They

Chapter Seventeen

WHEN THEY EXITED the plane at Los Angeles International Airport, Vince couldn’t help but be nervous. He kept expecting to be arrested by cops waiting for them to get off the plane. He scanned a sea of faces that didn’t acknowledge him as he, Frank, and Mike set off down the terminal. There were no plainclothes detectives lying in wait to ambush them. In short, they’d made it home undetected.

It was almost seven p.m. in Los Angeles; they’d had to wait for over three hours in Pittsburgh and by the time they’d taken off it was four p.m. The flight had been unremarkable and they managed to take seats near each other. They’d spent the five-hour flight in silence, reading magazines and newspapers, pausing only occasionally to talk about things unrelated as to why they’d really been in Pennsylvania. Once they reached Mike’s car in the parking structure they let their guards down as Mike unlocked the door and they slipped inside.

Vince sighed in relief as he set his bag down on the floor by his feet. “God, I’m glad that’s over with. I kept expecting somebody to pop out behind a car with a gun.”

“I gotta admit, I was kinda nervous, too,” Frank said. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

Mike started the car. “We haven’t talked about what we’re going to do next. Any ideas?”

“Not yet,” Frank said. “But we definitely need to stay on this.”

“We do,” Mike said, letting the car warm up. “I’ve got to get home and see how things are there. Carol’s probably worrying to death. I think we should use tonight to tie up whatever loose ends we may have and then reconvene late tomorrow morning at Vince’s.” He looked back at Vince. “That sounds okay to you?”

“Fine.” Vince’s mind was racing; maybe he could see Tracy tonight and have her out of the house before Mike and Frank came over.

“We’ll meet tomorrow morning at Vince’s to talk more strategy,” Mike said. “Say ten-thirty?”

Frank and Vince nodded that ten-thirty was fine with them.

“Where are you going to go?” Vince asked Frank as Mike backed out of the parking space.

“After Mike drops us off at your house, I’ll get myself a motel room,” Frank said. “I gotta call my agent and see how Brandy and the kids are doing.”

“Whatever we do, we lay low,” Mike said as he steered the car down the parking garage toward the tollgates. “I’ll try to get some information on the shootout in Lititz and give you all an update tomorrow morning. If I hear of anything vital, I’ll call you.”

“Think you can hold off calling your girlfriend for another day or so?” Frank’s question was directed at Vince but he didn’t look at him. He was looking out the window at the passing scenery of South-Central Los Angeles as Mike drove down Century Boulevard toward the 405 Freeway.

“Oh, I think so,” Vince said, playing casual. “I’m so damn horny though, I don’t know how much longer I can hold out.”

“If you behave tonight and all goes well tomorrow, maybe you can see her tomorrow night,” Mike said. “How’s that sound? I’d like to meet her.”

“Yeah, me too,” Frank said. He turned to Vince, his features impassive.

Vince shrugged. “Sure.”

They made the rest of the drive to Orange County lost in their own thoughts.

VINCE WASTED NO time. The minute he walked in his front door he headed to the phone in the living room and dialed Tracy’s phone number at home.

Tracy picked up on the third ring. “Hello.”

“Tracy, it’s me. Vince.”

“Vince!”

Hearing her voice again melted his heart. Knowing that she was so close now, merely blocks away, added to his growing need to see her. “I’m home,” he said. “And I don’t know how much longer I’ll be home. We’re supposed to get together again tomorrow. Can you come over?”

“I’m leaving in five minutes,” Tracy said.

She arrived thirty minutes later.

When he opened the front door she rushed into his arms. They held each other close; Vince kissed her and when Tracy kissed him back he felt tingles run up and down his spine. He closed the door and took her hand. “God, I missed you,” he said.

“Not now,” she said, melting in his arms and kissing him again.

Somehow, they made it to the bedroom.

AFTERWARD, VINCE TOLD Tracy everything.

He’d already told her what happened in Lititz while he was holed up in the Marriot at Harrisburg last night. Understandably, she’d been shocked. Now he filled in the details, as well as what Mike and Frank found out last night and his own discoveries and feelings as he read newspaper accounts and learned the identity of the men involved. “Soldiers of Christ,” he said, leaning against the pillow. “Ever heard of ’em?”

“No,” Tracy said, her mouth set in scowl. “Should I?”

Vince shook his head. “I guess not. I surely never heard of them until today.”

Tracy was reflective. “So you really think that… because these guys were part of a cult called the Soldiers of Christ that they were trying to kill you?”

“I don’t know,” Vince said, sighing. “I know it sounds stupid, but… everything that’s happened has just been so… chaotic and… just imbued with secrecy. Like why did my mother have all this information buried in a box in her backyard? Why was she afraid to talk about it? Why did she pull stakes twenty-five years ago and take me, change our names, tried to bury our past? Was she hiding from something? Running away from something, or somebody? I don’t know.” He looked at her. “And Frank. He just suddenly pops into my life, telling me I’m in danger and he knows all this stuff that’s happened. He knows my mom was murdered, he knows about Laura’s death, he’s been spying on my friends—”

“That’s the scary part,” Tracy said, looking concerned. “The fact that this guy actually poked around in your life. My life!”

