Cemetery Dance

The shock of the sounds, so loud and sudden after such lengthy silence, galvanized her. Something was happening, and this might be her only chance to act. She tensed, listening intently. At first faintly, and then more pronounced, came the sounds of something heavy being dragged over the cellar floor. A grunt, a pause, more dragging. Silence. And then the sound of the grate in her door being opened.

The voice of her jailer rang out. "Got a visitor!"

Nora did not move.

A light shined in through the opening, the black bars of the grate thrown into relief against the far wall.

Still Nora waited. To force him to enter and then make her attack — it was her only chance.

She heard a key in the lock, saw the door swing partway open. But instead of stepping in, her jailer flopped something on the floor — a body — and immediately backed out, slamming the door behind him. In the retreating light she stared at the body's face, silhouetted in the light from the grate: the chiseled features, high cheekbones, marble skin and fine hair; the eyes like slits showing only the whites; dust and blood caked in the hair; the once black suit now a powdery gray, rumpled and torn; a pool of dark blood still spreading across his shirt.

Pendergast. Dead.

She cried out in surprise and dismay.

"Friend of yours?" the voice jeered through the grate. The lock turned, the padlock rattled, and darkness returned once again.

Chapter 82

Alexander Esteban hurried back through the basements he knew so well and took the stairs up to ground level, two at a time. In a moment he was out of the barn and outside. It was a fresh, cold fall night, the stars sprinkled hard across a velvet sky. Breaking into a run, he headed to his car, flung open the door, and — thank God, thankGod — grabbed the manila envelope that lay on the passenger's seat. He opened it, slid out the old vellum sheets within, checked them, and — more slowly now — slid them back in.

He leaned against the car, breathing hard. It was silly, this panic. Of course the document was safe. It wasn't worth anything to anyone else but him, anyway. Few would even understand it. Even so, it had tormented him dreadfully, thinking of it sitting there in the car unprotected. He had pla

Smiling a little ruefully to himself, he went back into the house, walked through the darkened halls to his office, and opened his safe. He put the envelope inside the steel confines and gazed at it fondly for a moment. Now his mind was fully at ease. Now he could go back to the basement and finish things off. Pendergast was dead; he only had to do the girl. Their bodies would go deep beneath the basement floor — he had already worked out the spot — and nobody would ever see them again.

He pushed the massive steel door shut and punched in the electronic code. As the locking mechanism whispered and clicked when the tumblers eased into place, Esteban thought about the coming weeks, months, years… and he smiled. It would be a struggle, but he would emerge from it a very, very rich man.

Leaving the house, he strolled back across the lawn, breathing easily, his hand on the grips of the gun he'd taken from the FBI agent's body. It was clearly a police — issue firearm, perfect for the anonymous job he had in mind. He'd get rid of it, of course — after he had used it on the girl.

The girl. She'd already surprised him with her resourcefulness and physical resilience. One should never underestimate human ingenuity in the face of death. Despite her being injured and locked up, he'd have to be careful — no sense slipping up at the last minute, with everything he desired now in his possession.

Inside the barn, he flicked on his flashlight and descended to the basement. He wondered if the girl was going to make it hard on him, crouching behind the damn door like she'd done before. He didn't think so — tossing Pendergast's body into the cell had clearly freaked her out. She'd probably be hysterical, pleading, trying to talk her way out of it. Good luck — he wouldn't even give her the chance.

He reached the door to her cellar room and opened the barred window, shining his light inside. There she was, once again in the center of the room, lying on the straw, sobbing, all fight gone, head bent forward, covered by her hands. Her broad back made a perfect target. Off to her right, still visible, was the FBI agent's corpse, clothes in disarray, as if she'd been searching him for his gun. Perhaps the lack of a weapon was what had made her ultimately give up hope.

He felt a pang of remorse. This was a cold thing to do. It wasn't like killing Fearing or Kidd — they were opportunistic scum, low — life criminals who would do anything for a buck. And yet killing the woman was a necessary evil, unavoidable. Squinting through the sights, he took careful aim at her upper back, directly above her heart, and squeezed off a round from the Colt. The force of the bullet knocked her sideways and she screamed — a short, sharp scream. The second shot caught her lower down, just above her kidneys, knocking her sideways again. There was no scream this time.

That took care of that.

But he had to be sure. A bullet to the brain for each was in order — and then a quick burial in the place of his choice. He would get rid of Smithback's and the researcher's bodies at the same time. Husband and wife together — wouldn't that be appropriate?

Gun at the ready, he inserted the key in the lock and eased open the door.

Chapter 83

D'Agosta turned to the two protesters, their faces tight with anxiety, cashmere sweaters and deck shoes shockingly out of place in this gothic hall of the dead. "Get behind that crypt," he said, pointing to a nearby slab of marble. "Duck down, out of sight. Hurry."

He wheeled back toward Hayward, his broken forearm protesting at the sudden movement. "Give me your flashlight."

She passed it to him and he quickly shielded it against his palm, muting the beam. "Laura, I've got no weapon. We can't hide from it, and we can't outrun it. When it comes in, shoot."

"When what comes in?"

"You'll know. It doesn't seem to feel pain, fear, anything. It looks like a man, at first… but it's not fully human. It's fast and determined as hell. I'll spotlight it for you. If you hesitate, we're dead."

She swallowed, nodded, checked her handgun.

Tucking the flashlight into his pocket, he took up position behind a large marble tomb and motioned Hayward to take up a position behind the adjacent one. Then they waited. For a minute, all he heard was Hayward's rapid breathing; a faint whimpering from one of the protesters; the hammering of his heart in his chest. Then it came again: the pattering of bare feet against wet stone. It seemed farther away now. A low groan echoed through the cavernous space, long and drawn out, yet freighted with a hungry urgency: aaaaaahhhhuuuuu …

From the darkness behind them, D'Agosta heard the whimpering of the protester rise, grow panicky.

"Quiet!" he whispered.

The pattering of feet stopped. D'Agosta felt his heart quicken. He reached into his pocket for the flashlight. As he did so, his hand closed over the medallion of Saint Michael, patron saint of policemen. His mother had given it to him when he first joined the force. Every morning he slipped it into his pocket almost without thought. Even though he hadn't prayed in probably half a dozen years and hadn't been to church for even longer, he heard himself begin to pray now: God, Who knows us to be set in the midst of great perils …