Bestial (5 page)

“Yes, I was getting to that.” Harvey held the open briefcase steady on his lap as he shifted in his chair and adjusted his glasses. “It seems a man from the FRC went to Big Rock to find him. A man named—” He consulted a sheet of paper from his briefcase. “—Aaron Cramer.” He lifted his magnified eyes from the paper and looked at Gavin. “He hasn’t been seen or heard from since. By anyone.”

“Have you talked to anyone at the lab?” Karen said.

“Dr. Georgia Hopper,” Burgess said. “She’s the head brain there. She wasn’t too keen on discussing any of this, but once she learned what we knew, she opened up a little. She wasn’t able to tell my people much that we didn’t already know, but when asked about Cramer, she said they were uncertain about his fate. His life had been a bit of a mess when he went in search of Fargo. His wife was divorcing him and he owed a lot of money to the kind of people who don’t necessarily observe the law when getting their money back, if you know what I mean. That was why his wife was divorcing him. He had a gambling problem, it seems. Dr. Hopper says that when Cramer disappeared, they informed the police, and once they learned of Cramer’s situation, they figured he’d taken the opportunity to make himself scarce. They went to Big Rock, looked around, asked some questions, but found no evidence of foul play. They concluded that Mr. Camer’s disappearance was most likely self-imposed.” He turned to Harvey. “Go ahead, Harv. Sorry to interrupt.”

Harvey shuffled around in the briefcase for another sheet of paper. “Big Rock is in Pine County, the smallest county in California. The county seat. Until eighteen months ago, the sheriff was a man named Arlin Hurley. Then he was killed. Apparently in a meth lab explosion in a deserted house being used by drug dealers. He was replaced by an interim sheriff, until a new election could be held, a man named, uh, Irving Taggart. But that was seven months ago. No election has been held and Taggart still holds the office.”

“Was Taggart a deputy?” Gavin said.

“That’s the thing. There’s no record of Taggart in the department. We don’t know who he is or where he came from.”

Burgess leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, joined his hands before him, and smiled. “Suspicious, ain’t it?”

“What are you suggesting?” Karen said.

“Only that it’s suspicious,” Burgess said. “That something odd is going on in Big Rock.”

“And you want us to look into it,” Karen said.

“Harvey, give them everything you have,” Burgess said.

Harvey stood, put the briefcase on the chair, removed a few manila folders from it, and handed them to Karen. He fidgeted as he stood before her and Gavin, straightened his glasses. “That’s everything we’ve been able to gather. I’m, uh, sorry it’s not more, but there’s not a whole lot available. We did the best we could.”

“Later today,” Burgess said, “you two will be going to the Carmel/Monterey Peninsula Airport, where a jet will spirit you away to Eureka.”

“You have a jet?” Gavin said.

“Oh, it’s not mine. It’s just a little thing, nothing fancy. A friend of mine who’s a lot richer than I is giving me the use of it for a little while. There will be a car waiting for you at the airport in Eureka, and you’ll drive to Big Rock, where a room will be waiting for you at the Beachcomber Motor Lodge in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Gavin Keoph.”

Karen exchanged another glance with Gavin.

“Yes, you’ll be posing as a newlywed couple interested in possibly moving to Big Rock,” Burgess said. “That will give you a good reason to look around and ask questions. Don’t you think? I’ve had rings made up for you, which is why I wanted your ring sizes. The rings will be delivered here a little later. At least, I
hope
it’s only a little later—it was kind of a last-minute order. Any questions?”

Karen began to fidget. She quickly went over the last few minutes in her mind, everything that Burgess and Harvey had said. She felt a crawling sensation on her skull, as if her scalp were shrinking. People being killed and eaten... people disappearing. Frightening memories from that first nightmarish investigation—

Vampires
...
 

—flashed in her mind. A tremor passed through her, and to hide it from the others, she stood suddenly and began to pace.

Gavin frowned. “Karen?”

“Could we speak to you alone for a moment?” Karen said to Burgess, her voice quiet and quavering.

