The Bone House (47 page)

    The
interior was cold and damp. The girl was shivering. He slid off his coat and
draped it around her shoulders. Outside and inside, he heard water dripping.

    'Now
what?' Tresa whispered.

    'Now
we wait,' Mark said.

    After
half an hour on the black, rolling water, the lights of the Washington Island
harbor looked like salvation. Cab was green, but Bobby Larch looked unconcerned
as he throttled back the engine of his fishing boat and drifted into the calm
shelter past the breakwater. Cab could see the outline of the ferries where
they were docked for the night. As they neared the shore, he heard something
odd and out of place. Jazz music. Somewhere in a harbor-side restaurant, a live
band drummed up applause from the crowd of locals.

    Cab
didn't think he had ever been happier than when the boat nudged gently against
the pier. Larch saw it in his face.

    'Hey,
I said I'd get you here,' he said.

    Cab
stepped off the boat on to the dock, and his knees were wobbly as the ground
stopped swaying under his feet. His skin was icy and wet. His suit and coat
were thick with grime. 'Yeah.'

    'So
why'd you change your mind about coming over here tonight?'

    'Long
story,' Cab said.

    A
long story buried in a hole.

    It
was a story of vengeance and justice. Cab knew why Peter Hoffman was dead. He
knew Mark Bradley would most likely be dead by morning, if he couldn't stop it.
He knew things he wished he didn't know at all.

    'I
need a car,' Cab said. 'You know where I can get one?'

    'You
got a hundred bucks?'

    'Yeah.'

    'Then
I know where you can get one.'

    Cab
peeled off a bill from the inside of his wallet, and Larch snapped it with a
smile and strolled away from him down the dock. Cab followed as far as the
parking lot. He saw Larch disappear inside the harbor restaurant, hearing the
music get louder as the door opened and closed. Larch was gone for two minutes.
When he returned, he flipped a set of keys through the air. Cab caught them.

    'Here
you go. It's a black Nissan around back. You'll have it back by morning,
right?'

    'Right.'
Cab added, 'How much did you give your friend?'

    'Fifty.'

    'You're
a good businessman, Bobby.'

    Larch
winked. 'Good luck, Detective.'

    Cab
had no trouble finding the Sentra parked behind the restaurant. It was old,
crusted with road spray, and smelled like sweet pine thanks to a Christmas tree
air freshener dangling from the mirror. He adjusted the driver's seat as far
backward as it would go and shot down the harbor road. He switched on his high
beams to light up the narrow lane between the trees.

    The
town was empty. The handful of year-round residents were down at the harbor
listening to jazz, or guzzling beer at Bitters Pub. Heading north, he sped into
the lonely land away from the shops. He almost missed the cemetery where he
turned toward the water, and then he turned again on the dirt road toward Mark
Bradley's house. He slowed to a crawl, scanning the woods for the man's
driveway.

    When
he found it, he parked in front, blocking the way out.

    Cab
got out, bringing his flashlight with him. As he walked toward the house, he
lit up the Ford Explorer parked diagonally on the edge of the clearing and then
the ground surrounding the truck. His light glinted on something shiny, and he
saw a set of keys dropped in the mud. He picked them up, shook off the dirt,
and deposited them in his pocket. He saw a mess of footprints in and out of the
house. When he turned the flashlight toward the front door, he saw it standing
open.

    'Shit,'
Cab muttered.

    He
was too late. He reached inside his jacket pocket and slid his Glock into his
hand.

    He
took a chance by shouting. 'Bradley!' Then a moment later, he called, 'Tresa!'

    He listened,
but no one answered. Water dripped through the trees, and wind rushed in
whistles through the branches. He used the flashlight again, hunting on the
ground and in the woods. He knew what he was looking for in the sodden earth.
Bodies. He was relieved when he found none.

    Cab
called again. 'Bradley!'

    He
followed the perimeter of the house, tracking footsteps along the eastern wall.
He came upon the screened porch at the rear of the house, and through the mesh,
on the other wall, he saw another open door and the jagged splinters where the
lock had been yanked out of the frame. He circled the porch and let himself
inside through the broken door. The house was cold where the night air had been
blowing through the open space. There was no smell of fresh blood. He checked
the kitchen, then illuminated the hallway in the cone of light.

    He
spotted an open bedroom door and tightened his grip on his gun as he moved
inside. He checked out the closet and saw clothes lying in piles on the floor.
The bed was made, but the comforter was rumpled. On the wall, half under the
bed, he spotted a cell phone, and he squatted down and flipped it open to look
inside. The photo on the screen showed a girl in the wind, her long red hair
blowing across her eyes, her face sad and contemplative.

    Tresa.

    Tresa
had been here. In the bedroom. He half expected to smell the musk of sex
lingering in the air, and he realized that the relationship between the two of them
was still a mystery. He didn't know if the affair between them had been real or
a product of the girl's erotic imagination. All he knew was that she'd come to
the island as soon as she found out that Hilary was gone for the night.

    Now
Tresa and Mark Bradley were both gone.

    He
also wondered for the first time: where was Hilary? Why wasn't she here?

    Cab
slid the phone into his pocket and got to his feet.

