The Midnight Tour (34 page)

“But this guy was here yesterday and he’s back today. I just saw him out in front of the ticket booth.”

“Are you sure it’s the same guy?”

“Positive. He was giving me the eye yesterday. In a furtive sort of way. And I was out front by the time he left. I took his tape player...”

“So he’s not our vanishing mystery guest...”

“He might be our
other
mystery guest. That’s what I’m getting at.”

“Just because he gave you the eye?”

“He wasn’t alone yesterday. He had a gal with him. A girlfriend, maybe. The thing is, I don’t think they were getting along very well. She was really pretty, in a way. But she had this horrible smirky look. Anyway, she doesn’t seem to be with him this morning. It looks like maybe he came back without her.”

“That does seem slightly odd.”

“It just makes me wonder, you know? Maybe he’s got a
thing
about me.
Or
about you. Maybe he got rid of the gal and followed us home after we left here yesterday.”

“I don’t know. Sounds like you’re making a lot out of not very much. All he did was look at you.”

“He seemed pretty intense. And now he’s back without the girl. And I caught him
staring
at me.”

“Guys will stare. We don’t want to go jumping to a lot of wild conclusions.”

“I’m
not.
I’m just saying he might be...a possible suspect.”

“He’s over by the ticket booth?”

“He was. When we drove in. He’s probably still there.”

Tuck swung open her door. “Let’s go,” she said, and climbed out.

Dana met her behind the Jeep. Side by side, they started walking toward the open gate. A couple of other cars were already coming in.

“Take a look at him as we go by,” Dana said. “He’ll be the skinny guy with the weird hair. He’s in a Madras shirt.”

“I’ll check him out. And why don’t you stop and have a friendly little chat with him
^?
”

“You’re kidding.”

“Am not. Maybe you can find out what he’s up to. I’ll go ahead inside and start to open things up.”

“Alone?”

Tuck smiled and shook her head. “Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I do it all the time.”

“But there’s been so much weird stuff,” Dana said. “I’d better go in with you. I can talk to this guy later.”

“Nothing’s going to happen.”

“But if it does, I’ll be with you.”

Tuck, grinning, shook her head. “My pal,” she said.

chapter Twenty-five

SANDY’S STORY
July 1992

When Sandy came out of the cabin, she found Eric waiting in the passenger seat of her pickup truck Like a kid eager for the trip to begin, he grinned at her and bounced up and down.

Sandy felt a pang of regret.

Opening the driver’s door, she said, “I wish I
could
take you with me, honey.”

He tilted his head, gave her a sad look, and made a dog-like whimper. As if begging,
Please?

Sandy climbed aboard. Leaning over, she put an arm around her son’s shoulders, pulled him toward her and kissed his cheek.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Tell you what, we can make a night trip sometime soon. Maybe later this week. How does that sound?”

Chuffing. he nodded.

Ever since her son’s infancy, Sandy had taken him on night trips into town once in a while as a special treat He seemed to just love the adventure of it. But she had never taken him during the day. And never would. Risky enough, driving him into town in the middle of the night. She would have to be nuts to do it in daylight.

“Hop on out, now,” she told him.

He whined.

“Go on,” she said, gently easing him away.

He reached for the door handle, then looked back at Sandy.

The ridges above his eyes lifted. They would’ve raised his eyebrows if he’d had any. But he had no brows, no hair anywhere on his body. Even puberty, which he’d apparently attained recently, hadn’t resulted in any hair. He was bald all over, the same as his father and the others.

“Go on, now,” Sandy told him again. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”

He nodded, then swung open the door and jumped to the ground. He turned around and stared at Sandy.

“Could you shut the door for me?” she asked.

He reached out and whipped it shut. It slammed. Sandy cringed.

He didn’t slam it that hard on purpose, she told herself. -

He’s just too strong. And hasn’t learned to control it yet.

Smiling, she said, “Next time, take it easy on the door, okay?”

He shrugged.

“Jerk,” she said.

He grinned.

Sandy started the engine, then called out the window, “Try to stay out of trouble while I’m gone, okay? And don’t talk to any strangers.”

An old joke between them.

Grinning, Eric bobbed his head.

Sandy backed up the truck, turned it around, then slowly drove away. In the side mirror, she saw Eric standing in front of the cabin.

He looked so damn lonely and forlom.

Sandy felt her throat tighten up.

Poor kid, she thought.

It’s not like we have any choice. We’re doing the best we can.

Hell, we’re doing pretty damn good, considering. At least we’re alive and free and together. That’s all that really counts.

She drove around a curve. No longer able to see Eric, she felt an ache of loss.

She
hated
leaving him alone for these drives into town.

Nothing’s going to happen, she told herself. When I am home, he’s off all day roaming around in the woods. So what does it really matter if I’m in town instead of the cabin? .

It
matters.

At a break in the trees, she turned her head and looked over at the burial place. She
always
had to look. Long ago, she’d given up fighting the urge.

She knew precisely where to look. But the grave was not to be seen. It lay hidden beneath a heavy cluster of bushes.

Glancing at the bushes, Sandy remembered when they hadn’t been there. She remembered the look, the feel, and the strong dirt scent of the mound as it had been in the beginning. That first night, after piling in the dirt on Lib and Harry and Slade, she’d sat down on the mound because she was too worn out to go anywhere else and because she wasn’t quite positive about Harry and Lib.

They were
probably
dead.

