The Racer
Erick Poladov

© Erick Poladov, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0060-9882-4

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

Note

Speed measurements are given in the metric system. This novel is intended for a wide audience, the majority of whom live in countries that use the metric system. For readers in the USA, a conversion guide between metric and imperial units is provided below for convenience:

1 kilometer (km) (Distance) = 0.62 miles (mi)

1 meter (m) (Distance) = 3.28 feet (ft)

1 centimeter (cm) (Distance) = 0.39 inches (in)

1 metric ton (tonne) (Mass / Weight) = 1.10 US short tons

1 kilogram (kg) (Mass / Weight) = 2.20 pounds (lbs)

1 gram (g) (Mass / Weight) = 0.035 ounces (oz)

1 liter (L) (Volume) = 0.26 US liquid gallons (gal)

1 kilometer per hour (km/h) (Speed) = 0.62 miles per hour (mph)

Prologue

In the absolute darkness of the night, the roar of the engine grew louder, pushing the speedometer needle far from zero. The Dodge Challenger was cutting through the air at a speed of two hundred thirty-five kilometers per hour. In black, its body was lost on the road. The headlights cast an unnatural reddish glow, not illuminating the road but serving another purpose. The headlights were intended for something else. These were the eyes of the Racer, whose hands, hidden under black leather gloves, tightly grasped the steering wheel. He wielded an infernal power, capable of turning the Dodge into a beast that hunted souls. This beast raced relentlessly, and no car could escape it.

It was a hot summer in two thousand and one. The night offered a slight reprieve from the heat. But that night, the Racer planned to chill the air to a point where blood would freeze in veins, racing through the body as hearts pounded at their limits. Soon the whole of Heartstone will feel this temperature, and the sultry heat will no longer seem so exhausting. A small town two hundred kilometers northwest of Austin met a stranger cruising its streets under the dim glow of streetlights.

After finishing her shift, Vivienne Ham, a twenty-nine-year-old waitress at a local restaurant, walked along the sidewalk towards the intersection. She crossed her arms, shivering slightly and rubbing her shoulders. The sudden chill deepened her exhaustion. She wanted to get home as soon as possible and wrap herself in a warm blanket. She had already approached the crosswalk and began to cross to the other side, but after taking a few steps, Vivienne froze right between the stripes in the middle of the road and cast a gaze to her left. On the other side of the intersection the light was red, and under the traffic light there was a black car with scarlet headlights. Vivienne understood that there was nothing strange in the fact that at such a late time someone was still moving along the streets of Heartstone. But this car caused her internal discomfort. She could hear the faint rumble of an engine. At the traffic lights, yellow was added to red, and a second later they went out and green turned on. Immediately the rumble of the engine became louder and the Dodge started moving. Vivienne instinctively clutched the straps of her purse, letting out a sharp cry. The girl’s eyelids opened wider than ever, making it seem as if her eyeballs were about to pop out of their sockets. The Dodge turned left, quickly disappearing from sight. Vivienne’s ears heard the fading sound of a car moving away and the sounds of her own breathing, which became faster along with her heart beating against her ribs.

Unlike Vivienne Ham, twenty-four-year-old Conchita Sugarman was in no hurry to go home. The working day had long ended, but she was in no hurry to close the pharmacy. She was waiting for her boyfriend to arrive and be free. There were parents, grandmother and younger sister at home. Here no one bothered her. Conchita had already prepared the best contraceptives available, which would not spoil the thrill of sensations, but at the same time would give peace of mind in the face of the fear of receiving a surprise greater than any jackpot. She stood on the street not far from the entrance, finishing her cigarette and looking around the night street. Suddenly the roar of a running engine began to be heard from somewhere. Conchita knew this driving style, which boiled down to not giving a damn about medians, traffic lights and speed limits. Yes, it was Freddie Rogers. He was only two years older, but in terms of mental maturity he was much inferior to Conchita, and she was aware of this, although she did not expect much from this relationship. As a pharmacist, she understood one thing: there is an organism that requires the exchange of fluids and this need must be satisfied. Freddie was a more than tolerable option for a relationship without the commitment of marriage. Conchita did not count on a bright future with him. Before him, she already had two, and each time it was an affair with no plans for the future. Freddie parked in front of the pharmacy, performing a spectacular drift, which he thought added to the coolness. Conchita was not impressed by such show-offs. Her only reaction to the drift of the green ’78 Mustang was that she hurried to close the front door, since she had just washed the floor. The cloud of dust rose so strong and thick that Conchita did not even notice how Freddie blew a kiss her way.

– Come on quickly, before the family starts calling – Conchita urged, putting out the cigarette under the sole of her sandal.

– I’m already running, my peach.

Peach, strawberry, baby, cherry, candy. Freddie used these words so often that Conchita sometimes wondered if Freddie had simply forgotten her name.

Conchita closed the door from the inside, after which they attacked each other. Freddie’s lips pressed to Conchita’s neck, and Conchita’s eyes to the window. She looked somewhere into emptiness, into the unknown, because her thoughts were occupied by Freddy’s touch. But then her eyes took in something specific. She thought someone had come for medicine and decided to ignore it. Conchita was sure that he would stand a little longer and turn back. But the Dodge continued to park in the parking lot right next to the Mustang. The scarlet headlights began to unnerve Conchita and she began to push Freddie away with her hands.

– Wait.

– What’s the matter?

Conchita nodded towards the window.

– Some creep? – she asked with some trembling in her voice, without taking her eyes off the scarlet glow of the headlights.

– Wait here – Freddie said and headed towards the door. He turned the lock twice and went out into the street, but after a couple of steps he froze when an incredibly loud roar was heard from under the hood of the Dodge. The car started moving and drove away. Freddie stood for some time, following the dwindling taillights of the Dodge with his eyes.

Conchita was still not against continuing, but Freddie was no longer able to finish what he started, no matter how hard he tried, and he responded to Conchita’s offer about Viagra with a decisive refusal.

Forty-seven-year-old construction worker Elmo Fisher, who led a crew of five, stayed late on site to calculate the amount of paint for each room after they adjusted the layout at the owner’s request. He had eaten one hot dog and drunk one cup of coffee all day, so Elmo looked utterly exhausted. He was not interested in anything other than dinner and a soft bed so he could pass out until tomorrow morning. Even behind the wheel of his working van, worn over the years, Elmo doubted that his eyes would not close until he got home. His eyelids felt weighed down by steel. After some thought, he got out and knelt down in front of the open door to do as many push-ups as he could manage, then returned to the driver’s seat and turned the key in the ignition.

Elmo started off with a strong feeling that he needed to press on the gas until the drowsiness subsided. Ten minutes should have been enough for him to get home, and there he could leave the car outside the garage, just to quickly have dinner and go to bed.

But before Elmo had time to drive onto the asphalt, a car rushed along the road. He immediately hurried to the stranger, who, half a kilometer later, stopped at a red traffic light. Elmo drove a little forward to make sure once again that he wasn’t imagining things. The stranger’s headlights were indeed off. He got out of the van, walked up to the Dodge and knocked on the heavily tinted window. The glass didn’t go down. Then Elmo stood in front of the bumper opposite the windshield, gestured to the headlights and shouted a little louder:

– Moron, turn on the headlights!

Then the headlights came on, but the light was like red spotlights. The traffic light turned green and the Dodge began to drive. Elmo stepped aside, following the unfamiliar car with his eyes. The driver’s seat window was rolled down. Elmo looked inside and was stuck in place, rooted to the spot. When he was released from his stupor, on the way home, Elmo understood that he would not go to bed soon. The drowsiness disappeared as if it had never existed.

1. Not a godfather

The local church in Heartstone was led by a full-blooded Italian Leonardo Benetti. At fifty-two, he had no gray hair, keeping his head closely cropped. Jet-black hair, neatly trimmed and a clean-shaven face made Father Benetti’s appearance unchanged for many years in a row. Frequent sports in his youth still affected the priest’s size. Standing at 182 cm, he had broad shoulders, but his arms, which were larger in girth than many hips, were not so noticeable under clothes. His most striking feature was his deep-set eyes, which were set deeper than usual. On the one hand, this feature made his face fearsome, but after the first acquaintance with him, this effect faded after meeting him, as his soothing voice worked like a balm for the soul, because everyone remembered his manner of speech, which was soothing as a prayer.

As darkness fell several residents came to the Father for confession. The first was deputy Jenna Kramer. For months, she was haunted by memories of her loss. She told Father Benetti about her boyfriend Pierce Branigan, who was mauled to death by a black bear in the forest. She had a hard time coping with this loss. As soon as she came to her senses, Jenna began to be torn apart by a dilemma about her pregnancy. She didn’t want to do this, but she wanted even less to raise a child without a Father, not because it would be more difficult, but because the child simply wouldn’t know who his Father was. This was also compounded by the fact that Jenna became pregnant out of wedlock, and this also affected her. She could have hidden it with a quick marriage. But the stars aligned differently. Until recently Jenna pushed away thoughts of an abortion, but in the end she decided to go for it. Now for four days she was tormented by insomnia.

– I keep thinking about him – Jenna muttered, tears streaming down her trembling cheeks. – Constantly. What would this child be like if he were born? – A tremble ran through her voice. Tears continued to leak even through drooping eyelids. The grief in Jenna’s body reached such a state that her lips stretched to the limit, revealing bared teeth. – It was part of him. His blood… And mine…

Jenna’s crying could be heard even outside the confessional.

– He left a part of himself, and I got rid of… – Because of the crying, Jenna’s words were cut off in the middle. – I killed the last thing he left me. He could have lived on through this child. I could…

Compared to other Catholic priests, Father Benetti had a much more progressive view of things. He understood one simple truth: there is no need to force people to follow the Bible literally, but it is better to show flexibility and give a person the opportunity to turn to God so that he does not have to radically disrupt his daily life and give up the natural benefits of modern life. Father Benetti never judged his parishioners. He didn’t see the point in conveying to people the idea that they were very guilty, because what’s done is done, and you can’t turn back time. Therefore, he believed that instead it was better to help the person survive what happened so that mental anguish did not have a detrimental effect on the psyche. After all, if a person comes for confession, this is already a sign of his repentance. The Father believed that it was better to help a person live with a light heart than to dump a burden on him, because of which the person would then experience such torment around the clock, as if he had killed or raped someone. And people went to church to get rid of the burden from their souls. As people came to church more and more often, over time they were imbued with religion more and more deeply, even if they had previously been avowed atheists. Through this, Father Benetti earned immense respect among residents and parishioners became more and more over the years, so the rise in religion’s popularity in Heartstone was entirely due to Leonardo Benetti. Knowing that the Father would not condemn them for what they had done, the residents willingly went to confession. For parishioners he was a servant of God, a psychotherapist, and a friend.

Second in line was Mandy Troy. She admitted to breaking the commandment against adultery. She sincerely repented of the betrayal, but another question bothered her. She wanted advice on whether to confess everything to her husband. Father Benetti said that she must decide for herself what she should do, and suggested that this burden on her soul might grow heavier with each passing year and each time it would become more and more difficult to bear. In fact, Father Benetti knew that Castor Troy – Mandy’s husband – had frequent sexual relations with another woman, which he admitted during the same confession and was unlikely to destroy the family if he learned that his wife had followed his example.

Twenty-four-year-old Riggan Brooks, who worked as a cashier at a gas station, told how he found a wallet with no ID, lost by a customer, and when he showed up and asked if he had seen the wallet, Riggan answered in the negative, since his boss was present in the hall, who was an inveterate swindler and would not forgive him for returning such valuable property. Riggan did not have time to assess the consequences of this or that decision, so he responded as quickly as possible, so as not to arouse suspicion.

– Father, I don’t want anything that isn’t mine. I really don’t want to keep this to myself. Just what was I supposed to do when… when…

Father Benetti advised him to take the wallet to the sheriff, and said that there was nothing shameful in Riggan’s behavior, since he lied in order to save someone else’s property and avoid a conflict with his superiors and there was nothing wrong with that.

Next, forty-four-year-old Emma Cooper confessed to the Father. Her relationship with her fifteen-year-old adopted son had become too complicated, she has ceased to find a common language with him and every conversation leads to shouting, thereby prolonging the ongoing quarrel. Emma admitted that on this basis, recently she involuntarily began to remind herself more and more often that for her this is not her own blood and such thoughts only inflame her anger towards her son. But because such thoughts come into her head about the lack of common blood with the boy whom Emma has been raising since the day he was seven months old, she begins to despise herself.

– I believed that I would become his mother, that he would accept me as his own. How can I sleep after such thoughts? Yesterday I almost said it out loud. Do you understand? I was half a step away from shouting in his face about how good it was that I wasn’t the one who gave birth to him. And most importantly, I can’t help it. I am unable to control my emotions. I don’t know what will happen next, but I feel like it’s more than I can handle.

Father Benetti tactfully convinced her that any teenager at this age shows resentment and dissatisfaction with many of the demands of their parents and all Emma needs is just to show a little patience and soon she will notice that her son’s outbursts of anger have disappeared just as quickly, as they appeared. He also explained to her that she shouldn’t hate herself for thoughts alone; he said that this was stupid, since she took in someone else’s child and gave him love and maternal warmth, which already speaks of her true nature, and therefore she should not take fleeting thoughts seriously.

So every day, Heartstone residents of all ages and professions came to Father Benetti to pour out their souls and take the weight off their shoulders. In a sense, they were very lucky, since Father Benetti, in addition to his duties as a priest, also performed the work of a psychoanalyst, the only difference being that he did not take a cent for it. In other cities, people shell out a lot of money for such services, which not only does not make their souls lighter, but, on the contrary, only adds to the pain of how much a chat with a stranger costs.

The trust in Father Benetti was immense, especially considering the secrets parishioners revealed during confession – gave him a reputation as the most respected man in the town. Sometimes it seemed to those around him that he personally knew more than half of the local population by name and face. Every parishioner looked to the Father as the greatest authority in Heartstone. The town’s sheriff, judge, and wealthiest merchants paled in comparison to the influence of a man who wore a black jacket, trousers, shoes, shirt, and a white clerical collar year-round.

