Nightmare City (21 page)

But even as he told himself that, the image of her face came to him. That amazingly pretty face he had loved since he was a little kid. The idea that she might hate him forever hurt—it hurt more than he wanted to admit. And he had a feeling it was going to hurt for a long, long time to come.

The elevator stopped. The door opened. Tom stepped out into the lobby. The receptionist with the stern face flashed a brief smile at him from behind her desk.

“Have a nice day,” she said without much feeling.

Tom nodded and walked out of the building.

The rain had slowed to a drizzle now. Tom’s Mustang was parked across the street. He got into it, turned on the engine, turned on the windshield wipers. As the wipers swept the rain off the glass, he dug his phone out of his pocket again. He called up Lisa’s name on his speed dial.

But before he could press the Call button, the phone rang. The readout lit up:
Marie Cameron
.

Tom stared at the name for only a second. Then he answered.

“It’s me, Tom,” she said.

The sweet, soft voice seemed to pierce through him. “Marie.” Her name came out of him in a low murmur. This
was probably the last time she would ever speak to him, he realized.

“I need to talk to you, Tom,” she said. “It’s important.”

Holding the phone to his ear, Tom looked out the windshield at the street in front of him, looked through the air gray with rain. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Not on the phone. We have to meet. It’s about . . . it’s about my dad.”

“Your dad?”

“Yes. And about the football team. My dad was the one who . . . Look, I don’t want to say it on the phone. Please . . .”

Tom was quiet a moment, surprised. This was a twist. It didn’t make sense. If Marie had been flirting with him to keep him from finding out the truth, why was she telling it to him straight out like this? “I already know about that,” he said. “And listen, I’m sorry. I wish I could keep quiet about it.”

“Keep quiet?” said Marie, sounding startled. “No, no, you can’t keep quiet. Of course not. You have to write about it in the paper. But you can’t write about it until you know the whole story. The real story.”

Now Tom was just plain confused. “What do you mean?”

“It’s not what you think, Tom. It’s totally different than what it sounds like. Believe me. You have to meet me. Somewhere secret. I don’t want my father to know. Or Gordon.”

“Gordon? What’s he got to do with it?”

“Tom,” said Marie—and again, her voice seemed to go right into him. “I promise I’ll tell you everything if you just meet me.”

Tom only hesitated another moment. What could he do? He had to meet her. Maybe she was right. Maybe he didn’t know the whole story. Before he did anything else, he had to find out all the facts.

“Okay,” he said quietly. “Where do you want to meet?”

“Up on Cold Water Mountain,” Marie answered. “No one goes there since the fire. Meet me at the monastery.”

28.

I
t was a ten-minute drive to the trailhead. Half an hour’s hike up into the hills. Soon Tom was moving through the part of the woods that had been destroyed last summer by the Independence Fire. The blaze had started after a bunch of kids set off some fireworks near the trail. The dry summer brush had been torched, and the flames had swept through the woods for nearly three days before the firemen had finally managed to put the fire out. It had left behind a
hellish landscape: a whole forest of twisted, blackened trees, their gnarled branches stunted, their broken silhouettes twisted against the boiling, cloud-covered sky.

The rain had stopped, but the light was failing. Evening was spreading across the mountainside like a gray stain. Tendrils of mist twined among the spooky, corkscrewing, coal-black corpses that had once been living trees.

Tom’s footsteps were the only noises in the deserted place. They were eerily loud as he made his way along the trail, under the gnarled branches. It was not long before the charred timbers of the monastery roof became visible over the ridge. A few more steps and the rest of the retreat came into view.

Santa Maria had been a retreat for Catholic monks who wanted to get away from the world and contemplate God. Most of the monks came up from the main monastery building in the town below, but others came from around the country, too, to see the artwork here and to appreciate the beautiful views of the mountainside and the ocean. The place had actually been kind of famous for a while. But it was just a ruin now. Jagged, fire-blackened walls stood against the backdrop of the distant sea. There were piles of toppled bricks. A stone chimney still standing lopsided under a burned oak. Remnants of rooms with one or two walls remaining. Pieces of furniture—tables, chairs—burned and
broken, lying in the dirt under the burned, broken trees as if they were part of the forest as well.

