Free Halloweenland by Al Sarrantonio

another. It occurred to him vaguely that he had been fired and already did not miss his job. It had merely been another nerve center, and the paperwork had finally caught up with him. He had been half expecting it for a couple of years.
    Maybe they would promote Chip Prohman to detective, and then they would see what
real
police work was all about.
    He downed the drink in his hand and refilled, turning to the computer screen.
    When he took his eyes away from the screen it was dark outside and the scotch bottle was nearly empty. Never fear, there was always another. He thought about dinner—a can on the hot plate, or the pizzeria? He decided he didn’t want to go out. He decided he wasn’t hungry, and that, yes, he was pissed about losing his job after all. He put a cigarette in his mouth and lit it, and emptied the scotch bottle into his glass. There was a cool breeze coming in from the window. At least they let you smoke in the Ranier Hotel. Nice sleeping weather for early October, if only he could sleep. He knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight. He had barely slept for five years.
    Where was she?
    That was the one question that had centered his life since the baby was born. Where? No orphanage had harbored her, Grant was sure of that now. No foster homehad taken her in. He would have found out by now. Those eyes, those gray, flat shark’s eyes, they couldn’t be hidden. Someone would have noticed, someone, some
thing
should have sent up a flag by now.
    There should have been some clue by now—and Grant was very good at finding clues.
    And yet there was nothing.
    As if she had dropped off the face of the earth.
    For a while Grant had believed even that—that Samhain had somehow secreted the child away from all humanity, squirreled it away in a cave or bunker or underground warren, like a sick rabbit.
    But the child was human, Grant was sure of it, and would have needed human things—food, shelter, warmth, perhaps even human contact, though the thought made Grant’s blood cold. Yes, it would need the milk of human kindness, to feed off the very thing, come one Halloween, it would wipe from existence.
    Where?
    Grant found that the scotch was gone, replaced by a headache. He was getting nowhere again. And tomorrow he would start over, doing the only thing he knew how—to look, to wait for that one clue, that one tiny bit of information that would lead to what he sought.
    To the little girl he would murder in cold blood.

C HAPTER T WENTY-SIX
     
    He awoke with the taste of dried scotch in his mouth. He had made it to the bed but had not taken off his shirt or shoes. The headache was still there, just out of reach and waiting to pounce.
    His cell phone was ringing.
    It was not in his pants pocket or jacket pocket (at least he had hung his jacket on the back of the chair) but it was tangled up in the bedcovers on the floor.
    He sat on the bed and pushed the call button. The headache was beginning to make its move.
    “Yes?”
    “Detective Grant?” a voice he knew but couldn’t place said.
    “That’s right.”
    “Janet Larson,” the no-nonsense voice announced.
    He still couldn’t place it—then suddenly he could.
    “Yes, Mrs. Larson, how are you? How’s Baby Charlie?”
    “He’s no baby anymore. First grade. And Baby Louis is in preschool, thank God. It’s almost quiet around here. Too quiet, to tell you the truth.”
    Grant said nothing. What should he say? That’s nice? Sorry your sister died in my house giving birth to a monster? Sorry you had to deal with the Lord of Death?
    The silence stretched, and then Janet blurted, “I never thanked you for trying to protect my sister. I heard you got shot.”
    Grant didn’t know what to say, so he said, “It healed nicely. No pangs in wet weather.”
    “To be frank,” Janet went on, “it’s taken me five years to make this call. I blamed you for a long time. I should have blamed myself.”
    “For what?”
    “For not knowing. For running away.”
    “Samhain