Rise the Dark (16 page)

When she began to move, though, that was all right too.

They finished in a breathless hurry that first time, but they hadn't even spoken yet, were just lying side by side, breathing hard, when she felt him begin to stiffen against her thigh again and she gave a low laugh.

“Well, now,” she said. “Right back at it, I see.”

Right back at it. This time was slower, and longer, and better. When they finished, the sheets were damp with sweat and they were both out of breath and she lay on top of him with her head on his chest and one leg hooked around his, and he thought of the way she'd fallen asleep against him on the plane and how he'd wanted her never to wake up and shift away.

And then he thought of Lauren. Inevitably. He could picture her and smell her and taste her, Lauren, who'd been dead for nearly two years, and whatever had been warm within him went cold and small.

You couldn't cheat on the dead. But, Lord, you could certainly feel like you had. The heart and the mind do not always align.

Mark lay there stroking Lynn's hair and feeling like a first-rate heel, in violation of both the memory of his dead wife and Lynn, because she deserved better, she deserved Mark's mind to be empty of all thoughts that weren't about her.

Then, as her breathing went deep and slow and she edged toward sleep, he thought that was an ignorant notion. He didn't know who else was in Lynn's mind, but he knew that it would be foolish—and arrogant—to believe that it had been just him. Everyone carries the past with them. It shifts and re-forms and adds layers, but it never leaves.

But now she slept easily, adjusting so that her arm and one leg were wrapped around him and her head was nestled against his shoulder. Mark realized that his Ambien was out of reach, and he didn't want to disturb her, though he knew he'd have to at some point if he wanted to sleep. He hadn't slept without the pills in two years. Right then, though, he was comfortable. Right then, he was as comfortable as he'd been in a long time. He thought he'd give it a while, and so he listened to her breathing and found himself matching his own breaths to hers.

Stop that, damn it. Those are the wrong breaths from the wrong woman.

But the right woman didn't breathe anymore.

Soon he was asleep.

T
hey'd stuck to the back roads after Janell killed the deputy. Sirens became audible not long after they left, but those had screamed north on the highway while Doug drove west on a narrow, winding lane. She tried not to look at the clock. This was going to cost them precious hours, and she'd waited on the reunion with Eli for so long that she could hardly bear the delay, wanted to keep speeding toward him.

She couldn't bring danger with her, though.

Several times Doug slowed and suggested cars to take. She dismissed each of them, but she saw what he was looking for—an empty car and a dark house. That was troubling. His resolve was weakening.

“You're only picking out houses that are dark,” she said. “Tell me why.”

“It should be obvious.”

“Evidently not. Explain.”

“Speed!” he snapped. “Get a new car, one without all the police in five states looking for it, and get the fuck out of here.”

“Hmm.” She pursed her lips. “So you want to gain two things: time and distance.”

“No shit.”

“Can you find the flaw in your solution, or do I need to point it out?”

He didn't answer. She nodded. “Time and distance are joined for us, obviously. The more time we gain, the more distance. Now, you're attempting to gain time by rushing. It's the exact philosophy that created the problem with the deputy back there.”

“You
killed
him. That created the problem!”

“No. You were speeding, in a foolish attempt to gain distance and time. This is the underlying problem. You're bringing the same approach to the current situation. If we steal a car from someone who isn't home, how much time did we buy?”

“More than we've got now.”

“That's not an answer.”

“Well, we wouldn't know. Depends how long until they got home and called it in.”

“Exactly. So maybe we gained a day, maybe twenty minutes. The unknown isn't desirable.” She'd lost the sensation of Deputy Terrell's pulse under her thumb, but the odor of his blood lingered.

Doug started to speak, to object, but she cut him off.

“Slow down. I want to look at this one.”

There was a steep gravel driveway angling away to the right, climbing a wooded hill. Through the trees, the lights of a house gleamed. It was high on a forested ridge and would barely have been visible if not for those lights.

“Turn in here.”

“Somebody's home.”

“I'm not disputing that. Just make the turn.”

He wasn't happy about it, but he pulled into the drive and they crunched over the gravel. Halfway up, dogs began to bark and howl. Lots of dogs.

“Terrible choice,” he said. “Listen to all that.”

“Anyone who can hear them now has heard them before.”

