Snow was blowing past the opening of the service corridor, just a few feet away. Other than that she saw only the empty parking lot, and from this angle, two of the room doors on the other side of the motel.
“Federal Officer!” She called out, holding her position. “Show yourself!”
The only answer was a soft moan of the wind as it whipped tumbling white flakes through the pale yellowish lights that were spilling out into the parking lot. Her heart continued to pound against her ribcage as she began to move forward. In four measured steps she was standing right at the edge of the opening.
Cocking both arms close in to her body she hugged the left wall and carefully peeked out toward the back of the complex. Seeing no one, she took a partial fifth step, quickly twisting first to the left, then back to the right. Her eyes were wide open, even against the sting of the wind, and her firearm was held firmly in a close quarters firing position.
Still nothing.
She stepped fully out from her cover position and scanned the parking lot. Other than the blowing snow, there was no motion at all. She looked down at the white blanket covering the ground. Besides her own, there wasn’t a single footprint to be seen.
No scuffs.
No trails.
No impressions at all.
Nothing.
She shifted from tight, shallow breaths to a slow, deep inhale as she started allowing herself to relax. Unlocking her arms, she lowered the weapon and slipped it back into the high-ride holster on her belt. After popping the thumb break into place she stumbled back a pair of steps and pressed herself against the cold brick wall. She swallowed hard and then let out a heavy sigh.
This had gone too far. Now she was hearing voices and even smelling odors that weren’t even there. That was Rowan’s thing, not hers. She didn’t talk to ghosts. He did.
This had to be her overtaxed mind playing tricks on her: exhaustion induced hallucinations, and that was a very bad thing. She was no longer just tired and spooked; she was paranoid and reckless, which made her a danger to herself and everyone around her. This simply wouldn’t do, and Constance knew it. She reached up and rubbed her forehead, then closed her eyes and tried to swallow again, but her throat was too tight, and her mouth had gone dry.
A half minute later when her heart rate began to taper back to normal, she pushed away from the wall and stepped back along the service corridor. Hands shaking, she knelt down and picked up the dropped coins that were obvious and shining in the dim light but didn’t waste time searching for latent escapees; she was having a hard enough time as it was. Finally, she stood and punched the cola button before feeding more freshly chilled quarters into the slot on the vending machine’s face.
Both pockets and the crook of her arm full of cans, she headed back to her room. After arranging the soft drinks in the sink, she scooped snow from the hood of her car into the small, plastic ice bucket and poured it in on top of them. It took five full scoops before she was satisfied.
Once finished with that task, she locked the door, threw the security bar, and shrugged out of her coat. Kicking off her shoes, she padded around the bed, methodically gathering the sorted piles of case reports and supporting documentation, then moving them over to the top of the long dresser, keeping them organized as best she could.
Finally, she dug out her travel alarm and set it for midnight. The mystery of the Christmas song was going to have to wait a few hours. If she didn’t get some sleep right away, she was going to hurt someone, or worse-shoot someone dead. She had just proven that possibility to herself in spades.
She didn’t bother to undress. She simply crawled onto the bed then pulled the rumpled comforter up around her shoulders and hugged herself as tightly as she could. As she lay there, she didn’t even try to rationalize to herself why she was leaving the lights on. She was too tired to deny her fear. It was easier to simply embrace the emotion and make it hers.
It was just pushing 5:30 in the evening when Constance finally gave in to her jittery exhaustion, and consciousness skulked away into the shadows. She fell into a tortured sleep that was filled with a painful nightmare. The terror playing out in her mind was stark-the images a contrasty black and white, save for the red suit worn by the faceless man.
And then there were the vile, horrible things he was doing to her, over and over again. No matter how much she begged, he wouldn’t stop. He just kept telling her, “ It would be your fault that I would have to kill them…”
While she tossed and whimpered through her slumber, across the room on the desk sat the notebook computer. Its cursor was still winking patiently below the words, “ENTER ENCRYPTION KEY.”
C HAPTER 17
7:01 A.M. – December 24, 2010
Greenleaf Motel
Hulis Township – Northern Missouri
Constance stood beneath the sputtering jets of the partially calcified showerhead and soaked in the warmth it was raining down upon her. She would have actually been willing to settle for a temperature that wouldn’t blister her skin, or send her into instant hypothermia-either one-but somehow she’d had a stroke of luck. With some accidental finessing she had fine-tuned the stream of water to a cozy in-between. Given that the day before the shower control had seemed to have only two settings-those being freeze and scald-she wasn’t going to complain.
She finished rinsing the conditioner from her hair, then turned in place and allowed the running water to splash across her shoulders, sending a cascading sheet of the warmth down her back. The uneven drumming of the spray actually felt soothing to her sore muscles. Closing her eyes, she relaxed and soon began to drift. Floating somewhere in that comfortable void between sleep and wake, she felt herself falling and jerked upright with a sudden start. In her struggle for balance she reached out and placed her palm against the tile wall to steady herself.
She had slept right through the alarm clock when it started chirping at midnight. That is, if what she had been doing could actually be called sleep. She wasn’t so sure, especially since she was nodding off now. She had finally awakened a little past 2 A.M., tangled in the comforter, and hanging upside down off the side of the bed with her cheek mashed against the scratchy carpeting. She assumed the uncomfortable position was what had finally rousted her from an unconscious state. Of course, the way she felt right now she might well have been lying like that for hours.
Her clothing and hair had been damp with sweat. Her mouth had been dry. Her muscles had seemed weak, and her body had been achy. It still was, in fact. All in all, she felt pretty much as if she had just burned out a high fever.
At first, that’s exactly what she thought might have happened. The sudden onset of a short-lived virus wasn’t out of the question, especially in the face of exhaustion, and it would certainly explain quite a bit. For one thing, there was her uncharacteristic anxiety. If she had been coming down with something, then that might be a reason for her addled emotional hypersensitivity. Then there was that strange voice she’d heard, which was obviously a hallucination. And then there was the nightmare about the man in the red suit, something that could very easily have been a fever-induced dump of her subconscious given the imagery associated with the investigation at hand.
But then there was that bizarre email and the even more perplexing attachment it bore. She had made it a point to check on that as soon as she managed to untangle herself from the bed. Much to her chagrin, it was still there. If she’d had a choice, she would have preferred that it be a figment of her imagination as well. This case didn’t need any more weird complications than it already had.
However, her wish for that vexation to disappear had not kept her from almost immediately parking herself at the desk and staring at the screen while trying once again to solve the bizarre riddle. That was almost five hours, three somewhat chilled cans of soda, and one high-energy, caramel-peanut-butter protein bar ago. Not to mention,
