171995.fb2 Chasing the dead - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 13

Chasing the dead - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 13

10:38P.M.

Sue peels the map from Marilyn's chest and lays it on the dashboard. Above the wordPUNISHED she can see that a route has been highlighted in careful yellow marker, the lines ruled into an upand-down zigzag pattern across northern Massachusetts beneath the New Hampshire border.

On first glance the route defies logic. It is made up of a combination of country roads, grinding its way in a general northeastern direction from Gray Haven toward the coast. It is by no means direct-rather, it wobbles and bobs erratically through an apparently nonsensical symphony of detours, as if someone were following a bumblebee overland, back to its hive.

The only thing that lends any degree of order to the route is the string of small northern towns that it connects, none of them large enough to warrant red letters on the map. There are seven of these towns strung together by this jagged yellow NASDAQ line, starting with Gray Haven. From there the line meanders through communities named, in order from west to east: Winslow, Stoneview, Ashford, Wickham, and East Newbury before ending at someplace called White's Cove, which perches on Cape Ann just west of Pigeon Cove.

Sue has never heard of any of these towns before, despite the fact that she's lived in Massachusetts most of her life. She certainly can't remember ever seeing any of them on a map. Of course there are literally hundreds of crappy little burgs scattered throughout New England that no amount of regional familiarity could possibly make her aware of, but it's somehow unsettling just the same.

Although let's face it, that might be due to the partially draped corpse of her nanny in the passenger seat, not to mention the stinking, Glad bag-draped thing stowed in the back.

"You've got your route laid out for you," the voice on the phone says. "You've got your cargo in the back and you've got nine hours of night left. If you get started now you should be back in White's Cove by seven thirtyA.M. tomorrow."

Instinctively Sue's eyes go to the fuel gauge. Thank God she filled the tank after leaving work.

"Why do you want me to do this?"

"You'll figure it out as you go."

"What happens when I get to White's Cove?"

"You'll know by the time you get there."

"And that's when I get Veda back? Alive?"

"Always keep my promises, Susan."

Sue wishes that she could believe him. Right now she wishes it more than anything. "Where will she be?"

"The address is Eleven South Ocean Avenue. But fair warning, Susan: If you come even one minute late-or if you get there using any other route but the one marked in this map-you can still have her back. The only difference is that she'll be dead. Do you understand the terms of this agreement?"

"Eleven South Ocean Avenue," Sue repeats, "White's Cove."

"Look for the statue."

"Statue?"

"And just a reminder in case you were thinking about somehow alerting the police-"

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"You don't."

Something happens in Sue's brain. A neurological event that she does not anticipate, a thing that begins where fear ends, a mother's outrage coupled with an ambulance driver's low-bullshit threshold. "All right." She is not yelling. She is being very quiet. "I'll do what you ask. I'll drive through these towns with this thing in back. I won't call the police or anybody else. I'll be there tomorrow morning to pick up my daughter.But you listen to me. " She pauses to take in a breath. It is a little disorienting to hear her voice sounding like this. As if some other persona has reemerged from a few years of civility, affluence, and good manners to remind her that, at one point, she understood with adolescent ruthlessness that the world ran on blood. "If you kill my little girl tonight then you better make goddamn sure that you kill me as well. Because you're taking away everything I have in the world. And I will spend every waking moment for the rest of my life tracking you down. When I do, I promise you that you will die in a way so horrible that even a sick, sadistic son of a bitch like yourself would have to spend weeks trying to come up with something more painful than what I've got planned for you." She breathes. "Now do you understandthose terms, you cocksucker, or do I have to make it clearer?"

It is a good moment-it almost makes her feel human again-but she is greeted with nothing but a puff of cottony silence from the phone and she knows that he has hung up on her yet again. At this precise instant, however, Sue Young does not care. There are welcome times when the truth spills out of our mouths because holding it back is like suicide. This is one of those times.

She puts the Expedition in drive and, gripping the map in her right hand, starts to turn around and head east.