Stoneskin's Revenge (33 page)

And twice more luck was with her, for there was no one minding the place, and the door she wanted was in plain sight of the other side, again simply noted as STAFF ONLY, and again secured with an easily carded lock.

Another deep breath, a furtive peek through the door, and Robyn was squinting into a long brick-walled corridor whose damp mustiness and general air of decay hinted that it was both old and infrequently used. There were no lights on, nor did there seem to be much provision for any, and Robyn almost couldn't believe her luck in finding it also empty. She was almost starting to believe her plan—“I was only lookin' for the bathroom, officer, and I got lost”—might succeed. It was a
long
corridor, though, maybe a hundred yards or so, and it sloped gradually upward, so that her feeble flashlight beam went to diffusion without ever reaching the opposite wall. And she wondered what purpose it had served—probably no legal ones, but whether it had been built for clandestine Klan activities, Prohibition foolishness, or even, as Don had intimated, the Underground Railroad, she had no idea.

Nor did it matter. What was important was getting through it and into the basement of the jail as quickly and quietly as she could. Her footsteps would be loud on the bare floor, so she slipped off her shoes and padded softly along the damp stones toward the other end of the tunnel, where another, newer door glimmered. She paused there to catch her breath and steel herself, and had the presence of mind to press her ear to it before trying the grimy handle. As best she could tell, there were no sounds at all from nearby, but a fair number of raised and/or irate voices filtering down through the ceiling indicated some sort of ongoing chaos one floor up.

And to her surprise, the door opened at her touch—evidently it had had some sort of electronic lock that had lost its grip when Brock's ruse had overloaded the wiring. Another corridor greeted her, this one much newer and cleaner, and to her everlasting relief, the second door she passed was marked STORAGE/EVIDENCE. Its lock yielded to a deft touch with a credit card as well and Robyn ducked inside. A rank of metal shelves faced her, most piled with uniforms or bits of gear, but one labeled, unmistakably, EVIDENCE.

A hasty inventory of the baskets—there were only ten, of which nine were empty—and she found Calvin's clothes. Right on top were his knife and the uktena scale, still on its thong. An instant later, the scale was in her pocket. She considered collecting the knife along with it, and actually picked it up before deciding it might be a little
too
obvious if she were apprehended. Reluctantly she put it back.

Now came the hard part. She'd hoped, by taking the back way in—the way most folks weren't supposed to know about—to come upon the jail from its unprotected underbelly. Now she had to get the scale to the prisoner and hope she wasn't caught. A quick survey of the hallway outside showed it still empty, and a dimly lit rectangle at the end indicated the entrance to a flight of stairs. She paused to put her shoes back on, then squared her shoulders and marched purposefully toward the stairs. There was enough noise going on above that her footfalls were lost in the shouts and scrapes, and so it was that she made the second landing—halfway home—without being noticed. The power still wasn't on, and apparently they were conducting business either with lanterns or by the scanty daylight filtering in through the jail's narrow windows. But as she started up the next flight she found herself face-to-foot with a harried-looking policeman. He froze for an instant, stared rather stupidly at the top of her head, then recovered. “What're
you
doin' in here?” But it was more surprise than demand.

Robyn tried to look flustered and shocked. “Oh jeeze, man,” she began, “like, this isn't the way to the
rest
room, is it? Like, they told me over
there
”
(and here she waved in some vague direction) “that it was, like, down the stairs and to the right, and I started goin' and got lost and then the light went out and there was all these, like, pipes and
things,
and…” She stopped in mid-sentence and tried to look unhappy and scared and imploring. “I've
really
gotta go, man!”

The cop, already frazzled, looked taken aback, and pointed back the way he had come. “Through there, door to your left. But be careful, we've had a power outage, and—”

“Yeah,
tell
me about it, man,” Robyn interrupted. “Like, I was tryin' to find a place to…you know?”

“Yeah,” replied the cop, obviously baffled. “I know.” And with that, he edged past her and continued his descent.

“Thanks,” Robyn called after him, executing a little twist, as if she couldn't hold it any longer, but once more proceeded up the stairs. She let her feet slap hard the first part of the climb, then tiptoed quietly past the chaos of the offices and up to the second story.

A barred door greeted her there. She peered through it and saw a corridor lined with cells, exactly like Brock had described.

Let's see,
she thought.
Calvin's in the second one to the left.
But how to get his attention? There was no hope for it; she'd have to call and hope no one else heard.

“Calvin,” she hissed. “Co—”

She did not need to risk further summons because the Indian appeared at the entrance to the second set of bars almost as if he had teleported there. He raised his finger to his lips and made hushing motions, then sketched a question mark in the air. She nodded and brandished the scale. He stuck his arm through the bars and mimed her throwing it. She hesitated, uncertain of her skill, but finally took a deep breath and flung it skittering along the floor.

Almost she missed, but Calvin strained his reach to the limit and managed to snag the thong with a fingertip. Robyn held her breath until he had reeled it in. She nodded; he mouthed
thanks.
And she turned and headed back down the stairs.

The man was still there, fooling with the fuse box with a flashlight. She came up behind him, making no secret of her presence now. “Like,
where'd
you say that rest-room was?” she whined. “I
really
gotta go.”

“
Next
landing, turn
left
,”
the man repeated, exasperated and preoccupied.

