When the Sky Fell on Splendor(78)

My teeth were chattering; so were hers. “How’d you know I was here?”

Sofía’s smile faded. “Molly.”

“The drug or the alien?” I said.

She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her back, shivering. “You’re here,” I wheezed.

“Always,” she murmured.

In the distance, sirens were wailing. We pulled apart and turned to watch the cop car hurtling up the road. “Did you call the police?” I asked.

She shook her head, watching the car’s serpentine path toward us. “I texted the others. Maybe someone panicked.”

I took a shallow, unsatisfying breath. “Tell me it’s going to be okay.”

Sofía stared at me for a beat, then threaded her hand through mine. “I promise I’ll be there with you, even if it’s not.”

I looked at Bill, kneeling in the dirt, scrubbing at his eyes.

“At least I didn’t kill a man,” I said.

“At least he didn’t kill you,” she said.

The cop car came to a stop, siren falling silent though the lights kept spinning and other sirens were ringing out in the distance. Both front doors popped open, and before Sheriff Nakamura had so much as gotten out of the car, someone else leapt from the passenger seat and flew through the rain to us, his burgundy rain jacket flapping in the wind.

“I’ve been calling you for twenty minutes!” Levi said, catching both of us in a painful hug. He drew back, and his gaze wandered to Bill. “That’s him? That’s Albert Kingston?”

“That’s Bill,” I stuttered. “Black Mailbox Bill.”

Levi nodded. “That’s his real name, Albert Kingston.”

“How do you—” Sofía began.

“His wife contacted the sheriff when he was taking me down to the station,” Levi said. “She found the messages on their home computer and was worried. I guess Albert’s been into this stuff as long as she’s known him, but the last couple of years he’s been obsessed, always talking about finding a way to re-create his encounter, wanting to ‘feel the light’ one more time before he dies. He told her he was on a business trip in San Antonio, and when she saw the e-mails . . .”

Levi shook his head, wiped water from his thick reddish lashes. “She found others, messages to another guy who found a disc in Nashville. He’s been missing since two days after Albert’s last e-mail with him. When I got Sofía’s text that she saw you at the mill with some guy, I just . . . I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry, Fran.”

Everything left in my roiling stomach felt like it had turned to cold, dead weight as his confirmation sank in.

Two more cop cars came wailing around the bend, windshield wipers ticking madly, and behind them, a sleek Suburban with windows so black they looked like matte paint.

Sheriff Nakamura was moving toward Bill now, with his gun trained on him.

“You did the right thing,” Sofía murmured to Levi.

“You had no other choice,” I agreed. But everything Black Mailbox Bill had said would happen to me crashed to the forefront of my mind like a tidal wave. “Just remember. It was a fake video. Some UFO zealot tracked us down because of a fake video. Just stick to the story.”

Sheriff Nakamura had Bill on the ground on his stomach, the sides of his open Members Only jacket splayed out like wings and his arms twisted behind his back to be handcuffed. The sheriff was reciting the Miranda rights, but his eyes were on the blast furnace.

No, not on the blast furnace. On the two skip cars parked partway up the incline, one closer to the top of the tower than it had been an hour ago, the other visible when it hadn’t been for years.

Sheriff Nakamura’s eyebrows pinched together, and his mouth stopped moving as he studied the building.

I gripped the nautilus shell and focused on that, clearing my mounting anxiety before I could send the skip cars shooting off the ramp into the sky, right before the eyes of the blazer-clad woman stepping out of the black SUV, followed by the man in fatigues who’d been driving.

I could see the badge clipped to her jacket from here, along with the razor-sharp smile she offered as she surveyed us through the fog.

Sheriff Nakamura dragged Black Mailbox Bill to his feet, his eyes still puffy and red, and as the sheriff led him past us toward the cruiser, Bill/Albert looked between me and the FBI agent approaching in low, sensible heels.

“It will be worse this way, Frances,” he croaked over his shoulder. The sheriff gave him a sharp pull. “Trust me. It will be so much worse.”





TWENTY-EIGHT



HER NAME WAS AGENT Rothstadt, and she had a sharklike smile that must have helped earn her this job.

“You’re not in any trouble” were the first words she said to us through that smile. Her blond hair was styled in soft curls. Her suit was navy, and her small hoop earrings were silver, matched to the crucifix around her pale neck. “We just have some questions for you regarding a piece of satellite debris whose crash we believe you witnessed.”

She’d forgotten to hold the smile in place, but she flashed it again, a bookend for her words.

Smile—frightening statement—smile.

“Your parents have already been contacted,” she added. “They’ll be meeting us at our compound.”