Deeper Than The Dead (51 page)

He stayed perfectly still as Shadow Man crouched down in the open door and touched the back of his head, stroked the back of his head, then put a hand on his back—like his father sometimes did when he came to check on him in the middle of the night.

Tears rose up again in Tommy’s throat.

I want my dad. I want my dad. I want my dad.

He stared at the boy for a moment, then reached out and touched his hair. The moonlight on his face made him look like a sleeping angel.

He rubbed the boy’s back and prepared himself for what he was about to do, pulling a cold steel curtain across his mind, relegating the job to its proper compartment.

Then the car began to rock and the teacher started screaming.

As the trunk opened, Anne attacked, coming up in Crane’s face with a spray can of something that smelled like oil, shooting in the dark and hoping to blind him.

He cried out—startled?—hurt? She didn’t know and couldn’t wait, scrambling out of the trunk in the second he jumped back.

She had to run. She needed cover.

Her ribs hurt. She couldn’t get a breath.

Rows of cars, one after the next.

If she could duck out of his sight—If she could get under one of the cars—If she could get more than three steps ahead of him—

He lunged for her, hit her hard with a fist between the shoulder blades. Anne went down, hit the ground, rolled, holding tight to her last chance.

He kicked her as hard as he could.

Anne tucked into a ball like a small animal, trying to protect herself. She got her knees underneath her and ducked her head.

Tommy watched in horror from beside the car as Shadow Man attacked Miss Navarre, hitting her, kicking her, tearing at her like a wild beast from a nightmare.

Tommy had never been so scared. He had never imagined anything as horrible as this. He felt so small and so alone. He was just a little boy and the Shadow Man was a demon.

They needed a hero, him and Miss Navarre. But there was no hero. He had to be the hero. He had to save the day. That was what his father had taught him.

He willed together as much courage as he could find and started running.

“
STOP
IT!!
STOP
HURTING
HER!!
STOP
IT!” he shouted at the top of his lungs until his throat burned raw.

He ran as hard as his legs would go, and he hurled himself at Shadow Man like a small missile, fists swinging, feet kicking.

It was the second’s distraction Anne needed.

Crane turned to intercept Tommy’s attack, and she sprang to her feet, turned, and swung with all her might.

The tire iron connected with the side of his head and Anne imagined she felt bone give way beneath its force. Crane staggered sideways, his knees folding under him, his hands grabbing hold of the side of his face.

“
TOMMY
, RUN!” Anne shouted. “RUN!!!
GET
IN
THE
CAR!
GET
IN
THE
CAR!”

Tire iron still clutched in one fist, she grabbed at the boy, catching him by the back of his jacket, pulling him around.

“RUN!! RUN!!”

He caught hold of her free hand, and she ran for all she was worth, dragging him with her.

“
GET
IN
THE
CAR!
GET
IN
THE
CAR!”

Tommy jumped in through the open driver’s-side door and landed on the passenger’s seat.

Anne was right behind him, pulling the door closed after her. She could see Crane in her peripheral vision, lurching toward them, one arm outstretched, the other hand clamped to his face.

The seat was back too far, set for a man. She could hardly reach the pedals, had to hold tight to the steering wheel to keep from falling back.

“HURRY!!!” Tommy squealed, bouncing like a ball in his seat. “
IT’S
COMING!!”

Peter Crane flung himself against the passenger’s door, his left eye hanging out of the shattered socket as he let go of his face to try to pull the handle.

Anne threw the car in gear and hit the gas. The Jaguar’s tires spun on the damp grass and the car fishtailed away from Crane, leaving him falling.

They flew toward the closed front gate, then crashed through the gate, and then they were on the road and skidding sideways as Anne wrestled the wheel.

She drove as if Crane was flying behind them, a demon from hell bent on snatching them back into the darkness. She didn’t know exactly where they were. She pointed the car toward the glow of light that had to be town and didn’t slow down and didn’t look back.

