Wide Open (26 page)

Hallie was so tired, and for once, she didn’t know what to say. Well, she knew. But even to her, it seemed a bit unfair to go off on Tom or with Tom right there, because he hadn’t done anything, except make sure the house and the horse barn and the rest of the ranch didn’t burn to ash.

But, hell. Why were they still talking about this? Why had she let Martin walk away? Because there wasn’t evidence? Because he couldn’t be arrested for what he’d done? Shit. What had she been thinking? Well, she hadn’t been thinking, had she? Not thinking nearly enough.

Boyd and Tom talked a few minutes longer. Hallie didn’t pay attention to what they talked about. She was thinking about Jake and about Jesse Luponi and about all the other lives Martin had ruined—was ruining. About what she was going to do about it, about how to stop him. Because he wasn’t going to burn anything or put anyone in the hospital or kill anyone or come to her goddamned house anymore.

“Maybe you should let me handle him,” Boyd said when they were halfway across the yard back to the house.

Hallie stopped. “Who? Jake?”

“Martin.”

Hallie blinked. They were past this. Weren’t they? “Don’t,” she said.

“I’m a law enforcement official. I’m trained for this.” Like he hadn’t even heard her.

Fuck this. “Fuck you,” she said.

A muscle under his left eye twitched.

If he was going to say anything else, he didn’t get the chance. Hallie turned away and walked back to the house. She could do this alone if she had to. She could. She wasn’t sure she wanted to anymore, which was a startling thing. But she could. That was the important thing.

She was washing out the coffeepot when Boyd came back into the kitchen.

“I’m not—,” he began.

Hallie looked at him. He really
was
pretty. Not handsome or rugged, but fine boned, like an overworked marble statue. But that wasn’t what was attractive about him to her. It was a little bit his farm-boy hands and his stupid big watch, a lot the way he stood, but mostly because he’d backed her when she hadn’t expected it.

She sensed that whatever he was going to say right now? Was not going to make him more attractive.

“I know that this is your fight,” he said. He stopped, twisted the cuff of his shirt. His storm-cloud gray eyes were bright and focused—she couldn’t have looked away, even if she wanted to. “But, Hallie,” he said, “if you go after him now, he’ll kill you. He will kill you.” He said each word slowly, distinctly. “No one will know. No one will save you. It won’t matter. That’s what I’m telling you.”

It was the way he said
It won’t matter
that caught her flat and held her, like the breath had been knocked from her lungs.

It won’t matter
.

Won’t stop Martin, won’t save other women, won’t bring justice for Dell.

“Is that what your dreams say?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said, but he shook his head as he said it, and she couldn’t figure out if that meant he was lying to her or he just didn’t want to be saying it.

“Okay,” Hallie said. Though she didn’t agree with him—at all. She didn’t see a reason she couldn’t take Martin in a fight—split him off from Pete, shoot him when he wasn’t prepared. Simple—she could do that.

“We don’t have time for this,” she said, not giving him an inch, though a part of her wanted to, wanted to say,
You’re a good guy and I trust you
. But … they didn’t have time for that either. “Martin has killed at least four women,” she felt compelled to add, “because Jesse Luponi…”

“Hallie—,” Boyd began.

“But you knew that already, didn’t you? You knew about Jesse Luponi.”

“I knew she disappeared,” he said.

“Jesus Christ! Why haven’t you stopped him?”

Boyd took a breath. “There weren’t any bodies. I had no proof. I wasn’t certain until tonight that it was him.” He shoved his right hand into the pocket of his jeans, the strap of his watch catching on the reinforced edge. “There’s a system, a legal system. Martin will—”

“A legal system? It’s
magic,
Boyd. How does a legal system handle that?”

“He’s killed people. It can handle that.”

“Well, it hasn’t done a very goddamned good job so far, has it? He needs to be stopped, Boyd. No one else is going to die.”

“I want Martin to go to jail, Hallie. Not you.”

Hallie didn’t want to think about what it might feel like to be Boyd, all alone here. The only one who knew what was happening or what was going to happen or, worse, to almost know but never be sure. She didn’t want to think about what kinds of decisions she’d make if she were in that situation, about how she’d feel or how she’d cope. She wanted to think about Dell, about how she’d died, because Dell had been all alone, too. And if she’d had anything, anyone—

“Dell died because of you,” she said.

