Authors: Tim Waggoner
“Undercurrent? More like raging rapids.”
“Indeed. This is due in large part to the fact that Lenora blames Marshall for driving Charlotte away. At least, that’s all she’ll admit to aloud. But I know she suspects Marshall of killing Charlotte. She wasn’t one of the family before she married Marshall, you know. The Cross family is widespread enough to permit distant cousins to marry without unfortunate genetic repercussions for their children. But from time to time we need to bring new blood into the fold. Lenora believes that Marshall never truly loved her mother, but rather used her like an animal, for breeding purposes.”
“From the way you’re talking, that’s sure what it sounds like.”
“Quite frankly, it was — to me. But not to Marshall. My son truly loved Charlotte. But though the poor girl tried, she wasn’t able to adjust to being a Cross.”
Joanne remembered the highly charged atmosphere of repressed violence she’d sensed within the walls of Sanctity. “I can imagine.”
Althea raised a single eyebrow at the gibe before continuing. “So she left — of her own free will. Marshall wanted desperately to go after her, but I forbade him. I knew it would only make matters worse, you see.”
Joanne
didn’t
see, but she decided not to worry about that right now. “Why haven’t you told this to Lenora?”
“I have. Many times. The child says she believes me, but she doesn’t. I doubt she ever will.” The woman lowered her gaze, and though there was nothing in her physical appearance to suggest it, Althea Cross suddenly looked old to Joanne, as if the full weight of all the years she’d lived — and more — had settled on her all at once, like dark birds come home to roost after too brief a flight.
“Does Marshall know how Lenora feels?” Joanne found herself in the extremely odd position of feeling sympathy toward Marshall. He always seemed supremely self-possessed, confident, and in complete control of whatever situation he was in. But Althea had shown her a different side to Marshall — assuming the woman was telling the truth, and Joanne’s gut said she was.
“Of course he knows. How could he not? But he rarely speaks of the matter, even to me. He’s a proud man, my son. Too much so for his own good at times.”
“While I appreciate the insight into your family, why tell me all this? I don’t see how it relates to either Ray Porter’s murder of the break-in at the Caffeine Café.”
Althea shrugged. “Perhaps it doesn’t relate. But then your friend Mr. Ramsey would say that all information is useful, one way or another, would he not?”
This time Althea’s mentalist act didn’t faze Joanne in the least. She’d almost come to expect it.
“Maybe so.” Joanne stood. “If there’s nothing else …”
Althea turned to look out into the dark and the rain. “I wish I could be of more help to you, child. But in many ways Cross County is like a house of cards. Unless one moves with exacting precision and has a light touch, the whole structure will collapse.” She turned back to Joanne and smiled. “But that’s why we have you, my dear, isn’t it?”
Of everything Joanne had seen and heard since driving through Sanctity’s main gate, this statement chilled her like nothing else, though she had no idea why.
Joanne wasn’t able to form a reply, so she merely nodded, opened her umbrella, and stepped out into the rain. As she walked away from the gazebo — moving at a faster pace than usual — she heard Althea call out.
“It was good to see you again, dear!”
• • •
The rain had fallen off to a light drizzle by the time Lenora took to her bed. Her quarters were larger than some people’s homes. She only lacked a complete kitchen, though she did have a mini fridge and a microwave. She had a full bath, and her closet was practically a room in and of itself. Her bed was a huge four-poster with an overstuffed mattress, silk sheets, and far too many pillows. Her comforter was made of ermine, and though she thought the idea of it was disgusting on principle, she would never give it up without a fight to the death. With such luxuriously comfortable accommodations, Lenora rarely had trouble falling asleep and staying that way throughout the night.
But tonight was different.
She had a great deal on her mind, not the least of which was her interrogation by the sheriff and that tag-along reporter. After they’d left, her father had assured her that she’d done fine and that there should be any further problems. She wished she could believe him, could
trust
him. But she didn’t and never would. So she set her alarm, turned out the lights, crawled beneath her ermine and silk, and stared up at the ceiling. Her thoughts swirled in a confusing tumult, and she wished she could give herself a push to calm her unquiet mind. But she couldn’t, so she was forced to rely on other more mundane techniques. She concentrated on breathing slowly and evenly, and instead of trying to reign in her unruly thoughts, she allowed them to roam where they would. Eventually, sooner than she expected, her eyelids began to grow heavy and a pleasantly numbing drowsiness settled on her. She was on the verge of sleep, about to tumble off the edge into nothingness, when she sensed a presence in her room.