“Exactly! I mean, he seems to be a pretty nice guy and all, and considering the circumstances of what he and Mike have told me and what I’ve found out, I don’t blame them. In fact, I feel good that you came up clean.”

“What do you mean?” Tracy frowned.

Oops. Vince tried to dismiss the blunder with a shrug. “Nothing. Just that Frank said that you and Brian and some of my other friends came up with clean records. You aren’t part of the all-sinister Children of the Night.” He chuckled, trying to make everything a big joke.

Tracy looked serious. “What if he’d told you that I was a member?”

Vince’s laughter dried up. “You’re kidding, right?”

Tracy shook her head. Her features had taken on a grim, stony-faced appearance. “No, I’m not. Suppose Frank had told you that I’m a member of The Children of the Night.” She cocked her head. “What would you have done?”

All the spit seemed to dry up in Vince’s mouth. His stomach turned into a ball of lead. “Um… I don’t know…”

“You don’t know?”

“I…” Vince was at a loss for words. Tracy waited for him to answer. Her persona had taken on a tone of deadly seriousness; she was no longer the flirtatious, laughing, sexy woman he’d met and fallen in love with. Now she resembled a dangerous, sly, secretive woman who was holding a winning hand.

“You don’t know what you’d do… isn’t that right?”

Vince nodded. “I guess not.” He searched her face for some tell tale sign of the Tracy that he knew.

Finally, she smiled. “Scared you, didn’t I?”

Vince relaxed, feeling as if a sudden weight had just been taken off his shoulders. “Jesus, Tracy, you scared the hell out of me!”

Tracy laughed. “I got you good, didn’t I? You didn’t know what to think!”

Slightly embarrassed by having scared the crap out of him, and slightly imbued with playfulness, Tracy didn’t resist as Vince wrestled her onto her back. She squealed. “Hey, wait a minute, I was only kidding!”

“Only kidding?” Vince tickled her sides. Tracy howled with laughter. “Only kidding? How’s this for kidding, huh?”

Vince tickled Tracy’s side and under her chin as she laughed and playfully slapped his hands away. The tenseness that had been present between them when Tracy suggested that she was a cult member was gone now. Vince caught her flailing wrists and pinned them down to the mattress above her head. Tracy’s eyes flared. “Oh, you domineering man, you!”

Vince laughed and kissed her.

The kiss led to other things. When those other things ended thirty minutes later they reclined again against the headboard. They lay atop the sheets, the sweat cooling from their bodies amidst the air conditioning. Vince swallowed some water from the bottle of Evian on the nightstand. “Can I ask you something?” Tracy asked. He looked at her. “Seriously?”

Vince nodded. He capped the bottle and replaced it on the nightstand. “Sure.”

“Suppose Frank did come back and say I was a cult member? Suppose he did it to keep you away from me due to his… his paranoia?”

Vince thought about it. She had a point. “I don’t know if I would believe him.”

“I would hope not.”

Vince laughed. “Really, Tracy, I’d have to make him see the error of his ways. I mean, if you were a cult member why would you seduce me and lead me on like this?”

“As part of some grand scheme to get you back into the group?”

Vince shook his head. It was bullshit, but in a way it made sense, too. It would be the kind of answer Frank would give him. “There’d be no arguing with him I guess,” he said, regarding her calmly. “Then I’d know he’s a nut. Especially if he claimed Brian was a cult member, too.”

Tracy rolled her eyes. “Oh yeah, Brian Denison, mister atheist. Guy who has no time for religious lunacy in any way, shape, or form. That would be a big giveaway.”

Vince chuckled. “Of course you and Brian are pretty similar. If Frank thought you were a cult member I’d know he was full of shit. I know you; he doesn’t.”

“And you don’t think your theory is full of shit?”

“What theory?”

“The one you just told me,” Tracy said, looking serious. “That you think you’re their Anti-Christ.”

So this was where Tracy’s tactics were leading. Suddenly Vince saw his theory for what it was worth. A fragile notion perpetuated by his own rising sense of fear and confusion over the chain of events that had taken place over the past few weeks. A notion helped along by good old-fashioned paranoia. “Well, now that you put it that way,” he said.

Tracy’s mouth was set in a smirking grin. “See? You can see the error of your ways!”

Vince laughed. “I guess I can.”

Tracy smiled. She took his hand in hers. Vince smiled back at her and the look in her eyes told him that she supported him and believed in him. And in knowing that, he began to believe in himself.

FRANK WAS TYPING the week’s diary entries into his journal when his cell phone rang.

He’d spent thirty minutes on the phone with his literary agent, Peter, who reported that everything was fine with Brandy and the kids. Naturally they were worried and missed him, and Frank had assured Peter that what he was working on was almost finished. He’d been assured his family was safe (“not even the IRS knows where they are, Frank,” Peter had said. “You’ve got nothing to worry about.”). Frank had given Peter a message to relay to Brandy and the kids, then hung up. He’d been detailing the weeks’ events in his notes on his Compaq laptop when the phone jarred him out of his thoughts.

