Blackwood (19 page)

  "Let me just go get him," Miranda said. She should keep Kicks with her, in case these girls forgot that dogs weren't something they ate when the donuts ran out.
OK, not fair. They're acting strangely, but surely they wouldn't…
Kirsten's cheek puffed with her fifth donut.
They might
. And Miranda was leaving with no intention of being the one who brought them home.

  "Gretch is frightened of dogs," Polly said. "Best leave him here."

  Gretchen offered no agreement or denial, but Miranda reluctantly nodded. She'd come back for him.
Before
these girls made it home, as soon as she could ditch them. Sidekick wouldn't know to worry anyway, was probably snoozing or nosing through the trash for wadded up napkins with donut residue.

  She started the car and drove toward town as fast as she dared, meaning the speed limit. She hadn't forgotten that the feds wanted her, that they thought she and Phillips had murdered her father.

  Her father. Her hands clenched for a moment on the steering wheel, then relaxed. Wearing the snake on her face made her feel closer to him than she had since before her mom died. He'd borne this curse too, and she was beginning to understand what that meant. It wasn't just a birthmark. It was something that snaked its way
inside
, too. Her father hadn't been strong enough to fight it. The curse had beaten him.

  What if she wasn't strong enough either? She shook her head.

  Polly barked a choppy laugh that barely sounded like her. "Having a conversation with yourself, Miranda?" she asked.

  "Just an earworm." Miranda slowed the car as it entered a line of vehicles heading into downtown, refusing to glance over at her friend… Her friend who was being extremely weird. "We may as well park back here and walk it, don't you think?" Miranda asked.

  "Fine," Polly said.

  Miranda pulled up to the curb, wanting out of the car. Walking with the others to the courthouse square was a risk, but a crowd would be the easiest place to lose them. She tightened the slipping ponytail she'd pulled her hair into in the hopes of being slightly less recognisable to the agents if they spotted her. They'd only met her once, and Miranda didn't fool herself that her face was capable of launching a thousand ships or lodging in someone's memory. They were trained to remember, though. She wasn't fooling herself about that either.

  Polly grabbed her arm before she could get out. "It
is
good to see your face."

  Whatever fate Miranda was fleeing, these guys might have already faced. She'd wanted Polly to come back, and she certainly hadn't wished for the other missing people to be gone forever either. That they had returned should be a good thing.

  "You too," she said.

  Miranda slipped the strap of her bag over her head and they left the safety of the car. They joined the horde of townsfolk swarming toward the square. The air smelled of sunscreen and sweat, of summer's end. Miranda realised there was every possibility the town rumor mill already knew she was suspected in her father's death. Not that they had ever cared about him before. Then again, the chief would try to keep it quiet for Phillips' sake, and there was the return of the missing to fill the ever-present need for something – or someone – to dissect with the scalpels of gossip. Maybe no one knew yet.

  Everyone left in Manteo had turned out, from the size of the crowd they joined in front of the courthouse. The news trucks squatted in the same locations they'd claimed before. Near one, Blue Doe had a microphone gripped in her hand and a wild gleam in her enormous eyes. The courthouse itself was cordoned off by police tape, setting a perimeter about fifteen feet past the columns and broad porch. A lesser mass of people were inside the cordon, standing with such patience it was clear they were waiting.

  The local police had some help from state troopers keeping gawkers away from the tape, while one of the older officers on the porch repeated with a bullhorn, "Only the missing are requested past the cordon. If you're one of the missing, come up to the courthouse."

  Gretchen and Kirsten moved toward the tape immediately, a state trooper shooting them a nod and smile as they slipped under the cordon.

  When Polly didn't follow, Miranda patted her shoulder. "It's OK, you should go with them now," she said, trying her best to hide the shake in her voice.

  "You will wait for me?" Polly asked.

  
I'm a terrible person
. "Of course," she said. "Now, go. Your parents are probably worried sick."

