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He found the county phone book and looked at the map. The nearest towns to Lake Mondac were Clausen and Point of Rocks. Clausen had a town magistrate’s office, Point of Rocks a public safety office. He tried the magistrate first. No answer, and the message referred callers to City Hall, which turned out to be just a voice mail. The public safety office in Point of Rocks was closed, and the outgoing message said that anyone with an emergency should call either the county sheriff’s office or the State Police.
“And thank you for calling,” it concluded politely. “Have a nice day.”
How can a fucking police department be closed?
He heard Joey’s bedroom door open and close. The toilet flushed.
A moment later: “When’s mom coming home?” The boy, still not in his pajamas, was at the top of the stairs.
“Soon.”
“You called her?”
“She’s busy. She can’t be disturbed. Put your pajamas on and go to bed. Lights out.”
The boy turned around. The bedroom door closed.
Graham thought that he heard the video game again. He wasn’t sure.
A
“I don’t know. That deputy I talked to said it was just routine. But it didn’t feel right.”
“How do you mean?”
“Her phone. Giving it to somebody else? No way.” He could talk to A
He had, however, pulled back from “control freak.”
A
Graham picked up the landline. Made a call.
“Deputy Munce.”
“Eric, it’s Graham.”
“Hey. What’s up?”
“The sheriff in?”
“Now? Nope. He goes home about six, seven most nights.”
“Look, Bry
“Right. Heard about that.”
“Well, she’s not back yet.”
Silence. “Not back? Forty minutes from there to your place. You’re north of town. Forty minutes tops. I’ve drove it in a half hour.”
“I called and got some other deputy. Said there was a domestic. And that Bry
A pause. “That doesn’t sound familiar, Graham. Who were you talking to?”
“I don’t remember. Maybe Billings.”
“Well, that’s nobody from our office. Hold on…” Muted sounds of conversation.
Graham rubbed his eyes. Bry
The deputy came back on. “All right, Graham. Story is the guy who made that nine-one-one call called back and said it was a mistake. Bry
“I know. But this deputy said it wasn’t a mistake. It was some domestic dispute, and they wanted Bry
“Could happen but that’s not the sort of thing the troopers’d handle.”
Graham’s skin chilled at this. “Eric, something’s wrong.”
“Let me call the sheriff. He’ll get back to you.”
Graham hung up. He paced the kitchen. Surveyed the new tiles on the floor. Organized a stack of bills. Drew a line in the dust on top of the small, rabbit-ear TV. Listened to the computer game upstairs.
Goddamnit. Why wasn’t the boy listening to him? He decided to ban Joey from skateboards for the rest of the school year.
Anger or instinct?
The phone rang.
“’Lo?”
“Graham, it’s Tom Dahl. Eric just called. We checked with the State Police. Nobody got any calls up at Lake Mondac. Clausen, Point of Rocks, even as far as Henderson.”
Graham explained what he’d told Eric Munce, irritated that the man hadn’t filled the sheriff in. “The deputy was named Billings.”
Silence for a moment. “Billings’s the name of a road between Clausen and the state park.”
So it might’ve been fresh in the mind of somebody trying to make up a name. Graham’s hands were sweating.
“Her phone keeps going to voice mail again, Tom. I’m plenty worried.”
“What’s wrong?” a voice called. Joey’s.
Graham looked up. The boy was standing halfway down the stairs. He’d been listening. “What’s wrong with Mom?”
“Nothing. Go back to bed. Everything’ll be fine.”
“No. Something’s wrong.”
“Joey,” Graham snapped. “Now.”
Joey held his eye for a moment, the chill look sending a shiver through Graham’s back, then turned and stomped up the stairs.
A
He shook his head, said, “I’m talking to the sheriff.” Then: “Tom, whatta we do?”
“I’ll send some people up there. Look, relax. Her car probably broke down and she hasn’t got cell phone reception.”
“Then who was Billings?”
Another pause. “We’ll get up there right away, Graham.”
GASPING, FACE DOTTED with cold sweat, Michelle crouched, leaning against her pool cue cane, Bry
They’d come a half mile from the cliff top intersection with the Danger sign and shelter, ru
They now watched the beam from a flashlight, pointed downward, slowly sweeping the ledge and cliff face as Hart and his partner climbed down. They continued walking along the trail, moving quickly.
The men had bought the sham Bry
In the end it hadn’t been Michelle’s fear of heights-or Bry
She now looked back. The sweeping flashlight beam was still visible through the bones of trees. Then the path turned and the women lost sight of the killers.
“How does it feel?” Michelle nodded at Bry
Michelle began rambling, telling a story about how she’d been hit on the head by a schoolgirl on the playground, and had bled all over a new dress, which had upset her more than the fight. “Girls’re worse than boys.”
Bry
An image of Joey, panting and bloody, after one of his fights at school also came to mind. She pushed it away.
Michelle kept up the manic banter and Bry
“We have to? We’re making good time.”
But the trail, Bry