Firefly. Part 5

She had closed that window yesterday, making the house tight. Jame must have opened it, being a fresh-air fiend, and she had not realized. There had been access to his room from outside.

The monster had come in and taken Jame.

At night she had been terrified and tried to flee it, to deny it. Now it was day, and she was rational. The shock of it numbed her. She had to make a decision in a hurry, lest she do something foolish and make it worse.

When the racc.o.o.n had been taken, she had called the sheriffs department. When the dog had been taken, she had sought to hide it, but somehow the deputy had known anyway. Now her son had been taken.

She should report it, she knew. But would they really believe it was the monster? Or would they think that she had somehow done it herself, practicing on the the dog and then going after her son? It might not be rational to kill her son, but by the time Paris got through talking with them, she would seem like a complete mental case and be committed to an asylum, and Paris would be off with Helen.

No way would she get Jame back, regardless.

She fetched the spade, went to the back, and dug out an azalea bush. She was careful to set the dirt on a plastic tablecloth so it did not mark the surrounding soil, and then to put the bush on it when she had it out. She might have damaged a few roots, but she had balled it so that not much harm was done. It would survive nicely, just as if transplanted. She deepened the hole, taking similar care with the extra dirt.

Then she went inside, hauled in the corners of Jame's sheet, and lifted so that the body was tumbled into the center. He wasn't very heavy without his flesh; she had no real trouble carrying him. She hauled the impromptu bag out and set it into the hole where the bush had been. She pushed it down, folding over the excess sheet so that none was out of the hole. Then she filled in some dirt, covering it. Then she put the bush back in where it had been, and filled in dirt around it until things were level. This time she made sure that there was no sign of disturbance; she sprinkled a few dry leaves around and pressed some into the soil. It should take a better eye than the sheriffs to tell that anything had changed here. After all, the azalea remained right where it had been before.

She took the excess dirt, wrapped in the tablecloth, to an old large laurel oak and bundled it into a ground-level hole in the trunk. She might need some of that dirt again. No one should think to look here, and if they did, what would they find? Just innocent dirt. The job was done.

No, it wasn't. Now she had to devise a way to explain her son's disappearance. The school authorities would think he was playing truant, and Paris would inquire. She would have to tell them that something had come up suddenly, and that he had to visit relatives in another state for a while. No need to transfer records; he would be back in a couple of weeks, and yes, she would see that he made up the lost work.

This was crazy! She was covering for the monster. Why was she doing it? Wasn't she much more likely to be locked up the moment they found the body, as they surely would in time, than if she had reported it at the outset? She was making herself look guilty.

But if she reported it now, everything would happen now, and she'd be in trouble immediately. This way it delayed the reckoning, and gave her a chance to figure a way out. She might have to flee the state, to a.s.sume a different ident.i.ty, so that they would never catch her. Could she do that?

She had to believe she could, if she had to. It would be better than rotting in an inst.i.tution. At least she would have a chance.

What relatives was her son visiting? It would have to be her brother and his wife. She did not get along well with him, for a reason they never discussed, but by the same token it gave her a certain power over him. She would have to invoke that now.

She looked up his number and dialed it. His wife answered. The wife was innocent, and none was not about to burden her with any part of the truth.

"Jade Brown here," she said briskly. "Tell George that Jame is visiting you for a couple of weeks."

"But we can't-" the woman protested.

"He isn't really," none clarified. "But you must say he is with you, if anyone asks. Tell George; he will understand. With luck, no one will ask."

"But-"

"Just tell him," none said firmly, and hung up. George would not understand what his crazy little sister was up to this time, but he would know he had to play along. He had learned long ago about playing along. She had not bothered him in years; he was getting off lightly.

So it was done. Now she could relax.

none sat down at the kitchen table and dissolved into tears. Jame was dead! She had held off the full impact of the stunning reality, doing what she had to do, but she had been running on desperation. Now the grief overwhelmed her. Jame had not been the best of boys, but he was far from the other extreme. He had been somewhat of a comfort to her, just by his presence, as her relationship with Paris had fallen apart. She had not tried to hold the family together for the sake of the child; the child had tended to make bearable what otherwise was not. Now that small bastion of support was gone, and she did not know how she was going to survive.