He groped toward it automatically. “Yeah.”

“Frank!” At first Frank didn’t recognize the voice. Whoever it was sounded panicked, frantic. “Ah, thank God you’re there Frank.”

“Mike?”

“Carol’s missing!” It was Mike and he sounded scared to death. His voice wavered on panic. “The place is a mess and… and there’s blood everywhere!”

Frank felt himself grow light headed with shock and he had to force himself to stay calm. “Okay, what happened?”

“I don’t know.” Mike panted, as if he were out of breath. “I got home and saw that Carol’s car was in the driveway so I figured she was home. And when I got in…” His voice strained, on the verge of trembling into sobs. “…the place was… was trashed! And it… it…” He began to stammer.

“Calm down,” Frank urged.

“She just wasn’t there!” Mike cried, and now he was crying. He didn’t heave great wracking sobs, but Frank could hear the tears in the man’s voice. “The place was ransacked and she’s gone!”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m here, at home.” Mike whined. Frank could tell that Mike was trying to keep his emotions under control and was having a hard time doing it.

“You need to get out of the house, Mike.”

“There’s nobody here. I went through the house already.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you called the police?”

“No.”

“Stay where you are. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“They got her, Frank.” Mike began to cry again. “They got her, I know they got her.”

“I’m leaving now,” Frank said. He hung up, grabbed wallet, keys, jacket, made sure his nine and extra clips were in the jacket, and then he left.

THANK GOD EVERYBODY in Southern California drove like maniacs. Frank drove like one on his way to Mike Peterson’s home in Huntington Beach, and as he rounded the corner to the development off Beach Boulevard he saw the older man leaning against his car in the driveway. His face was buried in his hands and Frank pulled in front of the house and killed the engine. He was out of the car in a flash. “You okay?”

Mike nodded, his eyes closed. The man trembled and he wouldn’t look up. Frank reached out and gripped his shoulder. “Mike,” he said softly but forcefully. “Come on man, I know… this is hard.” Frank imagined himself in Mike’s shoes. He’d be going through the same kind of hell now if something happened to Brandy or the kids. Hell, he’d be a fucking basket case. Mike seemed to be handling it well in spite of the situation. “Mike, I’m here.”

Mike finally looked up at Frank. His eyes were red, his cheeks damp with tears. He took a deep breath. His features looked haunted, as if he’d just seen a ghost. “I shouldn’t have taken them for granted,” he said. “I was so careful in setting up my other identity. And I was so careful with all of us. If they know about me, they know about you and—”

“You haven’t called the police yet?”

Mike shook his head. “No… I… I almost did…”

Frank looked up and down the quiet neighborhood. It was an upper-middle class neighborhood, similar to the one his aunt Diane and Uncle Charlie resided in El Paso where he’d lived for five years. All two-story tract homes with BMW’s and Mini-Vans parked in the driveways. Nobody was watching them. “I take it we haven’t attracted the attention of the neighbors yet, otherwise the cops would already be here.”

Mike took a deep breath. “I… I tried to control myself as much as possible.”

“I’ve got to go in,” Frank said, looking at Mike. “Do you want to stay out here?”

Mike shook his head. “I know it sounds crazy, but I can’t. I have to find out what happened to her.”

“Then let’s go in,” Frank said, his hand still resting on Mike’s shoulder gently.

They went into the house together.

The first thing Frank noticed when they crossed the threshold was the heat. It felt stale and musty, as if the house had been closed up for an extended period of time. Then he noticed the smell. It was the faint, coppery scent of dried blood.

Mike seemed a little more prepared for the destruction that followed than Frank was. The older man led him into the living room and Frank gasped at the sight. The room was in shambles. The couch was ripped open, the stuffing from the cushions strewn about. The television was bashed-in, books were toppled to the floor from the built-in oak bookcase. Carol’s fragile china was shattered, the cabinet they’d been housed in broken, destroyed. “This way,” Mike said, heading for the stairs. “The minute I saw… what you’re seeing now, I headed up the stairs and started calling Carol’s name.”

Frank followed Mike up the staircase, feeling himself tense up. There was something about this, some sixth sense that was telling Frank that something wasn’t right. How could they have found him? he thought. Mike was more careful than any of them, more careful than his Aunt Diane and Uncle Charlie, more careful than John Llama. His false identity was foolproof. So what happened?

“This was what I saw,” Mike said as he stepped aside and allowed Frank entry into the master bedroom.

Frank stood in the doorway to the bedroom. The room was destroyed; the furnishings were in the same slashed and broken state as the furniture downstairs. Framed pictures that had hung on the walls were on the floor, now shattered. Frank took a step into the room and Mike turned on the light. Frank saw the dark maroon splotches on the white carpeting right away.

Carol had bled quite profusely.

