Jeffery Deaver - Praying for Sleep

The wind slammed against the windows and the sound of the rain grew louder. The clatter of muskets, he thought. Lead balls cracking apart a thousand heads… He covered his ears at this unnerving sound. After a moment he realized that she was staring at him.

“People are after me,” he said.

“You’re a convict ?” she whispered. “You escaped from the prison over in Hamlin?”

“Nice try. Don’t expect to get anything out of me.

You know too much as it is.”

She shivered as he leaned forward and stroked her fine hair. “That’s nice,” he muttered. “And you’re not wearing a fucking hat. Good… Good.”

“Don’t hurt me, please. I’ll give you money. Anything…”

“Give me a penny.”

“I have some savings. About three thousand but it’s in the bank. You could meet me there at nine tomorrow. You’re welcome to-”

Michael roared, “A penny !”

She dug frantically into her purse. He looked over her shoulder. “You don’t have a microphone in there? A panic button or anything?”

She looked mystified then whispered, “No. I’m getting you the penny like you asked.”

Guilty, Michael said, “Well, you can’t be too careful.”

He held out his massive hands and she dropped the coin into his palm. He held it up behind her head. “What seven-letter word is on the penny?”

“I don’t know.”

“Guess,” he said petulantly.

She wrung her hands together. “ E Pluribus Unum. In God We Trust. Legal Tender. No. United States. Oh, God, I can’t think!” Then, sotto voce, she began murmuring the Lord’s Prayer.

“It’s right behind seven-letter Abraham Lincoln.” Without looking at the coin he said, “The word is right behind him, seven letters, like the barrel of a gun pointed at his head.”

He poked her scalp with a blunt finger. She closed her eyes and whispered, “I don’t know.”

Michael said, “ ‘Liberty.’ ” He dropped the penny on the floor. “I’m pretty hungry. What’s to eat?”

She stopped crying. “You’re hungry?” She gazed at the kitchen. “I have some roast beef, some vegetarian chili… You’re welcome to it.”

He walked to the table and sat down, easing into the chair. He delicately opened a paper napkin. It covered only a part of his huge lap.

She asked, “Can I stand up?”

“How can you get me dinner if you don’t stand up?”

She hurtled into the kitchen and busied herself preparing a plate while Michael sang, “ ‘For I love the bonnie blue gal who gave her heart to me.’ ” He played with the pepper mill. “ ‘Her arms, her arms, are where I want to be!…’ ”

She returned, setting a tray in front of him. Michael roared, “ ‘For I love the bonnie blue gal who gave-’ ” He stopped abruptly, picked up the fork and cut a piece off the beef. This, together with a portion of Jell-O, he put on the pink saucer and placed it in front of her.

She glanced at the food then looked inquiringly at him.

“I want you to eat that!” he said.

“I’ve already… Oh, you think it’s poison.”

“I don’t think it’s poison,” he sneered. “I don’t think there’s a posse outside that window. I don’t think you’re a Pinkerton agent. But you can’t be too careful. Now come on. Quit being a shit.”

She ate. Then she smiled and went blank-faced again. He studied her for a moment and set his fork down. “Do you have some milk?”

“Milk? I have low-fat is all. Is that all right?”

“Some milk !” he blared, and she jumped to get it. When she returned he’d already started to eat. He drank the glass down, taking with it a mouthful of food. “I used to work in a dairy.”

“Well, yes.” She nodded politely. “That must be a nice place to work.”

“It was very nice. Dr. Richard got me the job.”

“Who is he?”

“He was my father.”

“Your father was a doctor?”

“Well,” he scoffed, “I don’t mean a father like that. ”

“No,” she agreed quickly, seeing the darkness fall over his face. He stopped eating. She told him she liked his tweed cap. He touched it and smiled. “I like it too. I have hair but I cut it off.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“No, don’t tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“If I don’t want to, I won’t. You don’t have to give me permission.”

“I wasn’t giving you permission. I didn’t mean to sound like I was. You can do whatever you want.”

“Don’t I know it.” Michael cleaned his plate.

“Would you like some more?”

“Milk. I’d like more milk.” When she was in the kitchen he added, “Please.”

As he took the tall glass from her he intoned in an FM disc jockey’s voice, “A wholesome snack.”

She barked a laugh and he smiled. As he poured the milk down she asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m drinking milk,” he answered with exasperation.

“No. I mean, what are you doing out tonight? There’s supposed to be a storm like we haven’t seen in a donkey’s age.”

“What’s a donkey’s age?” He squinted.

She stared at him with a vacant face. “Uhm, now that you ask, I don’t exactly know. It means for a long time.”

“Is it like an expression? Is it like a cliché ?”

“I guess so.”

He stared down, his eyes as empty and filmy as the glass in his hand. “Did you know that ‘anger’ is fivesixths of ‘danger’?”

“No, I didn’t. But it surely is. How about that?”

“So there.”

She broke the very dense silence by asking, “What did you do in the dairy?”

Michael’s erection had not gone away. His penis hurt and this was beginning to anger him. He reached into his pocket and squeezed himself then stood and walked to the window. He said, “What’s the biggest town near here that has a train station?”

“Well, Boyleston, I suppose. It’s south about forty, fifty miles.”

“How would I get there?”

“Go west to 315. It’ll take you right there. That becomes Hubert Street and it goes right past the train station. Amtrak.”

“In no time at all?”

“No time at all,” she agreed. “Why are you going there?”

“I told you,” he snapped. “I can’t say!”

Her hands went into her lap.

Michael began rummaging through his backpack. “I’m sorry, I’m very sorry,” he said to her. But he uttered these words, then repeated them, with such deep longing that it was clear he was apologizing not for being curt but rather for something else-something he was about to do, something far graver than bad manners. He sat down beside her, his thigh pressing hard against hers, and as she cried, he set a small white animal skull in her lap and, very gently, began stroking her hair.

Under clouds so fast and turbulent they seemed like special effects from a science-fiction movie, Portia L’Auberget inhaled the scents of decaying leaves and the musky lake. Several feet away her sister lifted the shovel and dropped a huge pile of gravel around the front wheels of the stranded car.

The young woman flexed her hands. They stung and she supposed the skin was starting to blister from the wet gloves. Her muscles were on fire. Her head ached from the pounding rain.

And she was troubled by something else, a vague thought-something other than the storm. At first she wondered if it might be the escape. Yet she’d never really believed that someone like Michael Hrubek could make it all the way to Ridgeton from the mental hospital, certainly not on a night like this.

No, some nebulous memory kept rising up disturbingly then vanishing. It seemed that it had something to do with this portion of the yard. She was picturing… what was it? Plants? Had there been a garden here of some sort? Ah, yes. It was here. The old vegetable garden.