The Edge of Sleep

Chapter 23

Ash found Dee’s pills in her purse and painstakingly counted them onto the counter of the bathroom sink. She hadn’t taken any in the longest time. He heard her voice from the other room, high, bright, and animated as she told the new Tommy how lucky he really was that she had found him. Ash wondered if he could force Dee to take a pill. He had managed to do that in the past when she was in her sadness, lying inert in the back of the car. He had been able then to put the pill far back on her tongue and hold her jaw closed until she swallowed. But that was when she was too weak to resist him.

He had never seen her this high, this long, and it frightened him. She was different this time; she seemed to need more, as if Tommy wasn’t quite enough anymore. She was talking more and more about the workers who had taken her boy away, about how she had gotten him back just in time. In the past she had seldom talked about anything but the boy. Now she seemed as interested in revenge on the workers as the boy himself, and the change frightened Ash. He didn’t dare to think it, but it seemed almost as if Dee wasn’t really in control. And if she wasn’t in control of things, where did that leave him? He knew he certainly wasn’t.

If he tried to make her take a pill now, she would fight him and he knew he couldn’t fight back. He could never hurt Dee, no matter what. It wasn’t even thinkable. He would hurt himself before he would ever hurt his Dee.

Ash returned to his position by the door, facing the television set, which sat atop the dresser opposite the bed, the screen canted toward Ash. The new Tommy sat naked on the bed, covering himself with his hands as Dee talked to him. The boy looked frightened, but Ash detected defiance in his face, too. He had already demonstrated his courage by running for freedom. Ash hoped he didn’t try anything else that stupid, because Dee seemed close enough to an explosion as it was, without provocation.

“Dee,” Ash said, abruptly. “Look, Dee.”

He pointed to the television where a morning show had just been interrupted by a special report. The new Tommy’s face filled the screen.

“It’s Tommy,” he said. That made her look and she turned the sound up immediately. “Look, Tommy, you’re on television.”

Jack’s face was replaced by the image of Karen Crist, soberly intoning plans for a manhunt. Her face was so gaunt and drawn, her appearance on television so unexpected, that it took Jack a few seconds to be sure it was her.

“My mother,” he said, amazed.

Dee stood close to the set, her face screwed up as if it gave off poison.

“The bitch,” Dee said.

“That’s my mother,” Tommy said again.

Dee slapped him so hard he fell back onto the bed.

“That’s the bitch who took you,” she said. “Don’t you ever call her your mother. She’s not your mother, she’s one of the caseworkers. She saw you, she saw how wonderful you are, how precious you are, and she wanted you for her own, so she made up all those lies about me so they’d help her steal you.”

Karen’s image was replaced by a map with a curved red line drawn across it and triangles like arrowheads pointing in the direction of advance. It looked like the chart of a military campaign.

“The bitch, the bitch, the bitch!”

Ash struggled to make sense of it all while Tommy slowly came upright on the bed again, holding his face where she had struck him. He had forgotten his modesty.

“She’s coming.” Dee said. “The bitch is coming, she’s going to try to steal you away.”

Dee hurled the suitcase on the bed and threw her clothes into it.

“Well, she’s not going to do it. She won’t get you again.” The regular program had returned to the television screen and Dee snapped it off.

“Dress him,” Dee spat at Ash. “We’re leaving now.” Dee was packed in two minutes. She knelt in front of Jack, who stood in the center of the room, his pants on, his shoes untied.

“Don’t you worry, I won’t let her take you again.” She took Jack’s face in her hands. “You are so, so precious to me. I couldn’t stand it if she took you away again. You couldn’t stand it either, could you. Tommy? It would hurt you just as much as me. Don’t you worry. She won’t get you again. I’ll see you dead first.”

Dee stood and nodded, and Ash lowered the bedspread over Jack like a net.

They drove west, away from the red line on the television map. At a junction outside of Becket, two state police cars were parked perpendicularly across the highway, slowing the traffic as troopers peered into each passing car. Dee veered away from the troopers and headed northwest, into the mountains. She listened to the radio as she drove-something Ash had known her to do but rarely-and when another report of the manhunt was announced, she began to mutter darkly again about “the bitch.” Ash could hear her from under the bedspread, but he hoped that Tommy, covered by both the bedspread and Ash’s body, could not.

A few miles later Dee shunted away from troopers at another junction, taking the only unobstructed road left open to her, straight into the eminence of Mt. Jefferson.

