Goddamn, thought Mason. Who hadn’t heard it either.

“Lucy, Ned and Jesse. And that lady cop from Washington.”

“Naw, it’s New York. You see that hair of hers?”

“I don’t care ’bout that hair of hers. I care ’bout finding Mary Beth and Lydia.”

“I do too. I’m just saying…”

Mason’s gut tightened further. They only sent four people out after the Insect Boy? Was Bell crazy?

He stormed up the corridor, on his way to the sheriff’s office, and nearly collided with Bell himself as he walked out of the storeroom—where that weird guy, the one in the wheelchair, was set up. Bell glanced at the senior deputy with a surprised blink.

“Hey, Mason … I was looking for you.”

Not looking too hard, though, don’t seem.

“I want you to get over to Rich Culbeau’s place.”

“Culbeau? What for?”

“Sue McConnell’s offering some reward or ’nother for Mary Beth and he wants it. We don’t need him to mess up the search. I want you to keep an eye on him. If he’s not there just wait at his place till he shows up again.”

Mason didn’t even bother to respond to this bizarre request. “You sent Lucy out after Garrett. And didn’t tell me.”

Bell looked the deputy up and down. “She and a couple others’re going over to Blackwater Landing, see if they can pick up his trail.”

“You musta known I wanted to be in the search party.”

“I can’t send everybody. Culbeau’s already been over to Blackwater Landing once today. I can’t have him screwing up the search.”

“Come on, Jim. Don’t bullshit me.”

Bell sighed. “All right. The truth? Being as you got a hard-on for that boy, Mason, I decided not to send you. I don’t want any mistakes made. There’re lives at stake. We’ve got to get him and get him fast.”

“Which is my intent, Jim. As you ought to know. I been after this kid for three years. I can’t believe you’d just cut me out and hand the case over to that freak in there—”

“Hey, enough of that.”

“Come on. I know Blackwater ten times better’n Lucy. I used to live there. Remember?”

Bell lowered his voice. “You want him too bad, Mason. It could affect your judgment.”

“Did you think of that? Or was it him?” Nodding to the room where Mason now heard the eerie whine of the wheelchair. It set him on edge like a dentist’s drill. Bell asking that freak to help them out could cause all kinds of problems that Mason didn’t even want to think about.

“Come on, facts is facts. The whole world knows how you feel about Garrett.”

“And the whole world happens to agree with me.”