If Mother was still in the bedroom, that meant she had yet to speak to Mrs. Carter. This was good too, for I wanted to take part in that discussion, providing I was permitted.
Father would probably wake soon, and I knew he would likely have a tremendous headache with an appetite of equal proportion following quickly on its heels, so I set upon the kitchen to make breakfast. Twenty minutes later I had a plate of toast slathered in butter, sliced oranges, and a skillet of eggs scrambled with American cheese on our little table.
As a child to the pied piper, Mother emerged from the bedroom with a yawn and took her seat. “Did you make coffee?”
I had, in fact, made coffee, so I set a cup in front of her and filled it to the rim. Added two lumps of sugar and a hint of cream.
“Thank you.”
From his spot on the couch, Father groaned and awoke. He lowered his feet to the floor and wiped at his tired, red eyes. “What time is it?” His voice was hoarse, filled with gravel.
“Eight oh seven,” I told him. “Would you care for breakfast, Father?”
He nodded and stood, stretching before the large living room window. “Oh, my.”
Father was staring outside, his face slack and pale. “Take a look at this.”
Mother and I walked over and joined him. I felt a fist reach around my heart and squeeze.
The Carters’ Dodge Aries was back in their driveway. Both doors were open, and the clothing I had so carefully packed was strewn around the yard and driveway. Not just their yard and driveway, but ours as well. I spotted a shirt hanging from the large hackberry tree on the corner of our property; tennis shoes and flip-flops adorned Mother’s prize rosebush, and—
Oh my. Father’s Porsche. The black convertible top was down, and the passenger door stood ajar. Father would never leave his top down overnight unless the car was garaged, and leaving the door open under any circumstance was unacceptable.
Father pushed past us and ran outside. I tried to stop him, fearful that whoever had done this (most likely Mr. Stranger and his friend, but I wasn’t one to jump to conclusions) may still be out there, but I was not strong enough to hold him back.
As I approached the car, I realized the top wasn’t down—it was no longer there. Someone had cut it away with ragged strokes of a blade and shoved the remains of the cloth behind the driver’s seat.
The damage didn’t stop there.
All four tires were flat. I inspected the one nearest to me and had no trouble discovering where the knife had entered the rubber. There were two punctures directly in the sidewall, eliminating any chance of patching the tire. It would need to be replaced. I assumed the others were in similar condition.
Both headlights were smashed. Bits of glass littered the bumper and the driveway. The taillights too. Someone had kicked them in or hit them with a bat. It was hard to tell which.
How had they done such a thing without making any noise? Surely we would have heard something like this?
Words were scrawled into the paint, foul words, nasty words. And the seats? The knife that had made quick work of the top and tires had found its way into the plush black leather and sliced it away in thin strips, releasing a flurry of stuffing upon the interior.
I noticed that the hood of the car was slightly ajar at about the same time Father did, and both of us reached for it and lifted it up. The wires leading to the battery had been pulled and reversed, all but guaranteeing that every electrical component in the car had been destroyed. I could still smell the sulfur in the air. The damage from such a maneuver would have been instant, but the culprit had taken the time to tighten the wires back down in their reversed position anyway, ensuring the most destruction. The battery had burst under the stress, and sulphuric acid had boiled out from the casing vents at the top, dripping down over the spare tire and toolkit Father kept in the front trunk.
The rear trunk was open too. The oil fill cap was missing, as was the one that belonged on the coolant tank. Nearly a pound of sugar coated the surface of both. No doubt it had been poured in each tank.
We found more sugar around the lip of the gas tank.
Father could only stare.
His eyes were fixed on his beloved Porsche, and his hands trembled at his sides.
Mother’s car hadn’t fared much better. Her Ford Tempo had four flat tires, and the hood was up.
I looked around for the green Plymouth, but there was no sign of it.
Mother was facing the Carter house. The front door was open.
66
Porter
Day 2 ? 4:40 p.m.
The phone on the table beside Porter’s hospital bed came to life, ringing so loudly he flinched. His leg barked in pain. He cringed and rubbed at the fresh stitches in his thigh, then reached over and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“How you feeling, Sam?” the man who had been Paul Watson and was now Anson Bishop asked him. There was a strange confidence in his voice that hadn’t been there before. Porter knew this was the real man, that the Watson persona had been nothing more than a fa?ade.
“I feel like someone tried to kill me,” Porter replied, his free hand unconsciously returning to the wound on his leg.
“I didn’t try to kill you, Sam. If I had, you’d be dead. Why would I try to kill my favorite player in the game?”
Porter looked around the hospital tray and nightstand for his cell phone, then remembered Bishop had stomped it to pieces back at his apartment. If he could dial headquarters, he could initiate a trace.
“I’m on a burner, Sam. One of those cheap disposables you can pick up at the drugstore. I activated it with a gift card purchased with cash more than a month ago. I imagine you could trace the call if you tried, but what’s the point? In a few minutes the phone will be floating down the Chicago River with all the other trash, and I’ll be miles away.”
“Where’s Emory?”
“Where is Emory?”
“Is she alive?”
No answer.
Porter forced himself to sit up, ignoring the pain. “You don’t need to hurt her. Just tell us what you’ve got on Talbot, and we’ll put him away. You have my word.”
Bishop chuckled. “I believe you would, Sam. I really do. But we both know that’s not how this game is played, is it?”
“Nobody else has to die.”
“Of course they do. How else will they learn?”
“If you kill her, you’re doing evil, Bishop. That makes you no better than the rest of them,” said Porter.
“Talbot is scum. He’s a green, oozing infection on this world, something that should be cut away and discarded before it destroys the surrounding tissue.”
“Then why hurt Emory? Why not just kill him?”
Bishop sighed. “Pawns must be sacrificed for the king to fall.”