The Bone House - Brian Freeman [142]
'I didn't tell anyone. I mean, by morning, I wondered if I'd dreamed it. Everyone was saying Mr Bone was the one. I wanted to be wrong, you know? I did just what Mr Bone did. I protected Jen. Even after what Glory told me.'
'Glory?' Bradley asked her. 'What about Glory?'
Tresa nestled closer to him. 'We were in the hospital. Glory and me. She told me what she saw. It was Jen, through the window of the garage, lighting a cigarette. That was the only thing she remembered. And I knew she'd seen her. She'd seen Jen starting the fire.' The girl bowed her head and stared at her feet. 'I convinced Glory she'd imagined the whole thing. We never talked about it again. Not ever. Glory never talked about the fire or told anyone what she saw. It was like it had never happened, you know?'
'What about Florida?' Cab asked.
'Jen must have been there,' Tresa said. 'I never thought that was possible. I mean, she's not a dancer, you know? I never dreamed she would do something like that. I still don't know why.'
She saw someone she knew, Cab thought.
Jen Bone. Through the window at the hotel. The memories must have stormed back, carrying Glory away like a tsunami. He felt sorry for the girl, coming face to face with everything she'd spent six years trying to escape. Remembering what had really happened at the Bone house.
'When Mark said Hilary was in Green Bay, I knew,' Tresa murmured, 'I just knew. Jen goes to Green Bay. That man Gary Jensen, she wrote an article about him for the school paper last year. Peter Hoffman sent it to me. He thought I'd want to see it because it was about dancing. He told me Jen's roommate was a dancer just like me. It must be this girl Amy. The one you said disappeared.'
Bradley picked up Tresa under her shoulders and lifted the girl away from him, protecting her with his body. He was inches from Reich. 'Are you going to shoot me, Sheriff? If so, you better do it now, because if not, I'm leaving. I have to get the police to find my wife.'
Reich stared blankly at him and didn't move or raise the gun. He was in shock. Cab waved at Bradley, telling him to go, and he took off limping through the cemetery. Running for a phone. Cab beckoned to Tresa. He took her hand, and he put out his other hand toward Felix Reich.
'Bradley's right,' Cab said. 'We need to call the Green Bay Police right now. We don't have much time. Let's go, Sheriff.'
Reich said nothing at all. Cab gestured with his hand again.
'Sheriff? Come on, it's over. You're too honorable a man for more violence. It's time to surrender.'
'Take the girl and go.' Reich murmured. 'What?'
Reich looked up, and his face was as dark and dreadful as a corpse. Their eyes met. Cab saw that the sheriff wasn't staring down into the hole anymore. He was inside it, consumed by the mold, dampness, worms, and stench of the burial ground. Reich withdrew Cab's own gun from his pocket, the one he had stolen when he assaulted Cab at Bradley's house, and threw it at his feet.
'Take Tresa with you, Detective,' he repeated.
Cab wrestled with his conscience. Stay or go. 'Sheriff?' he murmured, his voice a question and a warning at the same time.
'The living are more important than the dead,' Reich told him.
Cab retrieved his gun. As he did, Reich deposited his flashlight on the flat stone top of the headstone beside him. He turned his back on Cab and Tresa without another word and marched away, heading back toward the thick curtain of the forest. He still had Troy's gun in his hand. The night swallowed him in seconds, and he disappeared, and so did the wet sucking noise of his boots in the grass. Cab tugged at Tresa's hand.
'We have to hurry,' he said, pulling her toward the road.
'Are you just going to let him go?' Tresa asked. 'He'll escape.'
'Nobody escapes,' Cab said.
Reich was right. The living mattered now. Hilary Bradley. Cab hoped they were in time. He grabbed the flashlight and ran, fighting down