Halloween.
Caden was speechless. He could see it now, military time stamped with the month and day. Damn, if the stupid thing didn’t make sense. He didn’t buy some make-believe alien named Cold would pop into existence at that hour, but the code was clever. A little too clever for Parker Kline, if the kid was as feeble-minded as he’d been led to believe.
Ryan exhaled loudly and slumped into a chair against the wall. Caden could read the expression on his face: This bullshit is over my head.
If it weren’t for his connection to the Mothman and what had just happened in the igloo, Caden might feel the same way. But it was hard to discount a visitor from another world while bonded to a creature with no face and red eyes. Thank God, Jerome didn’t share his room with another patient or they might all end up in West Central.
“The thirty-first is a little over a week from now,” Katie pointed out.
Jerome glanced between them. “Look, I know you probably think I’m whacked, and maybe I am a bit gone on the conspiracy stuff and UFOs, but this is for real.” He slapped the paper emphatically. “I don’t remember what happened after I left Parker, but I think someone followed me. Someone who wanted this information.” Another tap to the paper. “I think maybe I was scared and driving too fast. That’s why I went off the road. And that Deputy Brown guy?” He rubbed a bony hand over the back of his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I think he was one of them. When he realized I didn’t have what he wanted, he let me go.”
“But you ended up here. In a coma,” Katie protested.
“I think they messed with my head, then dumped me somewhere nearby.”
“They?” The story was sounding crazier by the minute, but Caden couldn’t let it go.
As if sensing he’d reeled them in, Jerome continued fervently. “You don’t think there aren’t guys out there monitoring the skies and airwaves, wanting to make sure all this UFO stuff is kept hush-hush? Not just government types, but others too. Shadow organizations. They’ve got the resources and know-how to pose as law enforcement or military. A lot of them are even connected to the military, working under the radar. Think of the panic that would set in if people knew aliens could breach our air space. Can’t have that, can we? What do you think the Mothman is?”
“Jerome, enough.” Caden held up a hand to stop the torrent of information. Jerome was breathing heavily even with the plastic hose supplying a steady stream of oxygen. All they needed was to get kicked out of the hospital for agitating a patient or causing him to have a setback. “Take it easy. Getting uptight can’t be good for your condition.”
“But I don’t have a condition.” Jerome’s eyes bulged as he tried to stress the point. “I’m telling you, those guys did something to my head. Maybe they gave me a drug you can’t trace. Then they dumped me here because they didn’t need me anymore. Parker’s going to be a lot harder to get, but they’ll go after him next.”
“Parker’s not in West Central.” Caden hated admitting the truth. “He escaped.”
Jerome’s face drained of color. His mouth opened and closed like a fish gulping air. Then with a great bark of laughter, he collapsed against his pillows. “And you don’t believe in Indrid Cold? How the hell do you think he got out of there? Cold took him away.”
“We’re done here.” Ryan stood up.
“Wait.” Caden motioned for his brother to stay where he was. Jerome looked immensely pleased with himself. The scrawny man’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. Caden didn’t believe Cold had zapped to Earth and snatched Parker from his hospital room, but Jerome clearly had an inside track to Parker’s mindset. It was possible he knew even more that could prove beneficial. “Do you know someone named Lach Evening?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear Parker mention that name?”
“No.”
“Jerome.” Katie coiled her fingers around his arm where it rested on the rollaway table. While Caden was frustrated, and Ryan appeared ready to write the whole thing off as lunacy, she seemed willing to give Jerome the benefit of the doubt. “Even if we believe you about the message, it’s incomplete.” She indicated the slip of paper. “It gives a date and a time, but not a place.”
“I know.” He seemed to deflate with the words. “Cold did something to Parker that made him the way he is now. Parker believed he was coming back to set things right. He created an opening for him with those blocks of paper he was always drawing—kind of like a beacon so Cold could find him.”
“So you want us to believe he stepped through a drawing into Parker’s room and took the kid with him to Lanulos?” Ryan’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Jerome’s face turned red. “Mock if you will, but Parker opened a bridge. Cold can only manifest in physical form when alignments between dimensions are precise. Parker found a way to reach him outside of that boundary using the noise in his head.”
“Then what you’re saying is that Parker is no longer on Earth?” Unlike Ryan, Katie did not appear judgmental.
Jerome nodded.
“Then why the code?” Caden asked. “Why the date Cold is supposed to return?”
“Because that’s when he can materialize. It has something to do with ley lines and the folds between worlds. Cold gave the message to Parker over his radio.”
Ryan rolled his eyes.
“Parker’s radio doesn’t work,” Caden said bluntly.
“It doesn’t have to. Not for someone like Cold. He can manipulate frequencies. Most UFOnauts can. People like Parker call it chatter.”