Luke removes his Glock, places the barrel against Mattingly’s slightly upturned temple, then undoes the forehead strap with his other hand. Eyes closed, his lips tremble from the threat of tears.

“Open your eyes, Cyrus,” Charley says.

Instead of obeying, he whispers the lyrics to “The Sound of Silence” under his breath like it’s a life-giving mantra. She steps forward, crouches down where Mattingly can’t see her, and whispers into his ear. “Open your fucking eyes or when I find your crazy family, I’ll tear them limb from limb while you watch.”

Another minute goes by, then another. It’s late and the field’s empty, but it would be reckless to keep sitting practically out in the open like this while Cyrus takes his sweet time deciding whether to give them the address of Mother’s hell house. She pats Luke on the shoulder, gestures to the divider door. He holsters his Glock, refastens Mattingly’s head strap, then lowers the cargo area door.

They step into the rear compartment formerly occupied by the gurney, standing where they’ve both got Mattingly in sight.

“Get the Thunder Derm,” she says.

“One strike will kill him.”

“You’re not using it on him.”

Getting her meaning, Luke meets her eyes. “I thought we were saving your trigger window for when we really needed it.”

“We need it.”

“There’s a risk of the trigger gap not being—”

“Luke, I did it with a bear trap six months ago. The Thunder Derm will work.”

“Yeah, but I’ll have to do it.”

“That’s correct.”

“And then we’re racing against the clock again.”

“Luke,” she whispers, taking his arm, “there are two women out there in trucks like this, headed for we don’t know what kind of hell. We’re already racing against the clock.”

“You’re right. And I hate it.”

She can’t blame him. The memory of her last trigger window closing is still fresh and painful.

“It could kill you,” he says, but he’s studying Mattingly, wincing a little at the man’s continued perversion of the haunting Simon and Garfunkel classic.

“No, it won’t.”

“How can you be sure? I mean, what if my aim’s off?”

“For one, you have great aim. Two, you won’t have time to kill me before I trigger. You’d have to sever a nerve that controlled my breathing, and I’d have to be deprived of oxygen long enough to go brain dead. Just don’t fire into my neck or anywhere above my waist, for that matter.”

“Yeah, but you’ve got arteries all over.”

“You won’t be able to drain me of enough blood to kill me before I trigger.”

“And if you don’t trigger?”

“Realizing I’m not triggering will be enough to trigger me. Luke, I have thought this through. There’s no other way. The only thing that’s worked on this crazy son of a bitch is watching me snap metal. And if this phone call doesn’t work, that’s the only way we’ll get this woman’s location.”

And I’m sorry but this is part of the job you signed up for, she wants to add, an important part. But that might be more than necessary.

Luke grunts like a ten-year-old being told he has to do his homework before screen time. “Fine.”

The Thunder Derm’s inside its case, resting against the wall not too far from where Mattingly lies bound and singing under his breath. As Luke carefully removes it, Charley listens to Mattingly’s crazed voice, wondering with increasing dread if the man’s truly lost what mind he had. She pushes the thought away as Luke approaches, giant Thunder Derm awkwardly in one hand. For an instant, it seems as if the goofy-looking weapon—it’s not a weapon, she reminds herself; it’s a medical device that only works on her—is the size of a regular gun and somehow Luke has shrunk before her eyes. She laughs.

“I’m glad you think this is funny,” he says once they’re nose to nose.

“It’s not. I’m sorry. Just . . .”

“What?”

“Never mind. Let’s do this.”

“What if you imagined it?” he asks.

“Imagined what?”

“The remote dose. Maybe you were just so upset that you wanted to believe it but it was just a headache from the stress or—”

“Luke!”

Startled by the sharpness in her tone, he looks right into her eyes. While she’s got his attention, she reaches down, grabs the Thunder Derm’s barrel, presses it to her right knee.

“Do it,” she whispers.

“Fine,” he whispers back.

He sinks to the floor on one knee, the other leg bent, bracing himself for impact from the device’s significant recoil.

Once again, the tennis ball–cannon sound makes Mattingly yelp, but this time it also sends an arc of pain up her body so white-hot it feels like her scalp’s going to blow off. She can’t remember the last time she’s really screamed, but she’s screaming now. And then comes the miracle that changed her life. It’s like a bucket of ice water poured over fire, as muscle, skin, veins, and damaged nerves heal in a miraculous instant. The pain is doused as quickly as it conquered every nerve in her body, replaced by a hallelujah chorus of tingles throughout her right leg, flights of tiny angels working miracles within.

Now that she can breathe again, she looks down, sees Luke’s been knocked on his ass and is staring up at her goggle-eyed, as if not fully convinced she’s triggered. When she sees the splashes of blood on his face and hands, she wonders if she hasn’t actually triggered, if she’s just in shock. But when she looks down at her leg, she sees the bullet-size wound healing through the hole the Thunder Derm blew in her jeans.

It worked just like they hoped it would, only they forgot one thing: all the vials they left in the SUV, full of her paradrenaline-filled blood. Which means there isn’t one inside the Thunder Derm, so what blood the device did manage to yank from her body before she triggered just spurted all over Luke.

“Sorry,” she mutters.

Luke’s so relieved she’s not bleeding to death he hasn’t even noticed how badly he’s been slimed.

Most importantly, Cyrus Mattingly, psycho of the open road, has stopped singing under his breath. Maybe it was the sound of the Thunder Derm that did it.

“Showtime,” Charley says.

37

When Marjorie went down the ladder into the silencing pit, Jonah and Wally were setting up the cement mixer, but the bellowing of that pathetic sow brought them to the pit’s edge, and that was a good thing because she needed help ascending the ladder’s last rungs.

Now that Jonah’s laid the tube right next to the opening, he asks, “Should we start?”

“Not till Cyrus gets here,” she says.

“When did he call?” Jonah asks.

“He hasn’t yet.”

Jonah’s tempted to say something cutting about his brother, she can tell.

“Don’t you go casting suspicion on him just ’cause your ride didn’t go as planned,” she says.

Instantly ashamed, Jonah says, “Yes, Mother.”