Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

up. She slid the X-ray in again, this time while shaking the door and giving it little upward kicks; the latch came loose and the door opened.

She shot a triumphant look at Gabriel and unholstered her Glock again. The two moved into the cabin.

First observation: the house was heated. First deduction: the last time he had gone out, Dunn expected to be back pretty soon.

Gabriel turned the light on. The interior was simple, a sort of large, old-fashioned hunter’s cabin with a brick floor, wood-paneled walls, and a wood-burning stove. The living room was arranged around a moth-eaten L-shaped couch in front of a huge stone fireplace, above which hung a stuffed deer head. Four rifles stood in the gun rack.

“They’re just old pheasant-hunting guns,” said Gabriel.

The only concessions to modernity were some Red Sox pennants, an HDTV, a video-game console, a laptop, and a small printer standing on a raw-wood table. They went through the kitchen. Similar plain décor: faded walls, a cast-iron stove, and a collection of old saucepans.

They went upstairs and found three small, austere, practically bare bedrooms off a single corridor.

Back on the first floor, the two detectives opened cabinets and drawers, looked on shelves, lifted cushions and the plaid blanket on the couch. They found nothing of interest besides a few ounces of pot hidden in a fruit bowl. It was hard to believe this house was the lair of a serial killer.

“Strange,” said Gabriel. “Not a single personal photograph.”

Alice sat in front of the laptop and opened it up. No password prompt. No photo software. The browser history had been cleared, and the e-mail application was not configured. A hollow shell.

Alice stopped to think. She decided that Dunn must send e-mails by using his service provider’s website. She connected to it—it was the only site on his favorites list—but found only monthly bills and spam.

Meanwhile, Gabriel kept searching. In a kitchen cabinet, he found some plastic sheeting and a roll of duct tape that he put aside to patch up the Shelby’s broken window. At the back of the house was a large window that looked out onto the forest. He opened it out of curiosity and let in a gust of wind that banged shut the front door. Alice looked up, and her face went pale.

She jumped up from her chair, walked to the front door, and froze. Attached to the door with big rusty nails were three pictures that she always kept in her purse.

One was a photograph of Paul smiling, taken in the Ravello gardens on the Amalfi Coast. Another was a printout of her ultrasound from the fifth month.

Seeing this, Alice closed her eyes. In a second, all the emotions she had felt when she saw her baby that day flashed through her again. You could already see all his features—the delicate shape of his face, the ovals of the eyes, the tiny nostrils, the little hands and sculpted fingers. And you could hear the hypnotic rhythm of his heart. Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom…

She opened her eyes and saw the third image: herself on her police ID card. She too was nailed to the door, but the perpetrator of the crime had made sure to tear her in two.

Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom…the sound of her own heart pulsing in her chest mixed with the memory of her son’s heartbeat, and suddenly the room spun around her. She was overcome by a wave of heat and a violent desire to vomit. She had just enough time to feel someone holding her before she lost consciousness.

Thunder rumbled, making the windows tremble. A series of lightning flashes strobe-lit the house’s interior. Alice had quickly regained consciousness, but she was still as white as a ghost. Gabriel was taking control of the situation.

“Listen, there’s no sense in staying here forever. We have to find Caleb Dunn, and there’s no reason to assume he’s ever coming back.”

Alice and Gabriel were sitting facing each other across the wooden table in the living room. Their map was spread out between them. The FBI agent continued, “Either Dunn and Vaughn are one and the same person or Dunn will lead us to Vaughn. Either way, this man knows an important part of the truth.”

Alice nodded. She closed her eyes so she could concentrate more easily. The DNA test had indicated that the blood on her blouse belonged to Dunn. So Dunn had been injured recently. Last night or early this morning. And his wound must have been bad enough to prevent him from going home. But where was he now? Hiding out somewhere, probably. Or maybe in the hospital.

As if reading her thoughts, Gabriel said: “What if Dunn is in the same hospital he works at?”

“We could call them to check,” Alice suggested, bringing the laptop to life with a touch of its keyboard.

She found the address and phone number for Sebago Hospital, then tried to find the place on the map.

“Here it is,” she said, pointing to a lake shaped like a light bulb. “Only eighty miles away.”

“Still, it’ll take us a good two hours. We have to get out of the mountains first.”

“Let’s call the hospital and ask if Dunn is there.”

He shook his head. “They won’t tell us anything over the phone. And they might even warn Dunn.”

“So we just go there blindly?”

“Maybe not—I have another idea. Give me your phone.”

Gabriel typed in the hospital’s number and was answered by the main switchboard. Instead of asking whether they had a patient named Dunn, however, he asked to be put through to the security guard’s office.

“Security,” said a laid-back voice that seemed at odds with the job description.

“Good evening, I’m a friend of Caleb Dunn’s. He told me I could get hold of him at this number. Could I speak to him?”

“Ha, well, that might be kinda tricky, man. From what I hear, ol’ Caleb got in the way of a bullet. So he’s here, all right, but on the other side of the fence, if you see