there while in conversation, amined the handles on the mirrored closet
doors, and cares each number and switchpad on the remote-control device
the TV, hoping that they had clicked on the set even dur the short time
they had been home.
Nothing.
Because he needed to be calm and methodical in his sea if he were to
succeed, Candy had to repress his rage and frustration. But his anger
grew even as he struggled to contain and in him the thirst of anger was
always a thirst for blo that wine of vengeance. Only blood would slake
his thi quench his fury, and allow him an interlude of relative peace By
the time he moved from the Dakotas’ bedroom into adjoining bath, Candy
was possessed of a need for blood alm as undeniable and critical as his
need for air. Looking at mirror, he did not see himself for a moment,
as if he cast reflection; he saw only red blood, as if the mirror were a
p hole on one of the lower decks of a ship in Hell, on a cr through a
sea of gore. When that illusion faded and he saw his own face, he
quickly looked away.
He clenched his jaws, struggled even harder to control himself, and
touched the hot-water faucet, searching, seeking….
THE MOTEL Room in Santa Barbara was spacious, quiet, clean, and
furnished without the jarring clash of colors and patterns that seemed
de rigueur in most American motels-but it was not a place in which Julie
would have chosen to receive the terrible news that came to her there.
The blow seemed greater, the ache in the heart more piercing, for having
to be home in a strange and impersonal place.
She really had thought that Bobby was letting his imagination run away
with him again, that Thomas was perfectly fine. Because the phone was
on the nightstand, he sat on the, edge of the bed to make the call, and
Julie watched him and listened from a chair only a few feet away. When
he got that recording again, explaining that the Cielo Vista number was
temporarily out of service due to line problems, she was vaguely uneasy
but still sure that all was well with her brother.
However, when he called the office in Newport to talk with Hal, got Lee
Chen instead, and spent the first minute or so listening in shocked
silence, responding with a cryptic word or two, she knew this was to be
a night that cleaved her life, and that the years to come inevitably
would be darker than the years she had lived on the other side of that
cleft. As he began to ask questions of Lee, Bobby avoided looking at
Julie, which confirmed her intuition and made her heart pound faster.
When at last he glanced at her, she had to look away from the sadness in
his eyes. His questions to Lee were clipped, and she couldn’t ascertain
much from them. Maybe she didn’t want to.
Finally the call seemed to be drawing to an end.
“No, you’ve done well, Lee. Keep handling it just the way you have
been. What? Thank you, Lee. No, we’ll be all right. We’ll be okay,
Lee. One way or another, we’ll be okay.” When Bobby hung up, he sat
for a moment, staring at his hands, which he clasped between his knees.
Julie did not ask him what had happened, as if what Lee had told him was
not yet fact, as if her question was a dar magic and as if the
unrevealed tragedy would not become re until she asked about it.
Bobby got off the bed and knelt on the floor in front of her chair. He
took both of her hands in his and gently kissed the She knew then that
the news was as bad as it could get.
Softly he said,
“Thomas is dead.” She had steeled herself for that news, but the words
cut deep
“I’m sorry, Julie. God, I’m so sorry. And it doesn’t end there.” He
told her about Hal.
“And just a couple minutes before he talked to me, Lee received a call
about Clint and Felina Both dead.” The horror was too much to