Darby McCormick: Fear The Dark Part 25

Darby systematically started to clear every room on the floor: the upstairs bathroom; a boy teenager's bedroom, judging by the posters of Pearl Jam and Bob Marley; and a smaller room that was used as a home office, the two opened windows blowing papers across the floor. By the time she returned to the closed door opposite the top of the steps, she had sweated through her shirt, and her mouth was as dry as paper.

She got down on her knees and ran the beam of light underneath the quarter-inch gap at the bottom of the door. The only thing she could see was a carpet. She got back to her feet and then she turned the doork.n.o.b slowly, checking for resistance of any kind. She encountered none. Body tense and sweat dripping down the small of her back, she gently placed her hand on the door, wondering if it had been b.o.o.by-trapped in some way. a.s.sume it is, she thought. a.s.sume the absolute worst until you can rule it out. She opened the door a crack, checking for wires or rope, and didn't see any but something was behind the door, something had happened inside this bedroom.

Slowly she released her grip on the doork.n.o.b and backed against the wall. She reached out with one hand, placed it on the door and inched it open further. She couldn't see the bedroom windows but knew they were open; wind blew past her hand and punched the door, almost forcing it shut. Now she could see part of the bedroom: a beige carpet and an opened door leading to a walk-in closet where women's clothing hung neatly above shoes displayed on racks.

She inched open the door further, then stopped to check. Now a floor-to-ceiling bookcase came into view. Tensing, she pushed open the door a few more inches and kept looking. Finally, she had the door all the way open. Nothing happened. It was time to go inside.

Darby raised her nine. Don't mash the trigger, breathe and squeeze and, looking down the target site, she swung around the doorway.

51.

In the tactical light's bright white halo Darby saw a pair of chairs at the foot of the bed. A man dressed in boxers and a dingy white T-shirt with coils of grey and white hairs sprouting out of the V-neck was bound to one, his head covered by a black plastic bag. The man's son, also dressed in boxers and a long-sleeve T, had been tied to a chair on the far right, and, like his father, he had a plastic bag wrapped around his head.

The mother, Clara, dressed in a dark flannel nightgown, sat between husband and son, her face the colour of an eggplant. She had been strangled to death, and this time the killer had left the rope tied around her neck. A cell phone sat on the woman's lap. The screen was glowing and a tiny green LED pulsed.

The killer had never before left behind a phone, and he had changed the chair arrangement. All three chairs had been positioned against the far wall and they faced the bedroom door faced her like a small, private jury.

Darby closed the door behind her. She crept forward, searching the neatly made bed, the carpeted floor and the tops of the bureaus and nightstands for anything odd. There was no computer or iPad in here, the sole electronic device belonging to the phone resting on the woman's lap. Did it have a camera? Was the killer listening or watching or both right now?

There was an opened door to her left, for the bathroom, and she had to clear it. She spun around the doorway, the beam of light revealing a tiled floor and marble vanity.

It was clear.

Darby searched under the bed, looking for anything unusual, found nothing. Then she moved to the chairs and placed a finger on the man's neck, her attention fixed on the phone. She didn't see any wires.

The man didn't have a pulse. Darby knew the woman was dead but she checked for a pulse anyway and then she did the same for their son. All three were dead and the killer was nowhere to be seen.

Darby's attention shifted back to the dead woman. She was looking at the cell, at its pulsing green light, when the bedroom lights turned on.

She started, her heart leaping in her throat, moved back to the bedroom door and opened it. The hallway lights were on, and she could see that some of the downstairs lights were on too.

The house must have lost power because of the storm, Darby thought. Now it's back on.

Darby placed a wicker hamper against the door to keep the wind from blowing it shut. She stepped into the hall, shivering, and unclipped her satphone.

'He's not here,' Darby said.

'The family?' Robinson asked.

'Dead. The husband and wife and their son. I haven't found the daughter. He opened almost every window inside the house, and he left a cell on the woman's lap.'

'Why?'

'To listen in and watch me? Us? Who knows? Does Brewster have a bomb squad?'