Mike hung back in the hallway as Frank stepped further into the room. He wasn’t a homicide detective, but it was obvious from the spilled blood and the destruction in the room that a struggle had taken place. A splash of red caught his eye; it was a streak of blood on the wall leading into the bathroom. Frank ventured inside, dreading what he would see.

Blood had splashed into the sink. The mirror was shattered, smears of blood dotting its surface. Bottles of soap and shampoo had been spilled onto the floor along with combs, brushes, a hair dryer, and a box of curlers. One lone blue towel had been pulled off the metal towel rack and lay on the floor amid the toiletries. More blood dotted the tiled floor and a bath mat that ran the length of the bathroom. Frank cautiously avoided stepping in the blood and leaned over to peer into the bathtub. It was empty.

He made his way carefully back into the bedroom. “Did they take anything?”

“I don’t know.” Mike looked shocked and haunted.

“Did you guys keep cash or jewelry here?”

Mike shook his head. “Not on your life.”

Frank glanced back in the bedroom. There was a television mounted on a small entertainment unit; its screen was gutted. “Whoever did this is not your usual junkie who wants to hock your shit to score a fix.” Frank turned back to Mike, his mind racing. “They were after something. Are you positive you didn’t keep anything about the investigation at the house?”

“I’m positive,” Mike hissed, seeming to perk up a little under the interrogation.

“Are you sure?” Frank pressed him on the issue. “Think! Why the hell would they chance such a bold breakin if they didn’t know something was—”

Mike’s eyes lit up. “The key!”

Frank felt his heart stop. “What key?”

“The key to the safe deposit box.” Mike looked anguished. “I… I called Carol before you guys met me at LAX and told her what I was working on. I told her where the safe deposit box was. She knew what happened to John. She didn’t want me to poke into this again. I told her I wasn’t doing anything, that all I was doing was helping you out in some family stuff.” He looked at Frank. “I swear I didn’t tell her anything else. I don’t know if she believed me or not, but—”

“You better not have mentioned my name,” Frank said. At the mention of Mike telling Carol that Frank was involved, he felt angry.

Mike ignored him. “I put all the files I’d accumulated and a zip disk of my investigation into a safe deposit box I kept under my pseudonym. I… I told Carol that if I wasn’t back by Friday to open it and do something about it.” His eyes were wide at the implication. “They—”

Frank tore into the bedroom. “Let’s start looking.”

They began searching for the key to the safe deposit box. Mike pulled out drawers and rifled through them, but it was obvious that whoever destroyed the house had already gone through them. Whatever clothes weren’t spilled onto the floor had been thrown or pushed aside. Jewelry and knickknacks had been spilled onto the floor. Frank began going through clothes in the closet. “Where would she have kept it?”

“In the bedroom on the dresser somewhere,” Mike said, searching frantically. “It’s not here!”

“Maybe they missed it,” Frank said. Yet the more they searched, the more he realized that whoever had broken into the house and taken Carol by surprise had probably also gotten the key.

Fifteen minutes later they abandoned the search. Mike looked frustrated and scared. “Oh my God what are we going to do?”

Frank felt just as frantic and stressed but he was trying not to show it. “Okay,” he said, running a hand over his dark hair. “Let’s think about this for a minute.”

“She’s gone, the key’s gone, they got her and they know about us!” Mike said, poking through the rubble again.

“They don’t know about us.”

“Yes, they do!” Mike whirled around, his face red with tears. “Look at this place! They knew what they were looking for, and they got Carol in the process. Now we’re fucked! This whole thing is just fucked!” Mike breathed heavy, his features showing his anger and frustration.

“First things first,” Frank said, trying to be calm. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

“Suppose they have it?” Mike asked, looking at Frank frantically. “What are we going to do? Suppose they came here… the evening we left and—”

“Stop it!” Frank grabbed Mike’s shoulders and shook him. Mike flinched, as if afraid the bigger man was going to throw him against the wall. Frank leaned his face close to Mike’s. He could have kissed him if he wanted. “Calm the fuck down. If we panic, that’s going to expose our weakness. So just calm… the fuck… down!” Frank interjected menace in the command, punctuating it by shaking Mike as he enunciated each word. Mike got the message.

“Okay, okay,” Mike said, the anger and frustration deflating a moment. “Okay, we gotta do something, though.”

“First we gotta get the hell out of here.”

Mike looked up at Frank, his eyes wide. “You think we should call the cops?”

“Fuck no!”

“But what about…”

“I’m sorry, buddy,” Frank’s resolve was strengthening him, empowering him to take charge. He grabbed Mike by the shoulders again and spun him around, marching him out the door to the bedroom and down the stairs. “But right now we’re getting the hell out of here. And I’m leaning very strongly in favor of going to Billy Grecko with this shit as soon as possible. Like tonight.”

“But Carol—” Mike protested, starting the merry-go-round of grief again.

