She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be - J.D. Barker Page 0,179

just her right. “Is that because of what just happened, or…”

“I’ll be okay.”

I ran my hand through my hair. “You need to…” I couldn’t bring myself to say the word. I wasn’t sure what word even fit—feed? Eat? Drain? Absorb?

Stella understood, though. She said, “No. Not anymore.”

“I shouldn’t have shot that guy. You needed him. You could have fed on him.”

She was already shaking her head. “I wouldn’t have done it. I was just trying to scare him.”

“You have to, though. Don’t you?” I took a step closer. “What’s the longest you’ve ever gone…between?”

Stella drew in a deep breath and looked down at her hands. “A year and two days. I’ve found ways to slow it down, but only slow it down. Only a person seems to stop it entirely.”

“The cornfield in ’95?”

She nodded. “That bought me a few days, not much. I found a park that night. Parks are always good. I was there for less than an hour before a man started following me. Ten minutes after that, he tried to put a knife to my throat. He didn’t think I noticed him hiding in the bushes, but I did. I always do. I remember how horrible he smelled, like spoiled onions. I wasn’t wearing my gloves. He died fast.”

“Did anyone find the body? I didn’t see anything that year.”

The corner of Stella’s mouth turned up. “They don’t always find the bodies, Pip.”

I thought of Leo Signorelli somewhere at the bottom of Harmon Reservoir in his BMW.

“I won’t do it again, though,” Stella said emphatically, attempting to steady her hands again.

“We’ll find another way.” I said the words before, and I meant them, but I had no idea how I could make good on such a promise.

I went back to the Jeep and bent, inspecting the undercarriage. Then I circled around. Aside from several fresh scratches, I found no damage. I stared at the torn trail behind us, two long gouges in the earth where our tires left their mark. Stella was looking back down our path, too, but she was watching the road, the cars roaring past. The last one, a blue station wagon.

“Where are we going, Jack? We can’t stay here. They’ll be coming soon.”

“Carmel, California,” I said. “I found Cammie Brotherton.”

I told her what Dunk told me.

“We’ll need a new car.”

9

I can’t tell if it says 803 or 303 Windmore,” Fogel said, frowning down at the topmost page of motel stationery she swiped from the room at the Chestnut. After rubbing a pencil gingerly over the page, she was able to read a hastily scrawled address and a single word, sort of.

The Nokia mobile phone was pressed to her ear, Stack on the other end of the call.

Stack said, “But the rest—the word Charter?, with a question mark at the end, you’re sure on that?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“I know that word. I’ve heard it or seen it somewhere before.”

“Where?”

Stack went silent for a second. “I’ll call you right back.”

The line went dead.

She was in the parking lot of a small strip mall at the edge of Fallon. The Nokia battery died, so she picked up a cigarette adapter at Radio Shack, then called Stack. The notepad was a long shot. She couldn’t be sure that was Thatch’s room, and even if it was, there’s no way to be sure he wrote on the pad. The address might have been written by a guest (and she used the term loosely for that place), months ago, maybe even longer.

The lead detective at the Chestnut wanted to hold her, but he had no reason and after twenty minutes of badgering, she left with Officer Jun and retrieved her car from the parking lot of Mike’s Gentlemen’s Club. She had been told to leave town, Old West style. Apparently they still did that in Nevada.

Officer Jun no doubt received instructions to follow her. He was parked two cars over in the same lot, making no effort to hide. Fogel waved at him.

Ten minutes passed before the Nokia chirped.

Fogel hit the answer button.

“I’ve got nothing on Windmore, but the word Charter, I figured out where I’d seen it. Remember Calvin Gurney?”

Fogel’s head still hurt, but she felt the gears beginning to turn. “1978?”

“Yeah. The only victim identified that year. One of the three guys they found in the house where the Nettletons were squatting. The last record of employment for him was as a janitor for an outfit called Charter Pharmaceuticals outside of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Chadds Ford’s about four