The shade cooled him down a little, made his lungs quit pumping fire. He chuckled, keeping the situation as light as possible. "Just let me rest a little. I figure we'll make the Sundown by Thursday."

He closed his eyes, let the slight morning breeze chill the film of sweat on his face. He crossed his arms over his chest and slumped low in his seat.

His mind's eyes saw the way Denver and Jermaine had looked at him just before he'd sneaked his family out of the motel. Taking everyone would have advertised the fact that they were escaping, he told himself. But he punished himself with a mental image of Tonya Whittock, her wide hips, nervous smile and three motherless kids.

Shit.

"Honey?"

Maybe he'd said it out loud. But it wasn't that, he saw when he caught her looking out the back window and tracked the cop car in the rearview.

"Uh oh," he breathed.

Marty McConlon stepped out of the cruiser he'd slid up right behind them. He wore a big-ass grin as he approached the car. While reluctantly powering down the window, Todd noticed the cop was a solo act today. Looked like Barry had pulled a no-show.

"Hey, how you folks doing? Everything alright here?"

Todd nodded. "Yeah, fine." Just as casual.

The soft cop stood behind the driver's door and about four feet back, evidently not trusting the Dunbars any more than they did him. "You on your way to work and decide a pepperoni and double cheese might hit the spot?"

Todd's hand in his lap strayed slowly to the kitchen knife stuck into his waistband, under his shirt. "We're not going to work today. Like we told you before."

"Oh, that's right," said McConlon, sounding genuinely interested.

The Lexus swayed slightly as the cop leaned his weight on the hood.

"Yeah, I remember now. That's when I asked you and your buddies at the Sundown real nice-like to hand over your guns. You the one telling me to go ahead and try to take yours if I wanted it so bad? All the confusion yesterday morning, I can't remember."

Todd kept both hands fixed to the steering wheel and his eyes out the windshield. He wasn't going to give the cop any excuses. Not just yet anyway. Out of the corner of an eye, he could see the soft belly up to his window twisting, shifting.

McConlon said, "Funny you driving this car. I mean, I get you this great job, you only punch in-what, once? Twice?-and make enough money to buy yourself a Lexus. God bless America, right?"

The sun was doing something funny. It had found an opening in the willow tree shroud and now it was making Todd's skin tingle like before. It felt red and raw, the rivulets of sweat not cooling the flesh in the least.

Joy leaned over and said, "My husband's not feeling well. That's why we pulled over."

Todd could hear the cop's labored breathing on the back of his neck as he bent in for a better look.

"Hey," he said cheerfully, "you really do look sick. What, you order bad anchovies on one of those Pizza Cavern pies?"

Todd's grip on the wheel tightened.

McConlon took a step forward to stand alongside Todd, and then a step away. So he'd drawn even with him, but was more than a knife swipe out of range.

"Maybe I'll have better luck this time asking you to turn over your weapons. Then I got some questions concerning your whereabouts yesterday afternoon. And while I'm at it, I might as well ask to see your registration for the Lexus."

Todd still had the shotgun, but he'd stashed it in the trunk. He didn't know what the state penalty was for driving around with a loaded sawed-off next to him, but he hadn't wanted to chance it.

He shook his head. "I'm not carrying a weapon."

From the corner of his eye, he could see one of the cop's hands resting on the butt of his nine.

Conversationally, McConlon said, "I could take that as a refusal to give it up. Anything could happen if I think you're going for a gun."

Todd thought about Duke Gates, caught on a back road by Marty McConlon. With the Santana family and others. He swung his head almost lazily up toward the cop, making eye contact for the first time. Letting the sun burn him raw. "Bet you carry a throw-away for just such emergencies," he said. Grinning through the fire.

"Honey?" From Joy, who knew her husband better than anyone. Knew he'd go for broke if he knew he was broke anyway.

Marty gave him a blue-eyed smile. "You mean like I'd pop you, then drop an unregistered gun in your lap? What kinda cop would I be?"

Todd said "Nah, I don't think it would go down like that. Not exactly." He flicked a glance out the rearview at a car or two drifting by. "It's daylight, a little traffic on the street. And then there's Joy here. Be hard enough convincing Drake you had to kill me. Add a potentially hostile witness you gotta make dead, now you have to come up with a story that really strains the imagination. We both drew on you?"

McConlon took a small step forward. Just about close enough.

"Drake," the cop said, snickering. "Yesterday's news. You ever hear of the title, Chairman Emeritus? He sits on a corporate board."