A vehicle came into view, parked in front of a shed, a small house beyond, kennels just past that. A half a dozen dogs, floppy-eared hounds of some sort, stood with their paws on the fence, howling. The vehicle was a giant SUV, a Tahoe or a Yukon, covered with dust, the tailgate a hideous array of bumper stickers pledging allegiance to dogs, guns, and God.

“Promising,” she said.

“How in the hell you figure? That thing will be even easier to spot than this frigging truck.”

“This feels like the home of a lonely soul. All those dogs.”

Doug hadn't even cut the engine before the front door of the house opened and a man in a flannel shirt appeared on the porch, peering out at them.

“Shit. See what we got now?”

“Exactly what we need,” she said, climbing out of the truck.

The man on the porch looked to be about sixty, tall but with stooped shoulders and thinning white hair.

“Can I help you?” he called.

“I hope so! We've lost our dog. I thought he might have headed toward the sound of your pack here.”

“What kind of dog?”

“Beagle. A fat, dumb old beagle.” She laughed when she said it, and the man on the porch laughed with her.

“He light out after a rabbit?”

“Most likely.” She was close to the porch steps now, walking quickly. “You haven't seen him? He was running through the woods right there.”

She pointed to the west, and he turned to squint speculatively into the trees when she came up the porch steps and drew her knife. He kept studying the woods.

“Usually my own would take to barking if they heard another dog,” he said, “so I'd figure he must have headed in the other direction, or he might have crossed the road on you and doubled back. I'll help you look if you give me a minute to—”

When he turned, he saw the blood on her shirt. He started to voice a question, but then he noticed the blade and stood with mouth agape, the question forgotten.

“Walk inside, please,” she said. Behind her, Doug finally got out of the truck. The man's eyes went to him. He didn't move toward the door.

She said, “The choices you make in the next few seconds are important. I'll ask you again to walk inside the house.”

He went to it, with her just a step behind. Inside, the place lived up to the promise of its exterior. From the dirty dishes stacked in the sink to the jackets and boots in the corner and even to the smell, there was no indication that anyone lived here except for him and the dogs.

There was an Adirondack chair in front of a cold fireplace. “Sit there,” she said. Doug had appeared behind her, gun in hand, and he closed the door and set to work on the blinds. The white-haired man watched him with far more apprehension than he'd shown her, seeming to view Doug as the primary threat. The bull-moose approach of males, always deferring first to gender, then to size. Likewise, the gun scared him more than the knife when what mattered was not the weapon but the willingness to use it.

“Sit,” she repeated, and he finally followed her instruction, talking while he moved.

“Only cash I've got is in my wallet on the counter. Every gun is in the cabinet. It's locked, but the key's tucked on top. Take what you want.”

“We will,” she assured him. “But first we need to talk.”

The natural incline of the Adirondack chair forced him to lean back and look up at her, the height difference reversed, the power differential self-evident. She stepped forward, slipped her left foot through the gap between the arm of the chair and the seat, then her right, and settled onto his lap. He flinched and made a small whining sound, like a whipped dog. She smiled. Reached up with her left hand, which was still streaked with rust-colored dried blood, and stroked his cheek. His jaw trembled beneath her hand. She ran her fingers through his thin, wispy hair until she found enough for a solid handhold and tightened her fist. She pulled the hair at his scalp, forcing his head back. She kept her eyes on his while she brought the blade up to his throat and, with a precise hand, trimmed a few whiskers away from his Adam's apple. He made the whining sound again and there was a sudden wet warmth beneath her thigh as his bladder released.

“I think you're ready to be honest, aren't you?” she said, releasing her tight hold on his hair and stroking his head, the blade still resting against his Adam's apple.

He wanted to nod but the knife at his throat prevented that, so he had to speak. He gasped out the word “Yes” as tears formed in his eyes.

“What's your name?”

“Gregory. Gregory Ardachu.”

“Okay, Greg. Does anyone else live with you? Or is it just you and the dogs?” Still stroking his head.

“Just me.”

“Good. You see, time is a concern to us. Replacing the unknown with a known. If we were to take your truck, for example, we would want to know how long we could drive it safely. Do you understand?”

Again he tried to nod, and this time he actually moved enough to press against the blade and open a thin red line on his own throat. He was that desperate to please. This was exactly what Eli understood so well—a man properly motivated by fear would do damn near anything, even if it amounted to a self-inflicted wound.

Doug was still and silent behind her. The white-haired man kept flicking glances in his direction. He was conditioned to fear a large man with a large gun, even while a small woman with a small knife was directly in front of him. Such was the way of his world. But that was a terrible mistake.

