To Darkness And To Death

lavender blanket crumpled beneath one of the arrow-slit windows, and he picked it up. He shook it out so it trailed across the floor.

“I’m going to roll you in this so it’s easier to get you down the stairs. I don’t want to hurt you, so let’s make this easy on both of us.”

She sat. Stared.

He approached her in a defensive posture, low, arms out, blanket clutched between his hands. Her head turned to follow him as he enclosed her in the blanket, but she remained as she had been, silent. Motionless. He wrapped both ends around her in a gesture that reminded him uncomfortably of a lover helping his beloved into her coat, or a father wrapping his child in a towel.

She sank her teeth into his arm.

“Jesus Christ!” he screamed. She wouldn’t let go. The pain was blinding. He smacked her head almost by accident, trying something, anything, to make the hurt go away. He jarred her, but she bit deeper, so he balled his free hand into a fist and slammed it into her temple, once, twice, three times.

She pitched to the floor. Blood poured from his upper bicep, staining his expensive shirt and dropping on his made-in-Bermuda pants. He staggered to his feet, pressing his other hand against the wound, blood smearing his fingers. “God Damn!” he spat out. He had never hit a woman in his life, but right now he could cheerfully kick the shit out of the blonde crumpled over the blanket. Instead, he took advantage of her temporary acquiescence and, grabbing her shoulder, hauled her onto the blanket.

She moaned and stirred feebly. He let go of his arm and tossed the edge of the blanket over her, wedging it under her body before rolling her up tight. In a moment, she was trussed like Cleopatra in the fabled rug.

“Let me go,” she said, her voice raspy.

“So you can snack on my other limbs? Fat chance.” He bent to her and heaved her over his shoulder in a firefighter’s carry. The exertion caused a fresh gout of blood to swell out of his arm. Balancing her with both hands, he could feel drops running into his armpit. He walked, stiff-legged, to the door.

She grunted and writhed inside the blanket, thrashing her legs in an attempt to hit some part of him. He slapped her butt through the layers of fabric. “I’m going to tell you this once,” he said, “so listen up. We’re going down the stairs. They’re steep and twisty, and some of them are in none too good condition. If you try to escape or hurt me, I’m dropping you. I want you alive and whole, but I’m not going to risk my neck to keep you that way.”

She stilled. “I’ll get you, you bastard,” she hissed. Carefully, slowly, he began his descent. The treads creaked and complained beneath the double weight. Millie’s body remained still, but her mouth ran at full speed, growling out a series of threats and warnings and accusations. His arm throbbed and his legs shook and he had shooting pains from his lower back.

Trembling, he emerged from the tower. He stumbled to the garden cart and dumped the woman in, ignoring her shriek and the thump as her head hit the wooden side. He shoved her into a rough fetal position.

“Stay there,” he ordered.

“Fuck you!”

“Christ,” he muttered, picking up the handle and setting off toward the woods. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Stockholm syndrome? Don’t you know enough to ingratiate yourself with someone who has the power of life and death over you?” The weird thing was, when he said it, he realized he meant it. Not that he would kill her, of course-he wasn’t a monster-but that really, truly, he had the power. “I could do anything to you,” he said, trying out the idea. “And nobody would know.”

She shut up after that.

He bumped her along the now-familiar trail. When he got near the house, he paused and listened for any signs that they weren’t alone. He was too tired and wrung out to remain at the peak of alertness, though, and after a few seconds of silence, he rolled the cart onto the gravel drive, heading for his Mercedes.

His Mercedes. Crap. Whoever had been up here earlier must have seen his car. He shut his eyes, his temples pounding. Okay. Some variables were out of his control. He would have to accept that and move on.

He retrieved his car keys-smearing more blood on his pants-and popped the trunk. “I’m putting you into the trunk of my car,” he said to the girl. “I’m going to drive you to a secure location. I expect it will be uncomfortable, but there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“You can let me go,” she said, her voice bitter.

Shaun ignored her. He slid her tightly wrapped form forward until he could hoist her over his shoulder. As he heaved her into place, he heard her whimper, an admission of fear too great to be contained. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, angry that she kept misinterpreting his actions, that she had put him in this position by refusing to believe that her brother had been the villain here, not him.

He dumped her into the trunk. He had time to notice her eyes, wide with terror, before he slammed the lid down. He pushed the cart into the garage, retrieved his jacket-the only item of clothing he had not fouled with his own blood-and made his way back to the car. His legs were shaking as he lowered himself into the driver’s seat. He started the ignition, and k.d. lang began singing, “Black coffee…” He glanced at the clock. He had arrived at Haudenosaunee an hour ago. An hour. For a moment, he could almost believe he had gone back in time. There was his water bottle in the cup holder. There was his phone plugged into the recharger, and his CD case on the passenger seat. As if nothing had ever happened.

Then he heard a thump from the trunk, and his arm throbbed in response. He pulled on his jacket, covering most of the bloody marks, and started down the long dirt road. The wine bottles in the backseat clunked against each other, k.d. lang kept on singing about walking the floor at 3:00 A.M., and he nearly wept with relief when he pulled out onto the highway blacktop.

Glancing into his rearview mirror as he drove down the highway, he glimpsed a brutish SUV with a bike rack muzzling its grill turning into the entrance to Haudenosaunee. He lifted his foot off the gas, staring into the mirror. No mistake. Someone else was headed for Haudenosaunee. He caught his breath. That was the margin that separated success from failure. A minute. Maybe less.

He accelerated. He planned to be far away from Haudenosaunee when the cops showed up.

2:00 P.M.

Russ had left the siren screaming all the way up the dirt road, wanting anyone up at the camp to know the police were on the way. In his experience, unless two guys were already way into it, incipient fights usually dissolved as soon as a cop car made its appearance. He hoped the sight of his red truck would have the same effect.

Ed’s SUV was in the middle of the gravel drive, not so much parked as abandoned. The driver’s door was still open. Russ pulled in behind his friend’s vehicle, switching off the siren and toggling the light. He slid from his seat with the sound still echoing in the air.

“Ed!” he shouted. “Eugene?” He took a few steps toward the open garage, close enough to see that Eugene’s and Millie’s cars were still parked inside. He tipped his head back and filled his lungs with air. “It’s Russ Van Alstyne! I want to talk with you!”

You, you, you, you, the blue hills sang back.

The door to the house swung open, and Ed Castle stumbled onto the porch. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Thank God it’s you. He’s dead. Van der Hoeven. He’s dead.”

Russ felt the weight of dread settle over his shoulders. God, he hated this. He was getting too damn old to play this scene one more time. And he liked Ed Castle. He liked him a lot. “What happened?” he asked dully.

“I don’t know.” Ed clunked down the porch steps. “I got up here, and he wasn’t in the house. So I was looking around, thinking he was maybe hiding out, and I saw the trail.”

“What trail?”

“Come take a look.” Ed beckoned Russ toward the wide, hydrangea-framed trailhead that lay between the house and the garage.

Past the low stone wall marking the edge of civilization at Haudenosaunee, the trail split off in three directions. “I was walking along here, see.” He could tell Ed was rattled. “I could see where the search and rescue team blaze-marked their trail this morning.” Ed pointed to a tree on the edge of the wider middle path, sprayed with a single orange stripe. “Then I noticed the trail on the left.” Ed pointed.