Just beyond the building site, there was a huge table of rock jutting out from the side of the mountain. It formed a sort of natural balcony, beyond which Tom could see the town spread out among the trees below, and the ocean, endless and dark blue under the churning gray sky. The monks had often come out onto this rock at the end of the day to watch the sunset.

Tom scanned the scene. Silent now. Motionless.

He called out, “Marie?”

But no one answered. Only the wind stirred, sending the high clouds tumbling and turning.

Debris crunched under his sneakers as he moved farther into the monastery site. He stepped out from behind the chimney and came into a room. It was the only room left standing here—almost intact, as if the fire somehow hadn’t touched it. It had been the monastery chapel. The roof had burned off and one wall had crumbled to charcoal rubble. But three walls remained standing, scorched though they were. Some of the pews had survived as well, some toppled, some still in their rows, all of them scarred. The chapel crucifix seemed to have been melted into the wall behind the altar, but the shape of the cross remained there. The stained glass was all gone, but the peaked shapes
of the windows were still visible high on the wall, open to the sky.

Tom stepped farther into the chapel, the grit on the floor jabbing up through his sneaker soles. He had the weird feeling that some ghostly presence was watching him—and then he understood why. On one of the walls, a heavy gilt picture frame hung askew. The painting in the frame had been burned away—all of it except one small jagged patch that held part of a face, the part with the eyes.

Tom felt a little chill. The eyes really did seem to be gazing at him through the gathering dusk. They were gentle eyes but full of pain. There was a line of blood running down the temple beside them. Maybe this had once been a picture of Jesus on the cross, Tom thought, or one of the suffering saints. He didn’t know.

“It’s sad to see this place in ruins,” said a voice behind him.

Surprised, Tom spun around. Dr. Cameron was standing at the opening of the chapel, the place where the fourth wall had been before the fire destroyed it. The silver-blond-haired man with that perfect face so much like his daughter’s looked relaxed and casual. He was wearing jeans and a sports jacket over a sweater, as if he had stopped off here on his way to a dinner out with friends. He smiled easily as Tom stood staring.

“You should see the look on your face,” he said with a laugh. “You don’t have to be so amazed. It’s not like I’m a ghost or anything.”

It was a moment before Tom could answer. Then he said, “I was expecting Marie.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you were,” Dr. Cameron said with another laugh, a harder laugh. “But I’m afraid I’m the best you’re going to get.”

Tom understood right away. Marie’s phone call had just been more lies.

You have to write about it in the paper. But you can’t write about it until you know the whole story. Meet me at the monastery
.

He should’ve known. None of what she had said was true. She had just been doing her father’s bidding. Tricking him into coming up here where there was no one to hear them, no one to see. Tom had been a fool for her from the beginning. Nothing had changed.

“I was worried that Ms. Lee might not be able to keep her mouth shut,” Dr. Cameron went on. His footsteps crunched over the dirty floor as he came forward. “I paid the receptionist a few bucks to keep an eye on her for me. She told me you came by. I knew why.”

“So you had your daughter call me and lure me up here,” said Tom.

Dr. Cameron gave a full laugh, his white teeth gleaming in the darkening twilight. “Lure you! That’s a sinister phrase! What do you think I am, some kind of gangster?”

Tom decided not to answer that.

“I just wanted a private place where we could talk,” said Dr. Cameron. “I wanted to reason with you before you did something that could hurt a lot of people—and that might make your own life pretty difficult as well.” He stopped advancing and stood still a few yards away from Tom. The gilt picture frame was on the wall between them. The suffering eyes that were all that was left of the painting seemed to watch them both. “Your choice is pretty simple, my friend. On the one hand, you write a story in the newspaper about me. You’ll be pulling a thread that will unravel relationships throughout this town, throughout this state, even beyond that, and the repercussions will be enormous. You’ll suffer. I’ll suffer. A lot of important people will suffer. And Marie—Marie will suffer maybe more than anyone. If things go badly for me, her life will become”—he gestured at the burned-out walls around them—“a ruin, like this place. So that’s one way you can go. The other way: you let me be your friend. I can help you—and your mom. There might be some money for you, for instance. You could use that, I’ll bet. And I can help you get into a good college, get a good job. I have a lot of friends, Tom. Powerful friends. We can all help you.”

