SHUDDERVILLE FOUR Read Online Free Page B

smart. She could read a book. She was fast on her feet. She could speak her mind.
    “But then when she disappeared, my legs caved out from under me. I couldn’t tell anyone about it. It was a tragedy I had to live with. It almost drove me crazy. It drove me to drink. So you see, Sophie. I understand much more than you know.” He picked up the decanter and poured the rest of the bourbon into the glass. “Bottoms up.”
    “Where’s Jayla?” she said in a low voice. “What have you done with her?”
    “Ah. That’s the question, isn’t it?”
    She steadied the gun at his head. “Answer my question.”
    “The Judge has her,” he said softly.
    “Who?”
    “The Judge.”
    “Who the hell is the Judge?”
    “My old partner at Lon-Gen. The quantum physicist who got the ball rolling. You could say he’s the co-author of the wishes.”
    She blinked uncomfortably hard at him. “The Judge?”
    Mandelbaum nodded knowingly. “It’s a long story, Sophie.”
    “I want to hear it!” She was fed up with the games.
    He rose to his feet. “The Judge has Jayla now. There’s nothing I can do about it. You might as well go home.”
    “Who the hell is the Judge? What’s his real name? Where can I find him?”
    “I can’t tell you that. So you might as well kill me. I buried my son tonight. I’m done.” He finished off the bourbon and set his empty glass on the table with deliberation. “Go ahead and shoot me.”
    “I don’t want to shoot you,” she said furiously. “I want to get my daughter back!”
    “She’s perfectly safe. He won’t harm her.”
    “She’s probably terrified! She belongs with her mother!”
    “Look at you,” he said, smiling smugly at her. “Sober for how long? Six months now? Eight? Good for you.”
    “Where are they? Jayla and the Judge?”
    “I have no idea.”
    “You’re lying.”
    “Why would I lie to a person pointing a gun at my head?”
    There was a forceful knock at the front door.
    Mandelbaum grabbed his cane.
    “Who is it?” Sophie demanded to know, her legs going wobbly, her mind racing.
    The knocks came faster and harder.
    Bam, bam, bam .
    “Aren’t you going to answer it?” she said.
    Mandelbaum shook his head. His eyes were glassy.
    The knocking stopped. The abrupt silence clung like sticky humidity. She became aware of her crazy heartbeat and took a deep breath. She walked across the living room and down the front hallway and opened the door. A man was standing there. Mid-thirties, big and intimidating, black hair, narrow brown eyes.
    She tried to slam the door in his face, but he had wedged his foot between the door and the jamb. “Let me in,” he said, pushing it open.
    She leapt backwards and pointed the gun at him. “Who are you?”
    He stared at the gun. He looked at Sophie. “Hector Mendoza. I’m here to see Mandelbaum. I’m going to kill him.”
    “Why? What did he do to you?”
    “He made my wish come true.”
    They locked eyes for a moment.
    She lowered the gun.
    He swept into the house, brushing past her, but Mandelbaum was gone.
    “Why’d you let him get away?”
    “He was just here,” Sophie said defensively.
    Hector ran out of the house, and she hurried after him and stood on the front lawn. Mandelbaum’s car was gone. Hector got in his Lexus, while Sophie scrambled to unlock her Toyota. She gunned the engine, radial tires spinning in place before gaining traction. Visibility was poor. The cones of her headlights probed the pitiless darkness ahead.
    She followed the Lexus down a featureless road, taillights dancing before her eyes. What was Hector chasing? Where were they going? She couldn’t see Mandelbaum’s Buick up ahead in the dark. The two-lane road hugged the coast. To their right was the deserted public beach, a haunting sodium flatness in her headlights’ glow.
    Now a pickup truck pulled directly in front of her in the northbound lane. She could see the bundle of unsecured trash shaking and rattling in the flatbed and tried to