The Bone House (50 page)

    Troy
splashed through huge puddles in the road, sprinting south. A quarter-mile
further, he broke from the trees and found himself in the sprawling grass of
the cemetery. He had enough light under the open sky to see rows of stones
poking out of the earth. He bent low, moving from tomb to tomb, eyeing the
woods. The telltale light came and went, flashing on and off, and Troy was
directly in its path. Mark Bradley was heading straight for him.

    He
stopped behind a grave marked with black marble only fifteen yards from the
brush where the forest ended. It was slick with rain, and the grass was sodden
as he crouched near the tomb. He clutched his gun, smelling burnt powder on his
hands. He watched the trees, hunting for the shadow of a man arriving at the
long carpet of headstones. His heart thumped so fast he thought he would die
before he sprang up and pulled the trigger.

    Troy
took a deep breath. He lifted the gun.

    Mark couldn't
find Tresa. She'd been swallowed up by the night. After the boom of the gunshot
rose above the rain, he knew that Troy was out there, firing blindly at
anything that moved. The boy was a menace, and if he wasn't stopped, someone
was going to get killed. Mark picked his way through the forest, breaking
branches, not caring about the noise he made. If Troy was here, he wanted the
boy to hear him and follow him. He wanted to draw him away from Tresa.

    His ankle
was swollen where he had twisted it. Each time his heel landed on the uneven
ground, he grimaced. He headed south, but it was nearly impossible to keep a
sense of direction inside the trees. He wished he had a flashlight to guide his
path. Where the forest ended, he planned to cut across the cemetery ground to
the main road. He had little hope of flagging down a car on a deserted night,
but he could follow the road toward the center of town until he reached the
house of one of the year-round residents, and then he could finally use a
phone.

    Call
the police. Call Hilary.

    To
his left, he spied a beam of light in the maze of trees. It came and went, on
and off, as someone maneuvered through the forest. It had to be Troy. They were
on parallel paths, both heading toward the cemetery.

    Mark
pushed past the trees at the border of the graveyard, and a moment later, he
was free of the dense, grasping grip of the woods. The sky opened up over his
head. Rain swooped down in sheets, and he wiped his eyes with his sleeve so
that he could see. Triangle-shaped pines and skeletal oaks dotted the land. He
looked for the warning glow of the light he'd seen before, but the forest was
dark. He eyed the trees and graves for a moving silhouette, but as far as he could
tell, he was alone.

    'Troy!'
he shouted.

    His
voice fought with the storm.

    'Troy,
it's Mark Bradley. I know you're here. I want to talk to you.'

    He
wandered deeper into the cemetery land. He looked down, but he couldn't see the
names on the stones.

    'Troy,
listen to me. Tresa's here too. Neither one of us wants her to get hurt.'

    Forty
yards away, not far from the woods, Mark saw a headstone grow into a large
shadow, as if a ghost were rising from the earth. The silhouette detached itself
from the grave and walked toward him. Mark recognized the bulky outline of Troy
Geier, and he saw that the boy had a gun in his outstretched hand. Troy marched
closer until he was no more than ten feet away. The gun was pointed at Mark's
heart.

    'I'm
here,' Troy said.

    'So
am I,' Mark replied.

    'Where's
Tresa?'

    'I
don't know. She ran. I didn't want you shooting her accidentally.'

    'I
wouldn't hurt her. This is between you and me.'

    'I
understand.'

    Troy
was silent. Mark could see his gun arm shivering.

    'Listen,
Troy,' he went on, 'Tresa knows you're here. If you kill me, you'll go to jail.
You'll be throwing away your life.'

    'I
don't care.'

    'I
know you think you're doing this for Glory.'

    'That's
right. I'm doing it for her and for Mrs Fischer and for Peter

    Hoffman
and for Tresa, too. You're going to pay the price. I'm not letting you get away
with everything you did.'

    'What
did I do?' Mark asked.

    'You
killed Glory.'

    'No.'

    'You
killed Peter Hoffman.'

    'No.'

    'You
think I believe you?' Troy demanded loudly. 'You're a liar trying to save his
skin.'

    'Troy,
listen to me. I didn't do those things.'

    'Bullshit.
Everybody knows you did.'

    Mark spread
his arms wide. If Troy wanted to be a man, then Mark would treat him like one.
'OK, you better shoot me. If I really killed them, I'm a monster, and I have to
be stopped.'

    Troy
hesitated. 'You don't think I can do it, do you?' he asked, his voice puffed up
with nervous bravado.

    'I
know you can,' Mark told him. 'If you really believe that I could do those
things - that I could strangle your girlfriend on a beach in Florida, that I
could take a shotgun and blow off an old man's head - then you need to shoot me
now.'

    Mark
could barely see the boy's face in the darkness. He couldn't see if he was
reaching him. He watched the gun, which was still aimed at his chest at
point-blank range. One pulse, one twitch of Troy's finger, and the bullet would
sear through Mark's body.

    'I -
I don't know,' Troy murmured.

    'This
is what men do, Troy. We do what's right. We take responsibility. You need to
look into my eyes and tell me you
know
that I'm guilty. After that, it's
easy. After that, you won't have any doubts.'

