The Hollow Ones(45)

Solomon turned the light beam away from them, leaving them temporarily blinded.

“Evening, gents!” he said, and found the keys to his car in his pocket. He peeled out on the hard gravel.

As Solomon drove, he found himself laughing out loud. It was glee at the humiliation of those Klansmen, but it was also an expression of relief from his own fear. Damn those clumsy hillbillies for the terror they could strike in good people’s hearts.

“I don’t know how you did that, but that was incredible!” Solomon slapped the steering wheel with his hand, then hit the horn a couple of times in celebration. “How do you see so well in the darkness?”

“A talent, I guess,” said Blackwood, shrugging slightly, staring out at the road ahead of them.

His sober reaction brought Solomon back down to earth. The end triumph couldn’t overshadow all the strange things Blackwood had shown him.

“What does it all mean?” asked Solomon.

“I am not sure,” said Blackwood. “Something is happening here. Those masked men arrived at this town like dark spirits invoked. This is a flashpoint here, in this place called the Delta. And you, Agent Solomon, are at the nexus.”

“Me?” said Solomon. “What do you mean, me? How?”

Blackwood looked out the window, whose glass the dark night had rendered reflective. He took a moment to answer, and when he did, he did so in a low whisper.

“You will decide the outcome,” Blackwood said. He turned to see Solomon. “I am ready to see the boy now.”





You’re doing what?”

Linus laid two carefully folded dress shirts next to his shaving kit in his luggage. “I have to go to Omaha for a few days. We need depositions from half a dozen people at this insurance company…and the partners asked me specifically.”

Odessa stood in the doorway to their bedroom, watching him pack. “You are going on a trip,” she said, echoing the words of the strange old woman in the back room of the botanica.

He buffed some dust off the top of a pair of shiny black loafers with the underside of his shirtsleeve. “I don’t know how this fell to me, but I’m ready for it. The travel office already emailed my tickets and accommodations. Business class.”

“That’s great,” she said, her mind still reeling.

“It is great,” he said. A bit of silence followed, Linus probably taking note that she seemed a little out of it. He crossed to her. “How are you doing?”

“Um…good.” She hadn’t told him anything about Hugo Blackwood. Or the botanica reading. Or the thing in the hotel sheets. She wouldn’t know where to begin.

Linus rubbed her upper arms, waiting for her to focus on him. “Come with me,” he said.

She sputtered. “Omaha? Nebraska?”

“I hear it’s actually pretty great. And I’ll be wall-to-wall with depositions, but you can see the town, and we can do dinner. Maybe squeeze an extra day out of it.”

“Right,” she said.

“This is the perfect opportunity to get away. This will be good for you. In fact, this is exactly what you need right now.”

Odessa was nodding, because he was right. But it wasn’t that simple. “I know.”

“Room service breakfast…?” he said, hoping to entice her. “Hotel spa for you…? We can work out in the gym…?”

He was endearingly persuasive about it. And she should go, she knew that. But the old woman’s words…

“You’re going on a trip?” Odessa said again, trying to get her head around it. A coincidence?

Linus touched her chin, as though focusing her attention on him. “Come with me,” he said.

Odessa smiled, won over by the sentiment, by his tenderness. But she knew that if she went, she’d be standing by the window of the hotel in a bathrobe with her mind back in Newark on Walt Leppo and grave robbers and a peculiar British man.

She backed away. “I’d love to…”

“But what?”

“I don’t think it would look good if I ducked work right now. If they need me for an interview about the shooting…and find out I’m on vacation in Nebraska…”

“It’s a work trip with your significant other.”

Significant other. She liked the sound of that. But now it made her think about other things the old woman had said.

You are his one true love. But he is not yours.

Bullshit. Offensive bullshit, at that. She couldn’t let that old crone inside her head.

He will take a trip soon. A new man will come into your life.

This is how they get you, she realized. Paradoxes and general pronunciations—one size fits all: You are truly private—no one knows the real you—but once you trust someone…it’s forever! Planting a seed underneath your insecurity, fertilizing it with doubt or praise, and then letting it spread like a thorny weed.

She went up to Linus and kissed him, hard. “I wish I could go,” she told him. Because she did.

Linus gripped her, another kiss. “Vacation sex is the best,” he said.

Odessa nodded, her lips still pressed against his. “How about staycation sex?”

Linus shoved his half-packed suitcase off the bed and they tumbled into it.