Light of the World (Dave Robicheaux 20)

When I reached the top of the driveway, I saw the flashlight beam bouncing along the ground behind Albert’s office. “What are you doing?” I said.

Albert pointed the flashlight beam below the windows that ran along the back of the house. “I thought I saw a man out here,” he said.

“When?”

“Two minutes ago.” He walked closer to me, shining his light up into the trees on the hillside. I could smell the Scotch on his breath and the heat trapped in his flannel shirt.

“Where did he go?” I asked.

“When I came outside, there was nobody here.”

“Sometimes the wind makes shadows on the grass,” I said.

“I never saw a shadow run. Take a look at this.”

He pointed the light down at an area between the lilac bushes and a bathroom window. I could see two funnel-shaped tracks stenciled deeply into the compost.

“Those look like they belong to a dog or a coyote,” I said.

“No, they’re too big.”

“A wolf?” I said.

“Yeah, I think that’s Brother Wolf’s prints, all right.” He moved his light around the base of the lilacs and out onto the belt of lawn between the house and the hillside. “Here’s the problem. There’re only two of them.”

“Say again?”

“Two paw prints. They’re three inches deep in the soil. You can see the points of the nails. There was a heavy animal here. But it left only two impressions. How is that possible, unless it was standing up? Besides, I didn’t see an animal out here. I saw a man.”

“Maybe it’s time to cork the jug for the evening,” I said.

“Don’t you be talking down to me like that, Dave.” He swept the flashlight beam across the tree trunks, illuminating boulders that were half buried in the soil. “I always said this was bloody ground. Why is it we think we can destroy a whole race of people and not pay a price for it?”

“We didn’t do it.”

“Like hell.” He clicked off the light. “I’m going inside. It’s cold out here.”

I DIDN’T BELIEVE IN wolves that stood on their hind legs to look through bathroom windows, any more than I believed in Wyatt Dixon’s claim that a goat-footed creature out of a medieval book on demonology had taken up residence in the cave behind Albert’s house. At least that’s what I told my

self. Regardless, I couldn’t sleep that night. In this case, the source of my insomnia was simple: I feared for Alafair’s life.

On the late-night news, there had been a follow-up story on the waitress who had gone missing. A silver bracelet with her name inscribed inside it had been found by a fisherman on a flat rock in the middle of the St. Regis River. There was no explanation as to how it had gotten there.

In my opinion, the abduction was the work of Asa Surrette. He had placed one of his trophies on the rock to confound his pursuers. He was one of those serial predators who controlled both his victims and his adversaries by stoking their imaginations, leading them up a cul-de-sac, making them resent themselves for their powerlessness and the suffering he brought into their lives. Surrette wanted to instill as much pain as possible in the friends and family of the victim. Until her body was discovered, they would get no rest, find no peace, and be tormented by every dark possibility imaginable each time they closed their eyes.

While Asa Surrette was doing this kind of damage to other people, Love Younger and his family lived in wealth and splendor and dealt with problems like the temperature of their bathwater and the noise the gardener was making with the Weed Eater. I’m aware that all of us reach the same denouement, that we return to dust and our teeth are sown in the field by the farmer’s plow, but that is poor solace when you look into your daughter’s face and try to guess at the fate a man like Asa Surrette might be planning for her.

I fell asleep around four-thirty in the morning and woke at seven. Molly was still asleep. I got dressed and went down to Clete’s cabin and woke him up. “What’s going on?” he said.

“I need Felicity Louviere’s cell phone number.”

“What for?”

“Because I don’t have Love Younger’s number, and I need to talk to him.”

“I’ll call her for you.”

“No, I’ll do it.”