Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

solved. There was evidence of ritual activity."
    "You mean Satan murders?"
    "You said it, I didn't. A guy I work with at the Courier-Times thinks it's happening here, too."
    "That body they found in the river last week?"
    "Yeah. And what about that girl you said Hartley killed?"
    Walter's hands were white from clenching the steering wheel. "There's something I didn't tell you. Something I've never told anybody."
    Secrets. The asphalt hummed by underneath the Jeep. A few farmhouses stood off the road, with weathered barns and rusty tractor equipment.
    "My wife was pregnant when she disappeared."
    "I'm sorry," Julia said, realizing others had guessed the secret. "That must have been awful."
    Walter rubbed at his eyes with one of his scarred hands. "I guess I should be over it by now. It's been seven years."
    Julia gently touched his arm. "You can't escape the past. It lives inside you. You just have to let it out and make it harmless."
    Jeez, now you're starting to sound like Dr. Forrest yourself.
    Walter nodded as if he'd barely heard her. "The bones under your house . . . do you think those were human bones?"
    "If Hartley was into ritual sacrifices, he might have done it more than once. I don't know how many times these Creeps think they have to please their idiotic Dark Master."
    A pickup truck was in the oncoming lane, driven by a man in a green baseball cap. He waved as he passed. A goat was in the truck bed, chewing on the rope that tethered it to the tailgate. Julia stared at its curved horns, at the ragged beard and black eyes, until the truck went around the bend and out of sight.
    "We're out of town limits now," Walter said. "I guess they've probably got my house under surveillance, too. But I bet they don't know that my cousin owns a piece of the mountains over this way."
    "Do you think we're safe?"
    "I don't know. I'm not even sure what we're running from."
    Julia thought that Mitchell would have lied just then. Mitchell would have jutted his chin out and said, "Don't worry about a thing. I'll take care of you."
    Yeah, he tried to take care of me, all right. With his fists.
    They went three more miles down the winding road and came to a small gas station. Walter parked behind the building so the Jeep couldn't be seen from the road. "I'll put in a call to the sheriff's office," he said. "We should be able to tell pretty fast whether Snead's got to them yet."
    "The pay phone's out front," Julia said. "More people know you here. I'm just a nobody. Let me make the call."
    Walter opened his mouth as if about to protest, and then nodded. "If you see anything strange, get back here quick."
    "That's what I had in mind," she said, shouldering her purse. She climbed out of the Jeep, her leg muscles sore from tension. She walked stiffly to the pay phone, studying the flaking antique signs nailed to the front of the store. A man in overalls came out, nodded at her, and went back inside. Only one car was parked by the pumps, a big Chevy from the days when gas was cheap.
    Julia flipped through the phone book, glad that the pages hadn't been ripped out. She found the listing, pushed coins into the slot, and dialed the number. A woman who sounded like she'd been awakened from a nap answered the phone. "Sheriff's."
    "Hello," Julia said. "I'd like . . . I need to report some bones."
    "Bones? Did you say 'bones'?"
    "Yes, ma'am."
    "What kind of bones?" The woman yawned.
    "I think they're human."
    "This ain't one of them high school kids, is it? 'Cause you're going to go through this big long to-do and then I'm going to go, 'So where is these bones?' and then I bet you're gonna go, 'In the graveyard ' and then you're gonna laugh like it was the funniest thing that ever was thought up."
    "This isn't a joke," Julia said.
    "Sure, it ain't. Okay, I'll fall for it. Where is these bones?"
    "Under my house."
    The woman laughed. "Under your house ?"
    Julia chewed her thumb. The man in coveralls came to the window of the store and stared at her. "I'm Julia Stone and I live at—"
    " Stone ? You're the whore Judas Stone ?"
    "What?" Invisible fingers clutched at her throat.
    "He owns you, whore, so give him what's his."
    Julia let the phone drop. She leaned against the phone box, her brain swimming and her chest tight with sudden panic. This was a big one, the inky tidal wave, the ocean roller coaster, the earthquake chasm beneath her feet.
    He owns you.
    The words raced through her head, in the dispatcher's voice, in the low rumble she'd