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You saw nobody. Heard nothing. You keep your damn mouth shut.
Katherine stared in dread at the box. She knelt and peeled back the line of bright tape. It came off with a tearing sound. Inside was a cat. Alive.
Its back was broken.
Katherine fell backward into the house, frozen, and one thought filled her head.
Joh
She punched in the number for Steve’s apartment but misdialed. She tried again, fingers clumsy. “Please, God,” she said.
The phone rang six times, ten; but no one answered. In mortal fear, she hung up the phone. Then she called Hunt again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Joh
He drove slowly. Neighborhoods decayed the closer he got to the tracks. Joh
Freemantle’s house solidified ahead and to the right. It was a lightless hulk pi
Joh
That scared him.
That was real.
The blood was streaked and black. Gray powder stained light switches and doorknobs. In the back room, the blood was worse. So was the smell. Oily and thick, it stuck in his throat. Dried blood was a desert on the floor. Tape marked where the bodies had fallen.
Two bodies.
A desert of blood.
Joh
Hunt bulled his way through town. He crested the last hill doing eighty and felt the car rise on its shocks; then he was in the trough, foot pressing down as the needle swung to ninety. He braked hard at Katherine’s drive, hung a right, and slid to a halt.
Lights burned in the house. Darkness gathered in the trees.
No squad car.
Hunt spilled out, lights thumping blue behind the grille of his car. He sca
“Katherine-”
“Any word on Joh
Hunt stepped through the door. “I’ve already sent a car to Steve’s apartment. It’s probably there already.” Hunt held out a hand. “May I have the knife?”
“Sorry.” She handed it over and Hunt placed it on the counter.
“You’re okay,” he said. “I’m sure that Joh
“He’s not okay.”
“We don’t know anything yet.”
“I want to go to Steve’s.”
“And we will. I promise. Just sit down for a minute.” He got her onto the sofa and then straightened. The box was on the table. “Is that it?” Hunt asked.
She nodded. “I think it’s dead, now.”
Hunt approached the box, saw the silver tape, torn free, and beside the box an envelope and a sheet of paper. “I couldn’t leave it outside,” Katherine said. Hunt used a pen to lift the flaps. A film glazed the cat’s eyes. Its tongue protruded.
“It’s dead.” Hunt closed the flaps, then read the note: You saw nobody. Heard nothing. You keep your damn mouth shut.
Katherine crossed the room and stood beside him, looking down. She was shaking. “Do you think Ken did it? It came ten minutes after he left.”
“I doubt it.”
“You sound certain.”
“I’m not, but it feels wrong. Why drive off and come back? Why a
“What does it mean?” Katherine asked.
Hunt read the lines again. “I think it has to do with Burton Jarvis.”
“What?”
“The news coverage has been extensive.” He held her eyes. “You saw Joh
“Of course.”
“He was there, Katherine, at Jarvis’s house. No matter what he wants me to believe, Joh
“Somebody thinks that Joh
“Joh
“And number six?”
“Number six was careful. He changed license plates three times that we know of. He’s worried that Joh
“Are you talking about the cop?”
“We don’t know that it was a cop.”
“Joh
“He’s wrong. He has to be.”
“But what if he’s not?”
Hunt lacked an answer. In its place, he offered a hand. “Let’s go find your son.”
It was late when Joh
Joh
He killed the engine and opened the door. A stand of pines rose to the right of the road, halfway to the building. Joh
Jack was already there.
“Damn it, Joh
Joh
Jack shifted, sat up against the trunk of a pine tree. “Where else would I be?”
“Do you know what’s going on?”
Jack pointed at the police cars. “When I got here, that’s what I found.”
“How’d you get here?”
“I walked.”
“It’s four miles.”
Jack shrugged.
“Are you drunk?” Joh
“Are you preaching?”
“No.”
“You sound a little preachy.”