Eyebrows high with mild surprise, Burgess said, “Sure. Brandy, Harvey, could you step out for a moment?”

Harvey closed his briefcase as Brandy stood and hefted the strap of her satchel over her shoulder. Then went out the door and Brandy pulled it closed behind her.

Burgess stood and faced Karen, frowning. “Is something wrong?”

Karen paced a short distance, back and forth, moving quickly, her fists clenched at her sides.

Gavin stood. “Karen, what is it?”

Finally, she stopped, and turned to face Burgess. “The last two snipe hunts you sent us on were pretty harmless—the haunted house that turned out to be a hoax, the little boy whose demon-possession turned out to be a brain tumor. That’s fine, I can handle that stuff. But
this
.” She started pacing again. “I don’t have to remind you what happened a couple of years ago. In Los Angeles. People died. We were almost killed. So was your wife. Like your wife, I was beaten and ruh... raped. Tortured. Now you want us to get involved in this... this
whatever
it is? Where people are being mauled?
Eaten
? Unless there’s something you haven’t told us yet, that doesn’t sound very harmless. Not harmless at
all
.”

“Karen,” Burgess said as he stepped forward, reached out and touched her arm. When she stopped pacing and faced him again, he placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “Karen, what happened that first time—I’ve told you how I felt about... what that
did
to me. It’s not something I take lightly. I’m not going to let anything like that happen again. I promise. I
swear
. I’m not sending you into this blindly. Whatever it is that’s happening in Big Rock, you will be prepared for it.” He dropped his hands to his side, then turned to include Gavin. “You’ll be sufficiently armed, I assure you. That’s why I’ve borrowed my friend’s jet. You can’t very well take a commercial flight when you’re as armed as you’ll be. You’ll have everything you need to protect yourselves, including silver bullets. Just in case. And this time, I’m prepared for the worst. If things get too sticky—if they even
look
like they’re getting sticky—I’ve got reinforcements to send in. They’ll join you if necessary.” He looked back and forth between them for a moment.

Karen still felt tense, still had a knot in her gut. She couldn’t shake the bad feeling she had about going to Big Rock. Burgess seemed to sense this and smiled warmly at her.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

“I don’t... I don’t know,” she said.

“The weapons and reinforcements aren’t all,” Burgess said. “I’ll make this even more worth your while than usual with a fifty percent increase in your normal pay.”

Gavin blinked with surprise. He gave her a look that said,
That’s a lot of money.

Karen sighed, thought about it a moment. “On one condition.”

“Anything,” Burgess said.

She said, “If we get there and this doesn’t feel right... if I think it’s dangerous, or if, for any reason, I feel uncomfortable with it, we back out.”

Burgess considered that. “In that case, you would forfeit your pay, of course.”

“Of course,” Karen said with a nod. “Just so you know—I’m not walking into another deadly clusterfuck like the one in Los Angeles.”

“No clusterfucks, I promise.” Burgess smiled at them. “Well. Do we have a deal?”

Karen and Gavin held a long, silent look, then she said to Burgess, “All right. We have a deal.”

CHAPTER THREE

Emergency Room

Dr. Abel Dinescu took a moment to tear open the wrapper of a granola bar. His unexpected double shift in the Sisters of Mercy Emergency room had kept him from eating since lunch, and it was well past dinnertime. He’d just treated a sixty-eight-year-old man with breathing problems who had seemed surprised by Abe’s suggestion that perhaps his four-pack-a-day habit had something to do with it. As he chewed a bite of granola, he realized the ER was empty. Maybe he could sneak off to the cafeteria for a quick hot meal.

He should have been home three hours ago, but his relief, Dr. Seth Fulton, had not showed up. He hadn’t called to say he wasn’t coming in, which was unusual for Seth, a stickler for protocol and typically considerate of others, not the type to blow off a night’s work and not tell anyone. He was vaguely worried about Seth, wondering what had become of him.

Abe stopped a passing nurse. “Irene, has anyone heard from Seth?”