On the steepest grade, she rounded a tum and saw before her a long line of cars parked in the ascending lane. As she braked to a halt, muttering an obscenity, she could see the rear taillights of the car at the top of the road change from red to blank as the car inched forward. The shifting red made its way downhill like a slow wave as one after another the automobiles released their brakes and advanced one car length. By the time Dee moved forward, the line was solidly red once more and a beige Subaru station wagon had pulled into place behind her.

“Ash, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Dee,” he said, his voice muffled by the bedspread over him.

“Listen carefully.” She glanced in her rearview mirror and saw the driver of the car behind her, a handsome, full-faced man with the look of Viking ancestors. He looked idly at Dee’s car, then patiently at the line in front of him, the woods to either side.

“It’s a roadblock,” Dee said. “I want you to take Tommy and go straight into the woods. Do you understand?”

“Straight into the woods.”

“Straight into the woods and back to the motel. Do you understand. Ash? I will meet you at the motel. We’ve been driving in a semicircle so far. The motel is on the other side of the mountain. Can you do that. Ash?”

“Yes.”

“And quickly, do it as fast as you can. I’m going to talk to the man behind us and when I tell you to go, I want you to get into the woods and out of sight as fast as you can go. All right?”

“All right. Dee.”

“Good. Stay covered until I tell you, then run as fast as you can.” She opened her car door, then hesitated.

“And Ash, you must not let them take Tommy away from you. They would make him suffer too much, and I know you don’t want that.”

“I don’t want him to suffer.”

“Of course not. But they will make him suffer if they get hold of him again. If they’re going to catch him, I want you to treat him the way you did your family. Do you understand?”

Ash was silent.

“Do you understand what to do. Ash?”

“Yes, Dee,” he said, reluctantly.

“Good. Now when I tell you to run, you take Tommy and run into the woods and then over the mountain. All right?”

“All right.”

“And who do you love?”

“I love you. Dee.”

“I love you, too. Ash,” she said as she left her car and walked back down the line.

Ash whispered to Jack, who lay beneath him, sheltered by Ash’s bulk. “It won’t hurt, I promise,” Ash said. “I’m going to carry you, but it won’t hurt.”

Jack said nothing.

Dee smiled broadly as the driver of the Subaru rolled down his window to speak to her. The refrigerated air from the car feathered across her face like a north wind.

“I can’t stick around for this nonsense, whatever it is,” Dee said. “My kid’s home alone; he’s got a little flu.”

“I’m sorry,” the man said. Dee detected a faint European accent.

“It’s nothing serious, but you know how we mothers are. We worry.”

“Of course you do,” he said sympathetically.

“So I’m going to turn around and go on back.”

“Yes, of course.”

“So if you wouldn’t mind backing up a little so I can just swing around. You be careful, though. Somebody might be coming up behind you and we don’t want anything to happen to you.”

The driver smiled at her. “I’ll be all right.”

“Oh, that’s what you all say,” Dee said. “Then look what happens to you.”

The driver was not quite sure what she meant, but she seemed so amused by him that he laughed.

Dee returned to her car and stood by the open door. When the driver of the Subaru turned to look over his shoulder while driving backwards, she shouted, “Now, Ash!” and the big man burst from the backseat, a large bedspread-covered bundle clutched in his arms. As he charged into the trees, bent over his burden, he looked like a parody of a football fullback running into the line with a football tucked into his belly.

Karen and Becker had set up a temporary headquarters with the State Patrol captain to monitor the radio reports coming in from the roadblocks as well as outside calls to the Bureau. The day started with good news.

“They found an old snapshot of Taylor Ashford,” Karen told Becker. “They faxed it from Pennsylvania to Albany. The bad news is the agents left for here before the fax came in. Albany is faxing it to the Massachusetts State Patrol and to the cop house in Becket. But the nearest State Patrol fax is forty-five minutes from here.”

“And I’m not sure our fax works,” volunteered Blocker. Karen had kept the two local cops, Blocker and Reese, with them to act as envoys or chauffeurs as the case demanded. “We don’t use it that much,” he added sheepishly.

“So we’ll have it in forty-five minutes,” said Becker, sounding more philosophical than he felt. There was nothing to do but wait.

When the initial report from the roadblocks came in, Karen was the first to react.

