Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(153)

“I know,” Kev said bleakly.

“You think they’ll call the cops?”

Kev stared at the screen, watching as the guy they’d gotten the van from approached their newly rented storage unit and stared at it.

“They might,” Kev said. “At least, the dreadlocked guy might. The other guy’s still hoping to score a free car out of the deal. Best we can hope is that they’ll wrestle with their consciences just long enough for us to snag a tail. Then they can do whatever they want, and welcome.”

Sean shook his head. “It’s so damn risky. Bringing strangers in.”

“I know!” Kev exploded. “All I can do is try, right? I’m pulling this thing out of my ass as I go along! And I am wide open to suggestions!”

“Sure you are,” Sean soothed. “I just hope the Butthead Brigade cares enough about monster chick to send someone to pick her up. At least she didn’t blow up in our faces, like the cabin guy. Small mercies.”

Kev reached down, rummaging for the inlaid jewelry box. He slid the back panel aside. “Give me your blade,” he said.

Sean handed it over. Kev snapped off the entire back panel, splintering it as he wrenched it off. He slid the blade into the wooden seam of the drawer and pried. Ker-ack, the wooden frontpiece snapped in half. He fished out the loose piece, pried out fragments, wrenching loose tiny nails, until a dark slot opened up. He peered inside, heart beating so frantically it felt like it was banging his throat from underneath.

Something was in it. He tipped the box forward, tapped, knocked, shook. Please, God. Let it be a lead.

A clump of floppy disks slid out, scattering over his lap. The ancient kind that he remembered from college. Not even the rigid 3.5 plastic-jacketed ones. These were the ones that were genuinely floppy.

The two of them gazed at the ancient disks, disheartened.

“Fuck.” Kev’s voice shook. “Where are we going to find a machine that can read this prehistoric shit fast enough for it to matter?”

“Miles could,” Sean said. “He’s a specialist. He’s got some real museum pieces in his dad’s basement in Endicott Falls.”

“Three thousand goddamn miles away!” Kev yelled.

“Hang on to your shit.” Sean’s voice was all steely calm. “Put them aside. We watch for the people who are coming for monster chick—”

“If they come at all! And if they don’t?”

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.” Sean studied him, narrow-eyed. “Those glaciers are melting faster than I thought. What happened to Zen Dude, floating over the rough edges of the world?”

“There is no Zen Dude,” Kev snapped. “It was bullshit all along.”

“That’s a relief. Welcome back. Remember when it was me, flipping out, and you were trying to talk me down?”

“How could I forget?” Kev paused. “Unless somebody tortured me, inflicting brain damage that caused eighteen years of amnesia, that is.”

“Yeah, there’s that,” Sean admitted.

Kev wiped moisture out of his eyes. “It’s funny, about Bruno. I think one of the reasons it was so easy for me to bom cith him years ago is because he reminded me of you.”

Sean looked alarmed. “Me? Bruno? That spastic bonehead? That smart-mouthed clown? Surely you jest.”

“Nope.”

Sean settled back into his seat and contemplated the rainspotted windshield. “Uh. Yeah. I’m not quite sure what to make of that.”

“Under the circumstances, I suggest you take it as a compliment.”

“Weird compliment, if you ask me, but at least you’re being real with me again. Thank God for small favors. I’ll even thank Bruno.”

If we ever get the chance. The thought hung there, unvoiced.

Kev gathered up the floppy disks and slid them back into the jewelry box. They propped the laptop against the dash and waited.





33


The camera followed her home from school, watching from a chillingly short distance as she hauled her knapsack up the stoop and into the house. She appeared to be about sixteen, judging from the haircut, the puppy fat. Then the camera cut to an odd, leaf-framed angle that she i





dentified as being somewhere right outside her bedroom window, at just the right angle to peek in the gap of the venetian blinds.

She peeled her clothes off and headed naked into the shower.

The video cut abruptly to an indoor shot. The vidcam nudged the bathroom door open, staring at her blurred form behind the plastic curtain. She sang tunelessly as she sudsed up.

Cut to her room, staring at her clothes on the floor. Focusing in on her underwear, twisted into a ball. The latex-gloved hand grabbed them, looked at them with intense interest. Sniffed them.

Cut to some other space, without much light, the back of a van, maybe. The gloved hand yanking open its pants, training the camera on the flushed, erect penis that poked out of it. The gloved hand wrapped her pink panties around its penis and began to rub.

Lily dragged her gaze away. No need to watch this filth. The first two times through had been enough. But she kept thinking about Howard. How staring at that distilled hatred and cruelty must have made him feel. What it would do to a person, to a parent, to be ground down by terror and guilt, year after year. And she’d been so angry at him, too. He’d had his daughter’s rage and disappointment to burden him on top of all the rest of it. Never a chance to explain, or to excuse himself. No wonder he’d fallen to pieces. She was halfway there herself.