“Not a word. Maggie’s called his house, his cell phone—nothing.”

He frowned, and when he spoke, his words were touched by the slightest lingering ghost of his Romanian accent. “You haven’t heard anything, have you? I mean... well, you and Seth—”

Irene was a petite woman in her early thirties and wore scrubs like all the nurses—hers were a powder blue. She smiled and said, “We only went out on one date, Dr. Dinescu. Nothing more. I’m afraid I’m not one of Dr. Fulton’s many conquests, so I have no idea where he might be. We’re trying to track down Dr. Rodriguez and bring him in to relieve you.”

Abe smiled and nodded. “Okay, thanks.” As Irene walked away, he wrapped the granola bar up and stuffed it into the pocket of his white coat, then went to find Maggie, the ER charge nurse. They almost collided in the doorway that led to the office.

“Maggie, I’m going down to the cafeteria for—”

“I don’t think so, Dr. Dinescu,” she said. “We’ve got incoming.” She was a short, slender woman in her forties who always moved rapidly and spoke in clipped, staccato rhythms, as if constantly in a hurry. Her eyes were bright behind her large glasses. She held a clipboard. “The call just came in. Motorcyclists.”

Abe sighed, took the granola bar back out of his pocket.

“Seems a moving van blew a tire, lost control, swerved into the other lane and ploughed into four motorcycles. The driver of the van wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and went through the windshield when he hit a tree.”

“What’ve we got?” he said, then took another bite of the bar.

Maggie looked at the clipboard. “Two of the bikers weren’t too severely injured, mostly minor stuff. The other two are in bad shape. Severe abrasions, lacerations, blood loss. Possible ruptured spleen and other internals. One of them lost consciousness for awhile, then regained consciousness but is disoriented and incoherent. The other is experiencing respiratory distress, numbness in the right arm, compound fracture of the femur, and has—”

Abe listened to Maggie read off the list of injuries as he ate his granola bar. He wished he were at home. Claire had fixed chicken parmesan, one of his favorites. She was a school teacher, off for the summer. She loved to cook, and she was good at it, a collector of recipes, a regular viewer of the Food Network, always trying out new dishes or improving old favorites. If he were home now, he’d be in front of the TV with Claire and Illy, his belly full and warm, sipping some wine, maybe watching an old movie, letting the day flow out of him.

A year before they’d left San Bernardino, Claire’s first pregnancy had ended in a miscarriage. They’d waited longer than most to have a child, wanting to make sure their financial security and home situation were firm. By the time Claire became pregnant, they’d already begun to grow tired of San Bernardino. It was an ugly city in a hot desert. They’d spoken often of living near the ocean in a small town, someplace quiet and clean. During a vacation, they’d taken a long coastal road trip and had fallen in love with the northern California coast. After the miscarriage, Claire had become depressed. She’d admitted to Abe that their surroundings did not help at all. They’d reached a quick decision. Abe immediately went to work making the arrangements. Since moving to Big Rock, Claire’s spirits had climbed. The area was very therapeutic. Abe vastly preferred his job at Sisters of Mercy—it was smaller, quieter, and less stressful.

He finished the granola bar, tossed the wrapper into a nearby waste can and brushed off his hands. He opened his mouth to speak but stopped when Winona, the receptionist who worked the front window, stepped up to them.

“I reached Dr. Rodriguez and he’s on his way in.” She turned and headed back to her station.

“Good,” Abe said with some relief. To Maggie, he said, “Okay, let’s get ready for them.” When he turned to go back into the treatment area, he found there was no time to prepare. The EMTs rushed in pushing the gurneys ahead of them. Suddenly there was blood everywhere—on the EMTs, spattering onto the pale tile floor—and someone cried out in agonizing pain. As he headed toward the mess, Abe heard another voice speak behind him.

“Just got a call from a mother on the way in with her son. He was mauled by an unidentified animal.”

Abe stumbled slightly as he looked back at Winona, thinking,
another animal attack? What the hell is
out
there?