The Hidden

by Bill Pronzini

  She’d had it as far back as she could remember. Not of ordinary darkness, the light-tinged kind where you had some limited vision of objects or shapes. Of blackness so complete you couldn’t see anything at all, the kind a blind person must feel—she couldn’t imagine anything more terrible than losing her sight. Being alone in a place without light was like being trapped and slowly suffocating in an airless void. She’d made the mistake of saying this to her mother once, when she was little. Mom, the no-nonsense disciplinarian who didn’t believe in indulging “the silly notions of children,” who’d sought to “cure” the fear by forcing Shelby to sleep without a night-light and punishing her if she was caught doing otherwise, like the time she’d burrowed under the covers with a smuggled-in flashlight that Mom had found still burning in the morning. The fear hadn’t evolved into a consuming or crippling adult phobia; she had it under control. But empty, lightless places like these woods still had the power to scrape at her nerves, tighten her sphincter.

  She wanted to be here even less now. Why had she let Jay talk her into this trip? Well, yes, because he seemed to want it so badly; he didn’t ask her for much and agreeing had seemed like granting a favor as well as taking the path of least resistance. Miserable year for him, for both of them; and the marriage was rocky enough without making it worse by fighting him on a relatively minor issue. She had her bad points, God knew, but selfishness wasn’t one of them.

  Still, what was the point? Did he think four days and nights on this isolated section of the Mendocino coast would somehow bring them closer together, magically lead to a solution of their problems? If anything, the enforced proximity might just make things worse. She’d almost rather spend New Year’s Eve on the ambulance, dealing with all the carnage that ringing out the old, ringing in the new always brought. Or spend it with Douglas—

  No.

  She wasn’t going to think about Douglas. Not now.

  The blacktop curved off to the left to skirt a long, high wooden fence—the first of the three properties. They passed a driveway barred by a pair of closed gates. Large parcel of land, whatever buildings that were on it hidden by more wind-whipped trees. Somebody’s summer estate. Dreary and lifeless in the driving rain.

  A couple of hundred yards beyond where the fence ended, the woods thinned and Ben Coulter’s property appeared. His parcel was much smaller, the cottage built closer to the road and nearer the bluff’s edge because of an inland bend in the shoreline. The upper half of the cottage, squarish, sided by a brick chimney that extended above the roofline, was visible behind a wood-stake fence two feet lower than the estate’s. A covered carport stood just off the lane on the far side. The deputy slowed and pulled onto the verge beyond the carport, to give Jay room to turn in off the lane.

  He said, “Finally,” and switched off engine and lights.

  Shelby didn’t respond. Through more trees to the north she could make out a faint light shimmer. Security lights on the third property, she thought. Either that, or some other misguided souls were spending what remained of the holidays here. The sense of isolation might not be so bad if there were other people around for at least part of their stay.

  “Deputy’s still sitting there,” Jay said. “What’s he waiting for?”

  “Us to go inside, probably.”

  “Why?”

  “To make sure we belong here.”

  “Christ. Why would he think I lied to him?”

  Edgy Jay. Worrywart Jay. He hadn’t always been like that. He’d had self-assurance, self-esteem when she met him; he’d been grounded and motivated their first few years together, before all the misfortune began to wear him down. Qualities that had made it easy for her to fall in love with him. She’d believed then that he was the first important person in her life she wouldn’t end up having to take care of. Not that she blamed him that it had turned out otherwise; none of the bad luck was his fault. But his moodiness, his defeatest attitude, his increasing dependency, put a strain on her tolerance.

  “Why don’t you go ask him?” she said.

  “Oh, sure, and make him even more suspicious.”

  “All right, then. Let’s go on in.”

