s friend Billy.
He couldn’t have that.
So Frank told Mike to lie down and chill out for a minute. He was going to get him a drink, then he could call his kids and the two of them would call the police. Mike seemed to accept this and while he lay down, Frank had gone to the soft drink dispensing machine outside the room and bought a Coke and bottled water. He’d let himself back in the room, poured Mike a small glass, then searched through his overnight bag for his box of pills where he kept aspirin and Valium. He’d poured a glass of water, dropped a Valium in it and waited while it dissolved, then had taken a tiny sip to make sure it couldn’t be detected. He’d watched while the former high school teacher drank the water down then lay back down. Ten minutes later he was asleep.
Now Frank had to figure out what the hell to do.
The first thing he thought of doing was calling his Aunt Diane. He hadn’t seen her or Charlie in over ten years and hadn’t spoken to her in at least a year. In the years since the breakin at their home twenty-three years ago—an obvious warning to cease their investigation into the disappearance of his father—they’d been reluctant to talk to Frank about his background. They’d shared some information with him when he brought it up, but it was like pulling teeth. It had taken them five years to open up enough to start talking about it. He’d stopped asking them about it, and then one day when he was visiting he’d started asking again. This was shortly after he’d gotten sober and was working on what was to become his first horror novel in five years, Things Inside. He’d tried to bring the subject up gently and they answered his questions in the same way, not offering any more than they’d given him the first time around. It was obvious they weren’t prepared, nor did they wish to revisit painful memories.
Which was why he couldn’t go to them now. As much as he would have liked to pick up the phone right now and call Aunt Diane, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to get her involved again. She’d been through too much already. And besides, what could she do about his and Mike’s situation now? How could she help them?
Vince was the next person he thought of calling. He supposed it was time to get him involved more deeply. Frank picked up the phone and dialed Vince’s phone number.