The Bone House Part 33

Larch shook his head, if Pete knew that, he would have taken Bradley's head off. He would have told Delia and the sheriff, too. It would have been all over the county.'

Cab nodded. Larch was right. 'I appreciate your talking with me.'

'No problem.' Larch opened the door of the Corvette, and the rain was loud outside. He climbed out and then bent down to shove his head in the car again. 'Hey, you really need to get over to the island tonight?'

'Why, can you take me?'

'Sure, I do private fis.h.i.+ng charters all the time. It'll cost you, though.'

'How much?'

'Two hundred bucks. I'll take you round trip, or I can drop you and you can spend the night.' He added, 'Or you could let me take the Vette out for a spin, and then it's no charge.'

Cab grinned. 'I don't really need to go over there tonight. It can wait.'

Larch pulled a ferry brochure from his pocket and slid a pen from the top of his clipboard. He scribbled something on the brochure and handed it to Cab. 'That's my phone number. If you change your mind, give me a call. I live over in Gills Rock. I can have you there in less than an hour.'

Cab glanced at the sky. 'It'll be dark soon.'

'Night doesn't bother me. That's when you get the biggest walleyes.' Larch winked. 'Mark Bradley would be pretty surprised to see you at his house tonight.'

'What's that mean?'

'Hey, she's over eighteen now, so it's not like there's anything you guys can do about it. Even so, it tells you what a piece of s.h.i.+t he is.'

Cab's eyes narrowed. 'I'm still not following you.'

'Let's just say Mark probably has some company in his bed tonight,' Larch told him. 'His wife came over on the four o'clock. She's gone for the night. So who races up to the dock like she's a NASCAR driver to get on the last ferry? Tresa Fischer.'

'You're telling me that Tresa Tresa went over to the island tonight?' went over to the island tonight?'

Larch nodded. 'That's right. Makes you wonder, doesn't it?'

Water pummeled Troy. Water was everywhere.

The twenty-footer clawed into the waves, but beyond the top of the peninsula, the boat rocked like a toy in the ocean. The headwind bit at his exposed skin, and the sky gushed rain down as heavy as a waterfall. He stayed west beyond the worst currents of the pa.s.sage, but even in the calm of Green Bay, swells rose up and slammed the boat down so hard that his jaw hurt as the bow landed. His progress was excruciatingly slow. After ten minutes, he thought he'd spent an hour on the bay.

He was cold to his bones. He wore long underwear under his jeans and a heavy wool sweater over his jersey, and he was covered head to toe in oilskin camouflage gear he'd borrowed from his father's closet. None of it kept him warm. His toes were numb inside his boots, and he clutched the wheel so hard he couldn't feel his fingers. Beads of rain squeezed inside through the gaps at his collar and trailed down his back like icy fingers.

The black sky felt as opaque as night. He had to keep wiping his eyes to see the land looming on the horizon ahead of him, seemingly as far away as when he'd started. To his northeast, the Plum Island lighthouse blinked out of the gloom. With every minute, he thought about turning back, but if he did that, he would prove what his father had always said about him. He was a failure. A coward. If Glory was looking down at him in the middle of the water, he didn't want her thinking he'd abandoned her.

Troy churned through the pa.s.sage. He fought to keep the nose pointed toward the bulk of the island as the current swept him nearly in circles. The up-and-down hammering made a relentless thump, vibrating through his body. Even his breathing felt strained as rain flooded his nose and mouth. He had to cover his face and swallow air open-mouthed to keep from choking. As bad as it was, he barely noticed when the water finally grew steadier around him. The boat picked up speed. When he glanced eastward, he realized that Plum Island was behind him now. The land ma.s.s of Detroit Island, which stretched like a finger below Was.h.i.+ngton Island, acted like a reef to cut the chop from the lake.

His adrenaline soared. He'd survived the worst of the crossing. The island grew large less than two miles ahead of him.

As he neared land, Troy stayed west of the main harbor where the ferries came and went. He didn't want to be spotted there. He hugged the sh.o.r.e and turned north along the island's jutting index finger, where he could make out individual trees, the white paint of houses built on the water, and deserted beaches. Ahead of him, near the rounded end of the finger, the green trees stopped at the water's edge, and the vast bay took over, reaching twenty-five miles to Michigan's upper peninsula coast.

He followed the land as it turned back south into the deep inlet in the island's coast known as Was.h.i.+ngton Harbor. A long white beach tracked the water. The base of the inlet was known as Schoolhouse Beach, made not of sand but of millions of ivory rocks polished smooth by the currents. He'd gone there with Glory many times in the summers. If he looked hard enough, he could picture her there, in her bikini on a red beach towel, or skinny-dipping in the cool water on a late weekday afternoon. None of that mattered now. What mattered was that Mark Bradley lived on the east side of the beach, in a house hidden inside the trees.