Yes, she did. She was going to seal it over, into a disused personality, one she could remember but would not truly feel, as she had done before. It would be as if some other woman's son had died, eliciting sympathy but not true involvement from her. This would enable her to function appropriately, without being overcome by emotion. Drab little mother would fade away, leaving a new slate. This would take time to perfect, but she would do it; she did know how.

In the afternoon a car pulled in. none recognized it: that journalist woman who had come asking about the racc.o.o.n. Had she somehow gotten wind of what had happened since? That seemed unlikely, unless the deputy had told her.

none had been crying; a glance at the mirror showed her eyes discolored and swollen. She had been working on her new aspect, but loss and grief could not be muscled down in an hour, let alone the physical evidence of it. How was she to hide that?

She dived for the refrigerator and hauled out an onion. She found a small knife-her big one was still in Jame's room, where she had set it down when tending to him-which would really look d.a.m.ning!-and sliced the onion in half.

She picked up a half and carried it along as she went out on the porch to meet the woman, hoping to get rid of her quickly. "Is this important? I'm rather busy at the moment-"

The woman eyed her, and the onion. "Mrs. Brown, I think it is well that I came here. You have obviously lost more than a dog."

"I'm making salad!" none said, waving the onion.

But the woman would not be blunted. "The monster has been here again. Whom did it take this time?"

d.a.m.n her intuition! "I don't have to talk to you!"

"Mrs. Brown, I think you had better. May I come in?" The woman pushed on by her, entering the house, ignoring the onion. none realized belatedly that it was a sweet onion, with very little tearing; in her hurry she hadn't noticed.

"What right do you have to barge in here?" none demanded, fl.u.s.tered.

"I am a journalist," Flowers said evenly. "I'm good at it. I do my homework. Why didn't you testify against your brother?"

none stared at her. She knew!

The woman smiled coldly. "That was, shall we say, just a warning shot. I will tell you this much about me: I was an abused wife. I have an excellent notion what you went through, and why you don't care to talk about it. I have no interest in embarra.s.sing you. I just must have the truth about what's going on here. Tell me everything, and I will not only keep your secret, I will help you."

At the moment this woman reminded her very much of her husband! She dealt strictly on her own terms, making a bargain that might seem fair to her but hardly impressed the other party that way. She was dealing from power, and that tended to be hard on the powerless.

But none seemed to have no choice. "The monster took my son," she said brokenly.

"And you did not report it?"

"They might think I did it."

"I know you did not. I was afraid of this. Once the monster attuned to human flesh, it found human beings easy prey. We have to find it and destroy it."

"Can't-can't the police do that?"

"The police don't know about it. This thing is not public knowledge, and we intend to see that it does not become so. The one body that was found by the river was too far gone to indicate much, and the news was not given to the paper."

"A body?"

"Apparently a hunter. A sheriffs deputy discovered it yesterday, near where the hunter's truck was found last week. For all they know, it could have been picked clean by ants. But just in case it was homicide, they are keeping it under wraps. They don't know what we know: that a monster is stalking people. Now, where was your son, and what did you do with his body?"

Numbed anew, none showed her. Apparently if she had reported it, it still wouldn't have become public. Because, it seemed, monsters were bad for tourism. Unless they were harmless to people, which this one wasn't.

"You did well," Flowers said. "But I think you had better get away from here. The monster has now struck three times here. We shall try to intercept it before it strikes again, but meanwhile you are surely in danger. This house is too isolated; the monster evidently strikes where there is little danger of discovery. I realize it is hard to plan effective action when your son has just been so horribly killed, but it is necessary."

"I have nowhere to go," none said. With that she gave the lie to her wild notion to flee and change her ident.i.ty. What would she eat, where would she stay?

"And too old to make it as a lady of the night," Flowers said. "I understand rather better than I care to. But perhaps I can come up with something."

"Anyway, I can't just go and leave my husband here," none said.

