Waking Lazarus (29 page)

He opened the door of his cruiser, got in, keyed the engine to life, and wheeled onto Broadway. If what Mr. Gress said was true, there was one more stop he needed to make before heading to Wild Bill Lake. And the stop happened to be right on the way.

He parked on the corridor in front of the Stumble Inn and Renton’s Hardware. All of his training, all of his memorized facts about this case and the people involved, had given Chief Odum a gut feeling. Ron Gress had said enough on the phone to confirm that gut feeling, and Odum was ready to act on it. If Ron Gress really knew where the kids were and who had them, he would have to be prepared.

‘‘Okay, just one more phone call,’’ Jude said after Odum hung up. Jude dialed information, asked for the number of the Stumble Inn, then waited for the connection.

‘‘Stumble Inn,’’ a voice on the other end of the line said.

‘‘Room 305, please.’’

‘‘Hold while I try that extension,’’ the voice said.

This time there was inane elevator music while he held, and Jude decided he had to agree with the Red Lodge Police Department after all: silence was better.

The voice came back. ‘‘I’m getting no answer at that extension, sir. Would you like to leave a message?’’

‘‘No, no thanks.’’

He hit the End button on the phone, then handed it back to Rachel. No matter. He knew where the boys were. He didn’t need Kristina for that.

‘‘We’re all set, then?’’ Rachel said.

He nodded. ‘‘So you know where to go?’’

‘‘Yeah.’’

‘‘You okay doing this?’’

‘‘Of course. He’s our son.’’

‘‘I know, but that’s not really what I meant.’’

‘‘Yeah, but that’s the answer. That’s gotta be the answer, Ron—I mean Jude.’’

He smiled. ‘‘I answer to both.’’

Jude unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, and climbed out. Rachel did the same and came around the car to the driver’s side. For a moment they stood looking at each other. Jude had to say something. ‘‘Just in case something happens,’’ he said, ‘‘I’m sorry for . . . I don’t know . . . sorry for not being me.’’

‘‘Not being Jude, or not being Ron?’’ she asked.

‘‘Not being anybody.’’

Rachel took him in her arms and hugged him. He closed his eyes and fell into her embrace, wanting that to be the end.

But it wasn’t.

He felt Rachel pulling her head away from his shoulder, and he opened his eyes to look at her. It was time to get to work. Rachel returned his gaze for a few seconds.

She kissed him.

Then she whispered, ‘‘Let’s get our son,’’ and broke the embrace. She grabbed the car handle, opened the door, and got in. After one last look, Rachel backed the car out of the parking lot and onto the road.

Jude watched the taillights of her car fade. Twilight was gone now, and darkness had settled in for the evening. Surrounded by the gathering dusk, he listened to the thrum of her car’s engine fading into the distance. Soon even that was gone.

He was alone.

Crickets played their late season symphony around him. Not far away, across the roadway, a small creek gurgled. It would be a while before Odum reached him—ten or fifteen minutes, anyway. He might as well sit down and wait. Wild Bill Lake didn’t have any overnight camping—a couple of campgrounds farther down the road provided that—but it did have a day-use picnic area. He walked across the pine needles and gravel that covered the parking lot, then found the closest picnic table.

Jude sat at the picnic table and thought about the events of the past few weeks. Dark and frightening, but somehow freeing at the same time. He thought about the events that would surely unfold in the next few hours and shivered, only partly from the chill in the air. There was no upside to what he had seen in his vision, nothing freeing or uplifting. Jude had seen the kind of big, overpowering monster that frequented his childhood nightmares (so many more memories of his childhood kept pouring into his mind now, filling it like an empty pitcher). The monsters of his childhood had kept him hidden under the sheets many nights; he had been too terrified to look toward the closet because, as every child knows, that was where the monsters lived.

Except now it seemed at least one monster lived in Red Lodge, Montana. And Jude knew that monster.

He thought about his recent visit to the hospital with Rachel. He hadn’t been able to see anything, and then Rachel had prayed. And when she prayed, he had seen. The taste of copper had flooded his mouth, and the odious vision had flooded his mind.

In so many ways he wished he hadn’t seen the vision. It was too real, and too unreal, at the same time. But one uncomfortable thought kept returning to his mind: the vision hadn’t appeared until Rachel had prayed.

Maybe.