2. He is the law here

Jenna Kramer returned to the sheriff’s office, which matched the scale of the small town. In addition to the sheriff the staff included three deputies, a janitor and a medical examiner, part-time who worked as a pathologist at the local hospital. Jenna was one of three deputies. Everyone around believed that she was born to wear the uniform of a guardian of the law, but not in the sense of her vocation, but because the uniform simply suited her. She always tried to keep her dark brown hair gathered at the back of her head, but as a rule, towards the end of the working day, out of fatigue, she straightened her hair, which had a slightly wavy shape, falling well below her shoulders. However, she did not have to prove her competence in the work of a guardian of the law day after day. She had long earned her reputation. The sheriff valued in her a combination of such qualities as an amazing ability to find a common language with people and composure in extreme situations. It might be a stretch to call it composure, but Jenna maintained her sanity much better than her two colleagues. The sheriff always joked about her ability to communicate with people of all different personalities, saying that if it weren’t for her large brown eyes mesmerize like magic, her communication skills would not be so outstanding. In fact, there was a huge amount of truth in this, because in addition to her eyes, Jenna had perfectly shaped eyebrows, a neat nose and slightly protruding lips. In addition, she did not have an ounce of excess weight, because in addition to the fact that this added feminine beauty to her, this made chasing criminals much easier. That’s why the sheriff appointed Jenna chief deputy after two years of service.

Pierce’s death still tormented her soul and the feeling of grief was still far from fading. Only work helped Jenna to at least a little escape from thoughts about Pierce and the loss of her pregnancy.

The man on duty that evening was Harry Devon. Thin, thirty years old, one hundred and seventy-nine centimeters tall. As a child, he always dreamed of thick stubble, as he considered it a sign of brutality. But when the time came, Harry noticed that the stubble on his face was not only sparse, but also growing only on a small area of skin under his lower jaw, barely touching his cheeks. Because of this, Harry got into the habit of shaving smooth to avoid anyone noticing, not allowing his stubble to grow long enough for anyone to notice. In this way, he disguised the inferiority of stubble, passing off its absence as a penchant for personal hygiene and caring for one’s appearance. Harry followed orders perfectly, was absolutely manageable, meticulously filled out all the paperwork, arrived at the office half an hour before the start of the working day – he believed that it was better to arrive half an hour early than two seconds late – and never questioned the authority of the sheriff in his eyes. From the first day in the service Harry even acquired exactly the same hat as the sheriff’s, which was always worn by movie sheriffs in provincial towns, in order to match the image of a real law enforcement officer. According to the sheriff himself Harry lacked the core, which was necessary in those cases when it was necessary to show toughness in relations with certain people. To the locals, Harry was the friendliest lawman. If he came to the call, then the offenders rejoiced and the victims were disappointed. However, such traits as punctuality, accuracy and complete obedience became sufficient grounds for the sheriff to highly value Harry as a deputy. If the sheriff was like a father or mentor to Harry, whose opinion was never in doubt, then he perceived Jenna almost as an older sister. Despite the fact that Harry began working as a deputy sheriff a year and a half earlier than Jenna, he never considered challenging her seniority, especially since he understood perfectly well that he would not be able to exercise the functions of a leader. At least not now.

Suddenly the front door opened and two people entered the office. Sheriff Desmond Poe led the handcuffed criminal inside. With a sharp movement, pressing on his shoulder, he forced the detainee to sit down on a chair in front of his desk.

– Harry, book him – the sheriff said, removing the handcuffs.

Spencer Fox, sixty-four years old, sat in front of Harry. He didn’t like the way three tourists who were passing through were rowdy in the cafe. Considering that he was showing concern for the peace of the local residents, Spencer approached the tourists and, at first in a rude manner, asked them to shut up and eat in silence, and upon hearing a refusal in response, he took out his short-barreled revolver and fired a warning shot. Spencer almost got it because he was just a few millimeters short of the chandelier. The owner of the establishment and part-time cook cursed Spencer three times, but Spencer demanded that he shut up too.

All his life Spencer Fox worked as a security guard at a bank, where he had the opportunity to eliminate the threat four times. Once he even had to deal with a robber, having neutralized whom he received the Order of Courage and written gratitude from the hands of the governor himself for the prevented robbery. Whenever a commotion broke out in the bank, it was a breath of fresh air for Spencer. After such excesses, he felt blood flowing through his veins and he began to live. Having resolved the next situation, Spencer realized his importance for the office and the next day began to search every visitor right from the doorstep, and he did it in a way that any customs officer would envy. Even if his neighbor or cousin crossed the threshold of the bank office, he demanded they empty their pockets, or he’d pull out his baton and begin to lay him face down on the floor, and his below-average height and the presence of a rather large belly were not a hindrance to him. On this basis, management regularly received complaints about the security guard, and the bank director each time had to put Spencer on the ground, issuing fines and reprimands. But that didn’t stop Spencer. He could slow down for a while, but as soon as someone gave him a reason, he immediately reminded who was in charge and began to bring everyone to attention. And now it’s been more than a year since Spencer retired and life had lost its spark for him.

While Harry tapped the keys, registering Spencer, the sheriff, leaning on the edge of the table, examined the revolver taken from Spencer and said:

– Say thank you, because next time I will send you to serve administrative arrest. Got it?

Leaning back in his chair and spreading his legs wide, Spencer said:

– What, you think you’re the law here? – At this point, Spencer began to remind the sheriff how fifteen years ago the governor himself awarded him the Order of Courage and that in this town all the creatures are ungrateful, after which he loudly and confidently summed up: – So don’t give me that crap, Desmond!

Harry handed over a printed signature sheet. The sheriff snatched it and crushed it with the fingers of one hand, after which he abruptly took Spencer by the arm and pulled him away from the chair.

– That’s it, that’s enough! You’ll be sitting here forever, half-baked Rambo! – With these words, Desmond took Spencer to the temporary holding cell.

Harry watched them with a worried look. Jenna noticed his reaction and said, without looking up from the back of the chair:

– Forget it. Spencer’s been itching for trouble for a while.

Jenna’s hands then went to the back of her head to unwind the elastic. Her hair came loose, after which she lightly straightened it with her fingers.

Desmond closed the cell door once Spencer was inside and, without a moment’s hesitation, walked back to the office.

Desmond Poe was fifty-nine. Some gray hair appeared at the temples. Unlike Spencer, the sheriff did not have a protruding belly all his life, which appeared only after fifty-five. Desmond spent his entire life maintaining order in Heartstone. His ironclad self-belief began to take shape when he was twenty-eight and a deputy to the previous sheriff. That day, Desmond was sitting in his official car on the side of the highway, where he was conducting patrol. Day as day, until a red Mercedes, wanted for a bank robbery in Dallas, sped past, as mentioned on the radio. Three robbers had taken out a bank in Dallas and were now hurrying somewhere. Signs of the car were sent to all police stations in the state in the hope that somewhere the Mercedes would catch the eye of law enforcement officers. He caught the eye of Desmond Poe. Even before Desmond pressed the gas pedal, he remembered that the robbers were armed and they were unlikely to stop at his request, but at that moment he thought that even a broken clock is right twice a day and demanded through the loudspeaker to park at the side of the road. Desmond’s assumptions were correct. Instead of obeying his demands, the Mercedes only increased its speed, and a face with a shotgun appeared from the rear passenger window. Stopping the red Mercedes, which was wanted throughout the state, cost Desmond the front bumper, the windshield, the right side mirror, the right front fender, the right front door, the radiator, four cartridges and one corpse out of three potential ones. After what happened, no one doubted that this guy had a great future. The chase lasted only fourteen seconds before Desmond pulled out his revolver and fired the first shot, and forty-two seconds later the chase was over. He not only believed in himself, but believed that there was no person who could make him falter. After one of the robbers emerged from the window of the Mercedes and fired the first shot, Desmond began to sink into such a state of stress that he could hardly remember much of what happened next. But when the chase ended and he pinned down two, discovering the corpse of the third, the realization came to him that there was nothing to be afraid of. Desmond was convinced that he had done something that no Hollywood action movie could show. This was the first and only time Desmond killed someone. He felt no regret or guilt for not taking all three alive. The driver leaned back, pressed against the steering wheel with a hole in the back of his head, but Desmond perceived this turn of events as a necessary price of fighting crime. It happens that you cannot do without murder and the only question is who will be killed: the criminal or the policeman. From that day on, every time any difficulties arose at work, Desmond reminded himself that it was he who alone took on the gang in the red Mercedes. For example, when his boss raised his voice at him, Desmond immediately remembered the gang in the red Mercedes, thereby reminding himself of the level of his professionalism, and along with these thoughts came to him the realization of what a nonentity his boss was, who have never done anything even remotely similar throughout his miserable life. Such thoughts about the past were the most effective way to combat stress. The day the gang in the red Mercedes was defeated at the hands of Desmond Poe, the future sheriff learned what he was capable of. Although his reputation preceded him, a couple of years later he still had to remind others of who he was when a call came in about a gas station robbery. At that moment, Desmond had finished lunch at a cafe, which was located three blocks from the gas station and was already approaching the car when a radio message arrived. Seven and a half minutes later, Desmond rammed a yellow Chevrolet Cheville and dragged two would-be robbers into the office. The sheriff found a reason to vent his dissatisfaction on him, they say, he smashed up the entire front part of the body of his official car. But Desmond… No, he didn’t remember the gang in the red Mercedes. He asked himself why the hell this bald hog, who was trying to be his boss, was sitting out his ass instead of doing his job and catching robbers. Such thoughts made Desmond believe in his own superiority over his boss.

His natural essence boiled down to the fact that he strictly followed the law and had a cool enough head that nothing in this world could force him to break the law.

The departure of his boss from his post was an event that occupied a special place in Desmond’s biography. This was a separate, special chapter in his life. After winning the election, watching as he crossed the threshold of the office saying goodbye to the sheriff’s service, Desmond barely restrained himself from spitting on the bald back of his former boss and giving him a kick in the ass so that he would quickly get out. That day he felt that this was his finest hour. Now he’s the sheriff. Now this is his town. Desmond ordered everything that in any way reminded him of his predecessor to be thrown out of the office. He began to spend a lot of effort and time to develop courage, organization and self-control in his charges. This was not always possible, since many people could not meet such standards due to their nature. Using Harry as an example, Desmond was clearly convinced of this. But unlike his predecessor, Desmond knew how to find in his subordinates those skills for which they should be valued. In the end he understood that his town was not Vietnam, where people were being killed on every corner. Among other things, you also need to do paperwork, be able to find a common language with people and resolve everyday conflicts.

After the previous sheriff left, Desmond began to properly restore order. He proceeded from the fact that for Heartstone, given its scale, the level of chaos and violence was too great. Several times a week we received calls about something stolen or missing. Every couple of days there would be some kind of row in a public place. Rarely did an entire calendar year go by without some kind of murder. The only restaurant in downtown Heartstone, called Angel’s Heart, was a real sore spot; in it, every evening – especially on weekends – the atmosphere at first became relaxed, and after a few hours, when the alcohol began to take effect, it was already tense and plates, knives, forks, bottles and everything that could somehow be used to rip open someone’s body. Moreover, a showdown could start between people who had hardly known each other before and had never spoken, but who came to the Angel’s Heart and sat at tables in opposite corners. And so almost every evening, Angel’s Heart put someone in a hospital bed, and someone was sent to a temporary holding cell. From the very first day Desmond first took on the most problematic areas of the town, including the restaurant. For three weeks, he spent every evening at Angel’s Heart, bringing one of his assistants with him. Not to say that Angel’s Heart has ceased to instill courage in the drunken heads of visitors, but showdowns began to occur much less frequently, and over time the situation calmed down completely. The owner of the establishment did not particularly like this, because he noticed how much alcohol sales had fallen. People began to drink less so as not to give the new sheriff a reason to attack them. But the restaurant owner also found a bright side in this, because now he didn’t have to install new windows so often, buy new sets of dishes, repair door hinges and walk around the entire room in search of unnoticed traces of blood after the next showdown. And the chairs in the central hall began to last much longer, since now no one would grab them to hit someone on the back, after which, as a rule, the chairs would shatter into splinters.

And so, day after day, Desmond improved the crime situation in the town. He did something that his predecessor didn’t even bother with.

In less than a year as sheriff Desmond had gotten the situation to the point where no one was afraid to walk the streets of Heartstone in the dead of night without being raped or robbed. That year in the service for Desmond was not work, but a real fairy tale. Every single day he showed who was boss in this town. And then, over time, everything began to somehow calm down and there were no longer any particular reasons to take a revolver out of the holster and wave it in front of someone’s nose. But he didn’t have to be bored, because over time Desmond made another discovery in himself, noticing how much he liked leading other people. He saw in his subordinates a kind of complex mechanism that needed to be made to work harmoniously and cope with all tasks, hence Desmond’s understanding that if not all his people are cool and fearless, then this is not a reason to reject their professionalism. Then he began to work on his leadership skills.

It is interesting that, having taken the position of sheriff at the age of thirty-eight, Desmond began to strive to show others how much nerves of steel and a cool head he had. His reputation was loud, but there were still some things he didn’t like. Almost all residents of Heartstone perceived him as the most reliable protection against crime, turning the name of Desmond Poe into a brand, a sign of quality that guaranteed safety and order. They believed they could let their guard down while this guy was around. The attitude of citizens towards him was extremely positive, since for all his toughness there was no such case that Desmond exceeded his authority. He liked to solve problems as independently as possible, as this pleased his pride, but the law and the safety of others were a sacred matter for him. Therefore, Desmond decided that it would be necessary to convey to those around him the idea that in front of them is the one who is responsible for their safety, and not some commando with post-traumatic syndrome. Since then, Desmond Poe has guarded his image, even though from time to time he was itching to remind himself of what he was capable of.

After a few years of marriage, his wife was disappointed that her husband did not live up to her expectations and turned out to be too calm and balanced. But somewhere after the birth of her second child, Rhonda Poe realized how lucky she was that her husband did not turn out to be the hotheaded jerk she expected him to be, living under the same roof with him.

