“And you’re sure you never saw anyone driving erratically that night? How did you get back from the lake?”
“No one but me, but I stayed off the main roads. Dirt bike. I took the old logging trail down past Hamm Bog. Had a near miss with a moose.”
“Can you remember what Damien and Graham were fighting about?” Damien was the other name on their suspect list.”
Bill took a minute to think about it. “Probably nothing. Just a group of stupid kids thinking we were big shots up there on our own with a case of beer we paid for ourselves. Graham used to get mean when he drank.”
“None of you were over eighteen. Who bought the beer for you.”
A shutter dropped over Bill’s face. “He can’t tell you anything, so there’s no sense digging in that manure pile. Besides, your family has been through enough. Pam, you’ve known me all our lives. Do you really think I could stand by and watch you suffer if I knew something that would ease your pain?”
“Please, Bill. I need to know.” Pam rested her hand on his. The name he spoke came as a complete shock.
“Craig.”
“My uncle? He couldn’t have had anything to do with Ben’s death.”
“I should hope not.” Bill pulled out his wallet to pay for the coffee and donuts.
“Put your wallet away. This one’s on me.” Probably the last food he’ll ever eat here, she thought.
***
Three times Adriel circled back to the beginning of the maze in Craig’s mind. All of the signposts she put there last time had been moved. Wily rascal. Well, he wasn’t the only fox in the woods. The second she closed her eyes to run through the gauntlet mentally, it clicked. On vastly different scales, Craig’s mind and his house were laid out in a similar pattern. That was the key to the whole thing. She had the how; it was time to figure out the what. The secret lay in one of the countless boxes of seemingly random items. Presumably the dirty socks and plastic cutlery could be ruled out. Also hats, cookbooks, empty cans, labels and lids. What items had he taken the most care with? The well-wrapped acorns? Worth a shot.
“Are you sure this isn’t a total waste of time?” Estelle’s patience was shorter than an eyelash these days. With Julius missing and the only hope of finding him resting on the return of Adriel to full angel-level powers, Adriel took the brunt of Estelle’s ire.
“Back off, trainee. I’m doing the best I can.”
“I’m sorry. You know it’s the situation, not you. This feels off.”
“If you have a better idea, I’m open to it. Bill implicated Craig. We already know Craig has something hidden in here, we just need to find it.”
Adriel closed her eyes to get a better mental image of the cabin. A right then two lefts and another right should do it. Turning the corner to find Craig standing there looking sad clinched her hunch, and proved she was on the right track. “You’re here to drag my secret shame out into the light where I have to look at it.”
“No, Craig. You don’t have to look.” After talking to Bill, she and Pam agreed Craig couldn’t face his part in the events leading up to his nephew’s hit-and-run death. In his grief, he had locked away the memory and created this complicated mental structure to protect it. A maze of living walls designed to contain the thing he needed to not see. He held a piece of the puzzle and Adriel needed to see how it fit. “I can shield you if that’s what you need me to do, and you never have to know what I found.”
Thirty years of hiding the truth had led him to this point; facing it now might set him free, or it might take what sanity he had left. Adriel tugged on the silver cord that bound her to Estelle. Who knew what might happen once she poked this hornet’s nest. Craig could freak out and change the pathways, leaving her stranded.
Adriel took Craig’s silence to mean she should move on by herself. Brushing past him where he stood, she missed his stricken expression and the subtle but steady drop in temperature. She reached for the door handle, which felt odd under her hand. Bone. The door handle was made from bone. Creepy. A shiver raised the hair on her arms, but she twisted it open anyway to reveal a vast and empty cavern. Adriel refused to accept defeat.
A single step into the room caused the silver rope to tug painfully against her middle. Adriel might have tried to push the issue, but a rapidly thickening mist rose to bar her way.
Between one breath and the next, chaos erupted. A shriek tore the air, the sound powerful enough to push Adriel back a step, then another, until she stood right next to Craig. A whimper escaped his lips, pierced through the inhuman scream. Whipping her head around, Adriel saw the terror on Craig’s face and the notebook clutched in his hand.
She’d been wrong this whole time. It wasn’t a memory trapping Craig in his head. The stench of brimstone slammed into her like a wall.
“Galmadriel, look out.” Estelle’s shout came a second
