The Deadlock Trilogy Box Set Page 14

  That kick had probably been a little too hard. He might have done some real damage. Frank was hoping the harder he kicked, the fewer times he would need to do it. That was the theory anyway.

  Part of Frank, a distant rational part, was shocked that he was once again hurting someone. But the rest of him, the part that was sick to death of the secrets and the Regulations and Christine and Will dancing around topics, that part was all too happy with what was happening. Maybe he couldn’t get his old life back. Maybe he couldn’t get his brother back. But he sure as hell was going to try.

  “Tell me,” Frank said.

  “Okay, man, relax. But you can’t tell Christine I talked. She lets us stay here for free, but we aren’t supposed to ask any questions about what she does out here. And we can’t mess with her things.”

  “What things?”

  “In that shed down the path. She’s got a freezer chest in there and she keeps it locked. Every time she comes out here she spends some time in that shed. Your guitar case is down there too.”

  Frank sighed. “Okay. Is the shed locked?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where’s the key?”

  “My keys are in a bowl near the door. I don’t have a key to the freezer, though, just the shed.”

  Frank walked to the door and grabbed the keys. “Fantastic,” Frank said. He walked into the bedroom and rummaged around in the dark until he found a t-shirt.

  “Listen up. I’m going out to the shed. If everything is as you say, I’ll come back and untie you in a few minutes. But I can’t have you screaming your head off and waking up the family while I’m gone, so I’m going to have to gag you.”

  Ty didn’t say anything, so Frank brought the t-shirt over and wrapped it around his head, stuffing it deep into his mouth. Frank made sure it was tight enough that Ty wouldn’t be able to move his tongue much, but not so tight that he wouldn’t be able to breathe.

  “Look,” Frank said, “I know you’re not too comfortable, but we’re almost done. Five minutes in the shed and then I’ll let you go.”

  Ty moaned weakly.

  Frank walked out the door and headed for the tree line. The path was more overgrown than it had been when he lived here, but even in the dark Frank had no trouble finding the shed. It was locked with a standard-issue hardware store padlock—the cheap kind. Frank clucked with disapproval. Hadn’t he told Christine and Will a thousand times how easily one of these could be picked? He pulled out Ty’s keys and unlocked the door.

  It was pitch black inside the shed. He wished he had thought to bring a flashlight from Ty’s cabin. He groped along the wall until his hand found the light switch. With the light on, he quickly slid the door shut.

  At the back of the shed, he saw the guitar case leaning in the corner. The breath caught in his throat at the sight of it. He hurried over and ran his hand across the hard plastic exterior. All the trouble his stupid locks had caused. Maybe he should have let Brett take them. Maybe he should have forgotten about locks altogether and done something useful with his life.

  He opened the case and saw them, his creations, his babies, his locks. The Yeti, The Horse Collar, The 51st Star, and twenty-seven other models. He loved them all, but it was the one he had never completed that he loved the most. The Cassandra lock didn’t look like the rest of them. It was a silver hoop which hooked into a metal square. There was no key hole and there were no perceptible seams on the lock. It was a brilliant design, Frank wasn’t afraid to admit. He just couldn’t get it to work.

  Was this what Jake wanted Frank to bring to their mysterious meeting? Or was he supposed to finish it first? He picked up the unfinished Cassandra lock and put it in his jacket pocket.

  Frank saw the freezer in the back of the shed, exactly as Ty had described. The lock on it made Frank smile. Maybe Christine and Will weren’t so dumb after all. It was the Gazelle, one of his best models. Opening it required a key and a bit of pressure in the right spot. The freezer would be safe from anyone. Anyone but Frank.

  He reached into the guitar case and found the Gazelle master key. He had the lock off in five seconds. He opened the lid of the freezer, and the first thing he saw was a head.

  He took an involuntary step backward and put his hand to his mouth. It was one of those things. The Birdies. The Unfeathered. Ice hung from its long beak and its open eyelids. The head was a cool bluish color.

