John Connolly - The Killing Kind

“We'd been driving for maybe an hour. I was dozing on the backseat when Grace shook me awake. As soon as I woke up, I knew we were in trouble. She kept looking in the rearview. There was a cop following us, with lights flashing. Grace just stepped on the gas and tore away until he was out of view, then pulled off the road and told me to get out. I tried to get her to tell me why, but she wouldn't. She just threw me my bag and then handed me the package and all of her study notes and told me to look after them until she contacted me. Then the cop appeared and I opened the door and headed into the bushes to hide. I guess something about the way Grace was acting transferred itself onto me, because now I was scared and I had no reason to be. I mean, what had we done? What had she done? And anyway, this guy was a cop, right? Even if she had stolen something she was maybe going to get in some trouble, but nothing worse.

“Anyway, I could see her trying to start the car, but the cop walked up to her door and told her to kill the engine. He was a big guy smoking a cigarette. He kept his gloves on, even while he smoked. I could hear him talking to her, asking her what she was doing, where she had been. He wouldn't let her get out of the car, just kept leaning over her. I could hear him ask her, ‘Where is it?’ again and again, and Grace telling him that she didn't know what he was talking about.

“He took her car keys, then made a call on his cell phone. I think it must have been fifteen or twenty minutes before the other guy arrived. He was a big man, with a mustache.”

Marcy began to cry. “I should have tried to help her, because I knew what was going to happen even before he took out the gun. I just knew. I felt him thinking about it. I saw him climb in and I was going to cry out. I thought he was trying to rape her, but I couldn't do anything, I was so scared. I could hear Grace crying and he hit her on the head to shut her up. After that, he searched the trunk and the rest of the car, then started checking along the road. I moved back, and once I thought he might have heard me, because he stopped and listened before he went back to what he was doing. When he didn't find what he was looking for, he slapped the hood of Grace's car and I heard him swear.”

She paused.

“Then he stepped over to the driver's side with the gun in his hand. He shouted at Grace again, pushing her head with the gun. She reached up to stop him; there was a struggle. The gun went off and the windows turned red. The other policeman started screaming at the big guy, asking him what he thought he was doing and what were they going to do now. But he just told him to be quiet.

“After that, he leaned in and did something to the back of Grace's head. When I saw him again, he had a piece of her hair in his hands and he was looking out at the trees, as if he guessed that I was out there somewhere. I crawled away on my belly. I could see Grace through the windshield, Mr. Parker. Her head was hanging to one side and there was blood all over the inside of the car. She was my friend, and I let her die.”

Rachel reached out and held her hand.

“There was nothing you could have done,” she said softly, and in her voice I heard echoes of my own words from the night before. “Nothing. This man Lutz would have killed you both, and then nobody would have known what happened. But you didn't tell anyone what you saw?”

She shook her head. “I was going to, until I saw the book. Then I was too scared. I figured the best thing to do was to lie low and stay out of the way of the cops. If they found me, if the man who killed Grace knew what I had seen, then I was afraid that he would do the same thing to me. I rang my mom and told her that something bad had happened to Grace and that I had to stay out of everyone's way until I figured out what to do. I told her not to tell anyone where I was, not even the police. I took the first bus from Ellsworth the next morning and I've been here ever since, apart from one or two trips to the store. I rented the scooter, in case I needed to get away quickly.”

“Were you going to stay here forever, Marcy?” I asked.

She let out a long deep breath. “I had nowhere else to go,” she said.

“Did she tell you where she had been?”

“No. She mentioned a lighthouse, that's all, but she was completely wired. I mean, she was scared and excited at the same time, you know? She wasn't making a whole lot of sense.”

“And you still have the book, Marcy?”

She nodded, and pointed to her knapsack. “It's in here,” she replied. “I was keeping it safe.”

Then Louis called my name.

I looked at him.

“They're coming,” he said.

Lutz's white Acura roared up the gravel drive and drew up about twenty yards from the front of the house. Lutz emerged first, closely followed by a small, thin man with close-cropped hair. His eyes were crossed and he wore painter's overalls and rubber gloves. He looked like what Louis would call a “puppy drowner,” the kind of guy who wasn't happy unless he was hurting something smaller and weaker than himself. Both men had guns in their hands.

“Guess they want her dead or alive,” I said.

The smaller man opened the trunk of the Acura and removed an empty body bag.

“Nope,” said Louis. “Looks like they just expressed a preference.”

We drew back as Lutz examined the windows of the house from where he stood. He gestured at the smaller man to head around the back as he started for the front door. I put my finger to my lips and indicated to Rachel that she should take Marcy Becker into the small bedroom and keep her quiet. Louis handed Rachel his SIG, and after a moment's hesitation, she took it. Then, shotgun in hand, he padded silently to the back door of the lodge, opened it, and disappeared to intercept Lutz's associate. I waited until he was outside, then slipped the safety catch on my gun and examined my options.

The front door opened straight into a blank wall. Four feet to the left, the living room began, a tiny kitchen area at the far end. To the right of the living room was the bedroom where Marcy Becker now lay huddled beneath the window with Rachel, so that anyone looking inside would be unable to see them. I raised the gun, walked to the wall where the hall ended and the living area began, and waited, shielded from anyone entering. I heard the handle on the door turn and then a noise like a cannon going off came from the back of the house. There was a thudding noise and Lutz entered fast, gun first. The noise had panicked him and he came in a little too quickly, his gun pointing into the main body of the room and away from me. I moved in hard with my left arm raised to push the gun away and knocked him back against the window, then brought the butt of the Smith amp; Wesson down as hard as I could on the side of his head. He staggered and I hit him again. He fired a shot into the ceiling and I hit him a third time, driving him to his knees. When he was on the floor I tore the gun from his fingers and tossed it into the kitchen before checking him for a spare. He had none, but I found his cuffs. I hit him one more time for luck, cuffed him, then dragged him outside and onto the gravel. I expected Louis to be there, and he was, but he wasn't alone.

He wasn't even armed.

Instead, he was kneeling on the ground with his hands on his head and the big shotgun in front of him. Behind him stood the tall, bald figure of the Golem, the Jericho two inches from Louis's head. He had a second Jericho in his left hand, pointing at me, and a length of rope hung across his arm.

“Sorry, man,” said Louis. To his left, Lutz's associate lay dead on his back, a huge hole torn in his chest.

The Golem looked at me, unblinking. “Put your gun down, Mr. Parker, or I will kill your friend.”