Линкольн Чайлд - Verses for the Dead

Rounding the last corner, she reentered Tarpon Court. What if Brokenhearts was out stalking another victim? Or what if he’d already fled, leaving a house full of evidence? It was true he had suddenly gone quiet. Her brother’s cautionary words echoed in her mind: Leave this to the professionals . Well, she was a professional. She was a forensic pathologist with a medical degree, and a detective to boot — at least, with human bodies. She’d even figured out Brokenhearts’s identity and address. Anyway, she thought she had.

She approached the house a second time. This would be her last pass. Circling the block three times would be out of the question, so whatever she found, it had to be now.

Or maybe... just maybe... she should stop and ring the bell.

On what pretense? Remembering something, she glanced into the backseat — and sure enough, like a gift from God, there were the Jehovah’s Witness pamphlets that had been thrust at her in the parking lot by some well-meaning soul as she was leaving work two days before. Perfect.

Drawing on her courage and thinking of Pendergast’s reaction — and Dr. Moberly’s mortification — if she brought in this unbelievable breakthrough on a silver platter, she boldly drove into the driveway of 203 Tarpon Court, snatched up the pamphlets, exited the car before she could change her mind, then strode up to the door and pushed the doorbell.

No sound.

The door looked as decrepit as the rest of the house, with an overhead light stamped in an owl design and two small, cracked windows beneath its upper edge. Putting her ear to it, she pushed the rusty doorbell again. Still no sound — the mechanism must be broken.

She knocked. And waited. Then knocked again, more boldly, chips of paint falling from the humidity-swollen door.

She could hear no movement in the house, no sound, nothing. The place gave all appearances of being empty. What now? The blinds were carefully drawn, their edges stained with mildew. She could see nothing inside.

What the hell. Pamphlets in hand, she picked her way through the tall, moist grass and walked around the house. Arriving at the back door, she paused. From here, she was out of view of the houses on either side. Should she knock? If he answered, how would she explain her presence at the back door? Really, this was stupid. She took a step backward, then another.

On the other hand, the man wouldn’t dare do anything to her — not in his own home. That just wasn’t his MO. If it was indeed Brokenhearts.

It was Brokenhearts. Wasn’t it?

Leave this to the professionals.

That did it. She took a breath, stepped forward again, raised her hand, paused a moment, and then knocked loudly on the back door. Under the pressure of her knuckles, the door — unlocked — creaked open an inch. She couldn’t help herself and leaned in close, peering through the crack. Just beyond, in the mudroom, hanging on a coat hook, was an old Marlins baseball cap.

It was like being swallowed by Mother Earth herself, with a sudden groaning of soil and jumble of ferns and rush of damp wind. Coldmoon tumbled, his fall arrested when something like a steel cable suddenly grabbed him as the storm of dirt began to subside. Coughing, choking, he spat sand from his mouth and realized it was Pendergast who had stopped his fall, holding him by the arm on a steep slope of sand and earth, which descended into a deep, swirling pool of muck.

With his other hand, Pendergast was gripping a thick root. “Dig in,” he said. “Find a purchase.”

With his free hand, Coldmoon scrabbled against the shifting wall of earth, grabbing another root, his feet managing to locate something to balance on. As the rumbling subsided, the collapsing hole seemed to stabilize, its edges still folding in, dropping ferns on them as they clung to the steep slope.

“Earthquake?” Coldmoon gasped.

“Sinkhole,” Pendergast replied.

With a remarkable display of strength, he was able to reach up and grab a higher root. The sandy dirt continued to crumble away around the perimeter.

Coldmoon followed Pendergast’s example and found another root of his own. He pushed with his feet, ensuring he had a good purchase.

“I can climb,” he said, and Pendergast released him.

The slope was steep but not vertical, with many exposed roots, and Coldmoon used them as hand- and footholds, the soil cascading down on his head and getting in his eyes and mouth, sometimes forcing him back down a step. The sinkhole might have stabilized, but it was nevertheless like trying to climb up an ever-shifting sand pile: a few feet up, then almost as many back down again, as the sandy flanks cracked, crumbled, then fell away. Nevertheless, it was only minutes before Pendergast reached the lip of the hole, Coldmoon close behind, gasping and spitting out sand and dirt. As his head and shoulders cleared ground level, he could see the broken ferns littering the trail now dangling over the far edge of the sinkhole and, in the distance beyond, the dilapidated lodge. The elderly figure on the veranda was still struggling to rise. “Help!” the figure cried again.

A sudden, sharp crack rang through the air. Simultaneously, Coldmoon felt a blow, as if he’d been punched in the back with enormous force. With vast surprise, he realized he’d been shot. There was no pain, but he suddenly lost all strength; his hands released and he felt himself tumbling backward. Seconds later he landed in dark stagnant water that immediately closed over him, and all went black.

Pendergast swung his arm down to grab Coldmoon again, but the agent, shot in the back, was already out of reach. Clinging to a root near the top of the hole, he saw Coldmoon hit the water below and instantly vanish into the swirling murk.

A second shot rang out and he felt a massive thud strike the dirt beside his head. With a mighty heave he pulled himself up and out and rolled over into the cover of the ferns. As he did so, a third shot boomed out, the round snipping the greenery above his head as he dove behind a live oak. It was clear the shots were coming from somewhere inside the lodge, most likely the second floor. Even as he searched its façade, trying to locate the shooter, another shot rang out — and the head of the man crawling on the veranda disappeared in a gout of red and gray.

Pendergast pulled out his Les Baer — at the same time realizing he’d lost his backup Glock in the collapse — and waited behind the tree. He counted to eight and then peered around for a moment before ducking back. All was now quiet. He could not see the shooter. Coldmoon remained at the bottom of the sinkhole, shot. Taking another quick look from behind the tree, Pendergast fired two rounds at the house, then slipped through the cover of ferns to get a glimpse into the sinkhole. He could see nothing but ribbons of sand and dirt slipping downward as the edges of the hole continued to crumble. No sound from Coldmoon.

Anticipating another shot, he threw himself back toward the cover of the old oak, its knuckled branches twisted into gnarly, arthritic shapes. As he did so he heard another shot, this one so close it tore the shoulder pad from his jacket. But he managed to make out a flash of fire from an upper dormer window of the house; after killing the man on the veranda, the shooter had apparently gained elevation to get a better angle of fire. The man must have a scoped rifle, and clearly knew how to use it.

Leaning against the tree, breathing hard, Pendergast considered his situation. As he did so, he heard two more shots and wondered briefly what the man was shooting at — until he heard the dull crump of an explosion and saw a pillar of fire rising from the direction of the dock. The shooter had just destroyed their airboat.