Ralph didn’t need to be a mind reader to know what Holly was thinking at this moment: Every time you and the others talk about the outsider, it’s conditional.
Ralph turned around in his seat. “Listen to me now. No more ifs or maybes. For today, the outsider does exist. For today, he can read Claude Bolton’s mind any time he wants to, and unless we know differently, he’s in the Marysville Hole. No more assumptions, just belief. Can you do that?”
For a moment, no one replied. Then Howie said, “I’m a defense lawyer, son. I can believe anything.”
7
They came to the billboard showing the awestruck family holding up their gas lanterns. Howie drove slowly up the cracked asphalt entry road, avoiding the potholes as best he could. The temperature, which had been in the mid-fifties when they set out, was now edging into the seventies. It would go higher.
“See that knoll up there?” Holly pointed. “The main cave entrance is in the base of it. Or was, until they plugged it. We should check there first. If he tried to get in that way, there might be some sign.”
“Fine with me,” Yune said, looking around. “Jesus, this is desolate country.”
“The loss of those boys and the rescue party that went after them was terrible for their families,” Holly said, “but it was also a disaster for Marysville. The Hole was the town’s only job provider. A lot of locals left after it closed down.”
Howie braked. “That must have been the ticket booth, and I spy a chain across the road.”
“Go around it,” Yune said. “Give this baby’s suspension a workout.”
Howie drove around the chain, his seatbelted passengers bouncing up and down. “Okay, folks, we are now officially trespassing on private property.”
A coyote broke from cover at their approach and sprinted away, his lean shadow racing beside him. Ralph spotted the remains of wind-eroded tire tracks and assumed that local kids—there had to be at least a few of them left in Marysville—brought their ATVs out here. He was mostly focused on the rocky bluff ahead, site of what had been Marysville’s one and only tourist attraction. Its raison d’etre, if you wanted to be fancy about it.
“We’re all carrying,” Yune said. He was sitting upright in his seat, eyes fixed straight ahead, on alert. “Is that correct?”
The men answered in the affirmative. Holly Gibney said nothing.
8
From his perch atop the bluff, Jack saw them coming long before they reached the acre of parking lot. He checked his weapon—fully loaded, with one in the pipe. He had placed a flat stone at the edge of the drop. Now he lay at full length with the barrel resting on it. He sighted through the scope, putting the crosshairs on the driver’s side of the windshield. A sunflash momentarily blinded him. He winced, drew back, rubbed his eye until the floating spot was gone, then peered into the scope again.
Come on, he thought. Stop in the middle of the parking lot. That would be perfect. Stop there and get out.
The SUV instead trundled diagonally across the parking lot and stopped in front of the cave’s boarded-over entrance. All the doors opened and five people got out, four men and one woman. Five little meddlers, all in a row, lovely. Unfortunately, it was a shit shot. The sun in its current position cast the cave’s entrance in shadow. Jack might have chanced that—the Leupold scope was damned good—but there was the problem of the SUV, now blocking at least three of the five, including Mr. No Opinion.
Jack lay with his cheek against the rifle stock and his pulse beating slow and steady in his chest and throat. He was no longer aware of his throbbing neck; the only thing he cared about was the cluster of meddlers standing below the sign reading WELCOME TO THE MARYSVILLE HOLE.
“Come on out of there,” he whispered. “Come out and look around a little. You know you want to.”
He waited for them to do it.
9
The Hole’s arched entryway was blocked by two dozen wooden planks, attached by huge rusty bolts to the cement plug beyond. With such double coverage against unauthorized explorers, there was hardly any need of No Trespassing signs, but there were a couple, anyway. Plus a few fading spraypaint tags—left, Ralph presumed, by the same kids who brought their ATVs out here.
“Anyone think this looks tampered with?” Yune asked.
“Nope,” Alec said. “Why they even bothered with the boards is beyond me. You’d need a good charge of dynamite to put a hole in that cement plug.”
“Which would probably finish the job the quake started,” Howie added.