But maybe not.

One or the other of them might still be alive down there, badly hurt and shat of air, but not quite dead. And maybe somehow strong enough to fight his or her way up through the dirt.

Not if I’m sitting on it.

Sitting on the grave, she’d thought about the three of them down there. A sandwich of naked bodies, Lib in the middle like a slab of meatloaf.

No, no, no, not meatloaf. It’s a salami, sandwich.

And Lib’s in the middle, but she isn’t the meat
.

Hope she’s happy. Should’ve kept her big mouth shut.

Driving on past the bushes where the grave lurked, Sandy remembered how angry she’d been, that night. Everything had seemed so fine between her and Ub until Harry had shown up.

He’d ruined it.

We could’ve been a family.

But Lib had gone nuts for the guy and turned into a slut.

A
talkative
slut, a
traitorous
slut. Didn’t have an ounce of loyalty in her whole damn body. Couldnt
wait
to start spilling the beans.

She didn’t even know the guy!

Sandy shook her head.

She felt like a different person from the girl sitting on top of the grave that night.

God, I was so young then. And so angry.

And Jealous

Ridiculous.

She wished she hadn’t killed Harry and Lib. She always wished she hadn’t done it.

Not that she felt very guilty about it. They both got what they deserved. They’d turned against her. Sooner or later, they would’ve turned against Eric, too. If she hadn’t killed them, there would’ve been hell to pay.

But she’d liked them.

Both.

If things had worked out differently. Lib might’ve been like a big sister to her. Harry might’ve been like a brother

Or lover.

Who knows?

Ever since that night twelve years ago, she couldn’t drive past the grave without remembering it all.

Couldn’t remember without wishing she hadn’t killed them.

Wishing they hadn’t made it necessary.

It all worked out for the best, she told herself.

Not for them.

Well, tough. They should have behaved
.

Better that they
didn’t
behave, she thought. Otherwise, I might’ve been lulled into trusting them. Then it would’ve been me and Eric getting the shaft.

This way, I got in the first strike.

What’s that military term?

A
preemptive
strike.

Yeah.

I sure preempted the shit out of those two. Got them before they could get us.

Off through the trees, Pacific Coast Highway came into sight. Sandy drove ahead slowly, then stopped a few yards short of the heavy, iron gate barring her way. She hopped out and strode toward it. As she walked through shadows and brilliant sunlight, her boots crunched the fallen leaves, pine needles and twigs. Mixed in with the heavy scents of the woods was a fresh, strong smell of ocean. And a
feel
of the ocean’s breeze, cooler and fresher than the sweet warm air of the woods.

It always got her just about now, on her way to open the gate.

My gate
.

. The dirt road hadn’t been gated in Harry’s days. Sandy, herself, had bought the barricade in town and hired a couple of guys to install it.

The gate did a fair job of keeping people out.

That, and the sign wired to its front:

PRIVATE PROPERTY
KEEP OUT
VIOLATERS SUBJECT TO PROSECUTION
AND TARGET PRACTICE

The sign was her own creation. She thought the “target practice” bit, while threatening, showed a certain wit and style.

The sign and the gate itself seemed especially cool considering that the private property wasn’t
hers
.

The land belonged to Harry Matthews.

He owned it. He was buried in it.

After removing the padlock, Sandy walked backward, pulling the gate. When it was wide open, she stepped back, read her sign and grinned. then she hurried to the pickup. She rolled through, shut and locked the gate behind her, then drove slowly over the rough dirt tracks, bouncing and shaking until she reached the edge of the highway,

She waited until an enormous RV roared by. After that, the road was clear. She made a hard right turn onto the pavement and stepped on the gas.

The nearest town was Fort Platt, almost fifty miles up the coast. She turned on the radio. Reaching over in front of the passenger seat, she opened the glove compartment Half a dozen cassette tapes were piled inside. She found her favorite Warren Zevon tape—the one with “Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner.” Then she shut the compartment, slid the cassette into the slot in her radio, and pushed the start button.

“Now we’re cookin’,” she muttered.

As much as she regretted leaving Eric behind—and worried about his safety—she couldnt help but enjoy being alone on the road.

Free.

She settled back in the seat and smiled at the feel of the wind in her face.

Resting her left arm on the sill of the open window, she steered with one hand. She was wearing a sleeveless white blouse. Air ruhed in through the arm hole, slid over her breasts, fluttered the front of the blouse She unfastened a couple of buttons to let more air come in.

High above the ocean, she could see little more than the horizon when she looked straight to the left. Looking ahead, however, she could see down over the left side of the highway. A fabulous view stretched out ahead of her—miles of rough, rocky bluffs with patches of sandy beach down below, the ocean’s frothy rows of combers rolling in. The water was pale blue and glinting sunlight. Far off to the west, a bank of fog lay across the water like a mat of snow.

To the right, she could see densely wooded hillsides and cloudless sky.

This is the life, she thought.

If you don’t mind biding your life away in the bills with a monster.

She felt a quick flush of guilt.

He’s my
kid
, she told herself. He is my life.

He’s a monster.

But he’s mine and I love him. And what choice do I have, anyway ?

She knew the choices.

She’d thought about them many times.

Alone during her long drives into town, she rarely
failed
to think about the choices.

There were only two, really. Either continue hiding out with Eric, or leave him.

It’s not as if he really
needs
me anymore, she thought. He could get along just fine on his own.