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"Wh…what?"

Lightning flashed overhead, and Val had the briefest gliaunt and sad, stooped beneath soray face streaked withhis chest

"Go back," he whispered

She knew thisflashed again and for just a second the small silver cross that she wore around her neck burned as if it somehow had suddenly flared with inner heat Then as quickly as the sensation had coone

Val was alone

She stood there, head swi the cross, the skin over her heart still tingling from the burn

"Go back…" she ed ar her face, she started back toward the house

4

At that sa the upper reaches of A-32 Jed Davenport was singing "Mr Devil Blues" fro at the note but never quite grabbing it

A state police car ca holes in the night Crow sighed and slowed down to soed lanes and pulled abreast The officer riding shotgun dazzled hiht for a moment, then clicked it off The patrol car accelerated and passed, taking charge of the lane and barreling way ahead

Croas impressed with the speed of the unit He felt he could top it with Missy, but getting into a pissing match with the state police held little attraction for hiht before he let the speedohties

Muddy Waters was now "Screa enough to turn onto Johnson Wells Road, the old fare cornfields and would take hiht to Val’s back door The road was badly rutted and bu like her best speed Croed to fifty and gri cop car stayed in Crow’s ? What the hell else was out here this far down on A-32?

If a thousand volts of electricity had shot up through the seat into his spine he could not have hter position

There was only one thing this far down on A-32

"Val!" He shouted her naas Bumps and ruts be damned Missy hurtled forward No answer to any of his calls What a fucking fool! he thought

The car shot along the old far a path before hiain, way over beyond the Guthrie far one word over and over again: Hurry!

"Oh my God!" he said out loud "Val…"

Chapter 16

1

Ferro carefully unwrapped a stick of Beechnut and laid it on his tongue until the surface sugar melted, then chewed it very slowly He folded the wrapper neatly and stuffed it in his shirt pocket For longat the devastation, letting the horror burn into hi the fires burn away all of the sensationalism and emotion until all that was left was a cri more

Ferro looked up, not surprised to see that the moon had vanished behind featureless black stor to lose the scene before the lab crew can get here froh the preli?"

LaMastra hoisted hiround, slapped dirt and crushed corn froue nod

"Good," said Ferro "Chief?" Bernhardt, who by noas standing on the far side of the car, well out of sight of the body, looked up "Chief, can you arrange to get some kind of tarp? We need to protect the site as much as possible"

Bernhardt made an inarticulate sound that Ferro took as an assent and set off back to the road in a wobbling Clydesdale canter

Ferro knelt down by the opened briefcase and set to work First he removed a folded sheet of white plastic, opened and spread it out to for it doith ears of corn On top of this he quickly and deftly lined up several ites of various size, froh to hold a few pennies to solass vials and disposable eyedroppers in sterile plastic sleeves; paper bags; a gunpowder trace kit; tweezers; scissors; evidence tags; and a small battery-​powered tape recorder with a voice-​activated microphone

Ferro took one of the eyedroppers and one of the vials and walked toward one of the pools of blood Over his shoulder, he said to LaMastra, "I’ll collect, you catalog and tag"