or four days, I shouldnât imagine.â
âIf youâre such a genius at finding people, how come youâre not more famous? How come the FBI doesnât use you?â
âBecause what I do, Mrs. Blakeâit comes at a very high price. Not always financially. Sometimes, in terms of money, it comes extremely cheap. But all the same, some people canât afford it; some people can afford it but donât want to pay it.â
âI donât understand.â
âYou would, if you were to retain me.â
âGive us a ballpark figure,â said Ned.
Shooks said, âIâm sorry. Iâd have to consult my resources first, find out what they were looking for.â
âA thousand? Two thousand? Ten thousand? What?â
âYou can name your price,â put in Bennie. âConcord Realty will pay. We just want to see Lily get her kids back.â
âHow much did your brother pay?â asked Shooks.
Bennie thought about it, and then frowned. âI donât know, to tell you the truth. He never told me.â
âExactly,â said Shooks. He turned again to leave, but Lily knew that she couldnât let him go. If he could really find Tasha and Sammy for her in three or four days, she didnât mind what it cost. She didnât even mind if she had to sell the house and live in some low-rent apartment in Cedar-Riverside.
âMr. Shooks . . .â she said, and he stopped where he was, patiently waiting for what she was going to say next.
He met her the next morning at eleven A.M . at Sibleyâs Barn. It had stopped snowing and an orange sun was suspended in a pale-gray sky. She wore a shaggy fox-fur coat and a shaggy fox-fur hat and thick shaggy boots. When she crossed the Brer Rabbit field Shooks was already waiting for her, in his long black coat and his wide-brimmed hat, and a very long black scarf, his breath smoking.
âHow did you sleep?â he asked her as she approached. She was taken aback. It seemed an incongruous question from a man who barely knew her. Yet somehow it made sense. He wanted to know how excited she was.
âNot very much, as a matter of fact,â she told him. âBut then you must have known that.â
âIâve looked inside the barn already,â he said. âNo physical, evidence, just as the FBI told you. No footprints, no fingerprints, no fibers.â
âSo now what?â
âWe find out what happened here first.â
âHow can we do that, if thereâs no evidence?â
Shooks smiled. âI said no
physical
evidence. But people leave more than physical evidence. They leave a resonance, an echo. A smell of themselves.â
âThe FBI tried manhunting dogs. They couldnât pick up any scent at all.â
âIâm not talking about that kind of a smell. Hereâcome into the barn and Iâll show you what I mean.â
Lily hesitated for a moment, but then she stepped through the access door into the barn and Shooks followed her. She stood among the straw while he circled around and around her, trailing his fingers against the walls.
âWhat are you looking for?â she asked him.
He stopped circling. âThey were here all right. I can hear them.â
âYou can
hear
them? What do you mean?â
He approached her with his hands held up to the sides of his face. He stopped only two or three feet away from her, and it was then that she saw that his eyes had rolled up into his head, so that only the whites were exposed. She took a step away from him, and then another. He looked grotesque, like a death mask.
â
Where are we going?
â he suddenly said. But he didnât speak in his own voice at all. He sounded high and childish. In fact, he sounded exactly like Sammy.
Lily felt her scalp crawl with fright. This wasnât ventriloquism, or mimicry. Somehow, this was Sammy talking through Shooksâs lips.
âHow are you doing
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