term memory. Without warning, the flashlight died, and I was plunged into the near darkness of filtered starlight. Shaking the flashlight did not help, nor swearing at it.
?Shit!? At least I tried.
I listened for some audible direction finder. All I heard were crickets from every direction. Chirping in the round. That wouldn?t work.
I tried to distinguish shadowy small growth from shadowy larger growth, and crept forward in the direction my face was pointing. As good a plan as any. Unseen branches grabbed my hair and clothing, and vines and creepers tugged at my feet.
You?re off the path, Brennan. This stuff?s getting thicker.
I was deciding which way to veer when one foot met air and dropped off the earth. I followed it forward, landing hard on my hands and one knee. My feet were trapped, and my forward knee pressed against what felt like loose earth. The flashlight had flown from my hand and jarred to life when it hit the ground. It had tumbled and was now casting an eerie yellow glow back toward me. I looked down and saw my feet disappearing into a tight, dark space.
My heart in my throat, I clawed my way out and scrambled toward the light, sideways like a crab on a beach. Pointing the beam to where I?d fallen, I saw a small crater. It gaped fresh and raw, like an unhealed wound in the earth. Loose dirt rimmed its perimeter and gathered in a small mound behind it.
I shone the light into the opening. It was not large, perhaps two feet across and three feet deep. In my stumbling, I planted a foot too close to the rim, sending a stream of soil dribbling into the pit. Like Grape-Nuts pouring from a box, I thought. They joined those I?d dislodged by my fall.
I stared at the soil as it collected in a small heap at the bottom of the hole. Something about it. Then realization. The dirt was practically dry. Even to my scrambled brain the inference was clear. This hole had either been covered, or dug since the rain.
An involuntary tremor seized me, and I wrapped my arms across my chest for warmth. I was still soaking and the storm had left cold air in its wake. The arm movement didn?t really warm me, and drew the light away from the pit. I unfolded my arms and readjusted the beam. Why would someone . . .
The real question slammed home, making my stomach recoil like a .45 caliber pistol.
I don?t know what I expected to see. A slathering Doberman? Norman Bates with his mother? Hannibal Lecter? A George Burns god in a baseball cap? None of them showed. I was alone with the trees and the creepers and the star-pierced darkness.
What I did see in the rotating light was the path. I left the fresh hole and staggered back to the half-buried bag. I kicked a blanket of leaves over it. The crude camouflage wouldn?t fool the person who brought it there, but it might conceal the bag from casual eyes.
When satisfied with my ground cover, I took the can of insect repellent from my pocket and jammed it into the fork of an adjacent tree as a marker. Moving down the path, I tripped on weeds and roots and barely kept my feet. My legs felt as if they?d been deadened with drugs, and I moved in slow motion.
At the junction of the path with the roadbed, I stuck each of my gloves into a tree fork, and plunged on toward the gate. I was sick and exhausted, and feared I might pass out. The adrenaline would soon give out, and collapse would come. When it did, I wanted to be elsewhere.
My old Mazda was parked where I?d left it. Looking neither left nor right, I stumbled headlong across the street, mindless of who might be waiting for me. Almost past feeling, I plunged my hands into pocket after pocket, groping for keys. On finding them I cursed myself for carrying so many on the same ring. Shaking, cursing, and dropping the keys twice, I disentangled the car key, opened the door, and threw myself behind the wheel.
Locking the door, I draped my arms across the steering wheel and rested my head. I felt a need to sleep, to escape my circumstances by drifting out of them. I knew I had to fight the urge. Someone could be out there, watching me, deciding on a course of action.
Another mistake, I reminded myself, as my eyelids drifted toward each other, would be to just rest here a second.
My mind went into random scan. George Burns appeared again and said, ?I?m always interested in the future. I plan to spend the rest of my life there.?
I sat up smartly and dropped my hands to my lap. The stab of pain helped clear my mind. I didn?t throw up. Progress.
?If you?re going to
My voice sounded heavy in the closed space, but it, too, helped orient me to the present reality. I started the engine, and the digits on the console clock glowed green: 2:15 A.M. When had I set out?
Still shivering, I flicked the heat to high, though I wasn?t sure it would help. The chill I was feeling was only partly due to the wind and the night air. There was a deeper cold in my soul that would not be warmed by a mechanical heater. I pulled away without a backward glance.
I slid the soap over my breasts, circling each again and again, willing the sweet-smelling lather to cleanse me of the night?s events. I raised my face to the spray that was pounding my head and coursing over my body. The water would grow cold soon. I?d been showering for twenty minutes, trying to drive out the cold and silence the voices in my head.
The heat and the steam and the scent of jasmine should have relaxed me, loosened the tension in my muscles and carried away the soreness. They hadn?t. The whole time I was listening for a sound outside my rectangle of steam. I was waiting for the phone to ring. Fearful I?d miss Ryan?s call, I had brought the handset into the bathroom.
I?d called the station immediately on reaching home, even before stripping off my wet clothes. The dispatcher had been skeptical, reluctant to disturb a detective in the middle of the night. She?d been adamant in her refusal to give me Ryan?s home number, and I?d left his card at work. Standing in my living room, shivering, my head still pounding and my stomach regrouping for another attack, I?d been in no mood for discussion. My words, as well as my tone, persuaded her. I would apologize tomorrow.
That had been half an hour ago. I felt the back of my head. The lump was still there. Under my wet hair it felt like a hard-boiled egg, and was tender to the touch. Before getting into the shower I?d gone through the instructions I?d been given following previous thumps on the head. I checked my pupils, rotated my head hard right and hard left, and pricked my hands and feet to test for feeling. All parts seemed to be in their proper places and in working order. If I?d suffered a concussion, it was a mild one.
I turned off the water and stepped from the shower. The phone lay where I?d left it, mute and disinterested.
Damn. Where is he?
I dried myself, slipped into my ratty old terry cloth robe, and wrapped a towel around my hair. I checked the answering machine to be sure I hadn?t missed a call. No red light. Damn. Retrieving the handset, I clicked it on to see if it was working. Dial tone. Of course it was working. I was just agitated.
I lay down on the couch and placed the phone on the coffee table. Surely he?d call soon. No point going to bed. I closed my eyes, planning to rest a few minutes before making something to eat. But the cold and the stress and the fatigue and the jolt to my brain melded into a tidal wave of exhaustion that rose up and crashed over me, plunging me into a deep but troubled sleep. I didn?t drift off, I passed out.
I was outside a fence, watching someone dig with an enormous shovel. Each time the blade came out of the ground it seethed with rats. When I looked down, there were rats everywhere. I had to keep kicking at them to keep them off my feet. The figure wielding the shovel was shadowy, but when it turned I could see it was Pete. He pointed at me and said something, but I couldn?t make out the words. He started to shout and beckon to me, his mouth a round, black circle that grew larger and larger, engulfing his face and turning it into a hideous clown mask.
Rats ran across my feet. One was dragging Isabelle Gagnon?s head. Its teeth were clamped onto her hair as it yanked the head across the lawn.
