When Hunt called it in, there was no way to keep it quiet. He needed cops, paramedics, the medical examiner. Word spread like a brush fire, and the reporters made a mass exodus from the road in front of the Jarvis site. An escaped convict was dead, so was the richest man in town. The bodies were in Johnny Merrimon’s house.
Johnny Merrimon.
Again.
Hunt had to cordon off the street. He gave himself a quarter mile on each side of the house and put marked cars across the narrow road. He called in for barricades and had them erected, too. The day moved to midafternoon.
Hunt asked a few necessary questions, then gave Katherine and Johnny into the care of the paramedics. They were battered, both of them. Johnny could barely stand, but the paramedics thought they would be okay. In pain for a long time, but okay. Hunt kept his own feelings tamped down: his concern and relief, some stronger emotions that he was not prepared to deal with. He checked to make sure that the cordon was secure, then went back into the house.
Holloway was dead.
Freemantle, dead.
Hunt thought of Yoakum, and wanted to ask Johnny if Yoakum had been the man he’d seen at Jarvis’s house. But he didn’t have a photograph of Yoakum, and the kid was still in shock, so he left Johnny alone. He coordinated the photographers, the crime scene techs, and for the first time in his career, he felt overwhelmed. Ronda Jeffries, Clinton Rhodes, David Wilson. The children buried behind the Jarvis house. Jarvis himself. Meechum. Now Freemantle and Holloway. So much death, so many questions. When the Chief arrived, he stared first at Holloway, whose lips had pulled back beneath wide, glazed eyes, then at Freemantle, who, even in death, seemed massive and unstoppable.
“Another fatal shooting,” the Chief said.
“I didn’t hit him that hard. He shouldn’t be dead.”
“But he is.”
“So fire me.”
The Chief stood for a long minute. “One more dead convict.”
“What about Holloway?”
The Chief stared at Holloway’s swollen features. “He was beating the boy?”
“And the mother.”
Sadness moved on the Chief’s face, disappointment. “I think that maybe Yoakum was right.”
“How’s that?”
“Maybe darkness is a cancer of the human heart.”
“Not always,” Hunt said. “And not with everyone.”
“Maybe you’re right.” The Chief turned away. “Or not.”
An hour later, Hunt gave the news about Johnny’s father. He told Katherine first, because he thought that was the right thing to do. She needed to get her head around the man’s death in order to help her son do the same. She needed to be there for the boy. He told her in the yard, lost in the bustle of cops and paramedics. She took it well. No tears or wailing. A silence that lasted a full five minutes; then a question, her voice so weak he barely caught it.
“Was he wearing his wedding ring?”
Hunt didn’t know. He called over the medical examiner and spoke quietly as Katherine watched her son, who was still being treated at the rear of an ambulance. When Hunt approached, she faced him again, and she was as thin as glass.
“Yes,” Hunt said, and he watched her bend.
When Johnny was able, she and Hunt led him to the backyard, to a quiet place far from anyone’s view. She sat beside him on the patchy grass and held his hand as Hunt told Johnny what they’d found in the woods behind the Jarvis house.
“He was looking for Alyssa,” Hunt said, then paused, the moment full of meaning. “Just like you.”
Johnny said nothing, those big eyes black and still.
“He was a brave man,” Hunt said.
“And Jarvis killed him?”
“We think so.” Hunt looked from mother to son. So alike. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“Can you give us a minute?” Katherine asked.
“Of course,” Hunt said, and left.
They watched him disappear around the house, and Katherine moved closer to her son. Johnny stared at a blank spot on the back of the house. She ran a hand through his filthy hair, and it took Johnny a minute to realize that she was crying. He thought he understood, but he was wrong.
“He didn’t leave us,” she whispered.
She swiped at her eyes, repeated herself, and then Johnny understood.
He didn’t leave us.
Something vast and unspoken passed between them, and they shared that silent communion until footsteps stirred in the woods and Jack stepped off the trail. He was muddy, as if he’d fallen in the creek. He looked very small, and his eyes darted from the house to the sky before he saw them, sitting so still in the shade. He stumbled as he walked, then stopped five feet away. Johnny opened his mouth, but Jack raised a hand, then spread his palms.
“I know where she is,” he said.
Nobody moved, and Jack swallowed hard.
“I know where she is.”