Everyone who had ever worked under Desmond needed no enlightenment about who they should be and how a guardian of the law should act in a given situation. They had a living example and standard – Sheriff Poe. Few people managed to get closer to Desmond in terms of his set of personal qualities, but everyone strived for this. And even in his late fifties, Desmond managed not to slow down, demonstrating absolute self-control and promptly solving any problems that surfaced in his town.

But lately Desmond has been faced with a problem. Not to say that it was an age crisis, but the years took their toll and age no longer allowed him to feel as vigorous and daring as in his best years. Despite the fact that Desmond managed to restore order in the town during the first years of his tenure as sheriff and now there was not much work in this sense, he still felt bad at heart that there was not even a reason to sweat to solve any problem more serious than domestic violence or chasing a violator who is exceeding the speed limit. Desmond needed a reason to declare himself in his late fifties, because the last time he had to show who was the law was eleven years ago, when he was forty-eight and still full of fire.

3. Gomorrah

Inside, the music had not yet died down, customers kept drinking the bar dry, balls rolled into pockets, and there were fewer and fewer parking spaces. Gomorrah was a one-size-fits-all establishment. There was a striptease and a bar; here they played poker for money over a glass of beer and made bets at the billiard table. This was perhaps the only place in Heartstone where the sheriff did not come due to regular violence, because Gomorrah always had two bouncers. No shift went by without a brawl, so the bouncers were never idle. Perhaps fights would not have occurred so often if the institution was not located outside the town near the federal highway, which ensured a constant influx of customers passing by, among whom were trailer drivers, students, travelers with motorhomes, rodeo participants, farmers, hunters and fishermen. But a special category of clients were bikers. One day, a whole gang of seventy-eight bikers, who were on their way from Louisiana to California, parked in front of the establishment and decided to make a short pit stop when they saw a sign glowing from green neon tubes with the inscription Gomorrah, on both sides of which a pair of spread women’s legs glowing red on either side. The atmosphere that night was tense. This was the only time when Sheriff Poe came to the strip club to establish order, because alcohol was running low, and the dancers from strippers almost retrained as prostitutes, and against their will. The owner of the establishment, Luther Grissom, with trembling in his heart, was already beginning to count the losses from broken glasses, broken cues, cracked chairs and tables requiring replacement. But the damage was not as great as it could have been. All the chaos stopped the moment Sheriff Poe walked in and threw one of the bikers out the window, after which he fired a warning shot into the ceiling, and thus adding his two cents to the damage. But Luther not only didn’t take a cent for the broken window and ventilation in the attic, but also treated the Sheriff to free beer because it had become so quiet here since his arrival. The bikers lay with their faces to the floor, and the sheriff’s deputy placed the especially active ones in the back seats of official cars. This was eleven years ago. Since then, there have been enough internal forces to ensure order in Gomorrah.

That night Dana Host earned almost four times more than usual thanks to the fact that she was invited to perform a dance right at the table where the birthday boy was among the guests. After the music stopped and the next track began to play, the guy admitted to her that he would remember this gift for the rest of his life. In fact, you couldn’t dream up a better gift for an eighteen-year-old.

Dana constantly worked in public establishments. She started out as a waitress in a cafe in the heart of Heartstone; a couple of years later she moved to a bar, where the clientele was a rougher crowd, but the higher salary allowed her to turn a blind eye to this shortcoming. She hadn’t even worked at the bar for six months before Luther Grissom, over a couple of visits, noticed how quickly she handled the delivery of orders, and at the same time knew how to talk with visitors who liked to loosen their tongues when drunk. Luther invited Dana to work for him. The fourfold jump in salary made Dana forget about everything in the world. She was not yet twenty then. Working in Gomorrah, at first Dana did not pay attention to anything other than her duties, counting money that she could not even dream of either in the cafe or in the bar. Then she began to look more and more closely at the details. She made friends among the strippers, with whom she sometimes shared a glass in her free moments, and then – when she was taught – she smoked a cigarette with them several times a shift at the service entrance. As the strippers became Dana’s bosom friends, they began to take notice of her amber hair, long legs and toned skin. They offered her something that was supposed to happen someday. After the establishment closed with the departure of the last customer, her friends began to teach Dana the basics of dance, and when her skills developed to the “passed” level, Luther still agreed to give her the opportunity to perform one dance. Before her debut, Dana was nervous, as usual, but a shot of absinthe was always an effective stress reliever. That evening Luther had one less waitress, and when everyone at home learned about the real reason for the busy schedule and rising wages, Dana’s mother was horrified. Father had no time to be indignant. He simply kicked her out of the house. Fortunately, the money that the pole brought Dana was more than enough for an independent life, including rented housing, and six months later she was even able to buy a small house in installments. Honing her skills on the pole year after year, Dana began to enjoy considerable popularity among men. But she rarely went on dates. As a rule, all her intimate relationships were sudden, and the men were often those men she’d known for barely half an hour. Dana was only worried about money and applause in the hall. As Dana’s skills developed, Luther noticed that there were noticeably more local residents among the clients, while Gomorrah was meant mostly for passersby.

Dana Host had one feature, unlike the other dancers in Gomorrah. She could never hit the stage completely sober. But if she throws in a glass or two, everything would go smoothly, and she herself liked to dance, but she still didn’t dare do it without alcohol.

That evening was out of the ordinary. In the afternoon, all the dancers sat down to play cards, where the loser had to dance topless. The agreement was for one dance, but not less than five minutes. Dana was the worst poker player that day, who never came across a winning combination, and she always had problems with bluffing, both at the table and in life. She had to perform the nude dance. But Dana couldn’t do this at first. Her second performance was no different. The third one is the same story. Realizing that it would not be easy for her to do this, Dana drank one glass before each exit. Rum, whiskey, vodka, martini. On the eighth attempt, the booze in her system finally gave her courage and she still did it. But closer to midnight, Dana became too bold and she was sent to the dressing room, where she lay down on a sofa, and woke up closer to two in the morning. Luther ordered her to go home and sleep it off. Alcohol affected Dana not only quickly, but, at times, very strangely. She drank more than half a liter of strong drinks, then slept for several hours, but, having recovered a little from sleep, she immediately perked up, as if she had been drinking coffee instead of alcohol. One of the dancers, whose name was Janine Malone, sat Dana on the sofa, squeezed her cheeks with her palms and said:

– Sit and don’t move anywhere. It’s my set now. Wait, I’ll come and take you, okay?

Dana nodded somehow, and as soon as Janine left the dressing room, she immediately stuck her tongue out, put on her red leather jacket, took her purse from her personal locker and hobbled towards the exit.

So tipsy, Dana left through the service door and went to the parking lot, where her Mini Cooper was parked. She walked mostly steady, but her pace was uneven. She walked more than fifty meters and only then realized that she was slightly off course. The car remained in the service parking lot behind the building, and Dana was already a few steps from the road. She was about to turn her body one hundred and eighty degrees, when suddenly she began to hear a roar of a running engine, which was growing with every second. Soon bright scarlet lights of the headlights appeared on the right. Then the car began to slow down, and on the approaches to the turn that led to Gomorrah, the car began to move off the road, stopping right in front of Dana. The driver’s seat window was rolled down. Dana looked at the stranger and said:

– Hey, hot stuff. Having a good night?

There was silence in response. Dana asked:

– Can’t sleep? Or just cruising for some fun?

Having not received an answer this time either, Dana came close to the car, leaned her elbows on the door and said:

– Not much of a talker, huh? How about giving the lady a lift?

The stranger nodded affirmatively. Dana smiled and then began to walk around the front of the car. She walked, holding her purse in one hand, and ran her free palm along the curves of the body, feeling the coldness of the metal. She walked in front of the headlights, their scarlet glow didn’t faze her one bit. Dana saw a lot of different cars used by truckers and various car enthusiasts with whom she had promiscuous sex when they visited Gomorrah. Therefore, the appearance of the car, whatever it was, never seemed strange to Dana.

She placed her fingers on the door handle, pulled, slid into the front passenger seat, and closed the door behind her.

– So, ready for a ride? – Dana asked in a playful voice under the influence of alcohol.

This was followed by a loud roar from the engine. The car set off, rapidly picking up speed, accelerating along the federal highway at night.

This was the last trip for Dana Host, while for the Racer the journey was just beginning.

4. Sighted and fast

Norman Hughes was another deputy sheriff. At thirty-three years old, he achieved what was quite enough for him for the life that suited him. Stable work; not huge, but decent income; an occupation that, when it came to morals, did not raise any doubts at all, because Norman maintained order and fought against lawlessness. He wasn’t shooting for the stars. A single life seemed to him a very comfortable scenario, when there were no obligations to anyone and all his attention could be focused on work and his personal interests, without being distracted by anything else. Norman couldn’t stand being seen as a womanizer. He saw in this something that discredited the honor of the uniform. So he just started affairs that dragged on for several years, and then suddenly something went wrong and Norman breathed a sigh of relief. So he seemed to those around him to be a man who was sincerely trying to improve his personal life in search of the one, but he was simply unlucky.

When Norman got a job with the sheriff, he had only one drawback – post-traumatic stress disorder. But since Norman was taking pills to suppress his trauma, Desmond Poe gladly hired him. The sheriff valued his experience in the army. Norman managed to fight in Somalia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He refused further service after five children were killed in front of his eyes. He served out the remainder of his contract and returned home from service. Peaceful life became a problem for Norman. He knew nothing but fighting. Therefore, the first thing that came to his mind was to get a job with the sheriff. A week after starting work, Norman realized that he had found his calling.

He was sitting in a patrol car near the federal highway when the clock showed half past two in the morning. There were often reckless drivers in this area, so there was no need to doze for too long. But as luck would have it, it was this time that Norman started to doze off and slept for over an hour. Opening his eyes, he experienced a feeling of intense thirst. Before his hand could reach for the thermos, a car sped past his eyes. Norman realized that there was no time for coffee now. He started the engine and followed, turning on the siren. Driving out onto the highway, Norman thought that he could not remember a time when he had seen a speeding driver in the middle of the night with headlights off. He caught up with the suspect and began to demand through the loudspeaker to pull over. The reckless driver didn’t even think about stopping, but only increased his speed. Norman managed to notice that it was not his imagination and the headlights were indeed turned off. He continued to press on the gas and demand to leave the road. Getting the most out of the car, Norman began to close the distance and soon saw the outline of the taillights, from which he assumed that a Dodge Challenger was in front of him.

He again caught up with the pursued and repeated:

– Pull over!

The Dodge rammed and hit the patrol car in the front fender. Norman didn’t say anything into the loudspeaker, but instead reached for the walkie-talkie. There was a second blow, causing Norman to drop the radio. He forgot about the connection and took a revolver from his holster. Norman began to overtake on the left, but at the same time the Dodge began to slow down. Having caught up, he hit the patrol car again in the side, and then again, but now at the very edge of the front fender near the bumper. The final impact was much stronger, causing Norman’s car to be thrown off the track. He began to return to the road, but the Dodge pressed him to the side of the road and did not let go for several more seconds, until an obstacle appeared ahead. Norman began to hit the brakes only when the bottom of the car was already sliding along the guardrail. At a speed of one hundred and forty-five kilometers per hour, the guardrail launched Norman’s car into the air. The grinding of metal was interrupted quickly, followed by the idling roar of the engine until the patrol car flew off the road, falling off a cliff in the darkness of the night, pierced by flashes of the explosion when Deputy Heartstone’s car collided with the ground.

And the Racer continued to press on the gas. Nothing could stop him now.

5. Good morning, great boss

His office visits never caused anxiety or discontent among his subordinates. Working for him in Heartstone was a dream. Not only did he pay several times more than the average salary in the town, which is why employees held on to their jobs with both hands, but he also had an innate talent for working with people. Carter Beckran walked through each of the departments and asked if everything was going according to plan and if anything was needed.

– So, do the numbers add up, or should we think about going offshore? – Carter asked after greeting the chief accountant.

When the housekeeping manager said that new materials were needed to clean the premises, Carter replied that cleaning was too expensive and suggested ordering a couple of flamethrowers for complete disinfection in order to sterilize the office for the next six months and forget about cleaning. A couple of minutes later, another deputy reported that, most likely, the expected volume of wheat would be too large for which the existing storage facilities would not be sufficient.

– No problem – Carter said. – Let’s start a parrot farm. My daughter has two. They eat like pigs. – And then he added quite seriously: – We’ll order a new warehouse. We’ll put it there and sell this part first.

Carter Beckran in the eyes of his subordinates was not a boss, but a dream. He never ignored requests from employees, and at the same time he taught everyone to come with specific proposals to resolve the issue. Everyone could joke with him or speak in a way that felt natural to them. Carter knew how to get on everyone’s wavelength, using slang to match his conversational partner.

At forty-two, Carter continued to maintain his usual appearance. He wore short black hair without bangs and always had light stubble. With a stocky build and a height of one hundred and eighty centimeters, Carter’s light blue irises especially stood out. Even with a wide lower jaw and a dimple on his chin, his brutal appearance became much softer. Carter also did not change his clothing habits over the years. He always wore either light blue jeans or comfy track pants. He had approximately equal numbers of shirts and T-shirts in his wardrobe, but if every single T-shirt had short sleeves, then on his shirts he always rolled up the sleeves to the elbow, hating long sleeves. There was a little more variety on Carter’s feet, but no matter the color, material or thickness of the shoes, they were always sneakers.

After the office, Carter got back behind the wheel of his blue Toyota Land Cruiser and drove to the next facility, located two kilometers from the office building. It was a garage with a car repair shop where all equipment was serviced. On the way to the garage, Carter thought about redistributing part of the profits from the sale of excess wheat through the payroll as bonuses to motivate him for the future.

Once in the workshop, Carter came across two mechanics and the chief engineer, who were sitting at a makeshift table made from a truck tire and a meter-long piece of plywood, playing poker. Since Carter highly valued work, he forbade gambling, which is why the workshop stocked a bunch of coins in denominations of one, five and ten cents, which replaced the gaming chips.