Neither of them spoke as Anne drove. She glanced over at Tommy several times, wondering when the enormity of what he had gone through would hit him. Was it now? Was he seeing his father in his mind’s eye, or the monster he had saved her from? Would he ever have to realize what his father might have done to him? Would his mind ever be able to make sense of any of it?

How could it? Why would it? He was a little boy who loved his dad like he was a god. What would be the point of him understanding it now or ever?

Anne didn’t think about how she would handle it. She thought only about getting to the sheriff’s office on the last little drop of adrenaline trickling through her veins. She was beginning to feel her physical injuries in a serious way. All other injury would have to wait its turn.

She pulled the car into the parking lot—not up to the doors of the building. Once they went inside, everything would change. She wanted this one moment alone with Tommy.

She got out of the car and went around to the other side to take Tommy’s hand—the same way she had the day he and the other kids had found the body, and she had taken him home to face his mother.

She knelt down and looked at his face, his eyes, trying to read him, feeling that in the snap of a moment his soul had aged a thousand years. Her heart ached for him and for herself as if God had taken it from her chest and wrung it out like a sponge.

“You are so precious,” she whispered, tears filling every part of her. “And this is going to be so hard. I wish I could change it for you, Tommy.”

“I’ll be all right,” he said, as if to reassure her.

Anne nodded, knowing that he wouldn’t be. He wouldn’t be all right. And there was nothing she could do about it.

She touched his cheek like touching an angel. “You’re my hero, you know,” she said, tears falling.

Anne gathered him to her and held him tight, and he held her back. Then they both dried their eyes, and she held his hand, and they went up the sidewalk together.

And when they walked through the doors, everything changed.

People swarmed them, meaning well, wanting explanations, needing statements, demanding answers. With everybody added to the crowd, Anne watched Tommy drift away from her. His mother emerged from somewhere and flung herself at him, hysterical and grasping.

His eyes met Anne’s for just a fleeting second, and she knew exactly what he was feeling—like he had been dropped into space as the safety net was pulled out from under him. He had no one. And no one had him.

Anne turned to Vince. Taking the gold necklace from the pocket of her torn, dirty pants, she pressed it into his hand, then pressed herself into his arms and turned herself over to him. As he held her tight and told her everything would be all right, she just pressed her ear to his chest and listened to his heart beat. For those few moments, everything else was just noise.

Closing her eyes, she slipped away from consciousness. The last thing she remembered in her mind’s eye: Tommy standing alone in a little red boat, his hand to his heart as he drifted out of view until all that remained was the faintest memory of his sad little smile.

Anne came to to the sound of hushed voices in the hall outside her hospital room.

“. . . broken ribs . . . collapsed lung . . .”

“... oh my God . . . we’re lucky she’s not d-e-a-d …”

“I can spell.”

Her voice was rusty and dry and didn’t carry very far, but it carried far enough.

“Hey, look who’s back,” Vince said with a soft smile as he came to her bedside.

“Oh, Anne Marie!” Franny exclaimed with a pained expression. “You look like a raccoon!”

Anne raised the head of the bed with the remote control, catching a glimpse of herself in the small mirror on the wall. Two black eyes. A fat lip. Stitches in her chin. Raccoons would have been offended by the comparison.

“Hey,” Vince objected. “You should see the other guy. They had to airlift him to LA. Our girl got a couple of good licks in. She knocked his eye out with a tire iron!” he said proudly.

Franny was horrified. “Oh my God!”

“Gave him a skull fracture, broke his nose . . .”

“Who
are
you?” Franny asked her, as if perhaps she had been possessed by some much-tougher entity than the one he thought he knew.

“I’m alive,” she said simply.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he said, melting. “I don’t even know what to say.”

“I’ll be sure to mark this day on my calendar,” Anne said dryly.

“I want to hug you, but I’m afraid you’ll hurt me. I was going to say that the other way around, but you beat a man’s head in with a tire iron, so . . .”

Anne tried to smile. She hurt everywhere. Her ribs hurt, her head hurt, her lungs hurt. She felt like she’d been run over by a truck.

“My dentist,” Franny said as it dawned on him. “A serial killer put his hands in my mouth!”

