Cold Springs(99)

Norma tried the door without turning the key. It was unlocked. She stomped loudly up the stairs, into the empty living room.

There was a bad smell, all right—but worse than dog shit. A dead rat. Rotten garbage. Something sweet masking it—almost like perfume.

She remembered one time, the Mexican restaurant across the fence had dumped their garbage in the alley for two months to avoid paying for pickup. By the time the police came, the smell in the neighborhood had been something like this.

She went in the kitchen and opened the window, but nothing wafted in except taquería smoke—cabrito and flank steak grilled with cilantro.

She peeked in the kitchen closet. Nothing but a decade-old roach trap. The oven was empty. The master bedroom and closet—nothing.

She walked into Katherine's room and a point of fear pressed like an ice cube between her shoulder blades. The only piece of furniture, Chadwick's old wooden chair, had been busted into kindling. The portable stereo was smashed, too—D batteries scattered across the floor, a cracked Brahms CD glinting in a square of sunlight near the window.

Vandals. But why wouldn't they have taken the CD player?

Norma swallowed back her desire to run. This was her house. There was no one here except her.

The smell wasn't coming from Katherine's room. She forced herself to move—back to the living room again.

The smell was strongest here. It seemed to be coming from the fireplace, but there was nothing there.

She stared around the empty room, remembering where the television had been, Chadwick's black leather chair.

Chadwick's father had sat in that chair during the last years of his life, watching out the window. He had shrunk to a frail, senseless old man, much smaller than his son, hardly moving except when his clocks went off on the mantel, every hour, driving Norma crazy.

The clocks.

Norma ran her eyes over the wainscoting, then moved her fingers along the wall until she found the crack. Hide-and-seek. Katherine's favorite hiding place.

Norma pressed the corner of the closet. The old door sprang open, and with it, the smell—excrement and cologne, rotten meat and baby powder and sour fear. Her eyes didn't understand what they were seeing at first—folds of crinkled plastic expanding, as if breathing, blue fabric and dark brown smears on pale skin, a crust of stubble and saliva on a cheek, a straight part in graying brown hair. She backed away and the thing twisted, tumbling out of its shower curtain as if to follow her—inanimate flesh that used to be a human face.

Norma stumbled backwards, fell, kicked at a dead hand. She was in Katherine's bedroom, then, pressing against the window, trying to claw it open, trying to breathe.

She had to get out.

But part of her refused to go into shock—the part that was inured to death, that dreamed of death all the time.

Stop, she said. Stop.

She did.

She turned, stepped back into the living room and stared at the thing.

It must've been there for several days, encased in plastic and doused in its own cologne, rotting, stiffening, in a place no one would ever look, in a house no one ever visited—no one except her.

Since Saturday, the day Chadwick was in town, the day Ann's embezzlement problem had been made public.

No. Chadwick would never do this. To kill in cold blood, to wrap the body and take it elsewhere. This house, of all places. That was the work of a monster.

But then, Norma believed in monsters. She had believed in them for nine years, had gotten close enough to see hers in the bathroom mirror, gripping a handful of blue and yellow pills.

John was dead. There was no longer room for doubt. No room for Ann's f**king optimism.

Norma heard Ann's voice in her head, pleading for more time. Don't call the police, not yet. But Norma had had enough of that. She wouldn't let anyone soften her. Never again.

29

Pérez's feet were bleeding.

He had walked for maybe an hour, but had only just hit the road, if you could call it a road—a two-rut path, sprouting weeds in the middle like a hairy spine. The gravel and mud were no kinder on his feet than the fields had been.

He tried to concentrate on the morning, which was really very fine—cold, but sunny. It made Pérez think of a winter day in Monterrey, back at his family's ranch. This place was greener, but otherwise much like home. Better than the fog of Mill Valley, that damn hilltop house of Mr. Z's.

Pérez stumbled along, cursing his luck.

He should've taken the clean shot at Chadwick when he had the chance, last night in the woods, but something had failed him—some unwanted twinge of conscience.

It bothered him that Chadwick had read him so well. Pérez wished he were the type who could track down a man who'd just released him—put a bullet in his head. But he couldn't do that. He couldn't even muster anger at Mallory.

He consoled himself with the thought of a payoff. Now that he understood the truth, the knowledge would be worth something. He could turn the tables. He could become Samuel. The idea made him smile.

It was God's will he had spared Chadwick's life. In return, Chadwick—the deluded bastard—had unwittingly given him knowledge, a way to make money. Chadwick was in enough danger—he didn't need Pérez's help to die.

Pérez would kill no more. He would demand his cut of the millions, and he would get it. He would return to Monterrey a hero, live out the rest of his days on the ranch, free of debt.