Cybercreep had mandated a night meeting. Because it was the height of the season, bars, cafés, and many shops were open until eight or later. Cecelia’s Coffee Shop was open until nine thirty. The cybercreep said they needed to be there at nine.
Everything about the time bothered Heath.
Poor little creep probably was hoping for darkness, she thought. Too bad the sun wouldn’t set until nearly ten o’clock. That failed to comfort her. Dusk was probably worse. Often it was harder to see at dusk than it was in the middle of the night. Dusk was like a gray fog; normal shapes fooled the eye, strange shapes appeared familiar.
Of course, Bar Harbor would be lit up for the tourists.
Light was probably worse than dusk. Light meant shadows. Black shadows under docks, between boats floating in black water.
Everything about the place bothered Heath.
Why not midnight in a haunted house, or in the deep dark of the forests? Anna said the lonelier the place, the easier it was to spot the bad guy coming, to see where he parked, to hide in place until the appointed hour. In towns there were crowds; plenty of people that wouldn’t be him, and only one son of a bitch who would. Hard to tell the good guys from the bad guy.
Meeting in town probably meant that he wasn’t planning on kidnapping E. That, too, bothered Heath. Since it was almost a guarantee he meant Elizabeth no good, if he didn’t intend to take her, then he must intend to harm her. An attack in town would be sudden, like a lightning bolt from a cloud of tourists, all but one of whom were innocent. A gunshot? A head shot? Heath shuddered at the image and gasped.
“You okay, Mom?” E asked. They were just rounding Bald Porcupine Island. E was seated beside Heath in the stern of John’s boat as it turned toward the dock at Bar Harbor. They were holding each other’s hands, leaning close to be heard over the noise of the engine. Gwen was at the console with John.
“Never better,” Heath muttered. “Never better.”
“Would it cheer you up if I told you that you look like a whale that got spray-painted at a ‘Back to the Sixties’ party?” “Elizabeth asked.
Heath stared down at her lap. She was wearing Dem Bones beneath a riotously colored maxiskirt. Over that was a long fuchsia tunic with turquoise embroidery down the front that Anna had picked up at the thrift store where she bought the skirt. Heath’s punishment for insisting on being part of the festivities. Sunglasses were out since Cybercreep had opted for night ops, but she wore a moderately battered purple sun hat with a wide brim. All in all she was, if not a perfect picture, at least a pretty good likeness of an overweight tourist with a good heart and bad taste.
If the pervert did recognize her, she would never forgive him.
He won’t, she told herself, as she had insisted to Anna. For the past seven years—all of her life with Elizabeth—anyone who knew her knew her in a wheelchair. Many never saw past the wheelchair. Upright, walking, even with canes, was the ultimate disguise. Heath Jarrod was “the lady in the wheelchair,” not “the fat lady hobbling down the sidewalk.”
“And you look like a fourteen-year-old boy,” Heath teased her daughter.
Elizabeth smoothed her palm down the flat front of her shirt, her breasts squashed beneath the Kevlar. “This thing is more uncomfortable than a bra. I’m surprised Anna wears one.”
“I don’t think Anna’s worn a bra since she burned her last one in 1971,” Heath said.
“The bulletproof vest,” E said with exaggerated patience. Heath had known what she meant; she’d just wanted to make herself think things were a joking matter when they weren’t.
“Regulations,” Heath said. “Otherwise, I expect she wouldn’t.”
“Will she have somebody else’s tonight?” E asked. “I hadn’t thought about that. If I have hers, will she be, like, vulnerable and stuff?”
“Anna can take care of herself,” Heath said. As the words came out of her mouth she remembered Anna tied to the lift, naked, unconscious, and covered in blood.
As if her mind were running along the same channels, Elizabeth said, “Anna isn’t getting any younger.”
“Older is tougher, like beef and redwoods,” Heath said.
“Do you know where she’ll be?”
“No. Not exactly. She’s sort of wandering the general area. But she’ll be close.”
Cybercreep had insisted Elizabeth come alone. Unless he was a total idiot, he had to know that there would be watchers, that this was a trap as much for him as for E. He must be gambling that no one would dare be too close, that he would have space to do whatever it was he wanted to do, then get away before they could catch him.
“Maybe he just wants to talk,” Elizabeth said.
“Let’s hope so,” Heath replied grimly. “We’re here.”
John had cut power. Under his experienced hands the boat was gliding effortlessly alongside a dock below a large parking lot that served the picturesque downtown area of Bar Harbor. Nimble as his own grandson, John Whitman leapt over the gunwale to snick two yellow lines fast, one at the bow and one near the stern.
