Running with the Demon - Terry Brooks [164]
She drove him back to the hotel so that he could change his clothes, then drove him out to the Freemarks’ and dropped him off at the entrance to the park. She barely spoke the entire time. But when he started to get out of the car, she reached over and put her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the mouth.
“Don’t forget me,” she whispered, and gave him a hint of the smile that had drawn him to her that first day.
Then she straightened herself behind the steering wheel while he closed the car door and drove away without looking back.
He had made up his mind in that instant to tell Nest Freemark about her father.
Now, as he stood looking at Nest’s shattered face, he wondered if he had made the right decision. The mix of shock and horror that flooded her eyes was staggering. She blinked rapidly, and he could tell that she wanted to look away from him, to hide from his terrible revelation, but she could not. She tried to speak, but no words would come. Old Bob was stunned as well, but his exposure to the truth wasn’t as complete. He didn’t know what Nest did. He didn’t know that her father was a demon.
“My father?” she whispered finally. “Are you sure?”
The words hung between them in the ensuing silence, a poisonous and forbidding accusation.
“Nest,” her grandfather began, reaching for her.
“No, don’t say anything,” she said quickly, silencing him, stepping back. She tore her gaze from Ross and looked out into the park. “I need to... I just have to...”
She broke off in despair, tears streaming down her face, and bolted from the yard through the hedgerow and into the park. She ran past the ball diamond behind the house, down the service road toward the park entrance, and off toward the cemetery. John Ross and her grandfather stood looking after her helplessly, watching her angular figure diminish and disappear into the trees.
Old Bob looked at Ross then, a flat, expressionless gaze. “Are you certain about this?”
Ross nodded, feeling the grayness of the day descend over him like a pall. “Yes, sir.”
“I don’t know that you should have told her like that.”
“I don’t know that I should have waited this long.”
“You’ve tracked him here, her father, to Hopewell?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And he’s come for Nest?”
Ross sighed. “Yes, sir, he has. He means to take her with him.”
Old Bob shook his head in disbelief. “To kidnap her? Can’t you arrest him?”
Ross shook his head. “I haven’t the authority. Besides, I can’t even find him. If I do, I can’t prove any of what I’ve told you. All I can do is try to stop him.”
Old Bob slipped his big hands into his pockets. “How did you find all this out?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
Old Bob looked away, then back again, his face growing flushed and angry. “You come to Hopewell with a story about your college days with Caitlin that’s all a lie. You manage to get yourself invited to our home and then you keep from us the truth of what you are really doing here. You do not warn us about Nest’s father. You may think you have good reasons for everything you’ve done, John, but I have to tell you that I’ve put up with as much of this as I’m going to. You are no longer welcome here. I want you off my property and out of our lives.”
John Ross stood firm against the old man’s withering stare. “I don’t blame you, sir. I would feel the same. I’m sorry for everything.” He paused. “But none of what you’ve said changes the fact that Nest is still in danger and I’m the best one to help her.”
“Somehow I doubt that, John. You’ve done a damn poor job of protecting any of us, it seems to me.”
Ross nodded. “I expect I have. But the danger to Nest is something I understand better than you.”
Old Bob took his hands out of his pockets. “I don’t think you understand the first thing about that girl. Now you get moving, John. Go find Nest’s father, if that’s what you want to do. But don’t come back here.”
John Ross stood where he was a moment longer, looking at the old man,