Ink and Bone(81)

“So they just live up there and never come down? The kids don’t go to school? What if someone gets sick, or dies? What if a crime is committed?”

Jones shook his head. “The kids get homeschooled, some of them. We’ve had a few people come down for medical care—but you know they don’t have money, insurance. Most of the babies aren’t born in hospitals. They bury their own dead up there.”

“Is that legal?”

“It’s legal to live the way you want to live,” said Jones. He had pulled out his phone and was dialing. “Within reason, anyway. This is America.”

“That’s not true,” said Finley. “You can’t just not have a Social Security number, not pay taxes, bury your own dead. Can you? Don’t the police ever go up there?”

Jones pushed out a little laugh. “Not unless they absolutely have to. These folks don’t like visitors. Locals know to stay away.”

Locals know to stay away. Something about this cleared the fog from Finley’s head.

“So when you say these properties were thoroughly searched . . .” said Finley, letting the sentence trail.

Jones dialed the cell phone in his hand and put the phone on speaker. The tinny ringing ended when a deep, resonant voice answered. “Ferrigno.”

Jones identified himself and ran down the situation—Finley Montgomery, blood on her hands, someone hurt, heading up north on the rural road.

“Actually, I’m heading up there, too,” said Chuck. They could hear rustling, a car door slamming, an engine coming to life.

“Why’s that?” asked Jones, casting a glance at Finley.

“We got a lead on that missing real estate developer. The beacon on his car is sending out a GPS location, and the warrant finally came through allowing the NYPD to get the information. I was just going to call you, actually.”

“Where is it?”

“Out in the middle of nowhere, where a BMW has no business being,” he said. “From the signal, it looks like the middle of the woods. We’re heading up to search. Got some guys coming in from the next county, too.”

Finley watched Jones, who wore a deep frown. Without thinking, Finley reached for the glove compartment, where (of course) there was a notepad and pen.

“What are the coordinates?” asked Jones.

Finley jotted down the numbers. Outside the snow was collecting in the gaskets of the windows, on the shoulder, and in the trees. But the road ahead of them was still black, slick, and wet.

“Satellite image shows a clearing in that location,” said Ferrigno. “Course this weather is not our friend at the moment. We have to try to get up there before it gets any worse.”

“Could be The Chapel,” said Jones.

“That’s what I was thinking,” said Ferrigno. Finley saw a muscle working in Jones’s jaw.

“Coming up?” asked Ferrigno.

“We have to check on the other incident first,” said Jones. “Someone might be hurt up there.”

“Need some backup?” Ferrigno asked. “I can spare a guy if you think there’s an emergency.”

“I’ll call you if I need someone,” said Jones. “Hey, just one other thing. When Abbey Gleason went missing? How thorough was the search on the properties of the folks living up there?”

“Pretty thorough,” he said. “The few families that are still there cooperated fully. But there aren’t that many people anymore—maybe five or six total. There are a few shacks, one or two houses. The landscaping guy has a pretty nice place up there, Abel Crawley? Makes you think, you know, that there’s something to shedding the modern world. He’s got a generator, chickens, pigs and a cow, a deep water well. Works all spring, summer, and fall, off all winter.”

Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink.

The water pump for the well; Finley could see it. Things that squeak. She saw the red metal pump resting on a wooden platform. There was a girl, using all the strength to pump it, the barn off in the distance. Squeak as the handle went up, clink as it came back down.

They pulled off the paved road and onto a smaller dirt one. Jones shifted the SUV into four-wheel drive. Finley looked out into the darkness, the same questions scrolling through her mind. What had happened to Rainer? Why did she have his car? Whose blood was all over her?

Finley’s whole body pulsed with tension and fear now, her mind a whirl of images and disconnected thoughts. Then, out in the night, she saw a bobbing white light. It went dark for a moment, and she sat forward looking. Then it came on again.

“Stop the car,” she said.

Jones put on the brakes and the vehicle skidded to a stop.

“Do you see that?”

“I don’t see anything,” said Jones. “It’s pitch-black out there.”

She saw it clearly, and then she was outside, running toward it with Jones calling after her.





TWENTY-FIVE


She crouched low, making herself very small in the tiny space she found between the wall and the shelves. She could be quiet; she was a good hider. She listened as Poppa clomped up the hallway, big boots on hard wood, then climbed back down the stairs. She waited; she didn’t hear an outside door open and close, but still it grew very quiet as if he had left. She waited a long time, crouched inside the linen closet.