“We’ll find Carol,” Frank said, herding Mike outside. He closed the door behind him, made sure it was locked, and then led Mike to his car. “We’ve gotta get back to my room and think about this, talk a new strategy. Where’s the shit we brought back from PA? The box Maggie Walters had all those newspaper clippings in that Reverend Powell gave us?”

“Still in my car.”

“Get it.” Frank steered Mike to his car and waited while the older man fumbled to disarm it with his key fob. He rummaged in the backseat and grabbed it as Frank stood guard, watching the neighborhood silently. Nobody was observing them.

Once the back door to Mike’s sedan was closed and the vehicle was locked, Mike turned to him. His face was ashen. “We’ve got to find Carol,” Mike said. The shock was finally settling into his system. He was limp, hollow-eyed, haunted.

“That’s part of the plan.” Frank helped Mike into his car, then got in and drove away from the house. As he got on the 405 Freeway heading south to Irvine, he thought about calling Vince but decided against it at the last minute. I’ll call him later if we have to. Right now I’ve got to get Mike the hell out of here.

And as he drove to the motel, taking back roads, driving in a way to shake-off pursuers, Frank kept checking his rearview mirrors to make sure they weren’t being followed.

TWO HOURS LATER, Mike Peterson was asleep. Thank God for Valium, Frank thought.

Frank was seated at the small table by the bed. A lone sixty-watt bulb lit the room, providing enough illumination for him to work by. He’d been writing notes to himself since he got Mike to sleep. The Valium Frank had slipped into his soft drink was enough to put him out all night.

He picked up a can of coke and drank from it. He needed the caffeine to keep himself going. He would get some sleep later. Right now he needed to think.

The minute he got Mike to his motel room he’d told him to lie down on the queen sized bed. Mike had protested at first, repeating the same mantra. “Carol’s gone, they’ve got her, my God I’ve got to call the kids, the police, I’ve got to do something—”

Frank knew he had to knock Mike out. The guy was driving him bugfuck and he couldn’t think while Mike was wigging out. He couldn’t afford to have Mike bring everything crashing down. One call to the cops and everything would be destroyed—their investigation, their secrecy, their security. The cops would automatically suspect Mike in Carol’s disappearance and would haul him in for questioning. Without Mike, Frank and Vince would be sitting ducks. The Children could then move in and do whatever the hell they wanted… kidnap Vince maybe, kill Frank. And in the meantime, whatever information Mike had gathered on the cult would be locked away. Anything he or Frank told the police would be met by healthy skepticism. They’d be damned lucky if they could get anybody to take their story seriously, even Mike’s friend Billy.

He couldn’t have that.

So Frank told Mike to lie down and chill out for a minute. He was going to get him a drink, then he could call his kids and the two of them would call the police. Mike seemed to accept this and while he lay down, Frank had gone to the soft drink dispensing machine outside the room and bought a Coke and bottled water. He’d let himself back in the room, poured Mike a small glass, then searched through his overnight bag for his box of pills where he kept aspirin and Valium. He’d poured a glass of water, dropped a Valium in it and waited while it dissolved, then had taken a tiny sip to make sure it couldn’t be detected. He’d watched while the former high school teacher drank the water down then lay back down. Ten minutes later he was asleep.

Now Frank had to figure out what the hell to do.

The first thing he thought of doing was calling his Aunt Diane. He hadn’t seen her or Charlie in over ten years and hadn’t spoken to her in at least a year. In the years since the breakin at their home twenty-three years ago—an obvious warning to cease their investigation into the disappearance of his father—they’d been reluctant to talk to Frank about his background. They’d shared some information with him when he brought it up, but it was like pulling teeth. It had taken them five years to open up enough to start talking about it. He’d stopped asking them about it, and then one day when he was visiting he’d started asking again. This was shortly after he’d gotten sober and was working on what was to become his first horror novel in five years, Things Inside. He’d tried to bring the subject up gently and they answered his questions in the same way, not offering any more than they’d given him the first time around. It was obvious they weren’t prepared, nor did they wish to revisit painful memories.

Which was why he couldn’t go to them now. As much as he would have liked to pick up the phone right now and call Aunt Diane, he couldn’t. He didn’t want to get her involved again. She’d been through too much already. And besides, what could she do about his and Mike’s situation now? How could she help them?

Vince was the next person he thought of calling. He supposed it was time to get him involved more deeply. Frank picked up the phone and dialed Vince’s phone number.

The phone rang three times before it was picked up. “Hello?” Vince sounded cautious.

“It’s Frank.”

“Yeah?” Now Vince sounded even more overly cautious. Nervous, even.

“We’ve got trouble.”

“What happened?”

“Not over the phone. It’s serious, though. We’ve got trouble.”

Frank could hear Vince on the other end of the line fumbling with something and muttering.

“I don’t think we should be separated any more tonight,” Frank continued. “Can you get over here?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Where are you?”

Frank gave him his location and the room number. Vince said he was going to get some clothes on and he’d leave in ten minutes. Frank replaced the receiver and leaned back in the chair, his mind running with a thousand thoughts. I don’t know what the hell we’re going to talk about, or what kind of plan of action we’re going to take but we’ve got to do something. And we’ve got to stay together. No telling what could happen and it’s better to have strength in numbers tonight.

