Katie said slowly, “There are a lot of farms and ranches on that end of the valley.”
DeMarco said, “It would probably be a good idea to contact those people. Call if they have a landline. Visit if they don’t. But don’t send a single deputy. Always at least two.”
“To keep an eye on each other,” Katie said.
“It would probably be best. None of us should really be alone out there.” He didn’t look at Galen, even though he and Hollis both knew Galen had never worked with a partner in any true sense and was unlikely to want company while he prowled around.
“Okay. A lot of our people have asked to put in overtime. After Jim . . . Well, they don’t understand what’s happening, but they want to help.”
Hollis said, “Understandable. Problem is, they want to find a bad guy they can put in cuffs and then in a cage. And we just don’t know if that’s what’s behind all this.”
“We’ve got plenty of the normal casework,” Katie said. “Still friends and family of the victims to interview. Neighbors. And now checking on all the places out in the valley. But if we don’t end up with that bad guy, if our people are left with nothing except a lot of unanswered questions, I don’t know how it’ll affect them going forward.”
“Let’s jump off that bridge when we come to it,” Hollis suggested. “Keep your deputies busy doing the work that needs to be done. My team will start searching the valley looking for . . . anomalies. Anything that might point us to the source of the energy. Even places where the very earth might be showing signs of trying to heave itself open. With a little luck, we won’t have to knock on any doors out there, but you might want to alert whoever needs to know that there’ll be strangers out in the valley.”
“I’ll make sure whoever’s on the desk knows, so they can handle any callins.”
“Thanks. If my sense of direction is right, the hospital is on the way out of town toward that end of the valley. Reese and I want to stop and see Leslie Gardner. Even if she’s still sleeping—”
“I don’t think that’ll do you much good.” Archer had emerged from his office and stepped into the doorway of the conference room, catching them all by surprise. Which actually bothered Hollis a lot.
She looked at his very calm face—and more closely at the sickened expression in his eyes. She rose without thinking about it. “What is it, Jack?”
“I just talked to the hospital,” he said in a level, controlled voice. “In the last hour, Leslie Gardner’s vitals have begun to show signs that she’s slipping into a coma. But that’s not why they called me. Apparently, some of their test results showed something . . . odd . . . in her digestive system. So they did X-rays. It took three different techs and two doctors to figure it out, but they finally realized what they were looking at.”
Katie said in a voice that almost wasn’t there, “I’m afraid to ask.”
Archer looked at her. “The youngest Gardner child, Luke. His fingers were missing.”
“Jesus,” Victoria murmured.
“They aren’t missing anymore,” Archer said.
TWELVE
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9
“I wonder if Archer is ever going to be the same after this,” DeMarco said as he drove their SUV through the downtown area of Prosperity.
“You know he won’t be.” Hollis was looking down at their copy of the map with rough “search” grids marked on it. “He grew up in this nice little town. Never expected to have to deal with suicide, murder, filicide, and cannibalism. It’s not exactly all in a day’s work for us either. And that’s saying something.”
“Filicide?”
“I had to look it up.”
“Uh-huh. Your headache’s back.”
She stopped absently rubbing the ache between her eyebrows. “Yes, it is. But starting small today. Maybe it’ll take a while to really begin pounding.”
He sent her a quick, searching glance, then returned his gaze to the road in front of them. “You’re still sure we’re not stopping by the hospital?”
“I don’t even want to get close to the hospital. If you do, let me off somewhere first.”
“She’s pretty much in a coma,” DeMarco reminded his partner.
“Yeah. But I don’t think there’s much research into what coma patients do or don’t think, and do or don’t feel. And I’d rather not start it off with what has to be in her mind.”
“We’ve never had to deal with cannibalism before.”
“No. A psychic able to feed off the energy of another person, which is horrific enough. But a person consuming the flesh of another person, the flesh of her child, is beyond evil.”
“It wasn’t a decision she made. Or a sick need driving her. She wasn’t in control.”
“No. Which is why she went to sleep, and why she’s in a coma, and why she’ll probably die. I don’t want to get close enough to her to have it confirmed, but I think she was aware, Reese. I think whatever this thing is that took over her mind and her actions made her watch what she was doing. Made her know. Made her understand. And when it was over and it let her go, she curled up in a chair and went to sleep.”
“We’ll stop it, Hollis.”
“God, I hope so. And, you know, as horrible as it would be to find someone behind it, I’d rather we found just that. Because transforming or dispersing energy won’t send it to hell.”
“It will if there’s a consciousness guiding it, which seems to be the case. Whether it’s holding the energy or the energy is holding it, removing the energy releases it. One thing you’ve taught me is that there is a hell waiting for evil. This thing is evil. One way or another, it’s going to hell.”
She looked up from the map finally, frowning as she gazed ahead. Then she turned her head and looked at her partner. “That’s true.”
“Yeah. Do me a favor?”
“Sure, what?”
“Stop closing the door on your side.” He glanced at her in time to see her blink.
“Um . . . sorry. It’s just that when I knew what Archer was going to say, the feelings, mine and his . . . I didn’t want you slammed by them too.”
“We’re connected for a reason, Hollis. We share. The bad as well as the good. Remember?”
“Yeah. You’re right. Sorry.”
Thank you.
You’re welcome. Seriously.
DeMarco smiled faintly, then said, “How did Victoria and Logan handle it?”
“You can read Logan. Can’t you?”
“Yeah, but not once Archer began speaking.”
“Horror throws up its own barriers?”
“That’s what he was feeling?”
“Oh, yeah. Both of them. Horrified and sickened beyond belief. I picked up Victoria’s emotions even through her shield.”
“Then I guess horror throws up its own barriers. At least this time.”
“They were both shaken last night after Deputy Lonnagan ran in. They’re even more shaken today. And they didn’t look at bodies yesterday.”
“Probably best,” DeMarco said.
“For all of them, yeah. They might have been able to handle a more . . . conventional . . . investigation their first time out of the gate. And they’ll find a way to handle this one. But not both, I think. Not yet.”
“So we keep them away from bodies and postmortems.”
“If we can. Neither one of them looked at Jill’s report on the Sam Bowers suicide, you know.”
“I thought they probably didn’t. They didn’t want to be cops. The fact that they answered the summons says a lot about their characters.”
“Well, they both seem driven. Maybe just by the need to get this done and over with. Not that I really care, as long as they can focus on the job.”
“They should have time to check out the first grid on their search list before we all meet up back at the hotel. So should we.”
“Yeah. But before we head there, I’d like to get up as high as we can out in the valley. And you should get a really good look at the layout now that we’re inside all the energy. I don’t know if either of us will see anything, but if we do your sense of direction is better than mine.”
* * *
? ? ?