Darby heard the man's breath catch in his throat. She could also hear phones ringing in the background.

'What makes you think the phone is a bomb?' the chief asked.

'I don't know what to think. He left the phone here for a reason, but I'm afraid to touch it.' Darby rubbed the sleeve of her shirt against her forehead. She couldn't stop shivering. 'All the lights just came back on.' 'Power's going on and off all over town, on account of the storm. You find anything else beside the phone?'

'No, just the phone.' Darby was looking at it from the hall.

'So there's nothing in there.'

'At least nothing I can see. Maybe he just summoned me here to screw with my head to screw with all of us.'

'But?'

'It doesn't feel right. I can't put a finger on it.'

The dead woman's eyes stared accusingly at Darby. You did this, her gaze said. I'm dead and my husband and son are dead because of you. You did this.

'Is it safe to send my people in there?' Robinson asked her.

'I don't know. Contact Coop and Hoder,' she said as she moved down the stairs to retrieve her jacket. 'Tell them what I found and ask them what they think.'

52.

Coop and Hoder had decided to join her. Darby, watching from the dining-room window, her jacket zipped all the way up to her neck and her hands stuffed inside her jeans pockets, saw their car pull up behind the chief's truck.

The power for the house was still on, but it had flickered once or twice. The porch lights and the pair of floodlights mounted on the garage must have been turned on before her arrival, because they were turned on now.

It seemed Hoder was having trouble breathing, and his legs were shaky. Coop had gripped the man's arm tightly to keep him from falling, but Hoder was still doubled over, inhaling great gulps of air. Darby left the house to a.s.sist.

'It's the alt.i.tude,' Hoder said when she reached him. Snow whipped around their heads, obscuring his face. 'My lungs are still having a hard time adjusting, and I think my knee has finally given out.'

'Let's get you back in the car,' Darby yelled over the wind.

'No, I'll be fine, honest. Just help me inside the house.'

As Darby grabbed the man's other arm, she heard Robinson's tinny voice yelling over the satphone's small speaker. Although she had clipped the phone back on to her belt, she had kept the line open. She brought the phone up to her ear.

'They're here,' Darby told Robinson.

'A woman called 911 just a few minutes ago to report what she described as "a thundering boom". We've had a few more calls saying the same thing. I've got '

A rifle report echoed somewhere in front of her, behind the wind. A split second later she thought she caught a glimpse of a burning white projectile heading straight for Hoder. She heard a dull thud and the sickening crunch of bone; then she heard the breath jump from his throat as he was knocked off his feet. The phone slipped from her hands, and she lost her balance.

The second shot came just as fast, and, as she staggered and fell into the snow, she heard the round split a tree directly behind her. She had let go of Hoder and was scrambling to her feet when the rifle fired again and there was a whang sound, metal hitting metal. She saw Coop lying face down in the snow, his hands covering the back of his head.

Grab him or Hoder: you can choose only one, she thought.

She went for Coop. The rifle fired again, and then suddenly there was an ear-splitting boom. House and car windows shattered, shards flying everywhere. A great pressure wave slammed into her and sent her spinning. The side of her head struck the driveway, and before she pa.s.sed out she saw a huge ball of flame, like an eruption from the bowels of h.e.l.l, light up the night sky.

Day Three.

53.

Darby awoke to the sight of a dozen eyes watching her.

Body slick with sweat and her heart banging like a snare drum, she blinked furiously until the dimly lit room came into a sharper focus.

Not human eyes doll eyes. Gla.s.sy and lifeless, with long, unnaturally thick eyelashes set in tiny oval faces painted beauty-pageant pretty. All little girls, each one dressed in a different outfit: wedding gowns and farmer's overalls and period costumes that went as far back as the Civil War. They crowded the six white laminate shelves on the wall opposite the foot of her bed, a row of soft square track lighting shining down on their bright smiles and plump, outstretched arms.

Darby swallowed. Her throat was bone-dry, and the entire left side of her face was numb. Pain there, a faraway throbbing hidden behind some sort of narcotic.

It was then she realized she could see only out of her right eye.