  On the way from the carport to a locked gate in the fence, she pulled the hood of her coat over her head. The cold rain seemed to stream inside anyway, stinging against her face, chilling her after the warmth of the car. Jay fumbled with the key Ben had given him, got the gate open. A short walkway opened into a kind of patio floored with wooden squares, like a patterned inlay, black now from the rain and strewn with small pine boughs and needles torn loose and deposited by the wind. Beyond the patio an area of open ground sloped downward, flanked by bent and swaying pines. Above the wind’s shriek she could hear the boom of surf, but the ocean was invisible behind a shroud of misty blackness.

  They hurried across the patio, up a few steps to a low, open deck that stretched around the side and probably extended the full oceanfront width of the cottage. Jay did some more fumbling with the door key—“My fingers are numb”—and when he finally got the lock to turn, she all but pushed him inside.

  A damp, musty smell dilated her nostrils. How long since Ben Coulter and his family had been up here? Last summer sometime?

  The interior jumped into pale focus: Jay had found the light switch.

  Shelby looked around, expecting the worst but not finding it. The cottage had been built in the early seventies, Ben had told Jay, but the furnishings and decor were neither old nor shabby-chic. The living room was good-sized, the fireplace at the opposite end with a comfortable-looking leather sofa and a couple of chairs grouped in front of it. The beige rug on the floor looked new. There were several oddly shaped pieces of driftwood on the fireplace mantel and seascapes on two walls, but mercifully, none of the tacky stuff like fishnets and fake glass floats and whale lamps and dolphin sculptures that infested so many seaside homes. Two big recliners were arranged in front of a pair of windows facing the sea; blinds covered the windows now, but she could hear the harsh beat of rain against glass.

  “Nice, Shel, don’t you think?”

  “Very homey. Rustic as hell.” He gave her one of his hurt-puppy looks. Heart melters, she called them, and they still had the capacity to soften her. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound bitchy. It is a nice place.”

  “I’ll start getting things out of the car. You stay here where it’s dry.” A blast of cold swirled into the room as he went out.

  Next to the fireplace was a wood box filled with newspaper, kindling, and cut logs. Let Jay make a fire, she thought. It would probably wound what was left of his ego if she did it. There had to be some other source of heat … yes, a baseboard heater that stretched along the front wall under the blind-covered windows. She found the controls, turned the heat up as high as it would go.

  A small kitchen and dining area opened off the living room, separated from it by a breakfast bar. Beyond, a short hallway led to bedrooms and bathrooms. Two bedrooms, one and a half baths.

  The front door blew open again, literally, letting in another blast of wind and rain. Jay struggled through with two cartons of the food and liquor they’d brought with them, shouldered the door shut behind him. He was panting a little, as if he’d been carrying a heavy load uphill. Out of shape. He hadn’t gone running with her in more than a year, and he’d given up going to the gym to work out because the membership cost too much. He still walked a couple of miles every day, or said he did, and watched his carb intake and his cholesterol, but—

  “He was still there when I went out.”

  “Who? The deputy?”

  “He backed in next to the car while I was getting this stuff.” Jay set the cartons on the breakfast bar. “Rolled down his window and stuck his head out. You know what he said?”

  “How could I? I wasn’t there.”

  “He said, ‘You folks be careful while you’re here.’ What do you suppose he meant by that?”

  “He probably didn’t mean anything by it. Just on
e of those things law enforcement people say.”

  “No. He made it sound like a warning.”

  Trying her patience again. Sometimes Jay made her feel the way Mom had, more like a nursemaid than a loved one. “Is he gone now?”

  “Yeah, he’s gone.”

  “Then will you please stop obsessing about him? We’ll never see the man again.”

  Jay went back out to fetch their suitcases. While he was gone, Shelby unpacked the cartons. The refrigerator was plugged in, so no problem there; there was even a little ice in trays in the freezer compartment. She put the perishables inside, left the bottles of Beefeater and vermouth and the jar of olives on the counter. A double martini in front of a hot fire ought to make her warm again.

