Jeffery Deaver - Speaking In Tongues

He was twenty feet away.

Come on, snaps C.M. Get it together

No choice. It better be this one.

Megan ran to the end of the corridor.

Yes! She’d been right. There was the trap. She crouched down and picked up the end of the rope. At the far end of the corridor Peter paused and glanced toward her.

More muttering. Like an animal. She remembered the newspaper picture: his odd mouth, probing tongue, the crazy eves. The grin at his mother’s funeral.

I’m so fucking scared.

You’re gonna nail him, Crazy Megan says.

In the darkness he didn’t even seem to be walking. He just floated closer to her, growing larger and larger, filling the corridor. He stopped right before the trap. She couldn’t see his eves or face in the shadow hut she knew he was leering at her.

More muttering.

He stepped closer.

Now!

She pulled the rope.

The denim snapped neatly in half. The cinder blocks shifted slightly but stayed where they were.

Oh, no. Oh, Christ, no! That’s it, Crazy Megan cries. It’s over with.

He moved forward another two steps.

She swept the knife from her pocket, looked at his shadowy form.

I’m going to die. This is it. I’m dead. He’ll break my arm, take the knife away from me and fuck me till I die… Megan’s by herself now- Crazy Megan has gone away, Crazy Megan is dead already.

He stepped forward one more foot. The dim light from outside fell on his face.

No…

She was hallucinating.

Megan gasped. “Josh!”

“Megan,” he mumbled again. Joshua LeFevre’s face and neck were bloody messes, his hands, arms and legs too. Large patches of skin were missing from his arms and legs. He dropped to his knees.

Just as the cinder blocks started to tumble toward him. He glanced hopelessly at the hundreds of pounds of concrete and didn’t even try to get out of the way.

“No!” Megan cried.

She leapt forward and pushed him aside. The blocks just missed them both and crashed into the floor, firing splinters of stone through the air.

“Megan,” he said, the name stuttering out from his torn throat. Blood sprayed her face as he spoke. Then he passed out.

Tate Collier’s Lexus skidded up to the pay phone on Route 29.

He leapt out, looking around desperately.

He saw no one.

“Hello?” he called in a harsh whisper. “Hello!”

He glanced at the old diner-or what was left of it after an arson fire some years ago-and piles of trash. Deserted.

Then he heard a moan, followed by some violent retching.

Tate ran into the bushes. There Konnie sat, bloody and drenched in sweat, vomit on his chin, eyes unfocused. He’d been crying.

“Jesus. What happened?” Tate bent down, put his arm around the man. When Konnie’d called him twenty minutes ago he’d said only to meet him here as soon as possible. Tate knew he was drunk, only half conscious, but had no other clue as to what was going on.

“I’m going down, Tate. I fucked up bad. Oh, Christ..

Bett… now Konnie… What a day, Tate thought. What a day.

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m okay. But I may’ve killed people, Tate. There was an accident. I left the scene.” He gasped and retched for a minute. “They’re looking for me, my own people’re looking for me.” He coughed violently.

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No, I’m turning myself in. But-”

He rolled over on his side and retched for a few minutes. Then caught his breath and sat up.

A squad car with flashing lights cruised past slowly. The searchlight came on but it missed the bushes where Tate crouched beside the detective.

“Listen to me,” Konnie said. “You have to get to the office. You need to look at the receipts.”

“Receipts.”

“For the tires. Go to the office, Tate. Genie should’ve made a copy of them. I’m praying she did. Ask her for them. But move fast ‘cause they’re going to impound my desk.”

“Genie? That’s your assistant?”

“You remember her. The list of receipts, okay?”

“All right.”

“Then look for whoever paid cash for the tires.”

“Cash for the tires. All right.”

“She ran warrants but that’s not… that’s not what I shoulda been looking for. Tate, you listening?”

“I’m listening.”

“Good. Look for the receipts where the customers paid cash. Then run the tag numbers of their cars. If the registered owner doesn’t match the name on the receipt that’s our boy The one took your daughter. I got a look at He caught his breath. “I got a look at him.”

“You saw him?”

“Oh, yeah. The prick suckered me good. He’s white, forties, dark hair. Six feet. About one seventy. Said he… Claimed he was Bureau. He suckered rue just like my daddy suckered people. Shit. God, I’m sick.”

“Okay, Konnie. I’ll do it. But now I’m getting you to the hospital.”

“No, you’re not. You’re not wasting another fucking minute. You’re going do what the hell I told you. And be there for my arraignment. I can’t believe what I did. I can’t believe it.” His voice disappeared in a cascade of retching.

Tate found his old commonwealth’s attorney ID badge at home and ran back to his car, hanging the beaded chain around his neck.

The date was four years old but was in small type; he doubted anyone would notice.

In twenty minutes he was walking into the police station. No one paid him any attention. He signed the log-in book and walked into Konnie’s office.

A heavyset woman, red eyed and crying, looked up.

“Oh, Mr. Collier. Did you hear?”

“He’s going to be all right, Genie.”

“This’s so terrible,” she said, wiping her face. “So terrible. I can’t imagine he’d take to drinking again. I don’t know why I don’t know what’s going on.”

“I’m going to help him. But I’ve got to do something first. It’s very important.”

“He said I should help you when he called. Oh, he sounded so drunk on the phone. I remember he used to call me up and say he wouldn’t be coming in today because he had the flu. But it wasn’t the flu. He sounded the way he was tonight. Just plain drunk.”

Tate rested his hand on the woman’s broad shoulder. “He’s going to be all right. We’ll all help him. Did you make a copy of the receipts?”

“I did, yes. He always tells me, ‘Make a copy of everything I give you. Always, always, always make a copy.’”

“That’s Konnie.”

“Here they are.”

He took the stack of receipts, owners of Mercedeses who’d bought new Michelins. On four receipts the cash/check box was marked. He didn’t recognize any of the names.

“Could you run these tag numbers through DMV and get me the names and addresses of the registered owners?”

“Sure.” She sniffed and waddled to her chair, sat heavily. Then she typed furiously.

A moment later she motioned him over.

The first three names matched those on the receipts.

The fourth didn’t.

“Oh my God,” Tate muttered.

“What is it, Mr Collier?”

He didn’t answer He stood, numb, staring at the name Aaron Matthews, Sully Fields Drive, Manassas, the letters glowing in jaundice yellow type on the black screen.

The Court: The prosecution may now present its summation, Mr. Collier?

Mr. Collier: My friends… The task of the jury is a difficult and thankless one. You’re called on to sift through a haystack of evidence, looking for that single needle of truth. In many cases, that needle is elusive. Practically impossible to find. But in the case before you, the Commonwealth versus Peter Matthews, the needle is lying out in the open, evident for everyone to see.