Troy aimed for a forested stretch of sh.o.r.e, out of view of any of the beachfront houses. Most were unoccupied now anyway. Looking down, he saw the water growing shallow. He raised the motor and drifted. As he neared the beach, he climbed over the side and dropped into the knee-deep water, which knifed him with cold. He splashed on to the rocks, dragging the boat with him, until it was far enough out of the water to be too heavy to move. He left it there. He wasn't sure if he'd go back for it or if he'd slip on to the ferry in the morning with Keith's help.

With any luck, no one would have discovered Mark Bradley's body by then. He'd be free to escape back to the mainland.

Troy climbed the beach to the edge of the trees and followed the curving sh.o.r.eline to the east. Heavy rain continued to dimple the half- moon of harbor water, causing overlapping circles. The wet rocks sc.r.a.ped under his feet. He was wet and frozen, but he was determined. He checked the silver revolver under his jacket. It was heavy in his hand. He'd found the gun a year earlier in one of the abandoned barns that he and Keith explored in the off season. Something about having a weapon made him feel strong. He'd cleaned the revolver as best as he could, oiled it, and tested it. A few times, he and Glory had slipped into empty fields and fired at pop cans placed on barbed wire fences. She liked the power of the gun too. She said it turned her on.

Troy reached the beach road that led from the water to the island cemetery. There was a park here, which was crowded with picnickers during the summer. Now, in the rain, as night fell, it was deserted. He chose a bench and sat down to wait. He was only a few hundred yards from Mark Bradley's house, and he could travel along the beach and arrive through the trees. No one would see him. He could creep up next to the house where he had a good shot and squeeze the trigger. That was all it would take. A split second to get justice.

Beyond the trees, on the beach, it rained and rained. It would be dark in minutes. When he had the cover of night, he would move.

PART FOUR.

ASHES TO ASHES.

Chapter Forty-One.

Hilary was near the city of Green Bay on Highway 57 when Katie called her.

'I wanted to make sure you were still coming,' the girl said. 'Are you getting close?'

Hilary squinted through the winds.h.i.+eld at the highway signs. The road was slick, and visibility in the driving rain was poor. She'd already had a near-collision with a deer bounding across the highway lane. 'I'm about five miles from the university. Where should I find you?'

There was a long pause. 'I'm not actually on campus right now,' Katie admitted.

'Where are you?'

'I'm parked across the street from Gary Jensen's house.'

Hilary tensed and almost dropped her phone. 'What the h.e.l.l are you doing there?'

'I'm sorry. I needed to do something, so I followed him. I'll explain when I see you.'

'Stay where you are, and I'll meet you. Where is this place?'

'If you're close to the university exit, you can't be far. You can take a right turn off the highway toward Wequiock Falls Park. That's where I am. Jensen's house is diagonally across from here.'

'I'll be there soon,' Hilary said.

She saw a sign for the county park two miles later, and she braked and turned sharply right. One long block from the highway, five roads came together at an intersection like a giant starburst. Telephone wires criss-crossed the sky overhead. The land around her was open; she was at the flat summit of a hill above the bay. A cornfield was on her left. The dead-end road into the park was on her right. On the opposite side of the intersection, she saw a two-story red-brick house shrouded by mammoth trees.

Jensen's house.

Hilary turned into the park and spotted a red sedan parked off the gra.s.s in the shelter of an oak grove. She pulled in behind it. When she got out, she peered through the rain-streaked driver's window and saw nothing inside. Her heart leaped with concern.

'Hey.'

Hilary heard a hushed call. Near the intersection, under the shelter of one of the trees bordering the crossroad, she saw a girl waving her arms. Before Hilary could move, the girl jogged across the wet gra.s.s and joined her by the cars.

'Katie?'

The girl nodded. Her short dark hair was plastered to her skin, and her gla.s.ses were dotted with rain. She was medium height and bony, with a nervous twitch to her limbs. She wore a black jacket zipped to her neck and black jeans. She smelled of fresh cigarette smoke.

'You're soaked,' Hilary said. 'Let's sit in the car.'

They got into the Taurus, which was warm. Hilary swung into a U-turn leading back toward the road that led to Highway 57. When she found another break in the trees on the shoulder of the park road, she pulled to her left and stopped. The car was mostly hidden by trees, but they had a view diagonally across the intersection to the brick house.

Beside her, the girl's fingers jerked in a nervous rhythm. 'Do you mind if I smoke? I'm so keyed up.'

'Put the window down,' Hilary said.

Katie did, and she extracted a damp cigarette pack from her jacket and lit up. She blew the smoke out the window. She calmed down as she inhaled, and she closed her eyes briefly.

'I'm so glad you came,' she said.

'What's going on? Why are you here?'

