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At the sheriff’s office, Teresa took a long breath, let it out, and stepped inside. George Riley sat at the reception desk. He glanced up, and his eyes widened. He stood.
“Mrs.—Dr. Hart. What’s wrong?”
“My husband . . .” She allowed her face to contort with grief. “He’s dead. The car . . . he lost control and it crashed.”
George rushed around and pulled a jacket off the coat rack next to the door and hung it on Teresa’s shoulders.
“Please, sit down . . . uh . . .” He led her to a niche between two workstations and helped her ease onto the office chair.
“Can I have something to drink, please?” she asked.
George dashed off through a set of saloon-style doors and clattered around in the kitchen. The clock on the wall above the door said it was just after one o’clock. He came back out with a mug in his meaty hand.
“Excuse me just a minute,” he said. He pulled the radio from his belt and went into an office behind the desks and closed the door behind him, but it didn’t latch. It fell back open a few inches. Teresa heard every word despite the tinny speaker and static.
“George to Ann,” he said. He repeated it. Finally, Ann responded. George went on. “Teresa Hart just walked into the station. She was in an accident.”
“She’s there?” Ann asked.
“Yeah. Dr. Hart, her husband, died in a car crash.” A long pause. Derrick’s sweetheart was probably processing that news.
“Arrest her. Don’t believe a word she says.”
“Okay, okay.”
“I have reason to suspect she killed him and everyone else who’s missing.”
“What? Ann, you have to come down here. I can’t do this on my own.”
“Yes, you can. I know you can. I have something else I need to—” Ann cried out. “Maggie.”
Teresa frowned. Of course Ann was with Maggie. Teresa knew it wasn’t just because her husband’s sweetheart was a cop. She bristled and crossed her arms. It was Derrick’s plan all along. Dump her at Mountain View and live the life he dreamed of with her. His one that got away, as Louise said. Teresa scowled.
“Ann?” George yelled into the radio. “Ann?”
George took a deep breath and let it out. “I can’t do this.” The sound of a fist on a palm. “Yes, you can.”
Teresa looked at the exit. She could run. But then what? Where would she go? She had no one. Truly, now with Derrick gone. She was a fool to believe she could raise Maggie on her own. The girl didn’t even like her. Teresa held out her hands and looked at them. Hands that had taken so many lives in the last few days, all in the name of saving a hopeless marriage and a dead daughter.
George’s footsteps thumped across the floor in the other room. He paused at the door, likely alarmed that it hadn’t latched and probably wondering how much she’d heard.
Eyes on the front door, the exit, Teresa listened. He was going to arrest her. She would go to prison. She would never be reunited with her baby. She ran her hands over her face, through her tangled hair. A hand touched her shoulder. She looked up. Tiffany with her beaming smile. She handed Teresa a hypo and grinned wider.
The door creaked open behind her. George thumped toward her, slow, steady. Did he have his gun drawn? She didn’t want to look, but she had to. She turned.
George’s zoe wriggled at his chest like a fat alien worm thrashing to eat its way inside of his body.
He stopped when he saw her looking at him.
“I don’t know how to say this, but . . .” He rounded the desks and stood in front of her. The zoe pulsed with life. With power. She yearned to feel it again and nearly touched the protruding snake.
“What? What’s going on?” She played dumb.
“You’re under arrest?” George rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and pulled his cuffs off his belt with the other.
Teresa lunged to her feet and plunged the needle into his chest. George Riley, dunderheaded buffoon, simply stood there as Teresa drained his zoe. The barrel filled, and she slid the needle from his chest. His head and shoulders drooped. He stood there, weaving.
Teresa didn’t know what to do. He sort of had her caged in, standing in front of her the way he was, penned between two workstations. She looked at the zoe in her hand, craving the power Derrick’s had given her—but no. Yaldabaoth would hurt Tiffany if she took what was his again.
Instead, she reached out and pushed George with one finger. He wobbled and fell over. Teresa bolted from the station. As soon as she stepped outside, Ruthie’s strangled cries split the air.
Shit.
She had thought Ruthie was dead . . . er . . . re-dead after their previous encounter. Teresa ran in the direction of the abandoned funeral home. Ruthie appeared out of nowhere. The top of her head lay to the side, flopping with each lurching step.
The usual suspects were not far behind. Sheriff with his lumbering gait. Derrick’s slow crawl.
Teresa darted down the dirt road, tossing glances over her shoulder. Ruthie was gaining on her. With the power of the zoe she’d easily outrun the mummified woman. She considered taking just a little hit off the hypo. The memory of her unharnessed desire and how she wantonly opened herself to Yaldabaoth stopped her.
Ruthie shrieked again. It sounded like she’d screamed right in Teresa’s ear. Teresa looked behind her and tripped. She sprawled onto her front. The hypo bounced out of her hand and jangled along the rocks jutting from the road.
Don’t break.
She was about to get up when something landed hard on top of her. It stole the wind from her lungs. Claw-like nails dug into her back, tangled in her hair. Teresa screamed and struggled. Ragged, rasping breath rattled in her ear. Ruthie had her pinned. She was done for.
The zoe lay glowing in a puddle of slushy mud. Teresa relaxed. This was it. The end.
Then Tiffany’s beautiful form, glowing white in the moonlight, appeared at the edge of the woods.
“Mommy,” she called, despair in her voice. She reached a hand toward Teresa.
All of this, all of the killing and the fear and the . . . everything—it was for her. For her Tiffany. Teresa ignored the pains shooting down her back. She bucked her butt upward, throwing Ruthie off-kilter, got her knees under her body, and staggered to her feet. Ruthie clung to her, digging her fingers into Teresa’s shoulders. Teresa screamed again and ran toward the woods, dragging Ruthie with her. Cross the barrier.
She can’t come with me.
Teresa lurched, her legs growing weak. A few more feet. She sloshed through the icy cold stream and crossed over, but something held her back.
Ruthie’s screams doubled in volume. Her body convulsed.
The sound of electricity crackling made Teresa’s head throb. Heat radiated across her back. Teresa tried to move forward, but Ruthie’s arms, wrapped around her shoulders now, pulled at her. Even as the woman thrashed, her arms still held.
Finally, the barrier released them. Teresa cried out and fell forward.
The scent of burned flesh hung in the air. Ruthie’s crispy corpse still twitched on the other side of the barrier. Teresa lifted her hand to her throat and recoiled in horror.
Ruthie’s arms were still on her. She flung them away and crawled backwards in case they came to life and continued Ruthie’s quest to destroy her.
Teresa let out a breathy sob. Derrick and Sheriff McMichael paced along the barrier, stomping on Ruthie’s smoking body each time they passed it. Teresa stuck her lip out in a pout.
Could this day get any worse?
Then she realized she’d left the hypo outside the barrier, on the road, in a puddle.