Tom nodded. “If I agree to lie.”

Dr. Cameron shrugged. “Nobody’s asking you to lie. Not at all. I’m just asking you to use some discretion. Hold back. Don’t write about me in your newspaper. Don’t give people information they don’t need, information that’ll only do harm.”

“Leaving stuff out is lying, too,” said Tom. “Not telling the whole truth is lying.”

Dr. Cameron smiled again. Looked down at his loafers. Shook his head. Looked up at Tom. “Have it your way. But here’s how it is. If you tell the whole truth about me, you’ll cause yourself and everyone else around you pain. If you . . . lie, as you say, I can give you so much. Money, contacts, success. The keys to the world. Don’t be a fool, Tom. It’s a good offer. It’s everything. All you have to do is keep silent.”

Tom hesitated for a moment before he answered. He knew Dr. Cameron was right. It was a good offer, as these things go. And maybe he should have felt tempted. But he didn’t, not really. Money, contacts, success—sure, he wanted all that. But to lie in bed every night knowing he was nothing but a liar and a coward and a man who could be bought off—well, that didn’t sound like having the keys to the world. That sounded like hell on earth.

A memory flitted through his mind then. Something Burt had told him once. Just a goofy piece of big brother–type
advice he’d given him when they were both a lot younger, something about playing what Burt called the “bigger game.” It was a long time ago now, one of Tom’s birthdays. Burt had given him a baseball bat, Tom remembered, a Louisville Slugger Warrior. He still had that bat in his closet somewhere. Even though he never used it anymore, he wouldn’t let his mother give it away . . .

“Tom?” said Dr. Cameron, breaking into his thoughts. “It’s getting dark. I have a dinner engagement. I need an answer. Now.”

“You know, my brother died in Afghanistan about six months ago,” Tom said. It hurt him even now just to mention it. “He was helping evacuate some kids from a school that was in a danger zone. He was getting them to safety when a sniper shot him.”

Dr. Cameron gave a puzzled gesture. “Yes, I heard. Too bad. But what’s that got to do with anything?”

“It’s just . . . He didn’t have to be there, you know. He volunteered. He didn’t have to. He could’ve gotten a job. Earned some money. Become a success in the world. He wanted that. He wanted all that stuff. All he had to do was stay home. Just stay home. But he was playing a bigger game.”

“You’re not making any sense,” said Dr. Cameron.

“I’m not as brave as he was,” Tom said, and his eyes got misty as he said it. “I’m not a hero like he was. But I’m
playing that game, too. And you can keep your money, Dr. Cameron. And you can keep your important friends. And you can keep your daughter, if it comes to that. Because I’m going to write the truth about you, and nothing’s going to stop me.”

Dr. Cameron shook his head one more time. Then he put his hand in his jacket—and when he brought it out, he was holding a gun. The relaxed smile was gone from his face, and even in the growing darkness, his eyes gleamed with fury and hatred.

When Tom first saw the gun, he was surprised and frightened. Then he was not surprised. What was surprising about it? This was who Dr. Cameron was. This was what he had made himself. Tom stared into the weapon’s deadly black bore and knew the doctor would pull the trigger without hesitation and that his life was over.

“You have a lot to learn, son,” Dr. Cameron said. “Too bad you’ll never get a chance to learn it. You want the truth? Here’s the truth: this is what happens to people who can’t keep their mouths shut.”

It flashed through Tom’s mind that he had to rush the man, had to try to get that gun from him—but there was no time for more than the thought. Because indeed Dr. Cameron did not hesitate. He pulled the trigger without conscience or remorse.

Tom never heard the explosion. He only felt the jolt of the bullet ripping into his flesh.

Then there was nothing but agony and darkness.

THE LAST INTERLUDE: THE WARRIOR

It was Tom’s eleventh birthday. It had been a great day, a perfect spring day. He had had some friends over to the house for a party. Then, when the party was over, Burt had given him his last present. It was an aluminum baseball bat. A Louisville Slugger Warrior. Burt had wrapped it up in some red paper, but of course he couldn’t disguise the shape of it. It was obvious what it was. Burt handed the long cylinder to Tom and said, “Here, kid. It’s a sweater.” Which had seemed hilarious at the time.