“He may have been seen,” Karen said matter-of-factly as she slid into Reese’s police cruiser. Becker could tell she was trying not to get excited prematurely. “There’s a call from a woman; the details are a little vague, I’m going to check it out.”

“Keep in touch,” Becker said.

Reese climbed behind the steering wheel, started the car, then waited for Karen’s order. Becker could see she had him trained already.

“No, you keep in touch,” she said. “If you find him, remember, he’s mine.”

Becker grinned. “I’ll remember. I don’t want any part of him. I’m on medical extension, remember?”

“You remember.”

“Good luck,” he said.

“There’s probably nothing to this,” she said grimly. She nodded and the car shot forward.

Becker’s call came a few minutes later. The caller was one of the patrolmen manning the roadblock on Winkler Road on Mt. Jefferson. “We have a motorist here,” he said, “Mr. Odd Ronning, who tells us he saw a man leave the line on Winkler Road and run into the woods. He says the man was carrying something wrapped in a blanket.”

“I know him,” said Blocker.

“Who?”

“Mr. Ronning. Very smart guy. If he says he saw it, he saw it.”

Becker grabbed Blocker and propelled him into the passenger seat of his squad car while Becker took the wheel.

“Tell them to hold him there,” he called back to the captain.

“Uh, technically, I should be driving,” Blocker said. Becker had the siren and lights going and was already taking a curve at a speed that made Blocker uneasy.

“We need you on the radio,” Becker said. “I need two hands on the wheel.”

“I see that,” Blocker said.

“Call the roadblock on Winkler and tell them to hold all cars coming down the mountain.”

“Down the mountain? I thought we were going up.”

“We are. We’re going up in the left-hand lane; the right one is full of cars being stopped by the roadblock.”

“Right.” said Blocker.

Becker waited to a count of three before he said. “Better do it now so we don’t meet anyone coming down when we’re going up.”

“Right!” said Blocker, full understanding coming to him a little late. He reached for the radio as Becker squealed around a curve, into the left lane to pass a truck, then back into the right as an alarmed motorist in the oncoming traffic slammed on his brakes.

The name on the mailbox was “Lynch,” which Karen thought was grimly appropriate to her own frame of mind. An attractive honey blonde was waiting for them on her porch, a girl by her side. A large collie dog lay listlessly at the woman’s feet. It lifted its head at the approach of strangers, then lay back down at a word from the woman.

“She a beauty, or what?” Reese asked under his breath. Karen glanced at him, wondering if his tone bespoke a relationship with the woman named Lynch, wishful thinking, or simple connoisseurship. To Karen’s eye, both mother and daughter were beautiful.

“Hey, Peg,” Reese said shyly, looking at the woman, then quickly away, and Karen realized it was wishful thinking. This woman had far too much natural dignity for a local cop to contend with.

“Astrid saw him,” Peg said, indicating the little girl peeking around from behind her. She spoke directly to Karen, cutting Reese out of the communication loop immediately. “She was playing in the backyard, yesterday. She told me right away, but I’m afraid I didn’t give too much importance to it until I heard about the roadblock. Show them, honey.”

The little girl had been standing behind her mother’s skirt, but stepped forward now as if realizing it was her turn onstage. She possessed her mother’s coloring, the same bright eyes that twinkled with intelligence and barely restrained amusement. She led them directly to the back of the house and pointed toward the ditch that ran next to the railroad tracks.

“He came out of there.” the girl said. “He climbed out, then a hand cotched his leg and pulled him back in.”

Karen shuddered at the image of the hand emerging from the ditch and grabbing… She told herself it was not Jack. A boy playing with friends. Not her son. Someone else being caught and pulled into the ditch. Not Jack.

“Did you know the boy?”

“No.”

“Did you ever see him before?” Karen asked. The little girl shook her head.

“What did he look like? Can you describe him?” She thought she would have to drag a description out of the girl, helping her every step of the way. Children were notoriously bad witnesses. But Astrid had either been rehearsed or she had a good eye for boys.

“He had brown hair and cut-off jeans and a T-shirt,” she said. “He was maybe a year older than me… He was cute.”

“The shirt… ” Peg started, then deferred to her daughter.

“And he was scared,” Astrid continued. “He wasn’t crying, but he was scared.”

“Did you see who grabbed him?” Reese asked.

Astrid answered by speaking to Karen. She, too, seemed to know who was important.

“Just a hand,” she said. “I just saw a hand.”

