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“It’s his daughter. Dad’s in the hospital. He has Covid. I’m on his phone. What do you want?”
“I was in the shower. Can I rinse off and call you back?”
The woman gives a longsuffering sigh. “Sure, fine.”
“My screen says unknown number. Can you—”
The woman gives her the number and Penny writes it in the steam on the bathroom mirror, repeating it over and over to herself for good measure as she turns the shower back on and sticks her head under it. It’s a half-assed rinse job, but she can finish later. She wraps herself in a towel and calls back.
“This is Shauna. What’s your deal, Ms. Dahl?”
Penny tells her that Holly was investigating the disappearance of her daughter and was supposed to call to report her progress at nine last night. There was no call, and since then, including this morning, Penny gets only voicemail.
“I don’t know what I can do for y—”
A male voice interrupts her. “Give it to me.”
“Dad, no. The doctor said—”
“Give me the damn phone.”
Shauna says, “If you set back his recovery—”
Then she’s gone. A man coughs into Penny’s ear, reminding her of the woman from the answering service. “This is Pete,” he says. “I apologize for my daughter. She’s in full protect-the-old-guy mode.”
Faintly: “Oh my fuck, really?”
“Start over, please.”
Penny goes through it again. This time she finishes by saying, “Maybe it’s nothing, but since my daughter disappeared, anyone not showing up makes me crazy.”
“Maybe nothing, maybe something,” Pete says. “Holly’s always on time. It’s a thing with her. I want—” He coughs dryly. “I want to give you Jerome Robinson’s number. He works with us sometimes. He… well, shit. I forgot. Jerome is in New York. You can try him if you want, but his sister Barbara might be a better bet. I’m pretty sure she and Jerome both have keys to Holly’s apartment. I have one, too, but I’m—” More coughing. “I’m in Kiner. Another day, they tell me, then more quarantining at home. Shauna, too. I guess I could send a nurse down with the key.”
Penny is in the kitchen now, and dripping on the floor. She grabs a pen from beside the day planner. “I hope it won’t come to that. Give me those numbers.”
He does. Penny jots them down. Shauna recaptures the phone, says an unceremonious “G’bye,” and then Penny is on her own again.
She tries both numbers, the one for Barbara first since she’s in town. She gets voicemail from both. She leaves messages, then goes back into the bathroom to finish her shower. It’s the second time this month that she’s had the feeling that something is wrong, and the first time she was right.
Holly’s always on time. It’s a thing with her.
7
“You eat them,” Holly echoes.
There is no Red Bank Predator. It should be impossible to believe, but it’s not. Only two old college professors living in a neat Victorian home near a prestigious college.
Roddy steps forward eagerly, almost within grabbing distance. Emily pulls him back by his robe, wincing as she does it. Roddy doesn’t seem to notice.
“All mammals are cannibals,” he says, “but only homo sapiens has a silly taboo about it, one that flies in the face of all known medical facts.”
“Roddy—”
He ignores her. He’s dying to expound. To explain. They have never done that with any of their other captures, but this isn’t livestock; he doesn’t have to worry about her adrenals flooding her flesh before they are ready to slaughter.
“That taboo is less than three hundred years old, and even now many tribes—long-lived tribes, I might add—enjoy the benefits of human flesh.”
“Roddy, this isn’t the time—”
