Jeffery Deaver - Praying for Sleep

Owen walked into the doorway of the greenhouse and looked at his wife, who was pulling more burlap bags from the stack near the lath house.

“Oh, no!” Lis whispered. She shook her head and then sat on a bench made of hard cherry wood. Owen paused then sat beside her, smoothing her hair over her ear the way he did when he explained things to her-business things, estate things, legal things. But no explanation was necessary tonight. For Owen was no longer in his work clothes. He wore a dark-green shirt and matching baggy pants-the outfit he wore under a bright-orange slicker when he went hunting. On his feet were his expensive waterproof boots.

And in his hands, a deer rifle and a pistol.

“You can’t do it, Owen.”

He set the guns aside. “I just talked to the sheriff again. They’ve got four men out after him. Only four goddamn men! And he’s already in Watertown.”

“But that’s east of here. He’s going away from us.”

“That doesn’t matter, Lis. Look how far he’s traveled. That’s seven or eight miles from where he escaped. On foot. He’s not wandering around in a daze at all. He’s up to something.”

“I don’t want you to do this.”

“I’m just going to see exactly what they’re doing to catch him.” He spoke in an austere, assured voice. It was her father’s voice. It was a voice that could hypnotize her.

Still, she said, “Don’t lie to me, Owen.”

And like Andrew L’Auberget, Owen’s eyes contracted, hard as a tick’s back. He had a faint smile on his face but she didn’t believe it for a second. She might very well have been speaking to one of the marble-eyed trophies Owen had nailed up on his den wall, for all the effect her words had on him. She touched his arm and let her fingers linger on the thick cloth. He pressed his hand over hers.

“Don’t go,” she said. She pulled him to her. She felt a surge of unfocused ardor. It was more than the memory of their liaison earlier. His strength, his gravity, the hunger in his face-they were all immensely seductive. She kissed him hard, open-mouthed. She wondered if the arousal she felt was truly lust, or was rather an attempt to keep him encircled in her arms all this long night until the danger was past.

Whatever her motives might have been, though, the embrace had no effect. He held her for a moment then stepped to the window. She rose and stood behind him. “Why don’t you say it? You’re going to hunt him down.”

She studied her husband’s back and the reflection of a face that should, she supposed, be vastly troubled. Yet he seemed very much at peace with himself. “I’m not going to do anything illegal.”

“Oh? What do you call murder?”

“Murder?” he whispered harshly, spinning around, and nodding toward the upstairs of the house. “Don’t you ever think about what you’re saying? What if she heard you?”

“Portia isn’t going to turn you in. That’s not the point. The point is you can’t just track somebody down and-”

“You forget what happened at Indian Leap,” he snapped. “I sometimes think I was more upset by it than you were.”

She turned away as if slapped.

“Lis…” He calmed quickly, wincing at his own outburst. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that… Look, he’s not a human being. He’s an animal. You know what he’s capable of. You more than anybody.”

He continued his argument smoothly: “He escaped this time, he could escape again. He got away long enough to mail that letter to you when he was in Gloucester. Next time he’s there maybe he’ll wander off. And head this way.”

“They’ll catch him tonight. They’ll put him in jail this time.”

“If he’s still mentally incompetent he goes right back into the hospital. That’s the law. Lis, look at the news-casts, they’re emptying the hospitals. You hear about it every day. Maybe next year, the year after, they’ll just turn him out on the street. And we’d never know when he might show up here. In the yard. In the bedroom. ”

Then the first tears started and she knew that she’d lost the argument. She had probably known it when she first heard his steps on the basement stairs. Owen was not always right, she reflected, but he was perpetually confident. It seemed wholly natural for him to load up the 4x4 with guns and cruise off into the middle of a stormy night to hunt down a psychopath.

“I want you and Portia to go to the Inn. We’ve done enough sandbagging.”

She was shaking her head.

“I’m insisting.”

“No! Owen, the water’s already up two feet and it hasn’t even started to rain here. The part by the dock? Where the creek flows in? We need another foot or two there.”

“I finished that part. I added plenty of bags. It’s three feet high. If the crest’s higher than that, there’s nothing we could do anyway.”

She spoke coldly. “Fine. Go if you want. Go play soldier. But I’m staying. I still have to tape the greenhouse.”

“Forget the greenhouse. We’re insured against wind damage.”

“I don’t care about the money. For heaven’s sake, those roses are my life. I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to them.” She sat again on the bench. Lis had noticed that she commanded less authority standing beside her husband, with him a foot taller. Seated, though much lower, she paradoxically felt more his equal.

“Nothing’s going to happen. A few broken windows.”

“You heard the report. Eighty-mile-an-hour winds.”

Owen sat beside her and gripped her thigh, pressing hard. His elbow was against her breast. Instead of comfort she felt vulnerability, her defenses breached by his proximity.

“I’m not going to argue this,” he said evenly. “I don’t want to have to worry about you. I want you to go to the Inn. Once they get him-”

“Once you get him, you mean.”

“Once they get him I’ll call you. You two come back to the house and we’ll finish the work together.”

“Owen, he’s going the other way.”

His eyes flashed. “Are you trying to deny it? Lis, he’s run seven miles in forty-five minutes. He’s up to something. Think about it. Why’re you being so damn stubborn? There’s a killer out there. A psychotic killer! He knows your name and address.”

Lis said nothing. She breathed shallowly.

Owen pressed his face against her hair. He whispered, “Don’t you remember him? Don’t you remember the trial?”

Lis happened to glance up and see on the wall a stone bust of a leering gargoyle. She heard in her memory Hrubek chanting, “Lis-bone, Lis-bone, my Eve of betrayal. My pretty Lis-bone.”

A cheerful voice filled the room. “Little late for fishing, isn’t it, Owen?” Portia stood in the doorway, eyeing his outfit. “The party breaking up?”

Owen stepped away from his wife but he kept his eyes on her.

“I’ll pack a few things,” Lis said.

“Going somewhere?” her sister asked.

“The Inn,” Owen said.

“So soon? I thought that was later on the program. When the crazy man showed up to boogie. Oops, sorry. Was that in bad taste?”

“He’s traveled farther than they thought. I’m going to talk to the sheriff about what they’re doing to find him. Lis and you’re going to a bed-and-breakfast up the road.”

“God, he’s not coming this way?” Portia asked.

“No, he’s going east.” Lis looked at her sister. “It’ll just be better to spend the night at the Inn.”

“Okay by me.” Portia shrugged and went to collect her backpack.

Lis rose. Owen squeezed her leg. What, she wondered, does that mean? Thanks? I won? I love you? Hand me my guns, woman?

“I won’t be long. A few hours, tops. Come lock the door after me.”