  The master bedroom was small, the bed a standard double that meant they’d be sleeping close together. He would probably want sex at some point and she supposed she’d accommodate him. He’d always been an accomplished and considerate lover, with as much concern for her pleasure as his own, and in the beginning their lovemaking had been fueled by passion and experimentation; but it had slacked off gradually through all the problems and setbacks, until now it was infrequent and mostly mechanical and no longer satisfying, at least for her.

  He never complained, said every time how good it was, but then so did she. Pretense. For him, too, maybe. How could she know? He wouldn’t talk about things that mattered to him; wouldn’t tell her anything about the recurring and obviously terrifying nightmare that plagued his sleep; wouldn’t confide in her or allow her more than brief glimpses of what was going on inside his head. She’d tried dozens of times over the years, especially during the crisis periods—when he’d lost the restaurant, when he’d been laid off from Conray Foods—and never once had she gotten a satisfactory response. Closed off. And by degrees closing her off, too, until now they were more like cohabiting roommates than husband and wife.

  She unpacked the suitcases while he rubbed down and put on dry clothes. There were martini glasses in one of the kitchen cupboards; she put two in the freezer to chill. Then she mixed a batch of martinis, as she usually did because she made them better than Jay; he tended to use too much vermouth.

  It was warmer in the cottage now, but not warm enough for her to shed her down jacket yet. The damp, musty smell was still pervasive. Wind howled in the chimney, chill breaths of it stirring ashes inside the fireplace. Four days. There was a TV and a combination VCR and DVD player, but no cable; a small collection of DVDs and VHS tapes were all you could watch. There was also a radio/CD boom box, the kind with Civil Defense and police bands, some music CDs of various types, and a shelf of paperbacks, mostly the historical romances that Kate considered steamy and she found overblown and silly. Four days. Pretense and superficial conversation and unsatisfying sex. If it stormed the whole time they were here, she’d be diving into the gin a lot earlier than seven P.M. by New Year’s Eve.

  Jay came back out as she was pouring a martini for herself. He said, “None for me.”

  “I thought you’d like one after that interminable drive.”

  “Just a glass of wine. That’s all I want.”

  New development, this. Jay liked martinis as much as she did; cocktails together when she wasn’t working the night shift had been one of their more pleasurable rituals. But lately he’d quit drinking hard liquor, cut back on wine as well. All he’d said when she asked him about it was that he’d been drinking too much and felt it was a good idea to ease off. Subtle dig at her? Probably not; he hadn’t suggested she cut back herself. Still, the holiday season was a funny time to make a decision usually reserved for the New Year.

  Wind and hard rain slammed against the cottage, rattling the windows and the door in its frame, as he poured a small glass of wine for himself. He said then, “I’ll make a fire. You just enjoy your drink.”

  Enjoy it? She swallowed half of the martini, felt its warmth spreading through her. Better. But she still didn’t take off her jacket.

  From one end of the sofa she watched Jay arranging kindling and crumpled newspaper on the hearth. Man, the firemaker. Once he’d been robust, his dark hair thick and curly, his color high and his body radiating strength. An athlete in high school and his first two years of college, especially good at baseball—a power-hitting centerfielder who might have gotten a pro contract if he hadn’t damaged his knee in a home-plate collision in his sophomore year at UC Santa Cruz. Now … fifteen pounds lighter, hair thinning and losing its luster, shoulders tending to draw down instead of up and back when he moved. There were times, watching him like this, when she barely recognized the Jay Macklin she’d married twelve years ago, as if that man had somehow morphed into a near stranger.

  The fantasy came over her again, as it did now and then at odd moments. She imagined that the familiar lines and angles of him were shrinking, blurring, losing definition; that he was dematerializing a little more each day, becoming harder to see clearly; that eventually he would turn fuzzily transparent, like a ghost, so you’d be able to see daylight through him, and then finally he would disappear altogether—the new invisible man.

  She couldn’t bear to witness something like that, the literal slipping down and fading away of the man she’d once loved … no, still loved, or she wouldn’t still be with him. If that was what was going to happen, she’d be gone before the deterioration was complete.

