Revenant (29 page)

But Manning would have no way of knowing Mike would show up here, and given his rapidly deteriorating mental state, probably wouldn’t care, anyway. Whatever was going on, it seemed obvious Earl Manning was not a part of it. Mike gave a short blast on his siren to let Sharon and Parker know he was here, then opened the door and stepped out to meet them.

At the sound of the siren, Sharon shoved Parker to the ground next to her and stepped in front of him, dropping to one knee and adopting a two-handed shooter’s stance. Mike ducked instinctively behind the cruiser and shouted, “Whoa, it’s me, Chief McMahon! Hold your fire!”

Silence reigned and after a couple of tense seconds, Mike lifted his head over the hood of the car. Sharon remained in a crouch, but she had lifted the gun over her head, its barrel pointed toward the sky. Even from this distance, Mike could see her hands shaking. He stood and walked slowly around the front of the vehicle, holstering his weapon. “It’s just me,” he called. “Are you alright?”

Sharon and Parker nodded at the same time, although neither spoke. She rose and bent in a crouch, hands on her knees, still holding her gun, as Parker stood and brushed off his pants. Given the state of his clothing, it seemed like wasted effort.

Mike moved forward, still cautious and confused, still concerned about a possible trap. “Where’s Manning?” he asked.

Sharon lifted her head to look at Mike and her face looked lined and haggard, like she had aged fifteen years since he had last seen her and not slept a wink in any of that time.

“Earl’s gone,” she said.

44

The cruiser bounced along the fire lane, occasionally threatening to bottom out on the rough terrain, until finally Sharon’s vehicle came into view. Mike was amazed at how deep into the forest Manning had managed to drive it without smashing into a tree and killing his passengers.

Parker was stretched out in the back seat of the police car with his eyes closed. He claimed he was fine, that he didn’t need medical attention, but his complexion was chalk-white and Mike was more than a little concerned about the possibility of the billionaire suffering a heart attack or a stroke. He had called for an ambulance and for backup before entering the woods—both of which were now on the way—but didn’t dare leave Parker and Sharon alone on the side of the road and knew he couldn’t afford to wait for the arrival of backup before ensuring that Earl Manning, the supposedly unstoppable monster, had somehow actually been stopped.

“Where is he?” Mike said softly.

“Front seat,” Sharon answered. Her hands seemed to have mostly stopped shaking and her color, which had been nearly as white as Parker’s just a few minutes ago, was slowly returning.

“And he’s dead?” Mike was dubious. Don Running Bear’s widow had been adamant that there was no way to stop him once he had gained control of the sacred stone.

“He was
already
dead, remember? What I said was that he’s gone.”

Mike stared at Sharon quizzically; still so relieved to have found her alive and more or less unharmed that he was having trouble concentrating on the matter at hand. Finally he shrugged and opened the car door to step outside and investigate. He didn’t understand, but he and Sharon had been through so much together over the past year, he trusted her implicitly. If she said Manning was gone, then Manning was gone. “Stay here with Mr. Parker and I’ll be right back.”

“The hell I will,” Sharon snapped and opened her door as well. “Parker will be fine. I’m coming with you.”

Mike leaned back into the car and peeked into the back seat. “You’ll be all right?”

Parker nodded and waved his hand as if shooing them away.

“Okay,” Mike said. “This should only take a couple of minutes, anyway, and then we’ll get back out to the road and wait for the EMT’s.” He turned away and began walking toward Sharon’s cruiser, wedged into the Paskagankee forest with both doors on the left side of the vehicle hanging open.

Sharon fell into step beside him and he said, “I’ll send a full investigative team out in a little bit, although it will probably have to be after the State guys arrive. But before I do anything else I need to see this for myself.” He stopped and looked straight into her laser-blue eyes. They were beautiful as ever. “How did you stop him?”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. She seemed to be recovering, but whatever had gone down out here in this secluded section of the great north woods forest was still weighing heavily on her. “I think it will be easier to explain after you’ve looked inside the car.”