Walt had wanted to be a member of the party. Anna had nixed that. Heath had no doubt the nixing was a waste of breath. What red-blooded young hero wouldn’t want to save the damsel if he got the chance? Walt would be lurking somewhere around the town square. Since he had been unknown—even to her—until the previous day, Heath wasn’t worried his appearance would scare the cybercreep into hiding or precipitous action. In fact, Heath hoped he would disobey Anna. If Heath had her way, the town would be full of young, strong, kind, brave boys in love with her daughter.
Young, strong, kind, brave, sane boys.
Were boys who bullied, took sexual advantage, loved pornography, and the shame and subjugation of women, technically insane? Given that society at large behaved in much the same manner, didn’t that make the nasty boys the norm? Was virtue, once its own reward, now a symptom of a mental disease?
Physical demands chased away the bitter thoughts as, with the help of John and Elizabeth, Heath disembarked and got herself squared away on the pier: hat firmly on head, crutches in hand, tunic over thick waist and legs, feet pointed toward the landing ramp.
From the low dock, Heath could see that the town was lit up and the parking lot was full, but little else. It wasn’t more than a couple hundred yards—and two ramps—to where she had chosen to plant herself for the duration. Over the past couple of weeks, she’d gotten good with Dem Bones. Two canes were still needed for balance, but her gait was relatively smooth and her endurance far greater than it had been at the start. Still, she didn’t want to use up her strength getting up to city level and through the parking lot, so she waited while John unloaded Robo-butt and Gwen unfolded it.
Gwen stayed with the boat while John rolled Heath up to the pavement, then halfway down the long parking area. There, he took the wheelchair and left her and Elizabeth standing in the shadow of a Chevy Suburban. He and Gwen would wait with the boat, ready to leave if leaving suddenly became necessary.
The time was eight fifteen; the sun was low in the west, veiled with clouds, the sky a deep lavender. Heath’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the bright lights and big city. They had expected some foot traffic at this hour, but the square was packed with bodies. “What in hell…”
“People are wearing their pajamas!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
“And bathrobes and slippers,” Heath said. “And I thought I looked silly.”
For a minute or more they stared at what looked like a combination sleepover and shop-a-thon. “Lookie,” Elizabeth said, pointing east of the parking lot where a lush lawn stretched in a smooth green apron down to the Atlantic. A vinyl sign, hung between two poles, read SEASIDE CINEMA! TONIGHT SHOWING THE PAJAMA GAME. Though it was not yet dark enough to start the movie, blankets were already spread, and pajama- and nightgown-clad moviegoers were lined up buying popcorn and sodas at a snack bar made to look like an old horse-drawn wagon.
Around the grassy area, the shops had doors open and lights on. Handwritten signs advertising Night Owl Specials, Midnight Snacks, and Pajama Party Sales were stuck on sandwich boards on the sidewalks and taped in windows.
“Holy shit,” Heath breathed. “Talk about the unexpected.”
“I bet this is why Creep-O wanted to meet ‘day after tomorrow.’ I wondered about that, but just thought he had a dentist appointment, or date, and wasn’t free to torture people yesterday. I bet he was waiting because there’d be this big crowd today.”
Heath bet her daughter was right. She bet she wanted to call this whole thing off, run—or walk mechanically—back to the boat, escape to Boar Island, disable the lift so nobody could call it down, and barricade her daughter in the tower.
Anna was here, she reminded herself, and a beefy ranger named Artie. Walter was surely here somewhere. Elizabeth was wearing a bulletproof vest. She knew not to eat or drink anything given to her by anybody, including waitstaff. She would never be out of Heath’s sight or Anna’s.
Damn, but Heath wished she knew where Anna was. It took an effort of will not to try to find her in the flannel-and-fleece crowd.
“Are we ready?” Elizabeth asked. “I feel overdressed.”
To Heath’s eyes Elizabeth looked beautiful, and as fragile as a butterfly fresh from the cocoon. She wore skinny jeans, tennis shoes—for running, Anna had insisted—and a loose boy’s plaid shirt Walter lent her to disguise the thickening of the vest. Heath gazed at her daughter so long that Elizabeth started to roll her eyes. “Sorry,” Heath said. “You look fine.”
“Fat,” E said. “Somebody should tell Anna that Kevlar makes you look fat.”
“Go,” Heath made herself say.
