Colorado. There are dozens of tunnels in the mountains.”
And she was right, he thought. A tunnel like this was the obvious association. The narrow sides, the feeling of swift forward motion, the darkness. The tunnel must curve, because he couldn’t see the end, couldn’t see the light.
The light. There was no sensation of having driven around a curve, but he must have, because there was the mouth of the tunnel, blindingly bright and nearly upon them. Richard squinted against the sudden whiteness.
“A mountain tunnel would have been the logical association,” Joanna had said. The feeling of opening out into light, into space, the blinding brightness of eyes adjusting from blackness to daylight, no, brighter than that. Brilliant, dazzling. It’s too bright, Richard thought and felt a stab of fear. Why is it so bright?
Beside him, Kit put up her hand to shade her eyes, and the movement looked defensive, as if she were shielding herself from a blow. Where are we? Richard thought, and was out of the tunnel and into another world. Blue sky and glittering snow and white, pine-covered slopes.
“What happened to the fog?” Kit asked wonderingly.
“We must have climbed above it,” Richard said, though there had been no sensation of climbing either, but at the next curve in the road, they could see the white layer of cloud below them, blanketing the canyon.
“Heaven,” Kit murmured, and Richard knew she was thinking the same thing he was.
“Everything except the ringing or buzzing sound,” he said, and Kit’s cell phone rang.
“Mrs. Gray, is everything all right?” Kit said anxiously. It must be the Eldercare person. “Oh. In the cupboard above the sink, behind the oatmeal. I hope.” Kit punched “end.” “She couldn’t find the sugar,” she said to Richard, looking relieved. She picked up the transcripts. “I’d better finish reading these. We’re almost there.”
“Correction, we are there,” Richard said, pointing at a sign that said Timberline. He turned onto a narrow, snowy road, and then a narrower, snowier one, and stopped in front of an elaborately rustic-looking chalet.
“I can’t believe it,” Kit said as they walked up to the door. “We’re going to find out what Joanna was trying to tell us.”
A woman met them at the door, looking surprised and a little wary.
“Mrs. Aspinall?” Richard said, wondering suddenly how to explain their mission here without sounding crazy. “I’m Dr. Wright. This is Ms. Gardiner. We’re from Mercy General. We—”
“Oh, come in,” she said, opening the door wide. “How nice of you to come all this way! Carl’s in the family room. He’ll be so pleased to see you.” She took Richard’s coat and hung it up. “Dr. Cherikov was here yesterday.” She took Kit’s coat. “All his doctors have been so nice, coming to check on him.”
“Mrs. Aspinall—” Richard began, but she was already leading them down a long, pine-paneled hall, telling them about Carl’s condition.
“He’s making wonderful progress, especially now that we’re up here. He’s stopped having the nightmares —”
“Mrs. Aspinall,” Richard said uncomfortably. “I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m not one of Mr. Aspinall’s doctors.”
Mrs. Aspinall stopped in midhall and turned to face them. “But you said you were from Mercy General.”
“We are,” Richard said. “We were friends of Joanna Lander’s. She was my partner on a research project.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Aspinall said. She hesitated, as if she were going to show them the door, and then led them on down to the door at the end of the hall. It wasn’t the family room. It was a decidedly unrustic kitchen. “Would you like some tea?”
“No, thanks,” Richard said. “Mrs. Aspinall, the reason we came—”
“I was so sorry to hear of Dr. Lander’s death,” Mrs. Aspinall said. “She was so kind to Carl and to me. She used to come and sit with Carl so I could go get something to eat.” She shook her head sadly. “Such a terrible tragedy! There’s so much violence everywhere these days. It upset Carl terribly.”
Good, at least he knows, Richard thought, and we won’t walk into a hornet’s nest the way we did with Maisie, but he asked, just in case. “You told your husband about her death?”
“I wasn’t going to. He was still so fragile, and he didn’t know her.” She smiled apologetically. “It’s so hard for me to remember that all the people who cared for him all those weeks and who I know so well are total strangers to him.”
Richard and Kit looked at each other across the table. “But Carl heard the nurses talking,” Mrs. Aspinall went on, “and when Guadalupe came into the room, he could see she’d been crying, and he knew something was wrong. He was convinced I was keeping something from him about his illness, so I ended up having to tell him.”
“Mrs. Aspinall,” Richard said, “the day Dr. Lander died, she was on the track of something important, something to do with the project we were working on. We’re talking to everyone she saw that day, which is why we’re here. We’d like—”
Mrs. Aspinall was shaking her head. “I didn’t see her that day. The nurses told me she’d been in two days before to see him, but I wasn’t there. The last time I saw her was at least a week before that, so I’m afraid I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”
“Actually, it’s your husband we want to talk to,” Richard said.
“—the morning of the day Joanna died,” Richard said. “She had a conversation with him that morning, just after he regained consciousness.”
“Are you sure? Carl didn’t say anything about talking to her,” she said and then frowned, “but he
“At eleven-thirty,” Richard said, hoping he was right.
“Oh,” Mrs. Aspinall said, nodding. “That was just before I got there.” And just after Carl regained consciousness, Richard thought, when his vision would have been fresh in his memory.
“But I still don’t understand,” Mrs. Aspinall said. “You say she was on the track of something regarding your research project? Why would she have told Carl about it?”
“We think—” Richard began.
There was a sudden loud banging from the next room, like someone hammering. “That’s Carl,” Mrs. Aspinall said apologetically. “He thumps his walking stick when he needs something. I brought a bell up, but I haven’t been able to find it.” The pounding started again, heavy, rhythmic thumps. “If you’ll excuse me,” Mrs. Aspinall said, standing up, “I’ll be right back.” She went out of the room.
The thumps continued a moment and then stopped, and they could hear a man’s voice saying querulously, “Who’s here? I heard a car in the driveway.”
“Some people from the hospital,” she said, “but you don’t have to see them if you don’t feel up to it, I can tell them to come back when you’re feeling stronger.”
Kit shot an anxious glance at Richard. “I feel fine,” the man’s voice said. “Dr. Cherikov said I was making excellent progress.”
“You are, but I don’t want you to overdo. You were very ill.”
Richard couldn’t hear his answer, but Mrs. Aspinall reappeared. “If you could keep your visit short,” she said. “He tires easily. This conversation you think Dr. Lander and Carl had, what did—?”
Whump, the walking stick thumped, louder than before. “We’re coming,” Mrs. Aspinall said, and led Kit and Richard into a pine-paneled room with a fireplace and wide windows looking out on a calendar view: snow-covered peaks, pine trees, an ice-bound mountain stream. The TV was on, and Richard looked toward the chair in front of it, expecting to see an invalid in a bathrobe with a blanket over his knees, but the chair was empty, and the only person in the room was a tanned, healthy-looking man in a white polo shirt and khaki pants, standing over by the window, looking out. The doctor? Richard wondered, and then noticed the gnarled walking stick the man held. Dr. Cherikov was right, he was making excellent progress.
Mrs. Aspinall walked rapidly to a thermostat on the wall, turned up the heat, and went over to the fireplace. “Brr, it’s so cold in here,” she said, taking a remote off the mantel and pointing it at the fireplace. A fire flamed up.
“Carl,” Mrs. Aspinall said, walking over to the chair. She picked up another remote and muted the TV. “This
