But it wasn’t Dr. Walker who held Mike’s gaze. It was the small blond boy in the wheelchair to the left of him. The boy was wearing a hospital gown over a T-shirt with a rocket ship on it. The letters on the front of the rocket read “USA.” The boy was smiling sweetly, giving the camera a cheerful thumbs-up.

Someone had drawn two red X’s over either of the little boy’s eyes.

And underneath in the same red ink, was scrawled:

BURNING IN HELL

The flashlight caught the face of his watch. It was midnight. How had it gotten so late, so soon?

He heard a clicking sound from overhead.

Everywhere, all around him, the lights came back on.

CHAPTER 36

36.

Dr. Walker squinted, eyes readapting, vision coming back in painful bolts of white.

The power was back on.

Frank Snow was standing in front of him.

Without the prison jumpsuit, Walker might not have recognized him. Snow looked pale and strung-out, worse than when the ambulance had brought him here. He was leaning against the wall, sagging really, with blood in various degrees of dryness caked on his jumpsuit, striations of orange and red. Blood was running from his fingers where he’d cut them open.

“It’s you.”

“Hey,” Snow murmured, put up his hands. “You got me.”

Walker didn’t move, didn’t come any closer. “What do you want?”

“I’m done.”

“Done?”

“With my preparations.” Snow tried to spit on the floor but some of it stuck to his chin. He wiped it away with the back of his wrist, looking up at Walker with a hooked wire of a smile. “Here’s your chance to be a hero. Always was your favorite part, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Sure you do.” Snow reached down, tugged up the leg of his pants, and brought out a gun—one of the cops’ pistols, Walker thought—holding it up by the barrel so Walker could see it. He set it on the floor and kicked it down the hall to Walker. “Go on, take it. It’s loaded. Just make sure you take the safety off before you try to pull the trigger, otherwise you’re liable to embarrass yourself. I know how you hate that.”

“If you think I’m going to kill you—”

“One other thing. I got these, too, if that’ll make you feel better.” He withdrew a pair of police handcuffs from his other pant leg and held them up, snapped the metal bracelets on his own wrists, then drew the silver chain tight. “There, you’re doubly safe now, right?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Like I said, I’m finished. Everything’s set in place. All the deals are on the table. What happens next is up to you.”

“Me?”

“All of you.”

“Where are the others?”

“Here and there.”

“Alive?” Walker asked.