E walked farther down the parking lot. A few rows before the street, she stopped and hid in the shadow of a pickup truck, the kind that look like they’re on steroids and have never hauled anything heavier than the ego of their owner. Both E and Heath would stay out of sight until twenty minutes of nine. At that time, Heath would make her way across the grassy square and pretend to window-shop in the stores to either side of Cecelia’s Coffee Shop. At ten minutes of nine, Elizabeth would enter the square from the parking lot, walk straight across the center of the lawn where the most light and people were, and take a seat at one of Cecelia’s outdoor tables. If no tables were free, she would stand with her back against the wall of the coffee shop, watching the square, until she was contacted. Artie, the only person other than Walt that they were sure would be a stranger to the cybercreep, would already be in place, seated at an outdoor table absorbed in the American obsession of drinking caffeinated beverages while staring at electronic devices.
If the creep did contact Elizabeth, and did not attempt anything hostile, both Heath and Artie would photograph him with their devices. Artie and Anna would tail him when he left. No attempt to capture him would be made near Elizabeth. Less dangerous that way.
If the creep made hostile motions, Artie would take him down.
Heath ran through this in her mind as her legs were propelled off of the concrete and, with scarcely a hitch, onto the lawn. Canes were a great help. People tended to make way for a wheelchair, not so much for canes, but some. When they didn’t, she batted them gently with the end of the cane, and apologized. Dem Bones was miraculous, but running obstacle courses and doing ballet had yet to be programmed into it.
Crowds. Dense crowds.
This bothered Heath more than the time and the place.
Artie was armed, and licensed to carry concealed weapons when off duty, as was Anna. The density of the crowd made that problematic. A bullet could easily pass through the villain and into two or three innocents before it came to a stop. At the moment, Heath didn’t care if it mowed down all of Pajama Land, as long as E was safe.
Anna would care, as, Heath presumed, might Artie. Better no guns, she told herself as she maneuvered around a big man with a bushy beard wearing blue footy pajamas and a Red Sox baseball cap. E would be too close to the action; it would be too easy for a bullet to go astray. If the cybercreep had a gun—
No, Heath told herself firmly. That was not a thought she had allowed herself to entertain for the past forty-eight hours, and she wasn’t going to entertain it now. If the bastard had a gun he wouldn’t need all this meeting business. He could wait outside their house, or E’s school in Boulder, and just blow her away at his convenience: no waiting, no air travel, no coffee date.
Sweating so profusely her hands were slick on the rubberized handles of the canes, Heath reached the far side of the square where Cecelia’s was located. Twelve o’clock—that was what had been decided so they could tell one another where to look: The green was a clock face, Cecelia’s was twelve o’clock, the grassy point—now the cinema—was at nine o’clock, the parking lot where she and E entered six o’clock, and the west part of town three o’clock.
Heath was across the narrow street from the coffee shop at twelve o’clock, the outdoor movie theater at nine o’clock on her left. For a minute or two she stood still, breathing, trying not to sweat, to fit in as a general-issue tourist at a pajamarama. If such a thing existed.
After a moment she spotted Anna. Had she not seen her in costume before she left Boar, she wouldn’t have recognized her. Munching popcorn, Anna was leaning against a tree at about ten o’clock, ankles crossed. Her long braid was concealed beneath a loose flowing shirt over wide-legged soft palazzo pants. A Greek fisherman’s cap, the cheap kind available in most of the souvenir shops, was pulled low on her forehead. The greatest disguise was the makeup. Anna Pigeon wore red lipstick, smoky eye shadow, and mascara. Beautiful and urban on someone else, it was oddly disturbing on the ranger, rather like seeing false eyelashes on a young Clint Eastwood.
Anna had to have seen her; Heath looked like the Mayflower, as envisioned by Peter Max, under full sail, but her gaze wandered past and through without a flicker of recognition.
Encouraged by the sight of her friend, Heath managed the step off the curb and crossed the street to the shops. Artie looked up as she passed. He didn’t recognize her. Heath felt a mild lift of her spirits.
Facing a children’s bookstore as if she were shopping, she watched the reflection of the front row of cars in the big parking lot at six o’clock appear and disappear as waves of people ebbed and flowed over the green space. She didn’t see Elizabeth until she was halfway across the square, seeming very small in the big shirt and dark, tight jeans. Shoulders slightly hunched, she looked around as she walked, peering into the faces of the people she passed.
That was okay. Cybercreep would expect Elizabeth to appear frightened. After all, he’d spent weeks carefully fraying every single one of the girl’s nerves. One of these happy people in bunny slippers was feeding on E’s fear at that very moment. Anger, so intense it dimmed her vision, flooded Heath’s entire being.
Her vision didn’t clear. The world was viewed through a glass dimly. Heath’s head swam; her balance faltered.
Lights had gone from the windows. Gone from the square.
Her tenuous vision of her daughter’s reflection had vanished.