“The next question is critical,” Janell said. “Honesty will make all the difference.”

She paused, studying his face. He was breathing in quick little jerks that made his lips twitch. She could feel his racing pulse under her legs.

“If we were to tie you up and leave you here,” she said, “healthy and unharmed, how long would it be until you were found? You need to be
very
sure this answer is true.”

It took him a few seconds to steady himself enough to answer. “Two days,” he gasped. “In two days…friend coming for his dog. I've been…training the dog.”

“Two days! That's wonderful. Did you hear that, Doug? Do you understand how much better this is, to replace the unknown with the known?”

“It's great,” Doug said. His impatience—or was it fear?—was evident in his voice. “Get his keys and we'll tie him up and we'll go.”

“Does that sound good?” she asked the white-haired man. “We'll borrow the truck, and you'll wait here? It's not ideal for you, but…” She shrugged. “Consider the alternatives.”

“Kitchen counter.” The words jerked out between his hitching breaths. “Keys on counter.”

Doug moved into the kitchen, and there was a metallic jingle. “Got 'em.”

Janell hadn't looked away from those watery, terrified eyes.

“So all we have to do now is tie him.”

“Yeah.”

“There's a problem with that.”

“What?”

“I don't have any rope,” she said, and then she drew the blade through his throat.

M
ark registered the weight and warmth of Lynn's body just before he woke, and for an instant he felt like he was surfacing from a long, terrible nightmare and that the woman pressed against him was his wife, the bad dream finally over.

Then he opened his eyes and saw the dimly lit motel room and reality returned just as he heard his wife say,
Get out.

The words were crystal clear, the voice unmistakable, undeniable, as real as the motel room he was in, and he sat up with a jerk and looked around.

Empty, of course.

But still…

Get out.

It's what she would have said,
should
have said. He was in bed with another woman. What in the hell else would Lauren have said to that? She'd have been more likely to shoot him than speak to him in that circumstance, but if she'd paused for any words…

Get out.

He had the fleeting thought that the imagined voice hadn't been angry, just urgent. No rage, not even a reprimand, but a clear command.

The mind played cruel tricks.

Or maybe it was the heart.

He shifted away from Lynn, and she murmured what might have been an objection but then fell back asleep before giving full voice to it. If she'd spoken clearly and asked him to stay, he would have. But now he was awake and she was asleep and he felt like an intruder in the bed.

He slipped out from under the covers, dressed quietly, then walked to the table, took one of the warming Rainiers, and stepped outside. Without the sun there to even put up a fight, the frigid mountain air had won out, and he could see his breath. He sat on the sidewalk and drank the beer and told himself that he'd done nothing wrong.

He wondered how long it would be before he really felt that way.

With Lynn, maybe not so long. Maybe not so long as he'd believed.

He wasn't sure whether to get back into bed with her or get in the car and drive away, put distance between them, remove possibility. It wasn't the sort of thing someone should be torn over, but he was.

What do you really want, Markus? What are you hiding? Deep down in the darkest corner of the well, what do you
want?

“Leave me alone,” he whispered, and he wasn't talking to Lynn. He was talking to Lauren. If she couldn't come back, why wouldn't she just fucking leave? Didn't she understand how damn cruel it was to stalk him like a shadow, invisible to the rest of the world but weighing on every choice he made?

Lord, if only you could cleanse your heart. Wouldn't that be the way to live.

He got to his feet, stood in the cold wind and said, “I'm sorry,” and this time he wasn't sure which one of them he was talking to. Both, maybe.

He looked at the closed door to the motel room, where Lynn lay waiting for him—or not; how was he to know whether she truly wanted him there?—and then he started to walk. There wasn't any purpose to it, but the odd dream-waking sensation that Lauren was with him had been so disturbing that he needed to clear his head before he went back inside. He'd dreamed of her before, of course, but this time had been so different because there was no visual, just the voice, and he was sure he'd been fully awake when he heard it.

It reminded him of the caves again, and that was bad. On the list of memories Mark wanted to forget, his last exchange with his wife and his hypothermia-induced hallucinations in the cold caverns beneath Indiana's frozen ground jockeyed for first place.

He put his hand in his pocket while he walked and found the dive permit that he always carried, the Lauren talisman, and he thought again of Jay Baldwin, of his bizarre behavior. Walking as he was, with no destination, Mark thought Jay's house seemed as good a place to go as any.