“You can’t see into the ditch from her angle,” Peg said. She knelt to her daughter’s height to demonstrate.

“Did you see anything on the T-shirt?” Karen asked.

“I’ll show you,” Peg said and turned to the swing set. “It was right here,” she said, puzzled, then she muttered something and called “Erik!”

A second collie came around the corner of the house, a white cloth in his mouth.

“Come here,” Peg said briskly.

“He’s so dumb,” the girl said.

After a brief tussle, the woman got the cloth from the dog’s mouth. She stretched it out and displayed it to Karen. It was a plain white T-shirt, wet from saliva and torn from the dog’s teeth.

Karen looked inside the collar and felt her knees buckle. She clung to Reese for support.

The name written on the collar in laundry pencil was Jack’s.

Karen’s voice crackled over the radio as Becker began the long climb up Winkler Road, passing the string of stalled cars in the right lane.

“Anything yet?” she asked.

Becker took the radio microphone from Blocker’s hand. “I’ll be there in about two minutes. Where are you?”

“I’m with Officer Reese,” she said. Becker wondered if she were driving the other police car, too. If so, Reese was in for a more frightening ride than the one he was giving Blocker. “We found Jack’s T-shirt.” Her voice was strained, as if every word cost her an effort. “We’ve been studying the map. If Lamont was in Becket yesterday and on Winkler Road today, there’s only one area he was likely to be coming from. We think he had to be staying some place along Route 37 unless he was out yesterday just driving around, which isn’t likely. If whoever was driving the car on Winkler that he got out of turned around, chances are he’s heading back to where he came from. It’s probably the only safe spot he knows. We’re going to check out the motels on 37. Reese tells me there are only three.”

“How are you?” Becker asked.

Karen clicked off without answering, but Becker thought he heard the bark of a sardonic laugh before the radio went dead. As they pulled to a stop at the roadblock, Blocker said, “There are four,” but Becker was already out of the car and moving.

“Ronning?”

The man from the Subaru station wagon extended a hand uncertainly. “Odd Ronning,” he said.

Becker took the hand, using it to shake and simultaneously to pull the older man toward the police cruiser.

“Becker, FBI. Can you show me where the man went into the woods?”

“Of course,” Ronning said, already being eased into the backseat. He exchanged nods with Blocker.

There was no place to turn the car around without time-consuming maneuvers, so Becker put the car in reverse and went back down the mountain backwards.

“She was very charming,” Ronning said.

“She?”

“But manipulative, you know? I had the feeling she didn’t want me to see the man get out of the car.”

“There was a woman driver?”

“Of course. Very attractive. Blonde, you know. Lovely smile.”

“Christ,” said Becker.

Blocker watched with growing anxiety as Becker wheeled the car backwards down the hill, his head out the window, the engine screaming in protest at speeds for which reverse gear was never intended. Neither Becker nor Ronning seemed aware that anything unusual was taking place.

“The man?” Becker asked.

“I didn’t get much of a look. Nothing more than a glimpse, really. But he was very big. I’m sure of that.”

“And you said he was carrying something?”

“He carried something against his chest and there was a blanket. I saw the end of it flapping halfway down his leg”

A good man, Becker thought. He wished he could exchange him for Blocker.

“Right here,” said Ronning, and Becker squealed to a halt. “The man ran in right about there,” Ronning pointed.

“Could you tell which way he was headed?”

“Oh, up. Definitely up the mountain.”

“And the woman left the line in her car and went back down the hill?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Becker stood on the road and looked up the mountain. Visibility into the tree line was only a few feet and, from his angle, the top of the mountain could not be seen. Becker took Blocker by the arm.

An angry motorist leaned out of his car and yelled, “What the hell is going on?” Becker ignored him.

“Get on the radio and ask for help, get at least three more men, then start up the mountain.”

“What am I looking for?” Blocker demanded.

“What the hell are you guys doing?” the motorist called.

“Hey, shut up,” Blocker said, then, to Becker, “How do we know this guy didn’t just go into the woods to take a leak, waiting all this time in line…”

“He took a blanket with him, maybe he went in for a picnic,” Becker said. “Or maybe to take a nap. In that case it won’t take long to find him, will it? Listen, Blocker, if this is Lamont, he’s killed nearly a dozen people by now, including his own family. If you find him, do not assume he’s hiding in the trees because he’s modest about his bathroom habits. And do not try to engage him, either. Just get on your walkie-talkie and tell headquarters, then keep an eye on him, understand?”

