Mine, page 22
Maybe one or both of his legs—
The wolf refocused on Daniel and took his sleeve gently between her front teeth. Then she sank down onto her haunches and started tugging.
“What are we doing?” Daniel asked as he stood up.
The wolf released and went to the place in the clearing she’d come out of. Then she pawed at the ground.
“Okay, we’re coming,” the guy said.
“We are?” Gus muttered.
As Daniel walked off, Gus looked around—and considered his options. He had two choices: Stay out here, alone, in the woods—where there were either more wolves that weren’t friendly or the guy with the fucking sodium thiopental back to finish the job—or follow along after a man with a gun who knew how to use it and that carnivore who had a politician’s way with people.
“How the fuck do you know she’s not leading us to a buffet table—where we’re the entree,” he groused as he started to follow.
The rhetorical was answered as Daniel’s hand rested on the back of the wolf while the pair went along, winding their way around trees and shrubs, a rock or two, a deer stand. They were in such sync, you’d have sworn they were ballet partners, but fortunately for Gus, they didn’t put on the speed. The going was measured, like the wolf knew she was in charge of two people who weren’t so great on the balance side of things—or endurance, either. And when she finally stopped, Gus was relieved to lean against the trunk of a tree and just breathe.
As the animal fixated on something on the ground, Gus rubbed his face—or tried to. As he bumped into his swollen eye, he winced and dropped his arm. The good news was that the cold air was wonderful in his lungs and on his cheeks, and he could feel that he was getting stronger physically, seemingly by the minute.
He was going to need it when he went back to his condo… and waited for that fucker to come for him again.
Please come finish your job, he thought as he stared up at the gray sky. Because surely his captor would check for his body and find it gone?
Provided Daniel taught him a few things, first.
Refocusing on the wolf and the man, he said, “Whattya got?”
“A set of footprints.” Daniel pointed to what looked like any other square inch of the forest. “Side by side.”
The wolf was shaking her head. Looking around. Shaking her head.
As Daniel’s eyes also did a roundabout, the guy nodded. “And no tracks. They start here, like whoever it was had been dropped from above. And there’s something in the tread of the boots.”
Gus wandered over and glanced down. “Serial numbers?”
“No, like fresh… sawdust—”
“What?” Dropping into a crouch, Gus narrowed his eyes. “Oh, my God. That was the smell.”
“What smell?”
“When I was being… whatever’d… ah—” Sweat broke out across his forehead and down his chest, but he did his best to kick off the reactive anxiety. “There was this smell in the air, I couldn’t place it at the time. But it reminded me of my grandma’s—Pine-Sol.”
Sure enough, inside the tread pattern, there were lemon-yellow flakes… of fresh shavings.
“Except that is the real thing, isn’t it,” Gus murmured.
Daniel glanced up. “You know you can’t go home now, right.” The guy pointed to the prints. “That’s going to be waiting for you.”
“Which is the idea.”
Daniel blinked like he was sorting through various responses and weeding out the ones that didn’t completely emasculate the other half of the conversation he was having. “No, you’re too valuable to waste on a vigilante mission you’re ultimately going to fail at—”
“It’s my life, Danny boy—”
“Yeah, and it’s mine, too,” the man snapped. “You’re my fucking doctor. I need you even if I’m a hopeless case, and so does C.P. You want to deal with your misplaced guilt over something you couldn’t control? Do it by sticking around and helping us the way only you can. You’re more useful to us alive than dead.”
Gus felt his eyes start to water. “This is all my—”
“Fault? Because you volunteered to get kidnapped and tortured? Explain to me that math.” Daniel jabbed a finger across the cold air. “You stick with us—and you’ll get a chance to make your amends by helping us in the grim homestretch we’re both facing. That’s the way you deal with the self-blame. Not running off and getting yourself killed—unless you think twenty minutes out here is going to turn you into a sure-shot? Because I guarantee it won’t.”
The fantasy of being all vigilante and drilling that bastard with the accent in the center of the forehead began to fray. Especially as Gus measured the exhaustion that had crept up on him courtesy of their little stroll.
And he thought he had the energy for a gunfight?
“They’re coming after me, though,” he said.
Daniel glanced down at the footprints and then looked at the wolf beside him. After a moment, he shook his head.
“No, I don’t think so. I think… there’s a bigger picture, but I just can’t see it. Yet.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
CLOSE ENOUGH TO noon,” Lydia said as she hit the brakes. “ ‘Come back in two days.’ For God’s sake. It’s just stupid games, anyway.”
As she punched the P button on the Suburban’s dash, she looked out at Eastwind’s house and wondered why she was bothering to turn off the engine. The sheriff was toying with her, and besides, now they had Gus back and alive, right?
She thought of the footfalls she’d seen in the forest when she’d been in her wolven form.
“We need to play this out,” Daniel said as he opened his door.
“So he should pick up a phone and just call us,” she groused. “He’s a sheriff, not a king. What’s with the royal visit bullcrap.”
“In small towns, that’s the way it goes.”
