Jeffery Deaver - Praying for Sleep

“Oh, no. Damn.”

Dimly, in his mind’s eye, Trenton Heck saw his ex-wife Jill in her freshly pressed waitress uniform. Then, as in his actual life, she vanished from him quickly, as if she had far more important matters to attend to, and he dropped to his knees, falling forward and beginning an endless tumble down the hill of slick leaves.

“Lis!” Portia called, as her sister returned to the kitchen and hung up the bomber jacket, shaking the water out of her hair.

Glancing at Portia she locked the door then turned and stared into the backyard, which was just a blur in the heavy rain.

“That noise,” Portia blurted.

“What noise?”

“Didn’t you hear it?” The younger sister paced, and wrung her hands compulsively. “It seemed… I mean, it wasn’t thunder. I thought there were gunshots. I was worried-where were you?”

“I had trouble getting through the mud to the basement door. It was locked after all. Waste of time.”

Portia said, “Maybe we should tell the deputy.” Lightning struck nearby and she jumped at the thunder. “Shit. I hate this.”

It was fifty or sixty feet to the police car. Lis stood at the door and waved but received no response from the deputy. Portia said, “He can’t see you. Let’s go tell him. With the rain he might not’ve heard anything. All right, don’t look at me that way. I’m scared. What do you expect? I’m so fucking scared.”

Lis hesitated then nodded. She put on the jacket again and a black rain hat that was Owen’s-more for camouflage than to protect her drenched hair. Portia pulled on the baseball cap and a navy-blue windbreaker-useless against the rain but less conspicuous than the slicker. Then Lis flung open the door. Portia stepped outside and Lis followed, clutching the gun in her pocket. They were immediately overwhelmed by the storm. They leaned into the torrent of rain and wind and struggled toward the car. Halfway there Lis’s hat vanished toward the turbulent lake.

It was from this direction-the lake-that the figure suddenly appeared. He grabbed Lis around the shoulders and they fell together into the saturated mud of one of her rose gardens. The fall emptied her lungs and she bent double, gasping for breath, unable to call for help. His full weight was on her, pinning her to the ground. She yanked at the pistol but the rear lip of the receiver caught in the cloth of her pocket.

Portia turned and saw the assailant. She screamed and made a dash for the police car, as Lis kicked him away. She succeeded only in sliding through a muddy trench and catching herself, in an ungainly sitting position, on the thorny stalk of a blossomless Prospero rose shrub. She was held immobile as the man, his head lowered like an animal’s, crawled through the muck after her, muttering eerie sounds. Lis ripped the pocket flap open and pulled the Colt from it. She placed the black muzzle against his head just as Trenton Heck looked up and said, “Help me.”

“Oh, my God.”

“I’m… Can you help me?”

“Portia!” she shouted, pocketing the automatic once again. “It’s Trenton. He’s hurt. Get the deputy. Tell him.”

The young woman stood at the door of the patrol car.

“It’s Trenton,” Lis shouted over the wind and rain. “Tell the deputy!”

But Portia didn’t move. She stepped back from the car and began to scream. Lis ripped her jacket from the rosebush and crawled away from Heck. Lis approached her sister cautiously, frowning. Smoke poured from the front seat of the cruiser. Portia pressed her hands over her face then fell to her knees, gagging. A moment later she vomited violently.

When the deputy had been shot-point-blank in the face-the cigarette he held fell into his lap and started his uniform smoldering.

“Oh, no,” Portia was crying, “no, no…”

Lis pushed her sister aside then scooped up mud and patted out the embers. She too gagged at the smell of burnt cloth, hair and skin.

“The radio!” Portia screamed. She stood, wiping her mouth, and shouted the word twice more before Lis understood. But only a curly black wire protruded from the dash; the handset had been torn off. Lis bent to the deputy once more though there was nothing to be done. He was pasty and cold. Lis stepped away and glanced at the Acura. The water was up to the windows now and had filled the car, covering the cellular phone inside.

Together, the women stumbled through the mud to where Trenton Heck lay on his side. They managed to get him to his feet and struggled toward the back door. The rain pelted their faces and stung; it lay on them heavily like a dozen wet blankets. Halfway to the house a huge gust of wind slapped them from behind and Portia slipped into a trench of mud, pulling unconscious Heck after her. It took long, agonizing minutes to get him out of the soggy yard and to the kitchen. Portia collapsed in the open doorway.

“No, don’t stop here. Get him inside.”

“I have to rest,” Portia gasped.

“Come on, you’re the runner. You got the stamina genes in the family.”

“Jesus.”

The women dragged him into the living room and laid him on the couch.

Emil joined them but apparently the hound had no sixth sense of disaster. He sniffed once at his master’s boot and went back to the corner he’d commandeered, where he flopped down and closed his eyes. Portia locked the door and turned on a small lamp in the living room. Lis pulled Heck’s work shirt open.

“Oh, my God-a bullet hole.” Portia’s voice was high with shock. “Get something! I don’t know. A towel.”

Lis walked into the kitchen. As she pulled a handful of paper towels off the roll she heard a noise outside-faint at first then growing until it rivaled the howl of the wind. Her heart froze, for the sound reminded her of Claire’s final keening, emanating up through the ground from the caves of Indian Leap. Dazed by this terrible memory and her present fear Lis stumbled to the door and stared out. She saw nothing but rain and wind-bent foliage, and it was a moment before she realized that the sound was Michael Hrubek’s unearthly cry, calling from nowhere and from everywhere, “Lis-bone, Lis-bone, Lis-bone…”

Trenton Heck lapsed into and out of consciousness. Lis tried to find his pulse and couldn’t, though when she rested her head on his chest his heart seemed to beat stridently.

“Can you hear me?” she shouted.

Like a sleepwalker he muttered unearthly sounds. He hardly responded to what must have been excruciating pain when Lis pressed the towels firmly against the ragged black-bordered hole in his stomach.

Portia sat in the corner of the living room, her arms folded around her knees, her head down. Lis stood and walked past her. Standing in the dark kitchen she looked out over the yard, and saw no sign of Hrubek, who had ceased calling to her. Still, the macabre sound of his voice, chanting her name, resonated in her mind. She felt tainted, abused. Oh, please, she thought, despairing. Just leave me alone. Please.

For a long moment Lis stood at the window. Then she turned to her sister. “Portia.”

The woman looked at her and began shaking her head. “No.”

“Put this on.” Lis handed her the bomber jacket.

“Oh, Lis, no.”

“You’re going for help.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can.”

“I’m not going out there.”

“You know where the sheriff’s department is. It’s on-”

“The car’s stuck.”

“You’re going to take the deputy’s.”

Portia gasped. “No. He’s in it.”

“Yes, you are.”

“I’m not going. No. Don’t ask.”

“A left out the drive. A mile and a half down Cedar Swamp you come to North Street. Another left, then drive about six miles. The sheriff’s on the right side of the road. Cedar Swamp’ll be washed out, parts of it. You’ll have to go slow till you get to town.”