“You never mentioned anything about this being a killer. I thought we were after a kidnapper.” Blocker rubbed the handle of his service automatic nervously.

“Look, I know this is not the sort of thing you run across around here, but it’s what you’ve got on your hands now. Just find him and keep a safe distance. Nothing will happen to you.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“I’m going to get behind him, if I can. Now call for help, please.”

Becker stopped again as he was about to get in the car.

“What did you mean, ‘there are four’?”

“What?”

“Earlier you said ‘There are four.’ What were you talking about?”

“There are four motels on Route 37, not three.”

“Doesn’t Reese know that?”

“We usually don’t consider the Melba Inn. I mean, when people ask us about a place to stay for the night, we send them to the other three. A tourist wouldn’t be happy in the Melba”

“Tell her that,” Becker said, then, “Never mind. I’ll tell her.”

Becker called Karen on the radio while squealing backwards down the mountain but got no response. He relayed the message to headquarters and asked them to pass it on. As he came to a stop, he wished they had more men. Karen should not be searching motels herself; she should be running the show. Not that she had much choice; Reese was hardly the caliber of man to trust with the job and all of the State Patrol men they had were manning roadblocks. The men from the Bureau had yet to show up and Becker wondered if, ironically, they hadn’t been slowed by the traffic jams caused by the roadblocks.

Becker eased the cruiser off the road, into a drainage ditch, and got out of the car. If he had judged properly and Lamont was going over the mountain to reach the only escape route on the other side, Becker now had the angle on him. If he hurried, he might be able to intercept Lamont before he started his downward leg.

Becker slipped into the woods and began to work upwards and around the mountain in a long spiral path.

The climb was steep but not arduous in the beginning, and Ash was able to do it with Tommy still clutched in his arms. The closer he got to the top, however, the steeper the slope became and he was required to grab at trees and rocks to maintain his balance. He tried it one-handed for a time, but when he stumbled and fell directly onto the boy. Ash gave it up. He took the bedspread off and studied Tommy for injuries. The boy had only had the wind knocked out of him and he looked around now, wild-eyed, squinting at the first light in an hour but anxious to see where he was.

“We’ll leave this here,” Ash said, as much to himself as to the boy. He folded the bedspread carefully, then put it down atop a rock. He wanted to be able to tell Dee where he had left it so that they could come back and get it. They still had the blanket on the floor of the car, but she might want the spread as well. Dee was careful about not keeping things that did not belong to her.

He kept a hand on the boy’s shoulder as he looked back down the mountain. There was not much to see through the fully leaved trees, but Ash could hear voices a long way away. Men were calling back and forth to each other, giving directions. He wondered if they were coming up the mountain after him. Dee had said to go fast. Ash got to his feet and pointed the boy up the mountain.

“You go first,” he said. “I’ll be behind you to catch you. Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.”

Becker paused to catch his breath. He had been running when he could through the woods and up the increasing slope during his long spiral around the mountain. Now he was at the point he guessed to be opposite Lamont’s ascending path on the other side. From here on it was straight up. If he had judged correctly, Lamont would be coming down on a route close enough to Becker’s own that Becker would be able to see him, or at least hear him, when he crested the peak and started down. The peak itself was problematic at this juncture since Becker could see only a few yards ahead of himself through the trees.

Becker listened carefully, holding his breath a moment, trying to catch the sound of branches breaking, loosened rocks, heavy feet in the dead leaves and needles of the forest floor. Anyone coming from the top of the mountain would have to come the first third of the way down on the seat of his pants, clutching at handholds as he came. He would be as easy to hear as a small avalanche. If the man was not in a hurry, he could descend backwards, of course, picking his way carefully-and silently-but that would take time and Becker assumed Lamont was going to be traveling fast.

Hearing only the normal sounds of the woods, Becker started upwards, reaching for tree trunks and roots to propel himself forward up the ever-increasing slope. He had dropped to his hands and knees, digging for handholds in the rocky forest soil when the trees abruptly fell away entirely and he faced a sheer wall of stone. Becker stopped, his breath thundering in his ears from the effort of his climb, trying to assess his situation.

He had reached the point of some geologic accident where the steepness of the incline, the force of gravity, and the effects of erosion had conspired to rip away part of the mountain face and leave a cliff as sheer as if it had been sliced from a cake by a giant saber.