  Maybe gone sooner than that, she thought.

  In spite of herself, a comparison image of Douglas flashed into her mind. Strong, solid. Not particularly good-looking, but those intense and frank hazel eyes were more appealing than any pretty-boy features. Another image: the seemingly effortless way he went about his duties in South Bay General’s ER—capable, commanding, in complete control no matter what the emergency or crisis case. Another: the openness of his smile when he spoke to her, so that she felt he was not only an honest man but one who seldom if ever hid his true feelings …

  Shelby shook herself, hard, to rid her mind of the images and the thoughts that went with them. Emptied her glass in one stinging gulp.

  Jay was on his feet now, poking among the pieces of driftwood on the mantel. “There aren’t any matches here,” he said.

  “I’ll look in the kitchen.” She wanted another martini anyway.

  She opened drawers and cabinets. The Coulters kept the cottage well stocked: liquor, coffee, spices, condiments. But no matches.

  A door next to the stove opened onto a cramped utility porch. Washer and dryer. Microwave. Full wine rack. Vacuum cleaner. Pantry filled with canned and packaged goods and cleaning supplies—and nothing else.

  She went back into the kitchen. Jay was at a catchall closet next to the breakfast bar, rummaging among the shelves. “Find any, Shel?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t seem to be any in here, either.”

  “Maybe in one of the bedrooms.”

  She went to look. Nothing.

  Jay was still at the closet when she came back. He said, “Well, hell,” when he saw that she was empty-handed.

  “You sure there’re no matches in there?” she asked.

  “Look for yourself.”

  The closet shelves were packed with all sorts of odds and ends. A pocket-size portable radio, flashlight, batteries, candles, hand tools, local phone directories, napkins and placemats, decks of playing cards, even Scrabble and backgammon games. Everything you might want or need except the one essential you were looking for.

  “Ben must not have realized he was out or he’d have mentioned it.”

  “Good old Ben.”

  “Well, it’s not a crisis. We’ll buy some in Seacrest tomorrow. I’ll just use the stove tonight.”

  “It’s electric.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I can light a twist of newspaper on one of the burners, use that to start the fire.”

  “Just don’t light up anything else on the way.”

  He fetched a couple of sheets of newspaper, rolled them up as he moved into the kitchen
to turn on the stove burner.

  Shelby picked up the martini pitcher, started to pour her glass full again.

  And all the lights went out.

  T H R E E

  MACKLIN STOOD BLINKING IN the sudden blackness. He heard Shelby suck in her breath, the clatter of the pitcher as she set it down hard on the countertop. “Shel? You okay?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to panic.”

  “Power’ll probably come right back on.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  He groped his way around the wet bar, saying, “There’s a flashlight in the closet there—”

  “I know, I saw it. The batteries better be good.”

  She moved away from him, sideways to the closet. With the lights off, the furious whistling, rattling sounds of the storm seemed magnified. A power outage … just what they didn’t need right now.

  A blade of light slashed through the dark, carving out whitish jigsaw pieces as Shelby swung it up and around toward him. “We’d better go sit down,” she said.

  He followed her across the living room to the couch. She laid the flashlight on an end table and left it burning, so that the beam made a stationary white circle on the fireplace bricks. He knew she’d had a small scare. She was a borderline nyctophobe; had insisted on sleeping with a night-light on the entire time they’d been married. He suspected that one of the reasons she’d become an EMT was that it was a job requiring a certain amount of night work—her way of battling the demon.

  They sat listening to the wind and rain, waiting. Minutes ticked away—five, ten. He wanted to say something, couldn’t think of anything that she’d want to hear. He settled for putting a hand on her leg, giving it a gentle squeeze; the muscles and tendons were taut. Shelby’s gaze remained fixed on the white circle.

  The silence thickened between them until he couldn’t stand it any longer. “You get occasional power failures in remote areas like this,” he said. “But they don’t usually last very long.”