The Devil's bed

They left the trees and stood on the cliff overlooking the river. Behind them, the moon was slipping below the horizon. It looked like the last glimpse of a golden child being drawn back into the womb of the night itself.

Nightmare stepped between the woman and the moonlight.

“It’s time,” he said.

At the entrance to Wildwood, Bo swung his Contour off the highway. He stopped beside the county sheriff’s car parked there.

“Everything okay?” he asked through his open window.

The deputy in the driver’s seat said, “Sure, Bo.” He sounded sleepy.

Farther down the drive, after the gates had swung open to let him pass, Bo checked in with Sumner, the agent on duty in the gatehouse. “Anything out of the ordinary tonight, Walt?”

“Heard we might get a display of the northern lights later. I wouldn’t mind seeing that.”

Bo pulled up to the guesthouse. Inside, everything was quiet. The main room was empty. The lights were out in the library. Someone had put a teakettle on in the kitchen, and it was just starting to whistle. Bo turned the burner off and stepped into the room that was the Op Center. Special Agent Adam Foster sat before the monitors. He glanced at Bo and lifted his hand in a greeting.

“Where’s Jake?” Bo asked.

“Still out there working on the camera.”

“Manning?”

“After he talked to you, he left right away. Didn’t even bother to take the teakettle off the burner.”

Good, Bo thought.

Then the perimeter alarm went off.

Bo’s eyes followed Foster’s to the monitor that picked up images from the tripod-mounted cameras that snapped on the instant the motion sensors were triggered. It was dark, but the infrared cameras easily captured the images.

“It’s the First Lady and Moses.” Bo noted the position of the perimeter breach. “They’re heading to the cliffs. Contact the agents in the orchard and get them out there,” he directed Foster. “Let Manning and Russell know what’s up. I’m on my way now.”

Bo hit the front door at a dead run, drawing his Sig from the holster clipped to his belt. He headed straight for the orchard, ran out of the spray of illumination from the yard light, and entered the silver and black of the apple trees in the late moonlight. The low branches made him run a crooked course, ducking and weaving. It was crucial to avoid the limbs not just because they would slow him down, but because the noise would alert David Moses to his coming. He approached the perimeter Moses and the First Lady had breached only a couple of minutes earlier, and he could see the black shape of the Kubota tractor, still parked where it had been left after the attack on Tom Jorgenson. Bo heard voices ahead, and he slowed. He crouched, came up behind the tractor, and pressed himself into its shadow. Shielded in this way, he crept along the body of the Kubota until he could see the edge of the cliff twenty yards ahead.

One silhouette stood against the backdrop of the Wisconsin hills across the river that were glazed with the last of the moonglow, but it was a silhouette with two heads. The First Lady and Moses were so close together Bo dared not risk a shot. The other agents would arrive at any moment and take up flanking positions. From a side vantage, Moses would be a clearer target. Bo could hear the First Lady speaking. Good, he thought. Keep him occupied.

“You made a mistake,” she said. “You were always so smart, David. Be smart now. Consider that you might have made a mistake. I know about your life in that old farmhouse. Isn’t it possible that what you saw you were predisposed to see, what your life up to that moment had conditioned you to see?”

“It’s possible,” Moses replied. His voice was cold and precise, not soft the way it had been when he spoke to Bo in the laundry. “But that’s not what happened. He attacked you. You fought back. I tried to help. Then you both lied, and I was silenced in the only way I could have been. Although I’m sure your father would have been happier if my tongue had been cut off and my eyes plucked out.”

“That’s not what happened, David.”

“Kneel down.”

“Please, just listen to me. Let me explain.”

“You have no more to say. Kneel down. It’s time.”

Jesus, where are they? Bo thought, wondering about the other agents. They should have a clear shot by now.

“Kneel down,” Moses ordered again, angrily this time.

Yes, kneel down, Bo silently urged her. Get low, and I can take him out.

The First Lady said, “No, damn it.”

Bo wanted to yell at her, but he knew that the moment he opened his mouth she was dead. He edged back along the tractor and stepped onto the running board. He felt over the instrument panel until his fingers touched the switch for the headlights.

“If you’re going to kill me,” the First Lady said, in a voice whose quiver seemed as much from anger as fear, “you’ll have to look into my eyes while you do it. I won’t get down on my knees for you or anyone.”