Her eyes snapped open and she turned her head to see a dark form standing at the side of her bed.
She felt a surge of fear in the center of her chest, but she immediately fought it down. She was a Cross. Her family weren’t simply masters of fear. They
were
fear.
“Father, is that you?”
The possibility that her nocturnal visitor might be an intruder never occurred to her. She couldn’t conceive of anyone being able to break into Sanctity — and if by some unimaginable miracle someone
did
manage to gain entrance, he or she would never survive long enough to reach this far. She rather hoped her visitor was her would-be suitor from earlier tonight in the Solarium. Sebastian from Atlanta. But it wouldn’t do to call out
his
name first, especially if it
was
her father come to check up on her.
But when the figure spoke, its voice belonged neither to her father or her prospective paramour.
“Hi, Lenora.”
The fear came rushing back now, and this time she didn’t try to dispel it. She reached out with her mind and pushed at the intruder.
“Get out.
Now.”
But the intruder didn’t turn and leave. He just stood there, a shadow among shadows.
“Sorry. That won’t work on me.” A pause. “Not anymore.”
Though she couldn’t see the intruder’s face in the darkness, she heard the grin in his voice. She drew in air to scream, but before she could release any sound, the figure clamped a hand over her mouth. His flesh was cold and slick, like a serpent’s skin.
“I need your help — ”
She still couldn’t make out his features, but somehow she knew that his grin stretched wider than humanly possible.
“ — Sis.”
Deep within the farthest recesses of her soul, Lenora silently released the scream that had been building inside her. It was only the first of many.
No one was watching the Caffeine Café. Why would they? Not only was it late, but the business had remained closed since the break-in last evening. Evidently the Sheriff’s Department put little faith in the old maxim of the criminal returning to the scene of the crime. Too bad for them.
Yellow crime-scene tape stretched across the doorway, forbidding entrance to the world. A single quick swipe of a sharp instrument was all it took to remove the ineffective barrier, and a well-placed kick to the door took care of the lock, just like in the movies. The sharp instrument was tucked back into a pocket, next to a book of matches, and its wielder bent down to pick up a plastic container sitting on the ground. It was heavy and liquid sloshed inside as it was lifted.
A smile, and then the figure in the hooded sweatshirt carried the gasoline inside.
• • •
Tyrone loved the way the streets looked after a night’s rain. The streetlights’ fluorescent glow painted the asphalt with a liquid shimmer, and the air remained charged by the lingering power of the storm. The whole world seemed renewed, and for a short time he could forget the things he’d seen, forget his self-imposed role as the county’s witness and just be a man, out alone in the night, glad to be alive.
Tyrone crouched behind a hedge at the front of the Duvalls’ house — a nondescript ranch in a solidly middle-class neighborhood. He had to be careful to stay well hidden whenever he observed anything in the suburbs. He was a fixture in town, part of the local color, and thus tolerated as long as he kept to downtown. But when he wandered into residential areas, he ceased being a local eccentric and suddenly became a prowler or peeping tom, and the phones as the Sheriff’s Department started ringing. He enjoyed the challenge of remaining unseen in the burbs, and he sometimes came here just to keep his skills sharp. But he wasn’t here for practice, not tonight.
He’d chosen to conceal himself behind a hedge on the east end of the Duvalls’ house, as far away from their glowing porch light as he could get and still have a good view of the house across the street. There was nothing remarkable about its outward appearance — another in a long line of ranches on either side of Warwick Lane, this one with white-painted brick, black shutters, no trees in the yard, and a small flower bed up close to the house. What made this ranch special was who lived in it: Debbie Coulter.