  What were Christine and Will into? Had they killed this thing? Why keep the head?

  He pushed aside the revulsion and moved back to the freezer. There were other things in there too. A key. A knife. A lighter. A cane. A mirror. Each item had the broken clock symbol. Seeing the symbol again took him back to that day. The day he had killed Brett. A shudder went through him and the familiar feeling of guilt washed over him.

  Frank removed the objects, holding each item in his hand for a long moment. This was it. This freezer was Will and Christine’s big secret.

  Frank had no idea what the items might signify, but he knew they must have some importance. Becky Raymond had called them dangerous. She’d said that Jake had been obsessed with finding them. What was the connection to the coin he had seen on the terrible day so many years ago?

  He put the lighter, key, the mirror, and the cane back into the freezer. He picked up the knife, paused, and then slid it into his pocket. He was going to take one of the items with him, and a knife could always come in handy. He picked up the guitar case and left the shed.

  When he got back to the cabin, he stopped and stood on the porch, unsure of what to do next. He got what he came for, but what good had it done him? He needed help. He needed to talk to someone who knew the town and might understand the significance of the items in the freezer. He wasn’t sure he trusted Christine and Will anymore, and, more importantly, he knew they didn’t trust him.

  He had to go to the guy with no reason to lie. The guy who had told him the truth about the Regulations. He didn’t much like the idea of walking all the way there, though. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Ty’s keys.

  He opened the door to the cabin and stuck his head inside. Ty’s large dark shape was still crouching on the floor next to the radiator.

  “Hey man,” Frank said. “I’m really sorry, but I’m not going to be able to untie you. I’m gonna need to borrow your truck for a while.”

  Ty emitted a low groan that he probably had meant to be a scream.

  “Yeah, I know the feeling.” Frank shut the door and walked out. The truck was parked in the driveway. He got in, took a deep breath, and started the engine.

  The lights were on in both of the other two cabins by the time he had pulled out of the driveway.

  2.

  Frank had been knocking for almost three minutes before a blurry-eyed Sean answered the door. Sean squinted out into the darkness. He turned on the porch light.

  “Frank? Is that you?”

  “Yeah, sorry to wake you, man. Can I come in?”

  Sean blinked hard a few times and then nodded. “Yeah, of course. Come in.”

  “I’m really sorry, man, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “What—what about Will and Christine?”

  “We had a bit of a fight.”

  “Oh.”

  Sean shut the door and ran a hand through his hair. He wasn’t all there yet, Frank could see. Maybe that was for the best. Honesty came easier to the weary mind.

  “Well,” Sean said. “You're welcome to stay here. The guest bed is all made up. Hasn’t been used in about five years, so I guess I’m due.”

  “Thanks. That’s not why I’m here, though.”

  Sean crossed his arms and stared at Frank like he was looking at a difficult crossword puzzle. “Okay. What’s up?”

  “I need your help. You ever see anything with a symbol of a broken clock on it?”

  Sean’s face darkened. He suddenly looked a few degrees more alert. “Where did you see that?”

  “I—I can’t tell you righ
t now. I take it you've seen it?”

  Sean nodded. “Yeah. I’ve seen it. Frank, if you saw something with that symbol on it, you have to turn it over to the police or board of selectmen.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s Regulation 2.”

  Frank paused. “What does the symbol mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But it’s tangled up with Zed somehow.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The first time I met Zed, when he was wandering around naked, he was holding a pocket watch with that symbol on it.”

  Frank felt his heart speed up. He reached into his pocket and felt the knife, and he thought about Sean’s words. “What’s the penalty for breaking Regulation 2?”

  Sean looked him square in the eye. “Death.” He turned away and sighed. “There’s something I need to tell you about your brother.”

  Frank waited.

