Page 91 of The Children of Eve

Bern and Doak broke right and left from the Explorer. Theirs was the only vehicle in the drive and the property had no garage. Thin linen drapes hung behind the front windows and the blackout rollers were only partly drawn, enabling Bern to see into the living room. The interior walls were painted an off-white and hanging on them was art that didn’t look to Bern like anything at all, and was therefore probably expensive. The furniture was surprisingly modern, with an Eames-style lounger and ottoman facing a TV in the corner, and a pair of open double doors led into the bright kitchen. Bern picked up no signs of occupation, but that didn’t mean anything. If Seeley was watching for them, he was hardly going to do it while sitting in that Eames chair with a target pinned to his chest, just as they weren’t about to announce themselves by ringing the doorbell.

Bern and Doak met at opposite sides of the front door, where Bern took a step back to blow away the upper and lower locks at the jamb, leaving the door standing ajar. Doak kicked it fully open with his right foot. He was already halfway into the hall when he spotted the draft excluder on the floor, and behind it, a convex plastic rectangle on scissor legs. Doak had enough time to say only “Ah” before the Claymore detonated, distributing seven hundred deformed steel ball bearings in an arc that tore through wood, glass, and—most ruinously—flesh. Doak took the brunt of the blast, his body instantly shredded from the stomach down and his left hand amputated an inch above the wrist. He collapsed to the floor and commenced screaming. Bern, who was close behind, had Doak to thank for not being more grievously injured, but he still took a storm of shrapnel to his left leg, some of which shattered his ankle.

Seeley emerged from the closet under the stairs. A gap in the wood had permitted him to watch the door and judge the perfect moment to trigger the Claymore with the electrical clacker. A second Claymore had been set up by the back door, with another closet spyhole givingSeeley a view of the kitchen. It would have been complicated to activate both Claymores had the intruders split up and taken a door each. Thankfully, the need hadn’t arisen.

Seeley shot the man on the floor twice as he passed, taking care to step around the blood. The screams were a distraction, and one never knew who might take it into their mind to drive down a quiet road at sundown, the local law not being averse to occasional checks. Silence was preferable on all counts.

Aldo Bern had stumbled onto the lawn and was lying on his back. As Seeley approached, Bern made a half-hearted effort to reach the shotgun. Before he could touch it, a woman appeared beside him and put an ornamented blade to his neck.

“No,” she said, and Bern left the shotgun where it was.

Seeley saw the western sky was now fully red. The light of the setting sun was reflected in the windows of the house, so the whole might have been the backdrop for a revenge tragedy. If so, it was not yet the final scene, and neither was it Seeley’s tragedy, nor the woman’s.

There would be more blood to come.

BERN HAD NEVER KNOWNpain like it, and he’d endured two heart attacks. Through the tattered material of his trousers, he could see what remained of his leg, rich with colors of which he had never wished to be cognizant. He could no longer speak, only sob.

He wanted to die. He did not want to die.

Bern’s shotgun was now elsewhere, and the woman’s strange weapon had been set aside. She had no need of it, not out here.

“We have to get him inside,” Seeley told the woman.

He squatted beside Bern. “Turn to your right,” Seeley instructed, “hands behind your back.”

“I can’t move,” said Bern. “It hurts too much.”

Seeley dipped an index finger into the nearest hole in Bern’s leg. Bernshrieked and flailed at Seeley, who struck him across the face before forcing him onto his side and yanking his arms behind his back. Bern felt the bite of a cable tie as his wrists were cinched tight before a handkerchief was jammed deep into his mouth.

“This is going to hurt,” said Seeley, “but not as much as what will come next.”

With that, he dragged Bern into the house.

CHAPTERLXVI

I had assembled a file on Blas Urrea, but it made for grim reading over morning coffee. Urrea might have qualified as cultivated by the general standard of Mexican cartel bosses, but that was a low bar when it came to men whose brutality had altered language itself. In Mexico, azacahuilwas a tamale up to six feet long. Thanks to the activities of the Los Zetas cartel, tozacahuilmeant to roast another human being alive in an oven. Urrea hadn’t cooked anyone, not as far as I could tell, but he wasn’t above acts of beheading, burning, and dismemberment when pushed too far, in addition to his fondness for the sledgehammer as a speedy method of execution. I even had the pictures to prove it.

Zetta Nadeau was really beginning to irritate me. I couldn’t be sure she was trying to protect her boyfriend by stashing him with her parents, but I couldn’t think of a better reason for her to reach out to her mother. It looked like I’d have to visit Anson, though I was still trying to find excuses not to. Negotiating with Ammon and Jerusha Nadeau was guaranteed to leave me with a headache. Unfortunately, the telephone rang, and the ensuing conversation made a trip to Anson unavoidable.

“Doing anything interesting?” Carrie Saunders asked, as I closed an image of five heads placed side by side on an overpass in Coahuila.

“Putting myself off breakfast. I may be in the market should you havea vacancy for a one-off therapy session. I can pay cash, but I’ll expect a discount.”

“If you’re serious, I can refer you to someone I don’t like, but only out of pity.”

“I suppose I’ll just have to cope alone,” I said. “Are you very lonely, or did you have something you wanted to share?”

“I spoke to Noah Harrow, Wyatt Riggins’s clinician,” said Saunders. “He was, needless to say, reluctant to disclose very much, but he did confirm that Riggins had been in touch.”

“Recently?”

“About three days ago. Riggins said he’d misplaced his medication and wanted a new script. Noah said he thought Riggins sounded antsy, but that wasn’t a surprise if he was struggling without his meds. Noah asked him if he wanted to come in for a talk, but Riggins said that wouldn’t be possible for a while. A phone consultation followed, because Noah’s by the book about these things. Ultimately, it ended with Noah agreeing to email a script to a pharmacy and Riggins promising to arrange an appointment down in Saugus as soon as circumstances permitted.”

“Did Harrow tell you which pharmacy?”

“He hemmed and hawed, but eventually decided that identifying it wouldn’t break any oaths. The script went to a Walmart up in Skowhegan.”

“Huh.”

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