Niceville

and they fired at almost the same second, the heavy thump of the Colt, the brittle crack of the .38. The sound died out quickly, muffled by the dense mist. Crows began to caw and chatter in the distance.
    They stood there for a few seconds, staring at each other, and then Merle went down on one knee, the heavy Colt falling to the grass, blood pumping out of a small round hole in his throat, just under the Adam’s apple. He had a much larger hole in the back of his neck. Albert ran over to him, bending down, catching him as he fell.
    Abel Teague took a step forward, staggered, took another, went down on one knee.
    He had a large bloody hole in his left cheek, just below the eye. The eye itself had exploded outwards like a shattered egg. The back of his skull was gone, and his brains were scattered all over the lawn behind him.
    Abel Teague fell sideways, rolled over onto his back, looked up at the sky, gasping. He could hear the crows calling and from far away he heard Albert Lee’s voice, fading away. He closed his mind, trying to keep the spark going, thinking that if they could get to him in time the docs could do wonders. When he opened his mind a heartbeat later, he was looking up at Glynis Ruelle, a high blue sky behind her, her green eyes on him, her rich black hair shining in the sunlight.
    “Get up,” said Glynis. “You have work to do.”

Kate Meets Clara
    Sleep was out of the question, especially since Linus Calder had phoned back on Nick’s cell three times, and now Nick was out in the backyard again, talking the guy through every detail of what had happened at Delia Cotton’s house in The Chase.
    Kate listened with part of her mind to the back and forth, theories about how it might have happened, how to explain these two events without stepping off the edge of the known universe.
    Her father was not in his office or his flat, that much she knew. His car was in its parking space at the VMI lot. Kate had even begun to hope that he was just out for a long walk, or gone on a bender because the idea of driving down to see her and talk about Niceville had freaked him out.
    Which she knew he would never do.
    His car was still there.
    He had never reached it.
    So he was officially missing.
    But Nick was on it, and this detective up in Virginia, Linus Calder, seemed to know what he was doing, and Reed had called her to tell her he was at VMI now and also on the case. And then she had made a call to her sister, Beth, and found out that she was having yet another fight with that man.
    She told Beth what was going on, got the impression that she wasn’t listening very carefully, which was understandable, tried to make it sound as if Dad had just gone on a trip without telling anybody, felt she had half convinced Beth.
    And then Deitz had started bellowing at Beth again, something about the air conditioner being out of order and what was she doing on the fucking phone, and she could hear the kids crying in the background, so Kate put the phone down, thinking that there was really nothing more she could do about anything. Except maybe one thing.
    The last thing her father had said to her.
    His records, in the basement.
    Now that she was wide awake again, she got up off the couch and poured herself a large black coffee and went along the back hall to the kitchen and on down the stairs into the basement.
    Up in the backyard, under the stars, the yellow glow of the yard lights shining on the trees at the bottom of the yard, Nick was listening—patiently—to Linus Calder, a guy every bit as exhausted as Nick was, but still at the crime scene, and Linus Calder was going over it again.
    “There’s no organic material in the stain site. I mean, if it was … what … spontaneous combustion? … you’d find something organic—not that I believe in spontaneous combustion—but … Jesus … what the hell
else
could it be? I swear, Nick, you say something like alien abduction, I’ll shoot my dog. I don’t actually own a dog. But I’ll go out right now and buy one and shoot it.”
    “I’m not going to say alien abductions, okay?”
    “Your CSI guys file a report yet?”
    “They’re off the scene, but no report yet.”
    “You going to come up here, take a look? I mean, we already got the hotshot brother—”
    “What’s Reed doing?”
    “Driving me nuts. Until I hooked him up with some Virginia State Patrol guys. He knows people they know. Don’t get me wrong. Nice kid, bit scary, bit
out