– Hello everyone – Carter said, raising his open palm.

Everyone greeted loudly and in unison, and chief engineer Seth Crawford, age forty-five, added:

– Boss, how’s it hangin’?

Carter answered, looking at the equipment around him:

– Not much, just chillin’.

– Would you like to join us? asked twenty-nine-year-old mechanic Matthew Rabb.

– Come on, Mr. Beckran – called the second mechanic, twenty-seven-year-old Edmund Kaps.

Carter took a deep breath and said:

– Eh, you guys are strange.

– Why is this, boss?

– What do you mean “why”? How else can we explain your proposal to sit down at the table and punish you? – With these words, Carter began counting out twenty coins from three jars.

Poker coins were a kind of common fund. They were sorted into three-liter jars, from which they were taken out each time and counted out for the game.

Sitting down at the table, Carter slammed his palms and said decisively:

– Well, deal the cards. Now the authorities will punish you.

While Edmund was distributing, Carter asked:

– Are we ready to mow the lawn?

The phrase “mowing the lawn” in the workshop meant harvesting when the harvester left bare soil.

– Chief, you’re a little late. It’s been three days since we brought our weapons into combat readiness.

– And you must be punished for being late – Edmund said in a slightly timid tone, dealing out the last card.

– Don’t get cocky, kids. – There was synchronized laughter at the table, and Carter added: – You have already been told that I will be the one doing the punishment here.

Along with the game, Seth talked in detail about what they had done with the equipment over the past two weeks. Carter asked about the components required for subsequent repairs and the condition of the equipment, taking into account wear and tear. Seth said that one of the pickups needed new tires, and also that all passenger cars would be better off switching to a different motor oil, which he had recently spotted at the store. The two combines were almost at the end of their working capacity, but Seth convinced that it was better to buy only one next year, since one of the two old ones could be disassembled for spare parts and put some of them on the second one, and thus make it work for a couple more seasons.

After Carter’s father left his job due to spinal problems, Carter began rapidly making changes to his company. He purchased slightly different equipment and updated grain storage facilities; the crop was sold in other places, where they paid two or three times more for each ton, since Carter also delayed the sale, waiting for the most opportune moment when prices soared to the limit. This was the only gambling streak in Carter’s character, which could have cost him great financial losses. But his instincts never let him down, and no one understood how he knew when to wait to sell and when to get rid of the goods as soon as possible. One way or another, Carter never miscalculated the timing of the sale. Carter completely abandoned some types of crops. Now he didn’t even want to hear about cabbage or corn. He was interested in wheat, barley, rice, potatoes, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and watermelons. Having taken over the business from his father’s hands, Carter redistributed the crops and planted one plot with trees, which he also made good money on, recouping the costs in the third year. Now his plans included vineyards. Recently he even inspected a wine cellar in Arizona to start creating his own brand and produce a product that, in ten to fifteen years, could be sold to high rollers willing to pay top dollar for a bottle.

Carter had very far-reaching plans.

6. Closed lake

The boat station was Heartstone’s only way to access the lake. There were no households along the entire coastline. The only public beach was adjacent to the boat station. The owner of the station, Ruben Hustler, decided from the very beginning to make a deal with the authorities, refusing to charge residents for visiting the beach in exchange for tax breaks, pledging to take care of the beach. There was not a day that Ruben regretted this decision. With the opening of the season, the beach was always full of people, among whom there were always those who wanted to ride a boat, speedboat or catamaran.

Even at sixty-five years old, with mild arthritis and varicose veins, Ruben did not want to think about retiring. The boat station was the meaning of his life. He was constantly changing something at his facility. Ruben’s proudest acquisition was launching a cabin boat, which became very popular with many unfaithful husbands and wives in Heartstone. In a longboat in the center of the lake, no one will definitely catch you. This was the safest place to cheat on your other half without leaving any evidence behind. Inside, the covered cabin had quite comfortable fold-out seats, although Ruben had not thought that it would be precisely these types of clients who would be interested in his best vessel. He bought a longboat with the expectation that it would be rented on some holidays and birthdays, which is why he selected a vessel with a spacious deck for celebrations.

Over the years, Ruben Hustler became more and more attached to the boat station. After one of the two administrators quit, he did not look for a new one, but preferred to work half the time on his own. Spending time on the beach in the sun with a newspaper and cold lemonade is everything you need to ensure that old age is not wasted. At least that’s what Ruben thought. Even in his youth, he treated material possessions with trepidation. More than his property, Ruben valued only his friends, who did not allow him to become completely lonely in his old age. This was what he feared most. Ruben was literally obsessed with not inconveniencing anyone, being as helpful as possible, and never refusing to help anyone. In this regard, he succeeded greatly and was still far from having stopped finding a common language with people one or two generations younger than him. Despite being engaged in commerce, hardly anyone could call him greedy. On the day he received a call from New York and was told that his daughter had given birth to a grandson, Ruben posted an ad that all rowing boats and catamarans were available for rent for free for three days. He wanted to see happy people, because he himself felt warm in his soul, and it didn’t matter for what reason others were happy. All that matters is that they all had a good time. Ruben began to value such moments especially strongly after he was widowed at forty-nine.

Early in the morning he drove up to the office in his pickup truck. Ruben pulled over in front of the entrance to get out and open the gate. But he only managed to get out of the car, after which his jaw dropped, and his knees buckled. In front of his eyes the body of a girl hung on the gate in a crucified position. Her hands were impaled on the spikes atop the wrought-iron fence, and fixed in a horizontal position, and her head hung down, her chin buried in her chest.

– You’re armed to the teeth, and this is your town, I get it. I already understood – Spencer spoke through the bars of his cell after spending the night in the cell. – That’s it, come on, let me out.

– Shut your mouth! – Harry shouted.

– You guys are untouchable, huh? – Spencer barked displeasedly, after which he headed towards the couch at the opposite end of the cell.

The phone rang in the office. After the third ring, Harry arrived and picked up the phone:

– Sheriff’s office. How can I help?

– … – Didn’t understand

– …

– Mr. Hustler, try to calm down. Let’s do it again, as slowly as possible.

Nothing is as annoying as the phone ringing at six-thirty in the morning, and even being on the nightstand right next to the bed.

– Hello? – Sheriff Poe said in a sleepy voice, rubbing his closed eyelids with his thumb and forefinger.

The conversation lasted two minutes, after which, patiently waiting for Desmond to hang up, Rhonda said languidly:

– Well, what could happen there at this time? You could lie around for another hour.

– Trust me, honey, plenty can happen – Desmond said, yawning widely.

Forty minutes later, the sheriff, Jenna, and fifty-five-year-old pathologist Larry Green, who worked part-time as a medical examiner, arrived at the boat station. He and Desmond were bosom friends, so even if not a single dead man was found in Heartstone in ten years, they still found a reason to meet.

– My God – said Larry, taking off his cap to take a better look. – Under other circumstances, I would have thought that a movie was being filmed here.

Desmond came up and looked at the hanging head with his narrowed eyes. It was difficult to see anything because of the hanging hair that covered the face.

While Jenna was calming Ruben, Larry came to the gate, wearing latex gloves. He carefully pulled back the victim’s hair to examine her face.

– Dana Host – Desmond said affirmatively.

– Yes, that’s her. Eh, she was a cute girl.

– And she chose an unsafe occupation – Desmond added, continuing to examine the corpse from under the visor of his straw hat, with his hands busily placed on his belt.

– Do you think one of her casual friends?

– So many lustful men flock to Gomorrah every evening. I wouldn’t be surprised if among them suddenly there’s at least one preoccupied psycho with a sick imagination. It is quite possible that this time she was simply unlucky in choosing her next lover. She had a loud reputation and she says that so many travelers and truckers roll into Gomorrah that she always found herself some kind of male for half an hour. Imagine how many of them she had and who was not among them. – After a short pause, the sheriff added: – As soon as they bring it to the morgue, check for DNA evidence right away. If this is rape, then at least the motives will be clear.

Sheriff Poe then thought for a moment, imagining various options. He thought that he would need to get the addresses of all the waitresses and dancers working at Gomorrah in order to interview them. He also thought it would be a good idea to talk to Luther too.

Meanwhile, a van was arriving, from which a stretcher and a black plastic bag with a zipper were already being taken out.

Having calmed Ruben a little, who was sitting on the edge of the back seat of the patrol car, Jenna heard the creaking of the radio. She came up, answered, and half a minute later went to the sheriff.

– Chief, Harry reports that some tourists found Norman’s patrol car at the foot of the cliff, not far from the eastern entrance.

– And Norman? – Desmond asked anxiously.

After a painful pause, Jenna still said:

– He burned. Apparently he drove off the road, and after the fall the tank exploded.

Desmond covered his face with both hands, and when he scratched his skin with them, he took a deep breath, as if he was about to say something, but then changed his mind. A few seconds later he turned to Jenna:

– Call the transport company. Order a tow truck and a crane. Tell them to meet us at the eastern exit. And I will inform the hospital so that they can send a second car.

After waiting for Larry to finish examining the corpse of Dana Host, the sheriff said:

– Let’s move on.

Having reached the foot of the cliff, where he had to walk for several minutes, Desmond could not contain his emotions, although they were not so violent:

– Norman. How did you even manage to…

The closer Desmond got to his assistant’s burnt-out car, the clearer the image of the burnt body became.

Jenna couldn’t get too close. It wasn’t even that she couldn’t stand the sight of burnt flesh. She wasn’t sensitive that way. She could not bear the sight of a dead man with whom she worked and treated like a family member. She never dared look at Pierce’s body after he was mauled by the bear. Even at the funeral, she barely found the strength to walk up to the closed coffin, imagining what was hidden underneath. Strangers are another matter. Here she always had enough self-control to do her job.

A stretcher and a bag were brought to the spot, waiting for Larry to finish his part of the job. The crane and tow truck also began to look for a way to get as close to the place as possible.

Meanwhile, the sheriff said:

– Okay Larry. For now, you work, and so as not to waste time, we’ll go and see what’s up there.

– Accepted.

The sheriff and Jenna reached the official car and returned back to the highway. They drove to the section of the road that was closest to the scene of the incident.

Jenna walked up to the guardrail and drew the sheriff’s attention:

– Look!

– You’ve got sharp eyes – said Desmond, slightly lifting the visor of his hat with his index finger. – Well done.

They began to trace the scratch, which only lasted a couple of meters.

– What do you think? – Jenna asked. – What speed must be developed to cover such a distance in the air?

– Yes, this is an interesting question. But even more interesting is “why?”

– It’s unlikely he fell asleep if he was flying at high speed. Maybe he was chasing someone? Someone was driving in the oncoming lane and didn’t notice the guardrail?

The sheriff considered the assistant’s words.

– I like the way you think. If he was chasing someone and managed to catch up, then he could not go to the right, and to the left there was an obstacle that was not visible due to the darkness and the headlights of an oncoming car.

– Accident?

The sheriff shook his head and said:

– I don’t know, Jenna. Let Larry finish the job, then we’ll inspect the car. Maybe we’ll find something. In the meantime, take a photo of the scratches on the guardrail to attach to the case.

7. The books are closed

That evening, thirty-six-year-old Gloria Nelson was late at work and it was bad for her. Gloria constantly strived to lead a pedantic lifestyle, where everything was scheduled almost to the minute. As a rule, she managed to maintain the usual order of things at the usual time. But sometimes her finely tuned schedule fell apart, and it pissed her off. That day was exactly like that. Because of one lost receipt, she was unable to prepare preliminary figures for upcoming reporting. This could have been done the next day, but for Gloria it was fundamentally important to bring together all the numbers every day, so that after a couple of months she would not have to look for a lost couple of dollars that do not match the documents and rummage through a stack of papers to find documents for the required period. Compiling numbers every day was a guarantee for Gloria that the work would run like a well-oiled machine and there would be no problems with accounting in the future. Gloria spent an extra hour and a half searching for the receipt, which forced her to be delayed and significantly spoiled her usual schedule. In such cases, her husband or one of her daughters always called her at work, realizing that such a delay by Gloria looked suspicious and that perhaps something had happened.

She usually finished her work day between 18:00 and 18:10. This time she left the transport company office at 20:42. If Gloria usually warmed up the engine for five minutes before leaving the parking lot, this time she immediately she took off the parking brake and headed home.

Gloria looked exhausted, but not so much because of the delay at work, but because of that damned receipt got on her last nerve. She was going to come as usual, cook dinner, and now she didn’t even have time to stop at the supermarket for food for dinner and asked her husband to do it. She then had to iron and hang two of the nine curtains. Next she had to take a bath. Following this, she planned to read the eighteenth and nineteenth chapters of The Night Cabby¹. Gloria always set a deadline for reading a book, estimating the number of pages and chapters, distributing an average plan for each day, thus calculating the time in which the book should be read. Now, in her busy evening, she could barely fit in a quick dinner, or rather a snack, and a bathroom, or rather a shower, because she still had to be in bed on time.

When the light turned red ahead, Gloria decided to slow down and approach the traffic light slowly, so that at the moment when the light turned green, she could simply press the gas pedal a little harder and thus spend less time accelerating.

Now every second counted. Her white Ford was barely rolling, and the yellow one still didn’t want to light up.

But in the rearview mirror a black Dodge was rapidly picking up speed. Its piercing headlights grew larger in the mirror every second. The roar of the engine grew. But Gloria was so absorbed in waiting for the yellow traffic light that she didn’t even notice the growing noise outside her car.

But then the yellow light came on and Gloria stepped on the gas. By the time she arrived at the traffic light, it had already turned green. The needle on the Ford’s speedometer began to creep up and it seemed to Gloria that she was gaining precious seconds without wasting time on the brake, clutch and gear shift. She saved a lot of time. By the standards of her attitude towards managing time, this was a lot.