It was only a few blocks away, and Mark had no trouble finding it because it was the only house in town with the lights on.

He checked his watch. Two in the morning. The expansive glass made Jay's silhouette visible, and Mark could see him standing at the window, looking out at the dark mountains like a lonely sentry.

Leave the man alone, Markus,
he thought, but still he walked on toward the house. Baldwin spotted him when he was coming up the drive; the reaction was evident, a stiffening followed by a rapid move away from the windows, and then the door was open and Jay's voice called out, “Who's there?”

“Another guy who can't sleep,” Mark said. “Just like you, it seems.” He kept on walking, and Jay Baldwin turned and looked over his shoulder nervously, as if there was someone else in the house with him, and then he stepped out into the cold and pulled the door shut and hurried down the driveway.

“Get out of here,” he said. “Damn it, get away from here.”

Even as he spoke, he was looking over his shoulder, at the house, and he had his hand on Mark's arm now, pushing him back. The resistance was strange—he wasn't trying to force Mark straight down the driveway to the street, he was guiding him at an angle across the pavement and into the yard. The snow was slick underfoot, and Mark struggled to keep his balance. The whole while, Jay Baldwin had his eyes on the house, though. He stopped abruptly just outside the branches of a white-barked pine in the side yard, then pivoted to look at the road, into the darkness behind the tree, and back to the house. It was as if he was triangulating their position somehow, trying to locate a precise spot.

“What are you doing, coming here in the middle of the night?”

For the first time he looked at Mark, apparently content that whatever danger he'd perceived from the house was no longer a factor. Just over Mark's head, a snow-laden branch waved in the breeze, the long needles making faint, cold contact with his scalp.

“I didn't expect you'd be awake,” Mark said. “Let alone standing guard. What's going on with you?”

“Get the hell out of here before I call the police.”

The pine needles swept back and forth over Mark's scalp, spreading its chill to him, stray snowflakes falling on his neck.

“Call them.”

Jay Baldwin was silent.

Mark reached for his cell phone. “I'll do it myself, then.”

Jay stepped forward and caught his arm. His grip was strong. With his face close to Mark's, he said, “Don't do that,” and his eyes were fierce.

“Okay. Let go of my arm, I'll put the phone down, and we'll talk.”

“We're not going to talk.”

“Then I'm making the call.”

A tear leaked out of the corner of Jay Baldwin's left eye. “You don't understand what you're doing. Please just go.
Please.
”

The wind picked up and the pine boughs struck Mark's head harder, and he did the natural thing and tried to step sideways, clearing himself out from under. Jay grabbed his arm again, and this time his grip was painful.

“Don't step over there.”

Mark looked at him and then back at the house. “Are there cameras on you?”

No answer.

“You had a little plastic chip in your hand earlier,” Mark said, and Jay released Mark's arm and stepped back fast, as if the statement had burned him. He opened his mouth but he didn't speak, and Mark felt strangely close to him right then. He put the cell phone back in his pocket and took out the old dive permit and held it up.

“This belonged to my wife. She was murdered. I don't give a shit about your power lines, Jay. I'm looking for someone with information about my wife's murder, and that person might intersect with your issues. That's my interest. I'm shooting straight with you. Why don't you try to do the same?”

Mark was wholly unprepared for Jay Baldwin's response. He slid down onto the pavement like something melting, fell on his ass, and began to cry without making a sound. The tears dripped down his cheeks and he stared past Mark at the empty street and he said, “Please, God, please, don't do this to me.”

“Mr. Baldwin…what's going on? Tell me, and I can help.”

He shook his head. His eyes had no point of focus. Whatever he was seeing was out beyond the visible. He said, “What would you do to get your wife back?”

“Anything.”

Jay nodded and drew a breath that shook in his lungs like dust blown down a dry street. “And if you had the chance to go back and save her? If you could have made a deal to keep from losing her? What would you have been willing to do?”

“Same answer. Anything. Whatever was asked.”

Jay blinked the tears out of his eyes and focused on Mark's face.

“Okay,” he whispered. “Then leave me alone. Because, brother? I've still got a chance. If you leave me alone, I've got a chance. But you've got to leave, and fast.”

Mark knew without question that if he pressed Jay right then, he'd break. But instead, he said, “You really believe this? That whatever you've got in front of you right now changes for the better if I walk away?”

Jay nodded.

Mark turned and walked back down the empty street.