This is where it happens, Michael. Where it all comes together and balance is restored.
Steeling himself, Tolan crossed the drive and went inside.
“Michael!”
AS Lisa watched him disappear through the doorway, she felt heartsick.
After all she’d done for him, all the sacrifices she’d made, all these years she had put her own interests aside to love him and protect him and what does he do?
He ignores her. Leaves her behind. Humiliated.
And all because of that thing.
Because of Abby.
Always Abby.
Lisa had spent the last year — the last fifteen years — coddling him, nurturing his wounded heart, promising to always be there, even during the darkest moments of grief.
And what had it gotten her?
She was always second string in his eyes.
The consolation prize.
When they made love, she knew he was thinking of Abby. He’d even said her name once, not realizing it. But Lisa had never mentioned it to him, had never complained.
Was there nothing she could do to make him see her?
She was a beautiful woman. A lot of men had told her so. She’d felt their stares, their unchecked desire, but she’d never responded, never led them on.
Because her heart was Michael’s. Always had been. Always would be. No matter how he treated her.
No matter who he chased after.
And she’d thought it was finally working this time, this year together, only to see it destroyed by that woman. That aberration.
But Lisa was an optimist. She knew this night would soon pass, this terrible day would be over, and when she was done cleaning up — a chore she had been born to perform — everything would be on track again, and she’d have another chance to make Michael’s heart hers.
But she needed to catch him first.
And Abby.
Before something terrible happened. Like the old man had warned.
Hurrying through the rain, Blackburn’s gun clutched in her hand, she glanced at her BMW parked out front and stopped in her tracks.
A chill ran through her.
The trunk was open.
She hadn’t opened it, had she?
No, she knew she hadn’t.
Moving around for a better view, she looked inside and felt her stomach drop. The blanket was there, soaked with rainwater and blood—
— but the body was gone.
Sue Carmody’s body was gone.
Michael? Could he have taken it?
No, he didn’t have time. She’d just seen him a moment ago.
Could it have been Abby?
That seemed even less likely.
But if it was neither of them, then who?
“Hey!” a voice shouted.
Lisa wheeled around and saw Detective Blackburn emerge from the trees, a bloody gash in the side of his head. Clayton Simm, of all people, was propping him up, looking just as surprised as she was.
“Don’t fucking move,” Blackburn shouted. “Stay where you are!”
She should have shot the sonofabitch when she’d had the chance. Shouldn’t have listened to Michael, let him talk her out of it.
Oh, well. Better late than never.
As the two men approached, she brought the gun up and squeezed the trigger.
57
When the gun came up, Blackburn dove.
“Holy Christ,” Simm shouted, diving in the opposite direction.
Then the shots rang out, one after another, bullets ricocheting around them, Simm scrambling for cover in the trees as Blackburn rolled on the muddy pavement, narrowly avoiding a hit.
Pain shot through his head, and when he looked up, his vision had doubled again — two overlapping images of Tolan’s girlfriend turning away and running into the old hospital.
A moment later, she was gone.
Climbing to his feet, Blackburn staggered, then regained his balance, his head throbbing, the wound leaking a lot more than he would have liked.
He turned to check on Simm, to make sure he wasn’t hit, but didn’t see him anywhere around. The poor guy was probably halfway back to Baycliff by now, shitting his pants as he ran.
Feeling as if he’d just stepped off an overcranked merry-go-round, Blackburn staggered toward the open doorway.
Halfway there, he had to stop, resting against the BMW.
That was when he noticed the open trunk and the bloody blanket. And he had no doubt that there had once been a body inside.
The body of Sue Carmody.
He’d known she was dead the moment he saw that ruby earring. And whatever thin hope he’d carried for her survival had already washed away in the rain.
Tolan barely heard the shots.
They were little more than faint popping sounds, part of some other world, just like the wind and the rain.
This building, this hospital — with its charred and crumbling walls and shattered glass and broken tiles and peeling paint, with its long, shadowy corridors and darkened rooms — was a world unto itself.
He remembered it in more detail than he thought he would. But it looked different at night, the decay seeming more sinister in the darkness.
Yet, oddly enough, he felt comforted. His last good moments had been spent within these walls, with a woman he would always love.
Sensing she was here somewhere, Tolan worked his way down the corridor and turned a corner to find a broad staircase leading up to the second floor.
Abby had loved that staircase. Snapped a dozen or so photographs that day, taking her time, trying to get just the right angle, as she always had.
He could feel her now. A ghost, perhaps — or was it the real thing? — hiding in the shadows above.
He heard a sound from up there and swept the flashlight beam toward the top of the stairs. It flickered and grew dim. Probably damaged by the rain.
“Abby?”
His voice bounced off the walls, but it was the only voice he heard.
No one answered.
He banged his hand against the flashlight and for a moment it grew brighter, then flickered again and went out.
Shit.
Another sound came from the top of the stairs.
A whimper?
Tossing the flashlight aside, Tolan took the steps two at a time and plunged into the darkness of the second floor, moving down a long hallway, the only illumination coming from the far end, where pale moonlight shone in through a broken window.
There was movement down there. A shadow in the light.
“Abby?”
Picking up speed, Tolan barreled toward the end of the corridor and ran smack into something hard and metallic, banging his shin. Wincing in pain, he stumbled forward and landed on his hands and knees.
Sonofabitch.
Turning, he saw that he’d tripped over a portable generator, its thick electrical cord snaking toward a small, windowless room.
What was that for?
Was someone living up here?
Tolan rubbed his shin, waiting for the pain to subside, then got to his feet and approached the room, a sudden memory stirring in his brain. That feeling of déjà vu.
There was a table in the center, slanted slightly toward the floor, and next to it sat a rolling cart with an ECT machine atop it.
Hanging above it all was a blackened ceiling, holding the charred remains of a light fixture with missing bulbs.
He’d seen that fixture before.
But when?
Before he could give it too much thought, he heard the sound again and turned, listening carefully.
Not a whimper this time, but the faint echo of someone crying.
Tolan quickly followed it until he found himself in another long hallway. At the far end, open double doors led to a room he remembered from his time here with Abby.