"Oh, swell-f.u.c.king great. You got a flashlight?"
"Here you go."
The beam from a 12-volt lantern darted around the square, cluttered cabin like an obese Tinkerbell, coming to rest on a shelf with oil lamps, a Coleman lantern, and dozens of candles. In a nearby drawer she "discovered" a box of Strike Anywhere matches sealed in a baggie. They lit everything with a wick; when the cabin was ablaze with light, they closed the shutters while Lily made peanut b.u.t.ter and jelly sandwiches.
While Max rested his leg, Lily came within a whisker of blowing the masquerade. Having realized that all she needed to do to save herself was get a good running start on the one-legged man, then hike out of the canyon and flag down a car, she was just about to tell him she was going back outside to fetch the drinks cooling in the creek, it dawned on her that Lilith wouldn"t have known anything about Mother Nature"s fridge.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, didn"t we bring anything to drink?" she bl.u.s.tered, feeling cold sweat dampening the back of her T-shirt. "No f.u.c.king way I"m choking down a pb&j dry."
"Lily stashed everything that needed to be refrigerated in the creek."
"I"ll get "em," said Lily, quickly slipping on her sneakers. "Just tell me where."
"No, I"ll do it-I know where they are."
"Fine by me," said Lily. It might even be better this way, she told herself-she could be long gone by the time he returned.
"I"ll be right back." Max limped over to the door, opened it-and immediately slammed it shut.
"What? What is it?"
"Either I just saw Bigfoot out there," said Max, leaning his back against the door, "or we have company."
3.
"Down!" Pender whispered fiercely, dropping into a crouch. He and Irene had just emerged from the road into the clearing when the cabin door had opened suddenly, revealing Maxwell standing in the doorway. He had peered briefly into the darkness, then retreated into the cabin, shutting the door behind him. "Of all the freak luck!"
They took cover behind the skeletal frame of the strange-looking vehicle parked at the edge of the clearing. From here, the cabin looked dark and solid as a blockhouse, with thin cracks of light outlining the shutters, which weren"t quite flush with the window frames.
"Do you think he saw us?" whispered Irene.
Pender grimly unholstered the Colt. "Unless he"s gone blind recently."
"What do we do now?"
"I"m not sure." He racked the slide, jacking a round into the firing chamber. "It"d be helpful to know who we"re dealing with," he added, in what was possibly the understatement of the decade.
"I knew it," Max declared triumphantly, when a few more minutes had gone by without any bullhorns bellowing that they were surrounded. "I knew he"d come after me on his own."
"It could be a trap," said Lily, holding a lantern to the huge USGS map on the wall, examining the pale green swirls and spirals the way Lilith would have, if she were trying to find a back way out. There was none, of course, but Lilith wouldn"t have known that. Neither would Max-Lily was counting on that.
He turned away from the window. "You just don"t get it, do you? This is personal with him-he can"t stand that I beat him."
"Don"t tell me you"re planning to go out there and take him on?"
"It"s personal for me, too," replied Max. "Remember what I told you when we were planning Lyssy"s birthday party? Revenge is the priority. First Corder, now Pender and Cogan, it"s like they"re lining up for me. I really would be an ungrateful b.a.s.t.a.r.d if I didn"t at least try to take advantage." He double-checked both guns-the reloaded revolver had a bullet in each of the six chambers, while the black pistol had one round up the spout and another thirteen in the clip-then turned back to Lily.
"From here on in, job one for you is keeping your body between his gun and my body. Meanwhile, anything you can do to convince him that you"re Lily and I"m Lyssy would be extremely helpful."
"Anything else, oh lord and master?"
He gave her a sharp glance, decided to let it pa.s.s. "Just follow my lead."
After several long minutes, during which they"d discovered that their cell phones were useless this deep in the woods, Pender and Irene abandoned the partial protection provided by the mule for the solid cover of Irene"s Infiniti. From here, they watched the lopsided moon, a few days short of full, rising above the hills behind the cabin, turning the sky to the east a shimmering gray and casting a pallid silvery light over the canyon. Below them to their left, a ghostly mist drifted lazily behind the willows lining the south bank of the creek; above them to their right they could just make out the pale scar of a dirt road zigzagging up the canyon wall.
The cabin door opened again, throwing an elongated trapezoid of yellow light across the covered wooden porch. "Here we go," whispered Pender. He rose from a squat to a high crouch, holding the gun two-handed, fingers interlaced, using the roof of the Infiniti as a platform to steady his aim. A short, spidery figure appeared in the doorway, silhouetted dramatically in the streaming light like the alien emerging from the mother ship at the end of Close Encounters-if the alien had had two heads and eight limbs.