Through a gap in the hedge, Tyrone could see a sheriff’s cruiser parked at the curb, the deputy inside no doubt here to keep watch over Debbie’s place, in case her attacker from last night returned. This was also the reason Tyrone was here, even though he ran the additional risk of being mistaken for Debbie’s attacker should he be spotted. But that was all right. A bit of extra risk only added to the challenge.
Debbie’s front porch light was on, as was the light above the garage door. No other lights were on, something Tyrone found surprising. He’d observed people after they’d experienced traumatic or violent events before, and for at least several days afterward they kept lights on inside their homes, no matter the lateness of the hour. Sometimes they kept all the lights on, often for weeks or, more rarely, months. But Debbie’s windows were dark. She was home. He was sure of that. Otherwise the deputy wouldn’t be sitting outside her house. Tyrone wondered if Debbie was trying to show the world — and of course her attacker — that she couldn’t be intimidated. Or perhaps, being the mother of Carl the Cutter, she was more familiar with violence than most and not so deeply disturbed by it. He wondered if she were asleep, and if so, what dreams might plague her. Or was she awake, lying in bed and listening for the slightest of sounds — a crack of breaking glass, a squeal of a window being raised, stealthy footfalls sounding on her carpet?
Tyrone had no interest in preventing an assault on Debbie or revealing the identity of her attacker. He wasn’t here to see justice done. Indeed, he wasn’t certain the concept held any real meaning beyond an abstraction school children were programmed to believe in. Tyrone was here to watch whatever occurred, for good or ill. Despite Dale and Marshall Cross seeking information from him earlier, Tyrone preferred to remain as uninvolved as possible. A true observer never —
Before Tyrone could finish the thought he saw the cruiser’s headlights flick on and heard the sound of its engine roaring to life. Tires squealed as the vehicle pulled away from the curb, rooftop lights flashing, siren whooping. The cruiser accelerated as it raced down Warwick Lane, and then it was gone.
Tyrone felt a pang of disappointment, followed by frustration. Obviously, the deputy was responding to an emergency of some sort, and that could only mean one thing. Tyrone had chosen the wrong vantage point from which to observe tonight. There was no way he could catch up to the deputy on foot, not in time to witness whatever events had drawn him away from his surveillance, but if he hurried, he might be able to observe the aftermath. He started to rise from his hiding place, but then he heard a soft snap, like the sound of a twig being stepped on, and he froze, breath caught in his throat.
The Duvalls weren’t known for immaculate lawn care, and leaves and twigs were scattered about their yard. The sound had come from around the side of the house — the side closest to where Tyrone crouched. He held his breath and listened closely, but he didn’t hear anything else. He told himself that it was probably just an animal, a cat or rabbit, raccoon or possum. Even in the suburbs there was an abundance of nocturnal animal life.
But he didn’t believe it. He’d lived in Cross County too long and seen too much.
He was up and moving before the hand came reaching toward him. Though his decades as a watcher had taught him to move with silent grace, he wasn’t a young man anymore, and he doubted he could run swiftly enough to escape his attacker in the open. Instead he shuffled sideways alongside the house, between the row of hedges and the brick, hoping whoever had made a grab for him was too large to follow — and unless he’d lived a lifetime on the streets without regular meals like Tyrone, he was bound to be.
Tyrone was halfway to the Duvalls’ porch when a man-shaped silhouette appeared on the other side of the hedge and made another grab for him. Tyrone ducked and his attacker’s gloved hands scraped against brick, eliciting a muffled curse from their owner. Tyrone crouched behind the laughingly inadequate protection of the hedge like a small frightened mammal that knew it couldn’t escape and that the best it could hope for was a swift death. Tyrone was a master of concealment and evasion, but he knew those skills wouldn’t save his life now. Fighting instinct so deeply ingrained it might as well have been inborn, he burst through the hedge, dashed past the shadowy figure, and ran across the Duvalls’ yard toward the street. As he ran he didn’t look back to see if he was pursued. He knew he was.
Motion across the street caught his eye, and he saw the curtains part in Debbie Coulter’s picture window. He felt a desperate surge of hope. She
was
awake, and she was watching. If he could make it to her house, she’d let him in, and he’d be safe. They’d lock his pursuer out, and she’d call the sheriff, and then —