Even Steven (45 page)

"Jacob!" he yelled, and took off in the direction of the smoke and the screams, running as fast as he'd ever run, not even worrying about the torn scabs and the purple bruises. There'd be plenty of time to worry about those. Right now, Jacob needed his help.

The closer he got, the quieter the screams became, until the human sounds were gone entirely, and all he could hear was the horrible cackles and shrieks of the chickens. What could possibly be happening? he asked himself, even though he probably already knew. These were sounds of birds being roasted alive.

"Jacob!"

Up close, the thick smoke clung to the ground, rolling around along the grass before lifting off into the sky. The heavy, bitter smell of the gray fog made him feel sick to his stomach. As he rounded the final little mound of earth that separated him from the chicken coop, he stopped dead, in midstride.

Orange flames shot out from everywhere, the entire building completely consumed by fire. Horrified, Samuel watched as half a dozen chickens jumped free from the little windows, their feathers on fire, and scrambled in circles on the ground, making sounds that he'd never even imagined such a bird could make.

"Jacob!"

'Shut up, Samuel, I'm right here."

The voice came from his right, and Samuel whirled to see his big brother sitting on the chopping block, his face locked into an expression Samuel had never seen before or since. Deep wrinkles furrowed Jacob's forehead, right above the spot where his eyebrows nearly touched each other. The way his jaw muscles worked, he looked as though he'd trapped something in his mouth and was trying to keep it from escaping. A five-gallon gas can lay on its side at his feet.

"What happened?" Samuel noticed the blisters on his brother's hands and forearms. "Jacob, you're burned."

"No shit, Sherlock." There also were tiny blisters on his face, where the wispy sideburns he'd been trying to grow had been singed off.

"I heard screaming."

"That was Daddy," Jacob said, just as easily as if Samuel had asked who'd been on the phone. "He had a little accident."

Samuel choked down a wad of panic as he whipped his head around toward the blast furnace that had once been the chicken coop. "Is he going to be all right?"

Jacob laughed, but looked as if he might cry. "Fuck no, he's not all right. He's dead." Jacob stood and pushed past Samuel, on his way back to the house. "Damn shame about the chickens, though."

Back in the days right after he died, his daddy had visited Samuel a lot, trying to tell him that Jacob had set the fire on purpose; that he'd murdered him, just as he'd murdered their mama. He'd say that it was all because of Samuel, too. If he'd been a better son-if he hadn't been such a pansy-assed dummy every fucking day of his life-then his daddy wouldn't have had to be so rough on him.

"Them switchings was for your own good," his daddy used to say. "They was to make you a better boy. If you'd been good to start, then I never would've laid a hand on you."

According to Daddy, Jacob set him on fire because of that last switching. What a stupid thought! Jacob'd never do something like that. Not to somebody Samuel loved. It had happened just like Jacob had told the police when they came by: Daddy had been using the gasoline to get rid of yellow jackets when the idiot drunk had lit a cigarette. The whole place had just gone up so fast.

Samuel remembered how Jacob had offered up his scarred hands and face as proof of his efforts to save their daddy. Jacob had even started to cry when he talked about it. Jacob never cried, for heaven's sake. For him to do that, he had to feel really bad about what had happened. And why would he feel bad if he'd done it on purpose?

Over time, Daddy had stopped visiting Samuel at night, and as the boy grew into a man, and he and Jacob had started their little business with The Boss and others like him, Samuel hadn't thought much about any of this stuff.

On the days when Samuel allowed himself to be brutally honest about everything, he knew very well what their business was all about. Samuel was not as stupid or as dense as people thought he was-or even as he sometimes pretended to be. He knew that these nighttime outings, with all the secrecy and the occasional blood, were sometimes about killing the bad people. Not always, but sometimes. Other times it was just about snot-poundings, but as long as they were picking only on bad people, and not good ones, then Samuel didn't really have much of a problem with that. Especially since he never had to do any of the real work. He just stayed outside and watched things.

He wondered, though, about this stuff with Justin. Jacob said it was a game, and as long as Jacob said it, then it must be true. Take that to the bank. But Samuel didn't much like this notion of stuffing a little boy in a sack and then putting him in that room underground. He didn't like that at all. Part of him wondered just how asleep he really was when the boy got away the first time.

Now that he thought back on it, he could almost remember watching the boy struggle his way out of the hole and take off into the woods. He could almost remember thinking how nice it would be if the boy got away this time.

Of course, that was before Jacob had come up and seen that he was missing. That was before he got so mad and called Samuel all those names and told him to stand still in the woods while he got himself shot.

Those were all really bad memories, and that same part of him that remembered them also wondered why he was going back out to the same woods all over again.

By all indications, it had been a hell of a fight. The railing over the foyer was barely holding itself together anymore, and the bullet hole in the doorframe spoke volumes to Russell. The bags of new children's clothes and toys intrigued him as well. He could understand the furniture in what was obviously the nursery, and the little shrine on the wall explained most of what he needed to know. But what about the stuff that was still in the bags? The ones with the receipts dated today?

"I'm entertaining any theories you might have," Himler said, his arms folded across his chest. Given the location of the violence-in Fairfield County, on his watch-he'd rightfully taken over jurisdiction of whatever crime might have been committed here.

Russell shook his head. "Wish I had one for you."

"So, do you think the Martins were the shooters or the shootees?"

Damned interesting question. Russell still couldn't make the link between what clearly was a foiled kidnapping and all of the bloodshed that had followed. He supposed that the Martins might have surprised an intruder and fired off a shot, but it seemed equally Likely that the intruder surprised them with intent to murder. Of course in the second case, that begged the question, why and how did he flub it up so miserably?

