The Devil's Dream: Book One (17 page)

Now though, he could
take that weak woman and put her to some good use. Maybe she had
parents that would miss her and maybe she didn't. Maybe she remarried
and mothered children. There could be people connected to her that
would feel the pain when he took her.

Then again, maybe she
was only ten years older and alone. Matthew didn't care. She let that
monster Lucent run wild with his sex life, let him leave their
marriage hollow and meaningless, and then called him a gentle giant
after he murdered a seventeen year old kid for being black. If anyone
in this world, besides the four men who gunned down Hilman, deserved
to die in Hilman's place—it was this weak scum of a woman who
didn't care anything for her own life.

Matthew still looked at
the glass box in front of him. He'd gotten lost inside his head for a
few minutes but found his way back out. He didn't like being in there
anymore, not after all those years with no release. He wanted to be
in the present, to view the world around him as it came instead of
focusing only on how he could manipulate it all.

He walked to the glass
box and pushed opened the door. He stepped inside, closed it behind
him, and sat down.

He could see his finger
prints on the glass and knew he would need to clean them, probably
over and over until his son was born. That was fine. He'd cleaned up
after Hilman as a child, and now he would clean up after himself in
the same manner. Nothing could pollute the inside of this birthing
room, nothing could harm the chances that he would return. Matthew
lay down, his arms spread out to the side and stared up at the lights
shining from the ceiling. He listened for the tubes pumping blood
around the boy's body, exiting one hole and entering another, but
heard nothing. Only silence in this room. He would have to do
something about that. He didn't want the first thing Hilman heard to
be silence, the absence of life.

A few more adjustments
for this room, with four to five new additions outside of it, and
everything would be ready.

The next addition would
be Linda Lucent.

* * *

"I'm not going
into protective custody. That's all there is to it. If you try to
make me, I promise that I'll be on Good Morning America by Tuesday."

Allison looked at the
computer screen, the woman on it much older than Allison remembered.
She'd been pretty ten years ago, beautiful if a bit meek. The last
ten years had been a lot harder than the preceding forty, apparently.
Gray hair, wrinkles at her eyes and forehead. She still possessed
some of the beauty from her youth, but now Linda Lucent looked more
regal than beautiful. With the passing of her beauty, it appeared the
meekness went with it, to Allison's dismay.

Allison was still in
Daytona, the city almost in a state of Martial Law with cops and
F.B.I. agents combing through every possible building they could get
a warrant on. All for nothing, as of now. Not a shadow of the child
or a sound from Brand. He had shown up at the house and walked out
with a child, then dissipated into the air.

Now this broad was
refusing to hide.

"Mrs. Lucent, I
want you to think about what you're saying. Everyone else, everyone
with any kind of connection to the Hilman Brand case has been taken
away and hidden. They can't be found, not even by me. You're saying
you want to stay exactly where you are, the only person who was
directly involved in this case, and just kind of broadcast yourself
to him. You think he won't come for you?"

"I hope he does,
Agent Moore. I hope he comes right to my doorstep so that I can speak
with him a bit. I'm not leaving, not running to some hotel room you
guys have set up to hide."

"Ma'am, in all
honesty, Joseph Welch said he felt the same thing. His wife is dead
and his child is missing, so he's not feeling like that now."

"Well, ma'am, I
don't have any wives or kids to worry about, so we should be okay on
that front."

"And when he hooks
you up to those machines next to that little boy, what do you plan on
saying to him then?" Allison asked.

"I have a few
things to say to my late husband as well, so that'll be fine."

Allison opened her
mouth to speak and then closed it. Lucent sat in another police
station in a suburb outside of Durham, North Carolina. They hooked up
this Skype connection when she refused to get in a police car and
leave her house, allowing Moore a chance to convince her. To no
avail. And maybe that was okay. If they lost her, if Brand took her
from Durham to his lair, there would certainly be a lot of outrage in
both the media and from up the F.B.I.'s food chain. If they lost
her
,
Allison might just lose her job. If they took everyone away though,
took every single possible target out of the picture, Brand would
probably start killing strangers which would be a lot easier for him.
Walk out onto the street, find someone, and snatch them into a van,
disappearing to his laboratory. He wasn't going to stop just because
they took away his original targets. He wanted to kill the people
who'd put his son in the ground, but even more than that, he wanted
his son out of the ground.

If they left the bug
light out though, the insects would fly to it as soon as darkness
came. Fly to it and fry.

"We cannot
guarantee you'll be protected. You're going to have to sign some
forms saying you understand that, that you're doing this at your own
risk."

"That's fine. I'll
sign whatever you need me to," the woman said.

"We're going to
increase the police presence around you as well. You'll notice some
of them and you won't notice others."

"You guys do
whatever you need to, but I'm not changing my life in anyway just
because you're following me."

"Alright. I'll
talk with the Police Chief over there and we'll get you out of the
station in just a few minutes. Thank you, Mrs. Lucent."

The screen on the other
end replaced the aging woman with a man whose belly seemed to know no
ends. It stretched out over his belt, looking like entire fields of
cotton were picked to create the shirt covering him.

"Let her go. Have
her sign the necessary paperwork saying she is taking on all risk,
that she understands we can't protect her, yadda, yadda, yadda."

"You're sure?"
The man asked.

"What other choice
do we have?"

"I like America,
but sometimes I wish we were red China. Just lock her up and let her
out when we think it's good for her."

"Well, make sure
you use your vote wisely, Chief," she glanced down quickly at
the name on the sticky note at her desk, "Chief Landrum, we'll
be in contact pretty soon. We'll need to increase surveillance around
her, but I've got to talk to my boss first."

"Sounds good. Give
us a call anytime."

Allison shut down the
program.