He closed his eyes, opened his mind, and talked to God. It was the only thing he could think of to take his thoughts off the last vision.

39

CONFRONTING

Some time later—Jude wasn’t quite sure how long because he’d lost track of the world around him as he prayed—a sound began to eat away at the edge of his consciousness.

It was the engine of an approaching vehicle.

Jude listened for a few minutes, and when he saw the beams of the headlights appear around a corner down the road, he stood and went back to the parking lot. Odum would pick him up, and then it would be time to confront the monster.

Odum’s cruiser pulled into the parking lot, bathing Jude’s body in a white halogen glare. Jude slitted his eyes against the headlights and tried to see Odum in the front seat but couldn’t.

The headlights darkened, while the car stayed running. Jude heard the car door click open, followed by the
ding ding ding
of the door-ajar signal. The interior lights of the vehicle winked on, revealing Chief Odum swinging his legs out of the car.

And Kristina in the backseat.

Odum left the door open, obviously unbothered by the incessant dinging. ‘‘Here we are. Wild Bill Lake.’’ Odum gave Jude a hard stare that dared him to speak.

‘‘Yeah’’ was all Jude could muster. His mouth felt dry, like flannel. He was trying to keep his attention focused on Odum, but he was thinking about Kristina in the backseat. He’d been thinking about her quite a bit since his last vision, wondering if, in some sick way, she was involved with the missing children. It fit, in some odd way. She hadn’t specifically been in his vision of Nathan’s abduction, but it fit. Now, seeing her in the back of Odum’s car, it fit even more. Obviously Odum had, too. Jude swallowed hard, then stepped forward.

Odum grinned. ‘‘Well, might as well use the facilities while I’m here,’’ he said, tilting his head toward the outhouse. He didn’t wait for an answer or comment from Jude before walking away.

Jude looked into the car again, saw Kristina returning his gaze. He walked to the passenger side and slid into the front seat. He stared straight ahead, waiting for Kristina to say something. Odum’s open door was still dinging, so Jude reached over to pull it shut.

Finally he broke the silence. ‘‘So do you have something to tell me?’’ He didn’t want to turn around, didn’t want to look at her through the metal partition.

‘‘I can’t really tell you anything you don’t already know. I never have, anyway,’’ Kristina said from behind the partition.

Thanks, Ms. Cryptic
, he thought to himself. He realized she’d always spoken that way, and it had never really bothered him before. But it did now.

‘‘Enough with the riddles. I want some answers. How could this happen?’’

He heard her shift in the backseat. ‘‘Things aren’t always what you think.’’

He sighed. What kind of answer had he expected from her? ‘‘I’m discovering that.’’

‘‘So you’ve figured out where the boys are?’’ she asked.

He nodded, having lost his desire to speak. He just wanted to get this over with. He knew Nathan and Bradley were safe for the moment, but still . . . he wanted it to end. ‘‘How could you be involved in all of this?’’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘‘I mean, why?’’

‘‘I know you’re hurting right now, Jude. But when you dance with the devil, you don’t get to pick the music.’’

Jude snorted. She sounded like a Hallmark card gone bad.

‘‘I think you’ve finally discovered it,’’ she said.

‘‘Discovered what?’’

‘‘It. What you’re supposed to be doing. All the signs.’’

‘‘And that is?’’

‘‘You’re a prophet, Jude. Like Moses. Or Jonah. A messenger. God sent Moses to deliver messages to people, and Moses just said, ‘I can’t.’ More or less, anyway. Jonah, too. You’re no different. Up until recently, you’ve been saying you can’t. But I think you’re finally discovering you can.’’

He sat, letting her suggestion bounce around in his head. He thought about Rachel’s recent prayers, followed by his own.

‘‘Where you’re sitting now, you don’t get to talk to me about God.’’

Ahead of him, Jude watched Odum walking back from the toilet. Behind him, Kristina leaned forward in her seat and spoke softly, almost whispering. ‘‘We all have our parts, Jude.’’

Odum swung open the door. He peeled off his jacket and threw it onto the front seat next to Jude before getting back in. He turned to Jude. ‘‘I’m ready when you are,’’ Odum said.

‘‘We need to go up the road a bit,’’ Jude said. ‘‘To the end.’’

Odum nodded. ‘‘The end of the road it is.’’