The left eye was completely covered. Gently prodding it with her fingertips, she felt the fabric of a compression bandage. It was wrapped around her head to keep the thick, gauzy dressing from moving.

Darby had been placed in a sitting-up position to reduce the swelling in her head. She was in a hospital room, that much was clear. But this one had been designed for little girls. In addition to the dolls, the walls were decorated with pink-and-lavender wallpaper featuring Barbie the Ballerina, Barbie the Skater Barbie everywhere, along with Tinker Bell and Disney princesses of every ethnic variety.

The door to her room was shut. A steam radiator hissed and clanked underneath a pair of snow-caked windows glowing with a silver light. Morning light. The wall clock read 8.45.

Then she remembered the rifle shots and Hoder being hit, followed by more shots and then an explosion. It had come from outside the house, she thought. In a panic she wondered if she had gla.s.s or debris in her eyes and had been blinded. She swung her legs over the side of the bed. The throbbing in her head increased as she slowly got to her feet.

Darby staggered towards the bathroom, the floor slippery beneath her socks. Her stomach lurched in protest, and the throbbing had transformed into what felt like hot nails being hammered into her skull.

Darby turned on the bathroom light. A bandaged, Frankenstein mess of cuts and swollen skin stared back at her in the mirror. After unwrapping the compression bandage, she slowly peeled away the gauze and found a snake of surgical staples stretching from her hairline to the middle of her cheek, the raw wound covered in a greasy ointment. She was staring at it when the door to her room clicked open.

A sprite of a woman dressed in jeans and a charcoal-grey turtleneck sweater stood in the doorway. The doctor. The stethoscope was always a dead giveaway.

'Coop,' Darby said in a thick voice.

'I'm sorry?'

'Jackson Cooper. He's with the FBI.'

'I don't know him.'

'Is he here?'

'No. The gunshot victim was transported to Brewster General and is in critical condition. The others are dead. I'm sorry.'

Darby's legs felt shaky. She gripped the edge of the sink.

The doctor grabbed Darby firmly by the arm. 'You're at the Rockland Family Medical Centre in Red Hill. I'm Dr Mathis. We need to get you back to bed.' A long sigh of irritation, and then the woman added, 'I need to redress that wound.'

Darby allowed herself to be led back to bed. She felt numb all over.

'Your CT scan came back normal,' Dr Mathis said, and went to work cleaning and redressing the wound. 'No inter-cranial bleeding or fractures. You have an unusually thick skull for a woman.'

Darby barely heard her, thinking about Coop. He had been lying in the snow not far from Hoder, and he hadn't been moving.

'Your eye is fine, by the way,' the woman said. 'Now, about your temple and cheekbone I saw you looking in the mirror, and I know it looks like a G.o.d-awful mess, but there's no need to worry. The swelling will go down in a few days. The bruising should subside in about fourteen days, which will be right around the time the staples should be removed. The wound itself will take some time to heal, but you should consult a plastic surgeon the same one who did that work on your other cheek. You can barely see that scar.

'I noticed your left cheekbone was replaced with an implant. What happened there?'

'Someone tried to split my head open with an axe,' Darby said, her voice sounding far away, as though someone else were speaking.

Dr Mathis looked uneasy. Nervous. Nice ladies don't discuss such nasty things, her prim expression said. Nice ladies certainly aren't involved in such things.

'How did I get here?'

The doctor stopped working. She tilted her head to the side and eyed Darby quizzically. 'You don't remember?'

'Remember what?'

'Speaking to Detective Williams. He was here twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago. You were awake.'

Darby had no memory of it.

'Don't be alarmed,' the doctor said. 'Short-term memory loss is common with brain trauma, even in cases of a mild concussion. I've also seen it in cases of post-traumatic stress disorder. It's a condition where '

'I'm familiar with the term.' Darby rolled on to her side, picked up the phone from the nightstand and placed it on the side of her mattress.

'You can make your call after I finish up here.' Dr Mathis reached for the phone.

Darby gently grabbed the woman's wrist. 'Go tend to your other patients.'

54.