    As he
turned, the air around his head whistled with motion. He flinched instinctively,
knowing what was coming. Something rock solid hammered the base of his skull,
where bone met muscle. The blackness of the night turned hot and orange behind
his eyes. He had an instant of pain, and then he was falling, but he was
unconscious before the weight of his body collapsed on the floor.

    Ten
minutes passed, and Katie hadn't returned.

    Hilary
got out of the Taurus and walked through the mushy grass to the trees near the
road. She took cover and eyed the dark house across the street. She saw
nothing. She heard nothing. She danced with impatience and indecision. When she
checked her watch, more time had ticked away.

    Katie
might be inside, in danger. Or maybe, like the smart, manipulative girl that
Hilary suspected she was, Katie had never gone inside at all. She might simply
be hiding outside, waiting for Hilary to call the police.

    Hilary
started across the street. The light overhead cast a yellow glow in a pool on
the asphalt and turned her shadow into a black giant. She passed through the
light quickly. At the corner, under sagging telephone wires, she studied the
brick house, which was almost invisible behind the trees. She sheltered herself
under the low-hanging branches. On the front wall, a faint light glowed behind
the curtains upstairs and downstairs.

    'Katie,'
she whispered.

    If
the girl was nearby, she was silent. Hilary fingered her phone.

    She
hiked toward the rear of the house. Beyond the bushy arms of a huge arborvitae,
she found a gravel driveway and ducked into it, steps away from the downstairs
windows. The curtains were drawn here, too; she couldn't see inside. She saw
the garage ahead of her, its white door shut. The driveway was lit by a dim
fluorescent bulb, and she felt exposed standing there. If anyone looked
outside, she was visible.

    Hilary
crept around the side of the garage. The brick wall was built with a single
window, tall and narrow, and she put her face close to the glass and peered
inside. As she stood, framed by the window, the garage was flooded by light.

    Gasping,
Hilary threw herself to the ground. She heard the grinding of the garage door
and the click of a car door as it opened and shut. An engine caught. She kept
her chest tight to the wet ground, and she saw a Honda Civic back out of the
garage toward the street. Its bright beams passed over her head. The car turned
into the street, and as it headed east toward Highway 57, she heard the garage
door groaning downward.

    She
acted on instinct before her brain could stop her. She pushed herself off the
grass and ran for the corner of the house. Only six feet separated the bottom
of the garage door from the concrete floor. She got to her knees and rolled
under the door, scraping her hands on loose rock. The old door didn't have a safety
mechanism. It slammed shut, nearly pinning her leg, which she scooted into the
garage under the metal skirt at the last second.

    Hilary
was alone in the empty garage.

    She
hurried to the door leading to the interior of the house and turned the knob
silently. She pushed it open and felt warm air and saw the darkness of the
kitchen. She listened, not knowing if the house was empty. She didn't hear
voices or the sound of a television, only the hum of the furnace. The kitchen
smelled like burnt tomato sauce.

    Hilary
crept inside. A voice in her head screamed:
What the hell are you doing?

    She
swallowed down her fear. She'd given herself an opportunity to see if Amy was
in the house. Katie was right. That was something the police couldn't do.

    Where
was Katie?

    Hilary
had a sickening thought, as she considered the possibility that Katie was in
the back of the Civic that had just left. Tied up. Or dead. She'd been a fool
not to stop her. One domino fell, and suddenly the others began to fall, and
you couldn't prevent them from tumbling down.

    She
left the kitchen through swinging doors and followed the hallway to the living
room. The hearth smelled of a recent fire. The television was on, which made
her freeze with concern, but the sound was muted, and the room was empty. It
occurred to her:
Jensen wasn't going to be long.

    She
rushed through the downstairs rooms. The dining room. The bathroom. The
library. The pantry. It was a big house with odd corners and Victorian spaces. There
were nooks and crannies where you could hide things. Everywhere she went, the
curtains were closed. The house felt Gothic. Haunted. Even so, the rooms were
empty and innocent, as if she'd made a mistake.

    She
found the basement. Her heart was in her mouth as she descended the wooden
steps. Here, below ground, she felt comfortable enough to turn on a light. The
sprawling underworld was twisted, with concrete block walls, pipes and ductwork
nestled among pink insulation, and corners and turns that mirrored the layout
of the house above it. She practically ran, conscious of time passing, of
minutes ticking away before Jensen came back. The basement was like a maze, and
she had to open steel doors and peer behind stacks of boxes and into crawl
spaces to make sure he hadn't built a killing ground for himself in the cold
dampness down here.

    Nothing.

    Hilary
returned carefully to the main floor. She breathed heavily as she ran up the
twisting staircase to the second story. There was a hallway that broke off like
a Z in several directions, and the doors were all closed. Too many doors. All
she could do was check them one by one. She went left and tore each door open
and swung it shut. Bathroom. Linen closet. Nursery. Master bedroom.

    She
began to think this was all a fool's errand. A misunderstanding. She had to get
out.

    Hilary
retraced her steps and quickly investigated the other side of the house.
Bedroom. Bathroom. Bedroom. All of them empty and mostly unused. She found a
spur hallway leading to a last bedroom that overlooked the rear of the house,
and as she headed for the closed door, she heard a sickening noise.

    The
rumble of the garage door. Gary Jensen was back.

    'Oh,
no,' she murmured, freezing in her tracks.