Sleepwalker (Nightwatcher #2)(109)

Like, there’s a logical explanation for the syringe, and the girls are here somewhere, playing hide-and-seek the way they do with their cousins, and Mack and J.J. are . . . are playing with them . . .

She finds her voice, shouts their names, one after another, over and over again as she races for the stairs, climbs them, runs down the hall searching room after room. When she reaches the girls’ bedroom, she yanks the blankets off the nearest bed, as if she could possibly have missed someone sleeping there.

Something flies out from between the folds of the bedding, and lands at her feet.

Stricken, Allison stares at another empty syringe.

And that’s when she realizes.

Today is Tuesday.

Mack knows these roads well, but he’s used to creeping along them with the windows down, radios playing, the smell of hot asphalt mingling with the damp salt air . . .

That’s how he’s driven these roads, on lazy summer days, when traffic clogs every artery on the barrier island and you’d better not be in a hurry to get to where you’re going.

Today, he’s in a hurry.

Today . . .

Today is Tuesday. Always a Tuesday.

There’s barely any traffic, allowing him to heedlessly barrel through stop signs and red lights as he speeds along parallel to the water.

Just ahead, the light goes from yellow to red.

Mack doesn’t slow down. A delivery truck is approaching from the left, bearing down on the intersection. If Mack stops to let it pass, he’ll lose time, and every second counts.

Nothing is going to get in his way. Nothing is going to stop him. Not now. Not when he’s so close.

He bears down on the gas pedal. The driver of the truck doesn’t glance in his direction; doesn’t see him coming. Mack enters the intersection a split second ahead of the truck, swerving hard to the right to skirt around its path. He hears the blast of the horn, the screeching of tires. The truck swerves to the right, missing his door by maybe an inch.

Hearing the sickening crunch of metal behind him, he sees in the mirror that the truck has hit a lamppost. Speeding on, he listens for the sound of sirens behind him; keeps an eye on the rearview mirror for flashing red lights.

What if they materialize?

I’ll just keep going.

If I stop, it’ll be all over. There’s too much to lose; I can’t risk it.

He thinks about Allison. By now, she must be back at the house. She’ll be frantic when she realizes that he and the kids are missing. He’s sorry for that.

Sorry for a lot of things.

But I’m just doing what I have to do.

Jaw set, he stares at the road beyond the windshield, focusing not on what lies behind him, but on what lies ahead.

Allison races down the narrow, deserted street, turns a corner, and spots a house whose windows aren’t covered in plywood. There’s no car in the driveway, but maybe, just maybe . . .

Please, God, let someone be home. Please.

She races to the door and bangs on it. “Hello!” she shouts. “Is anyone here? Hello?”

No one answers, just like at the last house she tried, a few doors up from Lynn’s beach house.

With a cry of frustration, she turns and keeps going, up the street, around another corner. Every house on this short block is boarded up.

The same is true on the next.

And the next.

There has to be someone here, somewhere, please, please . . .

Rounding another corner, Allison spots a car in a driveway. Beyond it lies a house whose uncovered windows spill yellow lamplight into the morning gloom like a beacon. On the step: a pot of withered-looking brownish mums and a newspaper in a blue plastic bag.

Thank you, God. Thank you.

Allison runs toward the house, panting hard, already shouting for help at the top of her lungs. By the time she reaches the house, a startled-looking elderly man in a cardigan and bifocals is peering out at her through the glass window in the door.

“Please!” she calls to him. “Please! Somebody took my children!”

Looking suspicious, he shakes his head, seems to check the lock on the door, and starts to turn away.

“Please, sir! You don’t have to let me in, just . . . just please call the police!” Tears roll down her face and her body sags beneath the weight of an awful reality she can no longer deny.

With a moan, she sinks onto the weathered steps, burying her head in her hands. For a long time, she sits there, gasping for breath, trying to find the strength to keep running, the strength to bear the impossible truth and the unimaginable loss.

Her babies, her beautiful babies, her girls, and her boy, and . . .

My husband.

Mack. Dear God, what has he done?

What has she done, trusting him with those three precious little lives?

I knew better! I did! I knew, and that’s why I let Randi talk me into—

The thought is curtailed by the sound of wailing sirens in the distance.

Rocky paces the sidewalk in front of the hospital, phone in hand, willing the damned thing to ring again so that he can get back to Ange’s bedside.

Maybe he should just go back up anyway.

But if he does, he’ll miss the call, and too many lives are hanging in the balance.

Thank God Ange’s isn’t one of them. Not in the immediate moment, anyway.

Right now, she’s safe and stable, and she would want him to do exactly what he’s doing.