Todd shook his head. "I don't get the Wall Street Journal." Meaning it in more ways than one.

McConlon laughed. "I guess I was fooled by your new car. Anyway, old bigwig, he can't find the executive washroom anymore, so they give him a title. Chairman Emeritus, or some such. Means jack shit. Means he no longer remembers to zip up when he's done, but it's a title of respect. He gets to keep reporting to work in the morning if he wants to, keeps a bigger office than he needs and the secretaries call him 'sir.' You see where I'm going with this, Todd?"

He did, but he didn't give the cop the satisfaction.

"That's what I told that pissant department store owner who thought his shit didn't stink. Couldn't believe how we had to strong-arm him to get one lousy job out of him, then he refused to continue to cooperate when that job needed..." he grinned, "...filling again. And look how things turned out. Did his buddy Drake save him? Those old fucks couldn't even handle a simple surprise attack against a bunch of bums in a day-rate motel."

The cop set his elbows on the window frame and leaned in. No longer so cautious.

"That's right. I know all about it. Darwin Dukey Gates got quite chatty toward the end. Figuring, I suppose, it'd help his cause."

After the jolt of fear had spent itself, Todd remembered that Gates and the Santanas had been taken care of in a desolate patch of highway. Not in the middle of town with the sun shining. Not that many of the good citizens of Babylon, Michigan would report the sounds of gunfire.

"Bottom line, you don't have any protection, Dunbar. Step out of the car and-"

Todd was ahead of him. He'd already thrown open the door, bumping the lawman aside, and was climbing out of the Lexus. The knife spilled out of his waistband and fell harmlessly to the ground. McConlon went for his gun. He looked scared, but he had the nine leveled at Todd's chest in a two-hand stance, the barrel only wavering slightly.

Todd's sudden response had played out a whole lot more dramatically in his mind. In reality, the sunlight hit him like a Taser, wobbling him until he thought the most aggressive thing he was going to do was puke on the cop's shiny black shoes.

McConlon, maybe sensing the same, took a step back. He barked an order Todd didn't clearly hear.

"Fuck you," Todd rasped, the searing sun making his legs go rubbery.

Joy called out his name. Hearing it as if from a great distance in time and space, he ignored her, tried to focus on the cop who seemed to be spitting out more commands.

"If you're not afraid of Drake, shoot me right now, asshole," Todd choked out.

He reeled, awaiting a bullet and oblivion. Easy to be brave when life itself held so much more terror than death.

"Might be an idea," said McConlon.

The cop's eyes flitted to the street at the top of the deep parking lot. Judging the likelihood of witnesses.

Wracked by a lightning bolt of pain that flash-burned his insides, Todd grabbed the door of the Lexus and doubled over. His skin was on fire. He was going to faint, collapse, and then die like a worm caught high and dry after a rainstorm.

"Leave him alone, he's sick," said Joy, jumping out of the passenger seat and jogging around the Lexus to join him. "You shoot him, you shoot me," she said simply.

Todd raised his head and saw McConlon waving his firearm from one Dunbar to the other. He nudged his wife aside, out of the immediate line of fire.

Jaw clenched tight, he said, "What the hell is it you think I got the matter with me, Marty? Can't you figure it out? Don't you recognize the symptoms?"

He licked hot sweat from his lips and felt it trickle through his hair and into his ears. It dripped from his nose, spattering the pavement like fat, salty raindrops. "Go ahead, motherfucker. But you better take off my head afterward or I'm coming for you."

The cop backed up, onto the patch of weeds. Nearly tripped over a picnic table leg.

"If you do score a direct hit, you got Drake coming for you. But that's right-you're not afraid of that old man. Can't even find the washroom. I almost forgot."

The cop's gun hand wavered. He flicked his gaze left and right, as though hoping that comment hadn't been overheard. "No. That can't be."

"Drake converted me himself," Todd said, a go-for-broke lie.

It didn't make much sense if McConlon stopped to think about it, but Todd bet he wouldn't. Not if he and Joy gave him no time to do so. He motioned for her to help him into the passenger seat and told her she'd have to drive.

"We're leaving," he said over his shoulder, voice cracking like the rest of him.

The cop obviously didn't know what to do. It was like what Highsmith had said yesterday: the town's daylighters had been mindless followers for so long they'd lost the ability to think for themselves. So Marty McConlon stood there waving his police-issue nine at them as Joy clumsily reversed the unfamiliar car and got its nose pointing toward the street.

