Mark Smith - The Inquisitor

“Videos like what?”

“It doesn’t matter. But just so you understand, Ezra, your father left you alone because he felt the videos were very important, and didn’t want Hall to get them. He had some extremely hard choices to make. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I have to make a call,” Geiger said, and started down the steps.

Hall watched from the woods as Mitch ran to a huge beech tree and then disappeared behind its massive trunk. The tree’s heavy shadow stretched to within a few feet of the house’s back door.

“See me?” Mitch whispered.

“Yes.”

Then Hall saw Geiger walking down the steps and into the front yard, dabbing at something in his hand.

“Geiger’s out of the house,” Hall said. “Front yard. I think he’s making a call.”

Hall’s cell vibrated inside his pocket, against his upper thigh. “Jesus,” he whispered, “I think he’s calling me.”

“Don’t answer,” Mitch said.

“No, I’m going to-we can use this. Hold on.”

Hall took out his earbud and pulled his cell from his pocket. “Hello,” he said.

“It’s Geiger.”

“You’re taking your sweet fucking time with the exit code, Geiger. You said you’d call me in half an hour, remember?” Hall watched Geiger walk in a tight circle, two hundred feet away.

“I met with Matheson. I have the discs.”

“Go on,” said Hall.

“I’m going to keep them.”

“Unwise, Geiger. Very.”

“The boy is going to meet his mother soon. After that, as long as Ezra remains safe and unharmed, no one will ever see what’s on the discs. That is the deal.”

“I don’t do deals, Geiger. That’s not part of my job. Now, when do I get the goddamn code so we can get out of your fucking house?”

“I’ll call again.”

Hall watched Geiger jab his phone, and the call ended.

As Geiger came back into the house Harry was walking out of the first-floor bedroom, shaking his head.

“You find her?” Harry called out.

Geiger heard footsteps above them, and Ezra appeared at the top of the stairway.

“Nope, she’s not up here,” the boy said, coming down the stairs.

Harry glanced at Geiger. “She’s gone.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. You two were outside, and I closed my eyes for a few minutes…”

“Ezra,” said Geiger. “Go look for a flashlight in the kitchen drawers.”

The boy hurried off, and Harry slumped against the doorjamb.

“She hasn’t gone far, Harry,” Geiger said. “You take the front yard, I’ll go out back.”

“No,” said Harry, looking down at Geiger’s leg. “You stay here. Ezra and I can look.”

“I’m all right, Harry.”

“Are you serious, Geiger?”

“I’ll go slow and-”

Harry’s fist suddenly swung out and hammered the wall. “ Stop! Just-stop, okay? I don’t need you falling down out there and blacking out. Looking for one train wreck in the dark is going to be hard enough, all right?”

Geiger stared back at him, and then slowly nodded.

Hall was waiting for the click, that moment when everything merged-situational prep, timing, intuition, adrenaline flow.

“Go ahead, Mitch,” he said. “The phone lines.”

Mitch came into sight from behind the beech, a charcoal phantom that stopped just short of a pool of light around the back door.

Hall’s gaze skidded left; Harry was coming down the front steps, flashlight in hand.

“Lily!” Harry called.

“Christ,” said Hall.

“What’s wrong?” said Mitch.

Hall’s eyes swiveled again as the back door opened and Ezra walked out. Mitch became a statue, standing in the black shadows not twenty feet away. Ezra turned, his back to Mitch now, and peered into the night.

“Lily!” the boy shouted.

“He doesn’t see you,” Hall whispered. “Go back. Go.”

Mitch stepped away from the door, and the shadows swallowed him back up.

“Now do not fucking move.”

Hall shifted his focus again. Harry left the light cast by the front windows and the ground lamps, his flashlight’s beam carving a funnel in the darkness and moving off toward the woods.

“Fuck,” said Hall. “Geiger’s still inside. We need them all in one place.”

Ezra was slowly turning around, toward the beech tree.

“Lily!” the boy called.

The sky exploded with brilliant, sparkling stars of red, white, and blue. Hall flinched and then looked toward the river. A second later a loud boom knocked a hole in the night. Faint echoes of a crowd’s cheers reached them as the stars descended, splashing the lawn with muted light.

“Un… fucking… believable,” whispered Hall.

With Ezra looking skyward, Mitch slid sideways toward the cover of the tree trunk. But as the fireworks faded, Ezra turned back toward the beech. Then he stepped forward and stood just under the spread of the fifteen-foot branches.

“Lily?”

“He’s coming toward you, Mitch,” whispered Hall. “Do what I say. Not before.” He watched Ezra approach the trunk. “Coming on your right. Wait.”

Standing with his back to the tree, Mitch heard the boy stop a few feet from the giant trunk.

“Lily?” Ezra said softly. “You there?”

Mitch heard the boy take a few more steps.

“He’s at the base of the tree, Mitch,” Hall whispered in his ear. “Starting to peek around the trunk. Take one full step left-now.”

Mitch moved his back off the bark but kept his fingertips anchored. He took a step.

“Don’t be scared, Lily. It’s just me, Ezra.”

Hall whispered again. “He’s going a step at a time. He doesn’t want to spook her. Get ready to take another step left… Go.”

Mitch moved. He almost laughed aloud: a dozen years of hard work had come to a game of hide-and-seek with a twelve-year-old. He heard a buzz and felt a mosquito land on his cheek; he stayed perfectly still as the proboscis dug into his skin and started to feed.

“Get ready,” Hall said. “Left one step. Go.”

Mitch took another single side step.

“Lily?” Ezra said.

Mitch heard the boy sigh, and then his steps sounded like they were moving away.

“Okay,” Hall whispered, “looks like he’s leaving.”

Mitch let out a deep breath, leaned back against the tree, and took particular satisfaction in crushing the mosquito on his cheek.

But then he heard more movement, steps coming back toward the tree.

Hall was suddenly alive in Mitch’s ear. “Fuck. Mitch, he’s coming-”

“Lily?” Ezra’s head peeked around into Mitch’s view. “Are you-?”

Mitch grabbed him by the collar and slammed him up against the tree. His other hand clamped down tight over his mouth.

“Not one sound,” he hissed.

“Easy, Mitch!” Hall said in his ear.

Even in the dim light under the tree, Mitch could see Ezra’s eyes shining with fear.

“I mean it, kid. One sound and I’ll break your neck. Understand me?”

Mitch felt the boy nod beneath his hand.

“All right, Richie,” Mitch said. “It’s chicken salad time.”

“Don’t hurt the kid,” Hall replied. “I’m on my way.”

Lily came out of the trees. The night was alive with sound and light. She slipped off her shoes and felt the high grass underfoot, the blades working their way between her toes as she walked. She stopped at the bank of the river. She could hear it as it ran past.

The sky suddenly roared and gave birth to a new moon. Fully grown, beaming, the moon sent its children flying into the night, a thousand of them, singing, laughing, racing one another down to the water.

Lily could hear her own voice singing-young, silky, wrapping itself around her like a caress.

“Way down below the ocean…”