"I'm fine." The aide adjusted Rhyme's shirt. And despite the criminalist's protest he took the blood pressure again. "The same. Too high but not critical."
The sheriff shook his head. "I've got to call Jesse's parents. Lord, I don't want to do that." He walked to the window and stared outside. "First Ed, now Jesse. What a nightmare this whole thing's been."
Rhyme said, "Please, Jim. Let me find them and give me a chance to talk to her. If you don't, it's going to escalate. You know that. We'll end up with more people dead."
Bell sighed. Glanced at the map. "They've got a twenty-minute lead. You think you can find them?"
"Yes," Rhyme answered. "I can find them."
"That direction," Sean O'Sarian said. "I'm positive."
Rich Culbeau was looking west, where the young man was pointing--toward where they'd heard the gunshot and the shouting fifteen minutes ago.
Culbeau finished peeing against a pine tree and asked, "What's over that way?"
"Swamp, a few old houses," said Harris Tomel, who had hunted probably every square foot of Paquenoke County. "Not much else. Saw a gray wolf there a month ago." The wolves had supposedly been extinct but were making a comeback.
"No fooling," Culbeau said. He'd never seen one, always wanted to.
"You shoot it?" O'Sarian asked.
"You don't shoot 'em," Tomel said.
Culbeau added, "They're protected."
"So?"
And Culbeau realized he didn't have an answer for that.
They waited a few minutes longer but there were no more gunshots, no more shouts. "May as well keep going," Culbeau said, pointing toward where the shot had come from.
"May as well," said O'Sarian as he took a hit from a bottle of water.
"Hot again today," Tomel offered, looking at the low disk of radiant sun.
"It's hot every day," Culbeau muttered. He picked up his gun and started along the path, his army of two trudging along behind him.
Thunk.
Mary Beth's eyes shot open, pulling her from a deep, unwanted sleep.
Thunk.
"Hey, Mary Beth," a man's voice called cheerfully. Like an adult speaking to a child. In her grogginess she thought: It's my father! What's he doing back from the hospital? He's in no shape to chop wood. I'll have to get him back to bed. Has he had his medicine?
Wait!
She sat up, dizzy, head throbbing. She'd fallen asleep in the dining room chair.
Thunk.
Wait. It's not my father. He's dead.... It's Jim Bell....
Thunk.
"Mareeeeeeee Bayeth..."
She jumped as the leering face looked in the window. It was Tom.