“Oh,
left
,”
Robyn echoed dumbly, and started up the stairs again. This time she entered a darkened hallway, the left side of which was evidently (to judge by the signs) the domain of the Whidden Police, while the right was home of the Willacoochee Sheriff's Department. The only open door was to the right, and she went that way—and blundered into the chaos that still reigned in Sheriff Wilson Lexington's main office. A hard-looking woman noticed her immediately, and Robyn noted with an ill-suppressed smirk that she had a bandaged hand. Robyn made the preemptive strike, though. “Guy downstairs said, there was a restroom up here?”

“Where'd
you
come from?” Hardface muttered suspiciously.

“Got lost, and then the power went off and I got loster and wound up in, like, a
bunch
of tunnels and all.”

The woman did not look convinced. “It's right over here,” she barked. “But you've been in unauthorized areas. I'll have to search you goin' in and comin' out.”

“Far out,” Robyn said without conviction.

“I'll
teach
you far out if you ain't careful,” the woman informed her.

Robyn had no choice but to allow herself to be escorted into the restroom, no option but to allow herself and her purse to be thoroughly examined (fortunately she'd left her real ID and credit cards with Brock; the ID in the billfold was one of several fakes she' procured just in case), and no alternative but to allow the procedure to be repeated again when she had performed her stated function.

As she marched back out into the morning light of Whidden, Georgia, she hoped Calvin appreciated what she was doing for him. She hoped he appreciated it a hell of a lot.

Chapter XXIV: Breaking Point

(behind the old Whidden Hotel—mid-morning)

Don was beginning to wonder if he was as tough as he had thought he was when he'd assured Robyn and Brock that he'd be okay if they left him alone long enough to conclude their quest for the scale. He'd said it before, too: when they'd first set out to shift camp prior to coming to town. But it was one thing to make that kind of assertion in the middle of the night when you were tired and sleepy and shell-shocked, because then the whole thing seemed unreal—like the journey to Calvin's camp had seemed unreal: a trek with two silent, moody ghosts among tree-shaped shadows. But now, in the clear light of day with the leavings of the brief morning shower still dripping fitfully off the crumbling cornices above him and the odd sprinkle still making circular interference patterns in the muddy pools behind the derelict hotel, he was beginning to have misgivings.

Somewhere in the brief time since his keepers had departed he had dozed off, scrunched into the blind arcade with his back to a pillar of rough-hewn stone. He had not dreamed, that he knew of, but when he had awakened, it had all come rushing back to him with such force that it almost overwhelmed him.

Last night was
not
a dream. None of it was. The sun was up—battling it out with bouts of shower and winning. The air was clear and tasted fresh and well-scrubbed, and for once was free of the underscent of sulfur.

And his best friend and baby sister were dead.

That was an absolute. But every time he forced himself to think about it, his mind sort of slipped sideways from accepting it.
Fact:
he
would
never see either of them again.
Fact:
he would never fight with Allison over the dishes; had had his last tickle-battle with Michael.
Fact:
there'd be no more arguments over the TV set on Sunday night with his sis; no more exchanges of confidences with his almost-bro.
Fact:
no more sister's first date to ridicule (but secretly look forward to); no more forestry school with Michael. No, he had to face it now, look it straight in the eyes and not flinch:
all
those
ifs
and
maybes
and
mights
were gone. Absent. Finished.
Over.
And he was alive, but so empty he might as well have been dead, because he felt as if someone had reached into his chest in the night and scooped out two enormous holes that could never be filled.

No more…

No more
nothing.

For a long time Don stared out at the railroad tracks and the river beyond, all lit by the sun of what was turning into a remarkably pretty morning—and tried to think of nothing. He didn't know whether he was hot or cold, wet or dry. He cared riot a whit if the wetness on his cheeks was rain or tears. He simply wanted with all his heart not to
be.

At some point he closed his eyes and actually tried to accomplish that: to merge his body back into the stone pillar, to will his legs to melt into the ground, to send his spirit floating off into space. That way he would not have to confront the hard fact that eventually Brock and Robyn would return, having succeeded or failed, and that sooner or later he would have to leave this island of security and find out what was going on with his mom (she'd need him, he supposed, now that her favorite was gone), and that not very long after
that
he'd have to go to a pair of funerals. Somewhere in there, too, he'd be asked some questions that he knew absolutely he would not be able to answer and be believed.

Maybe they'd just decide he belonged on the funny farm and lock him up, and maybe that wouldn't be such a bad idea. Maybe that would be very close to not being, and would save him from ever having to make decisions again.

Maybe—

It was then that Don noticed that the ground was very softly, very gently, beginning to thrum once more, as if someone, miles distant, was pounding on a drum whose skin was the whole wide world.

For a moment he sat very still and listened, but then, so suddenly he could not have anticipated it until it actually happened, the vibrations that were slowly filtering their way through his bones somehow merged with the fear-born chills they had awakened, so that, quite abruptly, he leapt to his feet—and yelled.

The pain was an edge of reality in his throat, a paean of life in his ears. But it was not enough.

He
had
to get back home,
had
to check on Mom,
had
to have more comfort than Brock and Robyn and Calvin could provide…

Without consciously willing it, he found himself trotting toward the railroad tracks that had brought him into town.

An instant later he had crossed the river on the trestle and was confronting the woods, oblivious to Brock's frantic cries far behind.

The thrumming grew louder, and with it came a suggestion of melody…