“Give me the Halcyon.”
Silver looked up at the two men crouched on the garage floor above. Forsyth nodded at him and said, “Give them what they want.”
Silver slid off the table and knelt over a tiny steel drain in the center of the maintenance well. The concrete was sloped so that liquids would flow to the lowest point and presumably be carried to the building’s sewer pipes. Gallons of burnt motor oil, radiator fluid, and dirty water had probably swirled down the drain over the years.
Silver ran his fingers into the metal grid and twisted it. The drain fell open with a clunk. “Drug dogs couldn’t smell it down here,” Silver said. “Plus, they’re not trained for this shit, whatever it is. They only do illegal drugs.”
Silver ran his hand into the drain, digging and pushing until he was elbow-deep in the opening. After a moment, he pulled his arm back and held up an orange plastic vial.
“Every four hours or else,” Alexis said.
“What’s that?” Silver said, still kneeling on the floor.
Alexis took the vial and climbed the ladder. Mark moved Forsyth aside so she could join them on the garage floor.
“Hey, what about my money?” Silver shouted, his voice echoing up from the well.
“We’ll mail you a check,” Mark said.
“Seriously, what am I supposed to do?”
“I’d stick with Plan A and ride the Caribou Express,” Alexis said. “After the heat dies down, I’ll be in touch.”
She left him as he fired up another joint, muttering to himself that nobody knew how to mellow out anymore. “Go easy on that Halcyon,” he said. “It’s my best work.”
Outside, Mark said to Forsyth, “We’ve got a road trip planned, and since we can’t leave you here, and I’m not ready to kill you yet, I suppose you’ll have to come along.”
“I understand,” Forsyth said. “It’s not like I had plans. Besides being vice president of the United States, that is.”
“Give me your cell phone.”
Forsyth fished inside his jacket and gave his BlackBerry to Mark. They walked up the street, keeping well off the pavement to avoid the passing headlights. Alexis hurried after them, wondering how she’d convince Mark to take one of the tablets.
The car was parked on a gravel service road outside an electrical substation. When they reached it, Mark waved Forsyth into the backseat. Then he flung the BlackBerry into the briars surrounding the substation fence.
“We can’t have your pizza delivery boy using GPS to track us,” Mark said as he slid into the seat beside Forsyth.
Alexis started the engine, turned on the headlights, and pulled onto the highway, heading west toward the Blue Ridge Mountains.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Roland had the dream again, the one in which he was running through a maze and the jagged metal sides of it were closing in. Something terrible was chasing him, and it wasn’t a creature of bone and blood that might be fought and defeated.
No, this was a texture, a spongy, nameless dread, something that would overwhelm him and consume him in its gray depths.
Even as he fled, he suspected that whatever waited ahead wasn’t so welcoming, either. But he could only flee in one direction, and he was about to turn that last terrible corner Roland awoke in a cold sweat, his heart pounding.
He stared up into the darkness for a moment, acclimating to the physical world and the cool spring night. Gradually, his senses settled and he was aware of the curtains shifting softly by the open window, the dim red glow of the alarm clock, the faint smell of mildew caused by the mountain humidity.
He listened for Wendy’s breathing, still nearly paralyzed from the nightmare, his muscles quivering. The unease had accompanied him on his escape from his sleeping mind, and he half expected that odd spongy texture to drop from the cloaked ceiling and cover his face.
Roland reached out in the darkness to touch Wendy, but her side of the bed was empty. He rolled toward her until he came to the edge of the mattress. “Wendy?” he whispered.
He sat up, feeling for the night table. After retrieving the revolver, he stood with the sheet wrapped around him. They hadn’t made love, so the sheet was dry and cool. But lately love had become something that wasn’t just made, it was jammed together with a frenzied desperation.
“Wendy,” he whispered again.
His mind raced down several avenues, all of them dead ends. She might have gone for a glass of water, but the bathroom was dark, no light showing in the crack beneath the door. No lights were on downstairs, either. If she were in the cabin, he’d easily be able to hear her.
That fucking liar.
He wasn’t sure which liar he meant, Wendy or the agent who called himself “Gundersson.” Roland hadn’t completely bought the agent’s story, but he figured the best approach was to play along while the truth revealed itself.
But the truth was a moving target.
And people could lie to themselves better than they could lie to others. Especially drunks like Roland.
There was another possibility, the one Gundersson had hinted at, of those “powerful elements” who might also be keeping an eye on them. Who might even abduct or kill them.
Unless Wendy is already on their side.
He crept down the dark stairs, the sheet trailing behind him. From below, he probably looked like a mad ghost, Hamlet’s father made restless with betrayal.
The moon was high enough that it cast a blue glow over the couch, table, and refrigerator. Roland tiptoed to the door, ears straining for any sound. A porch board creaked outside.
He pointed the gun to the ceiling in a “ready” position and quietly opened the door. Easing it ajar, he put his face against the jamb to survey the porch.
Wendy stood in her bathrobe, painting by the light of the moon. The canvas he’d damaged earlier was now clotted with dark pocks of acrylic. She stabbed the brush against the canvas, dug the tip into the paint on her palette, and drove more color on with a wet slap.
Roland checked the perimeter of the yard. Moonlight illuminated skeins of silver mist that clung to the mountains. The world looked ancient, a faraway fantasy land where monstrous beasts might roll out of the fog and magic ruled the moment.
“Wendy?” he whispered.
“Shh,” she said. “I almost remember the secret message.”
“What secret message?”
“If I keep painting, I might uncover it.”
Roland stepped onto the porch, wondering if Gundersson was watching from the concealment of the forest. The “powerful elements” might be watching as well. If he turned on the porch light, they would be exposed.
Wendy painted in a trance, dipping and jabbing, dipping and jabbing, a change from her usual broad, measured stroke. It almost looked like calligraphy, the small splashes arranging themselves around the perimeter of the canvas.
“That’s not the monkey,” Roland said, coming up behind her, attracted by her body heat. He hugged his sheet more tightly around his shoulders, keeping the gun concealed beneath his opposite armpit.
“It’s the key to the Monkey House,” she said, voice vacant.
“I thought you didn’t remember the Monkey House.” He checked the woods again for movement. If not for
