The Dark at the End

10

They had a litany going…

“We can’t just leave her there,” Weezy said for what seemed like the thousandth time.

And each time Jack gave the same reply: “We don’t have a choice.”

They stood inside the door to the O’Donnell house, looking out on Dawn’s Volvo, collecting snow as it sat in the yard.

After Weezy’s call from the garage, Jack had moved Dawn and Georges into the O’Donnell garage, where they joined Gilda on the floor. He’d arranged them along its west wall, Dawn supine, covered by a sheet from the house, the other two facedown. Then he’d eased the Crown Vic in beside them-a tight fit even if the garage had been empty-and closed the damaged doors. Their hinges had been loosened and twisted a bit, and the latch was broken, but he’d managed to jury-rig them so they stayed closed.

Then he’d taken the Volvo and its little passenger into Amagansett to pick up Weezy. Snow had begun to accumulate on the asphalt, but the Volvo handled nicely.

He’d tensed himself during the ride, waiting for one of those screeches, but it never came. A glance in the rearview mirror showed the kid asleep. Good thing, too. He’d pitched a fit when Jack had taken his mother away, screeching like the proverbial banshee. Jack hadn’t known whether it was maternal attachment or removal of his snack. He’d been chowing down on Dawn’s blood with lip-smacking gusto. Jack had wiped the blood off the dashboard before heading for Weezy, and now realized he should have cleaned up the baby’s face as well. But he’d had more important things on his mind.

Like how to salvage this clusterfuck.

He’d found a snow-dappled Weezy rubbing her hands and stamping her feet in front of the empty produce stand.

“Sorry to take so long,” he said, turning up the heat as she got in. “Cleanup took longer than I expected.”

Shivering, she slid into the passenger seat and held her hands over the dashboard vents.

“’S-s-s’all right.”

She glanced at the baby in the backseat and grimaced.

“Was I right?” he said.

“Not so bad.”

She had to be kidding. Then again, this baby belonged to Dawn, her surrogate daughter, and so maybe Weezy was seeing the child with different eyes.

She looked at him again. “Does he really have…?”

“Tentacles? I didn’t check.”

Time had been tight and he was in no great hurry to find out. Plenty of time for an anatomy check later.

She gave him a quick rundown of seeing the tow truck flashers and running out to stop it.

“How did anyone find it?”

“The guy at the garage told me it was reported to the police and the police called them to pick up an abandoned vehicle. That’s all he knows.”

Jack shook his head. “Murphy’s law rules the goddamn universe.”

“The multi verse,” Weezy said.

Unasked questions about Dawn layered the air within the car. Finally Weezy took a deep breath and looked at Jack.

“Dawn… she’s really…?”

He nodded.

Her features twisted as tears began to roll down her cheeks. “How?”

Jack described the scene as he’d found it, then, “The best I can come up with is somehow she got hold of the baby, Gilda came after her with a knife, wounded her, but Dawn fought back and killed Gilda. Then Georges killed Dawn.”

Weezy buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God. It’s all my fault!”

He sighed. “Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

“Well, it is. I never should have left her.”

“You saw the flashers. I’d have hauled ass down there too.”

“But if I’d stayed-”

“This never would have happened? Okay, probably not. But just because you could have stopped her if you were there doesn’t make you responsible for her bad decisions. And she made a whole series of them, one right after another: leaving the house, going to the mansion, entering the mansion, taking the baby. At any point along the way she could have made the opposite choice, but she didn’t.”

She raised her head and looked at him. “That’s awfully cold.”

Yeah, it was, wasn’t it. But anger was leaving him feeling pretty damn cold at the moment.

“Sorry, but that’s the way I see it.”

“She was a young mother, her baby had been taken from her, she wasn’t thinking.”

“Exactly. This wasn’t all about her. There’s a bigger picture. We explained that. But in the end none of that mattered to her. Dawn-Dawn-Dawn-that was it.”