"He would-"

"Make a row," Flowers agreed. "I know that type too. Then I suppose you will have to remain here, but I am not at all at ease about this. Lock yourself in when you sleep, and beware of anything that seems erotic."

"I could have used that advice before I got married," none said with a wan smile.

Flowers returned the smile. "So could I, long ago. We do learn the hard way. I will stop by again tomorrow, hoping you have no further news."

none nodded agreement. She hadn't liked this woman from the start, but that was changing, and she was relieved to have her situation understood. Flowers knew about the monster.

The woman got up and left the house. In a moment her car started. none remained at the table, dry-eyed for the time being, uncertain how she should feel.

* 8 - MAY DROVE AWAY from the house, ill at ease. She had to find out about the monster, and protect Mid's estate from the notoriety its presence would evoke, and she was trying to do that. As long as the monster hunted in this particular region, it was her responsibility, and she tracked its depredations a.s.siduously, doing what Deputy Sheriff Tishner-Frank-was not fully free to do. But the cold logic of her loyalty to Mid did not submerge the increasingly difficult human aspect. That woman, Jade Brown, was in a situation roughly a.n.a.logous to May's own of five years ago, caught in a bad marriage. True, the husband was not beating her, he was merely neglecting her in favor of a more attractive woman, but the underlying desperation was similar. Now it was complicated by the presence of the monster. Jade Brown was all too likely to be the next taken.

It was not her business to help people in trouble, and May had schooled herself to deal with people toughly, as objects rather than as feeling ent.i.ties. But the Brown woman was too close to what she understood, both in her marriage and in her proximity to the monster. May's heart was being touched despite herself. There, but for the grace of G.o.d...

Perhaps it was the background information she had so recently come across. She had done what she routinely did, and researched in some depth the person she knew she would have to deal with again. Mid's resources had facilitated this. Expecting to find dull history, she had been surprised.

Jade Brown had been molested as a child, first by her brother and likely her father, then by a neighbor. She had not complained; apparently she had not realized the significance of the situation. Then her brother had discovered the business with the neighbor, and reported it, and thrown Jade Brown's life into phenomenal notoriety. There had been a dramatic trial. The neighbor had been convicted, thanks to Jade's innocent testimony. That had seemed to be the extent of it, but May knew better. She knew that the neighbor had in effect taken the fall for what the father and brother had done, and that the other two had thus escaped prosecution. Jade had been returned to her family, where quite possibly the abuse had continued.

Was there really a difference between a child locked into an abusive family and a woman locked into an abusive marriage? Perhaps there was, but the parallel struck to the heart of May's buried humanity. She had to help Jade Brown!

She knew a house where the woman could go. But it wasn't her place to authorize it. Perhaps not her place even to suggest it. But she suspected she was about to push her luck.

She drove the looping roads to the Middle Kingdom Ranch. She would discuss this with Demerit and then decide what to do. She also had to call the sheriffs deputy and tell him of the death of the Brown boy; that was a shocker that really pinpointed the continued presence of the monster. They had to do something about it quickly, because at this rate it would soon be impossible to conceal it. But how could they dispatch a thing who hunted so silently and unpredictably? Certainly they weren't going to go out into the night with flashlights and wait for it!

She pulled up at the gate and pressed the call b.u.t.ton. In a moment the gate opened. Good; that meant Demerit was at the house now. She drove on down the lovely lane. Something about young pine trees made her feel good; she didn't know whether it was the sight, smell, or sound of the wind through their branches, but the a.s.sociations were nice. Look-there was a huge owl, just sitting on the metal fence, its great dark eyes watching her pa.s.s. It wasn't even afraid of the moving car!

She reached the house, nestled in the jungle-like forest; she wouldn't care to hike through that region! She had had enough trouble in the relatively open sandy section of the northern part of the estate; here, with the cl.u.s.tering palmettos and dangling liana vines and thickets of whatever hiding all manner of bugs and reptiles, she would be in trouble immediately. As it was, she had gotten a number of itchy bites on her legs from her prior outing; these had turned out to be chiggers, and it seemed they would take a week or so to settle down. The wilds of central Florida were best admired from the sidelines.