  Miranda thought they lived somewhere in upstate New York. Polly's lashes fluttered, and she said, "I forgot about them… My parents."

  Where had Polly and the others been for the days they were missing? Where could they have been that she would have forgotten about her parents?

  "They'll never know that," Miranda said. "Go on."

  Polly blinked at her, and then finally walked to the trooper and under the yellow tape. Miranda turned away quickly when he shifted in the direction Polly had come from. Going into a crowd full of law enforcement was not among her top five smartest decisions ever. Had this been one of her favorite shows, she'd be screaming '
Get out of there
!' at the screen. She slipped back through the crowd, intending to do just that.

  "Is that everyone?" officer bullhorn said.

  The crowd continued to talk, speculating how much tourism would pick up after this, how it must have all been arranged, who was in on it and who wasn't. Spinning theories to make sense of the mystifying now that the missing were herded before them, no longer missing.

  "Silence, please." The officer roared into the bullhorn. "Now. Do we have everyone?"

  The crowd stopped talking, necks craning to see inside the cordon. Miranda stopped, afraid to keep moving when no one else was.

  "Last call for members of the missing to join us behind the tape," the officer said.

  Miranda turned her head and watched Chief Rawling come through the front door of the courthouse and stride over to take the bullhorn. "Welcome back, everybody," he said. "We knew the town would want to see you, to know that everyone is OK. That's why we're doing things this way. If you could just stay here, we'll be coming through to take your names and then take you inside for your statements. We'll get you back to your families as quickly as possible."

  Miranda had felt like she was under a spotlight the entire time she'd been in the crowd, but suddenly the snake pulsed. She scanned the mass of people and, all the way on the other side of the square, saw Bone pointing at her. She read his lips: "There she is!"

  He was with his friends, but his father was standing behind them and he cuffed Bone's ear. Dr Roswell focused on her location too. The crowd had begun a low buzz of conversation after the chief's announcement, and that saved her. She had to get out of here.

  She took one last look at the courthouse where the missing were arrayed and stopped. They were arranged in a familiar formation. Some were higher, being on the porch between the columns, and some lower, down the stairs, on the sidewalk and lawn. In tidy rows, each of them turned to the other in sequence. They weren't wearing the gray cloaks from her dream, but their arms wound through the air in similar fashion.

  The crowd hushed again, and Miranda had trouble breathing. This was no dream. She forced herself to look away from the movements of the missing and found Roswell cutting through the crowd toward her. He dragged Bone along by his arm.

  Miranda shoved her way past people murmuring their confusion about the bizarre arm-waving actions of the no-longer missing. Phillips trusted Roswell, but she barely knew him. And she definitely didn't trust Bone.

  She made it to the crowd's thinner edge, ready to head for Polly's car. She couldn't resist checking behind her, to confirm what she'd seen. Were they really doing the motions from her dream?

  The missing were still clearly visible, on the raised porch and just below it in their rows. But they stood normally, arms relaxed, making her wonder if she'd imagined their actions. No. The crowd – they'd reacted. This wasn't like at the theater with the ship. Everyone else had seen their movements too.

  Frowning, about to take off, she almost missed him. He walked under the police tape and entered the rows of the returned people. He stopped and looked at her, unmistakably
at her
. She wouldn't have been sure it was him if she'd never seen the photos from their wedding day. That suit had been from the Salvation Army, but this one was nicer. Better cut. He could have been a businessman.

  Instead, he was her father.

18

No Escape

Miranda hadn't known her dad could clean up so well. His hair had been trimmed into a tidy cut, and no stubble shadowed his cheeks. His complexion was pale instead of ruddy, his eyes clear. He tilted his head down, as if to greet her.

  She wanted to go to him, felt compelled by some magnetic force. She took a step toward him without meaning to.

  "
Come to me
." The whisper seemed to come from beside her ear. She stumbled.

  "Miranda Blackwood!" Roswell called out, and a few people nearby noticed her.