Gloria was in a hurry to accelerate to the maximum permissible speed as quickly as possible. But there was no speed limit that evening because there was the Dodge on the road. At a speed of one hundred and seventy-one kilometers per hour, it slammed into the back of the Ford and added speed that this car could not develop on its own. By this moment, a slight rise loomed ahead and the Ford lifted off the asphalt for a second, making a short flight. Gloria didn’t have time to realize that something was wrong. She didn’t waste time stopping at traffic lights or wearing her seat belt. Her head first suddenly stuck to the headrest, and then sharply rushed forward. The Ford logo in the center of the steering wheel was the last thing Gloria saw, but she didn’t even have time to realize it. The Racer driving the Dodge left no time for that.

8. Day of cash and debauchery

Carter Beckran attached special symbolism to the end of each month. For him it was like a flag at the start, like a green traffic light or a command to go ahead. This was the moment when many of his employees seemed to break loose and turn into ancient Romans during an orgy. Considering the fact that his company’s employees received salaries three to four times higher than the average in Heartstone (this is in the off-season), they allowed themselves to forget on payday that they were people and partied like animals; others stocked their refrigerators with the most expensive delicacies; someone went to Gomorrah and preferred to get lost somewhere between alcohol and women’s bodies.

Chief engineer Seth Crawford for the last four years, after each paycheck, he visited the most expensive, most elite and most sought-after call girl in Heartstone, whom he hired for the entire night, although for all other clients the payment was hourly.

The economist, accountant, logistician, storekeeper and agronomist finally set aside the necessary amount for Las Vegas so that during a joint vacation they could indulge in sin without knowing any boundaries.

Among Carter’s employees was a security guard who fulfilled his dream and bought an eleven-year-old Porsche 911, and repaid the loan in a year and a half.

The head of the HR department, a lady of forty-seven years old, always bought herself some kind of jewelry at various intervals. Over the course of a couple of years, she accumulated so much jewelry that the work team began to say that it was better to give up the New Year tree at the end of the year, because they had their own blinged-out Christmas tree dripping with sparkle from top to bottom. No matter what day she came to work, her neck, earlobes, wrists and fingers were thoroughly hidden under a decent layer of gold and precious stones.

Another lady of mature years, a deputy chief accountant in her fifties, also had her own hobby. She set aside money every six months for her biggest expense item. Every vacation she went to a Mexican resort, which was especially popular with divorcees and wives disillusioned with family life, where they were seduced by dozens of young studs who were ready, for the money of rich women who were old enough to be their mother, to make any of their fantasies come true.

Every birthday, bachelor party, bachelorette party or any other event requiring a wild celebration, where the culprit is a person working for Carter Beckran, turned into a feast for the stomach and a test of strength for the liver, because in these cases the amount of alcohol and exotic dishes was greatly exceeded far beyond what’s typical in Heartstone. The whole town knew what you could achieve by working for Carter Beckran, and so working for the Beckran & Co. was a dream for most Heartstone residents.

In conversations at home with his father, although Carter joked, saying: “I sense that soon they will have to cut their salaries, otherwise they will soon spend all their savings on alcohol and whores”, – he himself was not against indulging in something from time to time. However, what was noteworthy was that all his pranks regarding spending money were either small-time splurges or epic blowouts. Sometimes it was a bottle of the most expensive alcohol he could find. But one day Carter bought a Cadillac Gage Commando armored personnel carrier and drove it for six months until he got tired of it, after which he sold it to a private military company.

9. Dancing with death

Leonardo Benetti couldn’t recall the last time he had to hold two funeral services in one day. After the coffin with the body of Norman Hughes is taken out of the church, the farewell ceremony for Dana Host will begin. Father Benetti did not sit down from the moment the coffin was carried into the church. He approached each of those who were close to the deceased. Relatives, neighbors, acquaintances, friends, his classmates and school teachers. When Father Benetti came up to express his condolences to Norman’s mother, she hugged the priest tightly and did not let go for about fifteen minutes. Father Benetti stood patiently and patted Martha Hughes on the shoulder, offered words of comfort few could muster. But Leonardo Benetti knew how to do this and could speak mournful speeches without stopping, trying to alleviate the mental suffering of the mourners. It’s unlikely that anything can comfort the souls of those grieving after the loss of a loved one, but when there is someone whose hugs and words of sympathy give at least a drop of warmth, it becomes very important. It was this kind of warmth that emanated from Father Benetti.

More and more people were arriving at the funeral every few minutes. Norman was buried in a closed coffin. His identity was identified using the results of a genetic examination, comparing the DNA of the corpse with the DNA of Bernard Hughes, Norman’s father. The closed coffin gave some the impression that a ghost was being buried here today.

Desmond, Jenna and Harry crossed the threshold of the church. The sheriff and his deputies arrived in the same car. Each of them had a bouquet left in the car, which was to be laid at the cemetery. In addition to the red carnations, Desmond bought a wreath on which was written: “To the bravest guy in Heartstone from his colleagues”. Although Desmond paid for the wreath entirely out of his own pocket, he nevertheless considered it necessary to present it on behalf of the entire team. Jenna bought ten red roses on her own. Having crossed the threshold of the church, she remembered how she had recently buried Pierce, and this made her feel doubly bad. Harry admitted that he doesn’t understand anything about flowers and asked Jenna to help him choose. She picked out a dozen roses for him in a dozen pale scarlet hue. Leaving the flowers and wreath in the trunk, they entered the church, heading straight to Norman’s family. They shook hands and hugged Bernard, Martha, and Norman’s twenty-nine-year-old sister Sabrina. Martha reacted the same way to hugs from her son’s colleagues, not letting go of each of them for several minutes. Wrapping her arms around Desmond’s neck and pressing herself against his shoulder, Martha’s crying became stronger. Seeing Sabrina’s face pink from endless tears, Jenna fell into an even greater sense of grief and, hugging her, did not let go of her for some time. Next came relatives who came from Austin, Houston and Oklahoma.

The number of people grew faster and faster as the time at which the farewell ceremony was scheduled to begin approached.

Soon Father Benetti began to walk around the arrivals and invite them to sit down so that they could begin.

The first eight rows were filled to capacity. Silence reigned in the church and Father Benetti began his speech:

– Today we’ve gathered here because we’ve lost a son in this world. There is one less brother. Sometimes life ends suddenly, and the more painful this loss becomes…

Riggan Brooks sat by the phone in the sheriff’s office. When cases arose that neither the sheriff nor any of his deputies were in the office, Desmond asked Riggan to sit on the telephone as the person on duty. In this sense, he enjoyed the trust of the sheriff, which he occasionally allowed himself to show off in front of his acquaintances. The feeling of being alone in the law enforcement office with the approval of the sheriff himself caused him to experience a sharp increase in self-esteem and self-confidence. Now he is in charge here, albeit without official authority.

Before leaving, Desmond warned Riggan not to go into the corridor with the temporary holding cells where Spencer was sitting, who, if he found out that there was a young boy on duty, could mess with his head, hoping for something there. The sheriff made such warnings all the time, although he did not doubt the guy.

In all this time, Riggan had never had to take any kind of emergency call about an incident, although deep down Riggan felt that this was exactly what he needed to complete the sensations, to realize that he was in a real office of a real sheriff, especially that this time there is also a prisoner in the cell.

That day, Riggan just had a day off. While the sheriff and his deputies were at the funeral, he reclined more comfortably in Harry’s chair, folded his legs on the table and unfolded a magazine dedicated to events in the world of cinema in front of him. Riggan was stuck on an article that described the details of the filming process for “Gone in 60 Seconds”, which had been released a year earlier. Having read it to the end, he once again looked at the photographs from the set and a joint photograph of Dominic Sena and Jerry Bruckheimer. Next was a biography of Clint Eastwood with a dozen photographs in different images in which he was filmed, arranged in chronological order. After it there were articles about new technologies in the field of visual effects, analysis of the film market, articles by film critics, plans of Hollywood studios, and on the back there was a table with a schedule of world premieres of some films in the coming months, which, according to surveys, are the most anticipated. After the article about “Gone in 60 Seconds” Riggan lost interest in the magazine and took the latest issue of Playboy out of his backpack, immediately after which the day got lively. After half an hour Riggan began to notice that the reaction to naked female bodies was too strong and he decided to return to the film magazine. He ran through the movie schedule and noticing “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” on the list, thought about taking his girlfriend to the cinema, but when he saw that the premiere was still six months away, his enthusiasm immediately faded.

Suddenly the bell rang. Riggan put the phone to his ear, without taking his eyes off the magazine.

– Sheriff’s Office. How can I help?

Riggan listened to the person on the other end of the line for a couple of minutes, then hung up and hurriedly began calling the sheriff’s car over the radio. Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the keys to the front doors and ran to the exit.

When Bernard Hughes gave a speech to those present, often wiping the damp skin under his eyes with a handkerchief, the distinct sounds of someone’s footsteps began to be heard inside the church. Despite the fact that Riggan was wearing sneakers, his steps still echoed throughout the entire room, because he no longer bothered about decency and all that. He hurried quietly and stopped between the rows, looking for the sheriff’s head. Like everyone else, Desmond also looked back when he heard loud footsteps. He saw Riggan’s face, very alarmed by something, who motioned for him to come out for a few words. Desmond was greatly surprised by this. He understood that the guy would not just leave the office and rush here with all his might, as evidenced by his deep and frequent sighs, which were so difficult for him. The sheriff immediately stood up from his seat, heading towards the exit.

Maurice Callaham worked as a security guard at a dance school. At the age of sixty-three he was no longer particularly worried about spasms throughout his body and pain in his knees. It is unlikely that with such a physical form he would be able to repel unauthorized entry into the building. But since he was not guarding gold and foreign exchange reserves, the school management decided not to deprive him of his job. Instead, they paid attention to the conscientiousness with which Maurice approached his work. Even the fact that, with a height of one hundred and sixty-four he already weighed more than eighty, did not cause any concern to the school director or his deputy. They valued the reliability of employees, since a new security guard, like a potential employee for any other position, was perceived by them as an unknown quantity.

Maurice was in the habit of constantly smoothing his mustache in both directions, thereby checking its smoothness and levelness, so that he knew when it was time to cut it. For his age, Maurice had a rare quality: he had a good knowledge of modern musical art. In addition to the fact that the school taught dances to various music, across the street there was a video and music rental store, where an acoustic speaker was installed on the street side, from which some kind of music was constantly playing. Maurice liked most of the compositions, so when he got bored, he went out onto the terrace or opened the entrance doors, after which he began to walk around the nearest rooms and dance, and when the music was already familiar to him, he also began to silently move his lips, as if singing along. These were one of the few times Maurice put stress on his knees, but did not experience absolutely any discomfort. He simply danced and sang, and his soul rejoiced. At the same time, he did not go through any particular genres or styles. He liked pop, retro, blues, jazz, rock, disco and much more.

That morning Maurice started his next shift. He stepped off the bus, holding his lunch bag in his hand, heading towards the dance school, which was a two-minute walk from the bus stop. Every time he got off the bus, Maurice was interested in his sixty-four-year-old colleague Anthony Herb, whom he most often replaced. He wondered how soundly Anthony slept, since only twice in Maurice’s memory had he found Anthony awake when he went on shift. As soon as the noise of the bus died down, music began to reach Maurice’s ears. It was still difficult for him to understand what kind of song it was, but he was already in a hurry to find out. Halfway through, he recognized the notes of “Stop” by Sam Brown. And from that moment on, Maurice’s steps slowed down. He did not walk, but glided to the music’s rhythm. At moments he even lowered his eyelids and made more characteristic movements with his hands, moving to the beat of the music. While Maurice walked to school at this pace, Sam Brown had just finished singing. She was replaced by Rammstein, and the eyes of Maurice Callaham saw the body of Gloria Nelson on the main staircase with her face battered and caked under a layer of dried blood.

10. The shortest path

Darkness hadn’t yet settled the streets of Heartstone, but the last rays of the sun had already dissolved. There was less and less traffic on the roads. Streetlights and neon signs stood out, while house windows glowed brightly.

Deborah Minton bustled around the kitchen like a whirlwind, not stopping for a minute. Watching her from the outside, there would hardly be anyone who would believe that this woman was an art teacher for kids. In terms of her activity, Deborah was more suitable for the work of an athlete or a courier who, even on her own two feet, would never be late with a delivery. She was almost finishing stuffing the chicken with vegetables when she suddenly decided to check the top shelf on the refrigerator door. Deborah discovered that she had no yeast and called her daughter:

– Ursula.

A twelve-year-old golden-blond girl in a blue long-sleeved T-shirt and maroon breeches came running at her mother’s voice. Ursula had dozens of thin braids on her head. She had been begging for such a hairstyle for a long time, although the parents did not understand where their child saw such a style, because Ursula had no clue where she got the idea. Since Deborah was very late at work those days and did not have time to braid her daughter’s hair, she asked Ursula to wait until the end of the week. But the husband, running his hand over his hair, said that it was time for him to get a haircut and it would be better for him to take his daughter with him, so that while he was getting his hair cut, someone would do the girl’s braids at the same time. John Minton owned a local bakery, so he never spared money for his daughter. He told Ursula that her hair should be done by a professional stylist, although he knew that three of the four stylists were amateurs. But it was more important for him to make his daughter feel like a princess.

Ursula ran up to her mother and said, looking at her with a questioning glance:

– What?

Without lowering her head, Deborah took out a few coins from the box, gave them to her daughter and said:

– Bunny, go to the supermarket for yeast.

– I’m on it! – the girl barely said before she immediately rushed off.

– Ursula! – Deborah slowed her down. – No running, walk! And look both ways when you cross the street.

– Okay – the girl answered on autopilot.

Deborah said the same words every time she sent Ursula to the store. Despite the fact that the supermarket was located directly opposite the house, and there were almost no cars on the street, Deborah blindly followed her habit.

Ursula entered the sales area and said, waving to the cashier:

– Hello.

– Hey, cutie – nineteen-year-old Cassandra Bello answered with sleepy eyes, yawning at the end of the phrase.

– How are you? – Ursula asked, approaching the cash register.

Cassandra rested her head on her palm, leaning on a relaxed elbow, and answered, almost closing her eyes:

– I am sleepy.

