CHAPTER 90 MATT

90

Matt

"THEY WERE TELLING THE truth," Rodney Campos said. "No sign of the sheriff or the girl. Her old truck is missing; she's probably driving that. No telling how long ago they left."

Rodney was standing on Ellie's front stoop. Eli McCormick was inside making a mess of the place. From where Matt had been forced to kneel on the sidewalk, he caught glimpses of Eli through the missing windows—turning furniture, knocking books off the shelves, searching for God knows what. Addie and Gabby were on the sidewalk to his left, both quiet. Josh was lying on the grass behind them. Even with the burns on his leg, Peterson had tried to force him to kneel twice and finally gave up. He stepped closer to Josh and nudged him with the barrel of his rifle. "Where did you say they went again?"

Josh rolled his head toward him. His skin was pasty, covered in a thin sheen of sweat. "Oh, so you do remember I'm the one who told you where they went?"

Rodney kicked Josh's injured leg, then pulled back and got him again in the gut. "You think that earns you some kind of prize, shit bag?"

Peterson raised a hand. "Easy, Rodney. Josh here is right. How 'bout you get the first aid kit from my truck and patch him up. It's behind the passenger seat."

Rodney glared at him. "You heard what he did to his family, right? Both kids and his wife. He's got no right to be breathing."

"I didn't …" Josh managed before a coughing fit took hold. He curled up like an injured animal.

Peterson knelt next to him in the grass. "Grab a bottle of water, too, Rodney." When Rodney stormed off, Peterson's face morphed into a smile that wanted to be warm but couldn't mask the ice beneath. "I take care of those who take care of me, Josh, always have. I've got a big ol' bottle of prescription painkillers in my kit. You're welcome to as many as you need until we can get you proper medical attention. Now, you said Ellie took the girl up to Buck's place. Do you know why?"

Josh swallowed and twisted his face toward Matt. "She didn't tell me, but he knows."

"That right," Peterson mulled slowly, turning toward Matt. "Care to explain how that old drunk fits in to all this?"

"Don't we have a town meeting to get to?"

Peterson glanced at his watch. "We've got a little time. Traffic's light today, too. I'll get you there in time, don't you worry about that. Why Buck?"

Before Matt could answer, Eli came through the front door holding the file box from the basement with several guns and boxes of ammo perched precariously on top. "Found this downstairs with a bunch of other old cases. It was the only one open. There's a gun safe down there, too; lots more where these came from."

Ellie hadn't locked the safe back up after handing Matt the shotgun.

Peterson glanced at the file box. "Emily Pridham? Wasn't that …" He gave Matt another quick look, then removed the lid and looked around inside. He removed one of the photographs and studied it closely. "Well, I'll be damned." Again, he glanced at Matt. "That's why she brought her up there?"

There was no point in lying. Matt nodded.

Peterson looked to the photograph again. "It is uncanny, I'll give you that. She ain't Emily any more than I am, though."

There were people in the street, hustling in the direction of the middle school. People Matt knew. The few who glanced in their direction quickly turned away, unwilling to get involved. None stopped. Some actually picked up their pace. Even Maggie White, the woman who ran the local food bank every Christmas, only gave Matt and the other a quick look before quickening, one of those flyers clutched in her arthritic hand.

"Matt," Gabby said in a hushed breath, looking down the opposite side of the street. "It's her."

When Matt spotted her—the girl who looked like Emily Pridham—his first thought was she was some kind of mirage. She stepped from the gloom of the setting sun about a block away, the shadow of Mount Washington at her back. She looked different than she had only an hour ago. She had changed clothes. Gone were the sweatshirt and baggy pants. She now wore a yellow sundress dotted with the images of flowers. Her hair was alive, filled with body and curls that weren't there before. And as she neared, Matt realized there was a glow to her skin—she radiated—reminiscent of when she first walked into the diner what seemed like a lifetime ago, but in reality had been less than a day.

Stu Peterson followed Matt's gaze and spotted her, too, about the same time Rodney Campos returned with the first aid kit and a bottle of water. "About time," Peterson muttered.

Although he said it to Rodney, Matt got the impression he was talking about the girl.

Peterson took the items from Rodney and set them to the side, just out of Josh's reach. He opened the first aid kit, removed an old prescription bottle of Oxy, and set it next to the bottle of water.

"I really need some of those," Josh begged.

"In a minute. There's something we need to get out of the way first."

The girl who looked like Emily Pridham reached them, and although she took it all in, she didn't seem the least surprised to see Matt and the others being held at gunpoint.

Matt glared at her. "Where's Ellie? Why isn't she with you?"

She said nothing, only approached Peterson and stood before him. His face filled with impatience. "'Bout damn time. I've been chasing you down all day. We got work to do." He grabbed Josh under his shoulder and yanked him back into a sitting position, ignoring the pain-filled yelp that slipped from his lips. "This is Josh Tatum. Let me see your arms."

The girl studied Josh for a moment, then held her arms out. Unlike the sweatshirt she'd worn earlier, the sundress did nothing to conceal the writing that covered her skin. It started just below her shoulders and went nearly to both wrists. Names. Dozens of names. Peterson's eyes squinted as he read. He even reached for his shirt pocket, searching for the glasses he normally kept there. He swore softly when he realized they were gone. Then he drew in a breath and shook his head slowly when he found what he was looking for. "I fucking knew it. Right there—see it?"

Rodney leaned in but seemed hesitant to get too close to the girl. He saw the name about the same time Matt did— Josh Tatum was scrawled in blue ink just above her right elbow.

Rodney twisted back toward Josh, looked like he was about to kick him again, but Peterson stopped him. "That's not how we do things."

"Yeah, well maybe it should be how we do things."

Clutching his shotgun, Peterson knelt down in front of Josh again and pushed both the first aid kit and bottled water out of reach. "You'll burn for what you did, do you understand that?"

Josh's face had gone horribly white. "I didn't do it! It was Lynn! You don't know the half of how bad she was—the depression, the medication—she'd been suicidal for months, I tried—"

Peterson slapped him across the face with the back of his hand. "Save it." He got back to his feet and pointed his shotgun at Josh's head.

"Stu, no!" Matt shouted. You can't—"

Peterson's face twisted back to Matt, burning with anger, then turned toward the girl. "Show him."

The girl who looked like Emily reached out and gripped the back of Matt's neck with icy fingers.

Matt's world flashed bright white, then quickly flooded with images—he saw Josh enter the second-floor bathroom in his house, both kids in the tub with Lynn crouched at the side, her back to him. She wasn't just sobbing, she was bawling. The children stared at her in shocked silence. They didn't even look up at their father when he came in, shoved Lynn's head beneath the surface of the water, held her there. She didn't fight back, didn't try to stop him. It wasn't until her body spasmed that she moved at all, then went still. When Josh reached for the heads of Oscar and Gracie, Matt was grateful when the vision abruptly cut off. He didn't need to see what came next for the image to haunt him for the rest of his life. When his eyes blinked open and he found himself back on the sidewalk, the girl was looking down on him, her expression unreadable. He forced the words to come out. "What are you?"

With the barrel of the shotgun still pressed to Josh's head, Peterson said, "She's Judgment."

The blast boomed, and Josh's head vanished in a spray of red and gray.

Gabby screamed.

Addie remained frozen in stunned silence.

Rodney twisted the 9mm around in his hand and gripped it by the barrel over Matt. "You should have killed me when you had the chance."

He brought the gun down on the back of Matt's neck, and all went dark.