"I don't know what to tell you," Russell said as honestly as he knew how. "For all I know, the Martins were murdered in here tonight, albeit very neatly. Your guys still haven't found any blood, right?"

"There's a tiny little smear on the carpet over there, but the technician says it looks more like the result of a boo-boo than a bullet."

Russell pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to ward off the headache that had started to bloom. "What I need is a way to snap my fingers and be back in Pittsburgh. Whatever's going down here, that seems to be the common denominator."

"What'11 it take, four, five hours to drive?"

"Something like that. But I'm dead on my feet. I probably need to crash someplace for a couple of hours before I head out."

"I can get you a ride," Himler offered.

Russell waved the offer away. "I can't put one of your officers through a drive like that just so I can sleep in the car."

Himler shook his head. "I wasn't talking about a car. I was talking about a helicopter."

WE'LL GET HIM back, Susan. I swear it."

She refused to speak to him. Instead, she stared out the window at the passing darkness, her silence broken only by occasional tears and snuffles.

"Dammit, Susan, don't do this. He was going to kill you!"

"And now he's going to kill Steven," she shot back, her first words in over an hour. "That's what you wanted all along, I suppose."

"Susan!"

"It is."

"Oh, yeah, that's why I've done this whole thing your way. That's because I wanted the boy to die."

"His name is Steven."

"No, it's not. But that's not the point."

"You're right. That's not the point. The point is that you've been trying to get rid of him all day long."

Because he's not ours. Jesus, how many times do I have to say that? He's not ours." "God-"

Yes, God sent him to us. I hear you. I've heard you the thousand times you said it. And maybe He did. Who am I to say otherwise? That doesn't mitigate the fact that you can't just take possession of another human being."

"Well, you killed a human being." Her comment landed like a slap.

But she wasn't done. "There's your big problem. It's not Steven, and it's not me. It's how are you going to get away with killing a police officer? You can't deal with one without the other, you said it yourself. We're good people. Why else would God have created such a dilemma for us if He didn't intend for us to keep the baby?"

"He wasn't a police officer," Bobby said, instantly and deftly changing the subject. "What?"

"The guy in the woods. He wasn't a police officer." "How do you know?"

He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. How exactly was he to explain this? "Well, I guess I don't know. But I know. It's because there's been no mention of it. Not anywhere. Not in the news, not when the FBI guy came to the door this afternoon. If he were really a cop, then we'd have heard something about it by now." "Then who was he?"

Bobby shrugged. "I don't know that either. But remember when he and I were struggling out there in the woods? Remember he kept calling out for Samuel?"

Intrigued, she half-shrugged. "I remember." "Well, I think that Samuel just came and took Steven away." Susan's scowl began to show fear. "But why?" "I suppose to finish off whatever it was that his buddy had started. Whatever we interrupted." "But he had a badge."

Bobby's mind skipped a bit as he kept up with the shift backward in the conversation. "The dead guy, you mean?" "Right."

"Okay, so what? Anybody can have a badge. Go down to the army surplus store, and you can have one, too. It's not like I checked his credentials or anything."

"So what does that mean?"

Again, Bobby paused before answering. "If I'm right, it means that the guy I killed didn't think I was a kidnapper, but rather was a kidnapper himself. He wasn't shooting to protect the boy; he was shooting to get him back."

"So it was self-defence."

Bobby nodded. "If I'm right, I think so, yes."

And that meant that Bobby's instinct about calling the police from the very first had been the correct one; and that but for his cowardice, maybe little Steven would not be in danger all over again.

"So, is that why you think they're heading back to the woods?" Susan asked. "To finish off whatever they were going to do?"

Bobby nodded. "Yes. I certainly think they're out to finish whatever they started, and did you hear what Samuel said to Steven in the hallway? He said they were 'going back.' To me, that means back to where all of this started. I can't begin to guess why, but the good news is, it's not to kill him."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Killing is easy. He could have done that in the house. He could have done that out in the driveway. But he didn't. Whatever he's got planned, it has to take place 'back there.' I'm just hoping that it turns out to be the woods."

They drove in silence for a long time before Susan said, "Do you think we should call the police now?"

Bobby had to laugh. Where was that question ten hours ago? "No, not anymore. I don't think we have the time for it now. If we call it in, they're going to want us to sit down and talk through it all. That takes time, and this guy's got too much momentum to give him any more time than he's already got."

As they drove on through the narrowing roads and deepening woods, Susan found herself watching Bobby drive, just as she'd done last night from the backseat. When he'd sense her gaze and turn, she'd look away, as if staring straight ahead.

Her eyes shifted back to her husband; back to that hard expression that she'd never seen before they lost Steven the first time and now seemed never to leave. She watched the way his jaw muscles flexed, and how his lips seemed almost white from the pressure as he pursed them so tightly.

As if someone had lifted a veil, she realized for the first time what must have gone through these past hours-God, through these past Weeks. That expression on his face said it all. He'd worked so hard to

be the rock that suddenly she wasn't sure that she'd ever given him the room to grieve on his own. He'd been so busy serving as her emotional scaffold that he'd never taken the time to deal with his own feelings.

Suddenly, Susan saw things with a remarkable clarity-a view of the world that was every bit as different as the view she'd seen after finally being fitted with her first pair of glasses. What once seemed fuzzy and confusing now seemed perfectly sharp and utterly self-explanatory. This man who sat opposite her-this man who'd been her best friend since her freshman year in high school, and who had forever endured her efforts to change his style of dress and the jokes he told-was not her