“Really?”
“Yes. I don’t want to lock it up for the long weekend here. I’m not really sure why I’m thinking that, but for some reason it feels like the correct thing to do.”
“I’ve learned over the years to trust your judgment,” he said. Which meant, she knew, that he had no idea what she was thinking or why. But he was kind that way.
He asked, “Are you still planning on knocking off early?”
“Yes, even though I wasted most of the morning going through this terrible thing.”
“Let me know if you need anything from the store,” he said. “I’ll be coming back through town this afternoon, I’m sure.”
“Okay, sweetie.”
“Here’s my turnoff,” Joe said. “I’ll call you on my way back.”
“Love you.”
“Love you.”
* * *
—
An hour later, Marybeth had lugged the album to her van in a Twelve Sleep County Library tote. It was heavy and the tote handles dug into her fingers. She placed the album on the floor of her back seat along with another tote filled with romance novels. As usual, their neighbor Lola Lowry had asked Marybeth to deliver her weekly assortment of titles. Because she had asked so nicely months before and she was their only close neighbor, Marybeth had agreed to drop off the books on the way home.
She tried to shake off the pall that had enveloped her from when she’d first opened the binder. It was almost as if the album itself radiated a kind of dark, almost seductive power over her psyche—that she’d made some kind of personal connection with the evil mind of a man she’d never heard of, but who had invited her in. She hoped the spell would break.
And she questioned why she had felt the need to keep it with her instead of leaving it at the library. Why had she decided to take it home, where her returning daughters would soon gather?
CHAPTER SIX
László and Viktór
The scene in the library parking lot was viewed with interest by two brothers parked half a block away in a rented SUV. The vehicle was splashed with mud. Two pairs of industrial blood-spattered and sooty Tyvek coveralls were wadded up and stuffed into a trash bag in the back seat of the vehicle. Their plan was to dispose of the soiled clothing in an incinerator—if they could find one in this sleepy place.
László Kovács, the driver, was tall and thick and still as physically imposing as he’d been when he was an Olympic wrestler. He had a shaved head, a square face that looked like a balled-up fist, heavy brows, and a deep voice. His big ears stuck straight out from his head. He moved with purpose and grace and was surprisingly quick.
Viktór was dark and lean and wore black plastic glasses with thick lenses that were crooked on his V-shaped face. His features were much softer than his brother’s. He was older than László by a few years, but neither of them had any questions about who was in charge. Unlike László, Viktór had only been to America twice in his life: once to New York City and once to Disney World.
“See that?” László asked in Hungarian.
“She’s got it,” Viktór responded. “What else would she have in that bag?”
“Who is she?”
László lifted a pair of binoculars from his lap and focused them on the license plate of the van, then read out the numbers. His brother scrawled them on the back of the rental car receipt envelope.
“Are we going to follow her?” Viktór asked.
“Oh, hold it,” László said, this time in barely accented English. “When she pulled out, I can see that the space is reserved for the director of the library. So she’s the boss of that place.”
The van exited the parking lot and turned onto the street toward the men in the SUV.
“Get down,” László ordered.
As both men rolled to their sides on the seat, they bumped heads while doing so. They didn’t sit back up until they clearly heard the van pass by.
“You have a hard head,” Viktór said with a grimace. He took off his baseball cap and rubbed his scalp through his hair.
“Get your phone out,” László said. “Find out the name of the library director. Then look up her address.”
“Now? I’m hungry and tired and I want to eat.”
“We eat when we’re done.”
“I want to eat now. This jet lag has thrown off my internal clock.”
László stared straight ahead with his jaw clamped. He was angry with his brother.