A few saplings had sprouted from crevices in the rock, jutting out at very shallow angles before curving almost perpendicularly and shooting directly skyward. Tufts of weeds and grass were scattered here and there upon the vertical face, and, most incongruously, several small clusters of flowers, their bouquets taunting anyone foolish enough to climb up after them; but for the most part, the escarpment was jagged, reddish-brown rock, high and wide and forbidding, filling Becker’s vision in either direction before it disappeared around the curve of the mountain. The crest of the mountain had split and crumbled like a rotting molar biting into a stone.

Becker tried to estimate how long it would take to skirt the cliff and come around it on either side. Too long, either way, and worse, he had no way of telling which side Lamont would choose for his descent If he struck off in the wrong direction, he could miss Lamont entirely.

As he pondered his choices, his breathing gradually subsided, and it was then that he heard the voice.

It was a high, piping squeak of alarm, almost a squeal, shut off in the middle of its sound and followed by a man’s deeper, startled tones. Looking in the direction of the sound. Becker saw a small shower of leaves and pebbles cascade down the escarpment. Something, or someone, had come very close to tumbling over the edge. Still on his hands and knees at the end of the tree line. Becker watched as a man’s head and upper torso appeared above the cliff edge. Becker drew silently back among the trees and observed the man as he peered downwards at the straight fall before him.

There was no mistaking him. It was the big man from the Restawhile motel. Becker remembered him sitting on the motel bed, looking stupid. Not nearly as stupid as I was, Becker thought. The man looked stupid now, too, his eyes searching the precipitous plunge as if hoping to see a magic staircase open before him. Another head appeared beside him. It was Jack, chastened by his near fall and crawling on his belly now to see what lay ahead. Both man and boy were panting heavily, sorely winded by their climb.

Jack’s eyes glanced in Becker’s direction, then flickered away. Becker did not know if the boy had seen him or not, but if he had he had shown the presence of mind to keep quiet about it. Becker prayed that the boy could retain his poise for the next several minutes. His life might depend on it.

It took Becker no time at all to make up his mind. He could not afford to guess which way to go and guess wrong; Jack would be lost and gone. He could not afford to wait and hope that Blocker had summoned help to back him up. There was no available help in the first place, not much chance Blocker had called for them in the second. To sit and wait was worse than guessing the wrong direction. If he stayed where he was, Lamont would evade him no matter which way he went. There was only one way to go, and it was forty feet straight up the cliff.

The big man turned away from the escarpment and looked back down the mountain in the direction of his pursuers. As Becker began his climb he could hear Lamont talking to the boy, but within seconds his ears were filled with the harshness of his own breathing as he hauled himself upward, hand over hand.

Ash could hear the men coming up the mountain, still calling to each other. Their voices were sounding winded now and they were stopping frequently to catch their breath. Ash had no choice but to wait until Tommy caught his breath, too. It was impossible for him to carry the boy along terrain this steep; he needed his cooperation.

“Are you ready?” Ash asked.

Jack breathed deeply, exaggerating his condition.

“Not yet,” he panted. “I’m so tired.”

Ash looked uncertainly at the boy, then back down the mountain.

“Okay,” he said. “But hurry.”

“I can’t breathe,” Jack panted. He was not certain if he had seen a man at the bottom of the cliff or not, but clearly there were men coming up the mountain behind them. Jack knew that running away would do him no good; the big man would catch him in a second and Jack was afraid of tumbling down the rocky slope. His only chance was to stall for time and he did not have to feign very much; he was genuinely exhausted. He resisted the urge to look back down the cliff to see if the man was really there.

From a distance of six inches the iron pyrite in the rocks looked fuzzily pink. Becker eased his way upwards, his face close to the stone, his vision focused only as far away as his next handhold. Under normal circumstances, it was a climb he would never undertake without equipment. He needed a hammer and pitons to build himself a ladder in the rock, a safety rope to keep a slip from becoming a fatal fall to the bottom. But these were not normal circumstances. He climbed faster than he knew was safe, but the result of delay seemed worse than the danger of a fall.

There were no ledges to sit on, no rifts in the rock wide enough for him to secure himself, no place to rest, no grips firm enough for him to even lean out from the wall and look upwards. He could not plan his ascent any further than one set of holds at a time because he could see no further up with his face so close to stone. He could not hear anything over the sound of his own breathing. He dared not look down to see how far he had come; he could not look up to see how far he had to go. Fingers scrabbling above him to find a ridge of rock that would hold his weight, toes seeking for the tiny outcroppings his fingers had left, he inched his way upwards.