Demerit stepped out. "I have a report and a request," she said. "Let's go in and talk." Then, as he nodded, she added: "I saw a big owl."

"Did it have ears?"

"Ears?"

"Tufts of feathers on its head, like animal ears."

"No, it was smooth-headed, and huge. Its eyes were like pools."

"That's the barred owl," he said. "That's its territory, by the road, when the little creatures come out to forage at night. It knows a moving car is safe, but it spooks if you stop."

"Oh. I'm glad I didn't stop."

"We have a great homed owl that's even larger." He was positively loquacious when he talked about the wild creatures!

Inside, seated in the otherwise unused living room, she put it to him directly. "The monster has taken another human being, a child this time. This will not be made public because the boy's mother concealed the fact; she was perhaps afraid that the authorities would blame her. She has a bad marriage, with the husband in charge; she may have been justified. But I fear for her, and want her elsewhere, both for her sake and to prevent another death from blowing this case open. This brings me to my request: will you provide sanctuary for this woman?"

Demerit looked startled. "I don't-" he said, without finishing.

"You don't relate to women well," she agreed. She had done spot research on him, too, and knew that he had at one time been inst.i.tutionalized. He was not dangerous, just different. Schizoid, the report said, but that was uncertain; as was too often the case, they hadn't really known the nature of his problem. "She is no threat to you. She is desperate and not pushy, unlike me." She delivered one of her brief cold smiles. "She did not ask for this, and does not know I have it in mind. She's not much of a housekeeper, and no young beauty. I think you could pretty much confine her to one room and bathroom and the kitchen, and ignore her. No need to give her the security access code, she would remain nonexistent to outsiders."

"But-"

"But Mid must give approval. Yes. He will do so if you request it. In any event, since she would become your responsibility, it is essential that you acquiesce. I want you to think about it, and if you agree, you can call Mid, and I can bring her over. This would be temporary, until the monster has been dealt with; then things should return to normal."

He still looked troubled and uncertain.

"Call Mid," she suggested. "Maybe he'll say no. Then you need have no awkward feelings about the matter."

He nodded, relieved. He got up and walked toward the phone.

"Oh, I didn't mean right this instant," May said. "You'll need time to think about it."

"Not if he says no."

She spread her hands. She was pretty sure Mid wasn't going to say no. Mid would quickly ascertain that this was her request, not Demerit's, and know that she had reason.

Demerit punched the number. "The monster got a child," he said, evidently to the answering machine. "Also, may I install a woman in the spare room?" He hung up.

May was privately impressed. The man was competent; nothing schizoid there. So why had he been inst.i.tutionalized? The record had been frustratingly vague on that detail, as though the authorities had known the diagnosis wasn't valid.

May stood. "I'll check in tomorrow if nothing else happens. So far we've managed to keep the lid on, but it will be chancy if that monster isn't stopped soon. I'm going to ask Mid for an extermination specialist. But I hope to get the woman clear first. Otherwise-"

The phone rang. Demerit leaped to answer it. "Geode." He stood, listening.

Geode? Had he misp.r.o.nounced his own name? Perhaps she had misheard.

"May Flowers," Demerit said. "Yes." He extended the phone to her.

This was faster than she had expected! She took the phone. "May."

The familiar voice of her employer answered. "This is your doing?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Two reasons. First, I fear she will be the next victim, because the monster is evidently stalking her premises, and that will be the d.i.c.kens to conceal. She lives about three miles as the crow flies from the Middle Kingdom, so the notoriety could be awkward. Second, I feel for her." She was nervous as she said that; she had never given such a reason for any prior request.

"Tell her not to make a mess."

"Thank you, Mid." She was vastly relieved. He clicked off. May set down the phone. "He allows it."

Demerit actually smiled. "He knew right away I wasn't asking for myself. He asked who put me up to it, and I said you. Then he asked if you were here."

"He catches on like lightning," she agreed. "He knows that neither one of us would cross him. Very well, I will shop for some groceries, so that no suspicion will be aroused by your having to buy extra. Anything special she needs, I will obtain. I will caution her about disturbing things here. I hope she likes to read; daytime television can be mind-deadening."