Jeffery Deaver - Praying for Sleep

Then a man’s voice said, “It’s all right, ma’am, it’s all right. What’s the matter?”

She collapsed into the arms of the park ranger.

Leaning against the rock in the torrential rain she told him about Robert and Hrubek. He began asking questions but Lis couldn’t concentrate. All she could hear was a horrid keening that filled the air. It seemed to come from earth itself, resonating from the rocks, stretching out thinner and thinner, impossibly thin, an unsustainable note that nonetheless refused to stop. “ ‘What is that?’ I asked. ‘Make it stop. Oh, for God’s sake.’ ”

And soon it did, Lis explained to the psychiatrist.

For, as Lis found out just moments later from another ranger, an underground stream, swollen with rain, had overflowed into the cave where Lis had found Robert’s body-the cave where Claire had been all along. The sound had been the girl’s wail for help that had been stifled by the rising waters in which she’d drowned.

Stopping the truck abruptly and extinguishing the lights, Owen Atcheson gazed about him, surveying this dismal stretch of deserted road.

He slipped the pistol out of his pocket and stepped into the clearing, playing his flashlight on the dusty shoulder. Hrubek’s bike had been laid or had fallen on its side and there were footprints around it. Several of these he recognized as the madman’s boots but the others weren’t familiar to him. It was clear that at one point Hrubek had sat on the ground-the sides of his heels made deep cut marks and his hams wide indentations in the dirt of the highway’s shoulder.

He couldn’t make any sense of what’d happened here. He noticed the bicycle treads led on again, continuing west down Route 236, yet still he studied the turnoff carefully, trying to get a clearer idea of how Hrubek’s mind worked. He saw a grassy access road nearby; a path disappearing into the forest. A number of tire treads led toward it, some fresh.

Beyond this was a long road descending through trees, bushes, tall grass, vines, mist. Where the path flattened out again and vanished into the murky shadows of the forest was a car, sitting cockeyed in the brush. Owen shone his flashlight toward it but the distance was too great for illumination; all he saw was a vague image of the vehicle. He deduced it was an abandoned hulk because it appeared to be two-tone; Detroit had stopped making those a long time ago. He didn’t bother to explore the vehicle further but returned to the road and drove slowly west, checking every hundred yards or so for the weaving bike tread.

And pondering again the biggest problem of the evening.

His was no moral dilemma. Oh, Owen Atcheson had absolutely no ethical difficulty with walking right up to Hrubek and putting a bullet into his forehead. No, it was simply practical, one that Haversham had reminded him of in Adler’s office: how could he kill Michael Hrubek without ending up disbarred and in jail himself.

If Hrubek had been a convicted felon, Owen would have an easier time of it. Fleeing felons could legally be shot in the back (Owen now squinted as he recited from cold memory the rules in the state Penal Code). But Hrubek was not a felon. Although the jury found that he had in fact killed Robert Gillespie, the verdict that was entered was not guilty by reason of insanity.

This meant that there were only two justifiable ways to kill Hrubek. First, to be attacked by him in a place from which Owen couldn’t reasonably escape: an enclosed room, a blocked tunnel, a bridge. Second, to catch Hrubek in the Atcheson house, where Owen could legally shoot him without provocation and have nothing but an inconvenient trip to police HQ to show for it. And possibly not even that.

One of these scenarios would have to be engineered. But he was still too far from his prey to figure out exactly how. No, there was nothing to do now but continue on, driving slowly through the misty night, amid this troubled uncertainty-not of purpose, but of means. He gave in to the mood of combat, thinking purely of the mechanics of the kill: Which shot would be the most effective? Which gun should he use? How far would a man of Hrubek’s size be able to run with a mortal wound? (Like a cape buffalo or bear, a frighteningly long way, he guessed.) Was Hrubek himself stalking his pursuers? Was he even now laying another steel-jawed trap? Or something more deadly? From his military days, Owen knew the huge variety of booby traps that can be created out of gasoline, naphtha, fertilizer, nails, tools, lumber, wire.

He was considering these matters when he passed an old roadside gas station and general store, closed and dark. He slowed and studied the road carefully. The station had apparently attracted Hrubek too; the bike treads turned into the driveway. Owen pulled the truck past the lot and stopped very slowly to keep the damp brakes from squealing. He took his pistol from his pocket and, verifying that he still had the rifle bolt with him, climbed out of the truck.

He noticed in the front of the building, near one of the pumps, a box of doughnuts, half-empty. It seemed a little too prominent-as if it’d been left here to lure pursuers into a trap-and when Owen walked to the back of the building he walked very quietly. Yes, the window was broken and the dead bolt unlatched. He inhaled slowly, to steady himself, then pushed the door open-fast, to keep the hinges from squealing-and stepped inside and moved immediately out of the doorway.

Standing still, he let his eyes grow accustomed to the gloom. His mouth was open wide-a soldier’s trick to mute a loud inhalation should he be startled. When he heard nothing for five full minutes, he walked in a crouch among the shelves filled with auto parts and greasy cartons.

Foot by foot, Owen covered the back room of the store and found no evidence of Hrubek. Through the open doorway and smeared glass beyond he saw the highway. A car drove past and the light flooded around him, creating a thousand shadows that flipped from left to right, coalescing then spreading out again into darkness. The headlights had dimmed his night vision and he waited five minutes until he could see well enough to continue.

Owen found another empty doughnut carton. Powdered sugar and cinnamon were scattered on the floor. He made his way toward the narrow doorway that opened onto the front room. He stopped suddenly, listening to a rumbling. It grew louder. Lights flickered outside, outlining the old-time gas pumps. A burping explosion from a truck’s exhaust stack filled the air as the driver revved the engine to upshift coming off the long incline of the highway. The truck thundered past.

Owen partially closed his eyes to protect them from the light.

That was when he felt, more than saw, the movement. He opened his eyes in alarm and gazed at the dark shape swinging into the doorway. Before it reached him he leapt backwards. But he misjudged and tripped over a metal table, falling backwards and dropping his gun. His head struck the steel edge on the way down and he lay on the concrete floor, stunned, while the shadowy form of his assailant filled the doorway, not more than three feet from him.

Beckoning, the glossy truck sat like a blue jewel in the driveway.

“That’ll take me to Ridgeton in no time at all. Make no mistake, no time at all.”

O beautiful truck, I could sit upon your seat while the priest’s beautiful daughter sits upon his cock…

From the old gas station Hrubek had cycled to the long gravel driveway down which had vanished the 4x4 that contained the woman and her daughter. He couldn’t see any lights and guessed that their house must be a half mile or more from the highway. He’d slowly trudged through the field beside the driveway, pausing to take the last trap from his canvas bag and place it under some strands of tall grass. He continued on, carrying the bicycle with him, thinking. What a truck that is! Why would I go by a bi -cycle store to buy a fucking bi -cycle when I can drive a truck?