– Well, what about the rest?

– The rest is fine.

– Well, make sure that no one robs the cash register.

Cassandra smiled and replied:

– Yes, it will be a Greek tragedy.

Each trip, even for the smallest purchase, kept Ursula in the supermarket for at least half an hour. All the employees here knew her, with whom she chatted out of habit, without missing a beat.

Ursula began to walk between the aisles, where along the way she came across the owner of the store, Yann Leblanc, who, standing on a stepladder and leafing through documents in his hands, checked the purchase prices with the prices on the shelves.

– Hello Mr. Leblanc.

– Hey there! – he replied.

– How are you doing?

– Eh, could be better. But no fires or robberies, so that’s something.

They both laughed and Ursula added:

– I don’t know about the fire, but without a robbery it’s great.

These words caused even more laughter from the supermarket owner.

Ursula walked a little deeper into the trading floor. There she met Raymond Rafferty, who, like Cassandra, sometimes worked at the checkout, but most often either laid out goods in the hall or worked in the warehouse. At that moment, Raymond was arranging goods on shelves with dairy products.

– Oh! Diva – Raymond almost exclaimed when he noticed the approaching girl.

When Ursula had just started school, one day Raymond asked her, arranging goods in the next row: “What do you want to become when you grow up and finish studying?”, – to which Ursula replied: “A diva”. Since then, Raymond has called Ursula a diva.

Raymond was twenty-six. After school, he got a job at Leblanc’s supermarket and since then he has only known one job in his life. This is largely why Raymond knew all the visitors by sight. But for Yann Leblanc, what was more important was that this guy knew every corner of the store, every rack, every product item. He could place goods on a shelf without taking his eyes off the box, and the goods would be arranged with pinpoint precision. The speed of servicing the trading floor at Raymond’s was perfected to the point of automaticity. He alone, in a couple of hours, could complete the amount of work that three other people could do in half a day. For this reason, Yann rarely put Raymond at the checkout, knowing how much productivity he would lose on the sales floor.

– How are you? – Raymond asked, continuing to arrange packets of cookies.

– Tolerable. And you?

– Same old, same old. Diva, where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you for a couple of weeks?

– Weeks. But not years.

Raymond smiled as he put the empty box in his cart and pulled out a new one.

– So do not worry. I can’t live without you – Ursula said. – In the end who will get me fresh yogurt, and not the two-week old trash that is on the shelf?

After these words, Raymond laughed louder, answering:

– So that’s why you’re friends with me: just for the sake of fresh yogurt and chocolate.

– What else is it for? If friends cannot bring you benefits, then they are no longer friends.

Raymond was struck by the thought that if he had seen this girl for the first time, he would have decided that she was the daughter of some Jew. But Ursula’s sassy wit always came with a bite.

The girl chatted with Raymond for some more time, after which she took the yeast and went to the checkout, where she paid and advised Cassandra to drink coffee instead of nodding off.

Ursula went out into the street and, out of habit, began to cross the sidewalk, approaching the curb. She never looked around at night because it seemed to her that she would definitely notice car headlights if they appeared. But that evening an unusual car was approaching from the right. Its headlights were barely visible from afar. But Ursula felt the car approaching even before her eyes noticed the dim glow of the headlights. The car drove slowly along the adjacent lane. Ursula froze, as if her legs were covered with a thick layer of ice, which could not be said about her heart. Her heart, racing with fear, pounded like it might burst.

Passing in front of the supermarket building, the car turned around, moving from the far lane to the near one and stopped in front of the curb opposite the supermarket, where Ursula was standing.

On any other day, it wouldn’t have seemed odd. But that evening was unusual. Because it was that Dodge.

11. Gambler

On the day of cash and debauchery, Carter Beckran decided, if not to indulge in sin, then at least to stop one step away from it. He bought two lottery tickets for himself and his father, thereby trying to chase a mild thrill. Carter treated excitement as a kind of need and preferred to satisfy it on a harmless scale, so as not to cause significant harm to his pocket. In many ways, Saul Beckran developed this trait in his son. He was already in his seventy-second year. He was half a head shorter than Carter, with gray hair around a wide bald spot on his head, a beard that was never completely shaved, and a noticeable paunch that had begun to appear since Saul began to experience problems with his back and legs, which is why he stopped running the business, leaving everything to Carter. After retiring, Saul became interested in fishing and literature. His collection consisted of more than a thousand books in the field of history and philosophy. Saul also began to develop skills in assembling ships in glass bottles. But not all the time was spent on entertainment and hobbies. Saul was constantly looking for where and what to repair. When his youngest granddaughter had a flat tire on her bicycle, he was happy because there could be nothing better for him than restoring his granddaughter’s favorite toy. True, a week later Saul decided to buy a new bicycle for the girl. But over the years, the opportunity to work around the house began to narrow. The back and joints in the legs were making themselves felt more and more. He lost his wife at thirty-two to a cerebral hemorrhage. Saul endured the tragedy with difficulty. Having raised his only son, he considered his grandson and two granddaughters as fair compensation for losing his wife too soon. Carter’s wife, Giselle, became like a daughter to him. Sometimes Saul thought that his relationship with his daughter-in-law worked out from the first day due to the fact that Giselle practically did not know her father, who abandoned her mother when she was three and a half, and her mother was then still pregnant with her sister. This was partly true. Having met such a smiling and friendly father-in-law, who at every meeting hugged her like his own daughter, Giselle highly appreciated this attitude and for the first time understood what paternal warmth was. The presence of her mother became something natural for her, but she never knew her father’s warmth and could hardly imagine what it was.

Since her student days, Giselle wore the same hairstyle, slightly shortening her hair, which fell about twenty centimeters below her shoulders. For all thirty-nine years, Giselle’s hair never dyed, always chestnut. She had large black irises, neat eyebrows with a graceful curve at the outer edge, slightly convex pinkish lips with small dimples on her cheeks and eyelashes so thick that if Giselle had become some kind of celebrity, the whole world would have forgotten about Elizabeth Taylor.

She perfectly mastered the entire list of her husband’s addictions and passions and therefore, until the last moment, she tried not to distract him from the lottery, but too many dishes had accumulated after dinner and she could no longer wait:

– Carter, – she called from the kitchen, – the sink is clogged.

Carefully monitoring the numbers popping up on the screen and their presence on the tickets, Carter answered without looking up from the tickets:

– Five minutes.

– Honey, the dishes have been waiting since dinner.

Completely immersed in the game, Carter did not really hear his wife’s words and muttered:

– Yeah, yeah – he muttered.

There was a short pause between the spouses.

– Carter – Giselle called, but there was no response from Carter.

Then Giselle said:

– OK. Until he loses, it’s useless. – Then she turned to Ines: – I’ll go to the studio. When the lottery ends, remind him about the sink.

– Okay – Ines answered.

Giselle was a professional painter, for which, after her marriage, Saul allocated for her one of the largest rooms in their three-story house, where she set up a workshop. Fifty-seven paintings that came out from under her hand left the walls of this house. Some were bought by private art connoisseurs; some paintings travel to various exhibitions. Six years ago, Giselle was first invited to an exhibition in San Francisco, where she was offered to exhibit her work. That day, to congratulate his wife, Carter went to a jewelry store and just grabbed the priciest ring, because he did not understand anything about the quality of jewelry, but saw only one criterion for determining the value of jewelry. Two years later, Giselle visited Los Angeles and New York. Another six months passed and she received an offer from Rome. After visiting Europe, she received an order for two dozen paintings from a private gallery. Giselle was already finishing work on the eighteenth canvas and was planning to go to Paris next year, and she was especially looking forward to this trip because she had made Carter promise that he would fly with her.

Ines was seventeen years old. She, and twelve-year-old Rebecca, were youthful versions of their mother, except that they did not have as thick eyelashes. For days on end she studied the works of Freud, Jung, Fromm, Le Bon and Bekhterev, preparing to enter the psych department at Princeton. Since childhood, Ines had a keen interest in observing people, studying their manners, voices, gestures, facial expressions, and she was especially interested in how different people react to the same external stimuli. For her, a person has always been a certain object of research and an experimental sample, from whose behavior certain conclusions can be drawn. Ines was especially interested in cold reading grounded in science. When meeting a new person, each time she tries to assess the person’s appearance as quickly as possible and from this make a description of the psychological portrait, so that later, as the acquaintance develops, she can compare her primary conclusions with verified facts.

Giselle had already climbed the stairs to the workshop, which was located on the third floor. As soon as she was out of sight, Ines immediately came up behind the chair in which Carter was sitting, leaned over, touching his shoulder with her loose brown hair, and asked in a soft voice:

– Dad, can you clean the sink?

– Now, honey. I’m almost there.

Ines leaned even lower, hugged Carter’s neck with both hands, pressed her cheek to his and said:

– Please. I’ll play for you.

Sitting in another chair, which was a couple of meters away, Saul looked at his granddaughter from under his brows and said:

– Ines, it’s better for you not to start. God forbid you get hooked. Your father and I have fought the gambling itch all our lives. Cards, checkers, backgammon, chess, racing are our curse. Can’t resist betting on something.

Carter added:

– Our happiness is that we are father and son. Otherwise, one of us would have been bankrupt a long time ago.

All three of them laughed, looking at each other.

– Well, I must inherit something from my dad – said Ines, which caused Saul to laugh out loud, and Carter proudly said:

– That’s my girl.

After a couple of seconds, another number appeared on the screen. Carter looked at the ticket and realized that he would not have time to cover all the numbers.

– Damn it – he said and got up from his chair, going to the basement to get some tools.

Ines approached Saul, kneeling down and folding her hands on the armrest. She asked, looking at the ticket:

– Grandpa, what do you have?

Staring tensely at the screen through half-closed glasses, Saul replied, maintaining his concentration:

– Let’s see.

The number flashed on the screen and Saul shouted:

– We won!

Ines hugged her grandfather tightly and kissed his bearded cheek. Without getting up from his chair, Saul hugged his granddaughter to him with both arms and added:

– Three hundred fourteen dollars. God, it’s been a while since I hit such a jackpot. – Then he handed the ticket to Ines and said: – Here, sweetie. Share with Rebecca.

Then, hearing footsteps coming from the direction of the stairs, Saul turned half sideways and shouted:

– Carter!?

Carter appeared in the hall with a set of tools.

– Yes?

– You’re a loser.

Opening his arms, Carter said sarcastically:

– Thank you, dad. Real supportive.

12. Attention! Smoking kills!

Fourteen’s not the age to come clean about smoking to your parents. Despite the fact that classmates Gordon and Quentin tried to hide and smoke without prying eyes, they nevertheless held a cigarette quite professionally. They tried all types of tobacco products: strong, weak, filtered, unfiltered, Marlboro, Camel, Winston, Bond Street. At the initial stage, when preferences haven’t settled, you try the entire range. But as the lungs gain experience, a completely conscious choice arises. For Quentin and Gordon, the choice fell on Marlboro.

They were motivated to become intimately familiar with tobacco smoke by Nicolas Cage in the film “Wild at Heart”. To be more precise, it was a scene in which he and Laura Dern tear up the dance floor, with Cage, all fired up, boxing the air in front of him, then doing some vigorous kicking. But what was most memorable was how effectively Nicolas Cage got rid of his cigarette before laying out a guy pestering his girl. These were the shots that predetermined Quentin and Gordon’s passion for cigarettes.

It was a day off, but not a day off for their smoke session. They usually did this after school, but on weekends and vacations they gathered in a variety of places. However, the diversity was not due to their desire to somehow dilute the scenery, but simply due to the fact that in most places someone was constantly looming: either some young mother with a stroller, or old ladies gossiping about everyone in the area, or young punks will gather on the playground, or lovers of a healthy lifestyle will set up a running track. So they had to rush around all sorts of nooks and crannies. This time fate turned out to be more favorable to Gordon and Quentin and there was no one in central park. But it would be strange to meet someone in the park at ten-thirty at night who would like to get some fresh air. The teenagers walked deeper into the park and, once again making sure that there was no one nearby, began to light up. They took a drag on their cigarettes and continued walking, moving towards the playground.

– Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh… – Gordon said with a face as if he had experienced ecstasy, exhaling tobacco smoke. – No, it’s impossible without this. Dude, how are we going to get off this? – he asked, looking at Quentin walking next to him.

– Who is forcing you to quit?

– Dude, if my father finds out, he’ll kill me, and before that he’ll make me quit this crap.

– Oh, well, yes – answered Quentin. – Well, here’s an incentive for you to try not to get caught. So watch your back to not get caught.

Gordon took a long drag and even before exhaling said:

– Why should everything that is addictive be prohibited?

– Everyone thinks that this is supposedly harmful to health.

– Why then was it necessary to invent? All the lame stuff’s allowed, but all the things without which you begin to experience withdrawal are immediately banned. Damn, no logic. Why are there no harmless drugs?

Exhaling smoke, Quentin replied:

– Who said that they don’t exist?

– For example?

– Hmm… – Quentin smirked, and then added: – Sex. What is it not a drug? True, without safety precautions there are consequences.

– Dude, that’s what I’m talking about! To hell with cigarettes and alcohol. People came up with them on their own. But SEX! Where a person is not involved at all, nature itself punishes with syphilis, herpes, or knocking someone up.

– You’re dropping truth – answered Quentin, looking at the tree crowns dissolving in the darkness.

They approached the balance swing.

– There are pitfalls everywhere in this life – Gordon stated.

– Hey, what is this? – Quentin said in a muffled voice.

– Where? – Gordon asked, narrowing his eyes.

Quentin stuck out his index finger, pointed into the darkness and said:

– Over there.

Without sitting on the balance swing, the friends walked a little further to the merry-go-round. With each step the darkness became less dense, and the picture became more clear. They came close and took a better look. Quentin put his hand on it, shook it slightly and said:

– Hey, you okay?

A few seconds later, Quentin was already tugging at her shoulder, but there was no reaction.

– Quentin? – Gordon said frozen. Having received no answer, he repeated without looking away: – Quentin?

– What?

