Coldmoon took another look at the sign. The trail forked here, one path leading over the bridge — which indeed looked rotting and dangerous — and the other winding its way around through the ferns.
Another call from above.
“Was that a cry for help?” Coldmoon asked.
“It sounded like it.”
“Mr. Vance?” Coldmoon shouted. “Do you need help?” He turned away from the bridge and walked down the sandy path.
“Thank God,” came a weak voice. “Help me — cut myself with a chain saw!”
The voice seemed to be coming from the house, but it was hard to pinpoint with all the trees. Coldmoon squinted into the dim tangle of vegetation. “Shit, I see him! A white-haired guy, lying on the veranda!”
“Please help!” came the voice, already growing weaker. “Help!”
“Jesus.” Coldmoon began walking faster down the path.
“Hold on,” said Pendergast, reaching for him.
“Hurry, I’m bleeding to death!”
Coldmoon shrugged off Pendergast’s hand and broke into a jog.
“Wait!” Pendergast cried. “We don’t know—”
But he never finished his sentence, and for Coldmoon it was almost surreaclass="underline" the way the ferns underfoot simply opened up, the ground fell away, and then they both dropped with surprising speed into a dark chasm.
43
The neighborhood of Golden Glades was laid out in a grid of ranch houses, surrounded by unkempt lawns and patches of sand. Bedraggled fan palms broke up the monotonous march of homes. The streets were lined with bins, green for garbage and blue for recycling — evidently, it was trash day.
Fauchet had decided to drive by the house — that was all — to see if someone was home. There was no harm in that — certainly no danger. Drive by, check it out, then report what she found to Pendergast. Assuming, that is, she could ever reach his cell phone.
She turned into Tarpon Court, a curving asphalt road that seemed less prosperous than its neighbors. A few of the houses were boarded up, and some others had colorful graffiti sprayed on the façades. The numbers to her left reeled off: 119, 127, 165, 201. Finally, there it was: 203.
She slowed the car. The house, of faded yellow stucco with white trim, was set back from the street, and it looked even shabbier than the rest. A half-dead oak blocked the picture window in front, and a rusting lawn mower sat beside it, sprouting weeds. The patchy St. Augustine grass of the front yard was at least a foot tall, matted down by recent rains. The driveway was webbed with cracks, and an old newspaper sat in the baking sun, in front of a garage door with peeling panels of fake wood.
She cruised by as slowly as she dared, then continued to the end of the block, preparing to circle around. Out of sight of the house, she pulled over briefly to try Pendergast again. Nothing.
Continuing on around the block, she started working up a story in her head in case she was stopped by a nosy neighbor. I’m looking for my aunt’s house. Reba Jones. She figured the likelihood of anyone questioning her was slim, especially considering she was driving a late-model Lexus. Or perhaps that would look even more suspicious in a neighborhood like this. But whatever the case, the more she thought about it, “looking for my aunt’s house” sounded lame. She needed something better.
Rounding the last corner, she reentered Tarpon Court. What if Brokenhearts was out stalking another victim? Or what if he’d already fled, leaving a house full of evidence? It was true he had suddenly gone quiet. Her brother’s cautionary words echoed in her mind: Leave this to the professionals. Well, she was a professional. She was a forensic pathologist with a medical degree, and a detective to boot — at least, with human bodies. She’d even figured out Brokenhearts’s identity and address. Anyway, she thought she had.
She approached the house a second time. This would be her last pass. Circling the block three times would be out of the question, so whatever she found, it had to be now.
Or maybe... just maybe... she should stop and ring the bell.
On what pretense? Remembering something, she glanced into the backseat — and sure enough, like a gift from God, there were the Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets that had been thrust at her in the parking lot by some well-meaning soul as she was leaving work two days before. Perfect.
Drawing on her courage and thinking of Pendergast’s reaction — and Dr. Moberly’s mortification — if she brought in this unbelievable breakthrough on a silver platter, she boldly drove into the driveway of 203 Tarpon Court, snatched up the pamphlets, exited the car before she could change her mind, then strode up to the door and pushed the doorbell.
No sound.
The door looked as decrepit as the rest of the house, with an overhead light stamped in an owl design and two small, cracked windows beneath its upper edge. Putting her ear to it, she pushed the rusty doorbell again. Still no sound — the mechanism must be broken.
She knocked. And waited. Then knocked again, more boldly, chips of paint falling from the humidity-swollen door.
She could hear no movement in the house, no sound, nothing. The place gave all appearances of being empty. What now? The blinds were carefully drawn, their edges stained with mildew. She could see nothing inside.
What the hell. Pamphlets in hand, she picked her way through the tall, moist grass and walked around the house. Arriving at the back door, she paused. From here, she was out of view of the houses on either side. Should she knock? If he answered, how would she explain her presence at the back door? Really, this was stupid. She took a step backward, then another.
On the other hand, the man wouldn’t dare do anything to her — not in his own home. That just wasn’t his MO. If it was indeed Brokenhearts.
It was Brokenhearts. Wasn’t it?
Leave this to the professionals.
That did it. She took a breath, stepped forward again, raised her hand, paused a moment, and then knocked loudly on the back door. Under the pressure of her knuckles, the door — unlocked — creaked open an inch. She couldn’t help herself and leaned in close, peering through the crack. Just beyond, in the mudroom, hanging on a coat hook, was an old Marlins baseball cap.
44
It was like being swallowed by Mother Earth herself, with a sudden groaning of soil and jumble of ferns and rush of damp wind. Coldmoon tumbled, his fall arrested when something like a steel cable suddenly grabbed him as the storm of dirt began to subside. Coughing, choking, he spat sand from his mouth and realized it was Pendergast who had stopped his fall, holding him by the arm on a steep slope of sand and earth, which descended into a deep, swirling pool of muck.
With his other hand, Pendergast was gripping a thick root. “Dig in,” he said. “Find a purchase.”
With his free hand, Coldmoon scrabbled against the shifting wall of earth, grabbing another root, his feet managing to locate something to balance on. As the rumbling subsided, the collapsing hole seemed to stabilize, its edges still folding in, dropping ferns on them as they clung to the steep slope.
“Earthquake?” Coldmoon gasped.
“Sinkhole,” Pendergast replied.
With a remarkable display of strength, he was able to reach up and grab a higher root. The sandy dirt continued to crumble away around the perimeter.
Coldmoon followed Pendergast’s example and found another root of his own. He pushed with his feet, ensuring he had a good purchase.
“I can climb,” he said, and Pendergast released him.
The slope was steep but not vertical, with many exposed roots, and Coldmoon used them as hand- and footholds, the soil cascading down on his head and getting in his eyes and mouth, sometimes forcing him back down a step. The sinkhole might have stabilized, but it was nevertheless like trying to climb up an ever-shifting sand pile: a few feet up, then almost as many back down again, as the sandy flanks cracked, crumbled, then fell away. Nevertheless, it was only minutes before Pendergast reached the lip of the hole, Coldmoon close behind, gasping and spitting out sand and dirt. As his head and shoulders cleared ground level, he could see the broken ferns littering the trail now dangling over the far edge of the sinkhole and, in the distance beyond, the dilapidated lodge. The elderly figure on the veranda was still struggling to rise. “Help!” the figure cried again.