out of the way, and there was the name: Schmidt. 'Skykomish River quadrangle,' she announced. 'Snoqualmie National Forest, Tolt Reservior. Bingo!''We're there?' Lamoia asked incredulously. 'We're there?' he repeated excitedly. She answered, 'I'll make you a photocopy, lover. I'll put you in her backyard.'
Pamela Chase drove as if she were on her way to a fire. She reached the unpaved county road that accessed Tegg's farm, lost the back end of the car in a skid, and nearly put the car in the trees. He had tried to drug her' She couldn't get over that She had swallowed one of the Valiums, but had managed to snag the other in her teeth. It was in his front yard now. She was driving fast, not only to reach the farm quickly, but to beat the Valium. It was already taking effect: Her anxiety level had lessened noticeably in the last few minutes-her fingers were no longer welded to the steering wheel; she was no longer grinding her teeth. The more relaxed she felt, the more terrified she became. He had said that he would call her in the morning, but what for? He acted like he owned her, as if she were one of his trained dogs. She felt dirty. She felt foolish. How had she allowed herself to be carried along by him for so long? What kind of person was she?
Not the kind of person to condone a heart harvest, she answered herself. She intended to put an end to that, but quick!
She pulled in to the farm and shut off her car. From the Quonset hut came the ferocious barking of the dogs.
Sight of the small turn-of-the-century cabin and its accompanying sheet-metal Quonset hut gave her a renewed sense of the extreme seclusion of this place. She was glad for his dinner party: She wouldn't want him to catch her out here.
She left the car and approached the cabin slowly, despite the urgency she felt. Her feet floated along. The Valium, subtle in its approach, was difficult to resist. Confusion reigned, for she still wanted to believe in him. That belief had given her several years of happiness. By coming here, she hoped as much to disprove her suspicions as prove them. She couldn't get him out of her mind-it was as if he were right here with her, disapproving of each step she took toward betrayal. She could hear his arguments. He could be so convincing. She glanced over her shoulder nervously. The clouds were breaking up; there was a moon out tonight. A black-and-white patchquilt played over the meadow. She caught herself staring; she was feeling impossibly good.
The spare key was missing. Why would he remove it? Unless … She found a rock and smashed it through the window. She had to hurry. The Valium was taking hold. 'Things work out for the best,' a voice inside her called. 'Relax.' She tried her best to ignore it. The glass shattered into the kitchen. She reached through the hole, knowing where to find the release, but nicked her forearm in the process. It hurt, but it didn't bother her. The door swung open. To a stranger, the cabin might appear abandoned, the spare amount of leftover furniture from another era. A former hunting cabin, perhaps. Tegg had kept it looking this way intentionally, to discourage trespassers from breaking in. He was paranoid about trespassers discovering the basement lab-the ad hoc surgical suite-though she didn't know why. She had never seen another soul anywhere around here.
Although the recovery room they used was in the cellar next to the surgical suite, he could be keeping this woman in any of the bedrooms. She decided to search the cabin top to bottom.
Unless he had fixed them, the upstairs lights didn't work. She tried them. He hadn't fixed them. He kept a flashlight at the top of the cellar stairs. She banged her way through the kitchen and found it, switched it on. She moved quickly through the rooms on the first floor. Nothing. No one.
She climbed the stairs, feeling strangely light and disconnected from her body. Happy. On the top landing, she faced two small bedrooms and a tiny bathroom, the floor of which was an old, chipped linoleum, burgundy red with black fleur-delis prints.
The sink and toilet were discolored and mineralstained. The flashlight's yellow beam wandered the walls. The cold faucet dripped into a patinated teardrop. She twisted the handle and it stopped dripping. Something stirred within her-she could feel the danger here. Like an animal lifting its head in the forest, she sniffed the air. It smelled metallic, tangy. Worse, she knew that smell: blood. She felt lightheaded as she stepped toward the wicker hamper the source of that smell. She had never known him to use the hamper, and this added to her confusion and anxiety. Typically, she brought the surgical laundry back to the clinic from here. It then went out with the regular service. Standing alongside the hamper now, towering over it, she stopped herself; she didn't want to know what was inside.