Anne looked at Vince. “Has he confessed?”

He shook his head. “He got a lawyer. We can’t touch him.”

“But he did this to Anne,” Franny said with his trademark outrage. “I don’t care if he hires F. Lee Bill-Me-Out-the-Ass. He won’t get off for this!”

“No,” Vince said. “He’s a slam dunk for this, and he knows it. I think he’ll try to cut a deal.”

“Fuck that!” Franny said. “Fry his ass!”

Vince patted him on the shoulder. “I like how you think, my friend. If that was an option . . .”

“But the murders?” Anne said. “And Karly Vickers?”

“Right now, there’s just not enough physical evidence. In fact, there’s almost no physical evidence. He didn’t make a mistake—until he went after you,” he said. “How did you get the necklace?”

Anne sighed at the sad irony of it. “Tommy gave it to me. He must have found it in their house. He thought he was doing something special, something sweet.”

His sweet gesture had set off the chain of events that led to his father being revealed as a monster. The Greeks couldn’t have come up with a better tragedy.

“Have you talked to Tommy?” she asked.

She knew the answer by the tension in his face.

“The mother won’t let us near him.”

He read her distress just as easily and closed his hand gently around hers. “There’s nothing you can do, honey. Let it go.”

A deep sense of sadness settled in Anne’s heart, almost as if she had lost a loved one. In a way, she supposed she had. Somehow she knew right then that she wouldn’t see Tommy Crane again. She didn’t say it. No one would have believed her, but she knew it in her heart. He was gone from her life.

“I brought you a get-well present to cheer you up,” Franny said, setting a colorful gift bag on the bedside tray.

Anne peeked into the bag, suspicious. She reached in with the hand not burdened by an IV catheter and plucked out a scrap of black silk and lace.

“Some people give flowers or candy. My friend gives lingerie.”

“Nothing says ‘Get well’ like a negligee,” Franny said.

“Always makes me feel better,” Vince confessed.

“See?”

Anne would have rolled her eyes if they hadn’t hurt so much.

Franny leaned down and found a square inch of cheek to kiss without causing her pain. “I’m going to let you rest,” he said, then gave Vince a big comic wink.

“He’s something,” Vince said, chuckling, as Franny made his exit.

Anne managed to arch a brow at the negligee. “Yeah, the two of you.”

“Seriously, now,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

She felt no need to try to be brave or analytical with him. The tears came high in her eyes as the emotions flooded through her, leaving her trembling. “I’ve never been so afraid in my life.”

Vince eased a hip onto the bed so he could put his arms around her.

“You should have seen me,” he murmured. “When I knew that bastard had you . . .”

“Will you just hold me for a while?” Anne asked him in a small voice.

“I’ll hold you all night long,” he murmured, stroking her hair.

“I don’t think they’ll let you stay past nine.”

“Let them try to get me out of here,” he said. “God hasn’t made a nurse mean enough to get me away from you. And that’s saying something.”

He kissed her forehead, and she felt herself let go some of the tension still trembling through her.

“I mean it, Anne,” he said quietly. “I’m not going anywhere. I might be a big dumb lummox from Chicago, but I know the real deal when I see it. I love you. I want to spend my life with you. Is that all right with you? Or is there a restraining order in my future?”

Anne smiled and shook her head. He was right. After looking death in the face, all of life’s other choices became so much simpler and cleaner.

Vince leaned down and kissed her lips, and she had never felt more safe or loved in her life.

In the days that followed, properties Peter Crane might have accessed using his wife’s lock-box key were searched, but no madman’s lair was discovered. Wherever Crane had tortured and killed his victims remained a mystery—along with any physical evidence that might have tied him to the crimes.

Karly Vickers had begun to recover from her ordeal. She had been taken off the ventilator and was breathing on her own, but communication with her was difficult. While she could speak a few words at a time in a hoarse whisper, she could neither see nor hear. She had not indicated that she knew the identity of her attacker.

Doctors had expressed hope of repairing some of the damage to her ears and possibly giving her back at least partial hearing. While that was good news, it was a long shot, and would be a long time coming.