The dreams begin in earnest a few weeks after Labor Day. Slivers of such images have appeared and vanished over the past four months, but they are always so fleeting that he wakes with little recall except for the vaguest presence of Heidi. This is different. The dreams are full blown, exact in every detail and sound, and unlike any vision he’s ever experienced.
The theme recurs. He is walking along an empty beach. To his right the ocean pants and growls as it pounds the sand. To his left the beach dissolves into clusters of scrub grass, which sporadically intersperses with jagged cliffs whose bases are partly eroded as if great chunks were bitten from a large cheese. The sun drops into the dunes behind him as he walks to the east. The air becomes cooler. The muted shriek of shore birds and the surf are the only sounds. Isolation welcomes him like a friend. He is almost at peace when he hears a plaintive cry. At first he doesn’t recognize it, but then as the voice becomes stronger and more assertive, he knows it’s Heidi’s.
The voice comes from somewhere high and to his left. When he looks, all he sees at first is a gentle slope that rises from the beach. Beach grass and underbrush give way to sand pines and clusters of cedar. He strides up the slope with increasing urgency until it barely begins to level off amidst a thick stand of trees. He stops and listens for the sounds, which have become less frequent, then turns through a wide arc until he sees the shadow of a man carrying a body. The man is walking away from him so he cannot see the face, but the body he carries is clothed in pink and white. He knows it must be Heidi’s. He bursts into a run, but actually falls behind the man no matter how hard he tries to keep up. He looks down and sees the sandy soil suck at his feet and pull him back as if he’s mired in quicksand. In the end he’s immobilized. He calls out to wait, but the man keeps walking until he disappears from view, and all Henry can do is drop to his knees and scream, a sound that always wakes him and is no longer part of the dream.
After the third night with the same tortured images, he concludes that Heidi was taken by one of the men out near the beach. He knows it’s either Welbrook or Posner and this deduction makes the decision to stalk both men until he finds her whereabouts that much easier.
He arranges for a neighbor to pick up his mail, reserves a room at the motel in East Hampton he’s used before, packs a bag, and rents a car at the neighborhood Avis. He feels better once he’s on the road. As the city falls away behind him, he looks ahead at the still-crowded expressway, knowing that in less than two hours he will be that much closer to Heidi, and with the conviction that after everything’s over, he’ll be the one to save her from her abductor. His dream convinces him that she’s still alive, hidden somewhere out there near the beach, and waiting for him to find her. And he will. He promises himself. That’s all he has to do.
He arrives just as the sun sets and avoids the motel so he can drive to the nearest beach. He wants to breathe in the same air that she does before darkness encases him. He has no plans to visit with the police. He knows that he’s still on their suspect list. They have made that plain in the past, harping on the coincidence of the car rental mileage, yet they have nothing more and have left him alone for several months now. He also knows, even if they may not be convinced, that he is innocent of any crime, save obsessive infatuation. He also knows that when he finds her he will dispatch the guilty party. In his minicooler in the backseat are two needles with enough insulin to inject his prey with convulsions, coma, and a certain heart attack. He will dispense justice if no one else will. He eats a quiet dinner at a small Italian restaurant in East Hampton and falls asleep early. His mind is clear and tomorrow he will begin to plan howbest to stalk his quarries.
In some way it reminds him of hunting. He first went out with his father when he was a few days past his tenth birthday. He never knew his mother, who had died after a fall when he was barely three. So it was his father and a succession of housekeepers who raised him. The housekeepers who came and went like the seasons and who could never satisfy his father’s standards in much the same way as he couldn’t. There were many times when he wished he could also have been fired and sent away, but that was never to be. He had to succeed just as his father had succeeded. It was an early fall day just like today except that then he was in the Berkshires, and this is the beach. He remembered his first kill. He chased a white-tailed rabbit into a tree hollow.
“Don’t waste time waitin’ for him to get out,” barked his father who had moved in behind him. “Shoot him right now.”
And he did. It was easy until he pulled the bloody pulp out of the tree and threw up right there, his breakfast and bile spilling out and over the dead white tail.
“Now skin him, and when you’re done with that, bring him back to the house, and we’ll have the cook make us a stew for supper.”
He did it all because he had to, but never hunted again and for all he knew maybe even became a doctor because of what had happened that day. But this was different. Whoever had taken Heidi had ruined his life and hers. The one who did it deserved to die, but a shotgun shell would be too quick. That’s why he’s brought the needles.
The needles each hold large doses of insulin. He had written the prescriptions himself. No problem there. He was still licensed as a doctor in New York state. More than once he pictures what will happen. He will force Posner or Welbrook to confess what happened to Heidi. Then he’ll jab the man with the needle. No alcohol cloth to clean the skin. No bother to even roll up a sleeve. Just a simple large dose of insulin. So large the man’s blood sugar will drop far below even common hypoglycemic conditions.
Posner or Welbrook will go into insulin shock. The skin will become cool and clammy. The skin color will pale. He might thrash about, but I’ll be there to restrain him if he does. The speech will start to slur and convulsions will soon follow. Then a coma followed by a stoppage of breathing or heart failure. Just enough time to make him suffer without it being torture.
If there were emergency medical personnel around, they might recognize the symptoms and force-feed him pure sugar or orange juice, but that won’t be an option. Everything will happen when we’re alone. Just the two of us.
Stern decides to follow Welbrook the morning after he arrives. He drives to the modern house in Amagansett and is pleased to see the man’s twenty-year-old shiny Mercedes parked in front. He lingers for a moment then drives on down to the end of the street and parks out of sight behind an empty construction dumpster. He turns off the engine and waits. After a moment he dials Welbrook’s home number from his cell phone. Welbrook’s voice picks up after two rings and Stern cuts off. The man is home. That’s all Stern needs to know.