    'Mrs
Fischer, she said—'

    'I
don't want to know what Delia thinks,' Mark told him firmly. 'This is between
you and me. What do you think?'

    'It
had to be you. It had to be.'

    'If
that's true, then pull the trigger.'

    Troy's
arm fluttered as if he couldn't hold it steady in the wind. He took a step
toward Mark. 'I'm going to do this.'

    'I
know.'

    Mark
couldn't take his eyes off the barrel of the gun. He wondered if he would see
the flame or if he would hear the explosion, or if it would all happen in
silence and darkness before his brain could process the shot. He would simply
be standing here in one instant and lying on his back in the next instant,
unable to draw a breath, feeling the warmth of blood on his chest.

    Troy
was crying. Mark could see the boy's chest heave.

    'I
have to do this,' Troy said.

    'I'm
not going to stop you.'

    There
were no easy choices. If Mark moved, he died. If he stayed where he was, he died.
Troy tightened his grip on the slippery butt of the gun. As he hesitated,
poised to fire, a bright beam of light speared through the night and caught the
two of them in its glare like deer on the highway. Mark instinctively shielded
his eyes with his palm. Troy spun in shock, taking the gun with him.

    'Troy,
put that gun down right now,' a man barked.

    Like
a child, Troy complied. His arm sagged; the gun pointed at the ground.

    Mark
recognized the voice and saw the man's squared shoulders and squat legs in the
light that bounced off the dirt.

    Sheriff
Reich marched toward them from the edge of the forest.

    Tresa
huddled in the trees above Schoolhouse Beach. She shivered, her arms wrapped
around her knees. Her red hair was plastered to her face. She could barely feel
her fingers and toes. She felt paralyzed by what was happening. By the gunshot.
By everything that Mark had told her. By her fears of what was about to happen.

    By
the past.

    She'd
kept the secret for too many years. She'd willed it out of her mind as if it
had never happened. She'd told herself that she was wrong, but now Glory was
dead, and Mark and Hilary were both in danger, and it was all because she'd
pretended she didn't know anything at all. She'd allowed everyone around her to
believe a lie.

    She
should have known what had really happened in Florida. She should have
suspected the truth.

    Tresa
stared at the water, which was a black sheet merging into white rocks. Part of
her wanted to walk down into the lake's cold embrace and keep walking until the
waves closed over her head and she was numb. Her guilt overwhelmed her, and she
wanted to drown in it. Her eyes got lost in the dimpled surface of the bay. The
raindrops hypnotized her. Only the silhouette of the man hiking on the beach
awakened her from her trance. He came from the east near Mark's house. He
hugged the woods, twenty feet from where Tresa was hiding. At first, she saw
only that he was absurdly tall and lean, but then, as he drew near, she
recognized Cab Bolton.

    Gathering
her courage, Tresa bolted from her hiding place. 'Detective!'

    He
didn't look surprised to see her. 'Tresa, are you OK?'

    'Yes.'
She saw ribbons of blood on the detective's neck. 'You're hurt.'

    'I'm fine,'
he said, but his face was ashen. 'Where's Mark Bradley?'

    'He's
in the campground. We were hiding from Troy.'

    'What
the hell is Troy doing here?'

    Tresa
hesitated, but she was done hiding and pretending. 'He came here to kill Mark.
I tried to stop it, but I've made a mess of everything. I don't know what to
do.'

    Cab
put an arm around her shoulder. 'Come on, stay with me. We have to find them.
Troy isn't our only problem right now.'

    He
pulled her along the fringe of the beach, but Tresa stopped and held Cab's arm.
'Wait.'

    'What
is it?'

    She
tried to breathe. She tried to get the words out.

    'I
know who killed Glory,' Tresa told him.

    'Troy,
you stupid ass,' Reich snapped. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'

    Troy
shrank like a wilted flower in front of the sheriff. The boy opened his hand, and
the gun dropped to the wet ground of the cemetery. It may as well have been on
fire. 'I just - I mean, I thought I could make things right for Glory, you
know?'

    'You?'

    'Yeah.
I thought if no one else could stop him, then I could.'

    The
sheriff marched so close to the boy that he was practically in his face. 'Then
do it already,' Reich told him.

    Troy
cocked his head in confusion. 'What?'

    'Shoot
the fucker.'

    Mark
wasn't sure he'd heard the words come out of Reich's mouth. Reich wasn't
joking. He was dead serious. When Troy stood frozen in disbelief, Reich
squatted and retrieved the gun and stuffed it back into the boy's hand. Like a
robot following orders, Troy turned back toward Mark, but he could barely hold
the butt of the gun steady. Panic and fear made his entire body quake.

    'Do
it,' Reich ordered him. 'You pussy, get something right for once in your life.
We'll ditch your boat, and you can go hide in my basement, and we can figure
out what to do with you. We're going to have to get you seriously lost.'

    'Sheriff,
what are you doing?' Mark asked.

    'Shut
up, Bradley. I'm waiting, Troy. Pull the trigger. Do it now.'

    'I
don't - I don't think I can,' Troy murmured, his voice broken.

    Reich
stepped in front of Troy impatiently and stripped the gun out of the boy's
hands. 'Like I thought, no balls. Jesus, what a waste.'

    'I'm
sorry.'

    'Get
the hell out of here,' Reich told him.