She would tell Art,
without a doubt. He would know there wasn't a lot more she could do
with it. This wasn't the first time the F.B.I. used bait, but it was
the first time she had ever tried it. There was a real danger of
losing this woman, and at the same time, Brand might not even come
for her. He would surely know all the rest of his possible victims
were hidden except for Linda Lucent and that meant she was being
watched, so would he try to take her or simply follow a path of
lesser resistance?

She picked up the phone
in her new office, knowing that within the day it wouldn't be her
office any longer. Her new office would be in Durham—hopefully
across the street from wherever Linda Lucent lived.

* * *

Matthew watched the
prostitute walk down the hallway, turning into the room she'd kept
for at least a week. Matthew stood out on the balcony, a cigarette in
his hand, breathing in the tar and relishing the burn in his throat
and lungs. Pain felt good after so long of nothing. The wall allowed
for no joy, no pain, no humanity at all. The things humans hate, or
take for granted, like the ability to fart was something he relished
in now.

The woman smiled at him
as she passed, and he found himself staring at her ass as she turned
her key in the doorknob. It would be nice, to be with a woman again
for just a few minutes. He could too, could walk down there, pay her,
and then come back to his room when the transaction was finished. He
wouldn't though. He might stare at her ass and smile back when she
passed him, but he would never go down there and knock on that door.
The only woman he would sleep with was Rally, and if she wasn't going
to put out for him anymore, then he would just go on living this
priest's life.

He flicked the
cigarette off the balcony and watched it fall to the graying asphalt
below.

Call Rally then go get
Linda. That was his to-do list.

Matthew turned around
and walked into his hotel room, locking the door with both the knob
and chain. He loaded up his computer, encrypting everything as he had
a hundred times before, then put his headset on.

It rang, and after the
third, she picked up.

"Hello?"

"Ral, you decide
about my offer?"

"Yeah, I have,"
she said without any pause between his question and her answer. "I'll
come."

"You're serious?
You'll come?"

"If only to talk
you out of all this, Matt. A child? You took a child?"

He heard her voice
crack, revealing the tears he couldn't see.

"What's the
difference between an adult and a child? They're both bodies."

"Ask yourself that
question, would you rather Hilman be here or you?" She said.

"What if I told
you I didn't take the child? That the police created a lie in order
to ensure urgency around catching me?"

"You wouldn't
because you're not going to lie to me."

Matthew didn't say
anything for a full ten seconds.

"Now someone else
knows what it's like to lose a son," he said emptily.

"You're spreading
joy everywhere, Matt." The pain in her voice was gone. "Now
when am I coming down there?"

"I have to do
something first, and you might change your mind when I'm done. I have
to go get someone else and then I'll come for you. How long will you
stay?"

"A day or two
should be enough."

"Okay, then. I'll
come get you when I'm done here. I'll see you soon, Ral. I love you."

Matthew hung up on his
end, not wanting to hear the silence of her refusing to tell him the
same anymore.

Mrs. Linda Lucent.
That's what he had to do—get her and bring her here, and the sooner
he did it, the sooner he would be with the mother of his child. He
knew his mistakes would begin piling up if he kept on. Calling Rally
as many times as he had, and now having her come down here. Trusting
her with everything in his life, allowing her the chance to burn it
all. Now Lucent. The most obvious trap he'd ever seen. Matthew
couldn't find a single person he looked for, not even the judge that
presided over the trial of the four cops. Everyone had disappeared
from Earth except for Mrs. Lucent. She was still shitting in the same
toilet she used when Matthew took her whore-banging husband. The
police didn't hide her, and even though cops probably followed her
everywhere, she was still
available
.
She was bait. Obvious bait. Predators don't bite when they know
something is bait, like a worm on a hook. The predator waits for the
next opportunity, the next grub that won't put him on a chopping
block somewhere, with his intestines being pulled from his body.

Matthew didn't care.
The only food he wanted was Linda Lucent.

He wanted the whining
bitch that had sainted her husband and probably took a punch or two
from him over their marriage. He wanted her hooked up next to the
child. They laid the bait out and he was going to take it. Attached
to a hook or a hundred guns, he was going to Durham and would meet
Linda. He would ask her who was more brutal, her husband or him, and
when she answered wrong, he would drag her down here. He'd shave her
head and drill holes into her skull, then hook her up to all the same
electrodes that he had used on her husband.

"He'll go for her.
No doubt about that."

"What makes you
say that?"

The television in
Jeffrey's hotel room was off, but he stared directly at it, seeing
himself and the glass of orange juice and vodka sitting on the
dresser next to him. Half empty. He reached for it, still watching
himself in the television and took a sip. He set it back down before
answering.

"Because he
doesn't think you'll be able to stop him. He's quieter this time, so
far anyways, but I don't think he'll keep that up forever. He may not
give quotable material to reporters anymore, but if he takes her from
under your nose, there isn't going to be much that needs to be said.
What's he going to do? Go pull some rando off the street and hook her
up to the tubes and machines? That's defeating half the purpose of
this whole thing. He'll go for Lucent."

"What do you have
for me?" Moore asked.

Jeffrey laughed.
"Besides guaranteeing his next target for you? What else were
you expecting? An address to the child's body?"

1450
Marina Parkway, Industrial Center, Building A46.

"Where are you at,
Mr. Dillan?"

He stopped laughing,
focusing on the black television again. He took another sip of the
screwdriver. "Looking out at the beach, waiting for you guys to
catch him so that I can write my next novel."

"Think it will
sell as good as the last one?"

Jeffrey smiled. "It's
going to make the last one look like a children's book."

"Best of luck, Mr.
Dillan. Could you tell me what happened to the other half of your
notes in the storage unit? We're missing a good chunk of them."