Dark Hollow

Rand Je

He was not the man I had met at the Payne house.

And slowly, tumblers began to fall in my mind.

Everybody had a dog. Meade Payne had mentioned it in his letter to Billy, but I had seen no dog when I was out there. I thought of the figure Elsa Schneider had seen climbing the drainpipe. An old man couldn't climb a drainpipe, but a young man could. And I recalled what Rachel had said about Judith Mundy, about her being used as breeding stock.

Breeding stock.

Breeding a boy.

And I remembered old Saul Ma

Caleb knew Billy would come back to Meade Payne. Maybe he got Meade's name from Cheryl Lansing before he killed her, or it could have come up during Willeford's investigations. However he found out, Caleb knew that if he took away all the obstacles and all the options, Billy would have to turn to Meade Payne.

Because Caleb understood what con men and hunters all understood: that, sometimes, it's best to lay the bait, wait, and let the prey come to you.

I turned to find Je

Ressler, too, drew his weapon and, in the rear office, the younger policeman was already holding a Remington pump to his shoulder.

"Looks like we just crashed a nervous cops' convention," said Angel.

"Je

"Shut up," said Je

"Where did you get that gun?" he asked, and menace stepped softly into his voice like a gunman at a funeral. He eased back the hammer on his pistol and took three steps toward me, his gun now inches from my face. He had now recognized the jacket and sweater as well. Behind me, I heard Angel sigh loudly.

"You tell me where you got that gun, dammit, or I'll kill you."

There was no good way to tell him what had taken place, so I didn't even try. "I was ambushed on the road. The old man who lived out by the lake, John Barley, he's dead. He died in my car. I was chased, I got to your house and Lorna gave me a gun. You may find some bodies in your living room when you get back but Lorna's okay. Listen to me, Rand, the girl-"

Rand Je

"I'll kill you, you fuck. I'll kill you." His face was purple with rage, but there was grief there too, and the knowledge that things could never be the same again after this, that the shell had finally been broken and the life he had lived up to then was escaping even as we spoke, dissipating into the air like so much stale gas.

I felt blood ru

Je

Then the lights went out, and all hell broke loose.

For a few moments, the station house was in total darkness. Then the emergency lighting kicked in, casting a dim glow from four fluorescents on the walls. From the cells, I heard Billy Purdue shouting: "Hey! Hey out there, what's happening? Tell me what's going on. What happened to the lights?"

From the rear of the station came the sound of three loud bangs like hammer blows, followed by the sound of a door hitting a wall. But Louis was already moving, the huge Roadblocker still in his hand. I saw him pass Billy Purdue's cell and wait at the corner, where the corridor leading down to the back door began. I felt him count three in his head, then he turned, stood to one side and fired two shots down the corridor. He moved out of sight, fired one more shot, then moved back into our line of vision. Je

In the corridor, two men lay dead, their faces concealed beneath black ski masks, both wearing black denims and short black jackets.

"They picked the wrong camouflage gear," said Louis. "Ought to have checked the weather forecast." He pulled up one of the masks and turned to me: "Anyone you know?"

I shook my head and Louis released his hold on the mask. "Probably not worth knowing anyways," he said.

We advanced cautiously to the open door. Wisps of snow flew into the corridor, blown by the wind outside. Louis took a broom and used it to nudge the door closed, its lock splintered by the impact of the blows it had received. No more shots came. He then helped Ressler to carry a desk down the corridor from the office and they used it to block the entrance. We left Louis to watch the door and returned to the main office, where Angel and the young cop were each at one side of a window, trying to catch a glimpse of the men moving outside. There couldn't have been many of them left, I figured, although Tony Celli was still among them.

Walter stood farther back. I noticed he had his old.38 in his hand. I was certain now that I knew where Ellen was, assuming she was still alive, but if I told Walter he would run hell-for-leather into Tony Celli's men in an effort to get to her, and that would serve no purpose at all, apart from getting him killed.

A voice came. "Hey, inside. We don't want nobody to get hurt. Just send Purdue out and we'll be gone." It sounded like Mifflin.

Angel looked at me and gri

I took up a position beside him and looked out into the darkness. "He is kind of irritating," I agreed. I turned around to find Louis beside me.

"The door's okay. They try to come in again, we'll hear them before they can do any damage." He took a quick look out of the window. "Man, never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I feel like John Wayne."

"Rio Bravo," I said.

"Whatever. That the one with James Caan?"

"No, Ricky Nelson."

"Shit."

Behind us, Je

"You got a radio?" I asked.

It was Ressler who acknowledged the question. "We're getting white noise, nothing else."

"They're blocking you, or they've taken out your transmitter."

Je

"Oh, but this is the frontier," I said. "And they can do what they want. They're not going to leave without him, chief. Celli wants the money Purdue took from him, or his own people will kill him." I paused. "Then again, you could always give them the money."

"He didn't have any money when we found him," said Ressler. "Didn't even have a bag."

"You could ask him where it is," I suggested. I could see Billy Purdue looking at me curiously. Ressler looked at Je