Death Notice (38 page)

“James Campbell! Say something if you can hear me!”

At the bottom of Main Street, Henry spotted the Jigsaw, its neon sign working overtime. He paused beneath it, lungs aching from a breathlessness he hadn’t experienced since his ordeal in the cemetery. Getting his bearings, he saw he was at the end of the street. Still no sign of James. Beyond Main, he had no idea where to look. He was about to start north again to make
a second pass when he heard a noise coming from just around the corner.

It was a boy. And he was crying.

Henry sprinted around the corner, finding himself on a deserted side street that ran between the Jigsaw and the back of a hardware store. More of an alley than a street, it was lit only by the distant lamps on Main and the residual glow of the bar’s neon sign.

James was there, standing alone. His ghost costume had been pushed off his head and was now draped over his shoulders. Tears streaked his face.

“James? What are you doing here?”

It took a second for the boy to register who he was. When recognition hit, he ran toward Henry and wrapped his arms around his legs.

“I got lost,” he said, sobbing. “I was waiting for the parade to start. Then someone grabbed me.”

Henry’s eyes darted back and forth across the alley, searching for signs of anyone else. He detected nothing.

“Who grabbed you?”

James shook his head. He didn’t know.

“I couldn’t see,” he said. “He pulled me here and left me.”

“How long ago was this?”

James shrugged. Once again, he didn’t know.

“You’re safe now,” Henry told him. “Let’s find your mother. She’s worried sick.”

They turned toward the street just as someone else rounded the corner and stepped into the alleyway. It was a hulk of a man, cloaked in shadow. Still, Henry recognized him instantly.

Lucas Hatcher.

Henry raced toward him. “Did you bring him here?”

“Him?” Lucas pointed at James. “Never saw him before.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Henry said, circling Lucas warily. “The boy said someone led him here. And there’s no one else here but you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lucas said. “I just got here. Was heading into the bar when I heard you two talking.”

Henry didn’t believe him. The grave digger looked as guilty as sin. He was physically capable of doing all the things the Grim Reaper was accused of. With his bulky frame, he certainly could have overpowered George Winnick and Troy Gunzelman. Amber Lefferts had probably been a snap. All he had needed to do was wrap his tree-trunk arms around her waist and yank her from her house.

He scanned the alley again, noticing a narrow passageway running behind the Jigsaw. By day, it was probably used for deliveries and taking out the trash. At night, however, it was a pitch-black corridor. The perfect place to hide—and wait.

“Is that where your van is waiting? Were you going to grab him just like you did George and Troy and Amber?”

Lucas wrinkled his forehead. “What are you talking about?”

“Why did you do it?” Henry asked. “Just tell me why.”

“Do what?”

“You killed them. Without remorse, without reason.”

“You think I’m the Grim Reaper?”

“I do,” Henry said.

“Well, I’m not.”

Lucas’s denial opened a set of floodgates deep within Henry, letting loose a wave of primal rage. For months, the town had been frozen in terror as more people died. And Henry had been in the middle of it, the unwitting link between the killer and everyone else. Now he wanted to know why.

“Why did you send me those death notices?” he asked,
clenching his fists as he moved toward Lucas. He needed an explanation, and he was prepared to beat it out of him if necessary. “Why did you give me those fax machines?”

This time Lucas didn’t back away. He was angry, too. His shifty eyes grew wild, and his face was so flushed it almost hid his massive birthmark.

“I’m not the killer,” he yelled. “Most people say you—”

A gunshot cut him off.

It erupted behind Henry’s back, coming from the dark corridor by the bar. He felt the bullet whiz past him, stinging hot air that brushed his head before embedding itself into Lucas Hatcher.

The bullet entered above the bridge of his nose, forming a small red dot as it passed through his flesh. The back of his head, however, exploded, raining blood and brains onto the street. Henry felt a dollop of it splatter him as fragments of skull ricocheted off his face.

James screamed when Lucas hit the ground. An earsplitting shriek, it continued as he stared wide-eyed at the corpse, watching blood gush from Lucas’s head and wash over Henry’s shoes.

Grabbing James’s arm, Henry tried to drag him in the direction of Main Street. When James didn’t budge, he pulled harder, jerking him out of his horrified trance.

“We need to go. Right now.”

Henry heard footsteps behind him, loud and quick on the pavement. Someone jumped onto his back, throwing a hand over his face. Whoever it was held a handkerchief, pressing it against his nose and mouth.

Twisting his body, he tried to buck the person off, without success. The hand kept the handkerchief in place, cutting off all air.

Henry’s right arm was pinned at his side. His left grasped
at the person on his back. He managed to push the handkerchief away from his mouth long enough to shout at James.

“Run, James!” he shouted. “Get out of here!”

Then the hand was upon him again, palm spread wide, flattening the handkerchief against his face. Henry gasped, feeling cotton on his tongue. His vision blurred, everything turning a fearsome shade of white.

He shut his eyelids, unable to stop their descent. His head followed, bobbing uncontrollably as a deep, bone-weakening weariness took control.

