Page 67 of The Angel Maker
It couldn’t be that simple, could it? He would be forced to kick himself if so—or have Pettifer do it for him, he supposed, which would obviously be worse. He turned to his computer and set to work. The information was easier to locate than he expected, and he had the report on-screen within minutes. The details were not specific, but there was enough information for him to read between the lines. And even if he did not quite understand it yet, he sensed it was as important as any of the other pieces of the puzzle he and Pettifer had assembled so far.
Alan Hobbes had owned the house for more than forty years. In the years leading up to his purchase, there had been a lengthy period in which the property had been empty and derelict. Potential buyers shied away. Investors made offers and then retracted them. Until Alan Hobbes came along, in fact, everyone involved with the property had seemed content to let it molder away quietly, empty and forgotten.
Because two decades before Hobbes bought the house, its grounds were where the remains of four dead girls had been found, buried beneath the flower beds.
Twenty-four
Leland picked up a pair of pruning shears from the bench in front of him.
When he clenched his hand to test the spring, the blades whispered against each other, as though the tool was sharpening itself. Rain pattered quietly on the greenhouse roof above him. The garden beyond the glass wall ahead of him was smeared and gray. But it was warm and dry in here, and there was a hum to the air.
A tray of roses rested on the bench before him.
He reached in and gripped a stem with a gloved hand, and then leaned down and snipped one of the petioles carefully away. It fell softly onto the tray of soil below, taking its cluster of leaves and malformed bud along with it. Leland picked up the clipping and tossed it into the bin beside the bench.
There were two roses in the tray, and both were exquisite. The reds were rich and vivid, with thin veins of blackness reaching out through the petals. The quality of the flowers was a testament not only to his own skill and care but also to the quality of the soil they had been grown in.
And as he stared down at the flowers, Leland remembered helping his father make an angel.
It is October 19, 1954.
“How far is it?” the little girl says.
She is walking behind Edward. He glances back at her—but really, he is looking past her. He is relieved that the road is out of sight now. But the field here is exposed; there is still a danger they might be seen, and his heart is beating hard. When he looks forward again, he sees the tree line in the distance. The approaching winter has stripped the branches of their leaves high above, and they stand out like thin black bones against the empty sky above.
A cold breeze is stirring the overgrown grass.
He picks up his pace.
“It’s a little way in,” he says. “I need to remember the way.”
That isn’t true; the route he has to take is burned into his mind, as clear to him as all the other paths he must follow. And even though the tree line remains a little way off yet, he reminds himself that they will not be seen.
That is not what happens.
Because his father told him he would not be seen, and everything else he said has come to pass. The little girl was playing alone on the road exactly where Edward was told she would be. She was nervous when he approached her. There was a cat in the woods, Edward was to explain. It was caught in barbed wire, and he needed her help to free it.
Not a dog?he had suggested.
His father had smiled.
With this little girl, it needs to be a cat. A black-and-white one.
And true enough, Edward had seen the doubt fall away from her face as he explained. He had watched it being replaced by hope. It was exactly what she had needed to hear to be persuaded to follow him.
Because his father knows everything.
They reach the tree line.
Edward moves more cautiously now, working his way carefully betweenthe trees. The web of branches around him is sharp, the ground uneven. The world falls silent aside from the wet push of their shoes in the mulch of fallen leaves, and the air smells of earth and rot. It has been dismal all morning, but it seems to grow ever darker as they move deeper into the wood.
They are out of sight now, but his heart is beating harder than ever. There is a tingle of electricity running over his body.
They walk for a minute. He can hear her breathing behind him.
Then:
Aclickin the undergrowth off to one side.