Pender eased his finger off the trigger. So much for the quick and dirty solution-he had never been much of a sharpshooter. FBI agents had to be range-qualified, of course, but even when he was young, Aim for the middle and hope for the best had always been Pender"s motto.
"Who"s out there?" Max shouted from the porch.
Lily winced. "Not in my ear, bro," she said out of the corner of her mouth.
"It"s Agent Pender."
"And Dr. Cogan," called the psychiatrist-from where Max stood, he couldn"t see Pender glaring at her.
"Oh, good. Dr. Cogan, it"s Lyssy. Lyssy and Lily. We want to come down and talk things over, but I"m scared your friend there is just going to shoot me the first chance he gets-could you get him to maybe just point his gun away a little?"
Max"s eyes were beginning to adjust to the moonlight; looking over the girl"s shoulder, he could see Pender bracing the gun against the roof of the car, twenty yards away.
"Lyssy!" he called. "I give you my word I won"t fire first."
"You bet he won"t," Max whispered to Lily. "Not while I have you for a shield."
"Well that cheers the s.h.i.t outta me," Lily murmured as she started down the steps.
"Okay, that"s far enough," Pender called, when the other two had crossed the clearing to within ten feet of the Infiniti, Lily trudging along in the lead with the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up, Maxwell limping behind her, wearing an old canvas knapsack containing their money and a few supplies. They were standing not far from where Fano had died; behind them, his blood was a dark stain in the moonlight.
"Hi, Dr. Cogan," said Max, in Lyssy"s ever-hopeful voice. "We"re sorry we put those sleeping pills in your juice, but we couldn"t think of any other way to get a head start."
The voice, the timid stance, what she could see of his expression as he half-crouched behind Lily, all seemed to Irene to support his claim to be Lyssy. "No harm done," she told him, then turned to Lily. "Are you all right, dear?"
The girl nodded curtly, but it was Pender she was staring at, as though she were trying to telepath him a message. He thought he knew what it was, too. "Lyssy, I need to see both your hands. You can stay there if you"d like-just show me your hands."
"If you want to know do I have a gun, the answer is yes. But I"ll ditch mine if you"ll ditch yours."
"You first."
Half obscured by his human shield, Maxwell shrugged. "Dr. Al always said I was a trusting soul," he said, holding up the .38 with which he"d killed MacAlister, then clicking on the safety before tossing it away. "Your turn."
"Sorry, I can"t do that," said Pender. That was a lesson every cop was taught in the cradle: No matter how bad it is, there"s no situation that can"t be made worse by surrendering your weapon.
"But-but you lied!"
The childish disappointment and disbelief in Maxwell"s voice, the air of naivete, went a long way toward convincing Pender that this might be Lyssy after all. He did not, however, lower his own gun or let down his guard. "Sorry I had to mislead you, son. Now put your hands in the air for me. Lily honey, you come on over here."
But before she could move, Maxwell snaked his left arm around her throat, drew MacAlister"s automatic from the waistband of his jeans with his right hand, and pressed the muzzle against her right temple. "Drop your gun, or I blow her head off."
"Go ahead," Pender told him calmly. "You"ll be dead before she hits the ground."
4.
Being in the dark place is like being deaf, dumb, blind, paralyzed, and buried alive. Nothing here. Nothing but yourself and your thoughts. Crazy-making. Unbearable to contemplate. To think too closely about it is to risk becoming an endless scream resounding through the void.
Far easier to give yourself up to the darkness...
(but what about Lily?) To surrender rather than risk the flames...
(but what about Lily?) Because Max is so much stronger...
(but is he?) And if you only let go...
(don"t let go!) If you give yourself to the darkness...
(again) You"ll never even hear her screaming...
"I do believe we"ve reached another stalemate, Agent Pender." Max had dropped Lyssy"s simper; it was a relief to him to think that he"d never have to employ it again.
"Let the girl go and we can settle it the way we did the last time," said Pender, referring to the shoot-out in the barn at Scorned Ridge three years ago.
"I don"t think so." When he was amused, Max"s eyebrows tended to peak devilishly, like Jack Nicholson"s. "I seem to be running out of legs."
"Then leave the girl behind-I give you my word I"ll let you walk."
"I believe we"ve already established what your word is worth, Agent Pender. Oh, wait-I see where the problem lies! You think I"m abducting the young lady." He eased his crook-armed hold on the girl"s neck, chucked her cheek affectionately, and swung the muzzle of his gun from her to Pender. "Tell them who you are, darlin"."