Kat was still on the float when she heard the gunshot. The noise came from the lower end of Main Street. Hearing it, the crowd erupted into full-blown panic. They pushed into the street, mixing with the halted parade and rushing north.

The float rocked as people shoved past it. Standing unsteadily, Kat surveyed the length of the street, seeing nothing but shouting people and fear-stricken faces. Only one of them was familiar.

It belonged to James.

He was in the middle of the street, oblivious to the surging crowd while he ran north as fast as his little legs could carry him.

Kat jumped off the float and rushed toward him. When they met, she swept him into her arms, lifting him into an embrace tighter and longer than the one she had given him on the day he was born.

“James, honey, where were you?”

Tears of happiness formed at her eyes. Kat decided that instead of holding them back, she’d let them flow. The son she thought was dead was instead alive, safe and sound in her arms. If that wasn’t cause for weeping with joy, then she didn’t know what was.

Finally, setting James down, Kat saw he was also crying, though not from happiness. Teardrops soaked his face and his body heaved with sobs.

“Are you okay?” she asked, dropping to her knees so she could be at eye level with him. “Are you hurt?”

James gazed up at her, blank-eyed. Kat had seen that look before, in the faces of abuse victims, in the stares of crash victims who had survived while their loved ones hadn’t. It was shock, and her son was now stunned by it.

“Little Bear, please tell me what happened.”

The shock had left James mute. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Only a horrified murmur—the sound made during nightmares.

He wiped away his tears with one hand. The other was bunched into a fist, which he thrust outward, fingers unfurling. Stuck to his sweat-dampened palm was a strip of paper no larger than a gum wrapper.

“Who gave this to you? Henry?”

When James didn’t answer, Kat grabbed the paper and pulled it taut. Handwriting stretched across it, running from one side to the other. The words were cramped, bordering on the illegible. But by holding the paper close to her face, Kat was able to make out what had been scrawled across it.

Henry Goll, 39, of Perry Hollow, Pa., died at 7:30
P.M.
on October 31.

The painkillers were starting to kick in. Nick knew it from the sense of calm that infiltrated his aching body. It started at his right leg, so restless in its plaster cage, soothing it into numbness. The feeling moved through his torso and chest, extending out to his arms. Soon it was at his neck, rising into his head.

He’d be asleep soon, his pain-riddled body overtaken by a pleasurable numbness, and all the anger and guilt and hurt he felt would be chased away until morning.

Sitting in his lap was the scrapbook of clippings about his sister. It and the rest of Nick’s belongings had been salvaged from his wrecked car and placed in his room. When Nick first opened the scrapbook, he found not only the clippings about Sarah but his notes on the Grim Reaper killings as well. The photos and headlines were enough to disturb anyone else, but to Nick they were a balm. He felt better having them with him. It fooled him into thinking he was still part of the investigation.

Gazing at the clippings through drug-glazed eyes, he heard a now-familiar voice outside his door.

“Sorry, ma’am. You can’t go in there.”

It was Harry—or was it Gary?—the Nazi nurse situated outside his room. Although he had been in and out of consciousness all day, Nick had heard him turn away at least three visitors. Now Harry-Gary was trying to make it four. Only this visitor was putting up a fight.

“This is a life-or-death situation. I have to see him.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry-Gary said. “The answer is still no.”

“I’m with the police and I’m going in there.”

A bit of haze emptied out of Nick’s brain. Not a lot. Just enough to allow him to recognize that the visitor’s voice belonged to Kat Campbell.

“I’m going to get in trouble if you do,” Harry-Gary said.

“That’s not my problem.”

A second later, Kat burst inside. Locking the door behind her, she raced to the bed and gripped Nick’s shoulders, shaking him.

“Nick?” she said. “Wake up.”

The shaking dislodged more of the drug’s effects from his head. Nick estimated half of his brain was working by that point.

“I’m awake,” he said. “What’s going on? You shouldn’t be here.”

Kat continued to jostle him awake. “It’s the Grim Reaper.”

“What about him?”

“He has Henry.”

Henry woke up slowly, consciousness seeping into his brain at a glacial pace. Although he was awake, he couldn’t open his eyes. That required strength he didn’t possess.

Lying in the darkness, he was vaguely aware of motion. It came from beneath him, a subtle rocking that shook his body. He concentrated on it, ears alert to the noises the movement produced. He heard tires humming along pavement and the steady roar of an engine.

He was in a vehicle, being transported somewhere. What that destination was, he had no idea.

Despite now knowing he was in a vehicle, he still felt strange. His surroundings were too small, too enclosed. Something hard pressed against his sides. Too weak to move his arms, he explored with his fingers. They skated along something flat and rough.

Wood, he realized. He was lying on something wooden.

He raised his fingers, running them up and down whatever was against his body. That, too, was wood.

He moaned, the sound of it stopping just above his face and bouncing back toward him. The noise was trapped, just as he was.

He grew tired again. Just that small amount of thinking and moving had sapped his body, leaving him exhausted. Consciousness left his skull, floating away as slowly as it had entered.

Although he was fading fast, he summoned up a thought. It was weak, like everything else about him, pushing intermittently through the haze that filled his skull.

Where
—

The haze continued to roll in.

—
am
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