Cursing under her breath, she got out and waited for Daniel to come around the hood of the SUV. Even after the tromp through the forest, he’d still left the cane behind, and she was relieved to see he was walking so much better. His color had improved, too—and not just because he was flushed from the chill in the gray morning.
“This won’t take long,” he said.
“It better not.”
As she faced the house, she was distracted by all her rank pissed-off—so it wasn’t until she was almost to the front door that an eerie tingle went through her spine. Stopping, she tilted to the side so she could look through the windows on the first floor. Everything was dark inside.
“What’s wrong?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t… know.” Backing up, she leaned away so she could see upstairs. “There’s something off.”
Heading up to the entry, she had been prepared to pound with her fists—instead, she used the lion’s head knocker.
Bang, bang… bang.
Shaking her head, she murmured, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this—”
Right on cue, a white car made a quick jog onto the long drive and came racing down, dust kicking up behind its rear tires. As the sedan skidded to a halt, the driver’s side door, which was marked with a decal that read “Hanson & Honeywell Realtors,” was thrown open.
“I am so sorry I’m late.” The young woman tripped over an untied sneaker as she launched herself out from behind the wheel. “I’m Sarah—Gary Honeywell’s my dad? Oh, wait, the message said you’re not from around here so that doesn’t matter. I was about to teach a spin class when you texted. I do it downstairs at the church? Noon today. Peg’s taking over—”
She stopped. “I’m rambling. Sorry. I do that. But here, I’ll show you the house right now.”
As she hipped the car door closed, she patted at the messy brunette bun on top of her head. She was wearing blinding yellow Lululemon tights on the bottom, and for a split second, all Lydia could do was wonder what the top half was like. Fortunately, things were covered with a ski jacket.
Then she snapped back to attention. “See the house? We’re not here to—”
Daniel stepped forward and put out his hand. “We just got here ourselves, so don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, thank God.” Sarah-Gary’s-Daughter shook what was offered. “I really appreciate it. I just moved back to Walters. I went to SUNY Plattsburgh and I graduated this past June—well, I had to make up one class this summer—”
She stopped herself again. “I’m doing it some more, aren’t I. Okay, refocus, refocus—so come on in.” The girl smiled, flashing beautiful teeth. “You guys are the first to see this place, and I don’t know your situation, but if you’re serious about renting, I’d jump on it. There aren’t many houses in Walters like this one.
“Three bed, two and a half bath.” After fishing around in her pocket, she took out a key and unlocked the front door. “And there’s the barn in the back meadow as well as that detached garage over there.”
At this point, Lydia’s ears stopped working as she tried to look around the woman’s shoulders as things opened—and as soon as she was able to get into the living room, she didn’t pretend and play a role. She strode through the rooms—and knew Eastwind was gone. The sparse furniture was all in the same places, the beautiful Native American textiles hanging right where they’d been, the kitchen neat as a pin. But as she inhaled, there was no fresh scent of the sheriff.
He must have left in the middle of the night, soon after they did.
Even though the speed with which she surveyed the house wasn’t going to change anything, she hurried upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. She hit the big front bedroom first, the one with the en suite bathroom, and everything was tidy, the queen-sized bed made, the towels in the loo folded neatly over rods by the shower, a faint whiff of Windex and Pine-Sol lingering in the hot, dry air—
A hissing sound made her jump. But it was just the radiator under the windows that faced the main road.
“What the hell are you doing, Eastwind,” she muttered as she went over to the dresser.
Of course all the drawers were empty. And the closet was free of even hangers, nothing but a solitary dowel stretching from one side to the other.
Just as she was pivoting around to check the other bedrooms, something caught her eye. An envelope. On the bed stand closest to the door. As she went over to it, the strangest feeling of déjà vu went through her.
The fact that her name was on the front was almost not a surprise, and her hand shook as she reached out. It was heavy and thicker than it appeared, and as she opened the flap with her forefinger, her heart started to beat hard.
Things beat harder as she eased out the letter that had been folded around—
“What the hell?”
The stack of twenties that feathered down to her feet made no sense, and she gathered them up and put them on the little table so that she could read the handwriting. There wasn’t much, but she could hear the words spoken in Eastwind’s deep voice:
I’ve stayed too long. But I was waiting for the next steward. Take care—and if the radiator in the living room stops working, just kick it a couple of times. It’ll come back on. Tom
Lydia reread the four sentences over again. And then tried them out for a third time, only stopping when she heard footsteps ascending the uncarpeted stairs.
“—have kids? No? Well, Walters is a great place to live. Everybody knows everybody. Hey, do you do spinning? No? Well, it’s great exercise—”
The realtor stopped short in the bedroom’s doorway and smiled. “Oh, hi! I was wondering where you’d gone. Great place, isn’t it?”
“How much is the rent,” Lydia asked hoarsely.
“Eight hundred and forty. That’s what the owner said he wanted.”
“Um… who owns it? This house, I mean.”
“I’m afraid he didn’t want to say. I mean, we all know him, he was the—sorry. He doesn’t want anyone to know.”
Lydia cleared her throat. “Did he explain—did he say why? I mean, is he going somewhere? Or did he just not like the… house. Or something.”