Katie tapped ash outside the car. 'I couldn't sit in the dorm and do nothing. I'm a reporter, so I figured I'd follow the story, you know? I went to the athletic department to find out if Gary was at work today.'

'Was he?'

The girl shook her head. 'He called in sick.' 'And you still haven't heard anything from Amy?'

'No, I've called and texted her, but nothing. I think he's got her, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Jeez, I was stupid.'

'How did Amy get involved in this?'

'We were in Florida with the dance team. Amy found out about the girl who was killed down there. She said on the bus that she saw Glory and Gary together, and she heard Gary going back to his room late the night she was killed. There are a lot of rumors around town about Gary's wife, too. She died in an accident, but some people aren't sure it was an accident. Anyway, Amy got it in her head that Gary may have been involved in Glory's death.'

Hilary nodded. 'Were you in Florida with Amy?'

'Yeah, I snuck along for the ride, but I didn't see anything weird down there. I hung out with the dancers during the compet.i.tion so I could write a story for the paper.'

Hilary stared at the house tucked among the trees. She couldn't see lights inside.

'You said you knew Gary was inside,' Hilary said. 'Have you seen him?'

'Yeah, I told you I checked out the athletics department, right? He was sick? Well, when I got back to the dorm, I saw him coming out of the front door at Downham. That's our our building. He didn't look sick.' building. He didn't look sick.'

'Did you talk to him?'

'Sure. I played dumb, because I'm not sure if he knows that I'm Amy's roommate. I mean, I know him, and he knows me, because of my job at the paper, but that's it. At least I was able to ask him why he was at the dorm.'

'What did he say?'

'He had a good excuse. Like he'd been working on it. He said Amy came over to his house to talk about dance strategies, but she said she wasn't feeling well, and she left right after she arrived. So he came by to see if she was OK.'

'He could be telling the truth,' Hilary said.

'Yeah, or he could be giving himself an out.'

'Did you spot her car?'

'No, I drove around and looked. It's not here. He could have ditched it somewhere. Or maybe it's in his garage.'

Hilary frowned. 'Let's go to talk to the police, but I'm not sure they're going to do anything. Not yet.'

'We're running out of time,' Katie told her, grabbing Hilary's arm as she placed it on the wheel, if Amy's alive, we need to do something now.'

'What do you mean?'

The girl flicked her cigarette out the window into the wet ground. She took a deep breath and coughed into her sleeve. 'After I saw Gary at the dorm, I followed him. He made one stop, and then he came back here. That was an hour ago. If you didn't get here soon, I was going to go over there myself.'

'Don't be crazy,' Hilary said. She looked at Katie's face and then added, 'Where did he stop? What did he do?'

'He stopped at a hardware store,' the girl told her. 'He bought a large roll of plastic sheeting and a shovel.'

Delia grew nervous when Tresa didn't come home.

She dialed her daughter's cell phone number, but there was no answer. She called the store in Egg Harbor where she'd sent Tresa for groceries, and the manager told her it had been more than an hour since she left. Tresa should have been back long before now. It wasn't like her to be late without calling.

Delia stood outside on the porch, watching the empty driveway and the rain falling on the unkempt yard. She struggled with a horrible sense of anxiety. Part of it was her grief over Glory, which triggered an immediate, irrational fear when Tresa was overdue. Part of it was guilt, as she wondered what awful chain of events she had set in motion because of Troy.

Vengeance was so seductive. She was tired of the world taking things from her and offering no retribution. Mark Bradley deserved no mercy, not after what he had done to her and her family. Troy killing him would be a way to right the scales. One man would finally pay the price for the others who had escaped.

It was a simple thing, but she knew it wasn't simple at all. She could hardly breathe. Her mind cascaded through all the things that could go wrong before this was over. Troy was a fool. He would be caught before or after he'd used his gun; he'd go to jail for years. Or he'd be killed in the attempt. She didn't want the boy's life on her conscience. Too many people had died already.

Delia made a decision. She dialed Troy's phone. Wherever he was right now, on the boat or on the island, she had to get a message to him: Stop. Don't do this. Stop. Don't do this. She needed to end this craziness before it started, but her call went nowhere. Troy had switched off his phone or he was without signal. It was already too late; the wheels were grinding forward, and she couldn't stop them. She was in the middle of it now, leaving an electronic fingerprint that tied her and Troy together. She needed to end this craziness before it started, but her call went nowhere. Troy had switched off his phone or he was without signal. It was already too late; the wheels were grinding forward, and she couldn't stop them. She was in the middle of it now, leaving an electronic fingerprint that tied her and Troy together.

Her phone rang.

'Thank G.o.d,' Delia murmured. She a.s.sumed it was Troy calling back. Or it was Tresa. Either way, she felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe she could put the demons back in their box.