Becker tried to pause to ease his aching muscles, but it required more energy to hang there on three fingers and a toe than to keep moving upwards. Meanwhile, the part of his mind not concentrating on the climb was racing. If Lamont was the man from the motel, and Becker was convinced that he was, then the woman who was with him, the nurse, was involved too. His idea of searching for the uniform left in a laundry was not a bad one, after all. He remembered the motorist’s description of the woman who had been driving the car from which Lamont emerged. “Charming,” the man had called her. A woman who could make a man think she was charming after a few seconds of talk at a roadblock. The woman at the motel had worked like that, leaping into a conversation without preamble, as if she had known a man all her life. It had to be the same woman, and she conned us both. Bicker realized. Diverted us both, took our minds off of our business almost immediately. She did it to me by flirting, Becker thought, remembering his sexual reaction to brushing against her in the motel room. And she distracted Karen by using Jack, by both flattering her and suggesting she was an unfit mother all at once. She put us both off balance and kept us there. Mentally, he cursed himself. Karen had to be told; she had to be warned whom she was looking for-and how dangerous she was. But there was no way to do it now.

His left arm began to go into spasm, the bicep jerking wildly from the unremitting strain. Becker released the fingers of that hand, letting the arm hang at his side as he pressed closer to the rock, trying to merge with it so that he could cling with face and chest and hip.

“We have to go now,” Ash said. He had been peering down the mountain toward his invisible pursuers for the last several minutes, his face thrust forward as if he could see them that much sooner.

“I can’t,” Jack said, still panting.

“We have to,” Ash said.

“I’m too tired,” Jack insisted, shaking his head, then dropping it between his knees. “I just can’t. Honest.”

Ash looked back down the mountain, bewildered. The climbers had become silent, but he knew they were getting close.

“We have to,” Ash repeated.

“Can’t… ”

Ash grabbed Jack under the arm and pulled the boy to his feet. Jack sat again as if his legs could not hold him. With a trace of annoyance. Ash lifted the boy again and swung him around so that he rode piggyback, leaving Ash’s arms free. Ash took his first tentative steps along the crest of the mountain with the boy on his back.

Becker was falling, but his body hadn’t submitted to gravity yet. He had reached the top. He could see it even with his face against the rock, the horizon hovering tauntingly just one more reach above him. But it was a reach he could not make. As he lifted his left foot to hip level to give himself the purchase to push up for the final grasp, the thin ridge of rock crumbled under his weight and his left leg swung down uselessly. His bloody fingers were barely holding on as it was and his feet had no way to move higher to relieve the weight. He hung two feet from safety, clinging to sheer stone with two fingers on one hand, three on the other, and a toehold for his right foot that was more wish than security. There was no way to change position without falling, no way to ascend without plummeting down forty feet to the waiting granite below. His fingers began to dance with cramps, then his biceps. It was a matter of seconds, Becker realized, before the spasming of his own muscles jerked him right off the mountain.

It was then he saw the foot before his face. Lamont stood above him along the crest, staring down, his mouth open in wonder.

“Who are you?” Lamont asked.

“Help me,” Becker said.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to fall. Help me.”

Jack’s head appeared over the big man’s shoulder and he gaped wide-eyed.

“Help him,” Jack said.

“We have to go,” said Lamont.

“Please!” Becker cried. His right foot slipped off its tiny ridge, forced back by the twist of his body as he looked straight up at Lamont. Both arms and fingers were jerking wildly.

Jack slid off Ash’s back and reached down for Becker, but his arm was too short. Jack tugged at Ash’s pant leg, imploring him to help. Slowly, uncertain what to do. Ash knelt and reached down and grabbed Becker’s shirt collar. He pulled him upwards, then caught one of his flailing arms and lifted him onto the crest of the mountain.

Becker sprawled forward onto the ground, his arms splayed out to either side. Still spasming, they flopped like landed fish.

“You hurt yourself,” Ash said, looking at Becker’s bleeding fingers.

“My arms,” Becker moaned. “Rub my arms.”

“We have to help him,” Jack said. The boy began massaging one of Becker’s twitching biceps.

“Harder,” Becker said, gritting his teeth against the pain.