Man, she was a sucky liar.
The young woman looked back and forth between her and Daniel. Then leaned in like she was afraid the room was bugged. “He said he was relocating? Frankly, we all find it a little sus. He’s only ever been here. Why would he leave?”
“Where to,” Daniel said casually.
“He didn’t say. But I think there’s a story.” Abruptly, the young woman put up her hands in surrender and shook her head. “None of my business, though, and my dad’d kill me if I go blabbing my mouth. Here, let me show you the rest of the upstairs.”
* * *
This was going to go fine.
As Cathy stepped into her mansion’s main elevator, her heart was tap-dancing in her rib cage and she had a fine sheen of perspiration above her upper lip. There was a momentary pause while she was cleared for descent—because in days and nights like these, everybody got cleared, everybody—and then, when things got going, she entertained a brief fantasy about Gus St. Claire. She imagined that, having been reunited with his coworkers at the lab, he would be so struck with a longing to return to the place where he was needed most, wanted most… that he would rip up that employment contract with Rhobes and tell her he was staying for the rest of his life.
Okay, fine. The rest of hers.
When the bump announced her level had been reached, there was another pause, like the elevator was gathering the strength to open its doors. In that period of stasis, she closed her eyes and pictured the way Gus had always strode through the aisles of the workstations, everyone else in a white coat, him in a concert t-shirt featuring the Grateful Dead, or Pink Floyd, or maybe Peter, Paul and Mary, his Afro framing his face and shoulders, his body moving so confidently.
Bing!
At the sound, the doors parted, and as she caught a whiff of mechanicals, floor polish, and disinfectant, her gut rolled.
Stepping out, she tugged at her black suit jacket, and as her weight settled on her high heels, her balance wobbled a little. Her Achilles tendons had ached for the past few days while she had been in flat shoes, but now that her feet were artificially arched again, they were quiet, the position they’d grown used to reestablished. Cathy couldn’t say she felt the same as she walked down the screening hall with the double mirrors. Her clothes were not constricting in the slightest, as she hadn’t been eating well, but the makeup felt like she’d spray-painted her face, the outer corners of her eyes tickling because of the liner and the mascara. Oh, and her hair was frozen in place, the swoop like a sculptural effect instead of anything that grew out of her head.
The clip-clip as she marched down the polished concrete floor was the metronome of her life, and the Armani suit was her uniform, and the look was that which she had cultivated and perfected a decade ago. In the past, the illusion had been skin-deep, going right down into the core of her. Now? It was window dressing that she was hoping would give her some false courage: The cramping in her lower belly was a constant reminder of what she’d lost, and the creeping exhaustion she felt like she was battling harder every day was a marker of what was coming—
What if Gus had already left the property?
She’d known as soon as he and Daniel had gone out into the woods at dawn. She’d been upstairs in bed, not sleeping, when her monitoring system had gone off. Sheer terror had thrown her over onto the laptop that lay open beside her, and she had felt no relief as she’d watched the pair walk across the field.
What if he just strode away without a goodbye?
But come on, she’d told herself. First of all, it was a helluva trek back to Plattsburgh on foot. Secondly, there was no getting over the perimeter wall—no easy way, that is. And finally, Daniel was sensible. He understood the reality of what they were all in, maybe even better than Cathy herself did. He would talk sense into the good doctor.
And they had come back, the pair of them.
Whereupon Gus had gone down to the lab.
Their lab.
As she was cleared for the last time and the lab’s main door was opened, she entered the cavernous area of workstations. Researchers looked up and nodded at her—then promptly went back to whatever they were doing, and their focus was something to envy. She felt so scattered and scrambled that she wondered how in the hell she had done all this: Hired these people away from jobs that were on the up-and-up, found this facility and renovated it for her purposes, created a drug that had real potential thanks to her head of R&D.
Then again, she hadn’t been where she was now when the journey had started.
And of course, for all her efforts, the lab had cost her everything. Literally.
The fact that the enterprise needed to be wound down was a reality that she couldn’t ignore, and she had to get started with that right away.
Tick-tock with the clock.
As she entered the hall of patient rooms and examination spaces, she had a flashback to her and Gus planning everything out, from those workstations, to the cold storage units, to the organizational chart with the employee positions and the reporting lines of authority. She could remember them walking down here, and him shaking his head at the bald concrete and empty, cave-like space.
Where the hell did you find this place?
I have my sources. And it will work.
And it did. For a time.
When she reached the doorway to what had been his office, she hesitated before she knocked, and she thought about the elevator’s pauses. Then she got with the knuckling.
No answer.
More with the rapping, and then she leaned into the door. “Gus? I need to talk to you.”
He’d left his patient room, and she knew without checking there that that hospital bed would be empty. Having gotten up on his feet, he would not go backwards. Not unless it was a medical emergency, and she would have heard about that.
“Gus?”
When there was still no reply, she pictured him stretched out on the bare floor by the desk. He’d done that sometimes when his body’s need for sleep had finally trumped that incredible mental engine of his. She’d never understood how he could find anything REM-related without so much as a pillow—