“Dell died because Martin killed her.” He was so still, like he’d never moved, like he never would.

Hallie wanted to believe he could have stopped this, that he could have known if he’d tried harder, that he could have saved Dell and Sarah Hale. That that was his job. And he’d failed.

After a long moment, Hallie said, “You should go.” Because she was too tired for this, too tired to be reasonable.

“Hallie.” Like
don’t
.

“Do you need a ride back to town?” she asked.

He studied her face. “I’ll call someone,” he finally said.

“All right,” Hallie said.
Go away
.

He turned back at the kitchen door. “I’m on at seven tomorrow—this—morning. If you need anything—”

“I won’t,” Hallie said.

Boyd left.

29

After, Hallie cleaned up the kitchen and the dining room, scrubbed the counter until it shone. She went back to the computer room and tried to find a home address for Martin, but he wasn’t listed. She looked up all the magic systems she could find, their interactions with blood and their interactions with one another. There was nothing on most of it, nothing useful on any of it.

She was too wired to sleep, shouldn’t have drunk that coffee, shouldn’t have kicked Boyd out or come home or died back in Afghanistan. She had two days left. Two. To find Martin and to stop him.

Because he had to be stopped. Jesus. Maybe if Boyd had been less concerned about doing it “right,” maybe Dell would be alive. Maybe Hallie wouldn’t be living with ghosts.

She inventoried her father’s gun cabinet, pulled out all the boxes of shells, sorted them, and put them away. She filled the printer with paper. She went back out to the kitchen, pulled boots out of the kitchen closet, knocked mud off them, and put them back in three neat rows. She called the hospital to check on her father, then hung up before anyone answered the phone.

She went upstairs, thinking about Martin and what she was going to do tomorrow and how she might get him away from Uku-Weber headquarters and Pete and confront him head-on. She was too wired to sleep, but she needed it anyway.

She fell into bed half-clothed and didn’t remember anything until the sound of Dell’s phone woke her at quarter to five. Even with the windows closed, she could smell burnt wood and metal in the air. Breathing it was a sharp, thin shock, like someone jabbed a needle through her nose, or like she’d been transported back to a place she thought she’d left behind.

“Hello?”

It was still dark outside, and she fumbled, trying to find the light switch.

“Hello,” she said again. “Who is this?”

“Hallie?”

“Lorie?”

Lorie sounded breathless, like she’d run a marathon. And scared. “Oh my god, Hallie,” Lorie said, her voice a gasp. “I think we’re in trouble.”

“Tell me,” Hallie said, wide awake now.

“I found Jennie Vagts.”

“Okay.” She fumbled for her jeans, which were half on the bed and half on the floor, tucking the phone under her chin while she pulled them on. “Good.”

“Someone’s after us.”

“Jennie’s with you?”

“Yes! That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

“Who’s after you? How do you know?”

“They tried to stop us on the road!” Lorie said it like it was the most outrageous thing ever, which in a way, it was. “Look,” she said. Hallie could hear the tremble in her voice, but she was working hard to keep it tamped down. “Can you come? I think we lost them. We hid in that big old barn just outside Old PC for, like, three hours. I’ve been on the section line roads, trying to get to the interstate, but I keep seeing headlights and … I’m scared, Hallie.”

“Okay, Lorie. It’s okay.” Which it wasn’t. But what else did you say? “Where are you now?”

Lorie told her, and Hallie said, “Do you know St. Mary’s? You’re, like, five minutes from there.”

Lorie took a deep breath. “So, go there, you think?”

“I’ll meet you.” A short pause. “Lorie, I’ll be there.”

“Don’t hang up, Hallie! Please don’t hang up.”

Hallie flung on socks and a flannel shirt over her long-sleeved T-shirt. Shit. She thought Jennie would be all right in the short term if Martin caught up to them, because he needed her. But what about Lorie? He didn’t need her.
Stupid, Hallie
. It had been stupid to ask for help, because Lorie hadn’t known what she was getting into. She’d done it for the reason Lorie always did things—because she wanted people to like her.

The ghosts clustered behind Hallie as she trotted down the stairs, pausing at the bottom to finish tying her boots. She ran a hand through her hair and grabbed her keys and a jacket from the kitchen.