Weezy was staring at him with a worried expression. “What’s happening to you?”

“What’s happening to me? How about what’s happening to us -as in the whole world? How about she’s blown this primo chance-a near-perfect setup-to stop this guy.”

“How can you say it’s blown?”

“Well, Georges isn’t going to be waiting at JFK to pick him up tonight. And neither Georges nor Gilda will be answering the phone-death tends to create something of an impediment to that. He’s no idiot. When Georges doesn’t show and he can’t contact either of them, don’t you think he’ll suspect that maybe, just maybe something’s amiss? And when he does, he’ll head elsewhere. Maybe turn around and catch the next flight to Timbuktu or anywhere far from here. We’re losing our last chance to stop the Change. And when the Change happens, how many deaths will be laid on Dawn’s doorstep?”

“There’ll be other chances.”

“Not like this one.”

She gestured toward the backseat. “We have him.”

“Yeah, there’s that-assuming the kid is crucial to his plans. If not… then, as Abe would say, we’ve got bupkes.”

She reached out and patted his arm. “You can salvage this.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. I have faith in you.”

“Swell.”

He didn’t tell her that he hadn’t a clue as to how to accomplish that.

He’d turned into Nuckateague and sensed Weezy pulling into herself as they neared the house. Dune Drive was quiet as, well, a tomb-and would be sort of functioning as one for a while. As he approached the mansion and the O’Donnell house he couldn’t find a clue that all hell had broken loose here less than an hour ago.

She’d insisted on seeing Dawn’s body. He’d warned her it was bloody and she’d suffered an ugly death, but she’d insisted. And when he’d pulled the sheet down, she lost it.

She’d recovered somewhat now, but was keeping up the how-can-we-leave-her-there-like-that? litany. The most rational woman he’d ever known had surrendered all her critical faculties.

“You’re not thinking, Weez. Where can you take her?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t just-”

He raised his hands. “Please. Stop. You’re talking about driving around with a dead body in your car. Not just dead- murdered. So you can’t take her to a funeral home or even an ER without winding up being asked a lot of questions you do not want to answer.”

“But-”

“Think of it as cold storage.”

“But rats… mice…”

He realized he had to give her something.

“Okay, here’s what I can do: Before I clear out, I’m going to wipe this place down-everything we might have touched. After I’m gone I’ll call the East Hampton police and report bodies in the O’Donnell garage on Dune Drive. I’ll even give them Dawn’s name so she can be buried with her mother.”

Weezy thought about this for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. I guess that’s the best we can do. It means she won’t be out there for long. I’ll help you wipe down and-”

“No. You take the baby and head for the city.”

“The baby?”

“Well, yeah. You’ve just become his unofficial guardian.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about babies.” Her hand shot up as Jack opened his mouth. “And please, no Butterfly McQueen references.”

How had she guessed? Was he that predictable?

“You mean there’s something you don’t know?”

“I never found babies very interesting.”

“Better start reading up on them because you just became Aunt Weezy.”

Her expression reflected mild panic. “This is serious, Jack. I’ve never had contact with children, especially babies, and this is no ordinary baby.”

“That’s for sure.”

“I mean, what does he eat? Formula? Cereal? Were they feeding him Jell-O or jelly or something?”

“What?”

“He’s got red smears on his face.”

“Oh, um…” He decided not to burden her with that detail. “I have no idea what Gilda was feeding him.”

“Jack, what’ll I do?”

“You’re the smartest person I know. You’ll figure it out.”

Weezy looked ready to cry again. Jack couldn’t help it. To do what he needed to do, he needed her and the baby gone.

They packed up Dawn’s things and Weezy’s things, and within half an hour she and the baby were on their way, leaving Jack at the door staring across the empty yard at the equally empty mansion on the far side of the street.

Dawn had deep-sixed his original plan. Had to be another way to salvage this opportunity. He’d have to improvise.

Jack hated to improvise.