– Check your pulse.

Hearing about this, Quentin seemed to be overwhelmed and uneasy.

That evening Father Benetti stayed at Bernard Hughes’s house. It was common practice for him to occasionally visit homes where a family had suffered a loss. And in every home Leonardo Benetti became a welcome guest, especially in such difficult days. Martha topped up the tea every time the cup was empty, as bartenders do with alcohol, so that a client keeps going. She didn’t want the priest to leave. His presence softened the mental pain and Father Benetti understood this, but he also could not sit endlessly.

The next morning, a funeral ceremony for Gloria Nelson was to be held and it was necessary to get some sleep, although such a series of unnatural deaths plunged the priest into depression, which resulted in insomnia. At the same time, the craving for sleep arose unexpectedly and several times a day. Against this background, the Father sharply increased the dose of coffee he consumed, which he now drank every five to six hours. And all of this in total was already beginning to affect him.

Before leaving the Hughes family home, he asked for a cup of coffee when he felt sleepy again. It is possible that thanks to this, the priest noticed in time a boy who had jumped out onto the road, waving his arms above his head and shouting something. The figure of a teenager suddenly appeared in front of the car’s headlights and the Father managed to brake. He jumped out of the car in a hurry and didn’t even have time to utter a sound when the boy began to shout through his gasping breaths:

– Fa… Father Benetti! Help!

– What? What’s happened?

– Th… There… – Gordon was breathing deeply and couldn’t really say anything coherent. He simply pointed his finger towards the park and called for the priest. Father Benetti put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said:

– Let’s go.

From Gordon’s appearance, he understood that it was easier to follow him than to wait until he calmed down and the ability to formulate thoughts returned to him.

Two minutes later they found themselves on the playground, where Quentin was squatting, hidden behind a tree, looking fearfully out of the corner of his eye towards the beam carousel. Gordon never managed to bring him to his senses enough to force him to go with him. Father Benetti came up to him, sat down and, placing one hand on Quentin’s shoulder, said:

– Look at me. Hey. Can you hear me?

– Father Benetti – Gordon said nervously, grabbing the priest’s hand. – It’s there. Come on.

Gordon led the priest through the darkness, which was thickening literally every minute and it was already possible to navigate only by bare outlines. Gordon felt the frame of the swing with his hand and said:

– Here. She is here.

Father Benetti took a lighter from his pocket, which he always kept with him in case he needed to light a candle, and lit it in front of him. The corpse of Ursula Minton appeared before him. She was lying on her back between the handrails, and her legs were hanging from the centrifuge. Her braided hair fanned out around her head, which was tilted to the right side. Her skin color still retained a slight shade of pink, but she was already cold. The priest put his hand to his lips, which began to tremble. This sight shattered him as quickly as it did the teens.

A minute later, Father Benetti pulled himself together, took a handful of coins from his pocket, handed Gordon a few pieces and said:

– Run, call the sheriff.

– I’ll be fast – Gordon said, sprinting to the payphone.

Fourteen and a half minutes later, tires screeched as the sheriff’s car stopped. Next came Jenna and forensic scientist Larry Green. A van has already been sent from the morgue.

Desmond ran up to the beam carousel with the flashlight on and asked:

– Father, you didn’t touch anything?

The priest moved his lips silently for a while, but then he shook his head and answered:

– No-no. I… I just sent the boy to call you at the office, and I stayed here.

– Fine.

After a short silence, Father Benetti said with a trembling voice:

– What is it? God, she’s still a child.

Jenna came up to him and took him to the nearest bench, sitting down next to him. She stroked the sobbing priest’s shoulder, trying to calm him down just as he had helped her find calm.

13. Chance, coincidence, pattern and fate

– Some sick bastard has started up in my town! – Desmond snarled furiously as he and Jenna stormed into the office.

Harry, on duty that night, snapped to attention, listening to the sheriff’s voice.

– When did this happen!? What kind of monster does that!?

Late at night, Desmond, Jenna, and Harry speculated about the killer’s motives – if there were any. The four victims had no connection. There were no injuries with a common pattern. It looked like different people committed the murders, and some could pass for accidents. Deductively, it was pure chaos.

The sheriff doubted anyone local did this, so he ordered Jenna and Harry to call Heartstone’s only hotel and three motels. He was sure it was an outsider’s work.

Calls to motel and hotel managers came up empty. No one stayed longer than a day. After jotting down the names of guests from the past five days, Harry and Jenna found no repeats, like the killer was switching places to avoid being tracked.

When the motel and hotel managers couldn’t help, the sheriff ordered Jenna and Harry to canvass in the morning every café, restaurant, bank, post office, train station, shop, supermarket, gas station, hospital, and other busy places. If anyone spotted someone remotely suspicious who’s not local, they were to report it to the sheriff’s office immediately. Desmond also ordered them to notify everyone to report anyone who moved to Heartstone in the last year, in case he’d missed something.

14. Always in touch

Ever since Rebecca started reaching for the phone mounted on the wall in the kitchen, she constantly tried to be the first to pick up the receiver. No one in the family could figure out which parent the girl, who loved to talk for hours, took after. In such cases Saul always joked, saying that it was not necessary to be like their parents, thereby hinting that the granddaughter took after her grandfather, who firmly believed in the great power of her gift of gab, which never rested. Rebecca was even jokingly called “Radio” at home. If a call rang and Carter was closest to the phone, and he was too lazy to leave his seat, he called Rebecca: « Radio, you are being called”. Even if Rebecca was in the basement or on the veranda, this did not stop her and she ran towards the phone. But this trait explained her success in learning languages, and not only English. When Rebecca was eight, Giselle noticed that the girl picked words apart and dove into their meanings. This led to her frequently correcting adults when someone used a word in an inappropriate manner. By eleven she could speak fluently in Spanish and a little French. Rebecca was bothered by her thick French accent. Carter gave her a collection of French hits from recent years, which the girl listened to from morning to evening. She didn’t get rid of her accent completely, but she began to understand some slang words better. Everyone understood that in the case of Rebecca the issue of choosing a profession had already been resolved.

Around noon the phone rang. Rebecca picked up the phone in the living room.

– Hello?

– Heartstone, Boston speaking. Can you hear me? – said Roger.

He was the eldest of Carter and Giselle’s three children. Roger studied at Boston University to become a surgeon. When Roger decided on his choice of profession, that evening, while lying in bed, Carter said to Giselle: “Well, we can breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not for nothing that he loved watching horror films since childhood. Turns out, our boy was training his nerves so his hand wouldn’t shake cutting people. And most importantly, it’s legal”. Since the eighth grade, Roger deliberately focused his attention on biology and chemistry. His knowledge of chemistry was truly appreciated by Saul when, five years ago, his grandson assembled homemade explosives, with which he helped his grandfather get rid of the withered trunk of an old cedar tree. Saul patted his grandson on the shoulder and said that he saved him a lot of time, effort and nerves. That tree had long been an eyesore for Saul. True, Carter and Giselle did not appreciate such talents of their son and Carter forbade Roger to even try to mix everything that in total could be explosive, but without specifying, because he had no idea what exactly and in what proportions his son mixed; and at the end Carter added: “I forbid you to even make flaming cocktails”. For some time after this, Ines called her brother “dynamite”. True, Giselle soon saw how useful Roger’s knowledge was when he removed a stain from a white tablecloth that no detergent could touch.

Growing up, Roger was more easygoing than most boys until thirteen. Carter or Giselle didn’t have to work very hard to influence their son, even though he was less flexible than the two sisters. But after the process of adolescence was in full swing, Roger’s character changed greatly. He was bursting with energy that needed an outlet. He did long distance running and some swimming. But he was especially interested in cycling. Having become a student, in his first year he joined the university cycling team. Roger didn’t get cycling’s appeal until Kayla dragged him to the track.

Kayla Freeze was the only daughter of Carter’s maternal cousin, Vanessa. Kayla’s parents were in a car accident when she was four years old. A couple of weeks after the funeral of Vanessa and her husband, Saul was going to offer his son custody of the girl, but Carter got ahead of his thoughts. So Carter and Giselle raised Kayla as their own daughter. If she called Carter and Giselle aunt and uncle, then Saul became her grandfather, because while she remembered her parents, at least very vaguely, she never knew her grandparents. Kayla was three years older than Roger and became that big sister to all three of them, helping them with homework, flying a kite, teaching them how to play chess, ride a bike, and shoot a basketball. When Giselle began teaching Kayla to draw at an early age and saw her success, she was delighted and decided that she had revealed the girl’s talent and determined the business to which Kayla would devote her life. But since from time to time Carter loved to pick fights with his wife just to mess with her, he immediately bought a piano and hired a tutor, because he knew about Kayla’s love for musicals. Then he bet with his wife that his niece would become a musician. The subject of the dispute was the choice of place for a summer holiday: Giselle dreamed of Barcelona, and Carter dreamed of Monte Carlo, although he did not intend to spend money in a casino. So the husband and wife waited for the day when their niece would graduate from school and decide on her choice of profession. As a result, both lost because Kayla decided to become a cardiologist.

They studied at the same university as Roger and shared a rented apartment. Overall, their lives have changed little. Kayla kept the apartment running – cleaning, cooking, and ironing. Roger spent a little more time at the university because he was part of the cycling team. Kayla was involved in swimming, but did not strive to reach any sports or professional level, but rather did it for her own pleasure.

– Heartstone is listening – Rebecca answered.

– Radio, how are you?

– Fine. Should I call mom? Oh wait…

Ines answered the phone, after which Rebecca ran back to the TV.

– Hello – Ines greeted. – How is it?

– Fine. Better tell me why Rebecca left me?

– Um… don’t pay attention. The commercials are over.

– What does she watch?

– “One Hundred And One Dalmatians”. Hold on a sec. – Ines turned in the direction of the open window and shouted:

– Mom!

– Yes?

– Boston’s on the line!

– I’m coming now!

Ines returned to the conversation:

– So, what news?

Roger sighed and replied:

– News? I haven’t won a gold medal yet. I still haven’t cut up the patient. I didn’t meet my love either; no one worth dating. And so everything remains unchanged.

– How’s Kayla?

– Like at a resort – Roger said and looked at Kayla standing at the stove, who showed with a sarcastic facial expression: « I’ll deal with you later, you total freeloader”. This brought a slight smile to Roger’s face.

Giselle answered the phone.

– Roger?

– Hi, Mom.

– Hello dear. How are you?

– All according to plan.

– How was it at the university?

– Well, it seems they are not going to kick me out yet.

– This is good, because if they kick you out of the university, then dad and I will kick you out of the house. – Giselle said, deadpan, though she chuckled inside. She always understood Roger’s humor in a way that the three girls did not. How is Kayla?

Roger looked at his cousin.

– Kayla? Experimenting with food again. And at the same time, over my stomach, taking this opportunity.

At that moment, a dishrag flew at Roger and he let go of the receiver as soon as Giselle said:

– Pass the phone to her.

Kayla turned down the heat on the gas stove and walked over to the phone, straightening her long, wavy, chocolate-colored hair.

– Hello?

– Hi dear.

– Hello Aunt Giselle. How are you doing there?

– Alive and healthy. How are you?

– Everything is great. How is grandpa?

– Grandpa in a chair on the veranda. Basking in the sun. I didn’t wake him up.

– No-no. Let him rest. Kiss him for me.

– Necessarily. What are you cooking?

– I’m frying minced meat for julienne.

– You are my golden one. How’s the budget? Send more?

– It is not necessary. We have enough.

– Listen, Kayla, what about the holidays?

– Aunt Giselle, I have some difficulties. – Every year, Kayla and Roger took their exams earlier than scheduled so they could leave early and be in time for Giselle’s birthday. – We probably won’t make it on time and will be a couple days late. You won’t be too mad, will you?

– What are you talking about, sweetie? Of course not. Decide your affairs calmly and take your time.

– How’s Uncle Carter?

– All at work. They have something to do with a shortage of granaries there. He is engaged in the construction of a warehouse. The season is in full swing.

– As always. Say hi to him.

– I’ll definitely pass it on.

– How are things going with your paintings? Haven’t finished your collection yet?

– No, what are you talking about? There are still a lot of things that need to be finalized. But I think I’ll meet the deadline. – Giselle took a deep breath and said: “Okay, honey.” I will not distract you. Keep cooking.

Kayla smiled and replied:

– Fine. A big hello to Ines and Rebecca.

– I’ll definitely tell them, honey. Love you. Bye-bye.

15. Beach, moon, sea of blood

Jerry Ings and Alexa Monroe decided to spend a late evening on the beach by the lake. To do this, Jerry requisitioned his father’s van. As the school year neared its end, their dates picked up. Apparently, this summer Jerry and Alexa will go to universities located on different coasts of the country. A year ago, they seriously expected to enter the same university. But things turned out differently. They saw separation as worse than any nightmare. Deep down, they both understood that parting for such a long period would probably mean the end of their love story. Years at different universities, surrounded by thousands of students, would likely lead them to new partners, as a result of which they will forget about their four-year whirlwind romance. But in their hearts, hope was still far from dying.

They parked close to the boat station. Stopping right on the sand, Jerry put the handbrake on the van, after which his fingers released the lever and lay on Alexa’s smoky caramel hair, lowering down to her neck, casting a gaze into her honey-colored eyes. Alexa wrapped both hands around Jerry’s forearm and pressed it to her cheek. She was about to lean towards him, but suddenly stopped and said:

– Let’s go to the lake. The heat has already subsided.

– Let’s go.

They stopped a few meters from the water and sat down on the sand. Alexa leaned against Jerry’s chest, wrapping her arms around his waist like a little girl cuddling a teddy bear before bed. Glancing somewhere into the distance between the stars and the lake, the opposite shore of which was too far to see even during the day, Alexa began to think deeply.

– You know, I was thinking, – Jerry began, – we’re not leaving soon. Maybe we can go somewhere? I’ll ask my dad for the Chrysler and we’ll head to Corpus Christi or Galveston. If you don’t want the Gulf of Mexico, we can choose something else.

Alexa didn’t make a sound in response.

