“Why didn’t you ever get married?”

Frank laughed. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m not exactly what you’d call husband material.”

“Neither was my father.”

Frank nodded and stubbed his cigarette out on the metal dashboard. “You got me there. But your dad didn’t find a typical woman—he found Mia. You know how many women can live with guys like us?” he asked, his thumb twitching back and forth, indicating Jake and himself.

“Guys like us?” Then he thought of Kay, and realized that the old man was right.

“Come on, Jakey. Me? I spent half my life on safari or in the mountains, hunting down just about everything that runs, walks, or crawls on the planet. Even now, I fuck off into the mountains for three-week stretches. You think that your average woman wants a man who does that? As much as they talk about being liberated, as much as they talk about wanting an equal share, I have yet to find a woman who lets me be me. And you?” He laughed, but it was a kind, loving laugh. “You’re the same. I don’t care who your genetic parents were, you’re a Coleridge. Only you hunt people for fun.”

“I don’t do this for fun, Frank.”

“I’m not big on advice, Jakey, but you get into trouble when you start believing your own bullshit.” Frank’s voice nearly disappeared in the noisy cab. “I watched you today—you like what you do.”

Jake shook his head. “You’re wrong. I’m quitting. I made up my mind. This case and one more to tie up. At least I was.”

Frank nodded. “Sure. And one more, then one more, then one more. Always one more. It’s like a bad relationship that you can’t get out of. Because we love the things that destroy us, Jakey. In that destruction we feel alive.”

They reached Sumter Point and Frank swung into the driveway. In the bright lights of the truck the house looked like it had been abandoned for years. Most of the flashing was torn away, chunks of the roof were gone. The shrubs had been washed away along with the gravel drive—now just a muddy track. Behind the house, close to the ocean, the studio was leaning back, toward the sea, as if it had lost its grip on the earth and was thinking about diving into the ocean.

Jake knew that the Bloodman was going to come here. He had to—there was no one left now but him and Frank. He thought about telling the old man about his plan, about what they were doing here. But Frank wouldn’t like it. Not one little bit. Because no one—not even a tough old sonofabitch like Frank Coleridge—liked to be used as bait.

“Home sweet home,” Jake said.

72

Hauser had swallowed so much coffee in the past two days that he figured it would take a week to leach from his system. He hadn’t looked in the mirror in some time but the taste in his mouth suggested that even his teeth were brown. He walked down the hall, his left hand holding a mug, his right resting on the hilt of his great-granddad’s trench knife, taking a lull in the action to survey the station.

It was still on the move but the directed frenzy of a few hours ago had given way to an exhausted hum. Most of the officers were on their fourth set of dry clothes and Hauser saw a few nonissue T-shirts and boots among his people. He watched the dulled movements and the thousand-yard stares—good people who had spent the last sixteen hours at the business end of the storm, helping a citizenry who should have listened to them and evacuated.

He had wanted to put all his attention and resources into the homicides that were multiplying as fast as cells dividing but truth be told, he had limited resources. Of course, come tomorrow morning, the National Guard would roll in and he’d be able to put his men where he thought they’d be the most effective. But he doubted they’d be much good in hunting down this murderer—for that he’d need people who had experience with this kind of thing coupled with a personality that rested somewhere beneath the frost layer of human emotions. In short, he needed a cold analytical man like Jake Cole. Crazy fucking Jake, ripping around town in a tan Humvee hunting down sinners. Jesus, how could a life get so fucked up? he wondered. Then he realized that he was part of the same caravan. Well, almost the same caravan.

Hauser had passed most of the night out in the hurricane, where the physical world had been thrown around. He was no stranger to what Mother Nature could do—being the sheriff of a seaside community came with its own broad set of experiences—but he had never imagined that Long Island itself could feel like it was being filed off the bedrock. Tonight, when he had been out there in the worst of it, he had been humbled, frightened even.

A good chunk of the town had been taken apart—he couldn’t begin to estimate how many houses had been ripped out of the ground by the wind or pushed off their foundations by the mountainous swells that had come down like God’s own hand. Roofs were gone. Cars totaled. Land swept away in great mouthfuls. And this was only the first round.

In another few hours, the first part of Dylan would be finished, and they would find respite in the eye of the hurricane. But for how long? An hour? Two? Then it would start up again and finish whatever business it had left undone, whatever damage it still felt like doling out.

Hauser had spent half the night saving people from their own stupidity; why couldn’t they have listened? He felt sure that he had done his due diligence, that he had made an effort to get his citizens to abandon their…their…what? Crap, was what it amounted to. Sure, some of it cost a lot of money, but it was all just stuff. Stuff could be replaced. Or done without. But Hauser knew they wouldn’t be selling lives down at the Montauk Hardware store come Monday morning.

As much as he tried to focus on the storm, to believe that it was the worst thing to ever hit his community, images of the Bloodman’s work kept coming back to him. Compared to this guy, Dylan was a minor inconvenience—and when you called the hand of God a minor inconvenience, you had some serious shit on your doorstep.

Wohl came running up to him, a pink phone-sheet in his hand. “Sheriff, window on Myrtle Avenue blew in, blinded a lady. Her seven-year-old called it in. EMT’s dealing with two heart attacks and a guy who lost his leg so all three units are out. Want me to take it?”

Hauser shook his head; Wohl had good organizational skills and he was needed at the station to keep the calls prioritized. “Send Scopes.”

Wohl shook his head. “Scopes is out on a call. He shoulda been back half an hour ago but he ain’t.” The look in Wohl’s eyes was hopeful—he wanted to do some hands-on in the community, not spend the night safely inside eating egg-salad sandwiches and fielding messages.

“Spencer?”

Wohl shrugged. “Spencer’s out, too.”

Hauser’s mouth turned down. “Shit.” He took a sip of coffee, then put the mug into Wohl’s hands. “Give me the address,” he said, and went to get his poncho. Better to deal with God than the Devil any time, he figured.

73

Jake held the door and Frank rushed inside. As he swung by, Jake saw that the past few hours had taken their toll on the man. He was a tough old bastard, but the night had chipped a lot of him away and the years showed through the fissures. Jake closed the door.

Frank shook himself off and stopped at the Nakashima console. Sitting on top, looking a little like Sputnik, was the wire-frame sphere that Jacob had welded all those years ago. Jake stared at it, seeing it with new eyes, new history. Frank did, too.