"What now?" she asked, casting nervous glances at the gunman in her mirror.

That was easy. The cop would either holster his weapon or empty its clip into the rear window. Could go either way.

"Just drive."

Todd slumped low in the seat, trying to escape the sun more than McConlon's aim. They took a right on Middle View, Joy flicking one more glance in the mirror as they did so.

"He's just standing there," she said. "Still holding that gun."

No bullets flying. Yet.

Chapter Forty-Nine.

"Humidity," Paul murmured. "The door's just hung up on the floor."

"Oh...yeah." Freddie giggled.

Paul recognized the quiet laughter as Freddie's way of venting terror. He wondered if his friend had been as close to cardiac arrest as he himself had felt when that door had seemingly pushed back when Freddie turned the knob and started to slowly swing it open. Probably.

Now the lawyer gave it a bit of a shoulder and the door popped open. Both men froze at the sight before them.

"It's too sunny," Paul whispered.

Not at all what he was expecting. It felt empty as the men began the slow walk-through. But way too light and airy. The place in no way resembled the picture Paul had drawn in his mind, probably after watching too many late-night movies. He'd expected grime, dust and clutter, a la Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That, or a drafty Transylvanian castle, all black shadows, velvet drapes, damp dungeons. Instead, they wandered through a cheerful albeit tired-looking colonial. The wallpaper looked dingy and forgettable, as did the furnishings, but the house was clean and relatively tidy.

"Books everywhere," Paul murmured as he followed his hatchet-wielding friend from room to room.

Magazines and newspapers were scattered across many of the flat surfaces and piled in corners. Time. Newsweek. Books jammed in bookcases and stacked three or four deep on the floor. Popular novels, pop histories, coffee table art books. Nothing dedicated to ancient deities or spellcasting.

There was an out-of-fashion nineteen-inch television in one room with a DVD player and a collection of recent movies with stickers identifying them as rentals from the local library. No porn or slasher flicks. It all looked just so...normal.

"You sure we broke into the right house?" Freddie whispered, their thoughts aligned.

"Come on. We've got to find him," Paul said. They stood at the foot of the steep stairwell in the black stone entry foyer. "Let's go."

Freddie halted him by touching his chest with the broad side of the hatchet.

"You realize," he said, the sound barely escaping his throat, "that we're just putting off the inevitable. He's not up there. He's in the basement."

Sure. Paul had known that all along, but had decided to ignore the fact for now. Start elsewhere, with the cheery kitchen, the sun-drenched, book-strewn living room, the den that looked like everyone else's. Then try the bedrooms upstairs. It can't hurt.

But they knew.

Fifteen minutes later, they found that at least the light worked. Not like in the movies where the heroes would click, click the wall switch at the top of the basement stairs and find the bulb was dead-surprise, surprise-and that they had to traipse to the vampire's lair in the pitch dark.

Paul in the lead, they crept down the brightly lit wooden slats, Freddie gripping Paul's arm and resting the broad end of the hatchet on his shoulder.

The creaky stairs ended at a large, unlit room as dark and musty as Paul's imagination had painted it. Freddie pulled the hanging cord of a wobbly bulb that threw down a smeary wash of light. Paul could see a concrete floor that was chipped and cracked. It rose in little hills as though poured over a stormy lake. The room smelled of turpentine and bleach and other strong chemicals, and of dust and age.

We're trapped down here, Paul thought. Screwed if someone came to block the top of the stairs.

Freddie waved the hatchet at a washer and dryer, at a paint-splattered sink, a rotary-dial telephone attached to one wall.

Paul pointed to a high hump in dirty laundry piled on the floor.

"You think?" said Freddie.

Paul edged closer, meaning to nudge the pile with his toe, but his muscles locked up and his foot refused to raise. Instead, he dragged it toward the lump, imagining a withered hand whipping out and grabbing his ankle.

Paul blinked, mildly surprised that it didn't happen that way. That the lump remained sentient as his foot snagged it. He toed clothing away until nothing remained of the pile but more clothing, and only then did he let loose a breath he'd forgotten he was holding. It made a small sound, like air escaping an untied balloon.

"The door," Freddie whispered, laying a hand lightly on his shoulder.

Against a cinderblock wall on the other side of the dank room was an unpainted wooden door sealed flush with the rough wall. It might gain entrance to a storage room, a workshop, rec room...anything.