Frank picked up the Coke and drank while he waited for Vince.

“I’M SO SORRY,” Vince said for the tenth time since Frank called. He slipped into a T-shirt and rooted around in a dresser for a pair of jeans.

“It’s okay,” Tracy said. She was sitting up in bed watching as Vince dressed. “These things happen.”

“No they don’t,” Vince said, fastening the buttons on his jeans. “Normal boyfriends don’t have secret pasts that wreak havoc on their current relationships in the guise of kidnappings and attempted murders and—”

“Vince!” Tracy’s tone was sharp and Vince paused. She was looking at him. “It’s okay. I understand.”

Vince turned away and reached for his shoes and socks. “Well I’m glad somebody does, ’cause I sure in the hell don’t understand what the hell’s going on.”

“I’m sure pretty soon you will,” Tracy said. She leaned forward, the sheets slipping down her breasts. “For what it’s worth, I think you need to stop listening to this guy Frank and not even go over there. In fact, maybe you should call the cops.”

“I don’t know why he didn’t think of doing that himself,” Vince muttered, tying his shoes.

“I’m serious,” Tracy said. Vince stopped dressing and looked at her as she continued. “Really, Vince, just look at yourself. You’re tired, you’re jumping at shadows, you’re getting just as paranoid as you say this Frank Black guy is. He’s almost gotten you killed already, and the police are after you in Pennsylvania. I think you’re in way over your head and you should just—”

“Give up?”

“Yes.” Tracy looked at him. They stared at each other for a moment, Tracy’s features stony, immobile. “Just… I’m sitting here watching as you… as you… just… I don’t know, this is just crazy!” Tracy threw her arms up in the air in defeat, her voice taking on a tone of frustration. “I hate seeing you like this, and I hate what Frank’s been doing to you!”

“This isn’t just Frank’s doing,” Vince said, sitting down on the bed to pull on his shoes.

“Then what is it?”

“It’s what happened to us when we were kids.”

“And what happened to you?”

Vince looked at her. Her questioning was starting to piss him off; she very well goddamn knew what happened to him. “What’s the point?”

“The point is,” Tracy said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She reached for her clothes on the floor, “I’m going with you.”

“What?” Vince sat up in surprise.

“You heard me.” Tracy started getting dressed. “I’m going with you. What’s your problem is my problem.”

“But Tracy—”

“Vince!” She looked at him with a stern gaze. Vince felt something stir inside him. As serious as she looked, there was something in her eyes that he hadn’t seen in another woman since he was married to Laura. It was a sense of undying commitment and love.

“You’re serious?”

Tracy pulled the shirt she’d worn earlier in the evening over her head. Her hair, slightly ruffled from their bed-play, tumbled to her shoulders. “You bet I’m serious.”

Vince briefly debated the implications this would raise if he brought Tracy to Frank Black’s motel room. He’s gonna have a fit, he thought. He’s gonna blow his fucking stack.

As if reading his thoughts, Tracy said, “I know your friend is gonna be pissed the minute he sees me, but I don’t give a shit. He may not understand, but I care about you, Vince. These people almost killed me, too, and that makes it more than just your problem. It’s our problem.” Now fully dressed, she stood in the bedroom waiting for him to get up. Her eyes blazed with a fiery intensity. “Got me?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Vince said. He watched Tracy for a moment as she got dressed, his mind racing. There was no use in stopping her. He could tell she’d made up her mind. Tracy was going with him and she was just as involved in this as he and Frank and Mike were. He was going to have to find some way to convince them that Tracy was okay, that she wasn’t a threat. Besides, hadn’t Frank said that Tracy already checked out? That she had no ties to the cult?

Tracy was dressed and waiting for him. “Let’s go,” she said. And with rising trepidation, Vince followed her out of the house to his car.

FRANK LOOKED THROUGH the peephole of his motel room door at the sound of the knock on the door. When he saw Vince he almost opened the door automatically. But when he saw that he was with somebody it felt like he’d just been body slammed. He blinked and tried to focus in on the woman standing with Vince. He didn’t recognize her, had no idea who she was, but she was staring right at him through the peephole.

“Shit,” he muttered. He threw back the bolt, unlocked the door and opened it. “Get in here.”

Vince and the woman stepped into the room but Frank held her back. “Just you,” he said, glaring angrily at Vince.

“Bullshit,” the woman said, shouldering her way past Frank.

“Not so fast.” Frank tried to restrain her from entering and she pushed his arm away. A flush of anger poured through him as she shoved past. Frank darted after her as Vince followed her inside. “Who the fuck do you think you are to just walk in here and—”

The woman whirled around, her features blazing with an anger to match his own. “Who do you think you are? Calling my boyfriend anytime you want to, calling him away on your goddamned—”

“Now wait a minute!” He wasn’t even aware he was yelling.