“We have to go,” Ash said, but he took the other arm, watched what Jack was doing, and imitated it.

“Harder, harder.”

Becker’s whole body began to jerk as the tension of the climb took its toll on his legs and his back as well as his hands and arms. The spasms rocked him, doubled him in pain, made him convulse so violently he threatened to roll back over the cliff.

Jack sat on his back, digging his hands into his bicep, then his leg. Ash followed the boy’s lead, trying to bring the spasms under control.

A voice rang out from below them, startling in its clarity and closeness. The pursuers were coming on. Ash stared down the mountain. He still could not see them, but the nearness of the voices frightened him.

“We have to go,” Ash said. He lifted Jack to his feet. “Come on. Tommy.”

“Help me,” Becker said, but the big man ignored him this time. Jack tried to pull away, but Ash lifted him off the ground and held him to his chest.

“Taylor. Leave the boy with me,” Becker said. He managed to flex the toes of both feet toward his body and gradually the cramps in his calves eased.

“She said to leave him with me, Taylor,” Becker continued.

“Who said?” Ash asked, still holding Jack off the ground.

Becker struggled to remember the woman’s name. He bent his wrists and forearms backwards, pronating them as far as he could to counteract the convulsing biceps muscles. The woman’s name wouldn’t come to him.

“It was Dee,” Jack said quickly. “Dee said.”

“Dee said?”

“That’s right, it was Dee,” Becker said. “She wanted you to give the boy to me.”

Ash hesitated. Becker managed to bring himself to his hands and knees and move closer to the big man.

“She never told me,” Ash said.

“You had already gone. I just spoke to her; she sent me to get the boy.”

“That’s right,” Jack said. “Honest.”

Ash tried to understand. Dee didn’t trust anyone but Ash, he knew it, she told him all the time. She never let anyone else take care of the Tommys, never. Why would she want him to give Tommy to this man who was crawling toward him? She knew that Ash could take care of Tommy better than anybody.

“Dee said give him to me,” Becker said again. He managed to crawl another step closer, willing his muscles to hold off, just hold off another minute. A few more feet and he would be close enough to get the man’s leg. If he could just get him off balance, bring him down, he had some sort of a chance. But he couldn’t do it as long as the man was holding Jack. He was too close to the edge; they could both go over if Becker made a lunge.

“Dee said.” Jack struggled vainly in the man’s arms. Becker was amazed at how calm the boy had remained. If he stayed that way, they had a chance.

“Give him to me, Taylor.”

“How come you know my name?” Ash asked. No one had called him Taylor in years. Not since the hospital. His mother was the only one who had ever used his given name. His mother, and strangers.

“We’ve met. Dee introduced us.” Becker inched closer.

Ash heard the voices calling to each other below. They were very close now. He remembered what Dee had said. He was not to let them get Tommy back.

“I don’t know you,” Ash said.

“I’m a friend of Dee’s,” Becker said. He was almost there. Another foot and he could grab the man.

“You’re a Lyle,” Ash said contemptuously as he made up his mind. Dee said to kill the boy rather than let them take him back. Everyone would be better off that way.

Ash held Jack over the edge of the cliff and let him fall, then began to run. Becker lunged forward and grabbed Jack’s leg. The boy’s momentum yanked Becker closer to the edge and he came to a rest with his elbow over the void, the boy dangling in space at the end of Becker’s right arm.

The spasm in his right bicep began again immediately, and as Becker tried to grab Jack’s free-swinging other leg, his left arm started to cramp, too. He caught Jack’s trousers, but the grip was too small for his fingers and they spasmed. He grabbed at Jack’s ankle and the larger grip allowed him to hold on. Beyond that, there was nothing he could do. He had no leverage lying on his stomach and holding the boy at arm’s length, and when he tried to wriggle backwards, his legs and back began to convulse.

The pain was so intense it forced Becker’s eyes shut. He clenched his teeth and groaned as loud as he could, a forced keening sound as if he were lifting the world’s heaviest weight. As his muscles jerked, his whole body bucked and inched him toward the edge. They were both going over together unless he could do something, but he could not even dig in with his toes without his legs bouncing up again in agony.

He could hear the shouts of the police coming up the mountain, but he had not the breath or the control to call out. Even drawing a full breath would make him give up and give in to the pain.

“Scream, Jack,” he said desperately through clenched teeth. “Scream.”