  "Poor girl. Her father got murdered – that family truly is cursed," someone said to the person next to them, and Roswell called "Miranda!" again.

  She snapped out of the blind-need haze. No one else recognised her father. And why would they, when she barely did herself? They might gossip about him, but she doubted they ever bothered to look too closely. To them, this man was a clean-cut stranger in a suit. They probably thought he was a disappeared tourist.

  The man who
had
to be her father – but who didn't
feel
like him, somehow – curved his lips in the slowest smile she'd ever seen. The expression was as foreign as his made-over appearance. She was certain the voice next to her ear had been his, even though his lips hadn't moved, except to offer that slow smile.

  Even though she hadn't recognised the voice as her dad's.

  A couple of rows away from him, Chief Rawling held a clipboard and talked to one of the returned. He paused to scan the crowd, which meant he'd heard the good doctor's shouts. The woman the chief had been talking to swiveled. It was Polly. The sun fell directly on her features, her face pinched as she followed the chief's lead and scrutinised the surge and press on the other side of the rope line.

  Miranda shrank behind a large man in the crowd, hiding.
My father is dead
. She called up the memory of him laid out on the shiny table in the funeral home, the cold air and antiseptic smell of the room returning like a sudden sweat.

  "Miranda!" The shout sounded nearer. "I just want to talk. It's about Phillips!"

  
Nice try
. That crackpot was going to get her busted.

  She made sure the keys were ready in her hand before she went for the car. There was no looking back this time, no Sidekick to get distracted by the evil phantom ship, no one but her. And then she was behind the wheel of Polly's car, tossing her bag into the back and turning the key in the ignition, jerking the car into drive and out of the spot.

  She executed a three-point turn in the middle of the wide street, not willing to do a drive-by of the scene or risk getting caught on a throng-blocked street. She didn't miss Pineapple this once, because Polly's Taurus made a far more reliable getaway car.

  In the rearview mirror, she spotted Dr Roswell on the street behind her. His hands were propped on his hips, head shaking. His face was as pink as Bone's when an insult landed.

  It was too bad if she'd hurt Roswell's feelings. Phillips could apologise for her later. She didn't have time to worry about him. No, her worry was fixed on her father – or was that on the man who wore her father's body?

  Dead men didn't hit the salon and go out for a stroll, not even on Roanoke Island. Or did they?

  She barely knew where she was headed until she arrived, only to wonder if she might finally be losing her mind.

Phillips waited as long as he could, composing a symphony with the drumming he inflicted on his legs. But he couldn't sit tight any longer. Either the drugs had worked their sleepy magic, or his plan had tanked and he'd head directly back to his to jail cell without passing go. There was one way to see whether his fate was door number one or…

  "Opening door number two," he murmured. He stuck his hand through the bars and fit the key into the lock. He clamped onto the door with his other hand, avoiding a clank by holding the metal in place when the tumbler released. Slowly, he eased the door open and slipped into the hallway. The voices lowered, like they were worried about giving him away.

  So far, so not descended upon by angry young officer. He hurried up the hall, stepping softly, glad for his sneakers. He hit the end of the hallway, the front door of the station in sight, and judged it an acceptable risk with everyone else otherwise occupied.

  The cough startled him.

  In the waiting area, Officer Warren was slumped into a chair the powder blue of a bad tux. He looked like he was fighting hard to stay conscious.

  Phillips checked the station floor and spotted the FBI agent. He laid forward on the coffee table with his head on his arms, like a kindergartener at naptime. If kindergarteners were bald and wore black suits.

  Officer Warren's next sound was a massive yawn mixed with a frustrated moan. He said, "Don't… be… stupid."

  Phillips noted the gun loosely gripped in the cop's left hand. "I'm not," Phillips said. "That's always been one of my biggest problems."
That and hearing the dead.

  The officer clearly put forth a massive amount of energy to get his next sentence out. He said, "You'll go to jail. For real."

  Phillips nodded. "Probably."

  "I hope whatever you're leaving for's worth… that."