– Do you hear?

A few more seconds passed before Alexa said:

– I didn’t know how… when…

Alexa hesitated for a long time. As a result, she sat down, straightened her back and only then said, hiding a strand of hair behind her ear:

– I’ve missed a period.

Jerry moved his lips silently for a while, but still asked:

– A-and-and… how long has it been?

– About a month and a half.

– Didn’t you take the test?

Alexa covered her trembling lips with the back of her hand, and then answered:

– I’m afraid.

– Come on. What’s there to be scared of? We need to know for sure.

Alexa wiped away the tears that had accumulated in her eyes, and then said:

– We need to discuss this with parents. I’m afraid to tell mine. My father will kill me. I wanted to ask if yours could help?

– You want…

– Yes. Think about it. What future awaits us? Me? I can forget about university education. There’s only one option.

The guy thought for a moment and said decisively:

– Why do we even need to tell the parents? We will decide everything ourselves.

– Jerry, we are two seventeen-year-old teenagers. We’re not old enough to figure this out.

After a pause, Jerry said:

– Perhaps you’re right. – After a short pause, he added: – I really don’t know…

Jerry’s voice was cut off by a low rumble coming from behind and gradually turning into the roar of an engine. Soon the scarlet lights of the headlights appeared. A black car drove onto the beach and stopped right next to the van. The engine stalled. The headlights went out.

– Do you know who is that? – Alexa asked anxiously.

With some trembling in his chest, Jerry shook his head negatively several times.

The driver’s door of the Dodge opened. His foot landed on the sand. Then the second one. Soon a dark silhouette emerged from behind the door. The Stranger walked around the door, leaving it open and headed towards the teenagers.

– Sit here – Jerry said and walked towards the stranger. Alexa stood up and remained standing there.

As he approached, Jerry began to more clearly examine the Racer’s appearance. One meter eighty centimeters. Oversized shoulders. He was wearing a dark green leather raincoat that reached his knees, a black jumper and black jeans. His hands were hidden under leather gloves, and his face was hidden under a black mask. There were cutouts for the eyes, but inside there was complete darkness. His steps were long, but unhurried. There was a sense of firmness and determination in them.

– Can I help you? – Jerry asked.

The Racer suddenly quickened his pace as he passed Jerry and continued towards Alexa.

– What’s the matter? Hey!? – Alexa shouted at the end and reflexively began to back away, without taking her bulging eyes off the Racer.

But the Racer did not stop, but only continued to speed up his pace.

Alexa turned around in fear and ran along the shore about twenty meters past the boat station office, after which she stopped and turned around. She hardly swallowed the lump that had risen in her throat, continuing to look at the Racer walking on her heels.

– Hey guy? Don’t touch her! I’m talking to you! – Jerry shouted, chasing after the Racer. He ran up to him from behind and said, grabbing his shoulder: – If you have something to say, say it…

His voice broke as the Racer grabbed his hand and squeezed it with his powerful fingers. He crushed the bones in Jerry’s palm, clenching his fingers into a fist. Jerry’s face was hidden under a grimace of silent but hellish pain. Soon he could not stand it and a scream was heard. At that moment, the Racer grabbed Jerry by the neck with his other hand and lifted him, tearing his legs off the sand.

– JERRY! – Alexa screamed hysterically, frozen in place.

The Racer made a sharp movement with his hand and a loud crunch was heard in Jerry’s neck. Then he lifted the guy’s immobilized body a little more and threw it to the side with some ease. Jerry’s body flew through a steel mesh fence and into the boathouse office window. There was a crash of breaking glass, shattered into shards. Jerry’s head, arms and torso were inside on the other side of the broken window, while Jerry’s legs were left dangling outside. His body remained hanging on the windowsill.

Alexa screamed even louder. This scream did not become quieter even after she continued to run away, noticing how the Racer continued to follow her at a fast pace. He did not run, but his steps were long. Each footprint in the sand seemed to leave a trace of death, which was already rushing towards the inhabitants of Heartstone. Alexa felt the full weight of these steps. Her chest was squeezing and her heart was pounding against her ribs. She continued to run in hysterics until she ran into the fence that separated the boat station area from the public beach. The steel mesh was attached to iron pipes of small diameter. Alexa jumped onto the mesh, hooked her fingers on it and began to desperately crawl up it.

She screamed something incoherent and called for help. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and the trembling in her voice made the scream not as loud as she would have liked. Before her eyes there was still Jerry, flying over the fence, as if he had jumped from a trampoline.

Three meters of the fence separated Alexa from entering the territory of the boat station. She caught on to the very edge of the fence mesh and had already begun to drag her body over the pipe to which the mesh was attached. Suddenly she felt something grab her left leg, like a ring that was squeezing like a vice. Feeling this touch, the girl experienced a coldness that sent a shiver through her entire skin from her heels to her head. The Racer’s hand held Alexa’s leg in an iron grip. The girl’s screams became stronger, but immediately stopped as soon as the Racer sharply pulled her leg down, causing the pipe’s end to pierce her lower jaw, pass through her mouth, and puncture her palate, reaching her skull through her brain. Alexa’s pupils rolled back, leaving only the whites of her eyes.

16. When God and death come together

John Minton was carving up freshly killed nutria carcasses while Deborah washed the dishes after putting the chicken in the oven. After dinner, she planned to start working on the cake so she could let it soak overnight. But Ursula was still not there.

– That little rascal is stuck in the supermarket again – said Deborah. Then she looked at the digital clock on the kitchen set and added: – She’s been gone going on two hours.

– Come on – John answered, cutting the nutria’s ribs with pruning shears. – As if you don’t know how much she loves to talk. Store across the road. She didn’t go to the other end of the town. I’ll finish now and go get her.

Deborah finished drying the dishes and looked at the watch once again. Then she turned to husband:

– John, go get her. I’ll cut up the nutria.

John handed the pruning shears to his wife and went into the hallway. He looked at the stains from the meat on his T-shirt and decided to wear a shirt instead.

He went outside and thought about how suspiciously cool the nights were this summer. Having lived in Heartstone all his life, he had never seen anything like it. It seemed to him that if he had known in advance what the temperature was outside, he would have wanted to throw on something warmer. But it was not far to go. John crossed the road and entered the supermarket, which was soon to close. Entering the store, he saw one working cash register, on which Cassandra Bello was dozing. He walked up to her and gently placed his hand on the girl’s shoulder. But she still got scared and jumped up with a slight exclamation:

– No, no, I don’t… I don’t, it’s…

– Quiet, quiet.

Only then, having looked a little closer, she said in a calmer tone:

– Oh, Mr. Minton.

– Don’t sleep, Sandra. Yann could show up at any second.

She looked at her wristwatch, counting down the minutes until the end of the work day.

– Yes. It’s good that it turned out to be you – Cassandra answered, struggling to keep her eyes open.

– I’m picking up Ursula.

– Yes, okay – Cassandra said, not quite recovering from sleep. But suddenly she said: – Wait, Mr. Minton. Hasn’t she come home?

– No.

Cassandra began to strain her memory.

– She went through the cash register. Well, yes. I remember exactly. Yes, she also took yeast.

– Are you sure? – the girl’s father asked, narrowing his eyes.

– Quite. But I couldn’t have dreamed it. Just a second – Cassandra added at the end and went deeper into the trading floor.

She approached her partner.

– Raymond.

Having finished arranging the bottles of mineral water, he responded:

– Hm-yes.

– Is the boss nearby? – Cassandra asked in a whisper.

Raymond looked back and said:

– Relax, friend. What’s happened?

Raymond began unpacking the lemonade box while listening to Cassandra.

– Was Ursula in the store?

He looked at his partner and said:

– Well, yes. I chatted with her for another ten minutes. As usual, we shot the breeze for a bit, then she took something from the shelf near the powdered sugar and walked towards the cash register. Did you fall asleep and now you can’t tell if it was a dream or not? – Raymond said the last words with a slight smile.

– Mr. Minton has arrived. He says she didn’t return home.

Raymond thought about it. After a short pause, he broke the silence:

– That’s odd. It’s right across the road. What could have happened?

– That’s what I think.

Soon Cassandra returned to the checkout, where Ursula’s father was still waiting.

– Sorry, Mr. Minton. – Then Cassandra spoke, staring off as if piecing it together: – Ursula was definitely here. She definitely took the yeast and paid at the checkout. We exchanged words before saying goodbye, and after that she left.

John touched his closed eyelids with his fingers, then lowered his palm, closed his lips and opened his eyes. His face showed complete confusion.

Noticing this grimace, Cassandra asked:

– Are there any friends nearby that she could meet and hang out with?

John silently shook his head and then asked for a phone to call the sheriff’s office.

Leonardo Benetti watched through tears as Ursula Minton’s body in a body bag was loaded into a van that would take the body to the morgue. Her identity was identified after Harry reported on the radio that he had received a call from a man who reported his lost daughter. The description – height, age, hairstyle, hair color and clothing – everything matched.

Lowering his head and burying his face in the ground illuminated by spotlights, Sheriff Desmond Poe said in a faded voice:

– We need to tell the parents.

After these words, Father Benetti braced himself. He said:

– Sheriff, trust me with this. I know the Mintons. Especially John. I will try to soften this blow for the parents’ hearts, if this is at all possible.

The sheriff did not object. He doubted that he could find the words to convey such terrible news to the girl’s parents.

Father Benetti hurried back to his blue ’77 Chevrolet Nova, which he had left on the side of the road, started the engine and hurried to the Minton family home. Along the way, the Father ran a handkerchief over his face twenty times, wiping away tears. Having driven halfway, he noticed that the eyes already looked normal. All that was left was redness around his eyes.

Soon the priest’s Chevrolet was parked in front of the Minton family’s home. He looked in the rearview mirror again, took a deep breath, exhaled sharply and glanced at the windshield. He wanted to wait another minute to let his heart calm down a little. But John Minton appeared ahead, leaving the supermarket building and shuffling across the road in the dim light of the street lamps. Father Benetti hurried out of the car and headed towards John.

Every time he saw Father Benetti, his head was overcome by the thought that in front of him was a man who would give him support, peace of mind, and consolation. This man could give practical and very wise advice. Meeting with the Father always filled John with warm feelings. This time the meeting was so unexpected; he first met Father Benetti under circumstances in which he was not seeking this meeting.

– Mr. Minton.

– Did something happen, Father? – John asked in a timid voice, frozen in place.

Father Benetti continued to walk at a calm pace. In the twilight of the night, only his palms, face and white clergy collar around his neck were visible. His suit and shoes blended completely into the darkness. He walked up, carefully took Ursula’s father’s hand, pressed it to him, and he leaned forward and hugged him, clasping his shoulders with his other hand, and then, resting his chin on John’s shoulder, Father Benetti said, unable to hold back another tear:

– Be strong, Mr. Minton. Be strong.

John’s body went completely limp, and his voice trembled, like that of a frightened child waiting for horror:

– W… what… what’s wrong with my girl? Fath…

17. Corpse puzzle

Before seven in the morning, the school principal called the sheriff’s office and reported a body discovered on the porch of the building, identifying her as a recent graduate, and one of the teachers confirmed the identity of Alexa Monroe.

As Larry worked on the body, examining the hole in the lower jaw, Jenna called the sheriff. Desmond walked up to the official car, took the radio, pulled it out and said:

– This is Desmond. Go ahead, Jenna.

– Chief, Ruben found another corpse at his station. A young guy, about eighteen years old.

The sheriff threw the radio into the car with all his might. There was a crash from the impact on the dashboard. Desmond said, turning to Harry:

– These corpses are piling up so fast we’ll need a waiting list for the morgue. – After half a minute, Desmond pulled himself together and said: – So, Harry. We’re done here and head to Ruben’s. Contact the morgue. Have them send a second van to the boat station.

After waiting for Larry to finish examining the corpse, Desmond asked him to go with them to the boat station.

Already looking around the beach by the lake, Desmond asked as the medical examiner descended the stairs that led to Ruben’s office:

– Well, Larry, what are your thoughts?

Larry took off his second latex glove and said, putting his glasses in the side pocket of his jacket:

– I know one thing. If it turns out that all these victims are the work of one person, then it is difficult for me to imagine his height and dimensions. This guy – pointing to the broken window with a hanging corpse – is no lightweight. How much power do you need to throw this mass to such a height? There will be a couple of meters from the window to the ground, no less. And it flew in from outside, because most of the glass fragments lie inside the room. That is, this is not an attempt to confuse the investigation. This actually happened. I had a decent practice in the Bronx at one time; I’ve seen a lot, but I couldn’t dream this up.

At this moment, the voice of Ruben was heard, who in a hurry approached the sheriff, Larry and Harry:

– Guys, that’s not all. Let’s go. I found something else there.

Ruben grabbed a stepladder, which he placed close to the fence and invited Larry to climb up to examine the bloody mark on the pipe to which the steel mesh was attached.

Larry examined the trail and immediately said:

– And this matches the diameter of the girl’s wound. And the length of the mark is the same as the depth of the wound.

– Yes, great. Harry, find the girl’s parents and find out through them who this guy is. We need to inform his family.

– Got it, chief.

After packing up his tools, Larry and the sheriff went to the car. Leaving the case in the car, they returned to the pier, awaiting the arrival of the car from the morgue. Sitting down on the bench, Larry said, lighting a cigarette:

– Listen, Desmond. We’re getting nowhere.

– In what sense? What are you talking about?

Larry’s face was very puzzled, as if he was solving a puzzle.

– There is nothing similar between the deaths, and their number is already extraordinary. Norman, the transport company employee, the girl, the dancer from Gomorrah, the girl at the school and this guy. Six victims who don’t just have different injuries. No sign of sadism. All different ages. I’ll say even more: I’m more than sure that the girl who was found near the school hit this pole with her jaw – pointing to the pipe with the bloodstain – by accident, when she ran away and tried to climb over the fence. I’d rather believe that this psycho just wanted to kill her, but how – it doesn’t matter. This is a dead end.

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The ninth novel in the Fantomas series by French authors Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain.

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