44

MIKE SAT AT HIS desk and studied Professor Dye, engrossed in his work on a computer in the otherwise empty squad room. It was a few minutes after six in the morning, and the day shift officers wouldn’t begin arriving for almost another hour. Mike still had the feeling there was something Dye wasn’t telling him, that there was more to his story about dead Native American mothers, and spirits inhabiting human host bodies, but he couldn’t imagine what the professor might be withholding.

It seemed clear the man was trying his best to help. He was genuinely stricken that Sharon Dupont had disappeared right from under their noses. The moment they arrived at the empty municipal building this morning the professor had asked to work at a computer terminal with Internet access, immediately losing himself in his work.

The two men had ridden in near-total silence, exhausted and depressed, to Mike’s apartment after leaving the site of the bonfire. They stopped for a moment at Warren Sprague’s home, finding him still awake, sitting at his kitchen table sipping a cup of tea before bed. Sprague had invited them in, but they declined. Mike wanted only to ease his growing paranoia and ensure the farmer was not missing too, as well as receive the landowner’s permission to search the vast, remote field early the next morning. The farmer readily gave it, even volunteering his assistance, but Mike told him he didn’t want one single person in that field who didn’t have to be there.

The pair fell asleep almost immediately upon arriving at Mike’s apartment, the professor dropping onto Mike’s couch and, as he had done at Sharon’s house, steadfastly refusing to consider taking Mike’s bed. “Let me use the couch,” Mike demanded. “It’s the least I can do, considering all the help you’re giving me,” but Dye wouldn’t consider it, and Mike was just too damned tired to do more than put up a perfunctory protest.

For Mike’s part, rest was difficult to achieve even though sleep came quickly. He found himself tossing and turning, suffering strange, terrifying dreams. He would wake drenched in sweat and shaking with fear, but the nightmares receded into his subconscious the minute he was able to wrench himself out of his uneasy slumber. He assumed the dreams were born of the guilt he felt for failing to protect Sharon, but knowing the cause of the nightmares didn’t make them any easier to take.

By five a.m. Mike finally gave up on the idea of getting any real rest and rose for the day. He padded into the kitchen to put on some coffee before jumping into the shower to try to scrub away the exhaustion, frustration and fear. It didn’t work.

After dressing, Mike sat quietly at the kitchen table sipping his coffee, eventually hearing stirring in the living room indicating Professor Dye was awake as well. The man stumbled into the kitchen and sloshed coffee into a cup. His hair protruded at odd angles from his head, making him look vaguely like a scarecrow and almost drawing a smile from Mike, despite the circumstances. He sipped his steaming coffee and turned to face Mike with eyes red-rimmed and bleary. “When do we go to work?”

Despite his fear and exhaustion, this time Mike did manage a weak smile. “Not until after you finish that coffee,” he said. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks,” the professor said with a grimace. “And this coffee tastes like shit. What do you use for grounds, squirrel droppings?”

“Nah, too bitter. I use cow pies.”

Ken Dye dumped the coffee down the sink. “Then I guess it’s time to leave. Could we maybe stop by the diner on the way to the station?”

Now, the man was engrossed in his work on the computer, sipping his Katahdin Diner coffee and holding it reverently in two hands like it contained the secret of life. At this point, Mike figured, after just a couple of hours of fitful sleep, maybe it did.

Dawn would break in a few minutes, at which time Mike intended to pull the professor away from his research, or whatever the hell he was doing, and move the party back to Warren Sprague’s field. The fog this morning looked just as thick as it had been last night, perhaps even more so, but Mike hoped the watery daylight trying to fight its way through the low overcast ceilings would allow them to see well enough to complete a more thorough search of Warren Sprague’s field.

Sharon didn’t just disappear into thin air, he thought. Even a disgruntled Native American spirit can’t make someone vanish, so there has to be evidence out there that will point me in the right direction. He refused to acknowledge the worm of fear twisting its way through his belly or listen to the voice whispering relentlessly in his ear that Sharon was dead; she must be dead and probably torn into a dozen pieces by now for good measure. The spirit or whatever the hell it was had snatched her right out from under Mike’s nose, and now she was gone, slaughtered, but not before suffering a terrifying and incomprehensibly painful death.

“NO,” he whispered fiercely, pounding one hand on his desk in frustration before realizing, too late, that he was no longer alone in his office. Professor Dye stood awkwardly in front of him, clutching a sheaf of printer paper tightly in his hand. “I’m sorry for intruding,” he said, “but I think you will want to see this.”