Devoted(49)



“Nothing’s to be gained by panicking the public,” Frawley said.

“Leaving them ignorant is leaving them vulnerable.”

“We release sensational details like that, we’ll get hundreds of call-in tips, people sighting Palmer everywhere he isn’t. We’ll have to investigate them when we should be tracking him down.”

Carson said, “Sheriff, if this lunatic sonofabitch is loose in Pinehaven County—”

“His pattern,” Frawley said with a note of condescension, “is to keep moving. Especially after a kill like this. There’s virtually zero chance he’s anywhere within a hundred miles of here.”

“Virtually is good enough for you? And since when do bug-shit crazy and patterns of behavior go together?”

Finished signing, Sheriff Eckman finally looked at Carson. “Just in case Palmer is still in these parts, the state AG is lending us manpower for the search. We’re a small department and cover a lot of ground, Carson. For a case like this, we need that help.”



Producing a second set of documents, Frawley said, “Mr. Conroy, I need you to sign cadaver and evidence releases plus an NDA.”

“A nondisclosure agreement for a medical examiner? I’ve never heard of such a thing. If I have to testify in court—”

“You won’t. You’re out of this when you sign. It’s not just a murder case, Conroy. It’s a matter of national security.”

“Palmer may be a monster, but in court he has the right to call as witness anyone whose name is in the chain-of-evidence file.”

“Not this guy. Not this case. Different rules apply,” Frawley declared.

He cited federal statutes allowing Carson to be prosecuted for failure to cooperate.

Whether they were real laws or fabricated, Carson didn’t know. However, for years the country had seemed to be morphing from a representative republic into something worse.

Throughout this, stone-faced Zellman had never taken his eyes off Carson, as though he was prepared to break a knee whenever that might be required.

“Sign it,” Sheriff Eckman said, the coldness of angry authority in his voice. “It’s late. It’s the right thing to do. Sign it.”

Strictly speaking, Hayden Eckman wasn’t Carson’s boss, but he had considerable influence with the county board. There was no doubt that he could get Carson fired for cause—and ensure that no other jurisdiction in need of a medical examiner would hire him.



Affronted, Carson signed where the brightly colored stick-on arrows indicated, although he said, “I consider this under duress.”

“Consider it what you wish,” Frawley replied as he returned the documents to his attaché case.





52



The skirling wind whipping the night. The low lamplight. Gray eye, brown eye, the gray one somehow wrong.

The stranger’s breath smelled megabad. His teeth were stained. Ragged tissue peeled from his chapped lips, as if he’d been chewing on them.

With one finger, the guy stroked Woody’s right cheek, the side of his nose, and it was like being touched by something that had slithered out of the closet or from under the bed in a scary story, so that his hammering heart felt as if it might be rising into his throat, and he wanted to scream and scream, but he couldn’t make a sound, nor could he move, only lie paralyzed with fear and gaze into the intruder’s fierce eyes and smell his stinky breath. And wonder what next, what next?

“You look just like your treacherous father,” the stranger whispered. “Good thing you don’t have a brain. The world doesn’t need another scheming, selfish piece of shit like Jason.”

This must be someone from the Dark Web, from the Tragedy site. Who else could it be? But how fast they tracked down their quarry! He should have left the computer unplugged.



“Are you really a dummy? You don’t look like a dummy. Maybe you fake being a dummy.”

With his finger, the man drew circles on the ball of Woody’s chin, around and around.

“In the world becoming, there won’t be any room for dummies. Not for dummies and cripples and people with wrong ideas.”

He slid his finger over Woody’s lower lip, the upper, the lower again, and Woody wanted to bite him hard.

“Very tender,” the intruder said.

Rapidly, repeatedly, the man blinked his right eye, and the colored contact lens popped out. It stuck on his lower lash. With thumb and forefinger, he plucked it up and stared at it as though puzzled, as though he had no idea what it might be. He flicked it away.

Now both eyes were gray, and both were wrong. When the man focused on Woody again, there seemed to be a radiance in his eyes that wasn’t a reflection of the lamplight. The eyes were pools of gray, like rainwater puddled on weathered wood, and the pools were deep and cold, and from far down in them emanated a phosphorous glow.

Woody desperately wanted to go away to Castle Wyvern, climb the tower stairs, shoot home the massive lock bolts, and curl up on the bed of reeds until this man wasn’t here anymore. He wanted to look up at the glassless windows and watch the dragons flying across a sky thick with dark clouds through which lightning pulsed but from which thunder never issued. If he fled to Wyvern, however, he would be leaving his mother alone with this man, this thing.

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