Hemlock Bay

“How did you get into the house? The alarm system is one of the best made.”

Tammy just smiled at her. Lily saw her very clearly now in the shaft of strong morning light that speared through a wide slash in the wall. She was wearing black jeans over those black boots, and a long-sleeve black turtleneck sweater. One sleeve dangled where her arm should have been. She wasn’t ugly or beautiful. She just looked normal, average even. She didn’t look particularly scary, even with her moussed, spiked-up dark hair. Her eyes were very dark, darker than her hair, in sharp contrast to her face, which was very pale, probably made more pale with white powder, and her mouth was painted a deep plum color. She was thin, and her single hand was long and narrow, the fingernails capped with the same plum color that was on her mouth. Even thin, she gave the overwhelming impression that she was as strong as a bull.

“I’ll just bet your brother and that little redheaded wife of his were chewing off their fingernails waiting for me. But I didn’t come when they wanted me to. That announcement the FBI character made on TV, I didn’t believe it, not for an instant. I knew it was a trap, and that was okay. I took my time, found out all about the alarm, how to disarm it. It wasn’t hard. Sit down, little sister.”

Lily sat on a bale of hay so old it cracked beneath her. “I don’t think you could have done that alarm yourself, alone. It would require quite some expertise.”

“You’re right. People always underestimate me because they think I’m a hick.” Tammy grinned down at her, then began pacing in front of her, every once in a while looking down at her empty sleeve, where her other hand should have been. Lily watched her and saw the look of panic, then bone-deep hatred, cross her face.

“What are you going to do with me?”

Tammy laughed. “Why, I’m going to put you in the circle and I’m going to call the Ghouls. They’ll come and tear you apart, and that’s what I’ll deliver back to your brother—a body he’d rather not see.” Tammy paused for a moment, then cocked her head to one side. “They’re close now, I can hear them.”

Lily listened. She could hear the faint rustling of tree branches, probably from the constant fall of snow, the movement of the wind. But nothing else, not even early-morning birds, no animal sounds at all. “I don’t hear anything.”

“You will,” said Tammy. “You will. We’re going to walk over to that black circle. You’re going to sit down in the middle of it. I won’t even tie your hands behind you. Now, move it, little sister.” Tammy pulled out a gun and aimed it at Lily.

“No, I’m not going anywhere,” Lily said. “Will the Ghouls still want me if I’m not in the circle? What if you’ve already killed me with that gun of yours? Will they still want me then?”

“We’ll just have to see, won’t we?” Tammy raised the gun and aimed it at Lily’s face.

• Simon wished he were on his motorcycle, weaving in and out of the heavy, early-morning traffic. Why didn’t Savich have a bloody siren? Why were there so many people at this hour?

When there was finally a break in the traffic, Savich pressed his foot hard on the accelerator. Simon looked out the back window, saw six black FBI cars, one after the other, coming fast, keeping pace with them.

“Tell me, Sherlock,” he said, his heart thudding fast, hard beats. “We’ll be there soon. Tell me about Tammy.”

• Slowly, Tammy lowered the gun. “You think you’re pretty cute, don’t you?”

Lily slowly shook her head, so relieved she was nearly sick. She’d been ready to feel a bullet go right through her heart, to just be gone, and that was it. Sudden and final and she was dead. But she was still here, still alive, with Tammy, who was still holding that ugly gun.

The circle—it appeared Tammy wanted her in that circle, still alive. “Where is Marilyn? She’s your cousin, isn’t she?”

“You want to know about my sweet little cousin? I’m not real happy with her right now. See, she told your brother everything about me. Then he used her for bait. That was ruthless of him. I like that in a guy. She was waiting for me right there in the open, in that airport, standing next to that stupid agent who was supposed to be guarding her. From me. What a joke that was. I cut the agent’s throat, and everyone saw a crazy young man do it. Everyone believed it, but it was really me.

“You want to know why I hate your brother? It’s not hard. He killed my brother, shot my arm off, just left it dangling by a few strips of muscle, and I saw it hanging there and I thought I was going to die. And they strapped me down to this bed because your brother told them I was bad trouble, and then they cut the rest of it right off in the hospital and I nearly died. All because of your damned brother.”