  “Jake found an object with the broken clock symbol. He showed it to a small group of us. Me, Wendy, Will, Todd, and Christine. Jake believed that we needed to keep these objects away from Zed. That Zed needed them for something. Together we started looking for more of these objects, and we found a few of them. Not long after that, Jake disappeared and they blamed those killings on him. I believe that Zed went after Jake because of the objects we found.”

  “So why didn’t Zed go after the rest of you?” Frank asked.

  “We don’t know.”

  “I do,” Frank said. “It’s because you gave up. You’ve been living in fear of him. But I’m not afraid.”

  Frank thought about Will, Christine, and Trevor. He thought about Jake, and his message to Sally Badwater. Frank took the Cassandra lock out of his pocket and looked at it. What could Jake want with a non-functioning lock?

  “What’s that?” Sean asked.

  Frank instinctively closed his hand. “It’s a lock I was working on before I went to prison. Never did finish it.”

  Sean frowned. “I’ve seen it before.”

  Frank shook his head. “No. This is the only one.”

  “I’m sure of it,” Sean said. “It was on the box Zed showed the town on Regulation Day. The box he used to keep the Unfeathered outside of town.”

  Frank’s knees felt like water. It wasn’t possible. “Sean, that room at City Hall where Zed took the box… I need you to tell me exactly where it is.”

  Ten minutes later, Frank parked Ty Hansen’s truck three blocks away from City Hall. The building was dark, which was a relief to Frank—he had been afraid there might be a night watchman on duty.

  Sean had tried to talk Frank out of going, but there had been no chance. Frank had to see that box. He picked the lock on one of the side doors and headed toward the darkness inside.

  Frank counted the doors as he passed them. He stopped in front of the sixth door on the left. In the dim hallway, it looked unremarkable, just like all the rest, but this was the door to the room Zed had locked himself in the day he stopped the Unfeathered. This door had been shut later that day and not opened since.

  Frank pulled out his lock picking kit. The darkness didn’t bother him. This kind of work was mostly done by feel. He gave the doorknob a jiggle and to his surprise it turned freely. His heart was thumping fast, as fast as it had when he was fighting Ty. Something was very wrong. Frank eased the door open.

  A small desk lamp illuminated the room with a yellow glow. After the darkness of the hallway, the light hurt Frank’s eyes, and he had to squint. The first thing Frank noticed was the wooden box on the desk. The second thing he noticed was the man sitting behind the desk. The man was smiling, and the light from the desk lamp reflected off his teeth and his bald head.

  “Hello Frank,” Zed said. “Please, come in.”

  3.

  Christine hung up the phone and turned to Will. “Frank’s been out at the cabins.”

  The color drained from Will’s face. “The shed?”

  Christine nodded. “They don’t know if he got in the freezer. If he did he locked it back up before he left.”

  “If he got in the shed, he got in the freezer.”

  “Yeah,” Christine said.

  Will ran a hand through his hair. “Okay, let’s think about this. Worst case scenario. Let’s say he emptied the freezer and he knows everything he could possibly know. Let’s say he’s leaping into action. Where would he go?”

  “There are only two possibilities,” Christine said. “Zed’s house or City Hall.”

  Will stood up from the chair. “We have to find him and stop him. Maybe if we explain things, he’ll listen to reason.”

  “Maybe we should have explained things that very first night.”

  “The smart thing to do is to split up. I’ll take City Hall.”

  “No, I’ll take City Hall. At least if I get caught I have an excuse. I can say I needed to check some medical records.”

  “I could say I need to get some research materials for a Certification class.”

  Christine held up her keys. “I have keys. I have a City ID badge. It makes more sense for me to be there.”

  Will looked at her for a long moment before realizing he wasn’t going to win. “Fine. Will you call the Strauss’s and ask if Trevor can stay over?”

  Christine nodded. “Meet back here at first light?”

  Will gave her a quick kiss and turned to go.

  “Don’t shoot anybody unless you have to,” Christine said.

  “You either.”