It frightened her to imagine what she might find. She reached out tentatively, took hold of the hamper's lid, hesitated, and then yanked it open suddenly. She aimed the flashlight inside. At the sight of its contents, she shrieked at the top of her lungs and jumped back. There, in a heap, covered in an unbelievable amount of dried blood, lay his surgical smock. She felt instinctively that this was human blood-Sharon's blood. He had already done the heart. Something had gone.horribly wrong with the procedure.
The hamper lid thumped shut. Pamela felt half crazy, the panic and terror rising from inside her attempting to supersede the ever-increasing medicated bliss of the Valium. As she raced downstairs to confirm her suspicions, she wondered: Was he the only one to blame? Couldn't he blame her, as well, for refusing to assist? Her head swam.
She hurried down the narrow steps that led to the cellar. When she reached the bottom, she aimed the flashlight at the wall switch as she reached to turn on the lights. Dried blood.
The operating room was unlocked! impossible! Suddenly the various evidence she was collecting added up to something else entirely: the bloody clothes left in the hamper, the unlocked door. Not like Elden. Someone else must have broken in here and vandalized the place.
She was afraid to look any farther. What was on the other side of the operating room door? Tentatively, using the toe of her shoe, she encouraged it to open slowly, prepared for a quick retreat.
Light poured into the room from the bare bulb over her head. A mess! A nightmare. A bloody terror! It looked like a city hospital emergency room after a gang war. She switched on the lights.
The instruments had not been cleaned up. The sternal retractor, the scalpels, the hemostats, the table, the floor, all covered in an unbelievable amount of dried blood. The policewoman had used the term victim. Pamela had resented it, had misunderstood it at the time, but now it rang true.
Panic stormed her system, contained in part by the drug coursing through her veins. She felt pulled in two directions by everything around her. On one level she loved Elden Tegg, but now she feared him; she felt a loyalty to him, but knew she would betray him; she wanted to blame him, but in part she blamed herself; she felt frightened and terrified, she felt impossibly at peace.
A massacre. A murder? A shock collar. It was resting alongside the hemostats. She felt a bubble of nervous laughter escape her. A shock collar. It could mean only one thing: a dog. Not a human, not murder. No human victim. A dog! Part of his research?
She had mistrusted him. She had doubted his intentions. She had allowed the police to sway her, just as he had warned. How could she have made such assumptions? How could she have lost her faith in him so quickly? She hated herself for it.
Excited by her discovery, thrilled to prove her earlier suspicions incorrect, she hurried into the recovery room. Its walls and ceilings were also encased in plastic. The flashlight caught the narrow cot pushed up against the wall and then the window to the outside. Even at this distance the barking of the dogs from the kennel sounded unnaturally loud. She had never noticed this before. Perhaps it was the Valium hearing that barking. Perhaps she had never listened.
Why wasn't Sharon here, as she half expected? The flashlight illuminated the painted window again, and she had her answer.
Then the barking of the dogs registered fully: There were no windows in the kennel, no chance at escape.
Out the cellar door. Up the steps. Across the field toward the Quonset hut. She clung to the hope that the presence of the shock collar meant something a dog, not a human. Not Sharon. One less dog in the kennel would prove it. And she, for one, would not feel too sad about that. These pit bulls of his were terrors-many of them trained that way well before he had 'saved' them from death. His surgical experiments on them did nothing to improve their disposition.
Having forgotten the key to the kennel, she had to run back to the operating room to get it. In the process she grew more elated at her discovery of the shock collar. She no longer attributed her bliss to the drug she had taken; she had forgotten all about it. Losing her awareness of the fact, she crossed a threshold. The Valium owned her for now.