“Are you there?” Lorie said.

“I’m here,” Hallie told her. “Tell me when you get to the church.” Because that would give her a concrete goal, something to accomplish.

She let the kitchen door slam behind her. It was still dark, but warmer than it had been, and there was ground fog all along the yard and drifting out into the fields. The fire truck was running, generating power for the spotlights. Hallie could see Tom and someone else leaning against the hood. They straightened at the sound of the door. Hallie gave them a high sign and headed for her truck, like she always left in the dark at five in the morning. Like it was normal.

Five minutes later, “We’re here,” Lorie said, like a sigh. “You’re still coming, right? You’re hurrying, right?”

“I’m coming,” Hallie said. She tried to tuck the cell phone between her shoulder and her ear so she could drive and talk at the same time, but gave that up, turned on the speaker, and threw it onto the seat beside her.

Lorie did most of the talking. “I’m just talking,” she said. “Like this is just a conversation.” And she proceeded to talk about people Hallie didn’t know and things Lorie had done five years ago on vacation. She paused every few sentences so Hallie could say yes, or okay, or
I’m still here.

“Do you see anything?” Hallie asked her.

Silence. “Oh my god! There are lights! Car lights! Hallie, where are you?”

“Are they headed toward you?” Because you could see headlights for miles out there.

“No,” Lorie said after a short pause. “I think they’re headed toward Templeton.”

“Hang on,” Hallie said, which seemed like a singularly stupid thing to say. What else was Lorie going to do? She slid around the next turn, gravel road to gravel road, and pressed hard on the gas. It was wide-open prairie here, horizon to horizon, a few trees near small creeks, their location marked by ground fog glowing silver in the moonlight. Hallie wished she could fly, because St. Mary’s was right there. She could almost see it. But there was no shortcut, just section line roads, north, east, and north again.

It was still dark, like dawn would never come when she pulled into the overgrown parking lot. This church and the road leading to it had been where Dell and Hallie and sometimes Brett had come to practice driving, using each other’s cars to parallel park, a skill no one ever used in any town in the county, all slant parking and half-empty lots. They’d brought boys here later, started with double-dating because it was “safer,” though none of them knew what they actually meant by that.

Dell was beside her now, like she knew that something was happening. She had her hand on Hallie’s arm, and Hallie could feel the cold even through her jacket. Sarah Hale was there, too, drifting in, drifting out through the windshield, kind of an unsettling effect. Hallie ignored it.

Lorie’s little red Ford Escape was tucked in behind the church, invisible from far enough away, but easy to spot on the approach. Hallie parked next to her, dry grass bending underneath her front bumper. She turned off the engine, but left the headlights on, pointing at the crumbling foundation of the church.

She was hyperaware of every sound as she got out of the truck, the click of the door latch releasing, the tiny, almost inaudible creak of the door as it opened, the grind and scrape of gravel under her boot. Dry grass rustled in the light pre-dawn breeze.

“Lorie?” Hallie’s voice was low, not quite willing to shout, though who would hear? She could see miles in any direction. “Lorie?” A little louder.

“Hallie.”

Lorie’s voice seemed right next to her, and Hallie jumped before she realized that Lorie was standing by the back entrance. “Over here,” she said.

Hallie’s hand tightened like gripping a phantom shotgun. She forced herself to relax, uncurled her fingers one by one. “Lorie,” she said, jogging lightly across the space that separated them. “What’s going on?”

Lorie stood there and didn’t say a word, which was as unsettling as anything that had happened so far. Because Lorie not talking? That didn’t happen very often. “Come on,” she finally said, then turned and went inside.

“Shit,” said Hallie, because bad things happened in the dark. If she hadn’t known that before the army, she’d certainly learned it there.

She trod carefully up the steps, old wood gone dry and rotted through in spots. The top step creaked like a broken door, and she lifted her foot off it quick and stepped through into the back room of the church. St. Mary’s consisted of a single large sanctuary with a large finished basement that had served at one time as classroom and meeting room and anything else that was needed. The room Hallie was in was a late addition in the fifties, added on to the back and just big enough for a tiny office, a big storage closet, and an open stairway to the basement. There was no rectory, never had been. Never enough people around to have a full-time minister, not even when, back fifty years ago, there’d been a service there every Sunday.