  Christine drove the three miles to City Hall in about four minutes. She circled the block a few times looking for Ty Hansen’s truck, but she didn’t see it. The building was dark and none of the doors or windows appeared to have been forced open. Of course, Frank probably would have been able to pick the locks on the doors. Jake used to say that the only reason Frank hadn’t broken out of jail was that he was too stubborn to live life as a fugitive.

  She parked her car across the street and waited, trying to decide what to do. If Frank wasn’t here yet, she would be better off waiting and catching him before he went inside. But if he was already inside he was in trouble and needed her help. She decided to take one look around inside and then come back out to wait.

  She grabbed her keys and her purse. She couldn’t help but stick her hand in the purse and feel the cold comforting metal of the gun. She left the purse unzipped for easier access.

  Christine went into City Hall through the front door. If she was caught it would look better to have gone in as if she had nothing to hide. It reminded her of one of Will’s favorite old Lutheran sayings: sin boldly.

  The halls were dark and there was no sign that anyone was there. She walked quickly toward her destination, her shoes clicking loudly on the linoleum and echoing through the empty halls. When she reached the sixth door on the left, she froze. For the first time in eight years, the door was open.

  4.

  Zed gestured to the chair in front of the desk. “Sit down.”

  “I’ll stand,” Frank said.

  Zed’s smile didn’t waver. “That’s fine. You know, I’m impressed. Your brother killed three people to get to me, and he never made it this far.”

  Frank thought about pulling the knife out of his pocket. But what would he do with it? Stab the man? Would that even help anyone? “I guess Sean told you I was coming?”

  Zed nodded. “He called me the moment you left his house.”

  Frank imagined introducing Sean to his old friend the tire iron.

  “Don’t be too hard on him. With your history, and your brother’s, can you blame him for erring on the side of law and order?”

  “Law and order. Is that what you call it?”

  “Yes,” Zed said. “What would you call it?”

  “I’d call it trapping a whole town. You show up and suddenly we are cut off from the world. You’ve got your friends out there guarding the town, tearing apart anyone who tries to leave.”

  “The Unfeathered? They are no friends of mine. I promise you that. I
was in town almost a year before they showed up. Besides, correlation does not equal causation. That is a basic principle of science, my friend.”

  Frank felt his temper rising in a way it hadn’t for a long time. “What did you do?”

  Zed spread out his hands like a magician before a trick. Nothing up his sleeves. “Didn’t you hear? I saved the town!”

  “That’s not all you did. It was you, wasn’t it? You paid Brett to steal my locks.”

  Zed grimaced. “Come on, you came all the way here to ask me that?”

  “What do you know about what happened to Jake? Did he really kill those people?”

  “Okay,” Zed said. “I’ll make you a deal. If you answer one question for me, I’ll answer the one for you.”

  “What’s your question?” Frank asked.

  “Where did you see the broken clock symbol?”

  Frank thought of Christine. And Will. And Trevor. He said nothing.

  “That’s what I thought,” Zed said.

  “How about this?” Frank asked. “Why did you come to Rook Mountain? Were you planning for all this to happen?”

  “Ah,” Zed said. “That’s a better question. And I’ll answer it out of respect for the fact that you of all people made it into this room. I’m on vacation.”

  Frank blinked hard. “What?”

  “Haven’t you ever had one of those days at work? Well, maybe you haven’t, being self-employed and then a guest of the State. But trust me, those of us who work for a living sometimes need to get away. I stumbled across Rook Mountain and thought it might be a good place to relax for a couple of centuries. And if I happen to get a little business done too, all the better.”

  Frank was trying hard to keep up with the conversation, but something about this room and the way Zed was talking made it hard to concentrate. “Vacation from what?”

  Zed sighed. “Do me a favor, Frank. Look into my eyes.”

  In spite of himself, Frank did.

  It was just like the first time, the time when Zed knocked on his door. He felt Zed’s gaze claw its way into his mind, into those deepest parts of himself that he kept hidden from the world. It was like being punched in the stomach and standing naked in front of a laughing crowd at the same time.