“No, you wait a minute!” The woman stepped up to him, thrusting her finger at him. He didn’t know who she was, but she was a bold little thing. He vaguely recognized her as Tracy Harris, Vince’s current fuck bunny; he and Mike had run a background check on her and some of Vince’s other friends a month or so back and had come up with nothing overtly suspicious. Still, he wanted Vince to steer clear of her for a while until this shit blew over. “I’m getting sick and goddamned tired of you ordering him around like he’s some puppet to your paranoid delusions of… of…”

“Yeah?” It was taking all of his willpower to keep from screaming back at her. “You gonna spit it out or what?”

It was obvious she was infuriated with him. Her green eyes blazed with anger. “I’m tired of all the goddamned secrets and acting like everything is like some fucking spy mission!”

“Tracy!” Vince had closed the door and was trying to calm Tracy down. He took her shoulders, trying to hold her back. “Chill out, okay?”

“Yeah, chill out,” Frank said. He turned to Vince and glowered. “And you!”

“What?” Vince didn’t even look at him; he was trying to get Tracy to move further into the room, perhaps to sit her ass down.

“You just don’t fucking get it, do you? After all we talked about, after all the shit we’ve been through.”

“Cut the crap, Frank,” Tracy said, breaking away from Vince. “What about the shit I’ve been through. I was almost killed too! What about me?”

Vince looked at Frank. “What about her, Frank? Don’t you think she deserves to know what’s going on?”

“No,” Frank said, moving into the room. Mike was still conked out in dreamland. He crossed the room and peered out the window into the night beyond. “This has nothing to do with her. I don’t know why you had to make it her business.”

“Because she’s my girlfriend and I love her,” Vince said. The tone in Vince’s voice made Frank turn around. Vince was standing with Tracy near the dresser. His arm was around her waist. Tracy had her hands on Vince’s hips, their bodies facing each other, faces turned to Frank. “They almost killed her that day at the airport. She’s known everything about what’s been going on since the day my mother died. She knew that my mother’s murder has something to do with all this. She was worried about me. When we left for Pennsylvania I wanted to call her; she knew I was planning to go back anyway. I called her from the hotel room the night you and Mike went back to Lititz.”

“Shit,” Frank muttered. All the trust he’d felt for Vince, all the camaraderie, was crumbling away.

“I didn’t do this to cause any trouble,” Vince continued, his voice steady. “She already knew something was going on even before you showed up. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Lie to her the way Mike lied to his wife,” Frank muttered. He couldn’t look at Vince.

Vince was silent. He looked at Mike, who lay in bed conked out. Frank felt the weight of the world crashing on his shoulders. Suddenly the idea of lying to the one you loved the most didn’t seem like such a hot idea. Look where it had gotten Mike and Carol.

With that came the thought of Brandy and the kids. They didn’t know anything. Oh, Brandy suspected, but he’d purposely kept her in the dark. Had that been the right choice? Would not knowing what to expect make her as vulnerable to the Children as it had made Carol?

Shuddering, Frank reached for the chair behind him and sank into it. He felt so tired and angry and frustrated. He wanted to scream, he wanted to smash something. And for the first time in years he wanted a drink.

“Frank,” Vince said. He approached warily. “What’s going on? You said something was wrong…”

“It’s Mike,” Frank said, not even looking at Vince. Part of him was still fighting the urge to throw Vince and Tracy out of the room, but another part simply told him to let it go. So what if she knows? What the hell is she going to do?

“What’s wrong with him?”

Frank told him what happened. He spoke slowly, at first not looking at Vince as he began the story. But as he told it Vince sat down on another chair and Tracy sat on the desk next to Vince. They held hands, listening calmly and patiently as Frank told them about getting Mike’s frantic call, his arrival at the house, and Mike’s panicked state. He told them about the condition the house was in, the blood on the floor in the bathroom, the signs of a struggle. He told them about their search for the second key to the safe deposit box, about Mike’s frantic grief. “I brought him back here and put Valium in his drink so he would chill out,” he concluded. “And then I called you.” He’d straightened his posture around the middle of the narrative, but now that he concluded it he slouched down a little bit. “I didn’t think we should be alone tonight. Plus, I thought maybe we should go to Mike’s friend Billy with what we have now. We have enough documentation to take to him. It’s all circumstantial, but…” He shrugged. “I’m hoping it’ll be enough.”

Tracy looked concerned; Vince looked alarmed. “This is getting too big.” He looked at Tracy, his eyes wide. “The more this goes on the scarier this shit is getting. It’s like everywhere we turn something else is just hitting us.”

“Okay, let’s put some of this in perspective,” Tracy said. Whatever anger she had had upon entering the room seemed mostly gone as her tone of voice became serious. She still ignored Frank as she spoke mostly to Vince, but Frank could tell she was including him in her observations as well. “You haven’t called the police yet, which is a good thing. I’ve got a feeling that if you did they might have put two-and-two together and hauled you in for the shooting back in PA. Two, there is the shooting investigation to still think about. Have either of you been watching the news since you got back?”

