The Night Season by Chelsea Cain Page A

to have a heart attack?”
    Next to them one of the gurneys was raised, and the boy, wrapped in another space blanket, was wheeled away through the hushed crowd.
    “Is he okay?” Archie asked.
    “He will be,” the EMT said.
    Susan and Claire stepped aside as two EMTs gingerly positioned Archie on the remaining gurney and strapped him in. Susan’s father had been wheeled from the house strapped to a gurney just like it when she was fourteen years old. He never came home.
    Archie seemed to sense what she was thinking. “I’ll see you soon,” he told her.
    She picked his coat up from where it lay on the concrete and laid it over his lap.
    The EMTs raised the gurney and its legs extended.
    “Wait,” Archie said. He lifted his head and looked around, his eyes settling on Susan. “The guy who grabbed us. It was Carter, wasn’t it?”
    Susan nodded.
    “I want to talk to him,” he said.
    Susan looked around and quickly spotted Carter and motioned him over. “Hey,” Archie said to him. Archie smiled weakly. “You did good, kid.”
    Carter straightened. “Yes, sir.”
    They were moving then. The EMTs pushed Archie through the crowd, one on either end of the gurney. Some people applauded, some took pictures. Susan and Claire tried to shield Archie from the flashes. Susan knew it was no use. His picture would be everywhere online by midnight. She wondered if these people recognized him—Archie Sheridan, hero cop, the one who’d been tortured by Gretchen Lowell, the one who’d caught her, twice. They probably didn’t. But eventually someone would.
    They cleared the bridge. Susan could see the rotating red and blue lights of two ambulances. They’d parked on the promenade.
    “Do you want me to call anyone?” Claire asked Archie gently.
    Archie was looking around, taking in his surroundings. Susan thought she could see his brain clearing. He wasn’t shaking as hard anymore. “This is the Steel Bridge?” he said.
    Claire nodded.
    “Henry,” Archie said. “Find Henry.”

CHAPTER
    10

    The two women were alone.
    The Herald reporter he recognized. Her photograph ran next to her column. The hair was a different color, but it was definitely Susan Ward. He would not have known her a week before, but he had studied her face since then, his fingertips tracing over the column he’d clipped until the newsprint smeared.
    The other woman wore a gold badge around her neck.
    He’d watched them move from the light into the dark of the plaza after the ambulance left.
    They made him curious.
    The organism of the crowd was reconfiguring itself, volunteers finding their way back to their stations at the seawall. Everyone was interested in something else—the cops in the edge of the bridge where the boy and man had been brought up; the TV crews in the witnesses; the National Guard soldiers in dispersing bystanders. No one noticed the two women in the dark.
    Except for him.
    The cop had a flashlight. He watched, didn’t move. He could see Susan Ward’s profile in the edge of the flashlight beam, and she reminded him of a squirrel in the road, equal parts focus and terror. The cop handed her something and Susan fiddled with it and then a slender beam of light appeared. A penlight. Its uselessness made him smile.
    “What rock was it?” the cop asked.
    “‘Mighty Willamette. Beautiful friend,’” Susan said. Her hair was a wet helmet around her head. She had a hood on her coat, but it was back, either forgotten or neglected. He could almost feel her shiver.
    He knew the quote.
    The plaza was centered on a cobblestone path that traveled beside a slanted stone wall. Rising out of the wall was a collection of carefully arranged stones in the style of a Japanese rock garden. A haiku was carved into each stone, like a collection of graves. A cherry orchard, as jagged and black as any nightmare, stretched the length of the path.
    The women walked, and he followed. He stayed five feet behind, creeping along the grass at the edge