She coughed a few times, pulled down the hood of her sweatshirt and tugged the neck away from her throat, working her jaw and rolling her head like Rodney Dangerfield on speed. "They"re so f.u.c.king smart, let them figure it out."
"OhmiG.o.d-Lilith?" Irene said, rising from her crouched position.
"f.u.c.kin" A," replied Lily, executing a mock curtsy and momentarily leaving Maxwell"s head exposed. But Pender was like an old prizefighter: he could see the openings, but his reflexes were no longer fast enough to take advantage of them. C"mon baby, he thought-one more curtsy for Uncle Pen.
Instead she turned her head and whispered over her shoulder to Maxwell.
"Sorry I had to mislead you, son."
Never before had Lyssy struggled so hard against surrendering himself to the darkness. But it was worth it to realize he was no longer alone. "I"m the one who misled you, Dr. Al. I should have been honest, I should have told you about the voice and the dark place."
They were in Dr. Al"s office-sort of. No walls, no floor, just an archetypal psychiatrist"s couch and chair suspended in featureless s.p.a.ce, surrounded by darkness. Lyssy was lying on his back on the couch; Dr. Al was behind him to his right, just out of his line of sight. "It"s not your fault-you were in an untenable situation."
"At least that"s better than an un-eleven-able situation."
Dr. Al chuckled. "What I mean is, we, ah, put you in a situation where you would be punished for telling the truth, but rewarded for hiding it. But that"s all water over the dam. Would you like to tell me why we"re here today, and what you"re hoping to accomplish in today"s session?"
Lyssy felt a twinge of panic-for a moment he couldn"t even remember where here was, much less what he wanted to accomplish. Then it came back to him. "I"m worried about Lily-I"m worried something"s going to happen to her."
"Something like this?" said Dr. Al, leaning forward in his chair until Lyssy was able to see his face. Or what was left of his face-it had been cut literally to shreds, raked from hairline to jawline with dozens of savage strokes. One eye was gone entirely; the lid of the other had been sliced raggedly away to reveal the eyeball, round as a marble, red-veined around the edges, pulsing in its dark socket.
Lyssy wanted desperately to look away, but he knew somehow that if he did, he would be lost. "Help us, Dr. Al," he said. "Tell me how to stop him."
The torn lips parted in a b.l.o.o.d.y smile, revealing slashed gums and shattered teeth. "If I knew the answer to that," said the phantom, "would I look like this?"
5.
Pender took advantage of the whispered conference between Max and Lilith long enough to shake out his left arm, which had gone all pins and needles. The conference ended with Max nodding his head. Pender resumed his position, half-crouched, with his forearms resting on the roof of the car.
"Much as I hate to break up the party," said Max, "my partner here has suggested it may be time for us to make a strategic withdrawal. But keep in mind, you two-this is a postponement of our final reckoning, not a cancellation. Someday there will come a knock on your door or a tap on your window-"
"Can the Snidely Whiplash act," Pender broke in. "No point acting tough when you"re hiding behind a woman."
But Max and Lily had already begun sidling to their left, toward the mule, which was parked facing the cabin. They circled around to the pa.s.senger"s side. Lily climbed up to the raised bench seat ahead of Maxwell, then slid over behind the wheel, keeping her body between Max and Pender.
"Lilith," called Irene. "Lilith, stop-take a moment to think this over."
Lily who"d been driving the mule since she was twelve, was busily pretending to study the rudimentary dashboard. (She"d told Max earlier that she"d seen another route out of the canyon on the USGS map; when he"d asked her if she could figure out how to operate the mule, she"d told him if she could drive a Harley, she could drive anything.) "I have thought it over," she called down from the cab, then pressed the starter b.u.t.ton with her thumb and opened the choke wide. "And this is the best way for everybody." Then, with her back turned to Max, she mouthed the words I love you to Irene.
The engine back-farted bluish smoke, then sputtered to life as she gingerly fed it gas. The mule shuddered and puffed until she"d turned down the choke, then waited, trembling-pocketapocketapocketa-while she released the floor-mounted hand brake.
Expertly, she depressed the clutch and shifted into reverse, leaning out of the cab and glancing over her shoulder as she steered the mule backward. She cut the steering hard, guided the narrow, ten-foot-long vehicle through a tight backward turn, then shifted out of reverse and gunned the mule up the dirt track and into the cover of the trees before Maxwell could get off a clear shot.
"That was Lily," said Irene. "Dear G.o.d, that was Lily."
"It"s getting so you can"t tell the players without a scorecard," Pender muttered under his breath as he slid behind the wheel of the Infiniti. He turned to Irene as she climbed into the pa.s.senger seat. "Keys?" he said, extending his hand toward her, palm up.
6.