Vacation

there, made her awaken.

She looked at the empty space.

And immediately she sat up.

“Jack?” she said quietly.

Thinking he’d gone to bathroom. That he was somewhere outside.

Again: “Jack?”

But there was no answer and even before she slipped out of bed, feeling how cool the night had become, she knew he wasn’t here.

She stood in the middle of the living room. Then she went to the window. She saw Paterville guards standing outside by the lampposts at the end of the path leading from their cabin area.

Did he leave, just walk past them?

And where did he go?

But she knew. She knew as strongly as she knew anything. As much as she might have wished that Jack left work, his cop mind back in New York.

It was impossible. He wasn’t wired that way.

And if those keys … if they really were Tom Blair’s keys—

God, what would that mean …

Then he would have to find out.

And if they were, what would he do?

No—what would they do?

Because she also knew that Jack would talk to her. Tell her everything. He may have slipped out somehow. But when he came back, he would talk.

For now there was nothing she could do but sit down on the couch, in the darkness, and wait.

She grabbed a throw blanket filled with woven images of a summer mountain holiday from the nineteenth century, people with parasols and top hats.

Times change …

She draped it over her, then pulled her legs up, tucking them under the blanket.

*   *   *

Every step that Jack made brought the possibility of a noise that would catch someone’s attention.

He took care to bring his weight down slowly, testing the underbrush.

Near the top of the small hill, he stepped on a twisted piece of dried branch. The crack of the wood sounded like a gunshot.

Jack immediately looked up, eyes scanning the nearby woods for any movement, any response to that cracking sound.

Nothing.

He thought of his face, so pale, probably catching any light.

If there had been a moon, he’d easily stand out. But all there was were the flames from a chimney ahead, the dancing fiery embers floating up with the smoke.

The closer he got, the more light would fall on him.

Steady, he told himself. No rushing.

Another few minutes at a crawling speed, and he was at the top of the hill.

Closer to where the woods ended.

He finally saw where the service road led.

And for a minute, all he could do was look.

Cabins. Lots of them. People lived up here. Way too many for just the workers and the guards. The cabins looked bigger, like homes. Not the rustic summer-only places down below.

And other buildings, one nearly the size of the Great Lodge. A central meeting place maybe. Other buildings nearby. Mostly all dark.

He saw the building with the chimney, the smoke, the flames licking the sky.

The thought, standing there in the chilly darkness, It’s a town. This is a fucking town.

Something hidden from the guests.

Back to the big building with the chimney off to his left. What happened there? What were they doing there in the middle of the night?

He thought of something stupid.

They’re baking bread. Making tomorrow’s gruel. Cooking the soy crap, whatever the hell the cook used for soy.

Mighty big flames.

He had to get closer to this hidden town. But more important, to this one building that seemed to be operating at full steam.

Jack hugged the apron of the woods to get closer to the big building.

He also passed the cabins, dark as those below. Some with cars parked out front.

Because people live here, Jack thought.

This town also had guards—two stationed where the service road ended, both holding rifles.

And behind the town, above the woods, a turret like those by the main gate. No telling if it was manned; no lights.

Of course it’s manned, he thought.

They’d have a good look at the whole service area.

Got to remember that.

And cameras.

Got to have cameras here as well, not that I’d be able to make them out.

The odds of not getting spotted seemed slim.

But he had no choice.

He felt like an animal, step after careful step, moving closer to the big building.

And still well away from it, he caught the first breeze that carried the building’s smell.

It filled his nostrils. His stomach tightened. A stench that he couldn’t identify. He opened his mouth to breathe and then he kept moving.

*   *   *

Alongside the building. Crouched in the bushes.

Jack looked at the building’s few windows. But they had all been glazed with a whitewash. No way he could see anything inside.

The back of the building was closest to where he crouched. A front entrance faced the cabins and other buildings.

This building—well away from the others.

No cabin, no workshop, was even close to it.

That was good.

He needed to get in.

He looked up at the turret. It stood far away from this area, near another exit out of Paterville. They could get a look at him if he left his cover, but only if they happened to be looking at this spot at the right time.

And while Jack looked around, immobilized by his analysis of what he was going to do …

Two back doors to the building flew open.

The cook, Dunphy, walked out, a dark shadow in his apron and sleeveless T-shirt. He laughed. Two other men, one on either side, walked beside him.

The two men were half the cook’s size. The cook a monster. Obese. But having seen him in the kitchen, Jack knew he was also a monster with arms as thick as most men’s thighs. No neck, just that bowling-ball head that melted into a barrel of a body.

The three of them passed a bottle back and forth. Cook’s moonshine, Jack thought. More laughter, the words