In and out of consciousness—that meant that the blonde woman was not a ghost or an angel. She was alive. She was real; she was flesh and blood.
He wasn’t on a table; he was on a bed. The bandage was still on his arm, but there were no needles or anything else attached to him. He was in a ward of some kind, he thought. Maybe, when it had been a mental institute, this had been where the sick patients had been brought. It had been the infirmary.
Sick patients!
Sicker than usual...
“They took blood from you?” he asked her.
“Yes.”
“To drink?”
“I’m not that kind of worthy,” she said, a bitter amusement in her voice. “I don’t even know. But he’s done it before. He’ll do it again. You can’t fight...you’re very pliable when you have no blood.”
“But we need to fight!”
“Those who fight, die.”
Alex was quiet for a minute, afraid.
“Do they die just because they fight?” he asked.
“They die at the full moon. The full moon is closest, you see. Go figure—it makes the darkness lighter, but it’s when the power of hell is supposed to be the strongest. He wants to bring Satan to earth—or, perhaps, make all his followers believe that he is Satan.”
“Why?”
“Power? Money? All the good things.”
Alex was thoughtful. Blood! They’d bled him. Yes, that would make him weak. He wouldn’t be able to fight. But the person who had attacked him and the others in Boston had not been weak.
She must have been reading his mind.
“Hallucinogenics and other drugs. He makes people forget where they came from. He shows them what will happen to them if they don’t obey. Death is not evil, you see, not in his world. Those who die in the service of the master are rewarded.”
“How...how do you know all this?” he asked her.
“Because I pretend all the time,” she said, and again she laughed softly, and it was a bitter and pained laugh. “Because I have been here...waiting my turn. I’m the sacrifice for what he sees as his high holy day—as soon as he’s exactly in Jehovah.”
“He can’t do that...he doesn’t know where it is. I don’t know where it is!”
“Make him think that you do—or he will kill you. He already doubts you. He has talked about taking your friend. Victoria Preston. She is, you must see, in his mind, perfect. Because she could be the messenger—and the sacrifice!”
“But...” Alex was stunned. He thought about Vickie constantly. He was holding on to the irrational belief that he could communicate with her, that she could somehow hear him when he shouted with his mind. He’d wanted her to find him—and he’d wanted her to stay far away. Both. And now...
“She’s not a virgin!” he said triumphantly. “Not meaning to be rude here or anything, but she sure as hell isn’t a virgin, so she wouldn’t be a good sacrifice!”
“While I don’t know your friend, I doubt it matters if she’s a virgin. That really doesn’t mean anything anymore. He creates his religion as he goes along. He is like any fanatic—he can twist anything into his way of seeing it.”
“We have to escape. That’s all there is to it. Somehow, we have to escape.”
“When you’ve figured out how,” she told him softly, “you let me know. Shush! Someone is coming.”
Someone was coming.
Hooded figures.
“Come along, come along now!” one of them told the woman.
“Yes, yes, of course,” she said, leaning heavily upon the one who spoke.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
“Yes, of course. I am always okay. I am so honored! It is my time to see the master.”
Then they were all gone. And Alex tried to rise and he fell back; he didn’t have the strength.
He began to weep.
He wanted to fight so badly.
He could only fight with his mind.
But then again, throughout his life, his greatest strength had been his mind.
Now, he just needed to figure out how to wage the battle.
*
Vickie was still sitting at the table with Devin, Isaac Sherman, Charlie Oakley and Frank Sanderson when the email came through from Roxanne.
She stared at the picture.
It could only be one man, and that one man was someone she knew—and someone Roxanne had met, as well.
Professor Milton Hanson.
Barnes, she reckoned, hadn’t recognized the man in the picture because he really had no reason to know the professor.
And, Vickie reckoned, Roxanne hadn’t said anything, because of course she and Officer Jim Tracy had worked together to create the likeness.
She must have just been staring at her phone in shock because, this time, Devin kicked her beneath the table. She managed not to cry out, startled.
She was sure that Devin had the same email and just hadn’t seen it yet.
“I think,” she murmured, looking around the table, “that Devin and I have to get back. I’m not sure what our plan is for the day.”
“I hope it’s to find Brenda’s killer,” Isaac said.
“And maybe, in that, Sheena Petrie’s killer, too,” Charlie added.
Frank waved a hand in the air. “Inch by inch—every last acre in the forest by the Quabbin must be searched. My Carly might still be alive.”
They all rose, leaving the table.
Charlie asked, “You’re going to keep me apprised of what’s going on? I may be retired for a long time, but I worked security. I know my way around trouble.”
“Of course!” Devin assured him.
She was looking at her phone, frowning.
Devin had never met Milton Hanson.
Vickie wasn’t going to speak to her until they were alone.
She realized she didn’t trust anyone.
Not even Charlie Oakley.
“Oh, my God!” Vickie said when they were in the car. “The picture—the likeness!”
“Who is it?”
“Milton Hanson. Brilliant professor. Political science, theology and history. He works with Alex, Devin. And the night I was supposed to meet up with Alex at the coffee shop, he was there!”
“Okay...if he was there, how did he have Alex?”
“Because he kidnapped him the night before, and spirited him away somewhere. Smarmy! That’s what my dad always called him. And he wanted to borrow a book. A book I took and hid. I have to get into that book, Devin—”
She broke off.
Her phone was ringing.
And it was Griffin.
“The sketch!” she said.
“Yes, it’s Milton Hanson. I’m trying to stay sane here. Is it possible that Roxanne got the description from the brothers, and twisted it to look like Hanson because she knows him?”
“No. Roxanne is an artist. She would have listened to every word said. She was with Jim, too, and Jim doesn’t know Hanson. Griffin! It’s him. I told you—he’s a smarmy bastard!”
“Smarmy still doesn’t mean murderer.”
“But it could!” Vickie insisted.
“Anyway, we’ve got to head back to Boston,” Griffin said.
“But we just got here. We just found a body in the Quabbin. And, Griffin, when we were at breakfast, we ran into Charlie Oakley—he’s out here.”
“We’re just going so you can talk to Gloria again, to try to stir something. We’ll drive in and drive back. Rocky and Devin will stay here. They can start searching the area. And Wendell Harper is on everything. Plus the state police will still be working while we’re gone.”
“All right. Why do you think that Charlie Oakley is out here, Griffin?” she asked.
“Because the death of Sheena Petrie ruined his life,” Griffin suggested.
“You think...”
“What?”
“You think that there’s any possibility he killed her himself?”
“We have no reason to suspect that,” Griffin said.
“But you don’t think that it’s suspicious that he’s here?”
“Sure. It’s suspicious. Rocky and I are going to meet up with Wendell Harper, then we’ll come back to the bed-and-breakfast for you.”
Vickie hung up and told Devin about her conversation.
“Something has to crack somewhere,” Devin said. “Maybe Gloria will remember something. She’s really the only lead we’ve got—the only living person we now have in custody who might know what’s going on, somewhere in the far reaches of her mind.”
*