Even though she gripped the steering wheel as tightly as she could, Rachel felt her hands shaking. When she had been a young girl, one of her friends had a younger brother with palsy; that was how Rachel felt now. In her hands especially, but also throughout her entire body, she felt her muscles quivering.

Rachel tried a few deep breaths as she pulled to a stop in the darkness. The home was remote, dark. Terrifying. Time to calm her nerves. She had to do this, for Nathan, for Bradley, for Nicole. There was no way around it. Jude had his role; this was hers.

Rachel turned off the engine, pulled the door handle, and listened to her door screech open. The sudden sound of the door startled her, emphasizing how everything else in the area was so silent. Rachel closed the car door with another creak, then stood and listened. A few crickets and cicadas, but nothing else. Silence covered the home and surrounding woods in a thick, suffocating stillness.

Rachel looked toward the home. No lights glowed, inside or outside. No one had been in the home since daylight, she guessed. She hoped.

Go now
, the voice inside told her.

Rachel took the keys to the rear of her car and opened the trunk. She looked at the home again. Still no movement or sound. She rummaged around in the trunk, squinting her eyes and cursing the feeble light bulb that was no help. Then, she spotted it. Most of the time Rachel called it a tire iron; tonight she called it a little bit of courage. The smooth, black iron of the tool felt cold in her hand.

She smiled. Cold, hard iron. That’s what she was. Rachel climbed two steps to the front door and rang the doorbell. She cocked her head to the side, listening. She rang the doorbell again, then knocked. ‘‘Anybody home?’’

Not a sound from inside.

Rachel gripped the tire iron tightly, looking around her. The home was in the countryside, with no neighbors nearby, but she still felt as if she needed to look. To make sure.

No one else was around, so she made the next move. She turned the tire iron around in her hand and put the blunt end through the glass of the front door.

Iron. Be strong as cold iron
, she said to herself again as she swung open the door.

‘‘You’re not married, are you, Chief Odum?’’ Jude asked.

Odum chuckled. ‘‘Nope, never married.’’

‘‘No kids?’’

‘‘No kids, either.’’

‘‘So you’ve always lived alone?’’

‘‘Well, I don’t suppose it would be any fun living with a cop. It isn’t any fun for me.’’

‘‘I can imagine.’’

Odum’s face was bathed in the teal light emanating from the dashboard. It made him look tired, worn.

Odum turned an eye toward Jude. ‘‘You mind filling me in on what you know now?’’ he asked.

Jude looked to the backseat. Kristina nodded at him, encouraging him to continue.

Jude turned back to Odum and spoke again. ‘‘You remember I told you I knew about the boys because of a vision?’’

‘‘I remember.’’

‘‘You didn’t ask me about that vision.’’

‘‘I don’t much buy into that kind of thing.’’

‘‘I told you it was a man I work with named Frank, but you never even asked me about him.’’

Odum remained silent.

‘‘You know it’s not really Frank. I know it’s not really Frank. But we both know who it is, don’t we?’’

40

REVEALING

The vision came to Jude through the eyes of the Normal, through the eyes of the Hunter, tinged with the familiar hue of a film negative.

The Hunter and the Normal followed the car for a few blocks, hanging back. They could tell the woman driving the car hadn’t seen them yet. She hadn’t slowed down, and she actually California-ed a stop sign, only slowing down and rolling through the intersection. She must be in a hurry. Good.

They followed her, letting the adrenaline build in their bloodstream, enjoying the rush of power coursing through their veins. Yes, it was indeed good to hunt as the Normal. They were unstoppable.

Eventually they knew the time was right, knew the exact instant, and flipped on the lights. Up ahead, the woman driving the car saw the police cruiser behind her for the first time; they were close enough to see her in her rearview mirror, and they watched her reflection mouth a curse as she pulled over the car. Did she curse in front of the kids? Nah, she didn’t look the kind to do such a thing; surely she had simply muttered it under her breath.

The Hunter and the Normal examined the neighborhood before getting out of the cruiser. This wasn’t the best time of morning to be hunting, for sure. A lot of people would have already gone to work if they started at eight or eight-thirty; the nine o’clockers may not have left yet, but there would be fewer of them. Some stay-at-home moms would still be around. But chances were, most of them also had school-aged kids and would be en route to school.