open and I could see one booted leg planted on the ground.
Ryan braked and shifted to park.
“Stay here.”
I started to object, thought better of it.
He got out and walked to the car. From where I sat the occupant could have been male or female. As Ryan and the driver exchanged words I lowered the window, but I couldn’t make out what was said. Ryan’s breath spurted like jets of mist. In less than a minute he was back in the Jeep.
“Not the most helpful character.”
“What did he say?”
“
We moved on to where the fence ended at a gravel drive. Ryan pulled in and switched off the engine.
Two vans and a half dozen cars were scattered in front of a ramshackle lodge. They looked like rounded humps, frozen hippos in a river of gray. Ice dripped from the eaves and sills of the building and turned the windows milky, eliminating any view of the inside.
Ryan turned to me.
“Now listen. If this is the right place we’re going to be about as welcome as a cottonmouth.” He touched my cheek. “Promise me you’ll stay here.”
“I—”
His fingers slid to my lips.
“Stay here.” His eyes were blindingly blue in the dreary dawn light.
“This is bullshit,” I said into his fingertips.
He withdrew the hand and pointed at me.
“Wait in the car.”
He pulled on gloves and stepped into the storm. When he slammed the door I reached for my mittens. I would wait two minutes.
What happened next comes back as disjointed images, shards of memory fragmented in time. I saw, but my mind did not accept the whole. It collected the memory and stored it away as separate frames.
Ryan had taken a half dozen steps when I heard a pop and his body jerked. His hands flew up and he started to turn. Another pop and another spasm, then he dropped to the ground and lay still.
“Ryan!” I yelled as I threw open the door. When I jumped out pain shot up my leg and my knee buckled. “Andy!” I screamed at his inert form.
Then lightning burst inside my skull and I was engulfed in darkness thicker than the ice.
34
MY NEXT CONSCIOUS SENSATION WAS ALSO OF BLACKNESS. Blackness and pain. I sat up slowly, unable to see any form to the darkness. Fierce pain shot into my head and I thought I would vomit. More pain as I raised my knees and hung my head between them.
In a moment the queasiness passed. I listened. Nothing but the pounding of my own heart. I looked at my hands but they were lost to the darkness. I inhaled. Rotten wood and damp earth. Gingerly, I reached out.
I was sitting on a dirt floor. Behind me and to both sides I could feel a wall of rough, round stones. Six inches above my head my hand met wood.
My breath came in short, rapid gasps as I fought panic.
I was trapped! I had to get out!
The scream was in my mind. I hadn’t entirely lost my self-control.
I closed my eyes and tried to control the hyperventilation. Clasping my hands, I tried to concentrate on one thing at a time.
Slowly the panic receded. I got to my knees and stretched a hand straight out in front of me. Nothing. The pain in my left knee brought me to tears, but I crawled forward into the inky void. Two feet. Six. Ten.
As I moved unobstructed my terror receded. A tunnel was better than a stone cage.
I sat back and tried to connect with a functioning portion of my brain. I had no idea where I was, how long I’d been there, or how I’d arrived.
I began to reconstruct.
Harry. The lodge. The car.
Ryan! God, my God, oh, God!