“Fair enough,” Mike answered, and leaned into the cruiser, grabbing the roof over the door for support. What he saw took his breath away. A pile of loosely connected bones lay in the foot well of the cruiser’s passenger side, covered with the filthy, tattered remnants of what had once been Earl Manning’s clothing. Mike recognized the clothes from his altercation with Manning earlier in the day. They looked as though they had been dragged through a sewer—smelled like it, too.

A grinning skull lay on the bench seat, facing him. Its teeth were gone, scattered around the floor of the cruiser. The sagging skin which had covered Manning’s face—another feature Mike recalled from his fight with the revenant—was nowhere to be seen. The skull looked as though the person it belonged to had been dead for weeks, not minutes.

Mike stood and looked over the roof at Sharon, who had moved to the other side of the vehicle. “This makes an explanation
easier?
”

“I don’t know if there
is
any logical explanation,” Sharon said. “All I can tell you is what happened, although everything went down so fast, it’s kind of a blur.”

“Give it a try.”

“Okay. You know about the history I had with Earl when I was a teenager, right?”

“You told me, yes.”

“Well, apparently he was anxious to relive the not-so-good old days, because after he drove into the woods, he hauled my ass into the front seat and tried to rape me.”

“What?
The guy was a walking corpse, an undead shell of a human being, and he was worried about having sex?”

“I always heard that’s all you guys ever think about. I guess it’s the case even after death.” Sharon flashed a crooked grin and Mike could see how hard she was trying to keep herself together, and his admiration for her increased. He wouldn’t have thought it possible. “Or maybe somewhere deep down he realized he was never going to get out of the mess he was in, with or without Brett Parker, so he figured he might as well enjoy one last roll in the hay, I don’t know.”

Mike stared at her, horrified, and she continued. “Anyway, after he threw me onto the front seat and fell on top of me, I looked up and spotted the wooden box containing his heart and the sacred Navajo stone. He had placed it on the dashboard, for safekeeping I guess. I shoved him hard and grabbed for my gun, which he had jammed into the waistband of his jeans after taking it away from me. I knew I couldn’t stop him by shooting
him,
but I figured maybe if I blasted his heart I could somehow break the mystical connection that was keeping him alive. Or dead. Or whatever he was.”

“What made you think that would work?”

“I had no idea whether it would work or not, but I knew shooting
him
wouldn’t accomplish anything, except to piss him off even more than he already was. I guess at that point I figured I had nothing to lose. I took the shot and got lucky.”

Mike leaned down and looked back into the cruiser. On the dashboard, covered by a blizzard of automobile safety glass, was a shriveled grey lump of muscle tissue that he knew immediately was Earl Manning’s heart. The lump had been torn almost in half by Sharon’s 9mm slug. He blew out a breath and felt suddenly very cold.

“The stone’s on the floor under the brake pedal,” Sharon said. “I assume you’ll want to bag it as evidence, but
I’m
not going to touch it. It’s powerful and it’s dangerous and I’ll be happy if I never see it again. It’s cursed. Literally.”

Mike fell to his knees and rummaged around on the floor until locating the stone. He kept his eyes on Manning’s remains, just a few feet away, not entirely convinced the revenant couldn’t somehow come back to life. But the pile of bones remained motionless and dead.

Mike hefted the stone and stood, examining it closely. It was greyish and smooth and perfectly round. He had half-expected to feel some kind of power emanating from it, but it felt no different than any other rock, just an inanimate lump. But he knew looks could be deceiving.

Sharon backed away instinctively, despite the fact she was on the other side of the vehicle. “Keep that thing away from me,” she said, her voice thin and shrill.

“This is evidence,” Mike said, “and beyond that, it’s Navajo property and should be returned to its rightful owners, eventually. It’s too bad it was destroyed when you fired into the box.”

“What are you talking about?”

He tossed the stone onto the ground without speaking. It landed to the left of the cruiser and rolled to a stop on the forest floor a few feet away. Mike drew his weapon and took careful aim, moving deliberately, determined not to miss. He fired a single shot and the stone disintegrated, pebble-sized chunks flying in all directions, dust rising into the air.