Frank shook his head. “Not much. I scanned CNN a few hours ago and went online to see if there’s anything new and there’s nothing.”

“Okay, so I guess we have to assume they’re still looking for you.” Tracy turned to Vince.

“What about Mike?” Vince asked.

“My first concern was getting him out of his house,” Frank said. “Far as I knew, they could have been waiting for us in there. It looked like whoever hit the place did it a few days ago. The house was locked up and had that stuffiness a house gets when it’s been closed up for awhile.”

Tracy nodded. As much as Frank didn’t want to admit it, she was very much a part of the equation now. “So you think they broke in when his wife was home? You think they kidnapped her or something?”

Frank shrugged. “Something happened. There was blood all over the bathroom and the master bedroom.”

“No sign of forced entry, right?” Vince asked.

“No.” Frank frowned. “Mike said he let himself in, just like always. The minute he walked in he saw the place was trashed.”

“I wonder if she let them in,” Tracy mused. She leaned against the desk. “You know, maybe they knocked on the door and she answered it and they forced their way in. They chased her upstairs and got her in the bathroom.”

“It’s possible.”

“You’re sure they took the key to that safe deposit box?” Vince asked Frank.

“Yeah.” Frank nodded, glancing at Mike. “We looked all over for it. Mike’s pretty sure they took it.”

“So they knew he was working on this, that he’s been keeping information on the investigation,” Vince continued. “That means they know about us.”

“That’s why I thought we should be together tonight,” Frank said. “You know, safety in numbers.”

“What do we do with him in the meantime?” Tracy motioned to Mike.

“Fuck if I know. I know the first thing we should do is go to his bank tomorrow and see if we can get to that safe deposit box. He has another key. Besides, I think he wigged out a little too hard about that thing. If his signature was the only one on file, nobody else can access it, even his wife. The bank would need some kind of death certificate or something for them to allow anybody else access to it.”

Vince nodded. “That’s true.” He looked down at Mike’s sleeping figure. “How long you think he’ll be out.”

“Till tomorrow morning.”

“So there’s nothing to do ’till then,” Vince said.

“Nope.”

“And we’re not going to the police,” Tracy said, addressing the statement to Vince and Frank.

Vince glanced at Frank, who shrugged. “No. I don’t think we should. Not yet. Going to the cops is going to cause a bunch of shit.”

“I still think we should seriously consider going to William,” Frank urged. “Tonight, if possible.”

“Who’s William?” Tracy asked.

“That’s not your concern now,” Frank said, dismissing her question. He was looking at Vince. “I went through Mike’s shit after I called you and found William’s phone number. Haven’t gotten around to calling him yet.”

“It’s pretty late,” Tracy said, her voice low, soft. “It might be best to wait to call him in the morning.”

“She has a point,” Vince said. “What time is it?”

“Well after midnight,” Frank said. “Okay, we call him at eight o’clock sharp.”

“What do we do next?” Vince joined Tracy at the desk.

Frank regarded the couple. As much as he didn’t like having Tracy Harris here, he was stuck with her. He sighed. “I guess we crash here tonight and wait for tomorrow.”

Mike was sprawled on one side of a king-size bed. “You guys want to sleep on the floor, you can have some blankets and an extra pillow.” Frank picked up a pillow from the bed and threw it at Vince. “We should probably get some sleep.”

Which they did after a few hours of lying in the darkness. Frank lay down on his side of the king sized bed staring up at the ceiling. He’d checked the lock on the door and the windows, and they were secure. Vince and Tracy settled down on the floor in the clothes they were wearing. They were using one of the pillows from the bed, a cushion from one of the chairs, and a sheet. Frank didn’t look at them and made no attempt at starting a conversation as they lay in the darkness, waiting for sleep to come. He was still angry with Vince for breaking their pact and bringing Tracy into the fold. The fewer people who knew about their investigation of the Children, the better. Especially now that their security appeared to be breached.

He thought about the breakin at Mike’s. As much as he tried to tell himself that it could be a random act, that Carol might have been the victim of a crime unrelated to the cult, something told him that wasn’t the case. Something had happened there. And it had happened when the three of them were flying to Pennsylvania. Frank wondered if Mike and Carol’s kids knew their father was leaving town; he wondered if they’d tried calling their parents or stopping by in the past few days. How many kids did Mike and Carol have anyway? Frank tried to remember. Two sons, maybe a daughter. They were all within his age range, so they were probably married with families of their own now. Surely one of them had to still live in the area. Even then, it might still be a day or two before one of them got suspicious and decided to drop by mom and dad’s to pay an unexpected visit.

The rasping sound of snoring made Frank turn his head to the floor. Vince was asleep. Tracy’s eyes were closed but Frank didn’t think she was asleep yet. He turned back and closed his eyes, thinking of Mike and Carol and their kids, his own wife and kids, and hoping that letting Tracy into the fold wasn’t going to do any more damage than was already being done, and then he was asleep.