panic in her voice. “I called you a hundred times. I thought you were . . . dead.” She hesitated, as if speaking the word might prove prescient.
“Not yet . . . although I feel like it.”
She sighed, the first breath she had taken since hearing his voice. “Where are you?” she asked.
Still suffering the effects of the concussion, he struggled to remember.
“Still in Tennessee?” she offered.
He closed his eyes tightly, allowing it to come back to him. The game of chicken with the high beams. Father Dyer. Daniel. Another murder. The pungent smell of blood and shit. Yes, he could remember, as much as he wished he could forget some of it. “Yes, still in Tennessee,” he answered. “Where are you?”
“Florida,” she replied. She was completely unaware of his head trauma, and consequently, how much it was affecting him. “When I couldn’t get ahold of you, I kind of freaked out. It didn’t make much sense to go to Tennessee, so I went right to the airport and bought a ticket for Miami. I landed only an hour or so ago.”
“Florida,” Czarcik repeated, as if the word was not one of the most well-known states, but a mysterious password he was forced to enunciate clearly. The pieces of his memory began to fall into place, like a game of Tetris. “Because that’s where the reform school is.”
“I knew you’d eventually end up there,” she said, finishing his thought. She paused, as if something just occurred to her. “Actually, why aren’t you already there?”
“Tennessee took longer than I anticipated.” It was all coming back to him now.
“Did something happen?” By something, she meant Daniel.
“He got what he wanted, Chloe. I couldn’t stop him. I was there the entire time, and I couldn’t do a goddamned thing.”
“Could he have killed you?” she asked.
“Many times over.”
Silence. Then she asked, “You think he’s here? In Florida?”
“I’m sure of it.”
More silence. “How soon can you be here?”
He pictured a map—Tennessee was one big state of Georgia away from Florida—and didn’t know how quickly he could get there. Especially in his condition. His head felt as if it were bouncing around a blast furnace. “I’m not sure. Let me . . . think. Get my bearings. I’ll call you back in an hour.”
“Leave your phone on,” she admonished. She had never heard him sound so uncertain. So vulnerable. It frightened her. “What should I do in the meantime?”
“Where are you now?” he asked, forgetting whether she had already told him.
“The airport bar.”
“Stay there. Have a few drinks. Once I’m on my way, I’ll call you, and we’ll make a plan.”
“OK,” she said, then waited. “Paul?”
“Yes.”
“Be careful. Please.”
He ended the call and realized that Father Dyer was still fixing him with his lifeless gaze.
“Burn in hell, you old bastard,” he said as he tried to stand up. The blood rushed to his head, and he fought back the urge to vomit again. He took a moment to steady himself against the marble table, amazed at how much blood had been disgorged from the priest. If it wasn’t a full ten pints, it was close. There were also pieces of pink flesh scattered around the body that Czarcik pretended not to see. His stomach couldn’t handle it at the moment.
He walked slowly into the kitchen, aware he was probably dehydrated, and took a glass from the cabinet. But since he couldn’t remember exactly how Daniel had spiked his drink, he figured the safest thing to do was drink directly from the faucet. The water tasted tinny, but at least he knew it wasn’t tampered with. He drank until his stomach protested.
Czarcik had to get moving. He also needed a shower as badly as ever, so he made his way up the stairs to the second floor, glancing briefly at the door to the attic, through whose window he assumed Daniel had entered. Too bad The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was canceled decades ago. The last few hours would have made a particularly good episode. By the time he got to the upstairs bathroom, he was so exhausted he practically collapsed onto the toilet. He still didn’t have his legs back.
He took a few minutes to gather his strength. Then he managed to undress, get into the shower, and turn on the water as hot as he could tolerate. He refused to use the priest’s soap or shampoo, as if the man’s moral sickness could be transferred by inanimate objects. His towels were especially verboten. Czarcik simply stood in