“Like I said,” he told Sharon, who was staring at him with a look of disbelief on her pretty features. “It’s too bad the stone was destroyed. Now, let’s get back out to the road. The ambulance will be along any second and we need to get Parker to the hospital. You should be checked out too, and I want to cordon off this area until we can begin the official investigation.”

Sharon shook her head and Mike knew exactly what she was going to say before she opened her mouth. “I’m not going to the hospital. I’m fine. I’ll stay here and help you.”

“You know the procedure,” he answered. “You were physically attacked and then involved in a shooting, and—“

Sharon glared at him, her blue eyes flashing. “I said I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry, Officer Dupont, but you know the rules. You need to be examined by a doctor. It’s important, and I’m not going to bend on that. You’re going.”

She kicked at the dirt and turned toward Mike’s cruiser, muttering under her breath. “Oh, and one more thing, before I forget,” Mike said. “I’ll need to relieve you of your weapon pending an official review of the circumstances of the shooting. You’ll be assigned to desk duty until the review is complete.”

Without a word, Sharon retraced her steps, unsnapped her holster, and handed Mike her Glock, her lips compressed into a thin white line, fury evident on her face. Then she stomped back to his cruiser, arms folded, and slumped into the front passenger seat. She stared straight out the windshield, refusing to meet his gaze as he slid into the seat next to her.

45

The Katahdin Diner was typically busy this time of the morning, and today was no exception. Waitresses scurried from the kitchen to the dining room and back again, slinging food, coffee and barbs with the customers in equal measure. Mike sipped his coffee and watched as Sharon entered the restaurant, scoping out the dining room, searching for him. It was a rare day off for both of them; the entire department had been working practically around the clock wrapping up the dual investigations of Max Acton’s murder and Officer Dupont’s shooting of Earl Manning.

Sharon finally spotted him in the corner and weaved her way through the crowded diner to his table. She was dressed down in faded jeans and a University of Maine Black Bears sweatshirt, but Mike decided if she was trying to blend in with the rural crowd she was doing a damned lousy job of it.
She could wear a potato sack and look gorgeous,
he thought. Her short pixie hairstyle framed her pretty face as sat, nodding hello, working hard to keep her face neutral.

He had taken the liberty of ordering breakfast for her—a toasted bagel with cream cheese and coffee—and waited for her to complain about his presumption. To his surprise she said nothing, instead sitting and taking a sip of coffee before biting delicately into the bagel.

Mike could see curiosity was killing her. They were no longer dating and she had been placed on desk duty, so there was no reason for him to have called. He was amused and wanted to drag out the suspense just a bit longer. So he brought up the weather—it was unseasonably cool, even for northern Maine. Then they discussed the fortunes of the Red Sox, currently suffering through a horrific mid-season slump.

Finally she could stand it no longer. “So,” she began, and waved her bagel in a circular motion at him.

He shook his head. “So . . .?”

“So, I know you didn’t call me here just to talk baseball, boss. What are we doing here? It’s our day off, remember?”

“Ah, our day off. Well, I thought you might appreciate me getting you up to speed on things.”

“Up to speed? What do I need to get up to speed on? I’m a desk jockey, remember? Do we need to order more toner for the copier?”

He tried, unsuccessfully, to keep from smiling. “Your statement’s not entirely accurate. You
were
a desk jockey. My investigation’s complete and as of now you are officially reinstated to active duty. Welcome back.” Mike picked Sharon’s weapon up off the diner’s vinyl seat next to him and slid it across the table. “I’d have a little ceremony, but I don’t want to freak out any of these happy diners by waving a gun around in the air.”

Sharon stared at her weapon for a moment before picking it up with a smile of her own and placing it on
her
seat. “I almost wish I was wearing my uniform so I could put this baby on my hip where it belongs. But what gives? It’s only been a few days. When you said ‘investigation,’ I pictured a weeks-long process.”

“Ah, that.” Mike waved his hand like he was shooing away a mosquito. “That was just for show. My main goal was to get you to a doctor, make sure you were telling the truth about being okay. Fighting with a dead guy is kind of uncharted territory, you know, in case you weren’t aware of it.”