The sight of the killer wrenched Crow’s mind into disjointed shapes. It was impossible. He couldn’t be here!

Ruger’s face was as white as moonlight and he was smiling a thin-​lipped smile. Crow opened his mouth to yell, to call for the cop outside the door, but Ruger’s other hand shot out and clamped like an icy vise around Crow’s throat.

“Shhhhhh!” he said, leaning close to Crow to whisper. “You make a sound, hero, and I’ll rip your fucking throat out. You know I can do it, too…don’t you?”

The hands on his arm and throat were immensely powerful and as cold as death. Crow gripped the wrist of the hand holding his throat, but it was like clapping onto an iron bar. The cold flesh didn’t yield at all and the tendons and muscles beneath were like bridge cables.

Ruger leaned forward and pressed Crow back against his pillow, still leaning close so that his mouth was inches away. When he smiled Crow could see the jagged line of broken teeth—the teeth he’d kicked out after he’d driven Ruger headfirst into Missy’s fender. The man’s lips were so red they looked painted and his skin was colorless and smeared with drops of black muck. The worst part was Ruger’s breath…he reeked. Each exhale was like a damp wind blowing from a slaughterhouse. He smelled of spoiled meat and blood and feces.

“Don’t worry, stud,” Ruger whispered in his slithery voice. “It ain’t your time yet. Soon, mind you…but not now. I got better plans for you.” He chuckled. “No…because of you I lost everything. My money, my dope, and those two sweet sluts at that farmhouse. Was that broken-​nosed bitch yours? Val? Was she yours?” He shook Crow by the throat, squeezing harder. Black poppies bloomed in Crow’s vision. “Listen to me now. You took everything away from me, so I’m going to return the favor. Everything you care about, every-​one you love, everything you own…I’m going to take it away from you. How’s that sound?” He squeezed harder and Crow started beating at the wrist, smashing at it with his balled-​up fist—but it was like hammering on a tree limb. “And then…when you are stripped down to nothing, when everything you love is either dead or in ashes, then I’m going to come for you, motherfucker.”

Crow struggled against the grip, but it was like fighting a statue. Ruger squeezed harder.

“And the real fun part is…I’m going to fuck that broke-​nosed bitch so bad that she’ll beg for the bullet.” He pumped his choking hand with each word: “She’ll…fucking…beg…for…it!”

The pressure on Crow’s throat was robbing his arms and legs of strength. Blackness painted the edges of his vision and he could feel himself slipping away as the whole world became a huge black nothing.

He felt the hand on his shoulder. Light, tentative, gentle—and he came awake screaming, flailing with hands and legs, tangled in sheets and IV tubes.

Val screamed, too, and nearly fell off the side of the bed trying to avoid his swings.

“Crow!” she cried, and the voice coming from her bruised throat was a horribly feminine approximation of Ruger’s icy whisper. “Crow—stop it!”

Crow’s eyes snapped wide and sanity came back to him in a rush. This was no dream, no nightmare. It was real…and Val was there. Not Ruger…not some nightmare image of that murderous bastard…but Val. Right here. Warm and real.

He sat up and took her in his arms and held her as tightly as his bruises and hers would allow. “Oh my God!” he sobbed as he gave her hair and face and lips a thousand small quick kisses. “Jesus, baby! I’m sorry!”

Val hugged him back with her one good arm and for a long minute they just sat there, as connected to each other as will and closeness would allow. She wept against him, her tears hot on the side of his neck, and he wept, too. Her grief and pain were as real to him as if they were his own, and he did have his own. Henry Guthrie had been a far better father to him than his own had ever been and he still could not accept that he was gone. Just…gone. The loss of him left a huge hole through his chest.

Finally, slowly, and by degrees, their tears slowed and stopped and they released the dreadful intensity of their embrace. Val sniffed, got tissues for them both from the box on the bedside table, and sat back a bit. She wore a thin pink robe over a hospital gown. Her hair was unwashed and her left arm was in a sling. An IV port was taped to her right hand and Crow suspected that she had removed the tube and slipped out of her room without permission.

Val bent down and kissed Crow lightly on his torn lips and again on the forehead, closing her eyes and holding her soft lips there. He stroked her tangled hair and murmured soft words from their private language.

At length, she sat back again and looked at him with tear-​bright eyes. Her face was bruised and scratched and puffy from unearned tears. Fatigue and grief had carved new lines around her mouth, and her beautiful face had a pinched quality that broke Crow’s heart.

“Daddy…” she began and then her face crumbled into a mask of overwhelming grief and she buried her head into his chest again.

“I know, baby,” Crow murmured, “I know.” Tears burned in his eyes, crested, and broke, spilling down his face and into her hair.

“Oh…Crow…why him?” She raised her head. “Why Daddy?”

He just shook his head.

“He never hurt anyone, Crow.” She screwed up her face and looked at him. “He made me run, he saved my life.”

“I know.”

“That man—that bastard!—he killed him because of me.”

“Hey…hey, now. Let’s not start thinking like that. There is no way that any of this was your fault.”

“Crow…I just ran away. I ran away and he shot Daddy…and I…and I—”

“Shhhh, shhhh. Listen to me, baby, just listen, okay? Okay? That was an evil man. Not just some ordinary crook, but a truly evil man. You have no idea how terribly evil he was. He would have killed all of you once he got all the things he needed. Your dad probably guessed that, and he did what he felt was the right thing. He chased you off into the corn and he ran to draw Ruger’s fire. He died to keep you and Mark and Connie alive. And it worked, baby. Don’t blame yourself, because if you do you’ll make your dad’s death pointless. It wasn’t pointless, was it?”

“N…no…” she said hesitantly.

“Your dad was a great man, and I loved him, too, you know. It took a lot of courage and a lot of love for him to have done what he did. That’s what you’ve got to hang on to. He made a heroic decision. Few men could have taken such a step. Few men would have had the depth of love for their children, or the sheer guts to do it. Are you listening?”

She nodded, eyes wide, tears still streaming, but the look in her eyes had changed. It was a look of innocent childlike wonder that was not in any way childish.

Crow kissed her hand again. “If you hadn’t run when you did, and as fast as you did, then Ruger would probably have killed both of you. Then he would have gone back to the house, attacked Connie, and killed her and Mark, too. But your dad screwed all that up. He helped you get away, and that left you free to go back and save Connie, and you kept that bastard busy long enough for me to arrive. Your dad bought us all that precious time.” He held her fingers to his lips as he spoke. “Your dad made his own choices, and he died a hero. That’s how you’ve got to think about it. Okay?”

“Oh, Crow…” she said, and her voice broke, but this time she didn’t descend into sobs or hysterics. This time there was just a hint of her old strength in her eyes and in the line of her jaw. Crow prayed that more of that strength would come back.

He touched the IV port taped to her wrist and smiled at her. “You snuck out of your room, you naughty girl.”

“They wouldn’t let me see you…and I had bad dreams.” A wince of disgust flickered over her face. “Horrible dreams.”

“Dreams?” he said hollowly, remembering the doozy of a nightmare he’d just had. “About…what?” he asked and immediately realized how stupid that question was.

Val shivered. “You know…about him.” Then the sobs came again and she wept quietly, slow tears carving warm trails across the battleground bruises of her cheeks. Crow held her hand to his own cheek, and he wept with her.

5

Tow-​Truck Eddie lay on his back and looked up at the plain, unbroken expanse of the ceiling above his bed. Sunlight slanted through the windows, bisecting his recumbent nakedness. He had not moved so much as a finger since he’d come home from the orientation for his new part-​time job. He’d just walked in, gone right upstairs, stripped, and lay down on the bed. Only his massive chest moved, rising and falling with deep regularity. Lying there felt good. A mild late afternoon breeze was wafting in through the open windows, the cool air murmuring over his bare skin, puckering his flesh into goose bumps that felt vaguely erotic. He felt his nipples harden, and then his…

“No!” he snapped, immediately angry with himself. With a grunt of self-​disgust he rolled out of bed and went over to the closet, yanked the doors open, and stared inside. The clothes were all neatly folded and precisely stacked. He selected a pair of black sweats and pulled them on, hiding his nakedness, his hands jerking the clothes into place with ferocious shame. After he was dressed, he stood for a while and made himself calm down. The warmth of the cotton sweats changed the tightness of his skin, chasing away the gooseflesh and the shameful erection. He stood with his eyes closed, focusing inward on the events of last night. A smile slowly dawned on his face as the image of the dying man, the Baptizer as Eddie now thought of him, floated with bloody clarity in his mind. It steadied him to think of the Baptizer lying there, covered in blood, broken into all the ritual pieces, arranged in the correct way. Tow-​Truck Eddie knew he had done it just right, had gone through the rite in exactly the correct way, and the knowledge of that chased away the baser thoughts of the flesh, of his own flesh.